George Washington Flowers 
 Memorial Collection 
 
 DUKE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 
 
 ESTABLISHED BY THE 
 FAMILY OF 
 COLONEL FLOWERS 
 
Digitized by tine Internet Arcliive 
 in 2015 
 
 littps://arcliive.org/details/warpatriotsdutyOOston 
 
t Mu u)i tilt "iiitxht's gitlj, 
 
 DISCOURSE 
 
 DELIVERED IN PAIiK STREET CHURCH, 
 
 SUNDAY, APRIL 21, 1861, ' 
 
 R F/\'^ . A . L . STONE 
 
 B O S T 0 N : 
 I'UJiLISHED BY HENRY HOYT. 
 1S61. 
 
(Jljc lllar anir tlje |3atnot'0 JBntg. 
 
 A DISCOURSE 
 
 DELIVERED IN PARK STREET CHURCH, 
 
 SUNDAY, APRIL 21, 1861, 
 
 By 
 
 BOSTON: 
 PUBLISHED BY HENRY HOYT, 
 
 No. 9 CORNHI LL. 
 1861. 
 
Geo. C. Rand & Aveky, Printers, No. 3 Coknhill, Bostoh. 
 
'.'mm 
 
 CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 To Rev. a. L. Stone. 
 
 The undersig-ned, who had the pleasure of listening- to your able, elo- 
 quent, and patriotic discourse, preached before the Park Street Cluirch 
 and Society this morning, believing- that its sentiments should be widely 
 diifused, would most respectfully request a copy for publication. 
 We are very truly your obedient servants, 
 
 A. O. Brewster, 
 Henry Hoyt, 
 James A. Dix, 
 C. L. Bartlett, 
 H. O. Briggs, 
 Jno. J. Newcomb, 
 Eben Cutler, 
 W. T. Glidden, 
 Ezra Farnsworth, 
 Samuel Neal, 
 Nathan Orowell, 
 Edward B. Hall. 
 
 Boston, April 21, 1861. 
 
 Boston, Sabbath Noon, ) 
 April 21, 1861. { 
 
 Gentlemen: If I yield to your request, it must be of course on the 
 instant, with no opportunity of revising- or reconsidering the words I 
 have uttered. But I am willing to stand by them, and to speak them to 
 the widest possible auditory. I submit the MS. to your disposal. 
 Yours in devotion to our common country, 
 
 A. L. STONE, 
 
 Messrs. A. O. Brewster and others. 
 
THE WAR AND THE PATRIOT'S DUTY. 
 
 " Wherefore I have not sinned against thee, but thou doest me wrong to 
 war against me; the Lord the Judge be judge this day between the chil- 
 dren of Israel and the children of Ammon.^'' — Judges xi. 27. 
 
 At that period in the history of Israel, called " the 
 time of the judges," and at a point in that period of 
 great distraction and confusion in national affairs, no 
 judge at the head of the administration, — the princes 
 discordant among tliemselves, every man doing that 
 which was right in his own eyes, and the whole nation 
 corrupting itself with idolatry, — the king of the Am- 
 monites moved a great army into the pleasant and fruit- 
 ful vales of Gilead, with intent to subject all that fertile 
 region east of the river to his own sway. It is well for 
 the children of Israel in Gilead that they succeed in 
 making Jephthah their captain, and commit the conduct 
 of the war to him. He accepts the trust, and justifies 
 the confidence reposed in him by the wise and prompt 
 measures which he adopts. The armed invaders are 
 already upon his soil ; the Ammonites are the trespass- 
 ers, but Jephthah is patient and forbearing. He does 
 not precipitate himself upon his enemies, — "a word and 
 a blow," the blow first, — but sends messengers to the 
 invading king to ask the reason and the justification of 
 this act of hostility. When was ever the hand of vio- 
 1* 
 
