THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 BATTLE ECHOES, 
 
 OB, 
 
 LESSONS FROM THE WAR, 
 
 GEORGE B. IDE, D.D. 
 
 1 God is great; His name is mighty I 
 
 He is victor in the strife I 
 For He bringeth Good from Evil, 
 And from Death commandeth Life." 
 
 WHITTIER. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 
 GrOTJLD .A. :ST D L I IN" C O 1C 1ST 
 
 NEW YORK: SHELDON AND COMPANY. 
 
 CINCINNATI: GEO. s. BLANCHARD AND co. 
 
 18G6.
 
 Entered according to Act at Congress, In the year 1866, by 
 
 GOULD AND LINCOLN, 
 In the Clerk'i office of the District Court for the District of Massachu 
 
 TELL AJTD ROLLiws, Printer*, 
 122 Washington Street, Bo.ton.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 )URING the dread struggle through which the na- 
 tion has passed, no conviction was stronger or 
 more universal, than that of God's interference in 
 human affairs. So clear were the revealings of 
 His hand, that even the undevout were compelled to bow 
 before them with awe and reverence. There is ground 
 for the fear, that this impression is becoming weaker 
 with the return of Peace ; and that unbelief and indiffer- 
 ence are creeping back to their old seats in the public 
 conscience. Sad, indeed, will it be, if the great teach- 
 ings, which the Almighty has inscribed, in letters of 
 blood and fire, on the most pregnant page of our history, 
 shall fade away, and leave us as unwise and as unregard- 
 ful as in the former days. In the hope of contributing, 
 
 5 
 
 550224
 
 v i PREFACE. 
 
 however slightly, to the prevention of such a result, the 
 writer has been induced to send forth the present vol- 
 ume. The thoughts which it contains were pondered, 
 and, for the most part, written out, while the startling 
 events of the war were still in progress ; or while every 
 heart was yet thrilling with the wonders of its end. 
 Change of circumstances may have lessened their inter- 
 est, but not their importance ; for the truths to which 
 they relate, are eternal, and, therefore, never inoppor- 
 tune. And, perhaps, at this calmer hour, the momen- 
 tous questions which the conflict has decided, may be 
 more intelligently and effectively considered, than when 
 that conflict was at its height. To Him, who has so sig- 
 nally come forth for the vindication of His own honor, 
 this feeble attempt to trace the way of His outgoing is 
 humbly committed.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE WAR FOR THE UNION A RIGHTEOUS WAR . . 9 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 REASONS FOR GRATEFUL CONFIDENCE .... 35 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 GREAT ERAS MARKED BY GREAT JUDGMENTS ... 60 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PIOUS MEN THE NATION'S HOPE 104 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE MOVING PILLAR . 135
 
 vi y CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE FREEDMEN OF THE WAK . 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE LAND CARING FOR ITS DEFENDERS 182 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE DEEP PLEADING FOR ITS HEROES .... 203 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MEMORIES AND LESSONS . . .224 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 GOD'S METHOD OF RECONSTRUCTION 254 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 OUR DAY AND ITS WORK . . 282
 
 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE WAR FOR THE UNION A RIGHTEOUS WAR. 
 
 "AND THE CHILDREN OF ISRAEL WENT UP AND WEPT BEFORE 
 THE LORD UNTIL EVEN, AND ASKED COUNSEL OF THE LORD, SAYING, 
 
 SHALL I GO UP AGAIN TO BATTLE AGAINST THE CHILDREN OF BEN- 
 JAMIN JIY BROTHER? AND THE LORD SAID, GO UP AGAINST HIM." 
 Judges xx. 23. 
 
 geologist, in exploring the earth's crust, 
 finds numerous petrified remains of animals 
 and plants, which are supposed to have lived 
 and perished ages before the creation of 
 man, or of any of the present forms of or- 
 ganized life. These fossilized bodies, though be- 
 longing to races long since extinct, have yet so 
 many points of analogy with races now existing on 
 the earth, as to furnish abundant evidence that they 
 were produced by the same Divine Hand, and are 
 included in the same general system. Hence they 
 have for the student of natural science a living in- 
 terest, and shed an important light on the field of 
 his inquiries.
 
 j0 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 Very similar is the relation which the narratives 
 of the Bible sustain to the facts of to-day. The 
 men and the events to. which they referred have 
 passed away ; but the great principles which they 
 embodied still remain, and are as fresh, as full of 
 meaning, as fruitful in instruction, at the present 
 hour, as hi the periods when they were first un- 
 folded to the world. 
 
 From the historic treasures of the Old Testament 
 we have extracted a very interesting fragment, re- 
 lating to an ancient civil war which occurred among 
 the tribes of Israel, soon after their establishment 
 in the inheritance of Canaan. The particular occa- 
 sion out of which it grew, is to us of little practical 
 moment. Nevertheless, the general features of the 
 transaction are marked with characteristics in which 
 we have a vital concern. The motives which gov- 
 erned it, the spirit hi which it was conducted, the 
 recognition of Jehovah's agency, the feeling of de- 
 pendence upon him, by which every movement was 
 pervaded and inspired, are fraught with lessons ever 
 timely, ever emphatic ; and which reaching down, 
 in their deathless significance, through all the cen- 
 turies, are as pertinent to our own circumstances as 
 to those of the hosts of Israel, three thousand years 
 ago. 
 
 The inhabitants of Gibeah, one of the principal 
 cities of Benjamin, had committed a fearful crime.
 
 THE WAR FOR THE UNION A RIGHTEOUS WAR. 11 
 
 A Levite, journeying with his wife from Bethlehem 
 to his home in Mount Ephraim, was compelled to 
 sojourn among them for a night. A band of ruf- 
 fians assaulted the house in which he lodged, subject- 
 ed the man to gross abuse, and murdered the wo- 
 man under circumstances of most revolting atrocity. 
 Intelligence of this shocking act was sent by the 
 husband to all the tribes, accompanied by an ap- 
 peal for help and vengeance. From city to city, 
 from hamlet to hamlet, from the wooded slopes of 
 Lebanon to the burning plains of Kadesh, from the 
 fountains of the Jordan to w the way of the sea," 
 sped the summons, telling of the outrage which had 
 polluted the land, and calling for its punishment. 
 The whole nation was stirred by the tidings as by 
 an electric shock. All sprung to arms. The crime 
 was so utterly without provocation; it struck so 
 vitally at the foundations of public order and of 
 public safety, that every heart felt that it must be 
 wiped out in blood, and every hand grasped its 
 weapon to aid in the work of retribution. The con- 
 viction was universal, that thus only could the na- 
 tional character be vindicated, and even the national 
 existence maintained. 
 
 With this view, the forces of Israel assembled at 
 Mizpeh, four hundred thousand footmen that drew 
 sword all binding themselves, by a solemn vow, 
 that they would not look upon their homes again
 
 12 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 until they had meted out to the offenders the just 
 penalty of their wickedness. That the innocent, 
 however, might not be involved in the same doom 
 with the guilty, they despatched messengers to all 
 the towns of Benjamin, rehearsing the iniquity 
 which had been committed, and demanding the sur- 
 render of the criminals. Instead of complying with 
 this reasonable requirement, the entire people of 
 the tribe arrayed themselves on the side of the 
 murderers, and determined to resist the collected 
 might of the land. Thus, by indorsing the infamy, 
 they made it their own, and inaugurated rebellion 
 in its defence. 
 
 In this terrible emergency, the army of Israel 
 presented itself before the Lord, and, with many 
 prayers and bitter weeping, asked counsel from Him, 
 saying, Shall I go up to battle against the children 
 of Benjamin my brother?" This it was in the im- 
 pending conflict that made them pause the fact 
 that it was to be waged, not against a foreign ene- 
 my, but against one of the Chosen Tribes, against 
 men of the same blood with themselves, united in 
 the same national bond, and sharers in the same her- 
 itage of Divine care and bounty. And well might 
 they pause, and seek guidance from a Wisdom high- 
 er than their own ; for civil war is in itself a calam- 
 ity so dreadful; there is something so unnatural 
 and shocking in the deadly strife of brother with
 
 THE WAR FOR THE UNION A RIGHTEOUS WAR. 13 
 
 brother, that nothing short of God's command, either 
 communicated by express revelation, or clearly in- 
 ferred from His providence, could justify its incep- 
 tion. So they felt and therefore supplicated the 
 Almighty One, who had led them in the difficul- 
 ties and perils of former years, to make known to 
 them His will in the new and doubtful crisis that 
 was now upon them. The answer to their petition 
 came back from the Throne of Infinite Power, in the 
 brief but decisive words, "Go up against him." 
 Deplorable as was the shedding of kindred blood ; 
 frightful as would be the struggle between warring 
 legions of the same race ; it were better than that 
 crimes subversive of all law and government should 
 pass unrebuked ; better, aye, a thousand fold bet- 
 ter, intestine war with all its horrors, than that prof- 
 ligacy and treason should trample down decency and 
 purity and justice, and render the very name of 
 Israel an abomination in the earth. 
 
 The striking similarity between the position occu- 
 pied by the men of Israel, and that in which the 
 loyal States of America are now placed, must bo 
 apparent to all. They stood on the bloody edge of 
 battle with their brethren and fellow-countrymen ; 
 and so do we. They were summoned to disregard 
 fraternal ties in the upholding of constituted author- 
 ity ; and so are we. A portion of the common- 
 wealths composing this great Confederacy, have
 
 14 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 cast off their allegiance to the General Government ; 
 have risen up in rebellion against it ; and are plot- 
 ting the overthrow of everything which, as a nation, 
 we hold dear and sacred. The loyal States are send- 
 ing forth their thousands and hundreds of thousands 
 of brave, patriotic men, to put down this rebellion, 
 and defend from the attack of traitors the glorious 
 institutions which our fathers founded in suffering 
 and blood. Those whom I now address are among 
 the number. 1 You have relinquished the joys of 
 home, and the peaceful pursuits of civil life, that you 
 may go to the rescue of your country in this the hour 
 of its sternest need. You go to meet, not the in- 
 vading legions of a foreign power, but your kindred 
 and late compatriots, transformed by treason into 
 ruthless and implacable foes. It is an awful mission 
 an exigency in its greatness and in its solemnity 
 unparalleled in the annals of the world. Every 
 just-minded and God-fearing man amongst you can- 
 not but ask, "Is it right? Is it in harmony 'with 
 the holy purposes of Him who is sovereign over all?" 
 This thought is, doubtless, agitating many a heart 
 now present ; and from many a lip the question is 
 ready to break forth, " Shall I go up against the 
 children of Benjamin my brother ? " 
 
 To this inquiry we cannot expect an answer as di- 
 rect as that which was given to the men of Israel. 
 1 10th Regiment, Mass. Vols.
 
 THE WAR FOR THE UNION A RIGHTEOUS WAR. 15 
 
 They lived in the days when Heaven held miracu- 
 lous converse with earth. To those that feared and 
 sought Him, God then spoke, in audible accents, as a 
 man with his friend. He made known His will to 
 His ancient people in distinct announcements suited 
 to each separate occasion. Such announcements 
 were given, sometimes in voice-like responses, some- 
 times in dreams and visions, but more commonly by 
 the symbolic utterances of the Urim and Thummim. 
 This consisted of the twelve precious stones set in 
 the breastplate of the high priest ; and the ordi- 
 nance of Jehovah was, that when in momentous 
 emergencies His will was consulted, an affirmative 
 reply should be known by the increased brilliancy 
 of the jewels, and a negative by their fading into 
 dimness. It was probably by this method that the 
 answer of God was received in the instance be- 
 fore us. 
 
 No such supernatural medium of ascertaining the 
 Divine pleasure is intrusted to our hands. But we 
 are in possession of other means, by which the same 
 end may be secured in a manner not less convinc- 
 ing. Our Urim and Thummim is the Providence 
 of God. His will is declared to us by the out-flash- 
 ing of events on the bosom of Time, which is God's 
 priest. If, then, we would be assured that, in go- 
 ing forth to battle against our rebellious brethren, 
 we go in accordance with God's designs, and at
 
 jg BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 God's bidding, we must look on the breast of the 
 stupendous movement which is passing before us, 
 note the features that are prominent in it, and study 
 well their indications. In these we shall find the 
 clearest proofs of the righteousness of our cause, 
 and ample grounds for confidence in the Divine ap- 
 proval. 
 
 One feature which stands out conspicuously in 
 this Kebellion, is its utter want of any just pretext. 
 We deny not the right of a people, hi certain cir- 
 cumstances, to sever the bonds of constituted rule, 
 and modify or change their political relations. 
 Though governments are ordained by God, and as 
 such are entitled to obedience, yet when, through 
 corruption or tyranny, they become dangerous to the 
 welfare of the subject, they no longer fulfil the end 
 of their appointment, and may lawfully be sub- 
 verted. But no such justification can be set up on 
 the part of the States which have seceded from the 
 Union , and are now levelling war against it. The Fed- 
 eral Government has never oppressed them. It has 
 never favored other sections to their disadvantage. 
 It has not robbed them of a single immunity, or 
 imposed on them, in one solitary instance, unequal 
 burdens. It has fulfilled to them faithfully, and 
 even jealously, all the provisions and compromises 
 of the Constitution. And not only have they en- 
 joyed every guaranty secured to them by the na-
 
 THE WAR FOR THE UNION A RIGHTEOUS WAR. 17 
 
 tional compact, but they have been, from the very 
 beginning of the Government, the object of its 
 special patronage and protection. In the revolu- 
 tionary period, the chains of colonial vassalage were 
 riven from the older of these States by Northern 
 troops. A majority of their people were tories 
 then, as their descendants are traitors now ; and left 
 to their own resources, not one of them, with the 
 exception perhaps of Virginia, would ever have 
 achieved independence. The territory occupied by 
 the newer of these States was purchased from for- 
 eign powers by the General Government, and do- 
 nated to them. Then 1 very homes were the gift of 
 the Union. In their feebleness and infancy, they 
 were fostered by its care, and defended by its ar- 
 mies ; and in the case of some of them, it has expend- 
 ed for their benefit an amount exceeding a million 
 of dollars for each white inhabitant they now con- 
 tain. During three fourths of the period since the 
 Government was organized, the administration of 
 public affairs has been in the hands of the South. 
 Her's have been the chief commands in the army 
 and navy ; her's the richest posts in the civil ser- 
 vice ; her's the most potential voice in the Senate 
 and on the Bench. To her interests, whether real 
 or imagined, all other interests have been compelled 
 to bow. Though more and more in a minority at 
 each decade, she has managed by insolence and
 
 18 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 threats always to dominate, and to have her own 
 way in everything. No, no ! the Government has 
 not wronged the South. At no point, and in no 
 relation, has she suffered damage from its control. 
 On the contrary, the Union has been to its Southern 
 members the source of all their social and political 
 blessings. It has given them respectability abroad, 
 peace and security at home. Instead of assailing, 
 it has upheld even their " peculiar institution," ab- 
 horrent as it is to the heart and conscience of the 
 free North, guarding them from the dangers with 
 which it teems, and interposing the shield of a great 
 nation's influence between them and the moral exe- 
 cration of the world. Thus has the Union been to 
 its rebel children a fond and indulgent mother, leni- 
 ent to their faults, yielding to their caprices, watch- 
 ful for their happiness, doing them good good in 
 their infancy, good in their manhood, good ever 
 nothing but good. 
 
 Why, then, do these children rise up against their 
 mother, trample her authority under their feet, and 
 plot to expel her from the estate which she has super- 
 intended so well aye, to wound her to the death? 
 Why? Because, and only because, their Northern 
 brethren, believing slavery to be a sin and a curse, 
 will say so, and will not consent to its extension 
 over the whole domain. Because, and only because, 
 these same Northern brethren, living in the atrnos-
 
 THE WAR FOR THE UNION A RIGHTEOUS WAR. 19 
 
 phere of freedom, work, delve the soil, ply manu- 
 factures, foster commerce, build cities, grow rich 
 and powerful ; while the Southern branches of the 
 family, nurtured by slavery in idleness and pride, 
 are constantly sinking into greater relative inferiority. 
 This, the consequence of their own vicious system 
 of labor, they ascribe to the Union, and on that 
 account seek its destruction. Insane with envy and 
 ambition, they have conspired to overturn the 
 Government, because they see that the days of theii 
 ascendency in it are passing away. 
 
 Suppose that on the green bank of some crystal 
 lake a community of beavers have established them- 
 selves, and on a barren crag near by a colony oi 
 rattlesnakes. The sunshine falls alike upon both, 
 without partiality, and without regard to their differ- 
 ent natures and habits. The beavers, intelligent, 
 industrious, construct houses, provide food, lay up 
 stores for future needs, rejoice in warm furs, and are 
 happy. The snakes, coiled up in their den, or bask- 
 ing lazily at its mouth, filling their poison bags, 
 and sharpening their poison teeth, live in holes, 
 go naked, and eat dirt. Suppose, further, that the 
 snakes, becoming conscious that the beavers were 
 outstripping them in enterprise, and wealth, and com- 
 fort, should attribute the fact to the sun, and accuse 
 it of pouring its beams more profusely on their 
 rivals than on themselves ; and, for that reason,
 
 20 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 should make war on the blessed luminary, and 
 attempt to tear it from the sky? Would you not 
 say that the wisdom of the serpent had forsaken 
 them? 
 
 So false, so fatuous, are the charges of the dis- 
 affected States against the justice and good faith of 
 the Union. The annals of human wickedness can 
 show no instance of crime more black, more unpro- 
 voked, more utterly without the shadow of excuse, 
 than this attempt of the Southern oligarchs to destroy 
 the freest and most beneficent government which the 
 world ever saw. And see we not in this fact a man- 
 ifest token that God is with us in the struggle? 
 "When, in lowly prostration before his throne, we 
 ask, Shall we go up to battle against the conspira- 
 tors, do we not read, in the very atrociousness of 
 their purpose, the clear and emphatic answer, M Go 
 up against them"? To believe otherwise, would 
 involve the monstrous supposition that the All-Holy 
 could be indifferent to the Eight, and sanction and 
 sustain the Wrong. 
 
 Another feature of this conflict, giving forth the 
 same reply, may be seen in the great results which 
 it involves. It is not a war based on any of the 
 ordinary questions which disturb the peace of 
 nations not a war for increase of territory, for 
 political supremacy, for carrying out some diplomatic 
 punctilio not a war of ambition or of aggrandize-
 
 THE WAR FOR THE UNION A RIGHTEOUS WAR. 21 
 
 ment. It is strictly, on the part of the North, a 
 war of self-defence a grapple for existence. All 
 the momentous interests of Nationality, Freedom, 
 Christianity, and human progress are committed to 
 it. We must roll back these swelling waves of 
 treason, or see the grand old ship of the Govern- 
 ment, which heroes launched and sages have piloted, 
 go down, with all its precious freight, into the depths 
 forever. 
 
 It has often been asked, Why not recognize the 
 independence of the revolted States, and allow them 
 to try their experiment of a Slave-Confederacy ? To 
 this it is a sufficient answer to say, that, were the 
 lawfulness of secession once acknowledged, the 
 pillars of the Constitution would be undermined, 
 and the whole fabric of the Government must, sooner 
 or later, topple to the ground. With such a right 
 expressly conceded, or constructively established by 
 precedent, the Constitution would not be worth the 
 parchment on which it is written. The claim that a 
 State may withdraw from the Union at pleasure 
 involves a solecism so monstrous, that only a brain 
 drunk with the maddening cup of slavery, could 
 have given birth to it. It was not by the States 
 that the Union was formed, but by the people them- 
 selves, acting in their sovereign capacity. And they 
 made, not a Confederation, but a Union not a 
 League of Independent Sovereignties, but a Nation.
 
 22 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 The General Government, as they established it, was 
 not merely the organ of the States, but the central 
 and controlling Power, invested with eminent 
 domain, and crowned with paramount authority. 
 And not only is this supremacy of the Union provided 
 for in the Constitution it arises necessarily from 
 the very nature of representative government. With- 
 out it, such a government would be impossible. On 
 any other basis, we might have an Alliance of States, 
 but no national Oneness, no recognized Sovereignty, 
 that could insure us stability and repose at home, or 
 command the respect of the world. 
 
 In the contest, therefore, to which we are sum- 
 moned, our very life as a nation is at stake. The 
 continuance of whatever is valuable to us of every- 
 thing that has made us what we are 4 e P en( ls on 
 the preservation of the Union, and the vindication 
 of its sacredness. Our civil institutions, our politi- 
 cal importance, our material prosperity, our religious 
 privileges, the glorious memories of the past, the 
 more glorious hopes of the future all, all are 
 embarked in the issue. Let the champions of seces- 
 sion succeed in their destructive project, and our 
 coming history will present the spectacle of a once 
 mighty people arrested in its noble career, disinte- 
 grated, and split into separate communities, each 
 pursuing its dark way alone, or all rushing and clasl> 
 ing together in wild anarchy, like those nebulous
 
 THE WAR FOR THE UNION A RIGHTEOUS WAR. 23 
 
 bodies that roam aimlessly over the sky, and which 
 astronomers suppose to be the fragments of shivered 
 planets. Or we shall exhibit the yet sadder specta- 
 cle of a universal Slave-Despotism its throne a 
 cotton bale, its ensigns whips and chains, its trophies 
 a muzzled press, a dumb pulpit, and the groans of 
 chattelized humanity. Where now shines, high up 
 in mid-heaven, the broad, bright sun of American 
 Nationality, the light and the joy of the world, 
 countless meteors will shoot, and glare, and go out 
 in darkness ; or a vast, bloody comet, sweeping 
 them all from the firmament, will blaze along its 
 baleful track, scattering astonishment and affright 
 among the constellations, and dropping mildew over 
 the earth. Woe ! woe ! to the day in which that sun 
 shall set ! Woe ! woe ! to us and to our children 
 woe ! to Civilization woe ! woe ! to the fettered 
 and struggling nations if sacrilegious hands shall 
 tear down the pillar of our greatness, put out its 
 beacon-fires, and trail its banner in the dust. When 
 Babylon and Kome fell, the world shook with the 
 concussion. Yet its face retains now no scar to mark 
 where they struck. They were despotisms ; and 
 their overthrow could inflict no permanent evil on 
 mankind. But if the American Union falls, the last 
 hope of self-government for our race will fall with 
 it. The grave of this Republic will be the grave of 
 Freedom for the world.
 
