LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 012 028 079 A < 
 
 
yv 
 
THE WAE : AND THE DUTY OF A LOYAL PEOPLE. 
 
 A 
 
 SERMON", 
 
 PREACHED IN THE 
 
 MATHEWSON STREET 
 
 METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, 
 
 PROVIDENCE, R. I., 
 
 ON STJIsTD^Y, JXJIL.Y 3 7, 18 6 3, 
 
 BY THE PASTOR, 
 
 REV. SIDNEY DEAN, 
 
 [Printed. l>y Reqtaest.l 
 
 PROVIDENCE: 
 
 PIERCE & BUD LONG, PRINTER! 
 1862. 
 
r 
 
 •2 
 
SERMON. 
 
 " Israel hath sinned, and they have also transgressed my commandment 
 which I commanded them : for they have taken of the accursed thing, and 
 have also stolen, and dissembled also, and thty have put it even among their 
 own stuff. 
 
 " Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their enemies, be- 
 cause they were accursed : neither will I be with you any more, except ye 
 destroy the accursed from among you." — Joshua, 7lhchap : 11 — 12 v. 
 
 No man, who reads and believes scripture history and biog- 
 raphy, can doubt that God beholds all the minutiae of this world's 
 affairs, even to the most private acts of individuals, and that the 
 changes in His administration are made in view of them. In other 
 words, that God's administrative government over this world is a 
 government of special as well as general laws ; that he often 
 changes the currents of life, from the humblest individual up to the 
 highest and most populons national existence, according to their 
 obedience or disobedience of the laws given for their guidance. 
 This, in other words, is the doctrine of Especial Providence. 
 
 And in this all earthly governments follow — at a great distance 
 in some particulars, it is true. Government is instituted for men, — 
 not men created for government. Hence the course of policy pur- 
 sued in a time of plenty is changed in a time of famine. When 
 finances are easy, labor in demand, and general prosperity is the rule^ 
 the course of correct government is different from what it is in a 
 time of bankruptcy, — of awful financial distress and ruin, when 
 labor is a drug, aud stout men stand idling in the streets because 
 no man hath, or can hire them ; and their wives weep, and their 
 children are asking for bread with hunger written upon their white 
 cheeks and bloodless lips. The course of government is changed 
 when red-browed war puts on her awful crown and blood-soaked 
 
ermine, and the sword drips with slaughter, from what it was when 
 peace reigned, and the arts of peace were upon the high road of 
 success. Men composing government understand this law of na- 
 tional life. So then it is a necessity of government. But with 
 God it is no necessity, but a course of action of His own, because 
 "justice and judgment are the habitations of His throne." 
 
 But you say: — earthly governments can only know a general 
 distress and ruin, they do not, like God, see and act in view of 
 specific, personal crime or ruin. True, that is the superficial view 
 of it ; while the answer is, that there can be no general distress 
 unless it can be individualized. It must find its root in individuals, 
 ■when traced to its source. Earthly government cannot scrutinize 
 the purposes, or know all the acts of individuals, but God can, 
 and does, and that is the difi'^rence between the Divine and the 
 human administration in this particular. 
 
 Let us suppose that this government possessed full and complete 
 knowledge of the inception of the present rebellion. It sav/ the 
 purpose in the heart of the first traitor, heard the first words he 
 uttered to his fellow conspiritors, and saw the first letter as it was 
 written — in other words, was fully cognizant of the incubation of 
 this serpent of disunion. Could it have hQQn just and not smothered 
 the treason' by a speedy punishment of the traitor? 
 