6 
 
 lence witliont a pretext for striking? The king asserts 
 tliat when the Israelites came up out of Egypt they 
 dispossessed him of those very lands, and that he is 
 there to regain his own ; a claim that has slumbered 
 three hundred years trumped up now, evidently for the 
 occasion. Still, Jephthah is patient and calm. It is 
 w^orth while, if he can, to show the Ammonites the in- 
 justice of their claim, to convince them of the right- 
 eousness of Israel's cause, and by argument and per- 
 suasion to turn back the tide of strife. And again he 
 sends messengers to rehearse the matter at large, — 
 how that the Ammonites had been originally dispos- 
 sessed by the Amorites ; that the Amorites had waged 
 an unjust war against Israel and lost these lands to her 
 in that conflict ; that the Supreme Disposer and Ex- 
 ecutive had commanded Israel to take possession of 
 this region and hold it for him ; that they had held for 
 three centuries ; that their holding had never been mo- 
 lested or disputed, and that therefore the present in- 
 vasion was unjustifiable. Little cared the covetous 
 king of Ammon about the right of the case. Probably 
 he and his forces encouraged themselves over this long 
 delay, this fruitless negotiation on the part of the new 
 captain and the men of Gilead. They said, very likely, 
 one to another, "These men are afraid to fight us ; they 
 will yield all we have demanded. If they had not 
 been cowards, or altogether unprepared to meet us in 
 arms, they would not have stood talking so long. We 
 have only to show a bold front, and these rich prov' 
 
7 
 
 inces are ours, even to the banks of the Jordan ; and 
 then, as the next step, the whole Jordan valley on 
 either bank, the border provinces, will fall to our do- 
 minion." 
 
 They had mistaken their man. While delaying and 
 negotiating, Jephthah had been assembling forces at 
 Mizpeh. He had pnt the Ammonites into the wrong. 
 He had shown his desire for a righteous peace. He 
 had pushed his forbearance to its utmost limit. Before 
 God and man he had convicted the invaders of com- 
 mitting a wanton and indefensible assault. Then he 
 marched, and the battle was joined. And the Lord 
 delivered the Ammonites into the hands of Jephthah ; 
 " and he smote them from Aroer even till thou come 
 to Minnith, even twenty cities, and unto the plain of 
 the vineyards, with a very great slaughter. Thus the 
 children of Ammon were subdued before the children 
 of Israel." 
 
 From the horizon that has been darkening day by 
 day for months past, as our eyes have looked south- 
 ward, there have shot up at last the lurid clouds of war. 
 Out of the bosom of the cloud we have seen the sul- 
 phurous flashes and heard the crash of the thunders, 
 and know that the bolts of doom have fallen. The 
 curtain that hung before the scene in that southern har- 
 bor, where one little patriot band stood at bay, ringed 
 about with a score of iron-mouthed batteries, rose, and 
 the gaze of thirty millions of people in this land w\as 
 fastened upon the opening of the great tragedy. Against 
 
8 
 
 the brave old flag and its few defenders, traitorous and 
 rebel hands launched the missives of death and de- 
 struction. For awhile it waved amid clouds and smoke, 
 and its chamjoions gave back the stormy salutation of 
 the hostile leaguer, fourscore against seven thousand, 
 and then upon the well-defended and blackened ruin 
 came down the stainless bunting, a martial shroud for 
 the lost fortress. And over the land, from city to city, 
 and home to home, waking the echoes of every hill- 
 side and every hearthstone, — uttered by the lightning's 
 fiery tongue, repeated by the press, and vibrating on 
 all the air, — has gone one brief word, that has in 
 it ,a world of dreadful meaning, "War!" "War!" 
 That word is ringing in our ears to-day ; we cannot 
 shut it out. That meaning is on our hearts ; we cannot 
 throw off the burden. 
 
