Pamphlet Collection 
 ]Duk6 XJniversity Library 
 
George Washington Flowers 
 Memorial Collection 
 
 DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 ESTABLISHED BY THE 
 FAMILY OF 
 COLONEL FLOWERS 
 
A SERMO?^ 
 
 TAUHTON AND RAYNHAM VOLUNTEERS, 
 
 COL. D. N. COUCH, COMMANDING. 
 
 BY REV. MORTIMER BlAKE, PASTOR OF THE WINSLOW CHURCH. 
 
 TAUNTON : 
 PRINTED AT THE REPUBLICAN OFFICE, 
 Bristol County Bank Building. 
 
Cljf IssMis of t^t 'gthtlVisn. 
 
 A SERMON 
 
 "AUNTOI AND RAYLHAM VOLUNTEERS. 
 
 COL. D. X. COUCH, COMMANDING. 
 
 BY REV. MORTIMER BLAKE, EASTOR OE THE WINSLOW CHURCH. 
 
 — ^Q©- 
 
 TAUX'i'ON . 
 
 PRINTED AT THE 11EPUJ3L1CAN OFFICE, 
 Bristol County Bank Building, 
 
Taunton, June 3d, 1861. 
 
 REV. MORTIMER BLAKE, 
 
 Dear Sik : The young men, at whose request you delivered 
 last Sabbath an address before the volunteers of our town, believing that the 
 soldiers for whom it was prepared, and their numerous friends, would be grat- 
 ified with an opporiunity of perusing its just statement of the issues involved 
 in the present war, as well as the wise and affectionate counsels which it con- 
 tains, request that you will furnish us with a copy for publication. 
 Respectfully Yours, 
 E. DAWES, 
 
 R, S. WASHBURN, 
 
 WM. H. GILMORE. 
 L. SOULE, 
 
 E. BOWMAN, 
 
 P. WILLIAMS, 
 
 Committee, 
 
 Taunton, June 4, 1861, 
 Gentlemen r The sermon which you request is herewith cheerfully sub- 
 mitted to your disposal ; with the earnest hope that its crude suggestions to an 
 audience so unusual, may be as kindly received by them as they were kindly 
 intended. Yours, with respect^ 
 
 MORTIMER BLAKE. 
 
 Messrs. E. Dawes, R. S. Washburn, &c,. 
 
SERMON. 
 
 " Be strong- and courag-eous, be not afraid nor dismayed for the king- of Assyria, 
 nor for all the multitude that is with him : for there be more with us than with him. 
 With him is an arm of tleeh ; but with us is the Lord our God to help ub, and to light 
 our battles."— II. Chronicles, 32: 7, 8. 
 
 The sacred writer adds : And the people rested them- 
 selves upon the words of Hezeldah king of Judah." 
 
 And it is no wonder that they did. To be in the majority, 
 and that majority being the Lord our God to help iis and to 
 fight our battles, is reason enough to be strong and courage- 
 ous. But may we assume that the Lord is with us in the 
 present clash of arms ? That depends upon the ends we are 
 seeking to accomplish. If these ends are right, then we may 
 believe that the invisible Presence which dwelt in Judah is 
 helping us. It is therefore of first importance to understand 
 the real objects of the unusual sights we see in our land, — the 
 drilling of soldiers, the mustering of armies, the hurrying of 
 fleets, and the anxious watching of the telegraph for news of 
 their movements. That these objects do stand connected in 
 some way with God and Christianity is evident Irom your 
 presence as soldiers here in the house of God, to consecrate 
 your uniforms and weapons with the services of religion before 
 you go to use them on the morrow, as we learn you have re- 
 ceived orders. I can think of nothing, therefore, more impor- 
 tant to urge upon you, from the pulpit, than a clear understand- 
 ing of the issues you are called to settle. 
 
 Every one of you needs this knowledge that you may act 
 intelligently and unitedly and vigorously in the hour of de- 
 cision. 
 