 According to the best historical light we have, the egg of the 
 present rebellion was hatched by John C. Calhoun among the hot 
 sands of South Carolina, almost a half century ago. Jackson said 
 that the greatest mistake of his official life was, that he did not 
 hang the traitor high as Ilaraan. But suppose that Jackson had 
 possessed the knowledge which Omniscience gives, and he had seen 
 Calhoun's heart, had heard all the secret words of his lips, and, 
 gifted with prescience, had seen the culmination of his treasonable 
 doctrines and designs as developed to-day ; think you the course of 
 government in his hands would have remained unchanged ? No \ 
 For the sake of government and country the serpent would have 
 been strangled in the shell. Had the govenflncnt within but a 
 little more than a year past, known that treason in its worst forms 
 stood masked, with a drawn dagger in its hand, in the Executive 
 Cabinet, in the Senate and House of llcprcsentativcs of the nation, 
 in the persons of perjured men who had, on the Holy Evangelists, 
 
sworn to protect and defend the constitution of their country and 
 your countr}', from Breckenridgc, the second officer in the nation, 
 who was twice sworn and doubly perjured, down to the meanest 
 and mostcjrrupt northern sympathizer and Secessionist; — had the 
 govcrnmont then known all they know to-day even, and that is but 
 a tithe of their infamy and treason, think you that this government 
 would have been the same in its merciful kindness as it is to its 
 loyal adherents ? If it did it would be unworthy to stand, and 
 would fall into anarchy and ruin from a want of purity, integrity 
 •and power. 
 
 Why are more than a half million of men in arras for government 
 to-day ? Why has our war budget for a single year swelled to the 
 enormous aggregate of eleven hundred millions of dollars? Why 
 war taxation resting like an iron yoke upon all, — rich and poor to- 
 gether, and which you and I w'lW feel \n a short month or so, — but 
 for the fact that government must by necessity imitate in a measure 
 the Divine administration, and govern its policy and action by the 
 spirit and action of its subjects ! 
 
 Now, as all public results may be traced to the individual sub- 
 ject, so also is it in, and under the government of God over nations. 
 He sees the purpose in the individual heart, sees it form itself in 
 the act, and sees it culminate in the inoculation of the masses. In 
 that perfect knowledge, and in His integrity and justice as governor, 
 He often interrupts the culprit in his crime against the State even, 
 and brings him to condign punishment through the proper puthor- 
 ities of the State. God's especial providence throws to the surface the 
 state of facts necessary to convict the culprit, and then if the State 
 refuses to act, it must suffer the penalty of the law of natural justice 
 and equity, as if it was an embodied individual and had committed 
 the crime. No fact is more clearly illustrated in biblical history than 
 this, thus stated. 
 
 Now if men would apply the same principle to their personal 
 government they would live nearer the divine standard, and would 
 consequently be better men. If, when their own habits, desires and 
 inclinations necesitate a change in their own government, — they saw 
 it, felt it, and would obey it; — the world would instantly feel the 
 effects of this improved self-governmeut. If for instance, that man 
 who sees a tendency in himself to increase the time and amount of 
 
stimulants he is now sipping, will but change his personal gov- 
 ernment by breaking his bottle and by total abstinence from strong 
 drink, that change will save him from the curse and shame of a 
 future drunkard's poverty; ending in a pauper burial, and the loss 
 of his soul. If the young man feels an increasing desire to spend 
 every leisure hour with what he acknowledges is questionable society 
 but which good nijn pronounc3 corrupt, and will, upon feeling this, 
 change his governmont and sock the purer life of a solid educationi 
 — studying the sciences and arts, and cultiva'.ing a virtuous and 
 refined society, — he will be saved from the withering curse of being 
 accounted a " loafer " — from the shame of being called a loose 
 and yet ■' fast young man;" — ending his character and days by rob- 
 bing the till of his employer, or by creeping away to an early grave 
 covered with the rottenness which lust produces, and his soul filled 
 with the despair which such self-murder always generates. 
 
 Change the policy of government when it is wrong ! Change it 
 when it is weak I Change it ahvays, luhen it is in danger, and lohen 
 a change to sturdy action will save it ! 
 
