Qass. 
 Book. 
 
 F • 
 
 X 
 

 SERMON 
 
 COMMEMORATIVE OF 
 
 NATIONAL EVENTS 
 
 BY 
 
 REV. JAMES M. LUDLOW. 
 
SERMON 
 
 COMMEMORATIVE OF 
 
 NATIONAL EVENTS, 
 
 DELIVERED IN THE 
 
 FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, ALBANY, N. Y., 
 APRIL 23d, 1865, 
 
 BY THE PASTOR, 
 
 REV. JAMES M. LUDLOW. 
 
 ALBANY: 
 
 WEED, PARSONS AND COMPANY, PRINTERS. 
 
 1865. 
 
,8 
 
CORRESPOKDEjSTCE. 
 
 „ , , x .„ , Albany, May 1st, 1865. 
 
 Rev d James M. Ludlow : 
 
 Dear Sir — The undersigued, members of your Church and Congregation, 
 respectfully request that you would furnish, for publication, a copy of your late 
 Sermon upon the teachings of the recent dispensations of Providence in our 
 national affairs. 
 
 Yours, &c, 
 
 ALDEN MARCH. T. R. BOYD. 
 
 ALFRED WILD. WILLIAM WHITE. 
 
 FRANKLIN TOWNSEND. THOS. P. CROOK. 
 
 B. P. LEARNED. WM. MITCHELL. 
 
 D. D. T. CHARLES. S. McKISSICK. 
 
 _ Albany, May bth, 1865. 
 
 Gentlemen: 
 
 I cheerfully place at your disposal the Discourse referred to in your note. 
 With the exception of changes necessitated by the mode of its original prepa- 
 ration, and the omission of a portion for the sake of brevity, the Sermon is 
 substantially the same as delivered. Praying that its publication may be pro- 
 ductive of good, 
 
 I am, with high regard, 
 
 Yours, 
 
 JAMES M. LUDLOW. 
 To Messrs. Boyd, March, and others. 
 
SERMON. 
 
 Psalm cxvi : 12, 13, 14. — " What shall I render unto the Lord for 
 all his benefits toward me? I will take the cup of Salvation and call 
 upon the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in 
 the presence of all his people." 
 
 I would not be justified in allowing any sentiments 
 to tone the services of to-day, other than those 
 inspired by the great events through which our 
 nation is passing, and which fill your and the popu- 
 lar heart. 
 
 The sacred words we have selected to give direc- 
 tion and definiteness to the thoughts which crowd 
 the mind, were either the utterances of King David, 
 when delivered from the rebellion of his son Absa- 
 lom, or those of the ideal "Man of Judah," or 
 " Daughter of Jerusalem," who represent the whole 
 Jewish people, and thus express the national feeling 
 upon liberation from Babylonish captivity. 
 
 But to whatever event the Psalmist here alludes, 
 the language seems eminently appropriate upon this 
 occasion — and that for a double reason. In the first 
 place, its tone testifies that it was uttered by one 
 
who appreciated the import of the event which 
 suggested it, and whose words were moulded by 
 sanctified lips. A second mark of its propriety is 
 the accompaniment of sorrow, which blends with the 
 notes of joy throughout the Psalm in which the text 
 is found. There are tears in the singer's eyes, as 
 well as gladness upon his tongue. The lips evidently 
 tremble, and the voice is broken with remembered 
 sadness, while he utters his thanksgiving. Mark such 
 expressions as these: "The sorrows of death com- 
 passed me " — "I found trouble and sorrow" — "I was 
 greatly afflicted" — "Thou hast delivered my soul 
 from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from 
 falling." If King David here sings the triumph of 
 loyal arms and the suppression of rebellion, he has 
 not forgotten the lamentation so lately uttered : " O 
 my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom ! Would 
 God I had died for thee, O Absalom, my son, my 
 son !" Or if the other reference be regarded, surely 
 the harp has lost much of its sweetness while hang- 
 ing upon the willows by the rivers of Babylon, and 
 the fingers have forgotten their skill during the 
 dreary years of captivity. 
 
