/ 
 
 GOD THE PERPETUAL RENEWER. 
 
 NEW-YEAR'S DISCOURSE, 
 
 
 DELIVERED IN ANGELICA, N. Y., 
 SUNDAY, JAN 1, 1865. 
 
 BY JOHN H. RAYMOND, 
 
 PRESIDENT OF VASSAR FEMALE COLLEGE. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 
 
 A 
 
 POUGHKEEPSIE: 
 Telegraph Steam Presses. 
 1865. 
 
Avery Architectural and Fine Arts Library 
 Gift of Seymour B. Durst Old York Library 
 
GOD THE PERPETUAL RENE WER. 
 
 A 
 
 NEW-YEAR'S DISCOURSE, 
 
 DELIVERED IN ANGELICA, N. Y., 
 
 SUNDAY, JAN. 1, 1865. 
 
 BY JOHN H. RAYIOiXD, 
 
 PRESIDENT OF VASSAR FEMALE COLLEGE. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 
 
 POUGHKEEPSD3 : 
 Telegraph Steam Presses. 
 1865. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2013 
 
 http://archive.org/details/godperpetualreneOOraym 
 
Rev. 21 : 5. — And He that sat on the throne said : Behold, 
 I make all things new. 
 
 This morning's sun rose not only on a new day, but on a 
 New Year. The announcement sends a thrill of pleasure 
 along our nerves ; and already, round half the globe, men 
 have exchanged kind wishes and congratulations on the 
 event. 
 
 But why ? What white stone marks this day, above the 
 days that preceded it ? No change has passed upon the 
 face of nature. The course of Providence maintains its ac- 
 customed tranquil flow. Winter still rests on the hills. 
 His icy breath is in the air to-day as yesterday ; his iron 
 grasp still holds the streams and soil. There is no less of 
 sorrow in the dwellings of men ; no less of sin, nor of the 
 wretchedness that treads upon the heels of sin. Whence 
 then these jubilant expressions? Whence these songs of 
 universal gladness and praise — as if this day, above other 
 days, had brought with it from Heaven to earth some new 
 and mighty blessing? 
 
 The answer is simple. It is the birthday of a new year. 
 In the grand circuits of Time, we have reached a point 
 which completes one revolution and begins another. The 
 sun, whose receding glories we have watched for months 
 witli growing sadness, as nature drooped lower and still lower 
 beneath his waning beams, has reached at length the limit 
 of his southward inarch, and pausing like some victorious 
 Sherman at the extremity of his completed work, sweeps 
 round to-day with homeward look and promise of return. 
 The "old year" with its history finished and closed up, its 
 experiences exhausted, its work all done or gone undone to 
 the judgement-seat — the old year, with its fruits all gather- 
 ed in and garnered, its flowers withered and scattered by 
 the autumn blast — never more to bloom — has bowed its 
 
4 
 
 head and passed away ; and the "new year" smiles ont 
 upon us to-day, like a healthy new-born babe, the light of 
 hope upon its brow, and in its train events, whose swelling 
 forms, though dim and unrevealed as yet, cast shadows of 
 greatness before. 
 
 A New Year is born to-day ! Well may the announce- 
 ment stir our blood, and rouse us as with a trumpet's note 
 It calls us away from sombre retrospection. It bids us 
 look upward and onward into the teeming future. It says, 
 "let the dead Past bury its dead : thou, O man, child of 
 eternity, hast to do with the ever-living Hereafter ! Leave 
 sighing over finished works and vanished experiences, over 
 buried joys or disappointed expectations, over broken vows 
 and opportunities forever lost — or remember these things 
 only to draw from them instruction and inspiration for 
 what lies before you — and gird your loins for new struggles 
 and new triumphs in the fields of virtuous and honorable 
 endeavor !" 
 
 Fitting it is too, that we interchange congratulations on 
 this opening day ot the new year. It is a new opening 
 of the door of hope ; and as there is hope for all the living 
 — since the afflicted may at least hope for consolation, since 
 the unfortunate of the past year may possibly retrieve his 
 fortunes in the present, since even to the sinful it is per- 
 mitted to repent and thus escape the dreadful doom of sin 
 — so is it right to invoke Heaven's blessing on all, and to 
 wish that to every one the "new" may also be a "happy" 
 year. 
 
 There is something inspiring in the very name which 
 popular usage has attached to the incoming year. It is 
 not merely another year that is given us ; it is a new year 
 — unworn, untarnished, free from all marks of former use 
 and from all debasing associations. Fresh and pure from 
 the Maker's hand, its fair expanse spreads out before us, a 
 page for each to write on, according to his own inclinings, 
 a history to honor or dishonor. What an opportunity to 
 correct the errors, to fulfil the resolutions, to complete the 
 
5 
 
 beginnings of the past ! What an invitation to revise the 
 principles on which we have heretofore conducted life, and, 
 if need be, to lay anew its foundations in nobler purposes 
 towards God and man. 
 
 There is, in all the Divine arrangements concerning us, 
 a wise adaptedness to the nature we have received from His 
 hands. And prominent among the principles of that na- 
 ture is the love of novelty, or newness — of variety and 
 change. The most delicious banquet would soon fall upon 
 the taste, if day after day we were compelled to sit at the 
 same table and partake of the same viands. The sky and 
 the landscape of Eden would weary and disgust us, the 
 very sunshine and flowers become loathsome*, if continued 
 in one unvarying round. We demand new objects, and 
 new experiences ; we need a shifting panorama of scenery 
 and life, to stimulate our active powers and to afford the 
 conditions of a happy and healthy growth ; without them 
 we stagnate, sicken and die. 
 
 Accordingly, God has so constructed the universe, and 
 so administers its providential government, as to insure a 
 perpetual diversity of manifestations and impressions. — 
 Time advances not in one monotonous right line, but in 
 circles, by revolutions. Days, months, years, ages, roll on 
 successive ; each having a beginning, continuance, and com- 
 pletion of its own, each marked by separate characteristics 
 and a perfectly distinct history. God has arranged for this 
 in the very structure of the universe. Millions of whirling 
 spheres compose the mighty clockwork of creation ; suns 
 and fixed stars, the jewel-pivots of its movement. 
 