 I. What, then, are the issues you are summoned to de- 
 cide and 
 
 II. How shall you as soldiers most effectively aid in their 
 decision. 
 
4 
 
 These are tbe points around which my remarks shall clus- 
 ter. And. 
 
 1. The iirst and itnmediate issue is the existence of our 
 civil 2:ovcrnment, 
 
 We have long heard threats of disunion, and nullification, 
 and secession, from some parts ol the country : but we have 
 believed tiiem to be the tactics of politician.-? to carry their 
 projects. We have read the votes and resolves of local con- 
 ventions to withdraw from the Union, but we supposed they 
 were paper rebellions — talk, the safety-valves for excitable 
 communiiies. But now our long and singular blindness is 
 cured. AVe see there is a desperate earnestness in this se- 
 cession. There has been a long-laid, craft}' plot to explode 
 Ihis go\ e]"nment of our fathers into Iragments, and to substi- 
 tute for it an abominable despotism based u{)on slavery, 
 'i'raitors had crept into high offices, where they could strip 
 the loval people of their defenses and collect the arms and 
 money of the nation into tlieir ovrn hands ready for use : and 
 they had filled the petty offices with trusty menials to co-op- 
 erate with them : and then, when our fleets were sent oft" to , 
 the cornei-s of the earth, or anchored within their own reach, 
 and when our federal army was scattered in little helpless 
 bands on the outside frontiers, or stovred aw^ay in half-pro- 
 visioned forts, and when the treasury was emptied by inten- 
 tional deialcations, and the executive powers were passing in- 
 to new hands, then they suddenly rose from their ambush, and 
 ruslied for the prey. Then they boasted of tlieir success, and 
 appointed the day when the arch usurjier woald sit in the 
 capitof and dine at the empty table of our runaway Presi- 
 dent. 
 
 Througli our divided state of feeling, and our complete de- 
 votion to money and compromises, they expected to secure a 
 quick and complete overthrow of the Government, and to dic- 
 tate to us the terms on wnich we micfht continue to live un- 
 der their protection, or be excluded in the cold from the sun- 
 shine of their favor. It seemed for a moment, as if they 
 
5 
 
 would succeed in their nefarious revolution. But when the 
 first stunning effects of the surprising blow began to pass by, 
 reason rallied, and conscience, and patriotism, and religion, all 
 rallied to the defense of our dearest inheritance, and the men 
 of all parties, creeds, and birthplaces, have risen to hurl back 
 the traitors and rebels to their own place. Never was there 
 a more thrilling sight in the earth ; never a more sacred resort 
 to the last awful arguments of war ; never a rush to arms more 
 justifiable hy the righzs of self-defense and precepts of Chris- 
 tianity ! It is like the uprising of Judah against the invasion 
 of Assyria. It is a defense of the very existence of civil 
 government and laws, against despotism ; and the Lord God is 
 with us to fight our battles in behalf of his own divinely es- 
 tablished institutions. We can think no otherwise. 
 
 This, then, is the first and immediate issue which you are 
 called to help decide, — and your prompt and even impatient 
 enlistment shows, whenever you shall be called to strike the 
 blow for our country, where it will fall. Our country and its 
 free institutions ! Dear sirs, was there ever such a land to 
 strike for before ? The advance land of all the nations, save 
 in the one dire evil which has bred all the other disasters 1 
 the land of such ancestors and of such histories ! of such in- 
 stitutions whose elementary principles were found in the 
 word of God by the English puritans, illustrated by the li'on- 
 sides of Cromwell, expressed in the compact of the May- 
 flower Pilgrims, and established by Washington and his fel- 
 low patriots ! and whose happy fruits are borne in the won- 
 derful prosperity and religious labors of the free North for 
 almost a century ! Not to stand in defense of such princi- 
 ples, not to dash back the traitors and rebels who would spoil 
 such a goodly heritage, would prove us unfit to have them, — 
 unfit to bear the name of freemen and of christians ! When we 
 consider this issue, it is no wonder that all other issues which 
 have divided us heretofore are forgotten, and that such an en- 
 thusiastic ofi"ering of men and means is made to the govern- 
 ment, that there is not room enough to receive them ! 
 
