Production Note Cornell University Library produced this volume to replace the irreparably deteriorated original. It was scanned using Xerox software and equipment at 600 dots per inch resolution and compressed prior to storage using CCITT Group 4 compression. The digital data were used to create Cornells replacement volume on paper that meets the ANSI Standard Z39.48-1984. The production of this volume was supported in part by the New York State Program for the Conservation and Preservation of Library Research Materials and the Xerox Corporation. Digital file copyright by Cornell University Library 1994.THE NATION AND THE CHURCH CONGRATULATED. 1 Imtmnt PREACHED ON THE DAY OF GENERAL THANKSGIVING, NOVEMBER 27, 1851, IN THE CHURCH OF THE REV. DR. McIEOD, NEW YORK. BY J. AGNEW CRAWFORD. NEW YORK: R. CRAIGHEAD, PRINTER, 112 FULTON STREET. 1851.The publication of this Sermon is due to the following correspondence New York, December 6th, 1851. Rev. J. A. Crawford :— Dear Sir,—We, the undersigned, request that at your earliest convenience you will furnish us with a copy, for publication, of the sermon preached by you on the morning of last Thanksgiving Day, from the pulpit of the Rev. Dr. McLeod’s Church, Twelfth street. Very respectfully, [Signed] James Stewart, John Pollock, David Morrison, Q. Agnew, Robt. L. Wylie, Thos. Cumming, Joseph Dunn, James Pollock. New York, December 1851. Messrs. James Stewart, David Morrison, &c. Brethren :—I prize the feeling which prompts the request made in your note of to-day, yet it is with hesitancy that I comply with that request. I have no doubt of the correctness of the sentiments advanced in the Sermon alluded to ; and it is in the hope that God will own and bless their feeble advocacy, that I consent to place at your disposal the asked-for manuscript. I shall do so as soon as possible. Yours in the Lord, J. Agnew Crawford.DISCOURSE, w Happy art thou, O Israel 5 who is like unto thee, O people saved by *_- Deuteronomy xxxiii. 29. This was the parting and prophetic gratulation of Moses to his countrymen before he went up to Pisgah’s top to die. The bleached tents of Israel were dotting the surface of the desert, like so many white clouds the sky. Amidst these, the multitudes of the nation were gathered to hear, for the last time, the words of comfort and of warning from their beloved and venerable leader. Full of honors and of years, he stands up before them to pronounce his farewell blessing. Having done so, and realizing the fulness of that bliss which belonged to them as the favored people of God, he exclaims, “ Happy art thou, O Israel/’ We are morbidly desirous to catch and retain the last wrords of the dying; and these are some of the latest uttered by one who stood among the chief of men. Having spoken them, Moses left the plain on which the thousands of his countrymen lay encamped, and went up the slopes of Pisgah to lie down in loneliness and die. God granted him, from the heights he stood upon, a view of the country beyond the river, and into which he was about to introduce his people. And may we not imagine, that, as it spread out its scenes of beauty before him, it suggested to his mind that better coun- try in the heavens, to which he was about to go, and that6 celestial city of which he was so soon to be the joyous deni* zen ? This, he doubtless thought, would be the great happi- ness of believing Israel, that should dwell at length in this city of surpassing splendor, whose architect was God himself; whose walls were of costly and imperishable beauty; whose streets were golden; whose palaces were bright and stable; and over all which a constant day spreads out its own divine and unbeclouded loveliness. In view of this, happy art thou, O Israel! These words were spoken at once to a nation, and to the people and church of Godf and we shall so consider them to-day. We propose to inquire— 1. What entitles a nation to he congratulated; or, what are the elements in the happiness of any people ? First.—There can be no rational or social happiness with- out freedom. We dare not offer Heaven's congratulations to the enslaved. God's own sun may shine upon him; God's showers may carry to him their refreshing ; God's bright rain- bows may span the dark clouds in his sky—those emblems of the deeper gloominess in his soul; God's summer may spread out her greenness round about him, and strew her flowers in his path, and bid her singing birds rejoice above him ; nay, all Nature may smile upon him, and by her thousand ministers seek to put his grief away and induce him to be glad; but we cannot, we dare not, offer to him congratulations as one enslaved. We would not mock thus this dejected man; we would not add another pang to his existing woe; we would not tantalize and goad to actual madness man made in the image of God. There is something terrible in servitude; something that dwarfs the human soul; something that has all the chill influence of the icy winter on us; something that links us with despondency, and lies, as a great and heavy load^ upon our hearts; something that fetters hope and represses every rising sentiment of nobleness, and seems to doom us7 to an eternal inferiority. And how shall we congratulate one thus circumstanced ? And what is true of the man is true of the mass. An enslaved people are not to be styled happy. We do not say