 24 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 When such issues are depending, can we doubt 
 on which side the help of the Omnipotent stands 
 pledged ? Can we fear that He will permit this noble 
 country, the favored child of His Providence, whose 
 planting was superintended by His agency, whose 
 onward course has been directed by His hand, and 
 with whose future weal the highest interests of His 
 Kingdom are identified, to be rent in pieces by rebel- 
 lion, and trodden under foot by the most foul and 
 ruthless oligarchy that ever cursed the earth an 
 oligarchy whose Gospel is human bondage, and 
 whose mission is to spread barbarism and chains 
 over the fairest regions of the globe ? It were blas- 
 phemy to think so. There is not an attribute of 
 God that can ally itself with the propagandists of 
 slavery, or rejoice in their success '. And here 
 again, in the stupendous consequences involved, 
 we read the answer, "Go up against them." 
 
 The glorious uprising of the North in defence of 
 the Union is another indication eloquent with a like 
 response. Scarcely four months have passed since 
 the gloom of doubt and indecision hung, like a death- 
 pall, over all the Free States. The new Adminis- 
 tration, which had then just entered upon office, 
 found every channel of Governmental action de- 
 ranged and obstructed by the weakness or the 
 treachery of its predecessor. Treason battened in all
 
 THE WAR FOR THE UNIOX A RIGHTEOUS WAR, 25 
 
 the Departments raved in the halls of Congress 
 pervaded the Army and Navy corrupted every 
 branch of the Public Service. Treason had plun- 
 dered the nation's treasury, stolen its munitions of 
 war, seized its forts and arsenals, and rendered una- 
 vailable its scanty forces on land and sea, by scatter- 
 ing them to remote and widely separated points. 
 State after State was declaring its connection with 
 the Union dissolved. Fortress after fortress was 
 passing into the power of the insurgents. And all 
 this while, a dead torpor, a hideous enchantment, 
 benumbed and stupefied the loyal States. The 
 North was thought to be divided ; the Government 
 seemed paralyzed ; its friends confounded ; its ene- 
 mies alone awake and jubilant. 
 
 At length, the spell was broken. As the first roll 
 of the thunder lays open the cloud and sets free the 
 pent-up shower ; so the first gun at Sumter dissolved 
 the deathlike trance of Northern patriotism. Then 
 outgushed the Northern heart. Then uprose the 
 Northern might, to avenge the dishonored flag. 
 Strife and dissension were abashed into silence. 
 Parties, long hostile, vied with each other in their 
 zeal to sustain the Government. All voices were 
 merged in the one cry, " The Union must and shall 
 be preserved." As the fiery cross sped over the hills 
 of Scotland, summoning the clans to battle ; so from
 
 2G BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 mountain to mountain, from valley to valley, from 
 sea-coast and river, and lake and prairie, over all the 
 vast North, went that cry, growing sterner and 
 louder as it went, till it swelled into the shout of 
 twenty millions rallying for the Union. Treasure 
 flowed forth like water. Men volunteered in myri- 
 ads. An army was extemporized in a day. On, 
 on to the rescue of the Capitol on, on to the suc- 
 cor of the Government on, on, to hurl back the 
 traitorous assailants rushed the shouting legions. 
 And on still they go, regiment after regiment, 
 with steady tramp, and in quick succession, burn- 
 ing to meet the rebels, and drive treason from our 
 shores. The North, which yesterday was palsied 
 by apathy and rent by faction, is erect, energetic, 
 united to-day. The Government, that appeared im- 
 becile, tottering, forsaken, is now firm, strong, but- 
 tressed by unnumbered hearts and hands. And the 
 flag, " the dear old flag," that a little while ago was 
 torn by rebel cannon and insulted by rebel scoffs, 
 now waves over three hundred thousand men in 
 arms for their country ; while behind them stand 
 countless thousands more, eager to engage in the 
 same glorious service. 
 
 It is a marvellous transformation the most mag- 
 nificent outburst of patriotism which human history 
 has ever seen. What has done it? Not politics, 
 not the Press, not the Pulpit, not eloquent harangues
 
 THE WAR FOR THE UNION A RIGHTEOUS WAR. 27 
 
 stirring up the passions of the masses. It is the 
 power of God. His finger has touched the hearts 
 of the people, as the rod of Moses struck the rock 
 in the desert. The same energy, which at the crea- 
 tion woke the dead universe into life, has breathed 
 over the stagnant, slumberous depths of popular feel- 
 ing, and the nation has been born again. It is a 
 resurrection. Love of country, love of liberty, self- 
 sacrificing devotion to the public safety, have come 
 up from the graves in which Mammon and political 
 partisanship had buried them ; and the redeemed 
 land, shaking off the sluggish dreams of a long 
 peace, confronts the rebellion to-day with more than 
 the heroism of Revolutionary tunes. In view of such 
 a fact in view of this wonderful upspringing of 
 patriotic unanimity and zeal, which only God's inter- 
 position could have produced can we fail to dis- 
 cern His will ? The regeneration of the North is the 
 great central jewel which Jehovah has set on the 
 bosom of the age ; and in its lustre, which now fills 
 the earth, inspiring the nations with admiration, 
 cariying hope to the oppressed, and flashing dismay 
 on the bandit hordes leagued to stay the march of 
 Freedom, how legibly, how impressively, may we 
 read the command, " Go up against them ! " 
 
 That God's hand is in this war, and that His voice 
 calls us to it, is evident from its harmony with the 
 general movements of His providence throughout
 
 28 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 the world. The scene so sublimely pictured by 
 prophecy the great Battle of Armageddon is 
 now enacting on our globe. It is a conflict of prin- 
 ciples, in which the antagonistic powers of Light and 
 Darkness have met in final encounter to decide the 
 destiny of our race. On one side are ranged Tyran- 
 ny, Barbarism, Irreligion on the other, Civilization, 
 Liberty, Christianity. Wherever and however the 
 combat may be waged, it is the same the struggle 
 of the Many to break from the domination of the Few, 
 and assert the dignity of their being ; and the effort 
 of the Few to retain then- hold upon the victims who 
 have so long worn their fetters. We may call it 
 the war for Independence in Italy, the war for 
 Nationality in Hungary, and the war with Slavery 
 in America. But the battle is one, the cause one, 
 the impulse one. There are volcanic currents 
 underlying the seas, and producing eruptions and 
 earthquakes at the same moment in continents sepa- 
 rated by a thousand leagues of ocean. So there are 
 moral currents that reach and influence, at the same 
 time, populations widely distant from each other. 
 We failed hi our Atlantic telegraph. But God has 
 not failed in His ; and along its wires He sends the 
 electric spark of His power to all the nations. It is 
 that spark which has kindled the holy flame now 
 burning within us and around us. The contest with 
 Slavery is a part of the grand warfare which He is
 
 THE WAR FOR THE UNION A RIGHTEOUS WAR. 29 
 
 carrying on for the moral redemption of the world. 
 It is His purpose that men of all ranks and climes 
 shall finally be free, enlightened, and happy. To 
 the fulfilment of this benevolent design Slavery is 
 one of the chief hindrances. In its nature and in 
 its tendencies, it stands in direct opposition to the 
 humanizing spirit and precepts of the Gospel. Its 
 overthrow is, therefore, essential to the ultimate 
 triumphs of Truth and Salvation. Hence, the con- 
 nection of our present struggle with the unfoldings 
 of Providence, and the cause of Humanity in all 
 lands, is readily seen. That struggle, though nom- 
 inally earned on against rebellion, is really against 
 the Slave-power itself, in whose behalf the rebellion 
 has been undertaken. Slavery is our true antago- 
 nist. And when we marshal our forces to resist its 
 aggressions, and cripple the despots who would 
 extend its evils over the whole continent, and per- 
 petuate them through all time, do we not see that 
 we work in perfect concert with that Divine Agency, 
 which is everywhere active, "overturning, over- 
 turning, till He shall come whose right it is"? 
 Here, then, we again have the answer, "Go up 
 against them." 
 
 So clear, so numerous are the proofs that the 
 Almighty is with us in this war for the Government 
 and the Union. It is under His sanction, and by 
 His command, that we have taken up arms against
 
 30 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 the foul treason that has struck at the heart of Free- 
 dom, and against the fouler institution which incited 
 the deed. If the armies of the Crusaders could 
 march to the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre, shout- 
 ing, " It is the will of God ! it is the will of God ! " 
 much more may we march with that battle-cry, to 
 save from pollution the Ark of our liberties and the 
 altars of true religion. 
 
 Let us, then, prosecute the war with confidence 
 and energy. It must necessarily involve great cost 
 and sacrifice. We shall suffer in our pecuniary 
 interests. The business of the country may be 
 widely deranged, and even prostrated. We may be 
 required to send forth to battle, perhaps to death, 
 our sons, our husbands, our brothers. But the 
 result when achieved, will bring ample compensa- 
 tion for all the toil and loss incurred in its attainment. 
 E-ighteous wars are means of grace ; and the last 
 few months of unselfish solicitude for the country's 
 weal, and of active preparation for its defence, have 
 done more to elevate the North, to give manliness 
 to its people, and raise them above the walks of 
 mere money-getting, to the high plane of conscience 
 and duty, than could have been effected by a hun- 
 dred years of peace. We have every reason to go 
 into this war with our whole hearts, and with all our 
 means. Let us strike hard, and strike home,
 
 THE WAR FOR THE UNION A RIGHTEOUS WAR. 31 
 
 assured that God strikes with us, and that under 
 His leading victory is certain. 
 
 We should cany on this war in a deeply religious 
 spirit. It is a holy war, embracing in its issues all 
 that is dear to us, not only as patriots, but as chris- 
 tians. Never ought we to forget, in the petitions 
 of the Closet and of the Sanctuary, to beseech Him 
 in whom all wisdom dwells, and in whose ordering 
 are all events, to guide the nation's leaders by His 
 counsels, and to go forth with our armies in the day 
 of battle. And, above all, let us take heed that the 
 outward stir and excitement inseparable, perhaps, 
 from the present condition of public affairs, do not 
 overpower our interest in the duties of personal 
 religion, and thus provoke Jehovah to withhold from 
 our churches and from our country the blessing 
 which alone can insure success and triumph. 
 
 The circumstances in which we are placed, call 
 upon us to cherish a feeling of entire dependence 
 on that Omnipotent One, who holds the destinies of 
 nations in His hands ; who doeth according to His 
 will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabi- 
 tants of the earth. Without His aid, we cannot 
 hope to achieve the tremendous undertaking which 
 lies before us. However ample may be our resources 
 in men and means, however large our armies, how- 
 ever sagacious and skilful our commanders, if we 
 trust in these, and put God out of sight, we may
 
 32 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 well fear that He will humble our self-confidence by 
 repulses and disasters. Such was His dealing with 
 the men of Israel. Relying on their vastly superior 
 numbers, they did not, at first, supplicate the aid of 
 the Almighty in putting down the rebellion of Ben- 
 jamin, but merely asked which of the Tribes should 
 begin the attack. In this spirit, thrice they essayed 
 the battle, and were thrice defeated with great 
 slaughter. And it was not till they prostrated them- 
 selves before the Lord in despair of their own suffi- 
 ciency, and penitently implored His intervention, that 
 victory rested on their banners. Similar may be our 
 experience, if we confide in mortal strength alone. 
 Let us, then, keep our eye fixed on the Eternal 
 Throne from which our help must come. So shall 
 the encl be glorious, bringing peace to the country, 
 perpetuity to the Union, and health and succor to 
 the world. 
 
 Soldiers of the Tenth ! Brave sons of Western 
 Massachusetts ! You see the sacredness of your 
 vocation. You have enlisted in a high and holy 
 cause the cause of Freedom against Despotism 
 of Order against Anarchy of Civilization against 
 Barbarism of Righteousness against the most 
 flagrant system of Wrong that ever polluted the 
 earth. You are God's soldiers. His behest sends 
 you forth. His honor, and the welfare, not only of 
 your native laud, but of the human race, are inter-
 
 THE WAR FOR THE UNION A RIGHTEOUS WAR. 33 
 
 ested in the manner in which you bear yourselves. 
 Be true ; be valiant ; be worthy of the blood from 
 which you sprung worthy of your New England 
 home, the nurse of free thoughts and of free men, 
 where the love of Liberty is drawn in with the first 
 breath of infancy, and where every wind that rocks 
 her mountain pines, and sweeps her wild blue lakes, 
 sounds out its glorious anthem. 
 
 And if you are God's soldiers, see that the char- 
 acter be not dishonored in your keeping. Avoid 
 the temptations of the camp. Flee from intemper- 
 ance, profanity, licentiousness. Let your conduct 
 be as bright in illustrating the goodness of your 
 cause, as your swords are sharp in defending it. 
 By faith in the atonement of Christ, seek to be in 
 heart, as well as in body, soldiers of the Lord. Thus 
 combining religion with courage, the fear of God 
 and prayer with military ardor, you will so act your 
 part as to insure the approval of your country and 
 of Heaven. 
 
 In this spirit, gallant men, give yourselves to the 
 work you have chosen. Our prayers and blessings 
 shall follow you to the tented field, and to the bloody 
 conflict. We trust that, under the protection of a 
 merciful Providence, you may all be permitted to 
 return to us in safety when your task is clone, and 
 to enjoy for long years the love and gratitude of 
 your fellow-citizens, as the reward of noble deeds
 
 34 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 achieved in this Second War of Independence. But 
 should it be the pleasure of Him who sees not as we 
 see, that any of you should fall, tenderly shall your 
 companions send back to us the bodies slain in Free- 
 dom's fight. Tenderly will we receive them. Ten- 
 derly will we strew them with garlands and bedew 
 them with tears. Tenderly will we cariy thorn to 
 their rest among the green hills and valleys you love 
 so well, and tenderly lay them there, in spots hal- 
 lowed evermore, in the hope, the cheering hope, 
 that you will each have so lived and died, as to 
 receive, not merely the crown of honor below, but 
 the crown of Immortality above.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 REASONS FOR GRATEFUL CONFIDENCE. 
 
 " THOUGH WAR SHOULD RISE AGAINST ME, IN THIS WILL I BE CON- 
 FIDENT." Psalm xxvii. 3. 
 
 -EVER since the first planting of our Com- 
 monwealth has the summons to public thanks- 
 giving gone forth under circumstances so 
 peculiar, and apparently so inopportune, as 
 those in which we are now assembled. War has risen 
 against us a war of the direst and deadliest kind 
 civil war a war of treason and rebellion. The 
 whole slaveholding section of our country, insane 
 with its hatred of freedom, urged on by ambition 
 and a mad lust for power, has thrown of its allegiance 
 to the General Government, conspired to break up 
 the Union cemented by the toil and blood of our fa- 
 thers, and inaugurated for the carrying out of their 
 fell scheme, an intestine conflict the most ruthless 
 and gigantic which the world has ever seen. An 
 earthquake rocks the nation. The songs of peace, 
 the cheerful hum of industry and traffic, have given 
 place to the din of martial preparation, the clash of 
 arms, and the shout of battle. Over large portions 
 of our once happy land, the fields of the husband- 
 man are trampled down by the hoofs of marching
 
 36 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 squadrons, and the fruits of his labor swept away by 
 rapine. Social order is annihilated. Schools are 
 dispersed. Churches are converted into barracks 
 or hospitals. Public works are destroyed. Towns 
 and villages are laid waste. Families are broken 
 up and scattered. The heavens are red with the 
 light of burning homes ; and the ground is wet with 
 blood shed by kindred hands. A million of men, 
 lately clasped in the bonds of amity and brother- 
 hood, now stand with hostile weapons levelled at 
 each other. The struggle is terrible, vast, all- 
 embracing. From the Eastern to the Western Ocean, 
 from the frozen Lakes of the North to the fervid 
 waters of the Gulf, the Demon of Slaughter unfurls 
 his gory flag, cries " Havoc, and lets slip the dogs 
 of war." 
 
 And is it at such a tune is it amidst calamities 
 like these that we are called to the exercise of 
 thanksgiving ? Shall we celebrate our harvest-home , 
 and exult in the bounties that have crowned the 
 year, while War's sharp sickle is strewing the earth 
 with its bloody sheaves ? Shall we be required to 
 keep the Feast of Joy, while our hearts tremble for 
 the Ark of Freedom, and the gloom of doubt and 
 peril hangs thick over the future of our country? 
 Shall we, can we lift up the voice of praise in the 
 Sanctuary , and then gather with wonted cheer around 
 our richly furnished boards, with children and friends
 
 REASONS FOR GRATEFUL CONFIDENCE. 37 
 
 by our side, when we think how many New England 
 homes are desolate to-day, mourning for the loved 
 ones who lie buried in the soil of Virginia, or sleep 
 beneath the waves of the Potomac ? Oh ! the accus- 
 tomed observances of Thanksgiving do seem incon- 
 gruous and unseasonable at such an hour ; and the 
 Proclamation of the Executive sounds like the 
 mocking command of the Assyrian conquerors, ask- 
 ing of the Jews the festive songs of Zion in the 
 land of their captivity. Whose harp, if struck 
 now, must not send forth a dirge? The present 
 condition of public affairs would appear, on a cursory 
 survey, to afford far more cause for tears than for 
 laughter ; far more occasion for anxiety than for con- 
 fidence ; far more reason to humble ourselves under 
 impending judgments, than to rejoice and be glad 
 in the review of our blessings. 
 
 And yet the Proclamation is right. Even amidst 
 the tremendous crisis in which we stand, the eye 
 that is illumined from above can discover abun- 
 dant grounds for assurance and gratitude. The 
 royal bard of Israel, while environed by difficulty 
 and danger, looking to a help mightier than man's 
 could say, " Though a host should encamp against 
 me, my heart shall not fear ; though war should rise 
 against me, in this will I be confident." And we, 
 if, guided by a similar faith, we study more closely 
 the aspects of the storm that is sweeping over the
 
 38 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 land, and mark the bow of promise which God has 
 set on its front, shall perceive, mingling with its 
 fierce and destructive elements, much that is adapted 
 to inspire trust and thankfulness. 
 
 It will, therefore, be my endeavor to trace some 
 of those bright spots in the cloud that hangs over us, 
 which beam with hope, and call for grateful confi- 
 dence. 
 
 One of these may be seen in the striking allevia- 
 tions of the hardships incident to a state of war, 
 with which Divine Providence is favoring us. War, 
 especially civil war, is the most fearful disaster which 
 can befall a people. From whatever cause it may 
 originate, and for whatever objects it may be carried 
 on, it is, in itself, and during its continuance, an 
 unspeakable calamity, spreading, like the tornado, 
 ruin and devastation wherever it goes. The arrest 
 whi<^ it puts on national development ; the shock 
 and dislocation which it produces in the moral sen- 
 tuaents and habits of society ; the blood which it 
 $ours out like water; the hecatombs of valuable 
 lives which it immolates render it the fellest 
 scourge that ever came from the abyss to ravage and 
 pollute the earth ; a thing of woe and horror, to be 
 shrunk from and averted by every sacrifice save that 
 of right and justice. 
 
 Among the evils of war, not the least afflictive, 
 perhaps, is the prostration of material interests which
 
 REASONS FOB GRATEFUL CONFIDENCE. 39 
 
 it usually occasions. War is a great waster. Lavish 
 expenditure, interruption of commerce, paralysis of 
 industry, the blocking up of all the customary chan- 
 nels of business, financial derangement, panic and 
 bankruptcy, are the dire followers that stalk in its 
 train. The bustle of trade, the whirr of the spin- 
 dle, the whistle of the ploughman as he drives his 
 team afield, soon cease amid the braying of trumpets 
 and the roaring of cannon. And the suffering and 
 misery inflicted, when the whole industrial machinery 
 of a people is thus brought to a pause, are not less 
 in severity, and far greater in extent, than those 
 which are caused directly by the wounds and blood- 
 shed of battle. 
 
 Now, these monetary disturbances, so inseparable 
 from war, were the very evils to which, at the com- 
 mencement of the Rebellion, we looked forward 
 with the liveliest dread. We feared that, in the loss 
 of Southern trade, our manufactures would languish, 
 the music of our looms and anvils die away, and our 
 ships lie rotting at their wharves. We feared that 
 a general stagnation of business, and consequent 
 lack of employment, would bring starvation to the 
 doors of our toiling millions. We feared that the 
 products of our soil would be absorbed in feeding 
 the vast armies that must be maintained ; and that, 
 in the cessation of the export of cotton, an immense 
 foreign debt would accumulate, whose liquidation
 
 40 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 would drain our specie, crush our banks, and spread 
 financial ruin, from the crowded marts of the sea- 
 board to the farthest hamlets of the Western wilds.' 
 This we feared. This the rebels hoped. They 
 hoped that their foul conspiracy would create through- 
 out the Free States, and especially in New England, 
 a depth of pecuniary distress, such as human expe- 
 rience had never before fathomed. And we feared 
 that their fiendish hope might, in a large degree, be 
 realized. 
 