6 
 
 But there are involved in this canse, in which you have en- 
 listed, more than the existence of our civil government. 
 Therefore I observe, 
 
 2. You are called to protect and preserve the vital inter- 
 ests of posterity, 
 
 I can say to you, as Nehemiah said to the nobles and people 
 when they were defending Jerusalem from the perfidy of Tobi- 
 as aiid Sanballat and their fellow conspirators : Be ye not 
 afraid ot them : remember the Lord which is great and terri- 
 ble, and fight for your brethren, your sons and your daughters, 
 your wives and your houses," and not for these only, but for 
 those that shall come after you, God has linked the genera- 
 tions togethe]", so that Ave transmit from one to the other 
 whatever of blessings or of curses we may have in our hands. 
 The genei-atioas of men are like the successive arches of a 
 bridge, over which the heritage of the past passes through 
 the present down to the future. If one of the arches is weak 
 and falls under its burden, the transit is broken and the fu- 
 ture is cut off' from its inheritance. On us and you of this 
 hour are resting all the hopes and blessings of the future. 
 These are in utmost peril. The arch of the present is as- 
 saulted. It is shaken, and you are called out in haste to de- 
 fend it. You are at the junction, or the Relay house between 
 the past and future, to guard it from traitors ; so that the her- 
 itage of our free government, our free press, our free speech, 
 and every other good of living, shall not be cut off from the 
 generations down the line of time. By and by, when this 
 crisis shall have passed, — and Heaven grant it may be quickly, 
 when the arch traitors shall have been defeated and meet 
 their doom, and when their deluded followers shall have been 
 driven back undeceived, and in contrition at their ignorant 
 madness, then shall you enjoy the fruits of such a victory, and 
 your names will be cherished by your grateful successors to 
 a thousand generations. Think, therefore, that you are to de- 
 cide whether yourselves and your children shall have a free 
 home and libei'ty lor your own old age and theirs, if you 
 
7 
 
 come to it, or sball be compelled to sit out your days t^itli 
 closed lips under the fetters of an iron despotism, such as 
 now suppresses or drives out all the friends of Union and 
 Freedom from the South. It is no immediate question of 
 to-day merely which you shall decide, but is for all time, the 
 pivot on which balance the freedom and despotism of the na- 
 tion's future, — the strife of arms has to determine the scales. 
 And as God has promised the future of the earth to grow 
 bright in largest blessings, who can doubt that he is with us 
 in this crisis of its future ! 
 
 3. Another issue involved in this rebellion is, the possi- 
 bility of civil and religious freedom in the earth. 
 
 The problem of national self-government has been repeat- 
 edly tried, and under a variety of circumstances, but never 
 under so encouraging as in our own land. Of the sturdy 
 Saxon stock, purificl by pei secutions and expatriated for 
 principles, the original was the best seed of the old kingdoms. 
 Laying the foundations of government in the midst of en- 
 emies, when every stone must be laid with the solidity and 
 precision of a forti-ess, — cemented into one people by a long 
 struggle witli old monarchies for leave to be, — and having 
 stood the weakening tests of nearly a century's prosperity, — 
 the eyes of all the struggling nations trying to be free have 
 turned here for guidance and hope. The ever-growing con- 
 stellation of our flag, as it floats in their ports, is the inspiring 
 lode-si ar of their courage, and its stripes are as the ruddy 
 beams of day-break that their day of redemption also draw- 
 eth nigh. That flag, as the emblem of freedom, is the cynos- 
 ure of the nations. The immigrant forgets to sigh for his na- 
 tive land when the shadow of its folds falls upon his head. 
 Hence it is that all nationalities, the English, the Scotch, the 
 Irish, the German, the Italian, the Hungarian, rush to defend 
 it from the treacherous hands which Avould tear down this 
 banner of popular liberty to the world. For their all is com- 
 mitted to its triumph as certainly as our own. The organs of 
 