 I confess that I do not understand the national 
 spirit at this hour, if it be not moved with mingled 
 feelings of deep gratitude to God for blessings con- 
 ferred, and of sorrowful submission to the stroke of 
 his affliction. The one pulse beats high with raptur- 
 
ous joy ; the other throbs slowly and painfully, as 
 the blood passes drop by drop from a heart breaking 
 with grief. The air is fraught with the tidings of 
 victories, glorious victories for the nation, and for 
 man ; and we have won a new and perennial crown 
 for her whom we have chosen to be the symbol of 
 our liberties and prowess ; but her brow aches with 
 weeping; she cannot bear the honors now; she 
 is prostrate upon the earth, clad in the weeds of 
 mourning. It seemed enough that her sons had 
 fallen in the midst of the battle; but as she drained 
 that bitter cup, and was raising her thanksgiving to 
 Heaven for the strength of His spirit who had sus- 
 tained her during the years of agony, it was again 
 filled to overflowing, and she is now fallen beneath 
 the burden of the added grief. The assassin's work, 
 as it was the legitimate offspring and appropriate 
 symbol of the whole of this unhallowed rebellion, so 
 it is its crowning act, its preeminent guilt, and is 
 also the consummation of the nation's woes. 
 
 Until this sorrow-swollen hour, there were portions 
 of the country where the horrors of the contest were 
 scarcely felt. There were spots undesolated, and 
 homes unvisited by the cruelties of war. But now 
 there is a great cry throughout the land, as in the 
 night of Egyptian mourning, for there is not a house 
 in which there is not one dead. The habiliments of 
 woe drape the marts of commerce, the halls of legis- 
 
lation, the temples of religion, the dwellings alike 
 of rich and poor ; even the pauper's penny, and the 
 widow's mite have been expended in procuring some 
 little testimonial of unfeigned grief. The mantle 
 which covers the corpse of the martyred President, 
 also envelopes the whole country over which in love 
 he ruled ; and millions of devoted hearts are buried 
 with him. 
 
 But there is no need that we open afresh the 
 wounds which time has begun to heal. God's hand, 
 though laid heavily upon us, opens with many mer- 
 cies. It is not right to nourish our grief, especially 
 at the expense of gratitude which ought to be paid. 
 If to any people there was ever given the obliga- 
 tion and the incentive to praise, surely such words 
 should be upon our lips, though they tremble with a 
 different emotion ; and our eyes should be turned to 
 heaven, though they glisten in the light, because suf- 
 fused with tears. 
 
 1. The prominent occasion of our mourning is itself 
 circumstanced with much that can be contemplated 
 only with sentiments of thanksgiving. Unless we 
 mistake the providential design of this affliction, the 
 shaft of God was no poisoned dart to make the wound 
 rankle and fester in the days to come ; but the barb 
 was dipped in that balm, which, under His providen- 
 tial care, will prove its own healing. 
 
9 
 
 The four years of Mr. Lincoln's administrative 
 
 life have put upon American anuals a record of 
 events, wrought out under his supervision, which 
 are unrivaled in the brilliancy of their character 
 and results by any that have appeared upon the 
 historic page. They have secured for us an appa- 
 rent destiny, whose glory only such patriot faith as 
 his ever ventured to anticipate; and they have 
 enthroned him in the estimation of the world, as 
 the representative and the sacrifice for that which 
 the good and the free everywhere hold most sacred 
 and dear. 
 
 And that for which he labored in life, may be 
 hastened to its accomplishment by the fact and 
 circumstances of his death. We have reason to 
 hope that the bond of unity, at least in the loyal 
 North, is more firmly cemented in his blood, than 
 it could have been by the skill of the most con- 
 summate statesmanship; while in the South, the 
 last shred of plausible pretext is torn from the 
 Confederate form, and the disgrace of its nakedness 
 the outraged sensibilities of man will no longer 
 endure. The blood of the martyr is apparently for 
 the more speedy, and more thorough redemption, of 
 the land in whose service it was spilt. 
 
 But we must not, on this occasion, hold the mind 
 to a consideration of this sad event, even in tracing 
 
 the blessings which may flow from it. Glorious 
 
 2 
 
10 
 
 visions are opening upon the sight, though the 
 rising curtain is black with the emblems of woe. 
 
 2. We are evidently upon the eve of the cessation 
 of war. The battle day, in all human probability, is 
 done. The sun sets gloriously, and, although its 
 rays are red as reflected from the crimson sea, they 
 are the harbingers of its speedy rising with a new 
 and more cheerful light. 
 