 The circumstances which gave rise to tho words of our text, cor- 
 roborate fully our position concerning the executive government of 
 God, and the proper action of earthly governments, when they 
 possess the requisite knowledge to cnnable them to act justly with 
 the offending. 
 
 The law for the government of Israel when it should cross Jordan 
 and enter Canaan, was clear and emphatic. Every man understood 
 it. Its proclamation was by tho mouth of their leader, when the 
 masses were assembled. The forty years of their desert pilgrimage 
 was accomplij.hed, and they Cilmpcd on the opposite shore of their 
 inheritance. Jericho lay in front of them and was to be taken. 
 Then other wars would ensue. Now the rules of this warfare forbade 
 any one of the soldiers of Israel stealing or plundering the stores 
 or wealth of the inhabitants of the land. Whatever was taken 
 must be destroyed. You must remember, that this race had lived 
 in the black tents of the desert for an entire generation, — that their 
 food had been of the i-)lainest kind ; their bread, manna ; and their 
 dress plain and coarse. Their wealth was a kind of community, or 
 family wealth. Personal greed, lust of riches, or lust in an}'' form it 
 might assume, if it was unrostrainoJ, would destroy their efficiency 
 
as soldiers. They would, under its influence, be nothing but a mob 
 of hungry desert men, each taking care of himself : and by thus 
 individualizing himself, would divorce himself from that community 
 of interests necessary to their protection, and necessary also to 
 their very existence as a nation. If they were left to the unrestrain- 
 ed abuse of their lust to acquire spoils, then they would 
 find an enemy in their own camp more powerful than the enemy 
 without. That is to say: their camp would be as full oi secessionists 
 and sympathizers with the things of the enemy, as ours has been 
 during the last twelve months of war against traitors. So the mil- 
 itary order was given, and it was peremptory and general ; — " Let 
 no man take of the spoils of the enemy ! Push the battle to victory 
 and possess the land which is your inheritance." They crossed Jor- 
 dan, and seven days they beseiged Jericho ; and on the seventh 
 day it fell. 
 
 The city and country of Ai came next in order, and as the army 
 was exhausted with the seige, three thousand of the freshest men 
 were detailed to take it. But Israel was defeated, — routed — put to 
 flight. It was to them, what "Bull Run" was to us as a nation. 
 And this disaster at the very commencement of their campaign was 
 the more severe, because they had the clear promise of Grod that 
 they should be successful, if they obeyed the laws. Had the laws 
 been kept? Had they have passed judgment by a general voice, 
 all the people, and their rulers, with a single exception, would have 
 said. Yes, we have. 
 
 And Joshua rent his clothes in sight of all the people, and fell 
 upon his face on the ground before the ark, and staid there until 
 eventide. And all the elders with him put dust upon their heads. 
 And he prayed as a man does, who is perplexed and almost in 
 despair. He saw the effect upon his own troops to be disenheart- 
 ning ; while the enemy stimulated by victory would environ them, 
 and all Israel would be put to the sword or made slaves. 
 
 And God answered Joshua : " Get thee up : wherefore liest thou 
 upon thy face ?" and then comes our text as an answer to prayer, 
 explaining the cause of their defeat. '■ Israel hath sinned, and they 
 have also transgressed my covenant which I commanded them ; for 
 they have even taken of the accursed thing, and have also stolen, 
 and dissembled also, and they have put it even among their own 
 
stuff. Therefore the children of Israel could not stand before their 
 enenp.ics, but turned their backs before their enemies, because they 
 were accursed : neither will I be with them any more, except ye 
 destroy the acccursed thing from among you.'' 
 