that no solaces should be offered; we do not say that there are no elements of gladness in their lot. But we do urge that it is a mockery to give them the same greetings you would give the free, and especially if these be Heaven’s greetings. There is something to be done in their case before you can come to them with your gratulations. You must take their chains away ; you must let Heaven’s light into their dungeon; you must lift them up to the station of the free, and gift them with the attributes of an ennobling liberty. It were easy to pronounce a eulogy on Freedom. This is not our present task, but simply to remind you, on this day of Thanksgiving, that we, as a people, may be and should be thought happy, because we are a people free. This was an ingredient in the blessedness of Israel. Once they groaned beneath oppres- sion ; once they sighed and toiled in the house of bondage; once they knew naught save servile compliance with the will of pagan and. capricious masters. But now they are free. And, as a liberated people, enjoying their own laws, and led by their own chieftain, they are about to be settled in a land of room and a land of loveliness. Israel was free; and, therefore, their dying prophet gives to them his hearty gratu- lations. And we are free. Once our beloved land was the mere dependency of a distant and a haughty throne; once the curse of tyranny was here, and the fetterings of a needless and ill-directed law were felt; once our fathers in their feeble- ness and fewness struggled against the might of fierce oppres- sion. Yet they found a keeper, and it was God ; so that their country became the home of liberty, and is to-day the con- fessed asylum for chased and endangered men from every clime. Blessed be God this is] true. There is here no one8 man whose nod must guide us, whose frown must terrify us, and to whose caprice our life and our all may be at any time a sacrifice. Despotism can here appear in no titled embodi- ment ; and, under the imposing name of “ Emperor ” or “ King,” work out our injury. But the freedom we plead for is not the synonyme with lawlessness; not the freedom of revolutionary France; not the freedom which anarchy secures. It is as far removed from this as from despotism. It is a freedom secured by law, and inseparable from whole- some law. It is a liberty founded on the mutual respect of rights by all classes in the nation. It is the absence of actual oppression, and the removal of annoying restraints. And yet it is by no means something purely negative, but has, we shall see, its positive attributes. We have here Liberty of Speech. Not that the tongue even of the blasphemer and the slanderer is unbridled. Our laws restrain it. But we are free to give respectful utterance to our sentiments in regard even to what our rulers do, without incurring at every word the charge of treason. The Press is free, and not, as in some countries, the monopoly of the government. Our Institutions are free, and afford their advantages to all. Poverty is no disfranchise- ment of the individual. The poor, equally with the rich, are welcomed by Science to her halls, and made the recipients of her benefactions. And when the two come together for justice, the rich enjoys no advantage over the poor, save in those few instances in which bribery corrupts the judge. No obstacles are offered by our laws to the advancement of any. Worth and talent are fostered by them, and the highest offices in the state are accessible to him whose genius or industry can carry him to them. The mind is free in our country, and we are therefore a happy people. Religion, too, is free. There is here no one towering temple, which, raised and sustained by judicial par* tiality, frowns on all save its own worshippers. There is here no one gaudy ceremonial which the law can compel us9 to respect, and the observance of which is the passport to places of trust and of power. There is no such alliance here between the church and the state as shall both make the church corrupt, and clothe the civil arm with a more weighty power. We are a people free in our religious observances ; not serfs to some favored ritual—not the com- plaining worshippers in some temple that we fain would shun, and whose ceremonial we abhor. And all this calls for gratitude to-day. It is an element in our national happi- ness ; for who doubts that the state is happiest when the church is free. What mischiefs have ever arisen from the unauthorized affiliation of temporal with spiritual power! The world needs to feel all the sanctified influence which the church can exert, and this is weakened greatly when she becomes the mere dependency of the civil power. An esta- blished church, such as the old world still presents to us in various forms, has never long remained a pure church. Did it so remain it w7ould soon be discarded by the state. We hope for better things in the day when the influence of the true religion will give direction to all that belongs to man, but kings and statesmen now seek other associate's and other counsellors than the pious ministry. Thus England's kings and Scotland’s statesmen did. And it was because royalty would have it so that the church of Christ conformed so greatly to the wishes and the policy of selfish and shame- less men. Here the church is free from all improper control from the state, and our