 Prominent amidst this vast machinery of revolutions is 
 that to which we give the name of year. It is a revolution 
 of time, measured by the circuit of our globe about the 
 center of the system to which it belongs ; a sweep, so regu- 
 lar in the law of its curvation, so exact in its rate of velo- 
 city, that the scrutiny of centuries and the sharpest math- 
 ematical analysis have never detected a deviation ; and yet, 
 by a simple mechanical device, a gentle inclination of the 
 
6 
 
 earth's axis towards the plane of its orbit, what perpetual va- 
 riety of effects is secured ! What a rich succession of nov- 
 elties and glad surprises are made to diversify the progress 
 of each single year ! Spring, with its balmy breath, its 
 tender green, its fresh and delicate decoration of buds and 
 blossoms, rising by slow gradations to the furnace-glow of 
 Summer — Summer, crowned with thick garlands of inten- 
 sest hue and intoxicating fragrance, and flashing forth in 
 sudden tempest-bursts of passion — followed in turn by mel- 
 low Autumn, rich in brown and gold, pouring plenty into 
 the lap of earth and comfort into the homes and hearts of 
 men, rewarding industry with the sense of wealth, and en- 
 couraging fai^h in virtue and in God, and yet by the very 
 glory of the garniture it throws over forest and meadow 
 proclaiming the sunset of the year, and heralding its ap- 
 proaching night— the cold and stern, but not unmerciful 
 night of Winter, when nature, hid beneatli her coverlet of 
 snow, heeds not the fairy decoration of her hills, but re- 
 news her wasted powers in healthful sleep, while man, re- 
 tiring to the sacred shelter of his home, drinks his fill of 
 domestic and social pleasures, and, if he will, may in a 
 well-spent leisure cultivate his mind and heart. I have hint- 
 ed only at the broadest and most general varieties of the 
 progressive year — the characteristics of the so-called "sea- 
 sons ;" but every month is equally individualize 1, equally in- 
 capable of being identified with any other. Ten thousand 
 diverse agencies are ever at work in nature, blending with 
 and crossing one another, co-working, inter-working, count- 
 er-working, and by myriadfold combinations modifying and 
 varying the results. So that, in the issue, no two days of all 
 the three hundred and sixty-five — nay, no two hours of any 
 twenty-four, are in all respects alike. In the endless pro- 
 cession, each new-comer comes in a new garb, smiles with 
 a new expression, imparts an unanticipated blessing; and 
 the restless heart of man is fed with an exhaustless supply 
 of healthy excitement and change. 
 
 Here then, in what may be called the interior structure 
 
7 
 
 of the Year, we find our first illustration of the text. "Be- 
 hold, he maketh all things new." Here God appears as 
 we shall find Him in \ all the domains of nature, provi- 
 dence and grace, the universal and perpetual Renovator. 
 For, 
 
 — "as they change, Almighty Father, these 
 
 Are but the varied God. The rolling year 
 
 Is full of Thee. * * * 
 
 Mysterious round ! What skill, what force Divine, 
 
 Deep-felt, in all appear ! A simple train, 
 
 Yet so delightful, mixed with such kind art, 
 
 Such beauty and beneficence combined, 
 
 Shade unperceived so softening into shade, 
 
 And all so forming an harmonius whole, 
 
 That, as they still succeed, they ravish still. 
 
 Yet man, too oft, marks not the Mighty Hand, 
 
 That, everbusy, wheels the silent spheres ; 
 
 Works in the secret deep ; shoots, steaming, thence 
 
 The fair profusion that o'er spreads the Spring ; 
 
 Flings from the sun direct the flaming day ; 
 
 Feeds every creature ; hurls the tempest forth ; 
 
 And, as on earth this grateful change revolves, 
 
 With transport touches all the springs of life, 
 
 For me, when I forget the darling theme, 
 
 Whether the blossom blows, the Summer-ray 
 
 Russets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams, 
 
 Or Winter rises in the blackening East, 
 
 Be my tongue mute, may fancy paint no more, 
 
 And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat !" 
 
 II. But this is not all. ^Tot only within the limits of each 
 single year does God "make all things new ;" but, in that 
 succession of years which constitutes the life of men and 
 the providential history of the world we live in, the same 
 grand truth obtains. 
 
 The course of nature and of Providence is not represent- 
 ed by a wheel spinning upon a fixed pivot, whose very mo- 
 tion would become an intensified monotony, but by a run- 
 ning wheel, where, though the same tire forever turns at 
 the same distance around the same center, yet (center and 
 circumference alike advancing,) every new revolution finds 
 it farther on its way. Each year, building upon the works 
 
s 
 
 of preceding years, carries the structure higher ; and so the 
 life of man, bound up with that of nature, like the ever- 
 mounting flame-whirl, fed by the aliment which former 
 years and lives have furnished, revolves in ascending spirals 
 towards the goal of divine, ever-unattained perfection. 
 
 Trace this law of progress in creation. Go back through 
 the long ages of pre-adamite existence. Contemplate the 
 earth, as it was "in the beginning," a formless void, on the 
 face of whose dark waters brooded the mighty Spirit which 
 had but just begun to prepare it for the manifold wonders 
 of which it was to be the theatre. From that primeval 
 hour, through all those mysterious cycles of strange exis- 
 tence, how steadily the wheels revolved and the work ad- 
 vanced ! By what regular stages of development was the 
 stupendous plan unfolded ! How constant was the pro- 
 gress from lower to higher, from the less to the more per- 
 fect forms of organization — each period accumulating ma- 
 terials and moulding types for that which was to follow, 
 and every new age teeming with growths that would have 
 been strange indeed to those that went before ! 
 