 And 'now, up to the work I Sanctify, — that is : Set apart the 
 psople, and the guilty shall be indicated. In the morning a convo- 
 cation of the people was called, and the tribes assembled. In the 
 calling of lots, the tribe of Judah was taken. Eleven tribes then 
 were guiltless. And then he called Judah by families, and the 
 family of the Zarhitea was indicated. And so the other families of 
 JudHh were innocent. And he called the heads of that family, man 
 by man, and the household of Zabdi was taken, and all the rest of 
 that faniily blood was untainted and pure. And then he called the 
 household of Zabdi and polled tlicm man by man, and tlie narrow- 
 ing circle left Achan, the son of Carmi, the grand-son of Zabdi, 
 standing in its center, leprous in crime. And all Israel looked 
 upon the man, so strangely and yet so surely, selected. One, only 
 one, of all that multitude ! One, oi^'ly one soldier, of all that army ! 
 The meshes of that ponderous net holding all Israel within its- cir- 
 cle, had narrowed in Gods hand until it only held him. And with 
 the eyes of all Israel upon him, Joshua approached the culprit, — 
 not to smite with justice, until convicted by the lawsand testimony 
 or by his own confession, — and said: "My son, give, I pray thee, 
 glory unto the Lord God of Israel, and make confession unto him ; 
 •and tell me now what thou hast done ; hide it not from me." And 
 the snared culprit felt his sin, and said; " Indeed I have sinned 
 against the Lord God of Israel. I saw among the spoils of the 
 enemy, a goodly Babylonish garment, and a wedge of gold weigh- 
 ing fifty shekels, — I coveted them, and I took them — they are 
 buried in the earth in the midst of my tent ; and there is also silver 
 under it." They took the man, and his silver, his garment, and his 
 wedge of gold, into the valley of Achor, and stoned him to death, 
 and then burned him and his stolen treasures together ; and then 
 returned and annihilated the armies of Ai, and took possession of 
 their country. 
 
 One important question arises here. Why was the innocent pun- 
 ished for the guilty ? Why U'as the nation of Israel routed — her 
 brave men slain, and mourning carried into its households because 
 
9 
 
 of one man's theft ? I answer : It was a representative act. The law 
 was to the JSatiofi, hnt the nation was composed of individuals ; and 
 it was an Israelite who had stolen. God in dealing with nations, — in 
 saving or punishing — does so with them as nations. Individuals 
 have their accountability at a future bar where nations are un- 
 known. Here the judgment must come in the collective capacity. 
 This principle is seen in the history of the judgment and destruc- 
 tion which came upon Sodom ; upon Egypt under Pharaoh ; it 
 characterized the administration of God with Nineveh, and fills all 
 the pages of history both sacred and profane. 
 
 Our own country gives us an example of this doctrine to-day. 
 Who inaugurated this war ? A handful of slaveholders. Now individ- 
 ual justice would require that only the traitors themselves shoidd 
 suffer, aud yet more than a half million of men women and children 
 hating slavery, have already passed through a baptism of the keenest 
 sorrow, while thousands upon thousands have pa.ssed to an early grave. 
 Men who have preached, printed, wept and prayed for the removal of 
 this our national curse and shame have fallen, while the rebels and 
 their dupes, the guilty sympathizers in our Northern States, pass com- 
 paratively unharmed. But ifjudgraent finally drives us to the wall, they 
 will bear the scorn of the civilized world, and will be a hissing and 
 by-word in all history. 
 
 Our sin and crime is national, — owr judgment and punishment 
 is national also. The majority of this nation have consented to the 
 existence of this crime against the rights of man ; have consented 
 to the shaping of our policy and laws to the end of perpetuating it, 
 and now the nation as a whole must harvest its fruits. I must, 
 and you must, — although God knows, I have fought this sin with 
 my utmost of influence, -s^ith both speech and pen, since I first learn- 
 ed God's law for christian being and action. Yet I must with my 
 fellow citizens, feel the blow, or else expatriate myself, forswear 
 my birthright and die under the flag of another country. He is a 
 craven who thus leaves his country to bleed without lifting his arm 
 in her defense. 
 