 Do you ask. Why repeat that word here, within this 
 calm retreat, consecrated to the utterance of that gos- 
 pel which is " peace on earth, good will to men ? " If 
 all the air outside is stirred by it, why not keep these 
 sacred hours, and this sacred place, for other words and 
 sounds, — the words of love and mercy ? Because the 
 most momentous question we can ask to-day of the 
 oracles of God, is what spirit we ought to cherish, and 
 what duties we have to perform in this great stress that 
 is come upon us ; because our country has a right to be 
 remembered, as we come with all that keep holy time, 
 to the Throne of Grace; because we cannot, as Chris- 
 tian patriots, forget her before God in this day of trouble ; 
 
9 
 
 because nothing has more at stake, in a time of war, 
 than God's religion and all its ordinances ; because by 
 example of our godly ancestry, our old puritan wor- 
 thies of the 'New England pulpit, who consecrated the 
 banners, and baptized the swords, and blessed the sol- 
 dier, in the ancient fight for freedom, and sometimes 
 went before him to the field, as on the greensward of 
 Lexington on that April day, long ago, — their descend- 
 ants in the pulpit cannot be true to God in the dis- 
 charge of their sacred functions unless they are true to 
 their country; and because, for one, I believe that 
 there is no duty for the Christian pastor so sacred to- 
 day as to seek to swell, and steady, and guide the cur- 
 rents of patriotic self-devotion. Very likely some of 
 you will judge otherwise. I am not indifierent to the 
 judgment of my fellow-men, but as I think and believe 
 I must speak. Let us look, then, at our relations and 
 our duties in the strange tragic time upon which we 
 are fallen. 
 
 And the first point is. Can we truthfully and honestly 
 borrow the words of Jephthah the Gileadite to the king 
 of Amnion, as our vindication to our brethren and foe- 
 men of the South, "Wherefore I have not sinned 
 against thee?" The question is not whether indi- 
 viduals have spoken harshly, rashly, and unfraternally 
 against their fellow-citizens of the Southern States. 
 Not whether the Northern conscience has widely and 
 earnestly pronounced against the inherent unrighteous- 
 ness of the great domestic institution of the South; 
 
10 
 
 'Not whether by all means fairly and lawfully open to 
 Christian reformers — the pen, the press, the pulpit, the 
 rostrum, the varied voices of free discussion — humane 
 and philanthropic men have done their best to revolu- 
 tionize the public sentiment of this land and bring us 
 back to the acknowledged position of the fathers and 
 founders of the Republic. Not whether in the set- 
 tlement of new territories, freedom has poured in her 
 majorities and saved the virgin soil from the curse of 
 slavery. ISTot whether one half-crazed old man, on 
 his responsibility to God and his own soul, dashed him- 
 self upon the ramparts of that institution in a wild 
 crusade. None of these issues have been made. It 
 is known that none of these are the real issues. It is 
 a parricidal hand that has been lifted. The blow that 
 has been struck has been delivered against the breast 
 of the National Government. The question is, the 
 only pertinent question. What has the General 
 Government done to injure or offend one or 
 SEVEN States of the South? And that question 
 cannot be answered. It will go down the stream of 
 history unanswered and nnanswerable. Not one right 
 has been trampled on; not one immunity withheld; 
 not one privilege denied ; not one liberty infringed ; 
 and not even a solitary interest threatened. If the 
 issue were with Northern freemen as individuals, it 
 could not be successfully maintained that the South 
 had ever suffered any wrong. If any right in this 
 land is sacred and universal, it is the right of free dis- 
 
11 
 
 cussion, and tlie exercise of this right is the extent of 
 northern sinning. We have thought and felt and be- 
 lieved, and have therefore spoken, but we have obeyed 
 the laws. We have kept the Constitution, only con- 
 tending that it should be interpreted as the Others 
 framed it, and as all parties now confess ■ — even the 
 authors of the new — -in the interests of justice and 
 freedom. But what possible indictment against the 
 national supreme administration ? Not a word, — not 
 a whisper, — not a shadow. Before the present admin- 
 istration was inaugurated the plot of treason was per- 
 fected and consummated. To-day each State is abso- 
 lutely supreme in the matter of its own institutions 
 and laws, and not one statute of the Federal Govern- 
 ment has crossed the lines of State sovereignty, cer- 
 tainly not at the South, to interpose another and a 
 restrictive authority. Utterly, utterly and for ever 
 groundless is this great crime of assailing the most 
 generous, the most liberal, the most beneficent Gov- 
 ernment on the face of the earth, — a Governm^ent on 
 the charity of which, in many public interests, the 
 assailants lived. Before a witnessing world, — before 
 the tribunal of impartial history, — before the bar of 
 omniscience, the Government at our IN'ational Capital 
 can stand up and say to the spirit of rebellion, 
 "Wherefore I have not sinned against thee." 
 