 First, a vast watery world, where amid huge sea- weeds . 
 dwelt only polyps, trilobites, and the lowest orders of shell- 
 fish. Then, out of a soil prepared through many genera- 
 tions from their crumbling remains mixed with the pebbly 
 ocean-bed, ground ever finer and finer beneath the migh- 
 ty mill-stone of the sea, and in due time lifted to the sur- 
 face by the internal fires, sprang forth the new wonder of 
 a vegetable life — gigantic ferns and reeds, covering with 
 rank verdure the vast morasses which formed the continents 
 of that age. Next, insects start up and swarm in the mar- 
 shy forests — lizards appear, crawling through the slime or 
 sunning themselves on the rocks — strange winged reptiles 
 shoot athwart the sky — while sharks and saurian monsters 
 chase one another through the thick waters, devouring and 
 devoured. Another lapse of slow-revolving time — another 
 turn of the Almighty Hand, and yet nobler growths re- 
 veal themselves. The lands slowly lifted, drained and mel- 
 
9 
 
 lowed by the action of the sun, and the soil deepened by 
 the decomposing remains of plants and animals, at length 
 the oak, the pine, the verdurous maple, and the branching 
 beech appeared, and the willow "waved its green and grace- 
 ful tresses in the breeze." Over broad savannahs stalked 
 the mastodon and mammoth, the megatherium, the mylod- 
 on, and other now extinct monsters $ and trackless forests 
 rang for the first time with the notes of birds. Last of all, 
 amidst earthquake shocks and convulsive throes which rent 
 the solid fabric of the globe and involved the very heavens 
 in the tempest of commotion, nature gave forth her latest 
 birth in this our present system, and God added the crown 
 and master-piece of creation, man — made as an immortal 
 spirit in His own image, and sharing in kind, though not 
 in degree, His attributes. 
 
 Thus, stage by stage, cycle after cycle, did God unfold 
 His plan ; and at each majestic turn of the revolving 
 wheel, we seem to hear Him reasserting : "Behold ! I 
 make all things new ! Lo, all ye sons of light ! the cur- 
 tain rises on another scene in My never-ending drama of 
 creation! Come, wonder and adore !" And yet the end is 
 not. For when the last step in this ascending: scale was 
 reached, when the Infinite Father, surveying the grand re- 
 sult, and scrutinizing every part in turn, pronounced all 
 "good" and ready to receive its lord, the world, though per- 
 fect for that purpose, was far from being a finished world. 
 It was just the reverse. It was a world but just begun — 
 a rudimental world — containing indeed the elements and 
 suggesting the method of its own improvement, but wait- 
 ing for the hand of culture and the mellowing influences 
 of time to lead it towards perfection. For this purpose, 
 the labor of man has been brought into honorable alliance 
 with the labor of God — a perfect world the goal at which 
 both are aiming. A world completely reclaimed, subdued, 
 and ripened — a world entirely occupied, and filled in every 
 part with prosperous and happy inhabitants — a world of 
 uniform and high fertility, of finished culture and intelli- 
 
10 
 
 gence, of universal peace, good-will and concord — and thus 
 a world that would fully realize the Divine idea and be 
 like heaven in its consummate happiness and glory: this, 
 I say, has been the goal toward which the race has from the 
 beginning struggled, too often blindly, unconsciously, and 
 with weak and impious un faith, but to which God, by His 
 blessing on all true human work, and by the co-operating 
 influences of His providence and grace, has been steadily 
 conducting and will surely bring it. 
 
 To illustrate this truth in.full detail would be to write 
 the history of mankind. It would be to trace the progress 
 of civilization in all nations, from naked barbarism dwell- 
 ing in caves and dens, and subsisting on the native pro- 
 ducts of the woods and waves, up to the highest forms of 
 cultivated and refined society, pressing all the forces of na- 
 ture into the service of its material wants, and living the 
 life of gods in the higher exercise of the intellect and heart. 
 It would be to unfold the growth and development of all 
 the arts and sciences — of agriculture, manufactures, and 
 commerce — of medicine and law — of government and 
 the economies of social life — of many-volumed literature, 
 brain-exhausting philosophy, and beauty-creating art — of 
 all that goes to promote the comfort of the household, to 
 strengthen the bands of society and augment the common 
 wealth, to heal the sick, to relieve the destitute, to deliver 
 the oppressed, to reform the profligate, to instruct the 
 young — to make all men the richer for the gifts and the 
 successes of each one, and each a sharer in the material 
 and mental affluence of the race — of every thing, in short, 
 that goes to make the world what we find it, or to make it 
 a world we would desire to live in. 
 
 Ah ! what arithmetic can compute the sum of the hu- 
 man toil here represented ? Who will tell the number of 
 its strokes? Who measure its rivers and seas of sweat ! — 
 Who describe the pangs of anxiety and discouragement, 
 the fatigue and exhaustion, it has cost ? And still, despite 
 all difficulties and all discouragements, despite the fears of 
 
11 
 
 the cowards, the inertia of the sluggards and the evil fore- 
 bodings of the croakers, the work has gone steadily for- 
 ward, and not a stroke of faithful labor has been lost. For 
 He that sits upon the throne of providence as well as of 
 nature, has said : "Behold, I make all things new." It is 
 God's declared purpose to renovate and glorify the earth ; 
 and it is His way to carry forward His great providential 
 design, step by step, through the agency of faithful and 
 obedient men. 
 
 And now, standing on the threshold of a ISTew Year, we 
 have a right, my fellow-laborers, to the comfort and inspir- 
 ation of this thought, Called to prepare ourselves for a 
 renewal of the annual toils which burden life and wear it 
 out, even while they dignify and exalt it, it is a satisfaction 
 to think that we are not called to do over the work we have 
 already done*. It may seem to some of you, perhaps, that 
 the labor of the past has been fruitless and unproductive, 
 so far at least as your own interests are concerned. You 
 are struggling, it may be, still at the foot of the hill, just 
 where you began to struggle years ago ; or perhaps you 
 have lived to see the accumulations of long and faithful in- 
 dustry by some sudden stroke of misfortune smitten from 
 your hand and divided among strangers — and all your la- 
 bor seems lost. But it is not so. If your labor has-been 
 true and honest labor — so far, certainly, a%it has complied 
 with the conditions of God's law — it is all saved. It is all 
 now, and will forever be, productive. If you are not bene- 
 fitted by it, others are. If the reward of the diligent has 
 not yet been given you, it assuredly will be. It has at least 
 added to the riches of the race, and "after many days" it 
 will return into your own bosom. It has contributed some- 
 thing to the advancement of God's work in the earth, and 
 in the final reckoning you shall find it feet down to your 
 credit and repaid with interest. Meanwhile, if you have 
 been co-laborers with God, it has already re-acted with be- 
 nign influence upon yourselves, all the more perhaps be- 
 cause it has been outwardly unsuccessful. Each day's hon- 
 
12 
 
 est toil has made you stronger, wiser, more self-reliant and 
 more capable than you were before ; and you enter, if you 
 will, on the business of the J\ T ew Year with a larger capital 
 of experience, of patience, of resolution and force of will, 
 if of nothing else. 
 