 Again. A social crime is infectious. If the life of the nation is at 
 stake the example must be severe. Achan would have indoctrinatei 
 his family had no judgment followed his crime. And they would 
 have tainted others. Slavery indoctrinates and corrupts. It is like 
 
 2 
 
10 
 
 an infectious disorder. It is a social, national small pox. A few have 
 it, but more have the vir.is in their blood. Many who have had it 
 prayed God for deliverance, while those whose blood was tainted 
 with its virus only, have in concert fairly howled its social blessing 
 and glory. The most dangerous m3n in this country for twenty-five 
 years past have been those who, born under the sun of liberty, have 
 never ceased shouting the praises of slavery. Some of them awoke 
 at last, and loving their country, shook off the yoke and are in the 
 fore-front of the strife to-day. Others are full of treason, and in my 
 judgment, Jeff. Davis is an angel of whiteness compared to them. 
 
 My text literally discussed, would give me this topic : The 
 crime of hrael, and its results. But I purpose to speak of the knowQ 
 administration of God in history, in one or two of its prominent 
 features. And I start first of all, with this general proposition : 
 
 I. The law of nations follows the analogy of the law for 
 individuals in this particular : that general corruption and crime in 
 national life, springs from its individual membership, as a corrupt 
 chiracter in any one man is made up of specific impurities or crimes. 
 
 Corruption in individual character is not reached by a sudden 
 bound. Men never go down to the depths of degradation, except 
 by taking the steps in order. There may be exceptions, but they 
 are very rare. Outward individual character is made up of little 
 things. The murderer awaiting the gallows, and the thief in pris- 
 on will tell you that they came to the final catastrophe by successive 
 steps. And they will trace them for you if you will but ask them. 
 The Devil is too shrewd to make a morally upright man take one 
 leap into the chasm of moral, social and eternal destruction. One 
 little step, and then the victor rests until he is accustomed to his 
 surroundings ; and when he can look wltrii complacency upon the 
 step below him, then he will be moved to take that. Kesting 
 awhile, he will leap with agility to a lower chasm of moral character, 
 until at last, he will touch the bottom of s .cial corruption and vice; 
 — at least that lowest plane which society will tolerate, and then he 
 will be shut up among felons. 
 
 The first step in crime is the hardest, the last one the easiest. 
 Men form characters fur uprightness and virtue in the samo way. 
 I mean by social character, that which is known and judged by 
 community. 
 
11 
 
 Now there cannot be an impure nation, a dishonest, thieving* 
 corrupt nation, if its citizens are pure, honest, upright and God fear- 
 ing. And why ? Simply because men male the nation. Would a 
 nation be healthy when all its sons and daughters were consumptive 
 and one dismal cough like an echo from the grave, should be heard 
 from its center to its extremes ? Would a nation be vigorous when 
 every man was enervated and enfeebled by age, or the premature 
 decay of his physical powers ? Could a nation be called enlightened 
 and educated whose citizens were ignorant dunces ? Could they take 
 rank among other nations in science and the arts by the mere diplo- 
 ma of another people, when they themselves were without cultivation 
 in these departments ? Certainly not. In all these and more, the 
 status of the nation follows that of the citizens who compose it. 
 And so far as this principle is concerned, it matters but little what 
 the form of government is which the nation assumes as a choice ; 
 whether it be a Monarchy, absolute or limited, or a Republic. It 
 will not change the grade of that nation's character in these partic- 
 ticulars, whether it be one or the other. To be a brave nation, its 
 men and women must be brave. To be a learned nation, its children 
 must be educated, and the foundation laid in youth must be built 
 upon in manhood. To be healthy and robust, the laws of individual 
 hygiene, the law for the best and fullest development of the physical 
 man must b3 understood and observed by each individual lor him- 
 self. And so is it in morals. If the men and women of any given 
 nation are morally pure and upright, you can hear one general 
 voice from the world pronouncing the verdict of honesty and up- 
 rightness. The rulers, the law makers, the executive, legislative 
 and judicial power of the nation will partake of the moral hue of 
 the people. And the laws and customs, the habits — for what are 
 the habits, but the unwritten laws of the people ?— these all will be 
 upon the same moral plane. 
 