 It is our faith to believe that in the capture of the 
 strongholds of rebellion, there was surrendered to us 
 a monster power, who, acting as the executive and 
 right hand of treason, has for four years with bloody 
 sceptre ruled the land, and scourged its people. 
 We may not immediately recover from the blows we 
 have received in the contest ; years may pass before 
 the national system, by its own recuperative energy, 
 will regain its original strength and integrity. But 
 of this we are assured ; the hand is now still that 
 has broken us. We cannot wake to life the loved 
 ones who sleep in unmarked graves beneath the 
 southern clod ; but that valley of death will receive 
 into its bosom little more such precious dust. The 
 task set before us as a nation has been sufficient- 
 ly accomplished by those already gone. Their dying 
 breath has purified the whole southern air, and their 
 dust has made forever sacred the southern soil. The 
 walls of Libby, and the prison-fields of Anderson ville 
 will remain forever in historic remembrance, as a 
 
11 
 
 disgrace to the American character, and the Ameri- 
 can name ; but, like the confederacy of which their 
 barbarism and cruelty are so emblematic, they are 
 practically erased from present and future existence. 
 The faces pale from incipient starvation, and the 
 bodies lacerated by the missiles of the battle-field, 
 will not at once depart from our streets; but no 
 more shall be added to the number of those who so 
 sadly represent our national misfortunes. The sword 
 shall no longer reap the harvests of death ; but the 
 scythe shall gather the rich and teeming fields of 
 life. The pomp and circumstance of war will give 
 place to the thrift and bustle of useful enterprise. 
 Our harbors will be reopened, our cities rebuilt, our 
 desert places again made glad with smiling homes, 
 and our whole land be filled with a people more 
 appreciative of the blessings they enjoy, more honest 
 in their conceptions of national and individual rights, 
 and more determined in their patriotic devotion. 
 
 But the benefits we are now receiving from God 
 are not comprehended in the one word, peace. The 
 civil war has terminated in our victory. AVe dare 
 not boast of the humiliation of the proud foe we 
 have discomfited, nor that the prowess of the 
 national arms has been so matchlessly vindicated ; 
 but we may indulge a legitimate joy in the accom- 
 plishment of practical results, which shall minister 
 to the cause of right, humanity and the national 
 weal. 
 
12 
 
 3. We rejoice in the prospective restoration of the 
 land to its unity. 
 
 There have been many hours of darkness in this 
 conflict, when, had it not been sustained by an 
 unshaken confidence in a stronger arm than ours, 
 the popular heart had fainted, the cause had been 
 abandoned, and peace obtained at the cost of na- 
 tional dissolution. God has supplied to us strength 
 in our weakness, courage in our fears, and inspired 
 us with faith which seemed like a belief in Ameri- 
 can destiny; and thus He has sustained us until 
 the time of His appointment to give the vic- 
 tory. How different now the prospect from that 
 which stared us in the face a year ago, in the 
 event of the then cessation of war ! No nation of 
 opposing interest, whose increase could be secured 
 only in our territorial diminution, and whose stability 
 would require the practical denial of our whole gov- 
 ernmental policy, now watches us, jealous of our 
 prosperity and our life. No bulwarks of fire, or 
 lines to be j)assed only with surveillance and dis- 
 honorable concessions, mark the rending of a once 
 glorious heritage. No challenge, insulting to the 
 national spirit which God has given us, is belched 
 forth from frowning fortresses within our own bor- 
 ders, requiring the lowering of the national emblem 
 in obeisance to traitor power, compelling us to crave 
 permission to sail our commerce upon our own rivers, 
 
13 
 
 and to pay a disgraceful duty upon shipments be- 
 tween our own ports. The land is undivided and 
 indivisible, amply protected by one shield, and will 
 soon repose in prosperity beneath the bright stars 
 and broad stripes of one flag. 
 
 4. Another cause of joy in connection with the 
 victories which a favoring Providence has given us, 
 is the fact that they have been achieved by the power, 
 and in the name of the general government. 
 
 The fall of Sumter witnessed the uprising of the 
 mass of the people, but they rallied with unreserved 
 devotion around the standard of the national execu- 
 tive. The million streams of the popular force were 
 poured upon rebellion through one channel, which 
 thus became the acknowledged representative, as 
 well as the natural conduit of them all. 
 
 That act was not the centralization of power, but 
 was the popular resolve to practicalize the power 
 already constitutionally vested in the central gov- 
 ernment. The manifestation of that spirit, kindled 
 as we believe, by the breath of the Almighty, has 
 proved to be the only, but sure defense of the na- 
 tion's right, integrity and honor. 
 