 But how little of these wishes on the one side 
 and these forebodings on the other has actually 
 come to pass. It is true that we have been shut out 
 from the markets of the South. It is true that un- 
 counted millions due the North have been shamefully 
 repudiated by the traitors. And equally true is it 
 that from these causes our merchants and artisans 
 have suffered for a time much loss and inconven- 
 ience. But the embarrassment has been only tem- 
 porary. No fluctuations of business, no infelicity 
 of events, can permanently cripple the energies of a 
 free people, dwelling in a free land, where labor is 
 honorable, and success open to all. The vigorous 
 North, strong to do and to bear, rose up elastic from 
 the blow. Enterprise, clammed up in its old chan- 
 nels, soon found for itself new ones. The mechani- 
 cal skill, formerly employed in ministering to the 
 wants or the luxuries of the Southern oligarchs, now
 
 REASONS FOR GRATEFUL CONFIDENCE. 41 
 
 busies itself in furnishing supplies and fabricating 
 arms for the mighty hosts, by which the rebellion 
 of those oligarchs is to be put down and punished. 
 The innumerable rills of industry, which spring forth 
 all over this land of working men, welling from 
 every hill-side, and sending their refreshing waters 
 through every valley, though obstructed and thrown 
 back for awhile, have broken through the barrier, 
 or made other ways for their passage ; and the great 
 river of public wealth, swelled by their united con- 
 tributions, flows on again with banks as full, and a 
 current as broad and swift as ever. We cannot 
 now, indeed, pay for foreign fabrics by the export 
 of Southern products. But we can do better, as we 
 have already begun to do. We can cease, as we 
 have ceased, importing, and depend on our own 
 resources. The grain of our broad Western fields 
 has more than supplied the place of the lost staples 
 of the South. King Cotton, imprisoned in his own 
 dominions by his own subjects, has torn off his 
 crown, and kicked over his throne in disgust. But 
 King Corn, marching from the Prairies, with brist- 
 ling spears, and tassels waving, and countless legions 
 at his back, puts on the fallen crown, and mounts 
 the abdicated throne. 
 
 How signal has been the interposition of Provi- 
 dence in our behalf! At the very point of time 
 when the wants of the Government required extraor-
 
 42 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 dinary revenues, and the sources were closed from 
 which treasure had been wont to flow in from abroad, 
 the almighty Disposer of events ordained short crops 
 and scarcity for Europe, and ample harvests and 
 overflowing plenty for ourselves; thus creating a 
 demand for bread there, and a supply here, which 
 have caused the tide of wealth to set strongly upon 
 our shores. This immense exportation of food 
 comes back to us in gold and silver. The inflowing 
 stream of the precious metals goes into the vaults of 
 our moneyed institutions, thence into the Treasury 
 of the Government, thence out again, by channels 
 endlessly ramified, into all the departments of trade 
 and occupation, till there is not a workshop in our 
 villages, nor a cabin in the wilderness, where the 
 yellow drops send not their tribute . By this remark- 
 able chain of circumstances, England and France, 
 though their rulers may look coldly on our cause, 
 and their haughty aristocracies exult in our expected 
 fall, and their merchants rave at the blockade, and 
 their financiers cry down our national loan, are never- 
 theless compelled to be our bankers. We feed their 
 starving millions ; and they, in turn, are forced to 
 send us the sinews of war, by which the Govern- 
 ment will overwhelm the Eebellion, and confound 
 the enemies of Libepty throughout the world. 
 
 As a consequence of this state of things, thus 
 brought about by Divine interference, t!i3 entire
 
 REASONS FOR GRATEFUL CONFIDENCE. 43 
 
 North, with only here and there an exception, is en- 
 joying a high degree of prosperity. Enterprise is 
 active. Business thrives. Labor is in demand, and 
 well rewarded. Our railways and canals are gorged 
 with freight. In all branches of employment, in all 
 classes of production, there beats the pulse of a vig- 
 orous life. And these benefits are showered on us 
 in a time of war. We are struggling to subdue the 
 most formidable insurrection which human wicked- 
 ness ever fomented. For this purpose, we have fur- 
 nished hundreds of millions of treasure, and half a 
 million of mefl. But we miss them not. Not a 
 rood of ground lies idle for want of hands to till it. 
 Not a bench or a tool is silent, because the fingers 
 that gave them voice are now pulling the trigger 
 against the cruel and insolent foe. Amidst the up- 
 roar of a great civil conflict, and the distracting 
 anxieties which it awakens, all the common avoca- 
 tions of life go on as quietly, and with as little dis- 
 turbance, as if the whole land were at rest under the 
 sheltering wing of peace. 
 
 And while this is in a measure true of all parts of 
 the loyal States, it is pre-eminently true of the 
 favored spot in which our lot is cast. Never was 
 our city so prosperous as now. Never were our 
 streets so thronged, and all classes of our people so 
 busy and so successful. What know we of the pri- 
 vations and sacrifices of war? Who, in looking at
 
 44 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 the smiling faces of our citizens, or watching the 
 steady flow of our industrial pursuits, would dream 
 that the country was staggering under the blows of a 
 mighty Rebellion ? The scene of combat is far re- 
 moved from us. We hear not the noise of the bat- 
 tle, the shouts of the victors, the groans of the dy- 
 ing. We see not the rush, the collision, the smoke, 
 the carnage. These are to us distant things, of 
 which we read with interest, but which come not 
 within the circle of our personal experience. There 
 are homes here and there among us few, much 
 fewer than they should be in whfch may be seen 
 the vacant seats of husbands, sons and brothers, 
 who have gone to the tented field ; and this is all 
 we feel of the miseries of war ! Compare our con- 
 dition with that of the friends of the Union living in 
 the regions where Treason and Secession are ram- 
 pant. Think of the sufferings endured by the loyal 
 inhabitants of Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee and 
 Virginia, compelled as they are to witness the de- 
 struction of their property, the burning and sacking 
 of then* dwellings, the violation and murder of their 
 families ; and to wander famishing and shelterless 
 over their once happy domains, which rebellion has 
 made a desert. Oh ! must we not acknowledge that 
 the God in whom we live has distinguished us by 
 His special protection and blessing? In view, then, 
 of the striking manner in which He has been pleased
 
 KEASOXS FOB GRATEFUL CONFIDENCE. 45 
 
 to mitigate to the North, and so largely to ourselves, 
 the burdens and calamities of war, shall we not lift 
 up to Him the voice of reverent praise, and say with 
 the inspired singer of old, " Though war should rise 
 against me, in -this will I be confident" thankful, 
 rejoicing ? 
 
 We have reason for trust and gratitude, in- view 
 of the great and salutary lessons which the war is 
 teaching us. God is the Instructor of nations. * He 
 appoints the bounds of their habitation, ordains the 
 part which they are to perform in the world's histo- 
 ry, and by His dealings toward them so shapes their 
 training as best to subserve His high and beneficent 
 designs. That vast and far-reaching purposes, bear- 
 ing on the progress of liberty and civilization 
 throughout the earth, are connected with the desti- 
 nies of this Republic, no thoughtful man can doubt, 
 who studies the Hand of God in our Past, or reads 
 aright its beckonings in our Future. For this our 
 fathers were borne across the stormy sea, to found, 
 on the bleak New England shore, "a church with- 
 out a Bishop, and a State without a King." For this 
 their infant colonies were fostered and strengthened 
 up to manhood. For this their independence and 
 autonomy were achieved. For this, under Divine 
 superintendence, a government was established for 
 them, the freest and the best which the human race has 
 ever seen. For this has been our wonderful cxpaii-
 
 46 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 sion, our rapid increase in population and territory, 
 our onward strides in national greatness, ever faster 
 and stronger, up to the level of the chief Powers of 
 the earth. Our history, our institutions, our geo- 
 graphical position, our complex nationality blending 
 the elements of many lands, all proclaim that this 
 country has a grand work to do for humanity and 
 for God. 
 
 But prosperity is as trying an ordeal to communi- 
 ties as it is to individuals. In our astonishing ad- 
 vancement, we were in danger of becoming so cor- 
 rupt and emasculated as to be unfit for the noble 
 sphere which Providence had assigned us. Greed 
 and Selfishness were fast gaining an uncontrolled as- 
 cendency over all ranks and classes. Love of coun- 
 try, love of freedom, the fear of God, respect for His 
 laws, honor, integrity, benevolence, every public, 
 every private virtue, were overborne and stifled 
 by one all-absorbing passion the accursed thirst 
 for gold. Materialism, like some monstrous fungus, 
 was rapidly spreading its abnormal growth over the 
 whole body of the nation, poisoning its heart, eating 
 out its vitality, and presaging its sure decay. 
 Money, money the successful pursuit of wealth, 
 material development this was the Moloch at whose 
 shrine everything precious and sacred was to be of- 
 fered up. On rolled the iron car of our national 
 Juggernaut on over the Bible, the Sabbath, and
 
 REASONS FOR GRATEFUL CONFIDENCE. 47 
 
 the Sanctuary on over Eternal Eight and Justice 
 on over the crushed limbs of the weak, and the body 
 and soul of the slave. A little longer, and we should 
 have been the scorn of the civilized world, and the 
 abomination of Heaven. 
 
 From this peril of self-destruction, the same over- 
 ruling Power, that has been our Guide and Protector 
 in all the eventful epochs of our former history, has 
 mercifully interposed to save us. It is not against 
 foreign invasion, not against alien hosts seeking to 
 conquer and enclave us, but against ourselves, 
 against the consequences of our own suicidal folly, 
 that this watchful guardianship is now put forth. 
 And the discipline which He has seen fit to employ 
 for this purpose, though severe, is eminently suited 
 to the case, and indispensable. Nothing less potent 
 could have startled us from our ignoble ease, and 
 called back the manhood of earlier days. So 
 debased had the nation become in its worship of 
 Mammon, so deadened in all its moral perceptions 
 by the influence of Slavery, that only some tremen- 
 dous convulsion, like that which now shakes the 
 continent, could dissolve the spell, and restore the 
 public mind to health and vigor. It is with such a 
 view that God has permitted the whirlwind of 
 domestic strife to break loose, and rage in all our 
 borders. As the commotions of Nature, the tem- 
 pests and hurricanes which she breeds in her long
 
 48 SATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 periods of calm, refresh while they desolate, and, in 
 purifying the air from noxious ingredients, more 
 than compensate for the ravages they inflict ; so the 
 fierce civic storm that is beating upon us is intended 
 to be less our ruin than our redemption ; less the 
 waster than the restorer of the land. It is just the 
 shock that was needed to break up the fatal slug- 
 gishness in which all but present gain was forgotten ; 
 and to clear the national atmosphere of the deadly 
 malaria with which politics and Slavery had infected 
 the national life. The timorous and faint-hearted 
 may fear lest the nation should die under a remedy 
 so harsh ; but the wise see clearly that the nation 
 must have died had the remedy been withheld. No, 
 no, the war will not kill us. But a few more years 
 of deceitful peace, purchased by the surrender of 
 every principle dear to freedom and humanity, would 
 have killed us, and left us to rot in the sight of the 
 nations, a warning and a stench through all time. 
 
 In the great teachings of the hour, and in the rich 
 fruit which those teachings are beginning to bear, 
 we are more than repaid for all which the war has 
 cost us. God is speaking to us speaking to us 
 out of the thick darkness, and in tones so clear and 
 awful, that none can mistake His meaning, or scorn 
 His counsels. By placing us in circumstances which 
 require the furnishing of vast means to sustain the 
 Government, He rebukes our avarice ; and by bring-
 
 REASONS FOR GRATEFUL CONFIDENCE. 49 
 
 ing us into the death-grapple, not for national 
 aggrandizement, but for national existence, He is 
 teaching us that there are things more valuable 
 than material prosperity ; that courage, manliness, 
 unblenchiug devotion to the welfare of our country, 
 the willingness to give treasure and blood in its 
 defence, are more precious than all the sordid 
 triumphs of inglorious peace. He is waking up the 
 dormant patriotism that had long slumbered under 
 the pressure of business, or been smothered in the 
 mire of political corruption ; and is kindling in the 
 young men of to-day the same noble fire that ani- 
 mated their fathers in the struggle for Independence. 
 Oh ! it is a glorious manifestation which is now 
 gladdening our eyes ! I thank God that I have lived 
 to see it. The Pilgrim stock has not degenerated. 
 "There is sap in the old tree yet." The sons of 
 Massachusetts dishonor not their pedigree. Those 
 who fought and fell at Ball's Bluff are worthy to 
 have their names inscribed on the same immortal 
 roll with those whose blood consecrated the fields of 
 Bunker Hill and Lexington. And God is teaching 
 us this this grand spirit of self-sacrifice in a grand 
 and righteous cause. 
 
 And other lessons, equally important and timely, 
 He is reading out to us in the mighty eloquence of 
 passing events. He is showing us that collective 
 bodies of men cannot, any more than individuals, 
 
 4
 
 50 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 violate His laws, and trample His authority under 
 foot, without bringing down the bolt of His ven- 
 geance ; and that if we would be delivered from the 
 awful chastisement which we now suffer, we must 
 repent of the sins which have provoked Him, put 
 away our infidelity, our irreligion, our worldliness, 
 and return to the paths of faith and obedience. But, 
 most solemnly, most emphatically of all, is He 
 impressing on us the truth, that a great social 
 iniquity, incorporated into a system of government, 
 defended, cherished, perpetuated with blind obsti- 
 nacy, against all the claims of justice and all the 
 pleadings of philanthropy, must, at last, work the 
 destruction of that government. As surely as pow- 
 der, touched by the kindling spark, will burst the 
 rock that incloses it ; so surely will a mighty wrong, 
 embosomed in a Commonwealth, explode, and shiver 
 it into fragments. 
 
 Such has been the experience of this country with 
 slavery. Always a source of weakness and peril, 
 always a smouldering fire threatening to break out 
 into a conflagration, it has, at length, defied all con- 
 trol, and wrapped the whole fabric of the Union, 
 from corner-stone to pinnacle, in one broad sheet of 
 flame. To this cause all our present troubles are to 
 be ascribed. From the fatal admission of slavery 
 into the Constitution by its framers, and the yet 
 more fatal spread and strengthening of the institu-
 
 REASONS FOR GRATEFUL CONFIDENCE. 51 
 
 tion by their descendants, have sprung the wreck 
 and ruin which we now see. 
 
 When the ship of the Republic first came from the 
 stocks, she was a sight beautiful to behold, the won- 
 der and the joy of the world . Her model was perfect, 
 her workmanship skilful and thorough, her fastenings 
 stanch, her rigging complete ; and, thus furnished 
 and equipped, she spread her canvas on the broad 
 ocean of the Future, cheered by happy auspices, and 
 hailed by the god-speed of the admiring nations. 
 But ah ! there was one rotten plank in her hull ; 
 and that plank was slavery. Her builders knew it 
 was there, for they put it there. But they trusted 
 that the defect would not prove serious ; and that 
 the sound timbers, when they had been long enough 
 in the water, would swell and crowd out the rotten 
 one. And so the proud ship went on her way over 
 placid seas, wafted by favoring breezes, with a merry 
 crew on board, and streamers flying from peak and 
 mizzen. But, hark ! what fearful sound breaks in 
 upon their mirth, and is passed by pale lips along 
 the deck? The ship has sprung a leak! Yes, the 
 rotten plank begins to do its work. The officers and 
 crew make frantic efforts to stop the leak. They 
 stuff into it the old rags of Compromise. They 
 plaster it up with the tar of Concession, and the 
 pitch of "Dred Scott Decisions." And then, finding 
 all such attempts futile, they resolve to ignore it.
 
 52 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 They turn their backs upon it. They strive to forget 
 it in the engrossments of work or of pleasure. They 
 will not believe there is any leak. They pronounce 
 it to be only bilge water. They declare the ship 
 safe, and call its rottenness its strength, its danger 
 its security. But then* labors and their sophistries, 
 their mending and their letting alone, are alike vain. 
 From watch to watch, the cry goes forth, The leak 
 is gaining on us! From watch to watch, the breach 
 grows wider, and the intruding tide more strong 
 and furious. And now the end has come. The 
 ship's side is burst in, and the mad flood of Rebellion 
 rushes through the opening. Oh ! the ship must go 
 down, or slavery must go out ! We must take her 
 back into dock. We must cast forth the treacher- 
 ous plank, destroy it with axe and fire, and close 
 up the crevice with solid oak. Then may the good 
 ship, sound from truck to keelson, and freighted 
 with the happiness of unborn generations, shape her 
 course in safety, victorious over the storm and the 
 wave. 
 
 Such are some of the lessons which God is teach- 
 ing us by this Rebellion. They are momentous les- 
 sons, involving our highest welfare. And though 
 we are but slow scholars, we are beginning to learn 
 them. Their influence on the tone of public thought 
 and feeling is already visible. We are nobler men 
 to-day than we were a year ago. We stand more
 
 REASONS FOR GRATEFUL CONFIDENCE. 53 
 
 erect. We are more patriotic. We love our coun- 
 try better, and are more willing to make sacrifices 
 for it. We have broken away from the trammels 
 of party. We have done with upholding slavery. 
 We have done with compromises and half measures. 
 We see our foe, and are prepared to wrestle with 
 him to the death. And it is my firm hope and 
 belief that this improvement in our character will 
 go on, under the same tuition that began it, until 
 the nation shall be redeemed, and Slavery and Trea- 
 son are expelled from all its borders. Then shall 
 our country be indeed free. Then over all its wide 
 territories shall float the Banner beneath whose folds 
 no bondman shall cower the Banner of universal 
 Liberty. And then, rising to a higher type of civil- 
 ization than history has yet known, we shall fulfil 
 our glorious mission in holding forth an unblemished 
 example of self-government to all the down-trod- 
 den races of the earth. What thanks do we not 
 owe to our all-wise Instructor for teachings so full 
 of present good, and so pregnant with benign results 
 yet to be developed ! . > 
 
 We have grounds for grateful confidence in the 
 issue of the conflict in which we are now engaged. 
 I am not insensible to its difficulty, nor to its mag- 
 nitude. I underrate not the strength and resources 
 of the foe. I know his vast preparations, his mul- 
 titudinous levies, his terrible earnestness. I know
 
 54 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 that we have to contend with an antagonist fertile in 
 expedients, treacherous, cruel, who will shrink from 
 no artifice, however base, that may further his im- 
 pious ends. I know that the Catilines of the South, 
 conscious that if they fail in their atrocious purpose, 
 infamy and death await them, will cling to it with 
 the energy of desperate men, and strive to drag 
 down in their fall the country which they can no 
 longer rule. The struggle must be severe, it may 
 be long. But we cannot for a moment doubt what 
 the final result will be. Strong as the rebels are, 
 they are unprovided for a protracted contest. They 
 have exhausted themselves by their first effort. 
 They have done then* utmost at the beginning. In 
 all the necessary means of carrying on the war, in 
 food, clothing, money, credit, they are fatally defi- 
 cient. And when the power of the Federal Gov- 
 ernment, with its unlimited supply of men and 
 treasure, is once hurled upon them in its full strength, 
 and in downright earnest, they must be swept before 
 it like chaff before the whirlwind. 
 
 But apart from the assurance of success founded 
 on our superiority in numbers and resources, we 
 have another yet stronger, in the wickedness of 
 their cause, and in the rectitude of our own. The 
 annals of human guilt furnish no instance of a crime 
 so enormous as that with which the Southern con- 
 spirators stand charged before earth and Heaven.
 
 HE A SOyS FOR GRATEFUL CONFIDENCE. 55 
 
 It admits of no justification or even excuse ; and 
 the conspirators themselves do not pretend any. 
 Not a right has been assailed ; not a privilege in- 
 fringed. They have suffered no wrong, no oppres- 
 sion. All the guarantees and engagements of the 
 Constitution have been scrupulously observed toward 
 them, grievous as some of these were to the North- 
 ern conscience. They have had their bond, even to 
 the pound of flesh. So far from having been dam- 
 aged by the Union, they have been the chief sharers 
 in its benefits. For more than half a century, the 
 administration of the Government has been in their 
 hands, or has been controlled by their influence ; 
 and they have uniformly wielded it in the interest of 
 slavery. Their will has dictated every law of Con- 
 gress, and shaped every public measure. Theirs 
 have been the highest offices, the fattest emoluments ; 
 theirs the most potential voice in the Senate and on 
 the Bench. And while thus favored and caressed 
 by the Government, with its bounty in their pockets, 
 and the oath of fealty to it on their lips, they have 
 all the while been plotting its overthrow ; threaten- 
 ing and intriguing to dissolve the Union, whenever 
 any check has been offered to their insolence or their 
 ambition. 
 