 Let me illustrate. This is a christian, moral city. You have a city 
 government. All governments have three departments, legislative, 
 judicial and executive. I know nothing whatever of the personnel of 
 your City Council, — am not acquainted with one of them, to my know- 
 ledge, and yet upon the principle laid down, I can safely afiBrm that 
 your City Council has a working majority of good moral men in it. 
 If there is not, then the majority acknowledge the moral force there is in 
 
12 
 
 the public opinion of the city. Tlie purest men in that Council come 
 from tho most moral WanJs. The meanest, (if you have such,) come 
 from those wards in which ignorance, drunkenness, licentiousncos and 
 immorality abound. The people represent themselces in these bodies. 
 Your Mayor, — I have tho honor of his personal acquaintance. He is a 
 high-toned gentleman. Why } Because his character is the represen- 
 tative character of a majority of your citizens. 
 
 Now this is national life upon a City scale. If your City Council 
 were corrupt, ignorant and oppressive, if it were dishonest and thiev- 
 ish, you would not go to it for cleansing ; you would go to the people. 
 And if they were beyond hope of reform, then moral m3n would begin 
 the work of christianizing the people ; and if that was seemingly im- 
 possible, then good men would leave the place, as Lot left Sodom : or 
 else inaugurate a reform after the model of the Vigilance Committee 
 of San Francisco, years ago. 
 
 We have treason among us as a nation to-day; treason not 
 against oppression, but in its favor; treason not to subserve the rights 
 of man, but to supplant those rights ; treason, not waged to sustain 
 the American Bill of Bights and the Constitution based upon it, but to 
 Bupplant both. Who are the traitors? Man honestly loving God, their 
 country, tho rights of their fellow men, and tho broad christian prin- 
 ciples which underlie our charter of government ? No ! Who aic 
 they ? I answer : they are individual men, who are alike corrupt upon 
 all these points, who have been educated to steal men and women, to 
 whip them, to take thoir earnings for a life-time to enrich or give 
 pleasure to themselves and families; and to sell their bondmen's chil- 
 dren when the father's and mother's muscles did not bring money 
 enough for their purposes. Men loving power, instead of equality in 
 civil rights, and men insane enouijh to fijiht in order to dethrone 
 government, and plant the heel of tyranny upon the hearts of twenty 
 millions who are still free. And with these are classed their sympa- 
 thizers. The particular locality is nothing, it is the personal character 
 which makes the traitor. You have in Rhode Island, and in every 
 State in New England, (judging from signs, ) as blackhearted traitors 
 as any of the minions of Jeflf. Davis, found with a musket in the line 
 of the so-called Confederate army. But the love of liberty in the 
 hearts of your overwhelming majorities, the omnipresent loj'alty of 
 your citizens, makes them hide their wedge of gold and confederate 
 
i 
 
 13 
 
 garmont within \hc dcmicil of their own troapcnuble hearts, l^atitudo 
 is nothing, it is thejicrsonal character for loyalty or di.sloyalty which 
 stamps the man in this crisis. II thos3 nieti were numeiicilly the 
 strongest, the liltcrfies of tliis country would not be worth the prico 
 of a rushlight Thank Gud ! they are fe«r, and for my country's 
 sake, I would thi-re were less of iheni. 
 
 VVc have reached this crisis in cor national history, beca'ise we 
 have supposed that a system of kindness could cure an evil of such 
 ma;j;nitude and harmonize such divers'3 and antagonistical principles 
 as liberty and despotism. It ha> culminated at last, and the seem- 
 ingly little thini^s of the past half century, — North and South, — 
 have brought tliis country, face to face with anarchy and death. 
 The bloo 1 of oii, or possibly five hundred thousand men is to 
 wash anew the alter of American liberty to preveat its crumbling 
 into ruin. Had one, or ten, or fifty Achans been hung or stoned at 
 the outset by an inilignant nation, and the stolen wedge of gold, 
 ebon though it was — ye/low by crime it now is. — been restored, 
 this storm of bloody wiath would have passed and been knowa 
 only in the regions of the speculative. 
 