8 
 
 European aristocracy may grin at the prospect of its surren- 
 der. The London Times may grimly say " the great republic 
 has gone but if that flag shall be supplanted by the steal- 
 thy rattle-snake and the useless palmetto, the people of the 
 world will weep in the starless night of their sorrow ! No 
 sirs ! the hand ot God prepared this American citadel of lib- 
 erty and blessed the hands which planted on it the flag of lib- 
 erty, and we cannot believe that he will sufler it to be low- 
 ered, longer than to wash out the one black stain of its heav- 
 en-colored union i Wht^ther it shall float to cheer the earth in 
 hope of universal civil and religious liberty is one of the is- 
 sues which, under God, are committed to your decision. 
 
 With such a trust, we ieel sure that you will not lower our 
 flag of hope to the world, to an enemy so long as you have 
 an arm left to defei d it ! Next below the banner of the 
 cross — as the world's salvation, shall be the banner of our 
 union — as the world's freedom. On the sacred emblem of our 
 redemption we will nail the flag of our country, and then we 
 will bear them on together, as the advance standard of the 
 world's millennium. So you, the soldiers, and we, the preach- 
 ers, will be working together in this contest like Nehemiah's 
 men. The one building the wall, and the other standing 
 guard with his spear and habergeon. 
 
 But these are not all the issues you are called to decide. 
 I cannot even mention all. They embrace every thing which 
 makes life desirable, or the gospel itself fully effective. The 
 results which shall follow, when this monstrous rebellion is 
 subdued, will show that the soldier was never ordered out in 
 a more righteous cause, — never entered the bloody strife with 
 more numerous and earnest prayers for his success, — never 
 pushed his long campaign with surer indications that the Lord 
 God will flght his battles 
 
 If this rebellion shall be successfully resisted — and no one 
 can doubt that result, — not only will the immediate issues I 
 have mentioned be decided, but other as valuable results col- 
 lateral to them will be gamed. L There will be an end of 
 
9 
 
 such braggart disunionism and domineering dictation, of such 
 truckling and pacifying compromises, as have made us hang our 
 heads for shame before the world. Traitors will have learned 
 that, however blind or corrupt politicians may be, the people 
 cherish freedom in their hearts, and will speak, whenever she 
 cries for succor, with the roar of a thousand batteries. The 
 heart of the people, when you come to it, is right yet — the 
 old revolutionary blood has not been diluted away with gov- 
 ernment pap and old rye whiskey. 2. Another result will 
 be, the beginning of the end of slavery. The Richmond Whig 
 admits that " secession is abolitionism in its most dangerous 
 form.*' It opens a crack wide enough for slavery to escape ; 
 and the slave, who loves his master so well, is wonderfully 
 quick to see the crack and improve it. The hand of God to 
 abolish slavery through this rebellion, is nowhere so evident 
 as in making contraband that particular species of property 
 which is to be found only on one side of the conflict, and for 
 which really the conflict itself has been precipitated. 3. 
 Again, there shall be a triumph of the last test of the ability 
 of a free people to defend themselves — namely : the test ol 
 internal treason. Such a satanic iniquity as this treason is 
 can never again grow to such fearful dimensions in this coun- 
 try. We have learned to watch our rulers. Great problems 
 are demonstrated but once. And this country, having stood 
 the test of both prosperity and extension, of outside antago- 
 nism and inside treacheries, and awakened to a ceaseless vig- 
 ilance, shall have a vista of magnificent developement opened 
 into the future ; in whose distance beams and brightens the 
 millennial day, when plough-shares and pruning hooks shall 
 be the sole needed weapons of her free and peaceful popu- 
 lation. 
 
