Tctnv If** Christian duty Conf Pam 12mo #472 Christian Duty in the Present Time of Trouble. A SERMON I'IIKAi'ILKD AT ST. JAMES' CHURCH, \vi lmington; X. c, ON THE Fifth Sundav after Easter. 1861 BY THE RIGHT REV. THOMAS ATKINSON, D. D., BISHOP OF NORTH CAROLINA. L } UJiLISHED BY REQUEST WILMINGTON, N. C: FULTON & PRICE, STEAM POWER PRESS PRINTERS. 1861. THE WILLIAM R. PERKINS LIBRARY OF DUKE UNIVERSITY Rare Books CORRESPONDENCE Wilmington, May Gib, 18G1. Rt. Rev. Thos. Atkinson. — Dear Sir: We enjoyed the privilege ot hearing the Sermon delivered by you at St. James' Church, on Sunday last, and being assured that its publication would be productive of great good, we beg you will consent to furnish us with a copy for the purpose indicated. Most respeel fully THOS. D. WALKER, THOS. W. BROWN. J. H. FLANNKR. THOS. H. HARDIN, J. E. LIPPITT. WM. A. BERRY. WALKER MEARES, WM. A. WRIGHT, JAMES S. GREEN L. LANE. W. H. LIPPITT. A. MARTIN, JAMES G. BURR. D. S. COWAN. Wilmington, May 10th, 1861. Messieurs Thomas D. Walkek, W. A. Wright and others, — Gentlemen :— The Sermon you ask for is at your service, and I am truly pleased that the line of conduct it recommends should approve itself to the judgment of persons whose opinions have so much weight as yours ; and who, I believe, were not able altogether to agree on some of the preliminary questions connected with our present troubles. I remain, with great respect and regard, Faithfully, your friend, THOMAS ATKINSON. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from Duke University Libraries http://www.archive.org/details/christiandutyinp01atki ^l SERMON " Blesed is the man that endureth temptation 5 for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love Him.' ? --Sf. James, first Chapter, UtJ. Verse. We stand to-day, dear brethren, in the midst of circumstances of great doubt and anxiety, with provocations tending to kindle the bitterest and most vehement passions, and with the line of duty in many instances difficult to trace, and difficult to follow, even when traced. Never did we stand more in need of right counsels, delib- erate and conscientious reflection, earnest purpose to do our duty, and heartfelt dependence on God our Saviour, for guidance and strength to enable us for its performance. We stand to-day, face to face with civil war, a calamity, which, unless the experience and universal testimony of mankind deceive us, is direr and more to be deprecated than foreign war, than famine, than pestilence, than any other form of public evil. The cloud we have all been so long watching, which we have seen, day by day, and month by month, enlarging its skirts, and gathering blackness, is now beginning to burst upon us. It seems to me that no one but an Atheist, or an Epicurean, can doubt that it is God who rides in this storm, and will direct the whirlwind, and that He now calls upon us to look to Him, to con- sider our ways and our doings, to remember the offences by which we have heretofore provoked Him,, and to determine on the conduct we will hereafter pursue towards Him, towards our fellowmen, and towards ourselves. I feel that we have some solid grounds of encouragement to hope for His favour. This Commonwealth, with whose fortunes our own 6 are linked, cannot be said to have had any hand in causing, or pre- tcipitating the issue before us. She has sought, till the last momen, to avert it, and she has incurred censure by these efforts. But when compelled to elect between furnishing troops to subdue her nearest neighbors and kindred, and to open her Territory for the passage of armies marshalled to accomplish that odious, unauthor- ized and unhallowed object, or to refuse to aid, and to seek to hinder such attempts, she chose the part which affection, and interest and duty seems manifestly, and beyond all reasonable question, to require. What she has done, and is about to do, she does, as an old writer finely says in such a case, (i willingly, but with an unwilling mind," as an imperative, but painful duty. Such is the temper, we may be well assured, in which it best pleases Grod, that strife of any sort, especially strife of this sort, should be entered on. There is another consideration from which I derive great comfort, and which is certain to give comfort to all who receive it. It is that whatever we may think of some of the earlier steps in these disputes, yet as to the present questions between the