 1 hree hundred thousand slaveholders with tiieir ten ndllions of 
 sympathizers and aiders of the system, W'ho lusted sfter the 
 gold and goodlv commercial, political and social garments of this 
 Babylon, gave us a name not enviable, to say the least, — corrupted 
 our purity, and has brotight upon us the vengance of a just God. 
 The paltry number of flesh and soul owners alone, could not have 
 brou<4ht either result. It was the sympathy and unity of the lusti.ig 
 millions which turned the tide. The millions gave the ^civ power; 
 until a studied treason took possession of the government, drove 
 such patriots as Lewis Cass from the Executive council chambers, 
 and then turned all the vast enginery of government against itself, 
 seeking to stab it before they could be legally supplanted. It was 
 Brutus in the very seat of natit)nal life, and his dagger was crimson- 
 ed with the blood of liberty. The nation was politically debauched 
 and dishonored in its individual citizens. For long years it bad been 
 passing downward, preparing fur the catastrophe. Let us hope that 
 the treason culminated in time to save us from a final shipwreck! 
 
 I purposed also to speak of another geoeral law of the Divine gov- 
 ■erniuent found in this propobitiou : 
 
14 
 
 II. The C'lrse of God for national or individual crime has the 
 same general features, and results to the crimiiia! in the same disas- 
 trous end, unless the criniL* is repented of and put away. 
 
 The limits of the hour forbid its full discussion. Let me briefly 
 say, that the condition of individual pardon and safety is embraced 
 in a repentance which puts away thefcin^ and a trust in the mercy of 
 God. The conditions of national salvation from impending judgments, 
 are to be found upon the same plane. Our repentance as a nation of 
 individuals must be genuine, and must embrace the putting away of 
 the sin. The lovers of this wedge of gold and African garment must 
 give it up. Shivery, Ameiican Slavery and oppression as a national 
 system, naust die. God is against it. Civilization, education, art, all 
 things noble and exalting, cry out against it as the relic of a dead and 
 buried barbarous age, whose crimes ought to be allowed to rest with 
 it in the grave of history. The voice of the age is but an echo of 
 the will of the Omnipotent Executive of the world, and it is emphatic. 
 Slavery must die. 
 
 But shall it perish only by carrying with it this entire generation, 
 through two, and perhaps five decades of bloody and disastrous war, 
 in which Europe itself must of necessity become involved ? That is the 
 all absorbing national question of to-day. The heart sickness of the 
 masses for the sin of slavery is genuine and thorough. They would 
 it was annihilated, and the country free from the sin and crime. Party 
 lines arc obliterated in our love of an imperiled country. But will you 
 say to your rulers ; ' Our repentance is genuine, our purpose to save 
 our country and reform it is a holy one, — for the sake of the country, 
 for the sake of liberty in all future ages; for the sake of peace, speedy 
 and perpetual ; for the sake of the wronged bondman himself, — for the 
 sake of God and truth let the edict o'i emancipation come ! Lot these 
 coffled brothers stand up under an American sun as politically and 
 personally free as ourselves. Let them help us build our altar of free- 
 dom anew, and guard it from the spoil of traitors! Then will our war 
 be short, sharp and decisive for all time, because it carries with it 
 moral and political honesty and the seal of God 's approbation. Your 
 Executive is in advance of the people. Let him hear your verdict 
 "like the voice of many waters" behind him, and the work is done. 
 