 Will it be pretended that the Government was quick 
 and hot to take offence ; that it rushed to arms on slight 
 provocation, eager for the fray ; that it made war cer- 
 
12 
 
 tain and inevitable by precipitating its occasion and 
 fanning its fires ? Nay, — was there ever before in all 
 human annals a Government so forbearing, so paternal, 
 so calmly patient, so silently enduriiig under manifest 
 and manifold wrongs, — hoping against hope that 
 right reason would reassert its sway and the hour of 
 madness pass, -— pushing forbearance even to the verge 
 of pusillanimity, straining the confidence of its friends, 
 and stifling all the enthusiasm of its supporters, anc' 
 only at last, in self-defence, by the final wrong and 
 deadly and unprovoked assault, putting forth its power 
 and saying to rebellion, "Thus far, but no farther! " 
 Was there ever such a spectacle be-fore ? Kings and 
 cabinets might well look on amazed. The muse of 
 history will write it with unmingled admiration. 
 Surely this Government may say it with emphasis 
 clear and loud, " I have not sinned against thee." 
 
 And then follows the next line of the ancient vindi- 
 cation, " But thou doest me wrong to war against me." 
 How palpable for the modern vindication that wrong ! 
 The wrong of a long and silently prepared conspiracy ; 
 of munitions of war traitorously appropriated ; of pub- 
 lic treasures plundered ; of the forces and armaments 
 of public defence scattered far and wide ; of the loyalty 
 of citizens and soldiery assiduously corrupted ; of forts, 
 and arsenals, and mints, and national vessels seized ; oi 
 systematic attempts to seduce State after State from 
 the Confederacy ; of insult and injury to the national 
 functionaries ; of the allegiance of more than two mih 
 
13 
 
 lions of free white citizens to tlie General Government 
 formally dissolved ; of armed occupancy of the national 
 property ; and finally, of battle opened with cannon and 
 mortar against a national fortress and its commissioned 
 defenders under the flag of their country. It may look 
 feeble and childish, — there may seem to be little of 
 dignity and authority, when the Government waits 
 and rises up to say, " Thou doest wrong to war against 
 me," — but it is not undignified in God's sight; it is 
 the grandeur of receiving wrong patiently ; it is t]ie 
 invincible strength of right. When that protest can 
 be truly offered, then God the righteous Judge is on 
 our side, and with arms in our hands we may appeal to 
 the God of battles. 
 
 And now what have we to do ? We have, first of 
 all, to let it be known where we stand, — to come out 
 every man from his silence and his seclusion, and ex- 
 press his sympathy for the Government, and take sides, 
 if he is a patriot, with the Union and the laws of tlie 
 land. And here, thank God, the response of twenty 
 millions of hearts outruns all exhortation. Least of all 
 is it needed in these streets and homes that any 
 prophet urge his fellow-men to show which cause they 
 espouse. There was with the patriotic majorities of 
 our Northern cities and States, a long and ominous 
 silence between the incoming of the present adminis- 
 tration and this hour of awaking. It seemed a dull 
 and strange apathy. It was mysterious and unintelli- 
 gible. 'No man could fathom it. What lay beneath 
 2 
 
14 
 
 this calm ? What did this utter blank of expression 
 portend ? Some thought it meant distrust of the Gov- 
 ernment and its policy. Some supposed it to be a wide 
 popular reaction from the views that had won a popu- 
 lar victory. Some saw in it disappointment, chagrin, 
 and discontent. Some, and they were not a few, in- 
 terpreted it as a sympathy with the Southern uprising, 
 that would in due time take on bolder forms, and in- 
 augurate positive measures. It was as the silence of 
 nature in the torpid winter, — it was as the hush of life 
 in the darkness of night, — it was as the stillness in 
 earth and sky that precedes the breaking of the tem- 
 pest. But no seer could say what the awakening 
 would be. The silence was yet deep and impene- 
 trable. 
 