 These I believe to be the issues and results you are called 
 to help decide. I say again, they are the most precious for 
 which you can lay down your life. The existence of our no- 
 ble government, the future of our successors, the hopes of all 
 nations, the civil and moral redemption of the world. — How 
 
10 
 
 sacred and solemn is your mission ! How earnest are our 
 prayers that you may accomplish it ! That you may do so^ 
 permit me to give you a few hints as to your own individual 
 duty, when you shall be called to the field. 
 
 1. Hang up, as a campaign map before you, the grand and 
 glorious results which you are to gain. Let these keep your 
 patriotism aglow, your heart strong, your purposes pure. In 
 the weary march, the dusty bivouac, the rainy night-watch, 
 look on the map of your destination and be strong. When 
 you shall be pacing the solitary sentinel-rounds, think of the 
 loved ones sleeping securely at home, because you are on the 
 watch for their stealthy enemy, and let it sharpen your vigi- 
 lance as if you were guarding the very door of your home. 
 When you are on the exhausting march, to rout the lurking 
 traitors from their entrenchments, let it be as the thrilling 
 music to your feet that its length measures their distance from 
 us. When you hear the whistle of the bullet, think that you 
 are standing as the shield of the world's precious hopes. 
 
 2. Remember your invisible Commander and Helper. We 
 tell you, as Moses told Israel near Canaan, "the Lord^thy 
 God walketh in the midst of thy camp, to deliver thee, and 
 to give up thine enemies before the : therefore shall thy camp 
 be holy : that he see no unclean thing in thee, and turn away 
 from thee." Such an ally as Jehovah, you cannot afford to of- 
 fend by transgressions of his law ! We have heard that the 
 camp is the accumulation of all temptations, and unless you 
 are filled with a devout fear of God, we tremble not only at 
 your moral perils, — but lest God should be provoked to send 
 corrections and rebuffs upon you. ' Let your fear of God and 
 honor of the government be entwined together ! 
 
 3. Remember that you will be the representatives of free- 
 men, and especially of Massachusetts, and act in all things 
 worthy of our little but glorious state. The Massachusetts 
 Fourth, in which this town has its beloved and patriotic 
 representatives, has had the honor of stepping first on the 
 traitor's soil. The Massachusetts Eighth has had the hon- 
 
11 
 
 or^ in conjunction with the 'New York Seventh, of opening 
 the first beam of relief upon our beleaguered capitol. The 
 Massachusetts Sixth has had the honor, so deserving of its 
 Lexington birth-place, of shedding the first blood in defend- 
 ing liberty. Let the Massachusetts Fifteenth gather some 
 equal honor to wreathe about the name of our beloved Com- 
 monwealth. You have as commanding ofiicers of your com- 
 panies, men who, we are confident, will not dishonor the au- 
 thority of their commissions. And as the commander of your 
 regiment, you have a colonel, all whose past antecedents in 
 the field prove that he will lead you where laurels are to be 
 gathered, if any can be found within reach of your arms. 
 
 But above mere military honor, I beg you to remember that 
 our state honor stands not more in our wealth and energy, than 
 in our morality and the religious integrity. You will repre- 
 sent not Lexington and Bunker Hill only, but Fanuel Hall 
 and Plymouth Eock also. You will represent the school 
 house and the meeting house, — yes, the first meeting house of 
 Plymouth, with the praying congregation below, and the flat 
 roof and mounted cannon above ; the gospel and arms to de- 
 fend it. Remember that you shall be specimen yankees from 
 the Pilgrim state, so misrepresented and so hated by om- 
 enemies, and always and everywhere be such specimens, in 
 lionor and morality and fidelity and religion, as to make the 
 name a glory to yourselves, and a terror to your enemies. 
 You bear a precious reputation ! Don't forget it ! Don't dis- 
 honor it ! 
 