 We have been endangered more than once, by a 
 slowness to concede to the national executive suffi- 
 cient power for its own protection. Our own sad 
 experience, as well as the history of other nations, 
 lias taught us our mistake. But, thauk God, the 
 
14 
 
 popular error has been remedied in its own appli- 
 cation. The war on the part of the rebellious states 
 was its boldest manifestation ; but, like certain dis- 
 eases, it has come to the surface only to insure its 
 more speedy removal. This very issue has been for- 
 ever settled, in the result of the southern appeal to 
 arms for the defense of alleged state rights. That 
 fallacious assumption, as a principle in American 
 government, has been blown away by the rising 
 sentiment of American nationality. It was put to 
 flight with the armies of the rebellion it excited, and 
 whose crimes it has sought to extenuate. God has 
 told us in these events, that he threw us together 
 into no confederacy of independent communities ; 
 but that He made us to be a nation, that we might 
 wield an unbroken power for the accomplishment of 
 His glory in the earth. We are a nation. In these 
 words we read the Divine commission, the promise 
 of our strength; and, if that strength be rightly 
 used, the lease of perpetuity. 
 
 5. And we are a free nation. The expression is 
 more significant to-day than at the commencement 
 of our tribulations. God's hand has broken fetters 
 which crippled the spirit of the whole people, and 
 the nation has risen up in nobler, because freer, 
 manhood. It now rejoices like a strong man to run 
 the race of its prescribed destiny, because it feels 
 that its limbs are no longer impeded by an anti- 
 
15 
 
 quated system of society, from which the world 
 is fast cutting- loose — only the most degraded 
 nations now consort with domestic bondage — and 
 the back is unburdened of a curse which was bend- 
 ing the form to the earth. Whatever may have been 
 our views of this institution in the past, all parties 
 can unite in present action. The most radical eman- 
 cipationist will yield thus much to the most ardent 
 admirer of the system, that they shall give to 
 slavery so decent a burial, that hereafter no relic 
 shall be exposed as an offense in the sight of 
 humanity, or to spread its malaria through the 
 world. We are called upon to rejoice in our nation's 
 liberation from a bondage of which the African in 
 his chains and disgrace is but the representative. 
 The Republic is enfranchised. Although it cannot 
 obliterate the past dark record, any more than its 
 victim can change his skin, yet it may now utter a 
 consistent and unchallenged voice in the councils 
 for popular liberty, whose deliberations are shaking 
 the pillars of the political earth. Our past incon- 
 sistency necessarily prevented the hearty affection 
 and unreserved confidence of the watchers of free- 
 dom, as they toiled among the nations. But the 
 declaration of sacred writ, "Proclaim liberty through- 
 out the land unto all the inhabitants thereof!" which 
 was so lately and so reverently uttered by loved 
 lips now sealed in death ; the hearty amen that 
 
16 
 
 springs into expression on millions of tongues ; 
 and its rapid fulfillment through the military arm, 
 have made the morning stars of freedom sing 
 together and the sons of liberty shout for joy. We 
 were heretofore the anxious study, the tearful hope 
 of the down-trodden. We have now sprung into the 
 van, and are leading the march of the grand army 
 of God, in accomplishing the command, " Break 
 every yoke, and let the oppressed go free!" We are 
 a free nation within our own borders, and are the 
 emblem, it may be the instrument, for the establish- 
 ment of freedom throughout the earth. 
 
 6. We are a Christian nation. We cannot read 
 the record of our establishment in the religious 
 faith of the founders of our republic, nor the pages 
 of our history since, without a deep conviction 
 of the constant keeping of a Covenant God. We 
 have passed through trials, the entrance upon 
 which was declared by the political sages of the 
 world, to be the mad courting and the beginning of 
 an inevitable doom. We have called for the sword 
 at times when, had we calmly questioned our own 
 strength, we would have felt too weak to bear the 
 weapons of war. But we were impelled to it by 
 the irresistible spirit of Him who would show Himself 
 to be the strong defense and deliverer of His people. 
 As the Israelites of old, we have conquered, not in 
 our own strength, but through us as an instrument- 
 
17 
 
 ality, "His right hand, and His holy arm, have 
 gotten Him the victory." 
 