 And men began to feel that the sentiment of loyalty 
 was wanting to American hearts, — that ours was a 
 style of government that could not inspire that senti- 
 ment, — that we were sensitive for State rights, — that 
 we were proud of our power and prosperity, — that 
 we loved and worshipped our golden idol^ but that the 
 spirit of chivalrous and loyal devotion to our unroman- 
 tic, remote, almost impersonal government had no 
 home in republican breasts. We know better to-day. 
 The silence is broken and interpreted. The sup- 
 pressed fire flames out. The shadowy secret is voiced 
 forth. In that silence the fervors of patriotism were 
 nursing themselves; the glow was becoming hotter 
 and whiter ; the pent forces were moving and accumu- 
 
15 
 
 lating, like the meeting and commingling elements of 
 subterranean fires, before the mountain summit opens, 
 or the earthquake rocks a continent. And there is no 
 symbol in nature that is this hour a fit type of the 
 burning and enthusiastic loyalty of the whole Ameri- 
 mn people. It is deeper and broader than the father 
 of waters ; it is more forceful and impetuous than the 
 gushing life of spring ; it is more annihilating and fatal 
 to opposition than the lava stream of the live volcano ; 
 it is likest to that unearthly tempest, that rushing, 
 mighty wind, in which was the sounding beat of celes- 
 tial pinions, and which filled Jerusalem on Pentecost, 
 crowning each mute disciple with cloven tongues of 
 fire. 
 
 The signal was the pulse that woke at Charleston 
 harbor. The fire-tipped rod that discharged the first 
 cannon on the walls of Moultrie, was as the rod of 
 Moses to the rocklike calm of the Northern heart. The 
 crimsoned and starry flag came down at Sumter, tat- 
 tered and stained by the smoke of battle, but not dis- 
 honored. And as though that signal had been waited 
 for, it has gone up on every hill-top and tower, on every 
 stafF, and well-nigh every home of the Korth, and East, 
 and West, and every breeze of heaven lifts it, and 
 nightly dews baptize it, and the first sunbeam of morn- 
 ing and the last of evening kiss it; and tearful but 
 resolute eyes look up to it, and firm-knit hearts and 
 planted feet are underneath; and dearer than home 
 and life, and sacred next to our faith and our God, is 
 
16 
 
 the old flag yet. Here's the sentiment of loyalty. It 
 was not " dead, but sleeping." It has awoke. JSTever 
 did king, or queen, or conqueror, or any style of im- 
 perial power draw after it a love so deep, and pure, and 
 strong, as does that mute symbol to-xiay, under which 
 our fathers fought and triumphed, under which the 
 marches of our nation's greatness have gone onward. 
 And now it is known at Washington, and begins to be 
 known at that other centre of usurped sovereignty, 
 how the J^Torthern heart beats — and the first step, that 
 which asserted our position and sympathy, is taken. 
 
 And the next is, that we respond to the call for men 
 and means. War, when it must be, is a dreadful 
 necessity. It comes not like the breath of May, moist 
 with showers, and fragrant with violets. It comes like 
 a destroying tempest, and pours abroad its arrowy sleet 
 and iron hail, and dashes down its chained thunder- 
 bolts of doom, making wreck and havoc in all the 
 happy fields. Paint it as you will, in colors of flaming 
 fury and wrath, with awful death shades, you cannot 
 go beyond the fierce and grim original. There is a sym- 
 bol of prophecy which to me it always recalls as its 
 most fitting exponent, that "fourth beast," which 
 Daniel in his vision saw rising out of the Great Sea, 
 " dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly ; and it 
 had great iron teeth ; it devoured and brake in pieces, 
 and stamped the residue with the feet of it." Woe 
 to those that invoke it out of the tossing sea of human 
 dissensions, and send it forth on its wasting errand; 
 
17 
 
 woe to the land over which passes the tread of its ter- 
 rible hoofs. Beneath the all-seeing heaven to-day we 
 can say it is not of our invoking. But must it be ? 
 Can any human interest imperilled here be worth this 
 dreadful cost ? Is there no way to hold ourselves back 
 from this gulf ? 
 