 But some timid conservative partizan says, the people are not 
 ready, they must be educated up to this point. Not ready after half 
 
15 
 
 a century of national dfficultics arising purely from this source? Not 
 educated, when all the avenues of education for the people have been 
 filled with the moral, civil, financial and historic teachings of God 
 upon this point ? Not ready when the loved and dead have been borne 
 over your pavements to their sepulchres among you, mutilated, and 
 their corpses charred, disfigured and brutally outraged by the canni- 
 balism of slavery ? Not ready, when this embodied treason is at the 
 head of three hundred thousand men, threatening your national ;iiid 
 personal lile? Not educated, when no sound is heard among us as a 
 nation, but the drum, the whistle of the minnie bullet, the crath 
 cf cannon balls, the shrieks of the wounded and the long sad wailing 
 of the bereaved, widowed, fatherless, sonless and brotherless, by the red 
 hand of slavery ? In the name of heaven hew long will it take a people 
 under such circumstances to be educated ? 
 
 Let the people speak ! Let the Executive hear the voice of the 
 christian men and women of this country! Say to him : a government 
 without a stern policy, equal to the exigence? of the nation, is a 
 war without an end. It must have that policy or one of two things 
 results. An interminable war, or the blotting out of American liber- 
 ty, and with it our peerless government. There is no third ground. 
 There can be no permanent compromise either with cr without foreign 
 interference. Compromise never yet seitled a difficulty between the 
 natural antagonism of slavery and freedom, or tyranny and liberty. 
 It may and does defer the collision, but it does not, nor can it prevent 
 it. A compromise to-day leaving the cause of treason intact, would 
 culminate in another rebellion speedily. If the injustice and wrong 
 done to four millions of slaves shakes the country with such an earth- 
 quake heaving, and buries so many of our brave sons in its surfings, 
 what would it do if by a guilty compromise eight, or sixteen millions 
 in the future should burden our soil, and fill all the air of heaven 
 with their cries ? 
 
 We must interpret this war as God's war of emancipation. A war 
 of justice to His long oppressed children. A st'^rmy sea of wrath — 
 and the only way out of it safely, is to acknowledge God and His 
 gospel of liberty. I say again : let the peo/jZe speak, your Execu- 
 tive awaits your utterance ! Let us give ourselves also to the 
 soldiers work. Lay down the pan and hammar, the yardstick and 
 rule, and let us kiss our wives and babies and give ours-lves to our 
 
IG 
 
 country, in this her hour oT p?ril. With a true {rovcrmcntal policy 
 on the one hand, and a half million of luyal soldiers in the field, 
 this treason, with God's blessing, will soon bs suj)pressed. 
 
 Begin ?iow, for this is our hour of peril ; more so than at any hour 
 since Sumter fell. The first defeat awoke the pariotism of the peo- 
 ple. Since then nearly, if not quite one hundred thousand brave 
 men have fallen by the sword, the bullet, by disease and capture. 
 If the spirit of leXhargy rests upon the people, our thinned ranks 
 will be hurled back, and our own homes will smoke frtMn tho torch 
 ia the hands of slavery. 
 
 We look to-day also for mothers, wives and sweet-hearts, who 
 have souls equal in bravery and love of country to the women of 
 ancient Sparta. Nay, rather like the mothers of '70, from whom 
 they have descended. Let them give the kiss of peace, and with a 
 hearty God-spoed to the brave who leave their side, let them show 
 the world that American women can lay their heart's earthly idol 
 upon the altar of their country's liberty, unity and glory. 
 
 Up to the work christian patriots ! Otherwise we must follow 
 the example of our predecessors in history. When God's angel of 
 vengance, weary with slaughter leans upon his dripping sword, and 
 looks up into the face of eternal justice, and says : " It is enough 
 they are wedded to their idols" ; we shall pass as a nation in our 
 bloody shroud to the sepulchre, and be known only in history 
 thenceforth forever. Let every heart, every voice, and every strong 
 arm, forbid such a doom, and prove to the world that we merit a 
 better fate. 
 
LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 
 
 012 028 079 fl 
 
 'J 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 012 028 079 A 
 
 ^?j