"It is fairly easy to conjure up in the imagination a picture of the New Model Army as a Bible-reading, Psalm-singing soldiery which forsook shops and fields for pikes and muskets in support of the Parliamentary cause. Such intimations of piety are born out to some extent in the writings of the chaplains of the New Model. Indeed, for Cromwell and the Army chaplains the Civil War was primarily a religious struggle. "Religion was not the thing at first contested for," said Cromwell, "but God brought it to that issue at last; and gave it unto us by redundancy, and at last it proved that which was most dear to us." Not only were the issues religious ones, but from the point of view of the chaplains the soldiers were religious also."