 Gird up your loins then, O christian workers — the proud- 
 est title it is given man to wear, and that which makes my 
 own countrymen (thank God !) the foremost people of the 
 world — and address yourselves like brave men to the labors 
 of a ]STew Year. It shall be new in fact, as well as in name. 
 You are not called to return upon your track — to do over 
 your former works — to tread the weary round of toil 
 already finished. The mighty God commands : ''Speak ye 
 to the people, that they go forward." New fields of enter- 
 prise are opening — new prizes are held out to stimulate exer- 
 tion — new opportunities of improvement solicit recognition 
 — new conquests are possible this year, conquests which could 
 never have been made before, in nature and in society — over 
 sterile soils and selfish hearts — over ignorance and vice — 
 over the sins of our own, and the corruptions of the public 
 life. Happy he who discerns the signs of the times, and 
 who hears rising above all the din of human life and pas- 
 sion, above the turmoil of business and the clangor of arms, 
 the voice of Him who sits upon the throne, saying : "Be- 
 hold, I make alk things new ! I, the perpetual Renovator 
 of nature and of man ! Come, share with me the privi- 
 lege and the honor of the work ! This day I roll out be- 
 fore you a new year. It shall be distinguished by nobler 
 achievements and grander improvements than all that have 
 gone before. Come ye, my sons, help me to make it so !" 
 
 The expansion of the field of private enterprise which 
 the last few years have witnessed in our land, is something 
 wonderful. The channels of intercourse between the older 
 maritime sections and the vast inland territory at the West 
 —the roads, canals and railways built years ago with a wise 
 forecast to stimulate and aid the development of the latter, 
 have accomplished their work in a way to surpass the an- 
 
13 
 
 ticipations of the most sanguine. They have poured in a 
 flood of hardy and industrious immigrants, and created a 
 returning tide of trade and travel which not only richly re- 
 pays their cost, but has already overtaken their utmost ca- 
 pacity, and outstrips their very power of growth. Mean- 
 while, the explorations of adventure and the investigations 
 of science are opening in all directions treasures of mineral 
 wealth, of gold and silver, copper, iron and lead, of salt, of 
 coal, and, latest and strangest prize of all, of oil streaming 
 from the flinty bosom of the rock — opportunities so numer- 
 ous and so rich as to absorb all the surplus laborers of the 
 land and to call on foreign lands for more. To feed and 
 clothe these peaceful armies of toil, to equip them with the 
 requisite implements, to carry them to their distant fields 
 and bring back to market the precious products of their 
 labor, gives abundant employment to agriculture, to manu- 
 factures, to every branch of industry and trade. The very 
 war that has been thrown upon us, in defence of the gov- 
 ernment which protects this industry and of those sacred 
 principles and blood-bought institutions which guarantee 
 the right and dignity of labor, — a war so gigantic in its 
 proportions, so terrific in its violence, so exhaustive of the 
 ranks of labor, and so destructive to its fruits — has wrought 
 in most unexpected ways to stimulate exertion, to increase 
 its productiveness, to augment at least the prospective re- 
 sources of the land, and so to strengthen the national con- 
 fidence by showing how God can stand by those who are 
 trae to themselves and Him. 
 
 Equally powerful, at the same time, are the incen- 
 tives to new diligence in the fields of thought, and to 
 new efforts for the higher, spiritual interests of the race. 
 Science, literature, education, all the intellectual arts, all 
 agencies lor the moral culture and salvation of men, check- 
 ed for a season by the gathering gloom and threatening por- 
 tents of the war, have regained confidence and resumed 
 their onward march. Again the press is busy with its my- 
 riad hands. Schools of all grades are full ; aud never was 
 
14 
 
 there such demand for competent teachers. New problems 
 
 are up in political and social science, practical and momen- 
 tous, and wait for the masters who can grapple and con- 
 quer them. Demands are made on our benevolence, as 
 novel as they are vast: demands not merely for bounteous. 
 ness in giving, but for organizing skill and executive ener- 
 gy to cover the whole wide field of necessity without waste 
 of material or of time, and to reach every suffering object 
 of the nation's sympathy with seasonable and suitable relief. 
 Meanwhile, Religion calls for willing hands to thrust in the 
 gospel sickle, at home and abroad, into fields waving white 
 to the harvest; for "truly" — never so truly in all the ages 
 past — "the harvest is great, and the laborers are few. 
 
 Now, every man's business touches at some point this 
 great system of general activity, and is affected by it In 
 times like these, no man need languish for a vocation o r 
 for opportunities to exercise it. God calls on every one to 
 stretch his vision over the whole animating scene, and to 
 catch the spirit of the age ; to find his place amidst the 
 host, and fill it ; to find his work, and do it ; and to make 
 the New Year more stirring with exertion, more fruitful in 
 result, than any that have preceded, by as much as it is 
 richer in opportunity and in inspiration. 
 
 But, exciting as are the times in relation to private en- 
 terprise, the crisis to which the New Year brings the na- 
 tional life is still more full of interest on the one side, and of 
 peril on the other. And here again, the call is, most pecu- 
 liarly, to "go forward," to complete work already begun. 
 
 Into what an undertaking has the providence of God led 
 this people ! It was not desired or sought for. It was not 
 foreseen until the necessity was rolled upon us. The ap- 
 proach of that necessity we would not believe, though faith- 
 ful men declared it to us. ^Ye shrank from it when it came, 
 with agony of reluctance. We well-nigh sacrificed our in- 
 tegrity to evade it. But God pressed it upon us, and 
 (blessed be His name!) lie gave us grace at last to under- 
 take it. How wonderfully lie has sustained and assisted 
 
15 
 
 us through four stormy years of war, we all to-day are 
 witnesses. He has disappointed all our fears and more 
 than realized our hopes, and now He as distinctly requires 
 us to go on and complete it. Will we falter and give back ? 
 
