This is how it happened to Julia Ward. ---
      Julia and her husband Doctor Samuel Howe who had recently moved from Boston to Washington saw Union soldiers marching up and down the dusty road in front of their home. Day after day with fife and drum the army boys marched in step to an old southern camp meeting tune and shouted out the crude words of the "John Brown's Body" song. 

Their captain led them in belting out the endless series of improvised verses.  Many of the boys in blue would soon shed their blood for freedom and to the famous Doctor Howe and his wife Julia it seemed out of place and wrong for the soldier boys to be singing such a trivial ditty.
      A former church pastor visiting the Howes at the time urged Mrs. Howe to write some better words for that tune.  That very night Julia Ward Howe already known for her poetry received a revelation---an epiphany or "glory" experience that inspired her to write, "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord...."
      Later she told about her experience,  "I awoke in the grey of the morning, and as I lay waiting for dawn, the long lines of the desired poem began to entwine themselves in my mind, and I said to myself,  I must get up and write these verses, lest I fall asleep and forget them! So I sprang out of bed and in the dimness found an old stump of a pen, which I remembered using the day before. I scrawled the verses almost without looking at the paper." 
     
     "Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord:
     He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;
     He hath loosed the fateful lightning of his terrible swift sword:
         His truth is marching on." 

      Some strange things about this hymn helped it unify our country and destined it to gain universal immortality.  The words came from the Union north, and the tune came from the Confederate south.  The message includes more than freeing the slaves from their masters.  It includes freedom and equality of all mankind under God's leadership.  It speaks of wrath and war - a swift sword of truth and judgment. Truth will persevere until victory changes our tragedies into triumphs and we see the glory of the coming of the Lord.
 
    "I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps;
     They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
     I can read his righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps.
         His day is marching on." 

Have you seen Him in the dark and lonely nights?  Even a camp-fire or a dim lamp can be a glory sent from God as a token of his coming and that the dawning of that day is approaching. 

    "I have read a fiery gospel, writ in burnished rows of steel:
     ‘As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
     Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
         Since God is marching on.'"

Have you read the fiery gospel of justice?  Do you see it in floods and fires? Do you know about that Hero who will come to destroy those who destroy the earth?  Do you hear the thunder of the coming storm? 

     "He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;
     He is sifting out the hearts of men before his judgment-seat:
     Oh! be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
         Our God is marching on." 

God is calling for heroes who will fight for the right though the heavens fall, Men who are as true to duty as the needle to the pole, Men who will die rather than lie, Men who will be happy to go wherever God leads the way.

     "In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
     With a glory in his bosom that transfigures you and me:
     As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
         While God is marching on."

      This great poem speaks of holiness and freedom from sin.  It speaks of the judgment and the crushing of the serpent by our Hero.  It identifies our Hero as Christ, the Lily of the Valley, with such a built in glory of character that it will transfigure us.  His glory and the glory of His cross will convert us and give us immortality.  If we accept the glory that the Lord wants to share with us it will change us to the extent that we will lay down our lives to make others free.  And finally this inspiring poem speaks to us of victory as the truth of God goes marching on until the Lord comes in blazing glory.  To that I say, "Amen and Glory, glory, hallelujah!" 

      President Lincoln attended a large patriotic rally where a vocalist sang this new song and when it was over the audience responded with tumultuous applause. The President, with tears in his eyes, cried out, "Sing it again," and it was sung again.

      Not too long ago I attended a large musical concert featuring sacred hymns by a forty voice male choir.  Their director introduced the program with the announcement that "amens" to the glory of God would be appreciated rather than applause. The entire program was uplifting and inspiring but when they finished the Battle Hymn of the Republic the audience could no longer contain themselves and they responded with a thunderous applause. I am sure that if Lincoln could have heard it he would have cried out for them to sing it again.

      While the choir was singing this hymn I had an epiphany or glory experience.  I saw the soldiers and their campfires.  I heard them marching and the tramping of their feet. Then I saw far across the sea another soldier that would die for you and me.  I felt the desire to be a better Christian soldier for Christ.  It was a beautiful vision inspired by the words and the presentation of this great hymn.  From the audience response I assumed that most everyone had a similar experience.