 There is a way. Yield all which rebellion asks; 
 upon which rebellion, with arms in its hands, insists. 
 Yield the national fortresses on Southern soil; yield 
 the national Territories below the line; yield the 
 national Capital ; yield these cities and villages of ours 
 to the transition marches of Southern masters, with 
 their retinue of slaves, lingering as they will on the 
 way ; yield the right to elect to the chief magistracy 
 by popular suffrage the man of the popular choice; 
 yield the righteousness of that insurrection that as- 
 sumes the dignity of revolution ; yield the principle 
 that government is no government, when any portion 
 of its subjects disallow its supremacy; and that an 
 empire, or a kingdom, or a republic, may go to piece's 
 and blot itself out from existence when men here and 
 there shake off its authority and forswear allegiance ; 
 burn the old constitution and vow fealty to the new; 
 tear down the ten thousand banners that float to-day 
 on the Sabbath air, the venerated stars and stripes, and 
 run up that traitorous rag that dishonors Sumter's bat- 
 tered and blackened walls. Do this, and we may avert 
 war — for a time. Do you doubt whether we must 
 bid so high for peace ? These have been and are the 
 2^ 
 
18 
 
 unfaltering demands. Will armed rebellion — victo- 
 rious in battle — to om- timid supplication reduce its 
 demand ? But can we not pause, and treat, and settle 
 it by negotiation and diplomacy ? We can if we will 
 acknowledge a principle that forever disintegrates our 
 Union, makes the permanent existence of government 
 impossible, and formally inaugurates an element of 
 anarchy and disruption as the law of our national life, 
 — and on no cheaper terms. N"ow, tliis being the issue, 
 dreadful as is the necessity, it must come. Look dis- 
 tinctly at this issue. It is not an anti-slavery war we 
 wage; not a sectional war; not a war of conquest and 
 subjugation; it is simply and solely a war for the 
 maintenance of the Government and the Constitution. 
 Other matters and interests may have their settlement 
 in the progress of the strife. God's providence will 
 order concerning that : but the question of to-day is, 
 shall there be a Government in this land, according to 
 the organic law of the land and the oaths of fealty to 
 that law? Or shall rebellion, when it will and where 
 it will, pull and tear down, and trample and destroy, 
 at its own lawless bidding ? 
 
 And on this issue the Government calls. Who is on 
 OUT side f Who will rally to the national flag ? Thank 
 God again, there is no need of urgency on this point. 
 I hear the tread of gathering thousands, — I see the 
 deep enthusiasm of souls on fire with love and duty 
 toward the common country. I see mothers dismissing 
 their sons with tender benedictions, and young wives 
 
19 
 
 buckfing the sword-belt around the forms they leaned 
 upon ; and sisters and (simple and homely, but honest 
 and touching word,) sweethearts bidding adieus to the 
 young and brave who may return no more. The 
 streets echo to the soldier's tread, and the strains of 
 martial music, and with " God Uess you ! " streaming 
 over them like bannered inscriptions, our brothers and 
 our boys go forth to the war. ISTot here only is this 
 response. The uprising is universal. Among the hills 
 of N'ew England, through quiet old towns and peace- 
 ful villages, along the watercourses and the sea shore, 
 in every little hamlet, where the fisherman tended his 
 net and the stanch yeoman followed the early plow, 
 comes the mustering cry; and every heart answers, 
 "Here am I, send me." Dainty youth, with soft hands 
 and fair cheeks, turn from silks and laces to grasp the 
 gleaming steel. Students leave their cloistered halls 
 and the evening lamp for the camp and the bivouac. 
 Gray-haired ministers of the gospel offer their hands 
 to fight, their lips to pray. Young lovers walk to tlie 
 altar with pale brides, then join the march. From bor- 
 der to border within each loyal State, these scenes are 
 repeated ten thousand times. Our foreign-born citi- 
 zens show the hearts of sons for the mother that ]ias 
 adopted them. And those summoned first to the con- 
 flict, go forward with proud joy. It is of God. Men 
 are inspired. His spirit has breathed upon them. A 
 holy baptism of love and truth for native land is let 
 down upon them. And still the current deepens and 
 