 During all these years of their pride and power, 
 they have heaped insult and wrong on the free 
 North. They have claimed to be our masters;
 
 56 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 have declared it their birthright to rule, and ours 
 to serve ; and, in the frenzy of their arrogance, have 
 commanded us to bow down and do homage to their 
 hideous idol, and surrender speech and thought, 
 principle and conscience, into the keeping of the 
 lords of the plantation. To appease these bloated 
 chattel-drivers, what has the North not done? It 
 has cringed and bent ; it has truckled and fawned ; 
 it has grovelled, aye, crawled in the very dirt. But 
 no amount of subserviency has been able to satisfy 
 them. Conciliation has but led to bolder demands, 
 and to humiliations more disgraceful. Believing 
 from former experience, that the North would yield 
 everything to their menaces and their bluster, they 
 have, at length, set up the monstrous claim that the 
 Constitution should be so changed or so interpreted, 
 as to make slavery national, a universal right, to be 
 held sacred wherever the flag of the Union may 
 float. And because the North has been compelled 
 to resist this claim, or submit to be itself enslaved, 
 they are now in open revolt against the Govern- 
 ment, and laboring with might and main to break it 
 up. Such is the grievance which they put forth in 
 defence of their treason. It is, however, only a 
 pretext. The real purpose, underlying all their 
 movements, and reaching back of all irritating an- 
 tagonisms, is to destroy the heritage of Freedom 
 which our fathers left us, and erect, in its place, a
 
 REASONS FOR GRATEFUL CONFIDENCE. 57 
 
 vast Slave Despotism, the vilest and most abom- 
 inable that ever cursed mankind. For this they 
 have struck at the pillars of social order, and 
 plunged the nation into all the woes of intestine 
 war. 
 
 And shall such transcendent villany succeed? 
 Shall this " throne of iniquity " be established ? 
 Will a righteous God permit it? Will He ally 
 Himself with a scheme so at war with human hap- 
 piness, so abhorrent to His justice and benevolence? 
 Will He suffer the blood-stained miscreants that 
 now rule the South to cut short our national career, 
 and disappoint the oppressed of all lands who have 
 looked to our shores as the refuge of persecuted 
 Liberty? No, no, we cannot believe it. Every 
 attribute of God, every unfolding of His will in 
 His word and in His providence, assures us that He 
 is on our side in this awful exigency, and will bring 
 to our aid the succors of His omnipotence. The 
 wheels of His chariot may tarry. He may try us 
 by delay. He may humble us by temporary defeats 
 and reverses, in order to deepen our feeling of de- 
 pendence upon Him, and to render us more obedi- 
 ent to the leadings of His hand. But He will not 
 forsake us. Our cause is His cause, the cause of 
 Civilization, the cause of Humanity, the cause of 
 true Eeligion and must triumph. His arm is 
 bared against the oppressors, and their doom is
 
 58 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 certain. He will make their own horrid sin, and 
 the insane fury with which they cling to it, the 
 means of their punishment. Into the pit which 
 they have dug for the Union, the Eebellion shall go 
 down, and Slavery with it. The besom of destruc- 
 tion, which they have made ready for the North, 
 shall sweep their own fields from the Potomac to 
 the Gulf. On the gibbet which they have reared 
 for Liberty, they themselves shall hang, and with 
 them the broken fetters of the last bondman. Such 
 is the awful retribution prepared for slavery and the 
 slaveholder. 
 
 No, no God will not let the foul tyrants of the 
 South prevail. He will not permit them to sunder 
 this glorious Republic, and plant a Slave Confed- 
 eracy on its rums. Not long will He allow the 
 banner of Secession, the vile emblem of the whip 
 and chain, to flout our American sky. He made 
 us one nation, and He means us to continue one 
 through all time. The form of the Continent, the 
 encircling of the oceans, the course of the rivers, 
 the trend of the mountains, all proclaim that He 
 has ordained for us one Country, one People, one 
 Government, from the St. Lawrence to the Eio 
 Grande, from the rocky headlands of Maine to the 
 golden shores of the Pacific. Yes, the Eebellion 
 will be put down, and with it Slavery and the Slave 
 Power ; and we shall come forth from the present
 
 REASONS FOR GRATEFUL CONFIDENCE. 59 
 
 appalling crisis a stronger and a better people, pre- 
 pared to take a higher stand and to do a nobler 
 work on the platform of history, than have ever 
 yet been allotted to a nation. "In this may we be 
 confident." 
 
 Such are some of the reasons which we have for 
 reliance and thankfulness, even amidst the public 
 perils that encompass us. Let them awaken trust 
 in God, courage, hope. And remember that what- 
 ever may be the state of national affairs, whatever 
 events may occur on the broad theatre of the world, 
 you have private blessings, without number, and 
 beyond price. You have life, food, raiment, homes, 
 friends, the means of intellectual and spiritual cul- 
 ture. Your cup of personal mercy overflows. And, 
 crowning all, infinitely more precious than all, you 
 have redemption by the blood of Christ, and the 
 offer of immortal blessedness. Oh ! give thanks 
 unto the Lord, for He is good. Thank Him in His 
 house, thank Him at your firesides, thank Him in 
 your hearts, thank Him by a penitent faith, and 
 with holy deeds. Then, when your pilgrimage is 
 done, your ransomed souls shall soar far above these 
 scenes of war and tumult, to the regions where grat- 
 itude and joy are perfect, and peace is eternal.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 GREAT ERAS MARKED BY GREAT JUDGMENTS. 
 
 "BY TERRIBLE THINGS IN RIGHTEOUSNESS WILT THOC ANSWER US, O 
 
 GOD OF OUR SALVATION." Psalm Ixv. 6. 
 
 /HIS whole psalm is throughout a magnificent 
 description of the sovereignty and universal 
 
 "^ "" providence of God. There is nothing in the 
 Bible more striking and sublime. It is re- 
 plete with the loftiest inspirations of poetry ; while, 
 at the same time, it glows with the most fervid 
 breathings of devotion. 
 
 The writer commences by addressing Jehovah as 
 the supreme Object of reverence and worship, for 
 whom praise and adoration were waiting in Zion, 
 and to whom the vow of fealty and obedience should 
 be performed. This thought the thought of the 
 homage so constantly and so rightfully rendered to 
 God suggested the closely related thought of 
 God as the Hearer of prayer, and the Dispenser of 
 pardon ; bending from His seat of awful majesty to 
 accept the confessions and listen to the requests of 
 all who seek His face; forgiving their sins, and 
 achieving their deliverance, by manifestations of His
 
 GREAT ERAS MARKED BY GREAT JUDGMENTS. 61 
 
 power and mercy. * O Thou that hearest prayer ! 
 unto Thee shall all flesh come. Iniquities prevail 
 against me ; as for our transgressions, Thou shalt 
 purge them away." 
 
 He then proceeds to consider the grounds on 
 which the friends of God may repose the fullest 
 confidence in His faithfulness, in His willingness to 
 receive their petitions, and in His ability to perform 
 them. These he finds in the supreme and all-per- 
 vading government which God exercises over the 
 world, and in that watchful superintendence which 
 He maintains in every department of human affairs. 
 \Vith a rapid and glowing pencil, he traces the 
 workings of this government as they are displayed 
 alike in the realms of matter and of mind ; in the 
 vicissitudes of the seasons ; in the products of the 
 earth ; in the bounties that supply man's physical 
 wants ; and in the political changes and convulsions 
 which affect his social condition. Everywhere he 
 sees the controlling agency of God. Every object, 
 every event, speaks to him of God. The turmoil 
 of Nature in her agitations and upheavings ; the 
 calmness and beauty of Xature in her repose ; the 
 tempests and earthquakes that ravage and lay waste ; 
 the genial showers, the fructifying dews, the life- 
 awakeniug sunbeams, which call forth the springing 
 corn, and clothe the valleys with food for man and 
 beast ; the peace and order which foster the indus- 
 trial arts, and give prosperity to nations ; and the
 
 62 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 tumults and revolutions, the wars and the carnage 
 which change the face of empires, and fill continents 
 with mourning all these are in his view equally 
 under the direction of the Almighty, equally obe- 
 dient to the behests of His providence, equally 
 fulfilling the mission which He appoints. 
 
 But amidst these diversified operations of Jeho- 
 vah's ever present energy, there is one feature which 
 seems to stand out before the eye of the Psalmist 
 with peculiar prominence. It is the justice and ho- 
 liness which characterize the Divine administration. 
 While he recognizes the consoling fact that God is 
 infinitely gracious and long-suffering, and that He 
 will surely accomplish, in His own time and way, 
 all the desires of His people for succor and protec- 
 tion, and for the final establishment of truth and 
 goodness upon earth, he yet clearly perceives that 
 the Most High often does this through the ministry 
 of afflictive judgments, and brings to pass great and 
 beneficent ends by means of events, which during 
 their continuance appear to be fraught with dis- 
 aster. Hence he exclaims, " By terrible things in 
 righteousness wilt Thou answer us, O God of our 
 salvation." 
 
 These words contain a general truth of vast sig- 
 nificance, and of wide application. It is a truth 
 which relates not merely to the personal experience 
 of the Sweet Singer of Israel, nor to any particular 
 exhibitions of Divine power in his behalf; but to
 
 GREAT ERAS MARKED BY GREAT JUDGMENTS. 63 
 
 the whole history of God's procedure toward His 
 Covenant Church, and to the grand principles which 
 underlie His work of overthrowing evil, and advan- 
 cing His kingdom in the world. There is here an- 
 nounced to us the broad and comprehensive fact, 
 that in nil periods of time God has answered the 
 prayers of His people for the suppression of Wrong 
 and the vindication of Eight, by dispensations of 
 correcting wrath, as terrible in their progress as 
 they were righteous in their character, and benign 
 in their results. And, in illustration of this fact, 
 we shall find that those great conjunctures in human 
 affairs, which have exerted a commanding influence 
 on the well-being of our race, and shaped anew the 
 course of its destiny, have ordinarily been heralded 
 by dread forthputtings of Jehovah's hand, attesting 
 His presence, delivering His friends, and recom- 
 pensing His enemies. 
 
 Ever since depravity found place on the earth, 
 and began to assail the prerogatives and to insult the 
 authority of its rightful Lord, the prayer of all who 
 have truly loved Him has been, that He would put 
 forth the resources of His omnipotence to defeat 
 wickedness, to uphold His own glory, and to make 
 holiness universally triumphant. And this He has 
 all along been doing not always, however, in the 
 manner which His people had marked out for Him 
 not always by slow and silent changes not al-
 
 64 XATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 ways by the mild and sweetly purifying influences 
 of Truth and Love, as noxious vapors are melted 
 and exhaled by gentle breezes and soft sunshine 
 but often by appalling interventions of His just dis- 
 pleasure, destroying the wicked; punishing the 
 good so far as they have participated in the sins 
 which call down His vengeance ; and thus sweeping 
 the field clear for fresh victories of His grace. 
 There are states of the atmosphere in which hurri- 
 canes and tornadoes are necessary to expel from it 
 malarious elements, and restore its salubrity. So 
 there are tunes when the social atmosphere becomes 
 so charged with moral poison, that nothing but God's 
 thunder can clear it, and make it a medium in which 
 holiness can live. 
 
 True it is that mercies and blessings constitute 
 the chosen method by which the Almighty carries 
 on His moral administration. He seeks to draw 
 men from their sinful courses, and to win their 
 hearts into allegiance to Himself, by the force of in- 
 struction, by the power of light, by the persuasive 
 ministry of loving-kindness. This is the normal 
 character of His dispensations. But when individ- 
 uals or communities have become so sunk in degen- 
 eracy, or so wedded and sold to enormous vices, as 
 to be insensible to every motive derived from His 
 goodness ; and, especially, when from wicked laws, 
 institutions or governments, obstacles stand in the
 
 GREAT ERAS MARKED BY GREAT JUDGMENTS. 65 
 
 way of His purposes which ordinary appliances fail 
 to remove then it is that He makes bare His arm 
 for judgment ; then it is that " by terrible things in 
 righteousness," He answers prayer, and annihilates 
 the barriers that oppose the going forth ^ of His 
 salvation. 
 
 Having thus developed and explained the princi- 
 ple announced, we shall occupy the remaining part 
 of this discussion in showing how that principle has 
 been brought out in the past dealings of God with 
 nations ; and how strikingly it may be seen in His 
 dealings with our own country and with ourselves. 
 
 The first example, embodying the truth before us, 
 may be drawn from the method by which Divine 
 Wisdom saw fit to deliver the people of Israel from 
 their bondage in Egypt, and conduct them into the 
 land appointed for their inheritance. This was in- 
 dispensable in order that revealed Religion might 
 find expression and perpetuity in the establishment 
 of the Mosaic Economy ; and the transactions which 
 attended it are pregnant with momentous lessons to 
 all the ages. 
 
 God had given to Abraham, as the reward of his 
 faith and obedience, a solemn promise, often re- 
 peated, that the goodly hills and valleys of Canaan 
 should be the permanent home of his posterity; 
 that there they should become in number as the 
 sands of the sea, and dwelling in safety under His 
 
 5
 
 66 RATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 inviolable guardianship, be distinguished above all 
 other nations by miraculous communications of His 
 will, and by peculiar tokens of His favor. And the 
 fulfilment of this promise was hardly less important 
 to the welfare of the world at large than to that of 
 the chosen Tribes themselves. The countless races 
 of the Gentiles, though not expressly named in the 
 covenant, had nevertheless a vast interest in the 
 higher benefits which it was intended to convey. 
 The grand design of God in electing the descend- 
 ants of Abraham to be His peculiar people, plant- 
 ing them in the spot set apart for their abode, and 
 placing them, by restrictive laws, in holy isolation 
 from the darkness and pollution that covered all the 
 earth beside, doubtless was that through them the 
 true knowledge and worship of Himself might be 
 retained amongst men, and a lineage furnished for 
 the Messiah, the future Restorer of the world. Be- 
 yond the narrow limits of the Hebrew family, the 
 whole world had lapsed into idolatry ; and He, who 
 made and upheld it, saw, as it rolled round in His 
 hand and under His eye, no light breaking through 
 the gloom, and no incense ascending to His throne, 
 save where dimly burned the sacrificial fires on the 
 altars of the patriarchs, or where the homage of the 
 One Creator still lingered in the tents of Goshen. 
 And if the single line in which the knowledge of 
 the true God yet survived, we're to continue, as in
 
 GREAT ERAS MARKED BY GREAT JUDGMENTS. 67 
 
 the days of its founders, a mere horde of nomadic 
 herdsmen, wandering from place to place without 
 any settled habitations, the truth which they held as 
 a precious deposit in trust for the world guarded 
 by no fixed institutions and no regular observances 
 would soon die out and be forgotten amid the 
 necessities and the fluctuations of a mode of life so 
 uncertain. 
 
 In like manner, if after the Children of Israel had 
 gone down into Egypt their exile had been perpet- 
 ual, they must have lost, in the lapse of years, the'ir 
 very existence as a distinct people. Crushed into 
 utter annihilation under the iron heel of slavery, or 
 absorbed into the nationality of their oppressors, 
 they would have adopted their customs, imitated 
 their vices, accepted their religion, bowed clown to 
 their gods. Whatever of divine illumination they 
 possessed would have been swallowed up and ex- 
 tinguished by the predominant power of surround- 
 ing heathenism ; celestial Truth would have been 
 driven from her last home on earth ; and the one 
 lone point of light that still broke the universal 
 darkness, would have disappeared from our world, 
 and left it to the shadows of a night that could know 
 no morning. And, therefore, the settlement of the 
 Tribes in their promised heritage was an event in- 
 volving not only their own national life and their 
 future greatness, but the spiritual destinies of the
 
 68 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 human race as well, and the preparatory processes 
 of its coming redemption. 
 
 Now, there can be little question that the Hebrew 
 fathers, instructed as they were by personal com- 
 munion with God, regarded this great fact in the 
 broad and momentous relations which we have as- 
 cribed to it. Nor is it extravagant to suppose that 
 its realization formed the burden of their addresses 
 to the Throne of Infinite Mercy. It must have been 
 always present to their thoughts, whenever they 
 pondered the Promise that in their seed should all 
 the families of the earth be blessed, and gazing 
 down the vista of the ages, strove to grasp the 
 glory they were to unfold. And well may we be- 
 lieve that each dying patriarch, as he bade farewell 
 to earth, turned his last look to Canaan ; while on 
 his aged lips trembled the prayer, that God would 
 fulfil His covenant to the sacred seed, establish them 
 in then- destined possession, reveal to them His will, 
 and teach them by His ordinances ; and thus pre- 
 pare the way for the coming era of Christian light 
 and salvation. 
 
 With equal confidence may we believe that the 
 same prayer was constantly offered up by all the 
 pious among the Israelites, during their protracted 
 exile in Egypt. As the slow years of their bond- 
 age dragged heavily over them; as their chains 
 grew more galling, and the exactions of their task-
 
 GREAT ERAS MARKED BY GREAT JUDGMENTS. 69 
 
 
 
 masters more severe ; as they trod the clay, and 
 shaped the bricks, and crouched down under their 
 hard service, and writhed and groaned under the 
 lash of their haughty oppressors how often and 
 how earnestly must their cry for deliverance have 
 ascended to Heaven ! Oh, yes ! while Egypt in- 
 creased in wealth and splendor by the toil wrung 
 from her bondmen ; while her princes and nobles 
 rioted in luxury, and mirth and rejoicing filled her 
 palaces from the hovels in which the Hebrews 
 dwelt, and from the fields where they wrought, 
 were heard the ceaseless wail of suffering, and the 
 loud pleading of the enslaved, going up into the 
 ears of the God of Sabaoth. 
 
 At length the answer came. Yet how different 
 from their expectations was the way of its coming ! 
 If they speculated at all upon the method of their 
 predicted emancipation, they probably believed it 
 would be brought about, not by violent changes, 
 and sudden outgoings of Divine power, but by 
 gradual and almost imperceptible ameliorations of 
 their state, coming in as naturally and as noiselessly 
 as day succeeds to night, or summer to winter. 
 Perhaps they hoped that time might soften the bit- 
 terness of their vassalage ; or that faithful service 
 and patient endurance might by degrees win the 
 respect of then- masters, and mitigate their cruelty. 
 Possibly, too, they dreamed that even in the bosom
 
 70 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 
 
 of Pharaoh might be found a dormant conscience 
 and a better mind, which, awakened by the remon- 
 strances of Moses, would prompt him to listen to 
 the Divine summons, and let the people go. And 
 thus they imagined, it may be, that they should de- 
 part out of their bondage with the consent and good 
 will of their former lords, leaving the land of their 
 exile unscourged by any visitation of wrath the 
 oppressed and the oppressors mutually grateful and 
 happy. And, questionless, all this might have been. 
 Had the infatuated monarch yielded to the command 
 of Jehovah, and broken the fetters of the enslaved, 
 the fearful calamities, which his obstinate wicked- 
 ness brought upon his reign and country, might 
 have been averted. The exodus of the Israelites, 
 instead of being made memorable forever by won- 
 derful displays of Almighty vengeance, would have 
 been only a peaceful emigration of a particular class 
 of the population to new and more eligible seats. 
 And so the hope of centuries would have been 
 realized amid universal harmony, and the rejoic- 
 ings alike of those who conferred the boon, and of 
 those who received it. 
 
 But such magnanimity is seldom to be looked for 
 in this fallen world. All history shows that power 
 rarely gives up its prey, except from the compulsion 
 of events which it can no longer resist. The king 
 of Egypt* in binding faster the chains of his vie-
 
 GREAT ERAS MARKED BY GREAT JUDGMENTS. 71 
 
 tims, the more he was importuned to unloose them, 
 but followed the course of human tyranny in all 
 lands and ages. He doubtless deemed the extorted 
 labor of the Hebrews, employed as it was in fur- 
 nishing materials for the construction of cities and 
 public works, to be of vast importance to the de- 
 velopment and prosperity of his empire; and he 
 was resolute that no voice of priest or prophet, no 
 behest of Israel's God, or of any god, should pre- 
 vail on him to relinquish the control of muscles that 
 had proved so valuable. His refusal to release the 
 captives necessitated the intervention of that grand 
 law of the Divine procedure to which we have ad- 
 verted. The merciful intentions of Jehovah with 
 regard to His chosen people were not to be frus- 
 trated by the greed or the obstinacy of their 
 enslavers. Commands and expostulations having 
 failed, a mightier agency was called in. The min- 
 istry of wrath the stern efficacy of " terrible 
 things in righteousness " was commissioned to 
 undertake the work which milder means were un- 
 able to accomplish. 
 
 In pursuance of this design, the rod of Divine 
 vengeance was stretched out over all the habitations 
 of the spoilers. Blow followed blow in swift suc- 
 cession, and with crushing effect. Appalled by the 
 severity of the visitations, the king and his princes 
 seemed at intervals to relent, and often promised
 
 72 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 obedience to the mandate so fearfully enforced. 
 But no sooner was the punishment withdrawn, 
 than they became as obdurate as before. Then 
 the scourge was again lifted up; and the awful 
 series of inflictions went on, growing more destruc- 
 tive at every step; reaching all ranks; carrying 
 dismay and woe into all places ; turning into desola- 
 tion all the pride and glory of the land; till its 
 avenging work was consummated in that dread 
 midnight hour, when "the Lord smote all the first- 
 born of Egypt," and every dwelling of Israel's foes 
 wailed its dead. Subdued by this last overwhelm- 
 ing calamity, and by the cry of anguish which it 
 woke throughout his dominions, the trembling des- 
 pot pronounced the decree of emancipation, and 
 commanded the people, whose God was so ter- 
 rible, to depart at once from beneath his sway. 
 