 Nor have we been totally wanting in fulfilling the 
 conditions of this covenant relationship. The leaven 
 of individual piety is felt in every department of our 
 national and social system. Good men everywhere 
 have walked with God. and the land is hallowed with 
 the imprint of His footsteps. In victory and defeat, in 
 prosperity and adversity, it has become the national 
 custom, tenaciously held as essential to our preser- 
 vation, to raise the notes of thanksgiving or prayer. 
 We mourn by the altar in the sanctuary of Christ, 
 and we utter our joy in expressions of gratitude, 
 made acceptable in the name of our Mediator and 
 Eedeemer. War is the mark of a still unregenerate 
 earth, but is not itself the proof of an unchristian 
 people. The history of the first chosen race forbids 
 such assumption. See the army of those who have 
 gone into the field, inspired only with patriotism and 
 the love of Jesus, following the track of war, like 
 a detachment from the angelic host, laden with 
 heavenly mercies for body and soul, for friend and 
 foe ! May the Commission that performed its labors 
 in the name of Christ, be the emblem of all our 
 country's hosts as they go forth in the cause of 
 humanity, and devote themselves to King Immanuel, 
 
18 
 
 as "free-will offerings," clad in the "beauties of 
 holiness," for the redemption of the world ! 
 
 But we cannot dwell longer in enumerating the 
 blessings, of which a benignant Providence assures 
 us in the events of the hour. " What shall we ren- 
 der unto the Lord for all His benefits toward us ? " 
 Mark the reply which God puts upon our lips. 
 " We will take the cup of salvation and call upon 
 the name of the Lord. We will pay our vows unto 
 the Lord now in the presence of all His people." 
 
 The cup is used to designate one's lot in life. 
 There is the cup of sorrow, and the cup of joy. We 
 will take the " cup of salvation," for of such a 
 nature, most notedly, is the dealing of God with us, 
 and will " call upon the name of the Lord,'''' in simple 
 acknowledgment that all these things are from His 
 hand. He has broken us, and He has healed us. 
 " Thou dost make us glad according to the days 
 wherein Thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein 
 we have seen evil." 
 
 And "We will pay our voivs unto the Lord now in 
 the presence of all His people." Before the nations 
 of the earth, and in the presence of the principali- 
 ties of Heaven whom we call to witness, let us 
 devote ourselves, as individuals and as a redeemed 
 people, unreservedly, in prayer, in labor, and in 
 sacrifice, to the cause of right — in the language of 
 the lamented chief, "as God shall give us to see the 
 
19 
 
 right ; " and whether He utters His voice in the de- 
 mands of patriotism, or of piety, let us take the 
 words of the Great Martyr for righteousness and 
 human redemption, "Lo we come, to do Thy will, 
 O God ! " 
 
 By the vows of the Lord, cannot be meant simply 
 the promises for the future, which have found ex- 
 pression on the tongue in the day of our troubles, 
 nor those definitely framed in the secret resolution 
 of the soul ; but rather, all the obligations which 
 our patriotic or Christian profession, now or here- 
 after, shall put upon us. 
 
 It may be profitable to consider briefly some of 
 the duties of the present, which God has taught us 
 while under the rod, and to apply our hearts to 
 His righteous precepts, which have been so severely 
 enforced with judgments. 
 
 1. We have alluded to the virtual abolition of the 
 institution of slavery, as one result of the contest 
 in which we have been engaged. Death is evi- 
 dently its doom, unless, by most shameful folly, we 
 again nurse it into life. 
 
 We cannot mistake the voice of God, uttered 
 in the thunders of the war, nor run counter to the 
 deep conviction which is forced into the hearts of 
 the people, when we declare this system of bondage 
 to be an offense in the sight of heaven, as well as a 
 curse in the condition of men. For, whatever may 
 
20 
 
 be our opinion as to the inherent wrong of the abso- 
 lute possession, by any human being, of the powers 
 and prerogatives of manhood which God has given 
 to another, the institution, as here operative, has 
 proved itself to be an evil, both to the community 
 and to the individual. Like the Upas tree, it trans- 
 forms the paradise of public prosperity into the 
 desert of death. It degrades all who are concerned 
 therein, the master as well as, aye — have we not 
 been taught it in the dreadful things of the war — 
 more than the slave. As an evil, whatever we may 
 work ourselves up to believe as to its original right, 
 its defense or extension become sin. It is a crime 
 to magnify the most innocent misfortune. It is an 
 outrageous wrong to retard, in any manner, the 
 operation of any relief for the least calamity. And 
 now, when God's providence, working with us during 
 these four years of agony, has so determined it, that 
 the lifting of this cloud, fraught with pestilence and 
 dropping with woes to North and South, awaits only 
 the breathing of the popular voice, surely that man 
 is to be pitied who is so trammeled by any tie, 
 political or social, that he must choke back an 
 utterance which is prompted by the spirit both of 
 the hour and of right. I believe it to be a sacred 
 duty of every patriot Christian — and therefore as a 
 Christian minister do I speak it — which he owes to 
 himself, to his country, to his age and to his God, by 
 
21 
 
 voice, by vote and by deed, to make an effectual 
 protestation that not another hour of unrequited toil 
 shall be exacted, nor another demand of the lash 
 heard in the land. 
 