country may, therefore, hope for more from her agency. For all this we are gathered to give thanks. We have liberty without lawlessness—let us be grateful. Again: A people may be congratulated when the existing laws are wholesome and properly administered. Law is essential to the existence of society. It is no arbitrary thing. It arises out of the character of God and the relation which creatures sustain to him. We do not live in a lawless uni-10 verse. The angels are under restraints, which are necessary and salutary. Were it not so, they would not long retain their perfectness and glory. The physical creation is under law. All the planetary and stellar worlds feel and own its power. Even the comets, once thought to be wild wanderers through space, are known now to be obedient to definite and abiding laws. And man is under law. He is the subject, not the lawgiver; he is born to obey, not to prescribe. It is not true that need for law arises out of the actual imperfect- ness of those for whom it is designed. This may, and indeed does, make it the more needful, and render necessary some ‘special and peculiar legislation. The perfect is a law to Himself. He alone requires no published statutes for the ordering of his way. But the creature, even though faultless, cannot exist and rejoice in a state of entire independency. Where there is the possibility of imperfection and of change there must be law. Where sin has actually come, there must be new and special enactments. God has made these for the government of society, and revealed them in his word. Society is the creature of God. He regards it as a moral unit. It has rights, and these He has specified and given. If men owed their being to another than God there would belong to them rights with which He might not interfere. Inherent rights can be predicated only of the self-existent. And as God is the maker and governor of men, all that they bave in the way of claim, of privilege, or of power, is from Him and dependent on his will; and no modification of these granted rights can be attempted without a direct encroach- ment on prerogatives which are divine. When, therefore, those powers which God has granted to civil society are allowed their legitimate exercise, and not suffered to trans- gress the appointed bounds, there will be peace, prosperity, and progress, and the descending on men of heaven's own benedictions. Civil government is the ordinance of God. He has ap-11 pointed it for the welfare of his subjects, and they are the happy people among whom laws exist which are wholesome, and which, as wholesome, are enforced. It is a question involving some niceties of discussion— what are wholesome laws ? This may seem easy of being answered, and yet it is not. If it should be said that those laws are best which promote the prosperity of the state, which tend to augment its power, and to secure for it a coveted supremacy; we object to the reply. I can conceive of a nation in a state of barbarism, or of semi-civilization, whose prosperity shall be best secured by laws which all men besides would frown upon. And such may be the nature of the government among a people of this character as to actu- ally call for legislation that, in other circumstances, would be tyrannical and cruel. We do not ask what brought about such a morbid condition of the public mind as to make these strange enactments necessary. They are so regarded by the government, and therefore are enforced, and being enforced, tend to the consolidation and stability of the government and the nation. Such laws are best for the people among whom they are found. Are they, therefore, wholesome laws ? Are they properly enforced ? But it may be said, we speak only of Christian lands, of nations that are blessed with an enlightened civilization. Be it so. The question is then reduced to this : Shall expediency control, or shall there be an appeal from this to the Scripture and to God, in judging of the laws that should be made ? If the former is to guide, then all reference to the Scripture is for ever denied us; for if we once appeal to expediency to justify what the state is doing, though in a supposed or open contravention of the law of God, we must appeal to it in every case, and then plainly the authority of the Word of God comes in purely as a secondary consideration. There is no escaping from this conclusion. It is worth while to examine for a moment this doctrine of12 expediency. The word signifies what is convenient, suitable. It was a favorite sentiment in the ethics of a distinguished English moralist and divine, that “ whatever is expedient is right,” right in the issue and the end, though it may not be in the immediate consequences. This doctrine may be thus illustrated. The English opium-trade with China is right, because expedient. It is wrong, indeed, in its immediate effects, as it tends to make the multitudes of the nation imbe- cile and insane, and carries woe and gloom into a million of pagan homes. Yet it is right in the issue, inasmuch as it will augment the influence of civilized power and extend the area of civilization, and make way for the final introduction of a better state of things. The British encroachments and barbarities in India are right, because expedient. And though they may spread out the most desolating woe over an unof- fending nation, and extort