 Yet how the love of domination infatuates men ! 
 How it blinds their reason, and renders them reck- 
 less of consequences ! Even when compelled by 
 the judgments of Heaven to set free their thralls, 
 how unwillingly they surrender them ! How furi- 
 ous are they to recover them ; how full of hatred 
 and rage against them, when they have gone beyond 
 then- power. The children of Israel had scarcely 
 crossed the border of Eg} T pt on their journey into 
 the wilderness, before the frantic monarch and his 
 equally frantic satellites began to regret their de-
 
 GREAT ERAS MARKED BY GREAT JUDGMENTS. 73 
 
 parture, and to take measures for dragging them 
 back into bondage. How could they be so be- 
 sotted so insensible to the terrible chastisements 
 to which they had just been subjected ? How could 
 they so soon forget the waters turned to blood, the 
 all-wasting hail, the darkness that could be felt, the 
 sword of the destroying Angel strewing the whole 
 land with corpses ? They could not but know that 
 God was on the side of Israel, and that, in attempt- 
 ing to re-enslave those whom He had delivered, 
 they must fight with Omnipotence. Nevertheless, 
 while the most startling evidences of this Divine 
 interposition were still fresh in their minds while 
 they beheld, wherever they looked, field and city, 
 palace and temple, scarred and rent by the hurricane 
 of vengeance that had swept over them they de- 
 termined to pursue the fugitives, and return them 
 by force to their shackles. With this fell intent, 
 they mustered the entire military strength of the 
 kingdom chariots and horsemen in almost number- 
 less array and pushed forward on the track of the 
 fleeing bondmen. They soon came up with them, 
 encumbered as they were with flocks and herds, 
 with wives and little ones, with the aged and the 
 infirm. And now these man-hunters thought them- 
 selves sure of their quarry. The Hebrews were 
 encamped in a narrow defile, with steep mountains 
 on either side, the deep, impassable sea before them,
 
 74 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 and the fierce legions of their pursuers pressing be- 
 hind them. Retreat was cut off. Escape in any 
 direction seemed hopeless. What could this multi- 
 tude of lately emancipated serfs, debased by cen- 
 turies of oppression, unskilled in arms, and accus- 
 tomed to regard the Egyptians as a superior race, 
 do in a conflict with the collected might of the most 
 warlike nation then on the face of the earth ? What 
 possible fate awaited them, but to submit to their 
 infuriated persecutors, and bow down once more 
 under the yoke; or, pent up and helpless, to be 
 slaughtered without mercy ? That one or the other 
 of these catastrophes must befall them, was looked 
 upon as certain both by their enemies and by them- 
 selves. And so shorn of all manhood were they by 
 the long years of servitude which they had endured, 
 that they were ready to go back to their prison- 
 house, rather than encounter danger and death in a 
 struggle for freedom. 
 
 But God had not brought them forth with such 
 signal displays of His interference, to desert them 
 in their extremity. He heard their cry for succor, 
 and answered it by an outputting of His almighti- 
 ness more stupendous than any which they had yet 
 witnessed. The Pillar of Cloud and of Fire, that 
 had hitherto gone before them, now moved from 
 their front, and stood between them and the Egyp- 
 tians its bright side shining on their own ranks,
 
 GREAT ERAS MARKED BY GREAT JUDGMENTS. 75 
 
 its dark side frowning on their foes the token of 
 deliverance to the one, of overthrow to the other. 
 At the same time, Moses, by the command of the 
 Lord, stretched his rod over the sea ; and lo ! its 
 waters were parted asunder to their lowest depths, 
 leaving along their uncovered bed a dry passage for 
 human feet. Down into that miraculous chasm went 
 the millions of Israel, tribe after tribe, column after 
 column ; the radiant Pillar lighting their way, and 
 the liquid walls rising up straight and high on either 
 hand. And down after them poured the Egyptian 
 host, madly bent on following the escaping slaves 
 into the very jaws of Hell. On, on they hurried, 
 the pursued and the pursuers on through the long 
 night on over the secret places of the deep, over 
 coral hills, and valleys that never saw the sun. 
 Strange march! stranger marching-ground! Type 
 of the race between lord and vassal throughout the 
 ages ! The heaven-defying audacity of the oppress- 
 ors had now reached its climax, and the hour of 
 their destruction was come. In the morning watch, 
 Jehovah looked out upon them from the angry face 
 of the Cloud that hovered between them and the 
 objects of their rage. At the glance of that awful 
 Eye, their hardihood forsook them; consternation 
 spread from squadron to squadron ; and with broken 
 lines and disabled chariots they turned to flee from 
 the Almighty One that fought for Israel. But the
 
 76 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 attempt was vain. The rod of Moses was again 
 stretched over the sea, and the watery mountains, 
 which God's hand had held divided, rushed together, 
 burying king and noble, horse and rider, chariot and 
 charioteer, under the swift-meeting billows. The 
 proud array of Egypt was no more. And while, on 
 the safe shore, the rescued Tribes sung hymns of 
 triumph, and with harp and timbrel celebrated the 
 praise of their omnipotent Defender ; in the cities 
 of the Nile was heard the voice of lamentation, and 
 Misraim, through all her provinces, wept her fallen 
 chivalry, and her glory departed. 
 
 It was thus that, by dispensations as just as they 
 were appalling, God responded to the prayer of His 
 people, and led them forth from the house of bond- 
 age . But the operation of this great principle did not 
 cease here. The fro ward and rebellious conduct of 
 the Hebrews themselves often demanded its exercise. 
 A brief trial of their character proved them wholly 
 unfit for the high destiny which the Divine purpose 
 had assigned to their race. With a few striking 
 exceptions, the entire nation was so corrupted by 
 slavery, and so deficient in physical and moral stam- 
 ina, that, had it been conducted at once to Canaan, 
 it would have shown itself utterly incompetent to 
 drive out the peoples by whom it was occupied, and 
 found a stable commonwealth. Or, if celestial aid 
 had supplemented this weakness, and placed the
 
 GREAT ERAS MARKED ST GREAT JUDGMENTS. -77 
 
 descendants of Abraham in possession of the land 
 which God had given to him, their waywardness, 
 their idolatrous leanings, their imbecile habits, their 
 want of all elevating impulses, must have rapidly in- 
 duced a state of degeneracy and disorder, that would 
 have made them the easy prey of surrounding king- 
 doms. In either case, the design of God in refer- 
 ence to the establishment of His truth in the world, 
 would have been defeated. He, therefore, saw that 
 a course of severe and protracted discipline was re- 
 quired to shape such worthless materials into the 
 instruments which He needed. Hence he held His 
 promise in abeyance ; visited their frequent disobe- 
 dience with frequent correction ; and compelled them 
 to traverse the wilderness for forty years, in a series 
 of aimless marches backward and forward, till the 
 track of their wanderings was studded thick with the 
 graves of all who came out of Egypt. And then, 
 when a new generation had arisen, a generation born 
 in the desert and vigorous with its fresh life a gen- 
 eration born free, and educated under the influences 
 of freedom when such men stood in the place of 
 their feeble sires, He consummated His assurances 
 to the patriarchs, and bestowed on their offspring 
 the heritage which He had ordained for them. 
 
 At this point, also, we witness corresponding 
 manifestations of retributive Holiness. The land of 
 Canaan was then inhabited by numerous races of
 
 78 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 Phoenician origin, who were intruders upon the soil, 
 which the All-Owner and Disposer had allotted to 
 the children of His Covenant. Their obscene idola- 
 tries and enormous wickedness had long reeked up 
 to heaven, and Divine justice had decreed their 
 extermination. The future developments of God's 
 providence, in relation not merely to His chosen 
 people, but to the whole human family, required the 
 expulsion of these heathen trespassers from the cen- 
 tral position into which they had thrust themselves, 
 and its transfer to the nation selected as the conser- 
 vators of the knowledge and worship of the One Je- 
 hovah, till the Light of the Gentiles should appear, 
 and the lost brotherhood of man be restored by 
 Christ. For the carrying out of this arrangement, 
 the Almighty clothed His arm with terror. At His 
 command, the hosts of Israel passed into Canaan, 
 routed its armies, sacked its cities, ravaged its ter- 
 ritory with fire and sword, slew vast numbers of its 
 population, reduced the remnant to submission, or 
 forced it to seek new settlements. In all this they 
 were but the agents of the universal Sovereign, to 
 whom the whole earth belongs, and who has a right 
 to apportion it as He pleases. His will was their 
 authority ; His aid the source of their triumph. 
 Guided and supported by Him, they took possession 
 of the land set apart as the birth-scene of the world's
 
 GEE A T ERAS MARKED B T GREA T JUD GMENTS. 79 
 
 Salvation, and cleared it for the waiting wonders that 
 were in reserve for it. 
 
 From this rapid survey, how clearly do we per- 
 ceive in the Hebrew Exodus the ministry of judg- 
 ments ! How thickly along its path stand the "ter- 
 rible things," which bring about the purposes of the 
 Most High ! Nor were these the outburstings of 
 mere arbitrary vengeance. They were righteous in 
 their infliction, and compensative in their end. The 
 blessings which they prepared transcended a thou- 
 sand fold the sufferings which they occasioned. It 
 was only through them that God could introduce the 
 era of Organized Religion the era in which His 
 Truth, no longer homeless and a wanderer, should 
 be established in a permanent abode, and be em- 
 bodied in a national worship, reflecting its light on 
 the surrounding darkness, and serving as the pre- 
 cursor of that broader and more spiritual economy 
 which was ultimately to embrace the world. The 
 scourging of Egypt, the afflictions of Israel in the 
 wilderness, the conquest and extrusion of the idola- 
 trous hordes of Canaan, stood in intimate and neces- 
 sary connection with the fulfilment of the promise, 
 that in the seed of Abraham all the families of the 
 earth should be blessed. And so it was, that from 
 miseries narrow in their range, and transient in du- 
 ration, sprung Hope and Happiness for the human 
 race.
 
 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 Analogous events marked the inauguration of 
 Christianity. This epoch, the most important 
 which the earth has seen, was waited for with intense 
 desire, from the hour of its first announcement in 
 Eden, down through all the slow-moving centuries 
 that preceded its introduction. In every land, in 
 every period, under every form of social existence, 
 it was the one bright expectation which cheered the 
 travail of the darkling generations. Even among 
 pagan races, however ignorant and barbarous, there 
 prevailed an indistinct, yet strong and universal im- 
 pression, arising from the intuitive feeling of need, 
 or from dim traditions of the original Promise, 
 that some Divine Personage would appear, to reme- 
 dy the disorders of humanity, and usher in the gold- 
 en age of purity and joy. The Jews, instructed by 
 revelation, possessed clearer views, and cherished a 
 hope more definite and assured. They knew that 
 the Celestial One, for whose advent the world thus 
 vaguely longed, was to be their own Messiah, the 
 King and Saviour of Israel. They knew that the 
 covenant of God with their fathers, the predictions 
 of their prophets, the ceremonial of their religion, 
 and its whole spirit, pointed to His coming as their 
 consummation and fulfilment. To the dawning of 
 His day they looked forward with eager yearning. 
 For its arrival the devout among them incessantly 
 prayed. And in all their changeful history, in
 
 GEE A T ERAS MARKED B T ORE A T JUD GMENTS, 8 1 
 
 weakness, in exile, in the humiliations inflicted on 
 them by their foreign conquerors, they were upheld 
 and consoled by the never-wavering faith, that the 
 mighty Champion who was to arise for their deliver- 
 ance, would avenge every wrong, and heal" every 
 
 SO1TOW. 
 
 Yet, though right in their belief as to the fact of 
 Christ's mission, they were utterly in error as to its 
 nature and objects. The ideas which they formed 
 of the relation which He was to sustain to them, and 
 of the work which He was to accomplish, were alto- 
 gether carnal. They had no conception of the moral 
 bearings which His manifestation was to assume 
 of its vicarious and expiatory character of its 
 grand scope in putting away sin by the Sacrifice of 
 the Cross, and erecting, through the power of that 
 sacrifice, a spiritual empire over the hearts of men. 
 A political redemption, a material sovereignty, en- 
 grossed their thoughts, and kindled their anticipa- 
 tions. They looked for a temporal Messiah a 
 Prince wearing an earthly crown, wielding earthly 
 weapons, leading invincible armies a Divine 
 Hero, who should break the Eoman yoke, vanquish 
 the heathen in battle, raise Jerusalem to the seat of 
 a universal monarchy, and, infusing new life into 
 effete and dying Judaism, make it the religion of 
 the world. 
 
 Doubtless there were contingencies in which some 
 6
 
 82 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 of these expectations were possible. Had they rec- 
 ognized, in the coming of the God-man, the com- 
 pletion of their national Hope ; had they compre- 
 hended the true meaning of His office; had they 
 yielded to the evidence of His Divine authority, 
 acknowledged His claims, received His words, and 
 embraced His salvation they might have escaped 
 the tremendous doom which subsequently befell 
 them. Accepting Jesus of Nazareth as their De- 
 liverer from spiritual bondage, they would have 
 found in Him the Guardian and Uplifter of their 
 social condition. Then* existence as a people would 
 have been preserved. The dispensation of the Law 
 would have melted into the dispensation of the Gos- 
 pel as silently and as serenely as the orb of night 
 disappears before the rising of the sun. The land 
 in which they dwelt, endeared to them by so many 
 glorious memories, would have remained the inalien- 
 able heritage of their race. And their Holy City, 
 the renowned centre of Hebrew worship, would 
 have been no less hallowed in all future times, and 
 among all kindreds of men, as the birthplace of 
 Christianity, and the radiating point from which its 
 light first went forth to dispel the darkness of the 
 nations. 
 
 But their obstinate unbelief blasted all these 
 splendid possibilities, and evoked, in their place, 
 public and individual ruin, as certain as it. was
 
 GREAT ERAS MARKED BY GREAT JUDGMENTS. 83 
 
 utter. The unpretending manner in which the Re- 
 deemer entered upon His ministry, His humble 
 origin, His lowly demeanor, His recoil from all 
 schemes of ambition and aggrandizement, shocked 
 their prejudices, and ran counter to the whole cur- 
 rent of their opinions in reference to the Messiah. 
 His humility offended their pride. The holiness of 
 His doctrines condemned the corruption of their 
 lives. The method of justification which He un- 
 folded, overthrew their self-righteousness. They 
 clearly saw that if the divinity of His character 
 and of His teachings were admitted, the national 
 religion in which they gloried, with all its legal 
 observances, and all the puerile additions with 
 which they had disfigured it, must be swept away 
 and superseded by this new .system of truth and 
 worship. Hence they clung to their sensual views, 
 and rejected Him whom prophecy and miracle, the 
 converging of events, His own forthputtings of in- 
 finite power, and the concurring witness of Heaven, 
 pointed out as the Only Begotten of the Father. 
 Fired with jealousy and hate, they heaped on Him 
 scorn and insult and contumely, and, at last, com- 
 passed His crucifixion, crying out in their awful 
 blindness, "His blood be on us, and on our chil- 
 dren." And when He had risen from the dead, and 
 they knew that He had risen, and had thus given 
 the crowning proof of His Messiahship, they per-
 
 84 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 secuted His followers, and endeavored, by threats 
 and imprisonment, to restrain them from preaching 
 the Name which they detested and feared. 
 
 From that hour their destruction was sure. They 
 had put themselves into antagonism with Omnip- 
 otence. In their opposition to Christ and His 
 Gospel, they strove to block the path of Jeho- 
 vah's purposes, and so came within the sweep of 
 that dread law which crushes the enemies that 
 mercy cannot subdue. The Judaism to which 
 they adhered, distorted, debased, and shorn of all 
 its primal virtue, false to its Founder and false to 
 its design, instead of welcoming Christianity, and 
 opening the way for its triumphs, stood forth as its 
 chief and most envenomed foe ; and, therefore, the 
 cause of human salvation, no less than the voice of 
 outraged Justice, demanded that it should be driven 
 from its place of power, its home made desolate, 
 and its abettors scattered over the face of the earth. 
 In accordance with the usual course of Divine deal- 
 ing, by which national crimes become the means of 
 national punishment, the final ruin and dispersion 
 of the Jews, and the complete uprooting of their 
 state and polity, were the consequences of their 
 own act. The same ecclesiastical bigotry which 
 led them to repudiate and murder their Messiah, 
 incited them also to rebel against the authority of 
 Rome, and brought upon them its swift and terrible
 
 GREAT ERAS MARKED BY GREAT JUDGMENTS. 85 
 
 vengeance. The fierce legions of Vespasian strode 
 over the land, filling it with carnage and woe, turn- 
 ing its fertile plains into deserts, storming its forti- 
 fied places, laying its towns level with the ground, 
 and driving the houseless inhabitants before them, 
 till nearly the whole nation was shut up in Jerusa- 
 lem. Then commenced a siege, memorable through 
 all time for its duration, for the vigor with which it 
 was pressed, for the desperation with which it was 
 resisted, for the horrors that attended it a siege 
 in which more than a million of Jews perished by 
 the sword or by famine. So fearfully was their 
 own imprecation verified ! At length, the city was 
 taken, its walls demolished, its very foundations 
 razed, its temple laid in ashes, its surviving popu- 
 lation given up to slaughter, or borne away as 
 slaves by their conquerors. Hebrew nationality 
 was extinguished. The land, stained with the 
 blood of the Crucified, was surrendered to per- 
 petual desolation ; and the race that committed the 
 awful deed were to be evermore wanderers and 
 outcasts, abandoned of Heaven, and abhorred of 
 earth. Thus, by a visitation as necessary as it was 
 stern, as righteous as it was overwhelming, the All- 
 Euler swept from the pathway of His Gospel the 
 mightiest obstacle that impeded its introduction and 
 progress. 
 
 Similar revealings of His hand may be seen in
 
 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 all the great epochs that have signalized the march 
 of Christianity along the track of the centuries. 
 History abundantly shows that whenever organ- 
 ized wickedness, whether that of governments, 
 hierarchies, or institutions, has opposed the ad- 
 vance of His kingdom, striking exhibitions of His 
 power have come forth to remove the obstruc- 
 tion. But we cannot now trace out and describe 
 each instance in detail. The brief space which re- 
 mains to us -will barely suffice to present the work- 
 ing of this law in our own tune and country. 
 
 The period in which we live is distinguished pre- 
 eminently as the Era of Freedom. We do not so 
 designate it because freedom is yet either perfect in 
 its nature, or universal in its extension. But there 
 is everywhere a growing appreciation of it, a more 
 earnest struggle to secure it, a stronger conviction 
 of the right to it which belongs to all, and of the 
 deep wrong involved in the violation of that right. 
 This feature is so prominent in our day as to consti- 
 tute its leading characteristic, and determine its 
 place in history. And God has stamped this fea- 
 ture on the age with a view to the promotion of His 
 work of Grace in the world. It is the grand intent 
 of His mercy to recover the lost children of earth 
 from the degradation and misery into which sin has 
 plunged them, emancipate them from moral thral- 
 dom, elevate them in civilization, knowledge, com-
 
 GREAT ERAS MARKED BY ORE AT JUDGMENTS. 87 
 
 fort, and render them holy and happy under the 
 peaceful sceptre of His Son. 
 
 Among the external hindrances to this redeeming 
 process, the tyranny of man over his fellows is the 
 most unyielding and potent. Even the Gospel, 
 with all its heaven-born energies, cannot uplift 
 masses held down by the iron clutch of despotism, 
 till that clutch is rent away. It may save from final 
 perdition the souls that truly receive it, however 
 shrouded in ignorance, and imbruted by vassalage ; 
 but it cannot exert its high and transforming influ- 
 ence on. social welfare where thought is fettered, 
 and every faculty lies benumbed and paralyzed un- 
 der the incubus of oppression. Nor can its more 
 spiritual work be successfully prosecuted in such a 
 field. It may reach here and there an individual 
 among the benighted and down-trodden; but the 
 wide, dead waste of debasement will remain unaf- 
 fected by its power. The spirit of the Gospel is a 
 free spirit, and can hold no alliance with absolutism, 
 whether civil or ecclesiastical, whether that of king, 
 pope, or oligarch. Hence we might well expect 
 that the Providence which rules in all terrestrial af- 
 fairs, would direct its operations with special refer- 
 ence to the removal of this greatest barrier to the 
 spread of truth and righteousness. And the going 
 forth of its agency to this end is manifest, not only 
 in the overturning or liberalizing of despotic govern-
 
 88 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 ments, but more emphatically still in the tremen- 
 dous conflict with slavery which now convulses our 
 own land. 
 
 Human bondage, so long dominant in this other- 
 wise favored country, has been the chief impediment 
 to the growth of a pure Christianity at home, and to 
 the efficiency of our labors hi the cause of evangel- 
 ization abroad. It has been the nation's blackest 
 sin, and its deadliest curse. A monstrous crime 
 and a blighting pest wherever it exists, its enormity 
 has been more flagrant here than elsewhere, from 
 the fact that it has here assumed its most ruthless 
 form, and also on the ground that it has been up- 
 held and cherished in direct antagonism to our re- 
 publican principles, and to our noble antecedents. 
 Inscribing on the organic framework of our nation- 
 al government the great truth, that God has created 
 all men free and equal, and proclaiming it as the 
 corner-stone of our political system, we have held in 
 chains millions endowed with the same natural rights 
 as ourselves ; have robbed them of their manhood ; 
 have bought and sold them like brute beasts ; have 
 dishonored and defiled the proud banner of Liberty 
 by making it the protector of the man-stealer, and 
 the symbol of chattelhood. What wonder is it that 
 an infamy like this should have exposed us to the 
 contempt of the civilized world ? Who can marvel 
 that our vaunted freedom has been the scoff of aris-
 
 GREAT ERAS MARKED BY GREAT JUDGMENTS. 89 
 
 tocrats and monarchists throughout the earth ; or 
 that we have been branded as a nation of hypocrites, 
 whose philanthropy tolerates injustice, and whose 
 religion is linked with the foulest iniquity on which 
 the sun ever looked ? 
 