North and the South, we can calmly, conscientiously, and, I think, con- clusively, to all impartial men, maintain before God and man that now at least we of the South are in the right. For we are on the de- fensive, we ask only to be let alone. That old Union to which we were all at one time so deeply attached, is now dissolved. It can- not be, at this time, amicably reconstructed. No one proposes it shall be done — no one supposes it can be done. Shall there then be a voluntary and friendly separation, or an attempt at subjugation. This is really the question before the people, lately known as the people of the United States. How strange that there should be any doubt as to the answer ! ! That men should hesitate which to pre- fer, a peaceful separation of those who cannot agree, or civil war, with all its horrors, and all its uncertain issues ! ! We ask the for- mer — those so lately our brethren demand the latter. Should they insist on this, and should they succeed in this detestable strife to the very height of their hopes, it would be worse than a barren victory. It would be a victory that would cost the conquerors not only mate- rial prosperity, but the very principles of government on which society with them, as with us, rests. I cannot then doubt, and it seems a singular hallucination that any man should mistake, the righteous cause in this present most lamentable controversy, and I hope and I believe that God will bless with temporal success the righteous cause. He may not, however for He does not always see fit to make right visibly triumphant,— But succeed or not, it is the cause on the side of which one would desire to be found. Yet, however this thought may cheer us, we cannot disguise from ourselves that success, should we obtain it, will not probably be reached until after an arduous and painful struine much more numerous from the same cause. Th ■ best remedy 1- the calm, soothing, elevating influence of religion. Remember the testimony of the Psalmist, as it is ex- press id in our prayer-book version : " The Lord i< King, be the people jo impatient. He sitteth between the cherubim, be 30 unquiet." Acquaint thyself with him, and he at peace. Fou will be to intermit, or at least diminish the performanc \ of your religious duties. Never yield to that tempta- tion—dread it. abhor it. N"ev sr had you such o scasion to he fervent in spi: L rd as now. Be more assiduous than ever heretofore in rea ling the Scriptures and th »f devout nun. in public prayer, and tli > use sram ints, an I ab >ve all, in YOur c ] tmestly upon God, yea, importunately be- seeching Him i" send peace, to advance righteousness, to purify and bless the land, and to prepare as, even by these troubles, to expect and to be ready for His coming. Make prayer more than ever a real communion with God. Temporal deliverance you may well and properly supplicate ; indeed it is your duty to ask this, but have still nearer to your souls the deliverance of those souls from sin and obduracy, and w orldliness. and bad passions, and His wrath, and I irnal death. Cry to Him in the all-prevailing name of Jesus, not for yourself only, but for your country, wretched and imperilled, for the Church weakened in its efforts, uncertain as to the future before it ; and cry to Him likewise for those near and dear to you, for husband, brother, father, son, that He would guard and preserve them, body and soul, amid the exceeding fury of this storm which now shakes our land. And lastly, remember that you 3'ourselves are now under trial ; that the issues of that trial are for eternity, that though sharp it will be short ; and that if you endure to the end you will be saved, and that the sharper the trial endured u the more glorious will be the salvation. And now, dear brethren, what will be the result ? Scripture prophesies.it, and history prophe- sies it. Some of you will fail in this time of temptation, and will not endure it. Some of you, I fear, will sacrifice to the passions of the hour the Christian character, and the Christian hope. Some of you will come out of 'the trial purified and refined, and assured of a brighter crown. Resolve, oh Christian hearer, this day, in God's strength, to which class you will belong ; whether to those who will cast away the crown to which perhaps for years they have as- pired, or those who hold on to their hope with greater resolution than before. Hollinger Corp. P H8.5