 What is it we have undertaken ? We have undertaken 
 to maintain the authority of legitimate government in this 
 land of ours ; to crush out treason — utterly, and to re- 
 duce to order a rebellion more entirely inexcusable in its 
 origin, as it is more arrogant in its spirit and fiendish in its 
 methods, than any that ever rent the bowels of a peaceful 
 and christian land. We have undertaken to convince the 
 world that there is an infinite difference between free gov- 
 ernment and no government at all, and that Americans well 
 understand that difference ; that by as much as we rigidly 
 restrict government to its legitimate limits, by so much 
 will we sacredly maintain its authority within those bounds, 
 and terribly shatter the arm that is raised for its overthrow ; 
 that the institutions of our fathers are as dear to the hearts 
 of this people as they ever were, and as they ever deserve to 
 be ; that no cajolery shall delude us into their surrender as 
 no terrors can drive us from their defence ; that we will 
 pour out blood like water and scatter treasure as dirt rath- 
 er than part with them, and grow stronger by such deple- 
 tion and richer by such waste. We have undertaken to 
 purge the land of the accursed stain and mildew which has 
 defiled it, the source and only cause of all our woe. We 
 have put the knife to the cancer which has long been eating 
 out our strength and has at length attacked the very citadel 
 of our life, and have avowed our purpose to cut it out. 
 We have vowed, God helping us, to make "all things new" 
 in this beloved land, through the triumph of universal and 
 impartial liberty, the music of falling chains, the dethrone- 
 ment of a pampered and bloody aristocracy, and the eleva- 
 tion of a degraded and chattle-ised race to the dignity of 
 free laborers and christian men ! 
 
 "God helping us ?" did I say ? 
 
 Ah ! God will help us in a work like this, for it is 
 
16 
 
 His own work ; but what if we pause, and leave the work 
 unfinished ? I will tell you what, my countrymen. To 
 other hands He will commit the work and the rewards of 
 it ; while for us He will prepare scourges, as fearful as our 
 crime. If, having put our hand to the plough in such an 
 undertaking, we faint in mid-furrow and draw back, His 
 soul, be sure, shall have no pleasure in us. If, brought so 
 far on our rugged way by his wonder-working providence 
 and come at last to the very border of the promised land, 
 we listen to the evil report of timorous or treacherous scouts, 
 and refuse to enter in — if we take counsel of our fears, our 
 avarice, our selfish love of ease and luxury, and not of duty, 
 of honor, and of God — if, having encouraged our enslaved 
 fellow-countrymen to strike for their freedom and helped to 
 half-wrest them from the grasp of their oppressors, we 
 basely abandon them, and give them back to a bondage 
 more cruel and more hopeless than ever — my country- 
 men, you may estimate what punishment God will inflict 
 by estimating what punishment we shall deserve ! JS~o 
 Canaan of rest, no golden era of equal laws and universal 
 liberty, shall we behold in our day. Driven away back- 
 ward from that bright vision which has been brought so 
 near, our carcasses shall fall in the wilderness out of which 
 we had so nearly escaped. Wicked men shall be our rulers ; 
 our children improving upon our bad example, shall wax 
 worse and worse in luxury, corruption and pride ; our ene- 
 mies at home and abroad shall rejoice over us, and the once 
 proud name of the Eepublic become a hissing and by-word 
 in the earth. 
 
 But, brethren, I have no such fear, for I do not believe 
 that God has so abandoned us. The people have already 
 spoken, and nobly have they spoken. They have fully 
 counted the cost, and still stand harnessed for the battle. 
 They have said, let God be true and every man a liar ! They 
 have calmly accepted the terrible test by which He proves 
 them. They have bound their darling Isaacs to the altar 
 and 6tretched forth the knife, obedient to the divine com- 
 
17 
 
 mand. O God of faithful Abraham, make haste to deliv- 
 er ! Prepare for Thyself another sacrifice, and spare the 
 sons of our love ! This year, on which we now have entered 
 — O may it be the last of our agony and woe ! Make it 
 "happy," by the return of peace to our borders — such peace 
 as Thou givest and blessest. Make it "new," by such tri- 
 umphs of truth and of love among us as the world has never 
 yet beheld ! 
 
 But, if God hear our prayers and bring the war and its 
 unhappy cause to an end,fwill the work of Christian patri- 
 otism then be ended? Oh! no, but just begun. If we travel 
 with God, we tread an ever-ascending path. Each step 
 forward^places us on a higher plane of privilege and duty. 
 Every conquest won but yields us a new base, and vantage 
 ground for further and grander achievements. So, the very 
 success of the nation in this war for law and liberty must 
 open new and difficult questions for solution. To determine 
 the policy to be pursued, towards the subdued insurgents 
 on the one hand, and the emancipated slaves on the other, 
 will alone tax to the uttermost all the intelligence, the vir- 
 tue, the benevolence, the faith in God and truth, of which 
 the nation can boast. It is easy, I know, to salve over the 
 wound with the prescriptions of political quackery — to look 
 away backward to the u good old times" ot evasion and com- 
 promise, and to sigh for their return — to shout aloud the 
 party cry, u the Union as it was, the Constitution as it is ;" 
 but to dispose of these questions in any such way, is a sim- 
 ple impossibility. God has given the wheel another turn, 
 and a new dispensation is opening upon us. Whether we 
 like it or not, the tide of events which has swept us so fearfully 
 along during the last few years has brought us into entirely 
 new conditions ; and it would be fatuity not to study their 
 bearing and shape our policy by them. What should be 
 the details of that policy, this is not the proper place, even 
 had I time, to discuss. But this is the proper place, now 
 and always, to insist that its spirit shall be Christian. The 
 
18 
 
 audacity which originated the rebellion, the cruelties which 
 have attended it. and the terrible desolation it has wrought, 
 naturally provoke indignation ; and many are calling aloud 
 for retaliation and vengeance. Abhorred be the words ! 
 they "savor not the things that be of God." My brethren 
 we have drawn the sword for one only purpose— to vindi- 
 cate the outraged majesty of law and sustain the legitimate 
 government of the land In so doing, we but discharge a 
 duty which God has laid upon us. This motive gives to 
 every blow struck by the defenders of the country the digni- 
 ty of a ministerial, the sanctity of a Divine act. Every 
 thing beyond or beside this but proclaims us the slaves of 
 unholy passion, and is at once a crime against humanity 
 and an invasion of the Divine prerogative. The laws of 
 war may require retaliation in certain circumstances and 
 within certain limits ; and the law of the land has its own 
 punishment for treason and rebellion. Let the responsible 
 ministers of the law adjudge and execute it. But let the 
 spirit of the nation be purged of every vindictive element. 
 "Vengeance is mine, I will repay ; saith the Lord." Let 
 us prosecute this war in the spirit of "love to our enemies." 
 Let us convince these misguided men that we are fighting 
 not for ourselves alone, but for them and their children as 
 well, to avert the common ruin in which their madness 
 would involve us all. And when the war is ended, when 
 from whatever motive the weapons of rebellion are laid 
 down and the grasp of the destroyer is taken from the na- 
 tion's throat, let our study be not how we can make them 
 rue most bitterly their folly and crime, but how we can 
 most speedily conquer their prejudices and win their hearts. 
 We may not readily forget the past : the lesson has been too 
 costly, and is too vitally related to the welfare of comino- 
 generations. We must see to it, too, in the settlement, that 
 the sanctity of government is securely guarded, and the 
 rights of the weak effectually protected. But we may dis- 
 criminate between the people at large and the bold, bad 
 men, who have partly misled and partly misrepresented 
 