 This glaring blot on our character and on our in- 
 stitutions has not only been reprobated by the gen- 
 eral voice of humanity ; its evils have been felt and 
 deplored by ourselves. We have long viewed it as 
 our country's guilt and bane. We have seen it de- 
 bauching the public conscience and the public mor- 
 als, entering into all the walks of business, contami- 
 nating our literature, corrupting our churches, and 
 pervading every department of society with its fatal 
 poison. For its removal wise and good men have 
 labored during many years with patient zeal, and in 
 the unblenching faith, that argument, and expostu- 
 lation, and the reforming forces of the Gospel, 
 would finally eradicate and banish it from the land. 
 And there was a time when this faith seemed to be 
 well founded. The giant curse appeared to be 
 losing strength under the moral stress brought to 
 bear upon it. Slaveholders themselves began to 
 grow weary of it, to acknowledge its baleful tenden- 
 cies, and to contemplate the possibility of its future 
 extinction. There were few so blinded by prejudice 
 and passion, as to pronounce it a good in itself 
 few so lost to all sense of right, as to assert its rec-
 
 90 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 titude. The almost unanimous verdict even of 
 slaveholding society declared it to be a system of 
 labor wasteful, unremunerative, an injury to the 
 master, and a wrong to the slave a system whose 
 longer existence could be justified only by the fact, 
 that it was so interwoven with all the habits and in- 
 terests of Southern life as to render its sudden with- 
 drawal productive of wide-spread industrial de- 
 rangement. The sentiment was general that slavery 
 was not a blessing to be perpetuated, but an evil to 
 be removed as soon as it could be done with safety. 
 And so extensively did this sentiment prevail, that 
 in some of the slaveholding States incipient steps 
 were taken for so changing their constitutions as to 
 provide for gradual and final emancipation. 
 
 That was the day of grace the probation-hour 
 of the South. Then she had a Conscience. Then 
 her heart was tender. Then the Spirit of God 
 moved upon the minds of her people, convincing 
 them of righteousness. Then all that was Christian 
 in her condemned on moral grounds the making 
 merchandise of men, and all that was patriotic de- 
 sired its abolishment as a great social mischief. 
 Oh ! had she known, in that day of her merciful vis- 
 itation, "the things which belonged to her peace" 
 had she seen that a fungus so deadly was to be 
 cured, not by delay, but by prompt and instant ex- 
 cision had she obeyed the voice of Providence,
 
 GREAT ERAS MARKED BY GREAT JUDGMENTS, 91 
 
 the voice of history, the voice of her own convic- 
 tions, and broken at once the fetters of her bond- 
 men the devastating wrath which she has called 
 down upon herself and upon the nation would not 
 have been inflicted ! 
 
 But the propitious season was not improved. 
 Soon a marked change occurred in the financial as- 
 pects of the question. A wider market for cotton, 
 and new facilities in the growth and preparation of 
 the staple, led to increased production, and thus 
 created a demand for slave labor, and greatly en- 
 hanced the price of human bones and sinews. Then 
 a complete revulsion of opinion and of feeling passed 
 over the South. All thought of emancipation, 
 present or future, was laid aside. All conscious- 
 ness of the wrong of involuntary servitude was over- 
 borne and extinguished by the dazzling rewards 
 which it promised. Slave ry, no longer deemed un- 
 profitable, but a source of boundless wealth, seemed 
 to undergo a wondrous transformation. The demon 
 became an angel; the destroyer -a saviour; the es- 
 sence of barbarism a grand agent of civilization ; 
 the blaring scandal of the age, detested by God and 
 man, a sacred and holy thing, the twin sister of 
 Christianity. The population of the slave States 
 declared itself a unit in support of the institution, 
 in maintaining its equity before Heaven and earth,
 
 92 BATTLE ECHOES* 
 
 and in claiming for it universal and perpetual 
 dominion. 
 
 From that moment, the fate of the oligarchy was 
 sealed. From that moment, it passed within the 
 sweep of the retributive law which we have de- 
 scribed. From that moment, its punishment was as 
 fixed and determined as it is now. A just God gave 
 it up to. the power of an infatuation, which was as 
 certain to plunge it into the abyss of ruin, as a boat, 
 set adrift in the rapids of Niagara, is sure to go over 
 the cataract. The abettors of Slavery were smitten 
 with judicial blindness. In attempting to make the 
 Bible an apologist of their accursed system, they 
 blasphemed the Holy Author of the Bible, and per- 
 petrated the sin for which the All-Merciful has no 
 forgiveness. Thenceforth, every ministry of Grace 
 forsook them. They had crossed the line which 
 separates trial from doom had left the region in 
 which their redemption was possible, and madly en- 
 tered the dread realm over which wrath and judg- 
 ment alone preside. Return was barred to them 
 forever. There was no longer any place for moral 
 appliances. Reason, and Conscience, and Remon- 
 strance, and Persuasion were recalled from the field ; 
 and Nemesis became the sole actor. To its red 
 hands the work was committed. Yet we knew it 
 not. We still thought that Light and Love might 
 prevail in the struggle, and continued to marshal
 
 GREAT EEAS MARKED BY GREAT JUDGMENTS. 93 
 
 their superseded forces. But the more we looked 
 for a peaceful issue, the farther it receded into dis- 
 tance. The more we trusted that the clouds would 
 break away, and the glad sun of freedom shine out, 
 the louder the thunder muttered, and the blacker 
 grew the gathering tempest. 
 
 " We prayed and hoped; but stillwith awe 
 The coming of the sword we saw ; 
 We heard the nearing steps of doom, 
 And saw the shade of things to come." 
 
 And now the hurricane is upon us. He, who 
 employs even the wild passions of the reprobate as 
 instruments of His benign decrees, has permitted 
 the Southern oligarchs to rush into treason and re- 
 bellion, for the purpose of destroying the Union, 
 and rendering the empire of slavery permanent and 
 supreme. He has thus made their own madness the 
 occasion and the means of their overthrow. In the 
 mighty battle which we are compelled to wage in 
 defence of the nation's integrity and the nation's life, 
 we are but the ministers of His vengeance. He 
 appoints our task, and His hand beckons us onward 
 to the utter annihilation of the fell iniquity that has 
 defied His laws. 
 
 True it is, that in this fearful conflict we ourselves 
 suffer, as well as the doomed ones against whom we 
 are called to execute the sentence of Heaven. God 
 is chastening us for our participation in the sin
 
 94 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 which He is visiting with such signal outgoings of 
 His anger. We have shared in the guilt of slavery. 
 We have bowed down before it. We have com- 
 promised with it. We have legislated for it. We 
 have given it scope and verge. And it is for this 
 very reason that God has laid on us the work of its 
 destruction. He intends that we shall expiate, with 
 rivers of blood and oceans of treasure, our part in 
 riveting the chains of the bondman. Not otherwise 
 could our political regeneration be accomplished. 
 Through tears and agony lies the nation's way to its 
 new and higher life. The flame must scorch deep, 
 that renovates and purities. 
 
 " We wait beneath the furnace-blast 
 
 The pangs of transformation ; 
 Not painlessly doth God recast 
 And mould anew the nation. 
 Hot burns the fire 
 "Where wrongs expire ; 
 Nor spares the hand, 
 That from the land 
 Uproots the ancient evil. 
 What though the cast-out spirit tear 
 
 The nation in his going ? 
 We who have shared the guilt must share 
 The pang of his o'erthrowing 1 
 Whate'er the loss, 
 Whate'er the cross, 
 Shall they complain 
 Of present pain, 
 Who trust in God's hereafter? "
 
 GREA T ERAS MARKED B T GEE A T JUDGMENTS. 95 
 
 No, no the furnace will not consume us, seven 
 times heated though it be. It will burn up our 
 league with death, arid our covenant with hell. It 
 will burn out from us whatever is mean and false, 
 and burn in all that is great and true. As the 
 glowing oven expels from the porcelain the stains 
 left on it by unclean hands, at the same time that it 
 fixes and deepens the beautiful tints with which the 
 painter has adorned it; so the fiery purgation to 
 which we are subjected will burn away from us the 
 smut of greed and selfishness, and bring out in 
 brighter and more indelible colors the lineaments of 
 justice, love of freedom, and love of country, which 
 the Divine Limner imprinted on the nation at its 
 birth, but which the foul touch of Slavery, and the 
 attrition of material interests, have since well-nigh 
 obliterated. Nothing but our weakness, our syco- 
 phancy, our subservience to wrong, will perish. All 
 that is strong, and firm, and noble, and vital in the 
 land, will come forth purer, grander, mightier for 
 the trial. Where the fire is hottest, where the an- 
 guish is keenest, there walks by our side the form 
 of Him who has decreed the ordeal, who determines 
 its process and its continuance, and who, when its 
 work is done, will lead us out to the cool waters and 
 halcyon airs of peace and prosperity. 
 
 But the guilty cause of all our woe the poison 
 tree that has borne such deadly fruit will be de-
 
 96 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 stroyed, root and branch. JSTo efforts of its wor- 
 shippers, no forbearance toward it on our own part, 
 can save or even prolong its abhorred life. Its hour 
 has come. The death-fiat has been spoken; and 
 the only choice left us is, to help kill it, or die with 
 it. The same avenging law, and the same almighty 
 Hand, that wrought a clear path for the great eras 
 of former times, are revealed, in a manner yet more 
 impressive, for the rescue of suffering millions, and 
 the ushering in of the new age which shall bring 
 right and deliverance to all. 
 
 " A redder sea than Egypt's wave 
 Is piled and parted for the slave ; 
 A darker cloud moves on in light, 
 A fiercer fire is guide by night. " 
 
 And in the destruction of slavery will perish the 
 remorseless faction that has so long ruled the land, 
 and is now deluging it with fraternal blood. We 
 mean not that the people of the South will be 
 utterly swept away ; that all her sons will be slain 
 in her unholy battle ; though myriads will doubtless 
 fall, as myriads have fallen, dying bravely yet iii- 
 gloriously for the bad cause on which God has set 
 His curse. But the South as once we knew it 
 the slave-holding South, the arrogant, dominating 
 South, the soul-selling, woman-whipping South, the 
 world-scorning, hcavcn-darins: South will never
 
 GREAT ERAS MARKED BY GREAT JUDGMENTS. 97 
 
 live again. Her insolent aristocracy, her fire-eating 
 lords of the plantation, will be gone, rotting hi 
 traitors' graves, or wandering landless and beg- 
 gared, as uupitied in their day of adversity as 
 they were pitiless hi their day of power. Let 
 them go. They are the enemies of God and man ; 
 and the Avorld will be the better when they are no 
 longer in it. Another race will stand hi their 
 places a race fitted to the new conditions that 
 will arise from the downfall of slavery ; and the 
 sunny regions, over which the tempest of civil war 
 now rages, freed from the scourge of bondage, and 
 sheltered once more under the banner of the Union, 
 will become the home of industry and happiness. 
 The old South, impenitent, incorrigible, will be 
 swallowed up by the billows of the bloody sea into 
 which she has cast herself. The new South, trans- 
 formed by the awful baptism, will emerge to a fresh 
 life and a magnificent destiny. 
 
 So conspicuous in our own land and day is the 
 operation of that principle of the Divine govern- 
 ment which we have reviewed. Demolition and 
 re-construction are now pre-eminently the work of 
 God "in the midst of the years." "The Breaker 
 has come up." He is hurling down obsolete or cor- 
 rupt systems of civilization, and building nobler 
 ones on firmer foundations, and with better ma- 
 terials ; laying low the mountains, and exalting
 
 98 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 the valleys, in preparation for the final triumphs 
 of Righteousness and Peace. American Slavery 
 reared its huge bulk, frowning defiance, directly 
 in the track of the advancing chariot of Salva- 
 tion. Though warned by countless voices from 
 earth and heaven, we refused to take it away, but 
 sought, instead, to make it more impregnable by 
 the bulwarks of compromise, and the buttresses of 
 iniquitous legislation. The season of forbearance 
 and of admonition having passed, the Breaker lifts 
 His hammer, and the dark, towering barrier comes 
 toppling to the ground, dragging its defenders with 
 it, and spreading terror and havoc in its fall. The 
 world reels under the concussion. 
 
 Changes and revolutions less startling in their 
 aspects, but not less clear in their meaning, are 
 going forward over the whole face of this apostate 
 globe. Everywhere dissolution and re-adjustment 
 follow the steps of Providence. Everywhere the 
 All-Governor is extirpating ancient abuses ; modi- 
 fying laws, customs, institutions ; unbinding fetters, 
 lifting off burdens ; and thus inaugurating the era 
 of universal Equality and Justice, as the forerunner 
 of Time's last and greatest era, the era of universal 
 Evangelism. The crowning victories of the Gos- 
 pel must be won, the enthroned Mediator must be 
 King over all the earth, whatever political and 
 social upheavals the glorious consummation may in-
 
 GREAT ERAS MARKED BY GREAT JUDGMENTS. 99 
 
 volve. Whore the indications of God's will are 
 recognized and obeyed, there the process will be 
 silent and peaceful. But wherever human organiza- 
 tions, whether civil or religious, are blind to His 
 purpose, and fail to mould themselves into harmony 
 with it, there the resistless hammer of the Breaker 
 will descend, crashing through all their defences, 
 and shivering them into fragments. If the nations 
 are in his way, He "will shake the nations, and 
 overturn, overturn, till He shall come whose right 
 it is." 
 
 Convulsions will yet rend the Old World as fear- 
 ful as that which now rocks the New. Opportune 
 reforms and ameliorations may place some of its 
 peoples beyond the line of the Avenger's march. 
 Russia, autocratic as she is, in her sympathy with 
 progress, in the liberation of her thirty millions of 
 serfs, and in the bestowal of equal franchises upon 
 all classes of her population, gives evidence that 
 she comprehends the hour which the clock of history 
 is striking, and is putting herself in a posture to 
 meet its demands. And Austria even, long the 
 very centre and stronghold of Absolutism, mani- 
 fests a similar movement in the direction of coming 
 events, and similar auguries of immunity from the 
 visit of the Destroyer. But England, Constitu- 
 tional England, Christian, Protestant England, is 
 mantled with foresh ado wings of another hue. Of
 
 100 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 the same blood, the source from which we drew 
 our nationality, her crimes resemble our own. The 
 Mother is as wicked as the Daughter, and may ex- 
 pect as severe a chastisement. We, while chanting 
 paeans to Liberty, boasting a pure Gospel, and send- 
 ing out troops of missionaries to preach it to the 
 heathen, doomed the children of our own soil to a 
 servitude more cruel and debasing than the worst 
 form of paganism ever knew. In this guilt she has 
 been our pattern and leader. She first brought 
 slavery here, and entailed the evil upon us. And 
 though in later years she emancipated the slaves of 
 other people in her colonies, she has never emanci- 
 pated her more than slaves at home. To this day 
 she tramples her toiling masses in the dust, loads 
 them with civil disabilities, and keeps them in a 
 state of ignorance and helplessness that differs in 
 nothing but the name from the lowest vassalage. 
 Her domestic and her foreign record is character- 
 ized by oppression, insolence, selfishness, perfidy. 
 She acknowledges no law but interest, no honor but 
 profit, no Bible but the ledger, no creed but wealth, 
 no conscience but fear. A bully and a coward, she 
 insults the weak, and truckles to the strong. What 
 inconsistencies glare out in her protean policy ! Her 
 churches christianize barbarians, her merchants sell 
 them idols, her armies slaughter them. Hypocrite 
 of the nations, how piously she lectured us a little
 
 GREAT ERAS MARKED BY GREAT JUDGMENTS. 101 
 
 while ago on the sinfulness of Slavery ! And now, 
 when we are fighting to destroy it, how infamously 
 she ignores her past teachings, aids the slave-power, 
 supplies it with the means of carrying on the war, 
 covers the sea with pirate ships to ravage our com- 
 merce, and does all that she dare do to establish the 
 vile Confederacy whose corner-stone is human bond- 
 age ! With what a sanctimonious air she preaches 
 to us on the magnanimity of mercy to rebels and 
 traitors, while blowing sepoys from the muzzles of 
 her guns in India, and hanging and shooting thou- 
 sands of unarmed negroes for a trifling riot in Ja- 
 maica ! In all the broad earth, there exists not a 
 government so false, so treacherous, so shameless 
 in wrong, so dead to the very perception of jus- 
 tice, as the government of England. And shall 
 such a government draw down no bolt from 
 heaven? When .our sins are so fearfully pun- 
 ished, shall her greater transgressions go without 
 rebuke? If she take warning from our example, 
 and repent in time, repair the injuries which she 
 has inflicted, cease the aggressions of her greed and 
 her ambition, and lift the iron hand of caste and 
 prescription from her groaning millions, she may 
 escape the wrath which is preparing for her. But 
 unless she does this, and does it soon, then, as 
 surely as a righteous God reigns above, her doom
 
 102 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 and its lesson will be the most awful which the 
 world has ever seen, or ever will see again. 
 
 In the great crisis through which we are passing, 
 and in the yet wider and vaster commotions which 
 the near future is bringing to the nations, there is 
 no reason to tremble for the issue. The cause of 
 Humanity will assuredly triumph in the end. It 
 will triumph with us ; and it will triumph wherever 
 its battle is fought. The conflict must be terrific. 
 It may be protracted, fluctuating, and to mortal 
 view long barren of any definite result. The down- 
 treaders of men will summon all their strength to 
 hold them in subjection. The blows of Truth, and 
 the shocks of Providential dealing, may appear to 
 make little impression on the solid front of crys- 
 tallized Wrong. Decades, centuries, may roll away 
 before the conquest is complete. "The mills of 
 God grind slow ; " but they never stop, and their 
 work never fails. Victory will come at last. Every 
 shackle shall be broken. Arbitrary rule, priestly 
 usurpations, despotism in all its manifold shapes, 
 the fetters that bind the limbs, the degradation that 
 imprisons the soul, shall be scattered and annihi- 
 lated by the breath of the Omnipotent. Free labor, 
 free thought, free speech, free government, shall be 
 the heritage of the human race. In the process of 
 the material creation, when the uproar of primeval 
 Chaos had ceased, the expanse of waters lay still
 
 GREAT ERAS MARKED BY GREAT JUDGMENTS. 103 
 
 under the wings of the brooding Spirit, and the 
 new-born world, calm and silent, waited the om- 
 nific word of the world's Maker, "Let there be 
 light." So, in the moral creation, repose and ex- 
 pectancy will succeed to the turmoil of change and 
 the heavings of struggle. Then, on the hushed and 
 prepared earth the energies of the all-quickening 
 Paraclete will descend, pervading it with life from 
 heaven. Then, over its whole circumference the 
 Gospel will go forth without bar or pause, dispers- 
 ing its darkness, restoring its beauty, and blessing 
 it with universal holiness and joy. And then the 
 Almighty Designer and Worker, looking back upon 
 the long train of His purposes from their beginning 
 to their fulfilment, will proclaim, IT is DONE ! the 
 march of the Eras is ended ; the grand, crowning 
 Epoch, to which all the Past has pointed, and for 
 which all the Past has been, is CONSUMMATED FOR- 
 EVER !
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 PIOUS MEN THE NATION'S HOPE. 
 
 " THE HOLT SEED SHALL BE THE SUBSTANCE THEREOF." Isaiah vi. 13. 
 
 the preceding part of this chapter the solemn 
 decree is announced, that the Jewish people, in 
 consequence of their flagrant and persevering 
 rebellion, were to be abandoned to national ob- 
 duracy. And when the prophet inquired of the 
 Lord, how long this general impenitence and disre- 
 gard of the Divine threatenings would continue, he 
 received the startling answer, " Until the cities be 
 wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without 
 man, and the land be utterly desolate " national 
 corruption thus bringing forth its legitimate fruit, 
 national calamity. But across these portentous 
 clouds of degeneracy and ruin there shone one beam 
 of hope lone and solitary, it is true, amid the en- 
 compassing gloom, yet clear, full, and bright with 
 the promise of returning prosperity. It is found in 
 the expressive and cheering words with which the 
 prediction closes. "As a teil tree, and as an oak, 
 whose substance is in them when they cast their 
 
 104
 
 PIOUS MEN THE NATION'S HOPE. 105 
 
 leaves, so the holy seed shall be the substance 
 thereof." Or, to adopt a more correct and lucid 
 version, "As the linden, or the terebinth, though 
 cut down, hath its stock remaining in the earth ; so 
 the holy seed shall be the stock of the nation." The 
 figure here employed is one of great force as well as 
 poetic beauty. In it the Hebrew people, scourged 
 by their own wickedness, and brought almost to 
 extinction by the righteous judgments of Heaven, 
 are represented by a tree, stripped of its proud foli- 
 age, its spreading branches rent away, and even its 
 lofty shaft levelled by the avenging axe. Still the 
 living root remains, and, endowed by nature with 
 the power of reproduction, will start up, under ge- 
 nial suns and showers, into its former glory. Thus 
 the Jewish nation, though wasted and prostrate, and 
 apparently given over to hopeless decay, should 
 have in it " the substance," the undying germ of 
 subsequent renewal, and of restoration to the Divine 
 favor. And this indestructible element, so fraught 
 with the principle of future life and vigor, was to be 
 found in " the holy seed " connected with it. By 
 "the holy seed" we are unquestionably to under- 
 stand pious men men who, amidst the prevailing 
 apostasy, feared God, and were faithful to His laws. 
 We are, therefore, taught that on this class alone 
 all the hopes of Israel rested. By them, and for 
 their sake, the utter ruin of the nation was to be
 
 106 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 prevented. From Jehovah's kindness to them its 
 renovation would proceed. In the period of over- 
 flowing wrath, they were to be the sure depositaries 
 of its interests. And through them, when the storm 
 had passed by, were to spring forth recovered 
 strength and happiness. 
 