a loud wail of agony from myriads of degraded idolaters, and lead them to the abhorrence of our religion because it seems to give countenance to these remorseless and systematic cruelties; yet are they right, since thus the heathen gods shall disappear, and the dark pagodas fall, and a tardy civilization become the heritage of a crushed and captive people ! What is expedient is right, and as expediency is to be judged of and determined on by the superior, it may take and will take all the changing hues of the chamelion, and be a thing as capricious as the ever varying wills of those who rule. On the side of the oppressor there is power, and his notions of expediency are consulted, not those of the oppressed. There came an exile to the shores of France who had escaped but with his life from tyranny. It was inexpedient to receive him, and, had there been the power, there was the will to bid the vessel that had brought him spread her sails again, and carry him back to his captivity. It was not expedient that he should remain, and therefore it was right thus to affront and repulse this guiltless man! It is expedient, said Caiaphas, that one man13 should die for the people; it was therefore “right” that the Son of God should die !! This is the working of this principle of expediency. To this it is that many of our people, of our statesmen, and of our ministers, are appealing, and not to God. To this cobweb they would have us trust. This is the quietus offered me when alarmed because I have broken the divine law. This is the plea I am bidden to urge when going up to the throne of God to answer for my contempt of his authority, and the wounding I have done to my own spirit. Conscience has become an obsolete idea; the conjur- ing of a disordered mind, the word to affright childish and superstitious men. It must be proved now that there is^ a moral sense at all, or, granting this, we must show that we are bound by God to regard it as his voice and monitor. This one universal, all-absorbing, all-powerfnl idea, of expe- diency, must be respected, and to appeal from this is treason. We believe in expediency to some degree ; but this we lay down as a fundamental principle, that it can, in no case, be expedient to do violence to conscience, or to break the law of God ; that the divine law is supreme, and that when divine and human enactments come in conflict, we must obey God rather than men. Among the greatest crimes, is that of wounding conscience; for, as we do this, we make an effort to efface the divine image from the soul, and to weaken God’s authority over us. Some urge that circumstances modify the divine law, and justify our deliberate breach of it; but there is no sentiment more dangerous than this. It makes man a law to himself. It subverts the authority of the Supreme, or bases it on the dictates of a shifting and capricious expe- diency. Laws may be enacted that are not wholesome ; nor are they to be regarded as such, simply because they may tend to the support of the particular state or nation. They are to be viewed as just, only when they tally with the law of God; when they embody its principles; when they tend to the welfare of the community, by securing the rights of the14 individual; and when they save the oppressed from being a sacrifice to the cupidity or the ferocity of the powerful. It may, then, be inquired what course should be pursued, when a statute is ensnaring, or comes in conflict with the law of God ? And what, we ask, means this sneering at the mention of a law superior to that of man ? Is there no such thing ? Are human laws infallible and final ? Are Christians agreed that the civil power shall be the authorized expounder of the Bible? Is it absurd to suppose that men may err? May there not be mistakes in judgment, even in our halls of legislation ? We cannot delay to remark upon the rights of private judgment, and to state what great principles connect with this subject. This only we observe, that Conscience must guide us ; not indeed by her own wavering and unas- sisted counselling, but in the light of the divine word. Nor need it be objected to this, that, by making every man the judge and interpreter for himself of the law of God, and of the correspondence with it or the contrariety to it of the law of the land, we quite do away with all law, at least with its harmonious and united operation. This needs not to be the case. It is but seldom that, in Christian governments, laws will be enacted, the propriety or utility of which will be seriously and conscientiously questioned. But when this is the case, there can be no doubt that the will of the majority must take effect, and the law, though obnoxious to the few, must be enforced. Christians must submit passively, and under protest, to law, when they cannot obey. And this kind of submission, even to a statute which we cannot approve, involves no dereliction of principle, no wounding of con- science, no forgetfulness of the superior authority of the divine law. And here, too, we affirm the right of revolution. When a government becomes essentially immoral and tyran- nical, it may, and ought to be changed. Sometimes, from the fact that the powers that be are ordained of God, it is argued that whatever they enjoin is15 right, and must be submitted to; that to resist even an im- moral government, is to resist the ordinance of God.