 % But let us beware, lest in the zeal of our con- 
 demnation of this enormity, which overshadows us 
 from the South, we overlook many and grievous 
 sins, which darken more literally our own doors. 
 
 We have no right to denounce ourselves as a na- 
 tion of drunkards, or sabbath-breakers, or defiers of 
 the Deity — such we have never been as a people. 
 Nor is our political practice one mass of corruption, 
 as unwise reformers have painted it. But we cannot 
 doubt that intemperance, covetousness, the desecra- 
 tion of the Lord's Day. the profanation of the Holy 
 Name among all grades of our society, and the essen- 
 tial perjury which abounds in official stations, have 
 done much to bring upon our heads the retributive 
 justice of Heaven. 
 
 It is not unwarrantable to suppose, that had the 
 evils enumerated been unknown in the councils of 
 those who assumed the direction of political affairs ; 
 had the speech never been redolent with odors of 
 the still ; had the hand not held at the same time 
 the bribe and the pen ; had the hours of holiest light 
 never been blasphemously devoted to the secret po- 
 litical conclave ; or had prayers taken the place of 
 oaths, this rebellion that has broken us would not 
 
22 
 
 have found an opportunity for its inception, nor the 
 assassin's arm been nerved to its dastardly deed. 
 Oh, that we had adhered to the teachings of this 
 Sacred Book, which the fathers gave us together 
 with our revered Constitution! That we had heeded 
 its warning! "It is not for Kings to drink wine, 
 nor for Princes strong drink." (Prov. xxxi, 4.) " O 
 thou that dwellest upon many waters, abundant 
 in treasures, thine end is come, and the measure 
 of thy covetousness" (Jer. li, 13.) "The King, 
 by judgment, established the land ; but he that 
 receiveth gifts overthroiveth it." (Prov. xxix, 4.) "If 
 thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from 
 doing thy pleasure on my Holy Day, and shall call 
 the holy of the Lord, honorable, and shalt honor Him, 
 I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the 
 earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob, thy 
 father ; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." 
 (Isaiah, lviii, 13, 14.) 
 
 3. Another duty which has been taught us by the 
 course of the war, and is now so sadly enjoined at 
 the moment of its termination, is that of peacefully 
 submitting to, and cheerfully sustaining the powers 
 which God has ordained ; not in fear, " but also for 
 conscience sake." 
 
 The most successful opponent to liberty, we are 
 persuaded, by its historical record, is lawlessness. 
 Under all popular forms of legislation, anarchy is 
 
23 
 
 the tyrant's only opportunity. There is more to 
 be feared from the spirit of disobedience, which is 
 
 excited by expressions of distrust in the national 
 Executive, and by clamorous threatenings of popular 
 vengeance, if he transgress, in the least, the bounds 
 of delegated authority, than from all the power any 
 Executive, in a pure Republic, ever dared to assume. 
 Which, to-day, is the tyrant most to be dreaded by 
 the American people ; the spirit that rilled the 
 breast of Abraham Lincoln, even if, in his zeal 
 to preserve the whole, he did, as is claimed, 
 overstep some part of the Constitution, or the 
 opposing one that instigated the deed of its repre- 
 sentative, John Wilkes Booth? The despot in a 
 Eepublic is not the one man invested with tem- 
 porary i>ower. It is rather that hundred-handed 
 demon, armed with as many assassin's knives, who 
 feeds upon the popular discontent, and only awaits 
 the opportunity to spring upon the throne of na- 
 tional ruin. It is the sacred duty of every citizen 
 not merely to demand the infliction of justice upon 
 committed crime, but to rebuke its incentive in the 
 first breathings of discontent. The mob of baser 
 passions is seldom, if ever, found on the side of 
 constitutional authority. The semblance of order 
 is its antipathy. It only awaits the first restless 
 moviugs of the honest and true, when, already 
 drunk with its own hendishness, it cries "Death !" 
 