19 
 
 them and always betrayed their true interests for the basest 
 ends. Let these answer to the law which they have defied. 
 But towards the Southern people, as individuals, communi : 
 ties, or states, we surely need bear no grudges. We must 
 feel that, our circumstances changed, we should most pro- 
 bably have committed the same error. We must not forget 
 how large a share we at the North actually had in originat- 
 ing and fostering the tendencies of whose bitter fruit we are 
 all eating. If then, God, through what men call "the for- 
 tunes of war," should give us the opportunity to be mag- 
 nanimous, let us be zealous to improve it. Let us be just 
 in the construction we put upon motives, and generous in 
 praise of virtues which have shed so strange a lustre even 
 on so bad a cause. In the re-organization of our disordered 
 land, let us recognize their claim to that, for which their 
 hypocritical leaders pretend to be contending, but which 
 has never been denied them — the inalienable right of self- 
 government, the right (that is) to an equal voice in the di- 
 rection of the common weal. Let us show, that if they have 
 exaggerated, we do not therefore underrate, the sacredness 
 of "State Rights" in a just relation to the national polity. 
 Let us generously aid them to repair the damages of the 
 war, and, by every means in our power, smooth their tran- 
 sition to the new and better social condition which the war 
 will have made inevitable. Thus may we in time, by the 
 blessing of God, restore fraternity to our divided land, dis- 
 appoint the hopes of our enemies abroad, and illustrate be- 
 yond all former example the power of faith in Him, who 
 "maketh all things new." 
 
 And the negro — the irrepressible negro — he will not be 
 left out of the reckoning, and what shall be done with him ? 
 It is the question which all are asking, and to which an an- 
 swer must be found. "The low, the lazy, the lying negro," 
 as many will call him — ignorant, undisciplined and unde- 
 veloped, as all must concede him to be — the heir of an infe- 
 rior organization, the slave and victim for many generations 
 of the basest passions of a more powerful race — and yet a 
 
20 
 
 man, made like us in the image of God, involved with us 
 in the ruins of the same fall, embraced in the sweep of the 
 same great redemption, bound to the same judgment, and 
 hoping for the same heaven. As we look down the vista 
 of the opening year, his form looms up, darkly sublime, di- 
 rectly in our path, and very, very near ; and again the 
 question comes back to us, "What will you do with him ?" 
 Ah! my countrymen, were'our eyes' but anointed to dis- 
 cern the truth, with what strange majesty would that dusky 
 form appear invested ! His filth and rags would vanish, 
 and he would stand before us clothed in the habiliments, 
 and radiant with the dignity, of a messenger and represent- 
 ative of God ! He stands where he does, by divine ap- 
 pointment, to be the touch-stone of our political virtue and 
 our religious faith. He is the key of the situation — the 
 hinge, on which God will make to turn the future destiny 
 of this people ; and I know of no question fraught with pro- 
 founder interest to the American people than this : — What 
 will you do with the negro ? 
 
 Some tell us we can do nothing with him, and others 
 say we need do nothing with him. But neither one nor 
 the other, I apprehend, speak the language of a sound 
 philosophy or a pure religion. We have much to do with 
 the negro, and much to do for him, if we would avert the 
 perils of his sudden emancipation amidst the prevailing dis- 
 orders of this gigantic civil war, — if we would take up this 
 strange element, as yet but partially assimilated, so easy to 
 be alienated, and fraught with such portentous power for 
 evil, and successfully incorporate it into our vast and com- 
 prehensive nationality. IIowt\\\§ is to be done, it is not for 
 me to say. But so much I need not hagitate to declare, 
 that a thing so "new" in the history of the world will hard- 
 ly be accomplished save with the co-operative power of 
 "Him that sitteth on the throne," and through those agen- 
 cies whereby He "maketh all things new." Our part is to 
 understand what God is doing, and to act in harmony with 
 Him. Has God made manifest, by infallible proofs, His 
 
21 
 
 purpose to give, at last, the negro "a career ?" We must 
 remove the stumbling-blocks which we have heaped in his 
 way, and let him have his chance. Has God set to his seal 
 that the negro is a man ? We must accept him as such, 
 and respect him as such, and remember the truth we have 
 inscribed on the corner-stone of our liberties, that all 
 men are created not only "free," but "equal" — equal,that is, 
 in civil rights, and in all natural opportunities for growth 
 and improvement. Is God preparing a field for the negro's 
 labor ? — desolating wide tracts of territory, which no hands 
 but his will ever again make fertile — disorganizing a vast 
 system of industry to which he alone can restore vigor and 
 productiveness? We must protect and honor his labor, just 
 as we do that of other men — must afford him the same mo- 
 tives to industry, the same encouragements and rewards, and 
 the same means of self-protection which other laborers enjoy 
 against the encroachments of cupidity and power; and the 
 crown which the nation has ever awarded to honest and 
 productive toil, we must not grudge to place upon the sable 
 brow. Has Christ died for the negro \ and will He purify 
 and exalt him, and lit him for companionship with angels 
 and for a place within His own bosom ? Then must we, for 
 Christ's sake, recognize and treat him as a brother, in a 
 spirit of generous sympathy and helpful love. Is he low? 
 we must raise him. Is he weak ? we must impart to him 
 of our strength. Has he fallen among thieves who have 
 stripped, and robbed him, and left him half dead ? We 
 must run to his relief ; we must let him feel a brother's 
 arms beneath him, a brother's heart throbbing; against his 
 own, a brothers affectionate generosity providingfor his ne- 
 cessities and healing all his hurts. Instead of meanly mak- 
 ing the inferiority of the negro an excuse for multiplying 
 his disabilities and robbing him of his equal rights, if we 
 are Christians, my brethren, we shall turn around and rea- 
 son just the other way. We shall silence >the brutal clamor 
 which still fills the air about us, against the "nigger." We 
 shall eradicate the unworthy prejudice from our own 
 