 4. Keep yourselves in the best vigor to work effectively. 
 Sickness kills double of the bullet ; and sickness comes of vice 
 and careless exposes. Beware of them. It shall be a bright 
 honor to these companies if you will pledge yourselves to a man 
 to abstain from all intoxicating arinks ; as our company in the 
 navy have refused their grog. Remember that the bottle is 
 twice poisoned to our troops in the traitors' country. They 
 stop at no villainy to destroy your lives. We charge every 
 one of you to pledge yourselves against it, if you have not al- 
 
12 
 
 ready, as the best warrant of your health and vigor to stand 
 the exposures of a campaign. Let every other vice be put 
 in the same pledge of total abstinence. Your country calls 
 for able bodied men, and it shall not be honestly answering 
 her call for you to disable yourselves by indulgencies which 
 shall make your nerves unsteady and your eye dim in the 
 ady of battle, when you shall need a quick eye and a sure aim. 
 Keep your body in as good fighting condition as your mus- 
 ket. Pardon me if I am too particular, but I must exhort you 
 5. To swear not at all, and to respect the duties and 
 forms of religion. You are going on a sacred mission, not 
 only for liberty but for Christianity. Religion looks anxious- 
 ly and prayerfully on the strife, for her invaluable interests 
 are in peril. You are followed by the prayers and sympa- 
 thies of all christians, and you must not be the profane de- 
 fenders of a sacred cause. Ministers of the gospel, mem- 
 bers of churches, devout christians, are enlisted with you for 
 conscience sake, and you will find the sabbath service and 
 prayer meeting institutions in the camp, and of its most effec- 
 tive defenses too ! We beg you not to be neglectors of this 
 most important store house of supplies. Who can keep and 
 defend you like the Lord of Hosts ? When can his mercy- 
 seat be more precious to you, than in the morning, when your 
 knapsack is packed for advance against the enemy ? or in the 
 evening, when you are to spend the night as a scout among 
 hidden rifles ? Wherever you are, God will be near you to 
 help you, if you will call upon him. We beg you to be men 
 of prayer. If you have not been, begin now. Cromwell's 
 men were invincible, because they drew their courage from 
 heaven. The pilgrims prayed, and stood like a rock. Wash- 
 ington prayed, and the alder clumps around his army's tents 
 were all closets of prayer. It was through the power of 
 tlieir prayers that his shoeless regiments conquered on the 
 sharp and icy battle fields. Be you not afraid to lay hold 
 of the arm oi the mighty God of your fathers. Dear sirs ! be 
 men of prayer, and you shall be safe in any issue. 
 
13 
 
 I must l)C clone, and yet I am loth to close. If you shall he 
 summoned To the field of actual hattle. it is not probable that 
 every one of you will return anain. But ^yh.o will be left be- 
 hind, it is not given to us to know. In your common expos- 
 ure to a sudden death. I shall l)e unfaithful to my duty and to 
 my OAvn feelings, not to exhort each one of you to take care 
 of your own soul. Make a sacred convent with your God 
 and Saviour, as your fi.rst preparation for the miseen bullet. 
 Then yotir best estate will be sectu^ed. Never more than^^ 
 now do you need to have the Redeemer for yotir friend, and 
 your souls" interests camly and stirely committed to his care. 
 Peace with God should certainly go before war with men. 
 
 May God bless you. soldiers and fellow townsmen, everv 
 one, and have you in his holy keeping ! May you act worthi- 
 ly of the honorable name you carry, and the towns you repre- 
 sent. When you shall be called to stand •• in the imminent 
 deadly breach.'" may you be strong and courageous, and put 
 to flight the miserable, misguided traitors of our cotmtrv. 
 And finally, when this strife is over — and may it not cease till 
 ■_i ^it is rightly and ftilly ended, may you each safely return, 
 ennobled by yotir noble cause, to enjoy the blessings you have 
 so nobly voltmteered to go to defend. And if any of you 
 shall fall and return to us no more, your memories shall be 
 precious with us forever. Our sympathies and our prayers go 
 with you, and may it strengthen you in the day of battle, to 
 know that we are remembering you always before our 
 Father's God and yotns I God bless you all. 
 
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