20 
 
 widens. It is no French conscription, it is no forced 
 levy, it is no stealthy press-gang filling the ranks. Jt 
 is the true loyal heart of the country offering service, 
 — its young men, its heroic blood, its young ardor its 
 life knit to other and kindred life. Yes, go, young 
 patriots ! lay down the implements of peace, take up 
 the weapons of war. Look not behind you, look for- 
 ward ; your country calls. She is our mother in this 
 her hour of danger. She has a right to the help of her 
 sons. Go and be valiant and faithful. You cannot be 
 otherwise. You bear names that cannot be dishonored. 
 You are followed by watchwords out of the past of 
 New England's story that will stir your hearts to no- 
 blest deeds when the combat deepens. 
 
 Go ; if you fall at the threshold, if dastardly treason 
 strike before the battle be manfully joined, we shall 
 garner up your dust, and learn your names, and frame 
 them into tender and immortal verse, and write them 
 on our hearts. And those of kindred blood that mourn 
 you, will stand by your graves with badges such as 
 mourners in the time of peace never wear, and have 
 their home henceforth in our love and reverence, and 
 almost in our envy. And we that remain ? Well, we 
 must stand ready to go too, if we are wanted. Who 
 is he that will shrink, if the call come ? We have one 
 life to live, and death will find us all. We cannot live 
 that life to better purpose than to serve God in serv- 
 ing our country. Death cannot come to us at a higher 
 post of duty than when we strike for this blood-hal- 
 lowed, prayer-hallowed Union. 
 
21 
 
 If we go not, the comfort of those that go in our ^ 
 name is our care, — the comfort of deserted home-cir- 
 cles, — of young families, — of widowed mothers poor 
 and old, — of aged parents whose time and strength 
 for gainful toil is past, — is in our heart and in our 
 charge. We can be faithful to this most sacred trust. 
 
 If we go not, we can see that the Government shall 
 not lack the sinews of war. Every offer of gold out 
 of our treasures is worth more than the yellow metal ; 
 it is aid and comfort to those at the nation's head ; it 
 strikes dismay to traitorous hearts. We must have, we 
 ought to have, but one style of utterance among us. 
 Let the tongues and pens whose words have helped to 
 demoralize the North, to discourage, dishearten, and 
 perplex the Government, and to delude the South into 
 the belief that multitudes of our population would 
 stand by them in any mad scheme against the Union 
 and the nationality, — tongues and pens upon which 
 rests to-day a responsibility of crimson dye, — cease 
 their false testimony, and if they can not speak for 
 freedom and patriotism, at least learn the safety and 
 wisdom of silence ; and if they have no loyalty in 
 their hearts, either put on its colors openly or openly 
 join the league of parricides. Such men are but few 
 to-day, any where in all the united North, — very few 
 within this old stanch Commonwealth. Would to God 
 there were none. 
 
 We have, let us not forget, our own hearts to guard. 
 If war is a duty, it is a Christian duty, as sacred as 
 
22 
 
 prayer, — as solemn as sacraments. That which is 
 sometimes called the war spirit, must have no home in 
 our breast. We must watch against its savageness, — 
 its hate, — its revengefulness, — its murderous yancor. 
 When public justice smites with her sword on the 
 neck of crime, there is no passion in her stroke, only a 
 stern and awful sorrow. I have read of a minister of 
 the gospel, who went into battle and dispatched one 
 after another a score of unerring bullets ; and as each 
 took effect, he apostrophized from afar the victim, " My 
 poor fellow, God have mercy on your soul." That is 
 the spirit in which to fight and in which to wait. 
 