22 
 
 bosoms. We shall interpose, not only between him and the 
 cruelty of his southern oppressors, but also between him and 
 the meaner and more cruel jealousy of his northern fellow- 
 laborers ; and standing by the altars which our fathers 
 reared to Impartial Liberty, we shall swear to each other 
 and our fathers' God, that the negro shall at least have fair 
 play — yea, that by as much as he has heretofore been despoil- 
 ed of his natural rights, they shall be guaranteed to him^ 
 not less, but more sacredly hereafter ! Finally, is God gath- 
 ering on this continent, in this broad domain of liberty, the 
 elements of a new and glorious nationality, meaning out of 
 many races to mold one "new" race more rich and strong 
 and admirably endowed than any that have been ? and, 
 among the rest, has He brought the negro ! Then must 
 we cease, my brethren, to fight in opposition to His pur- 
 pose, cease to build our petty dykes against the tidal cur- 
 rent of His providence, cease to demand the rejection of 
 one ingredient trom the composition because we do not like 
 or comprehend it. We must give God and nature leave to 
 work ; and we must work with them, so far at least as the 
 laws of equal justice, impartial freedom, and Christian fra- 
 ternity require. Have we not learned, that when a nation 
 like ours, with such an ancestry and such historical antece- 
 dents, proves traitorous to the principles of natural right, 
 God comes to it with scourges — yea, with flails, and will 
 either thresh the iniquity out of it, or thresh the nation in- 
 to powder 1 
 
 But what does all this mean ? you ask. Does it mean 
 free education, with the whites ? Does it mean unrestrict- 
 ed competition in all branches of business, and for all the 
 rewards of honor and wealth ? Does it mean free citizen- 
 ship, the right of the ballot, and the dignity of office ? I do 
 not see, my indignant Caucasian friend, but it may possibly 
 come even to that : let statesmen judge, and wisely fix the 
 how and the when. But are you afraid of the competition ? 
 It means this, at least, that, in a free land, you ought to 
 have no advantage of a negro, civil, political, or social, 
 
23 
 
 simply because your skins are of different complexion, or 
 because your ancestors came from different quarters of the 
 globe ; none, but what you fairly earn by superior endow- 
 ments or by superior diligence. Do you shrink from' a con- 
 test with him on equal terms ? 
 
 Such notions, I admit, are novelties. The adoption of 
 them in practice would certainly make "new times" among 
 us. But they are novelties, I apprehend, which to the eye 
 of impartial and enlightened observers, the world over, 
 would reveal the hand of Him who sits upon the Eternal 
 Throne, and is making all things new. They are novelties 
 which would mark the nation's progress in moral wisdom 
 and in nobleness of character, and would carry the race a 
 long stride nearer to that golden era of perfection for which 
 it struggles and sighs. 
 
 III. But I must hasten to a close. The peculiarity of 
 the occasion has led me to consider my theme almost exclu- 
 sively in the kingdoms of Nature and Providence. But I 
 should miss the most important lesson of the text, if I failed to 
 remark that the renovating power of God is most signally 
 of all displayed in the sphere of man's Redemption. 
 
 It ^as the Mediatorial Throne which John here beholds 
 in the Apocalyptic vision, and "He that sat thereon" is 
 Jesus Christ — "the Lamb in the midst thereof." He is 
 the Great Eenewer — wonderful as such in creation and in 
 providence, but supremely wonderful in the wonders of 
 His grace. It was for this He came into the world, to re- 
 claim, to reconstruct, and fashion it anew. It was alienated 
 and apostate, but He undertook to reconcile it — dark, but 
 He would enlighten it — disordered with all spiritual mala- 
 dies, but He possessed the power to work its cure. It was 
 full of fraud and violence, corruption and crime, oppression, 
 cruelty, and deceit ; and He has undertaken to illumine 
 and exalt it, and to fill it with love and purity and peace. 
 Behold, (He says) I make all things new ! 
 
 And abundantly has the claim been vindicated, alike in 
 the history of His personal ministry and the effects since 
 
24 
 
 wrought through the preaching of His word. By His su- 
 blime unveiling of the Fatherhood and Forgiving Love of 
 God,— -that truth of truths, which the world by wisdom ne- 
 ver knew, — by the great fact of immortality first brought to 
 light in the Gospel, by His "new commandment" of love 
 and His own peerless illustration of its beauty and power, 
 by the solemn mystery of His death and the glorious mys- 
 tery of His resurrection, by the entirely new relation into 
 which man was thereby brought with God, and by the out- 
 pouring of the Holy Ghost — the new Comforter sent 
 through His intercession — by all these signs did He prove 
 Himself possessed of a new and new-creating power ; and 
 the amazing transformations wrought by it since, in the 
 character of men and the condition of nations, attest the 
 energy of its operation and its continued activity to the 
 present hour. 
 
 Consult the records of history. Compare the effects of 
 the gospel on human character and life w T ith those of any 
 other agency the world has known, and judge it by its 
 fruits. A repentance which stops not short of reformation 
 — a joy, surpassing all other joys — a morality pure as the 
 heart of God, whence it sprung — a patience that refuses 
 no suffering — a benevolence that shrinks from no sacrifice 
 — a charity that believeth all things — a hope like an anchor 
 to the soul, entering within the veil — a faith that out-sings 
 affliction's fiercest storm, that out shines the very flames of 
 martyrdom, that purifies the heart, and overcomes the 
 world, and triumphs even in death — these are its fruits, fa- 
 miliar to the experience of thousands, and proof of a poten- 
 cy Divine. How can it be but that to such elements shall 
 ultimately be given a universal victory? 
 
 It is more than eighteen centuries now since Jesus com- 
 pared His kingdom to a grain of mustard-seed, at first "the 
 least of all seeds," but wrapping in its tiny rind "the great- 
 est of all herbs," and to the leaven whose vital force strikes 
 through the mass of meal, nor ever ceases to work "until 
 the whole is leavened :" and the history of the world since 
 
25 
 
 then lias, as you well know, been but an unfolding of the 
 truth And still the work goes on — never more vigorously, 
 never more effectually, I apprehend, than in the years in 
 which we live. For though to particular formulas of the 
 Christian doctrine or to particular forms of ecclesiastical 
 organization, no signal prosperity, no special enlargement, 
 may of late have been vouchsafed, yet never since the birth 
 of Christ were the thought and life of civilized men, the 
 literature, the philosophy, the government and business of 
 the world, so widely permeated by the essential truth and 
 vital spirit of Christianity as they are to-day. 
 