    According to the Bible every person in the world is given a similar experience. Maybe, as the Good Book says, it is only a flash of light or a still small voice speaking to the soul. Some people will refuse to accept and benefit by it.  Others, who claim to be athiests, will deny they ever had such an experience. The evolutionist scorn the idea of anything supernatural. 

   I have had the epiphany experience many times. Usually when alone in quiet moments while viewing scenic sunsets, majestic mountains, and lovely lakes, and sometimes when hearing a solemn sermon or a sacred song. On many occasions in my life I have had a theopathy experience, and on one occasion I had a theophany. I want to tell you about it and give my praise, thanksgiving, and glory to God for what He has done.   

      What is the difference between a theophany, a theopathic experience, and an epiphany?  The dictionaries can help us: ---

A.   "Theophany = An appearance of a god to a human being; a divine manifestation. 
B.   "Theopathy = Religious emotion aroused by meditation on God; mystical ecstasy. 
C.   "Epiphany = ... a. A sudden manifestation of the essence or meaning of something.
b. A comprehension or perception of reality by means of a sudden intuitive realization: "I experienced an epiphany, a spiritual flash that would change the way I viewed myself" (Frank Maier)."The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Third Edition is licensed from Houghton Mifflin Company. Copyright © 1992 by Houghton Mifflin Company.

      The word "glory" is a more common term that seems to cover all three of these definitions and many more.  The King James Version of the Bible uses the term 402 times in 371 different verses, and like a certain ice-cream vendor serves it to us in 21 different flavors. 
  Like Baskin-Robbins 21 ice cream flavors so with this word “glory” there are 21 different flavors of meaning.  For the Bible student who eats the word he can enjoy his concordance study of the 21 words (15 Hebrew and 6 Greek words) that I have listed as they sound in English.  Actually there are more shades of meaning according to the context or environment in which they are found. 
            HEBREW: -------
1.  addereth   = Adornment       (Zech 11:3  +
2.   hadar, (heder*) = Honor, adornment,  *Dan. 11:20 – Aramaic
3    hod        =  honor, beauty , majesty
4.   tohar  = cleanness, purity
5.   yegar  = preciousness, rarity
6.   kabod = weight, heaviness, honor  (kabed = glorified)  root word and context gives meaning.
7.   tsebi   = beauty, desire
8.   tipharah = beauty, glory
9.   paar     = beautify
10.  kebuddah  = all glorious, heaviness, honor
11.  gaah     = gloriously, to rise triumphant    Ex.15.1,21
12.  addir     = glorious, honorable  glorious Lord  Isa.33:21
13.  adar      = to become honorable, to become light
14.  shabach  = to praise self    1 Chron.16:35
15.  halal     =  to boast self, to glory
            GREEK: --------
1.  doxa, -azo,  =  glory, glorifiy, main root word, context gives shades of meaning.
2.  doxe, doxes, endoxos = glorious, of glory, in glory      Eph.5:27 –present himself
3.  sundoxazo, endoxazomai = to glorify together;  to be glorified
4.  kenodoxos = vain glorious, full of empty glory   Gal 5:26
5.  kauchema, -eomai, -esis = boasting, to boast,  glorying.
6   kleos   = celebrity 
      I believe that Julia Howe's experience was a God revealed glory and not a mystical ecstasy that she worked up.  She wrote her poem to pass on to others the glory that was given to her.  It was not for fame and certainly not for money that she wrote.  She was paid only five dollars for her poem, and it was never used in the marching drills of the Civil War soldiers. The old John Brown's song was too entrenched in their tradition to make the change.  However this hymn became one of the most loved hymns of all time and found a place in most Christian Church Hymnals.

      I believe some honors and glories that come to us are good ones that come from God, and some are counterfeit fools' gold that will turn to dust.  It is important to know the difference. Jesus has taught us and shown us how to tell the true gold of eternal worth from the false tinsel that is flooding the earth.  The pages of this website were written for the purpose of sharing with you that information.  For more on Julia Howe and true glory go to the next page: - < glory > .