24 
 
 and "To the plunder!" A drop of blood will 
 madden the hound, which else might lie quietly 
 within the fold. A spark will explode this mine, 
 which is always laid in the lower strata of Repub- 
 lican society. 
 
 4. Another duty, the penalty of whose omission we 
 are now suffering, is that of watchfulness and activity 
 on the part of good men, in exercising the functions 
 of their citizenship. There are many whom we could 
 esteem as the salt of the earth, were it not that they 
 fall far short of performing the duties of common pa- 
 triotism. They are the salt ; but they have little savor 
 of usefulness, when their actions are regarded in res- 
 pect to their influence upon the political prosperity of 
 the community, the state, or the nation. " Eternal vi- 
 gilance is the price of liberty." But how many rights 
 have been taken away, how many defenses of public 
 morality, of private virtue, have been cast down, 
 while their defenders, on the plea of Christian sepa- 
 ration from the world, have refused to utter their 
 voice or cast a vote. We are now awaking to a 
 dreadful reality, to find the hands of truth and purity 
 and Christian principle tied by many a cord, and the 
 reins of control, more especially in our large towns and 
 cities, held by " bold, bad men," who have nothing to 
 lose, but everything to gain, in the gratification of 
 their ambition for power and their greed of spoil. Let 
 over scrupulous piety be reminded that it has not 
 
25 
 
 yet reached the heavenly estate. This is the life of 
 labor, and of conflict with the foe. We have no right 
 to surrender a single stronghold, while there remains 
 in us a single power. The battle day and the battle 
 dust must be endured, if any would be found good 
 and faithful soldiers of Jesus Christ. The political 
 world, when the kingdom of righteousness is therein 
 threatened, is an appropriate field for the display of 
 Christian valor and prowess. The ballot is itself a 
 gift of God ; personal influence, affecting in any way 
 the public weal, is a talent which He will require. 
 Our liberties are endangered, we have been largely 
 despoiled of those things which should be dearer 
 than its own blood to the Christian patriot's heart, 
 by the lawlessness of bad men, allowed to be effec- 
 tive by the negligence of the good. 
 
 5. But we must pass to a final obligation which 
 patriotism imposes. A personal Christianity is the 
 duty of the citizen. This we will show by a simple 
 enumeration of what is implied therein. First, it 
 gives him the only sure and practical test of right 
 and wrong. It sets up in his heart a felt standard 
 of divine morality. Its promise and tendency are 
 to sanctify the judgment, and to rectify the con- 
 science. If true to its demands, it binds him in loy- 
 alty, until the voice of God, speaking in unmistak- 
 able providences, declares loyalty to be sin ; and 
 thus he becomes, by force of inward principle, the 
 
26 
 
 defender of right, the promoter of public peace. 
 Secondly, his Christianity insures the efficacy of his 
 prayer. We have been taught, in many ways, during 
 the progress of our national conflict, that vain is the 
 help of man ; our strength is in the arm of a higher 
 power. But no man cometh to the Father, save 
 through acceptable faith in the Son. Faith, uttering 
 its petitions in the name of Jesus, is the power that 
 moves the hand that moves the world. Thirdly, the 
 fact of Christianity among the inhabitants is the 
 safety of the land. For His people's sake the Lord 
 will have mercy. Peradventure there be the leaven 
 of righteousness there, He will not destroy it. 
 
 We have thus endeavored to trace the movings of 
 the divine hand, which, though stretched out for our 
 chastisement, has borne to us many and precious 
 blessings. We have repeated the inspired injunction, 
 to bow reverently in submission to the judgment 
 of God, and in grateful acknowledgment of His mer- 
 cies, and we have urged the faithful discharge of all 
 the obligations which are thus put upon us. But let 
 us look a moment beyond the veil. Before the Ee- 
 public shall rise up from its present calamities, or 
 lay aside the robes of its sadness, many of us shall be 
 borne to our long home, and our mourners shall go 
 about the streets. The citizen's name will no longer 
 be called ; the Christian's profession will be forgot- 
 ten. With only what we are, and what we have 
 
27 
 
 done, we will stand in the presence of our Saviour 
 and Judge. May we then, whatever may have been 
 the sphere of duty to which He has here assigned 
 us, receive the reward of loyalty to the right, and 
 acceptable service to Him! 
 
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