 How far, indeed, the recent retarded growth of partic- 
 ular churches may be due to this prevalence in society of 
 a Christian idea too large, and free, and many-sided, to 
 find expression in any one of them, it would be difficult to 
 estimate and idle to conjecture. The general mind, educat- 
 ed by many masters, has out-grown them all, and refuses 
 the ipsissima verba of each in turn, so that the church out- 
 side of the sects, the Christianity outside the church, may be 
 relatively larger than we suspect, and larger than will ap- 
 pear,until the growth of intelligence and love in the "church 
 universal" shall lead to a reconstruction of its symbols, rit- 
 uals, and polity on a broader and more truly Christian basis. 
 Meanwhile the renovation of the world goes on, advanced 
 by a thousand unconscious and unsuspected agents. All 
 the discoveries of science, and all the inventions of art, serve 
 it. Knowledge, in which there is always a portion of Di- 
 vinity, is mure and more diffused. An cien Terrors are ex- 
 ploded ; and truths, instinct with a celestial vitality, are es- 
 tablished in spite of the oppositions of interest and preju- 
 dice. Goodness and love, bad as the world still is, command 
 increasing homage ; and all the charities of public and private 
 life receive from year to year more striking illustrations. — 
 Thus civilization itself is preparing the way of the Lord; 
 while the Gospel, vocal on the lips and radiant in the lives 
 of a myriad witnesses, breathing its pure spirit through 
 the literature, the laws, and the social^life of Christendom, 
 
26 
 
 makes itself ever better understood and more and more 
 powerfully felt for the salvation of men. 
 
 In conclusion, my hearers, the subject assumes a practi- 
 cal and personal bearing. The renewing of which Christ 
 proclaims Himself the author, is a spiritual renewing, and 
 its seat is the soul of the individual man. u He thai is in 
 Christ Jesus, is the new creature." It is to him only, that, 
 in any real sense, "old things have passed away, and all 
 things have become new." And the most important quest- 
 ion that any one can put to himself is this : — Have I ever 
 experienced this "renewing of the Holy Ghost," and so be- 
 come fitted to work with the Son of God for the renovation 
 of the world ? 
 
 I have spoken of the vast fields of human enterprise, ma- 
 terial and moral, and of the encouragements to enter and 
 occupy them. I believe all that I have said in honor of 
 faithful toil. I recognize the hand of God in the triumphs 
 of civilization, and in the entire progress of humanity. I 
 expect to see "a new earth" as well as "a new heaven," 
 according to the scripture, and the earth made new by a 
 Divine blessing on human work. But believe me, my 
 friend, not every kind of work will draw God's blessing on 
 the workman. Yea, rather, believe Him who is the best 
 of Teachers and the best of Friends, and who says: — This 
 is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom God hath 
 sent." It is the first great business of life. That accom- 
 plished, your success is sure. That neglected, life must be 
 a failure. I care not what temporary prizes you may win, 
 or what benefit others may reap from your toils. To your- 
 self, the end must be defeat and bitter disappointment. If 
 your aims are earthly, how can you hope for a heavenly re- 
 ward ? If you labor for yourself alone, how can you claim 
 a share at last in the triumphs of your Lord — Him whom 
 you have despised and rejected, and put to an open shame? 
 
 Let us not mistake then, and lose ourselves in the mag- 
 nitude of our theme. The Great JRenewer deals not with 
 crowds, not with nations, not with the world at large, but 
 
37 
 
 with individual men and women — with you and me, my 
 brother and my sister — and as to eaeh in turn He offers this 
 wondrous grace of renewal, so on each He throws the re- 
 sponsibility of accepting or refusing it. Oh ! what more 
 fitting time than just this morning to meet the question 
 bravely, to answer it as you know you should, and as you 
 will one day wish you had ? What more fitting inscription 
 to write on the fair brow of the new, unsullied Year, than 
 this : 
 
 Holiness Unto the Lord ! 
 "My life, which Thou hast made Thy care, 
 Lord, I devote to Thee !" 
 
 When Jesus offers you His renewing grace', it is not at 
 arm's length, sitting afar on the distant throne of His glory. 
 He comes down, out of His place, in the greatness of His love. 
 He is at my side to-day, and pleads with you by my voice. 
 Nay, He draws nearer still, and I hear his own gentle tones 
 addressed to every one. Hark! Behold, I stand at the door, 
 and knock. Awake, O sleeper, and rise to let him in ! If 
 any man will hear my voice and open unto me, I will come 
 in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. O, 
 blessed companionship ! O, delicious entertainment ! O, 
 sweeter than angel's food — redeeming grace and dying love'! 
 — And does he bring nothing with Him, no New-year's 
 Gift, to make His welcome richer ? Listen : 1 will give 
 him to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white 
 stone, and in the stone a new nume written which no man 
 knoweth saving he that receiveth it. He means a new heart 
 — a heart changed by the power of the Holy Ghost, made 
 clean and white and pure, having the inward and incom- 
 municable Witness of His favor, which is at the same time 
 the pledge of heavenly bliss. And I will write upon him 
 the name of my God, and of the city of my God, New Jeru- 
 salem: and T will write upon him my new name. I tell 
 you, fellow-sinners, you cannot afford to lose the offer. I 
 beseech you, take Him at His word to-day, and secure this 
 invaluable gem, this priceless new-year's gift ! 
 
28 
 
 Then, in the day of glorious consummation, when the 
 work of renovation is complete, when the "new heaven and 
 the new earth" stand revealed, and "the holy city, New Je- 
 rusalem, cometh down trom God, prepared as a bride adorn- 
 ed for her husband, 1 ' with what confidence and pride will 
 you present this token at the pearly gate, and claim admit- 
 tance there? And, O, with what tremulous tones and 
 streaming tears of joy will you take up your golden harp 
 and join the song — the new song — the sweet, immortal song 
 of Moses and the Lamb, saying: 
 
 "Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, 
 be unto Him that sitteth on the throne, 
 and unto the Lamb forever." 
 Amen.