# There is a fallacy in this reasoning. Civil government is, indeed, arranged or ordered (for thus the word should read) by God. In his providence, it is allowed to put on its peculiar form. This may be, however, without supposing God answerable for what is peculiar in it, or for any immorality it may enjoin. The reasoning which would make it unlawful to seek, by pro- per means, the removal of what was immoral in the civil con- stitution, or from the statute book, would forbid us to seek the removal of the plague because God’s hand was in it. To oppose, therefore, what is faulty in the statutes of a nation, is not to be regarded as in itself sinful. A violent resistance, however, is not to be made; since consequences most disas- trous would follow. This is what the Apostle teaches : “ We must needs be subject for wrath's sake ” though we cannot for conscience’s sake. To this course we are shut up, sub- mission ; while, at the same time, we testify against the law, and bear quietly the penalty imposed for non-compliance with its requisitions. It is most unfair to say that we have no alternative between actual obedience to an immoral law, and actual open opposi- tion to the government by which it is enjoined. We have an alternative, and it is that which the Apostle would have the Christians under Nero adopt—a quiet submission, an absti- nence from whatever might tend to turmoil and trouble. The * So thought not our Presbyterian forefathers in Scotland : nor were there any men who better understood the principles of civil government and of the word of God than they. It is well known, and occasionally admitted, that the principles espoused and advocated by the persecuted Covenanters, are those on which the English Constitution and our own Constitution are based. And while these men were loyal to a proverb, they ever maintained and declared that, when the king- and government had erred, and when legislation had become tyrannical and immoral, they were not merely warranted, but required to assert their rights, and appeal from man to God. And they did so, and were owned of Christ, because they were jealous of the rights that were his.16 dread I have of offending God, and of exposing my own soul to perdition, by a deliberate and conscious violation of his law, must prevent me giving a cheerful or a constrained obe- dience to the obnoxious statute. And, on the other hand, the dread which I am bidden to have of “ the powers that be,” must keep me back from strife, and all acts of violence and blood. I therefore yield a, passive compliance with the law, not violently resisting its execution by the proper authorities, but bearing whatever penalties it may impose upon me as an apathetic citizen. And here we lay our protest in against that temporizing spirit which marks at present so large a part of the church of God. We protest, in the name of our holy Christianity, and for his sake, who is its Author, against that subserviency to worldly policy, which is shown by many of those whose hands are holding up the standard of the Cross. We protest against the sentiment that circumstances are to regulate our compliance with the law of God. We protest against this sheltering of acknowledged crime under the wings of our divine religion. Are we, indeed, brought to this? Shall worldly men seek and gain the countenance of our religion in their admitted sin, and then turn, with a just contemptuous- ness, away from those who have sold that religion to them ? Never, never! By the help of God, we shall ever lift up our voice, though it be feeble, in behalf of the rights that are Emanuel's. Men may cry out, “ Treason ! treason !” like the queen mother, while they fawn with a loathsome servility about the feet of supposed greatness ; but the cry is as cheap as it is causeless, and worthy of the source from which it comes. Men may invoke for our rebuke and our terror, the genius of our excellent Constitution, and the departed shades of those who gave shape to that incomparable document; but, in their very name, we protest against that legalized wrong which is daily doing. It is a libel on their memory, to hint that cruelty and tyranny would find any countenance from17 them. The history of their doings, and of the formation of our Constitution, warrants what we say. Finding it not in their power to rid themselves of that legacy of slavery which they had received from the mother country, they, in forming the federal Constitution, did all that was possible to guard against its increase and its continuance. They recognised its pre- sence as an evil. They gave it not one smile. They looked to that day which should see its decay and death. Our Con- stitution is no immoral Constitution. While defective, as all human instruments must be, it is the best code of laws known to us; and has fostered and brought up to a vigorous manhood, a nation that owns no superior. Good laws, and laws duly enforced, are essential to the happiness of a people, and the nation with which they are found should be con- gratulated. We had intended to refer also to the extent of our country, her resources, and her influence, as calling for gratitude to God on this Thanksgiving Day. Our eastern coast stretches far along the great Atlantic, our western is fringed by the waters of the blue Pacific. Two Zones come laying their con- tributions