 It is not, however, with the bearing of this proph- 
 ecy on the particular instance before us, that I would 
 now occupy your attention. In addition to this, it 
 inculcates a grand moral lesson, fitted to all seasons 
 and countries, and which no lapse of time can ren- 
 der obsolete. The government which God exercises 
 over the world is regulated by immutable laws. 
 The forms of its manifestation may vary. It may 
 appear in sterner or in milder aspects. The springs 
 and wheels which guide its movements may be now 
 disclosed, and now hidden ; and one part after an- 
 other of its vast circle may come into view, and be 
 withdrawn. But its nature and its great controlling 
 principles are ever unchanged ; and God acts toward 
 the nations of the present day on precisely the same 
 general rules as those which marked His dealings 
 with the chosen Tribes three thousand years ago. 
 We may, therefore, announce, as the teaching of 
 our text, the broad and comprehensive truth, that 
 PIOUS MEN evangelical Christians are the most 
 efficient preservers and restorers of national pros- 
 perity.
 
 PIOUS MEN THE NATION'S HOPE. 107 
 
 To illustrate this principle, and to exhibit some 
 of the obligations which grow out of it, will be my 
 present endeavor. 
 
 Pious men are the best conservators of national 
 welfare, because for them is exerted that upholding 
 Providence, without which nations as well as indi- 
 viduals cannot exist. 
 
 In nothing, perhaps, is the spirit of practical infi- 
 delity more manifest, than in the views which are 
 generally entertained respecting the connection of 
 God with human governments. By many the very 
 idea of any such connection, involving as it does the 
 fact of His immediate control over them, and conse- 
 quently of their public and absolute accountability 
 to Him, is derided as the offspring of fanaticism or 
 of folly. Multitudes, who acknowledge the exist- 
 ence of a great First Cause, the Maker and Up- 
 holder of the universe, virtually repudiate the 
 truth that He superintends the affairs of nations, 
 setting up one and putting down another, and dis- 
 pensing to all their appointed destinies. Even 
 those who admit the personal responsibility under 
 Avhich He has placed them, and recognize His law 
 as the rule by which they are now to live, and by 
 which they are hereafter to be judged, seem, in nu- 
 merous instances, to forget that He exercises * the 
 same sovereign authority over man in his collective 
 capacity, as in his individual condition and character.
 
 108 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 If we would know the extent to which this denial 
 of God as the Supreme Kuler actually prevails, we 
 have but to cast our eyes over Christendom, to per- 
 ceive everywhere the proofs of its mournful and 
 guilty predominance. On the lands so denominated 
 has shone the light of a dispensation that is full of 
 God, and which sets Him forth as the omniscient 
 Inspector and Judge of human conduct. In the 
 hands of their population is found that inspired Vol- 
 ume, in which the Almighty has declared His will, 
 and asserted His sovereignty ; and by many of 
 them Christianity, in a form more or less corrupt, 
 is vauntingly proclaimed as the religion of the State. 
 But. where shall we look for the evidence that its 
 power is felt and its precepts obeyed ? Where is 
 the government that is either founded or adminis- 
 tered on principles strictly Christian ? Of what na- 
 tion can we pronounce, that in its structure, its in- 
 stitutions, its legislation, its internal polity, its for- 
 eign relations, in a word, its whole official character, 
 it recognizes God as its Author and Defender, and 
 bows with holy fear to His supremacy ? There is 
 not, properly speaking, a Christian government on 
 earth. Whatever the profession they make, or the 
 name they bear, they are all deeply pervaded by an 
 impious disregard of the Divine authority and su- 
 perintendence. The whole world has revolted from 
 its rightful King ; and nations, no less than indivicl-
 
 PIOUS MEN THE NATION'S HOPE. 109 
 
 uals, have conspired to "break His bands asunder, 
 and cast His cords from them." 
 
 And yet Revelation most clearly teaches that Je- 
 hovah is the absolute Disposer of national welfare, 
 and the immediate Arbiter of national conduct. 
 " The Most High ruleth in the kingdoms of men." 
 "He is Governor among the nations." "He doeth 
 according to His will in the army of heaven, and 
 among the inhabitants of the earth, and none can 
 stay His hand, or say unto Him, What doest 
 Thou ? " His supervision extends to the whole hu- 
 man family, alike in its separate members, and in 
 its aggregate bodies. "He hath determined their 
 times, and the bounds of their habitation." What- 
 ever of civil freedom, of social advantage, of public 
 security and happiness they enjoy, is all bestowed 
 and continued by Him. And when disaster and 
 ruin overtake them, it is His hand scourging them 
 for their sins, and vindicating His insulted majesty. 
 "When He giveth quietness, who then can make 
 trouble? And when He hideth His face, who then 
 can behold Him, whether it be done against a na- 
 tion, or a man only ? " 
 
 Now it is a great and solemn fact, that this gov- 
 ernment of God over the world is carried on solely 
 in behalf of His redeemed Church. From the birth 
 of time to the present hour, His Providence has 
 been the auxiliary of His Grace. All its dispensa-
 
 110 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 tions, whether of mercy or of judgment, have been 
 conducted in subordination to that purpose of ever- 
 lasting Love, according to which He is gathering 
 His chosen ones from every kindred and tongue and 
 people. For this the world was made. For this it 
 is upheld. For this nations rise and flourish. For 
 this they fall and give place to others. For this the 
 sun shines on the good and on the evil ; and the 
 rain scatters its sparkling wealth on the fields of the 
 thankful and the unthankful. For this all bounte- 
 ous Nature unlocks her treasures, and pours from 
 her teeming lap supplies for every living thing. 
 The whole sphere in which we live is a vast spiritu- 
 al laboratory, where Redemption is working out its 
 high and glorious designs. 
 
 To give scope for the conversion, training, and 
 religious development of those whom Christ has 
 purchased with His blood, the civil compacts of 
 men were ordained. With this view, their exist- 
 ence is prolonged ; and, for the same reason, when 
 they no longer answer the end of their appoint- 
 ment, they are removed and superseded. What 
 can be more evident, from the light of all history, 
 both sacred and profane, than that God establishes, 
 preserves, and overthrows nations from a regard to 
 His people and His cause ? Had Sodom contained 
 but ten righteous men, its fearful and ever mem- 
 orable doom would have been averted. And even
 
 PIOUS MEN THE NATION'S HOPE. Ill 
 
 though its impiety was almost universal, the bolt of 
 Divine vengeance could not descend, until the soli- 
 tary man whose arms of faith and prayer held it 
 back, had been removed from the devoted popula- 
 tion. To provide a home for His Elect, and to 
 furnish room for the operations of His mercy, 
 He led the descendants of Abraham into Canaan, 
 founded their Commonwealth, and sustained it 
 amidst multiplied provocations, until these pur- 
 poses were achieved. Often did their apostasy 
 call forth His displeasure. Yet, on account of 
 the "few faithful found among the faithless," He 
 forbore utterly to extirpate them, but commissioned 
 His servant to declare, "Thus saith the Lord, As 
 the new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, 
 Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it ; so will I do 
 for my servants' sake, that I may not destroy them 
 all." 
 
 But when, on the other hand, nations have wholly 
 rejected His truth, or their connection with the ob- 
 jects of His grace has ceased, how rapidly have 
 they passed away ! No sooner had Judea com- 
 pleted the measure of her guilt by crucifying the 
 Redeemer, and casting out His followers, than the 
 day of her destruction came. When the region 
 where flourished the Seven Churches of Asia 
 once the most populous and cultivated spot on the 
 globe torudd preach the Gospel of life into sense-
 
 112 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 less forms and deadly errors, how speedily did all 
 its prosperity depart, and leave it a silent waste. 
 And Rome, the crowned empress of the world, 
 glorying in the vain epithet of " Eternal," by ex- 
 changing Christianity for a baptized paganism, lost 
 the palladium of her greatness, and fell from her 
 glittering height into the mire of superstition and 
 slavery. 
 
 There cannot, in short, be a question that God 
 spares and blesses guilty nations wholly in reference 
 to the piety that yet lingers in them, or the fulfil- 
 ment of some design of mercy with respect to them 
 which the future is to evolve. Who can doubt that 
 if all the sincere followers of Christ were to be re- 
 moved from a land, and the counsels of redemption 
 required that no more of its inhabitants shoujd be 
 brought to the enjoyment of His salvation, that land 
 would at once be destroyed? Or who, with the 
 teachings of Inspiration before him, can doubt that 
 when the last of those whom the Father hath given 
 to the Son shall have been renewed and sanctified 
 for heaven, the fires of the Judgment will blaze 
 forth, and earth itself pass away? 
 
 It is, then, most evident that God administers 
 His providence over communities and over individ- 
 uals entirely for the sake of His people. They 
 alone are in covenant with Him. They alone are 
 the objects of His special favor and protection. If
 
 PIOUS MEN THE NATION'S HOPE. 113 
 
 others share His overflowing munificence, it is be- 
 cause, in the present state of human affairs, His 
 bounty cannot reach its chosen subjects without 
 being in a greater or less degree diffused over 
 all ; and because the salvation of the redeemed 
 requires that the framework of society should be 
 preserved. 
 
 Viewed in this aspect, how important is the rela- 
 tion which pious men sustain to the land in which 
 they dwell! They are, indeed, "the salt of the 
 earth," not only as they pervade it with an element 
 of moral health and purity, and thus preserve it 
 from utter corruption, but also as they avert from it 
 that storm of Divine wrath which would otherwise 
 overwhelm it. The pointed rod that turns away 
 the lightning is not more essential to the protection 
 of our dwellings, than are Christian men to the 
 safety of nations. And if this be so ; if "the holy 
 seed," through its union with God, thus becomes 
 the guardian of civil communities, may it not well 
 be called "the substance thereof"? 
 
 Pious men are the saviours of a land, because to 
 them is intrusted the only remedy against national 
 demoralization and ruin. 
 
 Philosophers and statesmen have speculated much 
 on the means by which the social welfare of a peo- 
 ple may best be secured. Some have relied on the 
 force of armies, on the skill and prowess of com-
 
 114 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 manders, on the wisdom of legislators, on the nice 
 balance of constitutional powers, and on the har- 
 monious adjustment of the various interests of so- 
 ciety. Others, with better reason, have built their 
 hopes on learning and culture, and on the spread of 
 general education. But all these expedients, how- 
 ever valuable in themselves, and however necessary 
 as subordinate agents, are wholly insufficient, when 
 operating alone, to achieve the end in view. Many 
 of the nations of antiquity, whose towering great- 
 ness overshadowed the world, and the crash of 
 whose fall will echo to the latest time, were eminent 
 for military talent, for political sagacity, for well- 
 ordered governmental institutions, for wide intelli- 
 gence, and for a high state of social refinement. 
 But how strikingly has their history demonstrated 
 the inadequacy of all such barriers ! Their vices 
 destroyed them. Over all the splendor of their 
 civilization public and private corruption shed its 
 withering power eat through the bulwarks of 
 their strength sapped the foundations of their 
 glory, and laid the whole fabric in the dust. 
 
 National virtue is the only national safeguard. 
 The land in which this lives and reigns cannot be 
 subdued. No matter with what fury the storm of 
 invasion or the deluge of conquest may rage around 
 it. They cannot overthrow it. The pillars of its 
 defence will stand unshaken amid the shock of
 
 PIOUS MEN THE NATION'S HOPE. 115 
 
 thrones and the convulsion of empires. Virtue is 
 omnipotent. It inspires every bosom in which it 
 dwells with the courage of a martyr, and the might 
 of a host. It is insuperable invulnerable re- 
 sistless. Treason cannot betray, nor ambition en- 
 slave it. It is that invincible, inextinguishable 
 enemy, against which tyrants league in vain, and 
 from which the pride of the oppressor recoils 
 broken and vanquished. 
 
 But the virtue, so indispensable to national wel- 
 fare, can be produced and maintained only by the 
 influence of a pure Christianity. In lands where 
 the Gospel is unknown, or where it has been shorn 
 of its life-giving truths, and degraded into the mere 
 handmaid of ignorance and priestcraft, there is no 
 such thing as public morality. Individuals may 
 occasionally be found rising above the common 
 level in uprightness of character ; but the masses 
 of the population are in all cases sunk in debasing 
 vices, irnbruted by superstition, or frenzied with 
 unbelief. In such communities there is no health- 
 ful principle in exercise, that can resist degeneracy, 
 or act as a barrier against the encroachments of 
 lawlessness on the one hand, and of despotism on 
 the other. It is from this cause that France and 
 Germany, after shaking oif their old tyrannies, as- 
 tonished the world by riveting anew the chains 
 which they had broken. Their people, emascu-
 
 116 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 lated by profligacy, blinded by falsehood, insane 
 with infidelity, were unfitted for freedom, and were 
 therefore powerless to retain it. And never will 
 any country long continue to be either free or pros- 
 perous, where the Gospel in its purity does not so 
 thoroughly pervade all classes, as to become the 
 governing law of public and private life. 
 
 Now, it is to true Christians alone that we can 
 look for the diffusion of this vital element of social 
 virtue and happiness. Our Lord committed the 
 spread of His Gospel to His Apostles, and, through 
 them, to the whole body of His followers in every 
 subsequent age. This is the chief purpose for which 
 the Church of Christ exists in the world. It was 
 intended by its Divine Founder to be the grand 
 Receptacle and distributing Centre of all holy agen- 
 cies on earth a moral light-house, thro whig the 
 rays of Truth far out over the dark and restless 
 sea of human ungodliness a mighty reservoir, 
 receiving the water of Life from its Fountain- 
 Head above, and dispensing it, by numberless 
 channels,^ through the broad wastes of our siii- 
 blasted globe. From age to age, under all forms 
 of civilization, in all stages of intellectual develop- 
 ment, in all epochs, all lands, this has constituted 
 the one instrumentality by which God has been lift- 
 ing our fallen race from the abyss of its degradation 
 and misery. The ministers whom He appoints, and
 
 PIOUS MEN THE NATION'S HOPE. 117 
 
 the people whom He sanctifies by His grace, are 
 required, everywhere and at all times, so to teach 
 to others, and so to illustrate in their own lives, the 
 Word of Salvation which they have received, that 
 the corrupt multitudes around them may be pene- 
 trated and transformed by its energy. This is their 
 godlike work a work in which none but they are 
 fitted to engage. They only who have themselves 
 felt the renovating power of the Gospel, are pre- 
 pared to diffuse that Gospel among their fellow- 
 men. They alone understand the Gospel. They 
 alone love the Gospel. They alone know the real 
 value of its blessings. They alone comprehend its 
 momentous bearings on the interests of time, and 
 on the destinies of eternity. And, therefore, they 
 alone can be expected to enter with heart and soul 
 into the labor of extending it. If, then, the Gos- 
 pel, in its living influence, is indispensable to the 
 weal of nations ; and if God has committed the em- 
 bodiment and dissemination of that Gospel to His 
 regenerate Church is it not evident that the Chris- 
 tian men of a land are "the substance thereof"? 
 
 Such men are the hope and strength of a country, 
 inasmuch as they only are qualified to put forth in 
 its behalf the power of prayer. 
 
 That there resides a wondrous efficacy in prayer, 
 none can question who accord any credence to the 
 declarations of Scripture, or regard the experience
 
 118 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 of the children of God in all periods of time as any- 
 thing better than a conceit of enthusiasm, or a dream 
 of delusion. In the economy of Grace, under which 
 our Divine Sovereign has placed all terrestrial af- 
 fairs, it is His ordinance, that every outflow of His 
 beneficence and of His mercy should descend to men 
 in answer to humble and earnest supplication, 
 offered up through His Son, whom He has appoint- 
 ed to be their Mediator and Advocate. And this 
 arrangement includes not merely spiritual blessings, 
 but temporal ; not merely the bestowal of benefits 
 on individuals, but on communities, and on the 
 world. " The effectual, fervent prayer of a right- 
 eous man availeth much." That it so avails with 
 respect to public as well as private events ; with 
 respect to providential occurrences affecting the in- 
 terests of this life, as well as with, respect to those 
 mysterious operations of the Spirit reaching forward 
 into the life to come, is manifest from the example 
 which the Apostle immediately cites in proof of his 
 statement. He refers, for this purpose, to the fear- 
 ful drought which desolated the territories of Israel, 
 in response to the prayer of Elijah ; and to the fact, 
 that when the prophet prayed that the judgment 
 might cease, " the heavens gave rain, and the earth 
 yielded her fruit." In short, the whole teaching 
 of the Bible, alike in its narratives and in its doc- 
 trinal announcements, proclaims prayer to be the
 
 PIOUS MEN THE NATION'S HOPE. 119 
 
 chief means by which good is obtained, and evil 
 averted. 
 
 But this instrument, so benign and so potent in 
 its effects, the sincere friends of the Redeemer are 
 alone competent to use. It is the prayer of the 
 righteous man only the prayer of the man justified 
 by atoning blood, and sanctified in heart and life by 
 the Holy Spirit that is effectual. All real pi-ay er 
 is prayer in the name of Christ, prayer presented 
 in reliance on the merits of Christ, and necessari- 
 ly involves a cordial recognition of His office and 
 His claims. Hence none can pray acceptably but 
 those who believe in Christ, and embrace Him as 
 the Saviour of their souls. 
 
 In the spiritual telegraph which prayer has estab- 
 lished between earth and heaven, at man's end of 
 the line Christians are the only operators. They 
 alone know the mystery of its mechanism, the way 
 in which it is worked, and the laws that govern its 
 results. And their despatches alone will be regard- 
 ed by the Great Superintendent, at God's end of the 
 line. Upward along the celestial wires they send 
 the plea of the sinful for pardon, of the wretched 
 for comfort, of the wronged for redress, of suf- 
 fering lands for deliverance. And when the answer 
 comes back, though it is always through them, it is 
 not always for them, but often for others glad ti- 
 dings addressed to millions ; a word of power and 
 of salvation for imperilled nations.
 
 120 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 The evaporation from the earth's surface, which 
 is returned to it in fertilizing rain, rises from places 
 and from substances containing water. Little or 
 nothing is given to it by the trodden and dusty high- 
 way, the barren mountain, or the broad reaches of 
 the stony desert. It is drawn up, by the attractive 
 forces of the atmosphere, from fruitful fields and 
 gardens, from the foliage of the forests, from the 
 springs that gush from the hill-sides, from the brooks 
 that flash and sparkle in the glens, from the streams 
 that enrich the valleys, from the oceans that carry 
 health and plenty round the globe. Much of it is 
 polluted. Some has been exhaled from stagnant 
 pools, some from fetid morasses, some from loath- 
 some sewers. But all goes into the air, and is there 
 filtered and purified. The salt becomes fresh, the 
 foul sweet, the turbid clear. And then the shower 
 falls, yet not alone on the spots whence its treas- 
 ures came, but everywhere, rushing and pouring 
 in its fulness over the land and over the sea, op the 
 thirsty plain and on the swelling river, on the low 
 shrub and on the lofty pine, on the grain-clothed 
 meadow and on the naked rock, on the hovel and 
 on the palace, on the green lanes of the hamlet, and 
 on the paved streets of the crowded city. How the 
 earth rejoices ! How the young leaves glisten ! 
 How the corn sings ! How the valleys smile ! How 
 the hill-tops shout ! How all nature laughs in its 
 gladness !
 
 PIOUS MEN THE NATION'S HOPE. 121 
 
 So does the Spirit of grace and of supplication 
 draw up prayer from the hearts of God's children 
 from hearts wet with the tears of penitence, and 
 washed in the blood of Propitiation. Imperfect, in- 
 deed, that prayer is, and ever must be. The foun- 
 tains from which it ascends are yet strongly imbued 
 with remaining earthliness, often sullied by sensual 
 passion, often roiled by the feet of worldly care. 
 Still, however unworthy, it is borne aloft by its Di- 
 vine Attractor into the presence of Infinite Holiness. 
 There, cast into the alembic of Christ's Interces- 
 sion, its defilement taken away, its faith and sin- 
 cerity accepted, it is distilled into blessed rain 
 rain freighted with every mercy which man can need 
 now and forever rain descending not merely on 
 the offerers of prayer, but on the undevout and god- 
 less ; bringing grace to the sinner, freedom to the 
 slave, respite to doomed nations ; and travelling in 
 its mighty sweep from continent to continent, till it 
 has emptied its stores over all the world. If such 
 be the power of prayer, such its place in the moral 
 government of God, and such the relation which 
 Christians sustain to it, who can hesitate to admit 
 that praying men are the defence, the security, the 
 very life of the land in which they dwell ? 
 
 From this view of the connection of religious 
 men with the public weal, we proceed to notice 
 briefly the duties which that connection imposes.
 
 122 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 They ought to manifest a lively solicitude for the 
 welfare of their country. A Christian should be, 
 in the most emphatic sense, a patriot. He should 
 not feel that the Gospel, while relating chiefly to a 
 future world, has nothing to do with this. He 
 should not persuade himself that his religious pro- 
 fession requires him to stand aloof from the great 
 social and political movements of his day. Still 
 less should he imagine, as many seem to do, that 
 when he goes forth to exercise his influence on these 
 movements, he may leave his religion at home. His 
 relations alike to God and to his fellow-men pre- 
 eminently demand that he should take part in all 
 those momentous public questions which concern 
 the glory of the one, and the improvement of the 
 other ; engaging in the promotion of freedom, order, 
 and righteousness ; and doing what he can in his 
 sphere to make his land wiser and happier. This 
 is at all tunes sacredly binding on him, even in 
 periods of national peace and prosperity. But the 
 obligation becomes vastly more imperative when his 
 country is encompassed with dangers ; when ad- 
 versity overtakes it, and the storm of invasion or 
 of civil war threatens to sweep all its cherished in- 
 stitutions into one common ruin. Then it is that 
 the Christian, beyond all other men, should meet 
 the crisis with the noble courage of faith, and the 
 utmost devotion of patriotism.
 