 But in this spirit we ought to make the war over- 
 whelming. Not a hundred thousand, but a half a mil- 
 lion of men ought to be in motion. We ought to pour 
 our legions forward. It is mercy now to go strong and 
 strike hard. The grapple has come, — finish it quick 
 and finish it for ever. Let this contest never need to be 
 renewed. Let it be settled fi'om henceforth in this 
 land that a Government has a right to be a Govern- 
 ment. Let discontent and treason learn that when 
 they stretch out sacrilegious hands to tug at the pillars 
 of the Union, and of all constitutional law, that hand 
 shall be stricken down and for ever palsied. Let us 
 meet and settle this issue now, and bury it so deep, in 
 a grave so blood-cemented, that it shall have to the 
 end of time no resurrection. Let us not be so eager 
 for peace as to heal this hurt slightly. Let the laws go 
 with the armies. Hang Teaitoes. Above the terror 
 
23 
 
 of sword and bayonet, let there be the terror of the 
 gibbet and the rope. Give not to treason, when it can 
 be helped, the honor of a soldier's death. Widen the 
 streets through riotous cities. Make a broad passage 
 for the country's defenders. Raze the nests of con- 
 spirators,with axe and fire. This is shortest and surest, 
 time-saving and hfe-saving. Let the cautery burn this 
 ulcer out. That is the message to-day of the law of 
 love. 
 
 And we have finally on our hearts a solemn charge 
 of intercession. We must let no excitement separate 
 betAveen our souls and God. We have to bear up be- 
 fore him our friends and neighbors who have put on 
 the soldiers' uniform, that they may be Christ's soldiers 
 as Avell as the country's, and be at peace with God. 
 We have to entreat his great mercy for bleeding hearts 
 in lonely homes, — hearts whose thoughts will be 
 straying with an irresistible fascination to the field of 
 strife, and searching in the onset and amid the iron 
 storm, and after sunset on the trodden ground for well- 
 remembered and familiar forms. We have to pray as 
 did the royal singer and captain of Israel : " Wilt not 
 thou, O God, go forth with our hosts ? " We have to 
 remember our enemies and remember that they are 
 brothers, and that their sufierings will be equal to ours, 
 and greater, — and beseech God to quell the madness 
 of their hearts, and to be gracious to their distress. 
 We have to entreat the Lord especially that the tem- 
 pest of war may speedily pass, that the bow of peace, 
 
24 
 
 righteous and abiding peace, may span the dark retiring 
 cloud, and that no such frenzy may break in again upon 
 that great mission which he appointed us as a nation 
 to fulfil. We have to remember, too, all the sweet 
 charities and kind and tender offices and great and 
 good endeavors that belong to us as men and citizens 
 and disciples, and make our almsgiving abound, and 
 roll forward with helping hand every scheme of human 
 amelioration and Christian zeal on which the progress 
 of civilization and the triumph of the gospel dejoend, 
 — causes and endeavors which droop in time of war, — ■ 
 and earnestly and continually to commend these great 
 and good enterprises to God's favor. 
 
 Waiting thus upon God we shall best steady our- 
 selves in the midst of whatever fluctuations. One day 
 shall give us tidings of victory, the next perhaps of 
 defeat. One day the flag shall rise amid the huzzahs of 
 triumph, the next it shall sink beneath the tramj^ling 
 of hostile feet. If we go by the sight of the eye and 
 the hearing of the ear, our souls will be in perpetual 
 commotion. If we stay ourselves upon God, and look 
 into his calm face, and remember that the issue is with 
 him, that " the Lord is a man-of-war," that " the Lord 
 is his name," that he will give, if our faith and con- 
 stancy fail not, the victory to the right, we too shall be 
 calm and courageous and of good hope. 
 
Date Due 
 
 w 21 m 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Form 335. 25M— 7-38— S 
 
'^975 79 Z99M V.6 nos.l-l? 
 
 359701 
 
 DATE 
 
 ISSUED TO 
 
 3(Li^/mj^£_ 
 
 973.79 Z99M 6 no s. 1-17 
 
 359701 
 
 fB2S TOL0M« DOES NOT CIRCULAR 
 OTISIDl TH« LIBRARY BUILDIM®