at our feet. Our internal resources are great. Our commerce is extensive—our ships sail, our flags fly in every sea. Famine, except by report, is a thing unknown to us— our supplies are proverbially abundant. Each passing Sum- mer brings to our granaries her golden grain. “ Afar off we hear the noise of the battle, the thunder of the captains, and the shouting/' But gentle Peace abides in our own borders. And who shall make correct conjectures of our destiny! What limits shall we set to our country ! Judging from the past, what may we not anticipate of greatness and of glory for our beloved land! Declining Despotism watches from beyond the sea, with no common interest, the strange rapidity of our growth. Men admire and fear the young Republic, that is seen moving with an impetuousness so unwonted, yet so peaceful. We seem to them to be sent of Heaven on the 218 mission of universal liberation. And who shall say that this is not so ? Guilty and incomplete we are, yet God, we trust, is with us as in the past. We have the elements of happiness. Our country is to be congratulated. “Happy art thou, O Israel! what people is like unto thee!” II. We were to view the text as applicable to the Church. Time suffers us only to state what might be enlarged upon. There is much in her history that calls for gratitude—there is much in her present condition. We may affirm stability of the Church—and her song, therefore, is “ Though the earth remove, we will not be afraid.” Amidst all shakings she remains. There is a felt agitation in the political world. Thrones are crumbling now, and crowns are losing their brilliancy and their significance; but the Church stands, built on the Rock of Ages. And she shall stand, for he who is her King is the occupant of the eternal throne, and gives, for her sake, their peculiar shape to the destinies of the world. We have received a kingdom which cannot be moved, therefore we are here in the sanctuary with our offerings of gratitude. The Church is advancing. This is the day of effort and of success with the Church, The men in India and in China, and the islands of the sea, and far off* amidst the polar snows, are, through her agency, made glad. The Church is aggres- sive. Some hidden hand is putting barriers away, and rolling the great stones from her ascending path. Her cords are lengthening, and soon the whitened curtains of her habitation shall be so stretched out, as to afford shelter to men of every name and of every clime. And we know what her destiny shall be. We know how ere long she shall sit as a queen, and God shall be her diadem. We know that yet she shall put off her sackcloth, and put on her garments of exceeding beauty. We know that her sons shall come from far; that the kings of Tarshish and of Sheba shall bring presents to him who is her Lord ; that her children shall be numerous as the stars, and beautiful in their holiness as the drops of dew;19 that her peace shall be as a river; and that all her enemies shall feign submission. The Redeemer shall glorify the Church in the latter day, and men shall own his rule and rejoice in his supremacy—and in prospect of this, we rejoice to-day. Let us congratulate the believer. To you belong the solaces suggested by the text. We offer you Heaven's own congratulations, for you are a man in Christ. You cherish hopes full of immortality. All things are yours. You are a rescued brand; a prodigal reclaimed; a wanderer restored to the Father’s fellowship and the Father’s smile; a captive freed; a criminal discharged from custody. All things shall minister to your good—all foes shall be finally subdued. These days of gloom shall be soon succeeded by the ceaseless light and the ceaseless felicities of Heaven. Jesus lives, and therefore there shall be a lamp for you in the sepulchre, and a place for you near the eternal throne, and a golden harp and a golden crown and a heritage of beauty in the land of immortality. Happy art thou, believer in the Son of God. We offer you Heaven’s congratulations, and remind you that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for those who love him. And shall we not, in view of what we have said—in view of mercies so many and so great, send up our songs of grate- fulness to-day to our Father’s throne ? Shall not the memory of the past, filled as it is with the tokens of his regard, excite us to fresh efforts to promote his glory ? And, as we realize that all our mercies are due to him who is our Saviour, shall we not love him the more ? Shall not our coming life be a connected and resolute effort to do him honor ? Let us appre- ciate his claims, and live, not to ourselves, but to him that died for us and rose again. Nor let us forget that, while we are glad to-day, all are not rejoicing; that some are the -sons of sorrow; that some groan20 beneath oppression; that many languish in disease; that many are yielding to the last enemy ; that many are in woe. We would rejoice with trembling. Let our joy be sacred, and our mirth be temperate; and we be duly mindful of the hour, when instead of singing we shall weep, and when for the garment of praise we shall put on the spirit of heaviness. And let us leave here, on God's altar, our offerings of grati- tude ; and make it henceforth our care to reach that land, in which there shall be ever heard the sound of psalmody and song.