 PIOUS MEN THE NATION'S HOPE. 123 
 
 With what peculiar urgency does this duty press 
 upon ourselves at the present hour ! The govern- 
 ment under which we live ; the government founded 
 in the wisdom and cemented by the blood of our 
 fathers ; the government which has been the shield 
 of our civil and religious rights, and the source of 
 our national greatness this government, the freest 
 and the best that ever blessed the world, is assailed 
 by a rebellion as unprovoked as it is impious. A 
 fierce and fanatical oligarchy, reckless with ambition, 
 and madly resolved to rule or perish, is attempting 
 to overthrow our glorious Republic, and erect in 
 its place that vilest of all tyrannies, a slave-des- 
 potism. The tempest is upon us. The great deeps 
 are broken up. The earthquake is let loose in all 
 its fury. We look, and lo ! the tall column of the 
 Union, the bulwark of our strength, the Pharos 
 of the world, is rent in twain by the thunder 
 gust. Still the heavens grow blacker, and the 
 conflict thicker and more deadly. Huge armies 
 confront each other. Mighty battles heap the 
 ground with their countless slain. The glories of 
 the past, the hopes of the future, the very life of 
 the nation, all hang trembling in the balance. 
 
 And while we are thus struggling in the death- 
 grapple, our perils are intensified by the hostile at- 
 titude of European Powers, from whom we have a 
 right to expect, if not aid, at least fairness and
 
 124 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 sympathy. France looks sternly and menacingly 
 at us. England sneers and blusters. England 
 from whose blood we sprung, forgetting her own 
 course in similar emergencies; ignoring her past 
 words and deeds in condemnation of slavery 
 claps her hands, and hounds on the slave-power 
 while its fangs are at our throats ; assumes that the 
 Republic is destroyed, and exults in the assump- 
 tion; accords to rebels and traitors belligerent 
 rights ; gives them help and comfort in their work 
 of riveting forever the chains of the bondman ; fur- 
 nishes them with military supplies and munitions of 
 war ; and builds for them a pirate navy, and mans 
 it with pirate crews, to plunder our commerce and 
 burn our ships on the high seas. O Hypocrite of 
 the world ! meanest, falsest of nations ! Seest thou 
 not that thy own day is coming? As surely as 
 there is compensation with God for outrageous 
 wickedness, so surely shall thy cup be the bitter- 
 est that kingdom ever drank. And when the dread 
 reckoning arrives ; when the measure of thy crimes 
 is full; when thy daughters shall leave thee and 
 strip thee bare; when ravaged India shall once 
 more shake off thy yoke ; when the myriads of 
 China shall rise to punish thy greed and thy fraud ; 
 when Ireland's wrongs shall come up for judg- 
 ment ; when the volcano of thy crushed and starv- 
 ing masses shall burst forth, toppling over thy hoary
 
 PIOUS MEN THE NATION'S HOPE. 125 
 
 Establishments, and scattering like chaff King and 
 Parliament, priest and aristocrat; and all the peo- 
 ples whom thy insolence has wounded, and thy ava- 
 rice overreached, and thy selfishness betrayed, shall 
 gather as eagles to thy fall, and revel round thy dis- 
 honored corpse -then will avenging Heaven pay 
 thee back for thy perfidy to us in this hour of our 
 agony. 
 
 What, then, is the position demanded of religious 
 men and of religious bodies at a moment so awful? 
 Is it one -of neutrality, inaction, silence? There are 
 some who appear to think so. At a Convention 
 lately held in New York, representing one of the 
 most influential denominations among us, a de- 
 nomination claiming to be exclusively "the church," 
 a large portion of the delegates refused to utter 
 one word of cheer for the Government, or one word 
 of rebuke against treason, and even opposed the 
 adoption of a prayer for the suppression of the Re- 
 bellion, on the ground that it would be leaving the 
 service of God to serve Caesar ! Are such Chris- 
 tians " the stock of the nation ? " Is this the way in 
 which " the sacramental host " is to fulfil its mission 
 in a juncture so terrible, and so big with stupendous 
 issues? Oh, no, no! The cause of our country 
 and the cause of religion, the cause of humanity, 
 the cause of eternal Right and Justice, are so in- 
 timately blended in this crisis, that you cannot sep-
 
 126 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 arate them. The triumph of the Government will 
 be the triumph of order, the triumph of civilization, 
 the triumph of freedom, the triumph of a pure Gos- 
 pel. The triumph of the Rebellion will be the tri- 
 umph of anarchy, barbarism, slavery, and of a 
 Christianity so debased by slavery as no longer to 
 deserve the name. If, therefore, you would meet 
 your obligations as religious men, stand by the 
 Union, stand by the Government, stand by the 
 old banner, stand by the grand destiny which God 
 has written all over our land, in the circling of the 
 oceans, the course of the rivers, the trend of the 
 mountains, One Country, One People, One Gov- 
 ernment, One Flag, from the St. Lawrence to the 
 Rio Grande, from the rocky headlands of Maine to 
 the golden shores of the Pacific. To save the na- 
 tion from dismemberment, give labor, give prop- 
 erty, give your sons, your brothers, yourselves. 
 For this live; for this, if need be, die. 
 
 As Christian men, we ought to bow in deep re- 
 pentance for the nation's sins, and humbly implore 
 the Father of mercies to remove the chastisement 
 which they have drawn down upon the land. The 
 calamities that now afilict us must be viewed by 
 every thoughtful mind as an expression of God's 
 abhorrence of the iniquities with which our history 
 is stained. In these iniquities the people of the 
 North are implicated as really if not as deeply as
 
 PIOUS MEN THE NATION'S HOPE. 127 
 
 the people of the South. I do not mean that with 
 respect to the slave-holding States themselves we of 
 the North are guilty of any wrong which can justify 
 or excuse their foul conspiracy against all that we 
 deem precious and sacred. But while we have 
 done nothing to deserve punishment at their hands, 
 we have done much to deserve it at God's hand. 
 Against Hun, not against them, our offences have 
 been committed. 
 
 It was said of Israel in the time of the Judges, 
 " They chose new gods ; then was war in the gates." 
 Here has been the great crime of this country. We 
 have denied to Jehovah His rightful place as the 
 Supreme Governor, and substituted for His high, 
 unchangeable law, the low maxims of the politician, 
 and the varying dictates of expediency. We have 
 chosen new gods. Mammon, " the least erected 
 spirit that fell," has been proclaimed, by almost 
 universal acclamation, god of the North. We have, 
 indeed, sought to hide his more disgusting features, 
 and to render his worship respectable, by clothing 
 him in borrowed garments, and giving to him ficti- 
 tious titles. We have applied to him the better- 
 sounding names of "Business, Enterprise, Indus- 
 trial Development, Material Prosperity." But, 
 under all disguises and all designations, he is the 
 same old shuffling, cringing, grovelling Demon still. 
 On his altars we have laid our manliness and our
 
 128 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 self-respect ; our principles and our consistency ; the 
 national character and the national conscience ; the 
 claims of the helpless, and the mandates of Heaven. 
 Nothing has seemed to us too valuable or too sacred 
 to be relinquished in his service. At his bidding, 
 we have been ready to surrender justice and mercy ; 
 to submit to any degradation, and to plunge into 
 any slough of meanness or wickedness, whence we 
 might extract the glittering incense in which he de- 
 lights. And while the North has been thus en- 
 grossed in its idolatry of Mammon, the South has 
 paid its homage to Moloch 
 
 " Moloch, the strongest and the fiercest spirit 
 That fought in heaven, now fiercer by despair. 
 His trust was with the Eternal to be deemed 
 Equal in strength, and rather than be less, 
 Cared not to be at all. With that care lost, 
 Went all his fear. Of God, or hell, or worse, 
 He recked not." 
 
 In modern demonology, the name of this fiend is 
 Slavery. His temple is built on robbery. His 
 religion is the chattelizing of beings made in the 
 image of God. His insignia are whips and chains ; 
 his ministers, cruelty, licentiousness, and murder. 
 Such is the deity of the Southern oligarchs the 
 deity to whom they have sworn eternal allegiance ; 
 in whose interest they have inaugurated rebellion ; 
 and with the symbols of whose horrid worship their
 
 PIOUS MEN THE NATION'S HOPE. 129 
 
 whole Confederacy is inscribed from corner-stone to 
 pinnacle. 
 
 Now we may be sure that He who is King over 
 all will not permit His authority to be thus usurped, 
 without manifesting His displeasure; and, there- 
 fore, it is not presumption to affirm that the civil 
 war, which now rages in all our borders, is Heav- 
 en's judgment, alike upon the money-worship of the 
 North, and the slavery-worship of the South. God 
 grant that both may be utterly consumed in the fire 
 which His wrath has kindled ! 
 
 With what emphasis, then, do these solemn cir- 
 cumstances invoke the pious to penitence and hu- 
 miliation ! We are all connected, directly or indi- 
 rectly, with the sins which have provoked the Al- 
 mighty. We have committed them, or we have 
 countenanced them, or we have failed to rebuke 
 them. So that each one is personally guilty, and 
 has cause to humble himself before God. But there 
 is more than this. The repentance of a nation is al- 
 ways the repentance of that part of its population by 
 whom the motives and claims of religion are ac- 
 knowledged and felt. And if this nation shall re- 
 pent and be pardoned, it will be, not its ungodly 
 many, but its godly few, who will repent, and for 
 the sake of whose repentance the pardon will be be- 
 stowed. If all who fear God, in every city, and 
 town, and rural neighborhood, were to prostrate
 
 130 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 themselves in lowly contrition at the footstool of 
 Mercy, confessing the nation's guilt, supplicating 
 the nation's deliverance, can any one doubt that the 
 plea would be heard, and the nation saved? Has 
 not God said, "If my people, which are called by 
 my name, shall humble themselves, and seek my 
 face, and pray, and turn from their wicked ways, 
 then will I hear from heaven, and forgive their sins, 
 and heal their land " ? Do we believe this ? Then 
 why do we not act upon it? Why is there such 
 worldliness in our churches, such languor in our 
 places of prayer ? Why are our sanctuaries almost 
 deserted, and the fire on their altars left to burn 
 dim and low ? While we are so alive to the war, 
 so eager for progress, so impatient of delay, why is 
 it that so few turn to Him from whom alone success 
 can come? With all that we hold dear at stake, 
 why does not one universal burst of petition go up 
 to that Almighty Power on whose decision the issue 
 depends ? Surely, among the many strange aspects 
 of this strange time, there is nothing stranger, noth- 
 ing sadder, than the spiritual apathy, the death-like 
 slumber, that has fallen on the great body of believ- 
 ers, and stilled, as by an enchanter's wand, the stir- 
 rings of anxiety and the wrestlings of faith. An 
 angry God is visiting us for our transgressions. 
 Our very existence as a people is in jeopardy. Yet 
 we laugh and are gay. There are no ashes on our
 
 PIOUS MEN THE NATION'S HOPE. 131 
 
 heads, there is no sackcloth on our loins, no agony 
 in our souls. The tree of our national greatness, 
 like that seen in vision by the proud king of Baby- 
 lon, stands in the midst of the earth, the height 
 thereof reaching to heaven, and the sight thereof to 
 the ends of the world. Its leaves are fair, and its 
 fruit much, and in it is meat for all ; the beasts of 
 the field have shadow under it, and the fowls of 
 heaven dwell in its boughs. But, ah ! a serpent has 
 coiled its deadly folds round it, strangling trunk 
 and limbs, and blighting fruit and foliage with its 
 venom. And, lo ! a Watcher and a Holy One 
 Divine Omniscience watching our sins, Divine Holi- 
 ness preparing to punish them has comedown from 
 heaven, and cries, "Hew down the tree, and cut off 
 his branches ; shake off his leaves, and scatter his 
 fruit ; let the beasts get away from under it, and the 
 fowls from his branches." Oh, men of God, awake ! 
 Kill the serpent, and grind it to powder ; and be- 
 seech the Watcher and the Holy One to spare the 
 tree, and make it in the future, as it has been in the 
 past, the home of the free, the shelter of the op- 
 pressed, the hope and joy of the whole earth. 
 
 Finally ; the great emergencies of the hour call 
 upon Christians to cultivate an unwavering attach- 
 ment to the doctrines and institutions of the Gospel. 
 There is, throughout our country, a wide-spread un- 
 belief, a growing dislike of evangelical truth, and
 
 132 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 neglect of its ministrations. Infidelity, profanity, 
 and contempt for the house of God, are everywhere 
 increasing. And while this abounding irreligion 
 has had no inconsiderable share in creating the civil 
 convulsion that now desolates the land, it has at the 
 same time been vastly augmented in extent and 
 boldness by the very evil it has helped to occasion. 
 In the domestic, social, and moral dislocations in- 
 separable from a state of war, men are breaking 
 loose from the restraints of the Bible and the Sanc- 
 tuary ; and, casting off the principles which their 
 fathers revered, are afloat on the tossing sea of error, 
 with no compass but their passions, and no chart 
 but the opinions of others as corrupt as themselves. 
 The inroads which the war has made on the sanctity 
 of the Sabbath, and the disregard of public worship 
 which it has fostered, have broken down the em- 
 bankments against vice, and caused the swelling 
 waves of ungodliness to rush in upon us with unu- 
 sual violence. At such a crisis, we are specially 
 summoned to stand fast by the truth and the altar 
 of God. This is no time for indifference and feeble- 
 ness ; no tune to give to religion diminished sup- 
 port ; no time to forsake the Ark of the Testimony, 
 and shut up the Tabernacle ; no time for silent pul- 
 pits and vacant sanctuaries. 
 
 These days of rebuke and disaster admonish the 
 whole Church of Christ to rise to one united and
 
 PIOUS MEN THE NATION'S HOPE. 133 
 
 earnest endeavor to bring the Gospel into living 
 contact with all classes of society. Nothing but this 
 can adequately meet the exigencies in which we 
 stand. It is a departure from the Gospel which has 
 brought upon us the indignation of the Almighty ; 
 and we can contribute most directly to its removal 
 by enthroning the Gospel in our own hearts, and 
 doing all in "our power to enthrone it in the hearts 
 of others. If the Christians of this land would but 
 put forth the moral energies with which the grace 
 of the Saviour has clothed them, the tide of disorder 
 and anarchy that now threatens to overwhelm us 
 would soon be rolled back, and the day of our re- 
 generation come. The combined efforts of God's 
 children, rendered effectual by His Spirit, would 
 speedily evangelize and renovate every section of 
 the Eepublic, till from our cities and villages, from 
 our mountains and valleys, from our lakes, and riv- 
 ers, and broad western plains, should ascend in uni- 
 versal chorus the song of praise to the Crucified 
 One. Then would slavery, and rebellion, and po- 
 litical intrigue, and intestine strife, vanish like the 
 fogs of night before the splendors of the morning. 
 We should have no fear for the country nor for the 
 Church in the present struggle, or in any other 
 through which the providence of God may hereafter 
 call them to pass. Upheavings and revolutions, 
 emanating from Wrong, are but as torrents that
 
 134 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 rush from the hills after, a summer storm terrible, 
 it may be, iu their outbreak, yet soon dwindling 
 away and disappearing. But great moral move- 
 ments, founded on everlasting Truth and Eight, can 
 never die. Their going forth is like the sweep of 
 mighty rivers to the sea. Small and unnoticed .they 
 may indeed be in their beginning. But, fed from 
 innumerable springs deep down in the world's heart, 
 they gather volume as they advance. Onward, still 
 onward they flow, from generation to generation 
 never receding, never growing less now gliding 
 gently along through smiling meadows now foam- 
 ing over rocks now thundering down cataracts 
 widened by affluents from all lands, and swelled by 
 the tribute of all the ages, till their collected wa- 
 ters expand at last into an ocean of PEACE, EIGHT- 
 EOUSNESS, and LOVE.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE MOVING PILLAE. 
 
 "AND THE LORD WENT BEFOKE THEM BT DAT IN A PILLAR OF CLOUD, 
 TO LEAD THEM THE WAY J AND BY NIGHT IN A PILLAR OF FIRE, TO GIVE 
 
 THEM LIGHT; TO GO BY DAY AND NIGHT." Exodus xiii. 21. 
 
 children of Israel, in their passage from 
 the Land of Bondage to the Land of Prom- 
 ise, were preceded at every stage of their 
 wayfaring by a moving Pillar a Pillar of 
 Cloud by day and of fire by night that 
 directed their course, and served at once as their 
 guide and their defence. By its signals their whole 
 march was ordered. When the Pillar advanced, 
 they went forward; when it stood still, they en- 
 camped. And however long it continued at any 
 time to hover over the Tabernacle, whether it were 
 for a day, a month, or a year, they abode in their 
 tents, and journeyed not, till the journeying Pillar 
 again beckoned them on. Often its movements 
 seemed to them intricate and involved ; often di- 
 vergent; often retrograde rather than progressive. 
 But there was in it, as m^zekiel's wheels, a Living 
 
 135
 
 136 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 Spirit, governing with unerring intelligence alike 
 its stoppings and its goings, and bringing it, and 
 the favored host which it led, by the right way to 
 the right destination. 
 
 They must have been dull indeed not to have 
 regarded such a manifestation as a high honor, and 
 an inviolable security. It was to them the visible 
 Symbol of the Divine Presence. They knew that 
 in it the Lord went before them as their Captain 
 and Upholder. So long as they could see the Pil- 
 lar, they had ocular testimony that He was in their 
 midst, to superintend their way, supply their wants, 
 and subdue their enemies. How safely might they 
 follow wherever it conducted them, whether through 
 the depths of the parted sea, or under the quaking 
 brow of Sinai, or across the wide, dreary stretches 
 of the burning desert! With what confidence 
 might they trust it, in all its delays and turnings, 
 assured that under its leading they could not go 
 wrong ! And how endeared must it have become 
 to them during their long and devious pilgrimage ! 
 What precious memories of deliverance in the past, 
 what hopes of blessing in the future, must they 
 have learned to associate with it ! Never was sight 
 of pole-star or sun so grateful to the storm-tossed 
 mariner, as the sight of that ever present Pillar to 
 those ancient wanderers in " the great and terrible 
 wilderness." .- r
 
 THE MOVING PILLAR. 137 
 
 In our own circumstances, how natural is the 
 wish for a similar token of Divine care and direc- 
 tion ! Encompassed by difficulties and perils ; walk- 
 ing through private trials and through public com- 
 motions ; often in doubt where lies our way ; often 
 desponding as to the issue of current events on the 
 destinies of the Church .and the world, how fre- 
 quently are we tempted to desire that some God- 
 infolding Pillar might move before us, and solve our 
 perplexities ! 
 
 We have such a Pillar unseen, it is true, by 
 the outward eye, but distinct and palpable to the 
 vision illuminated from above. Throughout the 
 whole progress of terrestrial affairs, in every cri- 
 sis of the Redeemer's kingdom, in every step of 
 our individual experience, the Pillar of God's 
 Providence is the presiding Presence, arranging 
 all, overruling all. Hence the startling changes 
 that are passing around us, and the yet more start- 
 ling ones which loom in the near future, are not to 
 be ascribed to chance, nor to the independent action 
 of human intellect and passion. Chance can have 
 no place in a universe over which Infinite Wisdom 
 presides. And human intellect and passion are but 
 instruments in the hands of Him who sways the 
 hearts of all men as He pleases. In every unfold- 
 ing of the world's history Divine Providence is the 
 controlling power, a Providence which embraces
 
 138 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 the entire circle of sublunary events, and subjects 
 them, however apparently adverse, to one vast com- 
 prehensive plan, by which Jehovah is conducting 
 onward to their completion the sovereign purposes 
 of His Grace. 
 
 Under the economy of the Gospel, Providence 
 has been subordinated to Christ, and is now wielded 
 by Him for the promotion of His cause. He has 
 thus been the Leader and Guardian of His people 
 in all periods, and through all the vicissitudes of 
 their pilgrimage. As the Pillar of Cloud and of 
 Fire went before the Chosen Tribes, and marked 
 out their wanderings in the wilderness ; so has the 
 Providence of God marked the changeful track of 
 the Church across the desert of the centuries. That 
 Providence goes before us now, pointing out our 
 way, and protecting us in it. The striking occur- 
 rences of the pregnant hour in which we live, are 
 to the eye of faith only so many movings to and fro 
 of the cloudy Pillar, showing the course of our 
 march, and the direction of our efforts. To our 
 imperfect vision these movings may appear to be 
 at one tune backward; at another, sideways; at 
 another, whirled into aimless gyrations by the winds 
 of strife or the storms of revolution. But Omnis- 
 cience guides them still ; and no force of unforeseen 
 contingencies, no gale of popular excitement, no 
 hurricane of political tumult, no roaring blast from
 
 THE MOVING PILLAR. 139 
 
 the mouth of Hell, can carry the Pillar where Om- 
 niscience does not intend it to go, and where its 
 going will not subserve some high and beneficent 
 design. 
 
 How much of courage and of comfort may we 
 draw from this truth, amid the civil agitations that 
 now convulse our country ! A fearful tempest is 
 upon us. The great deeps are broken up. The 
 earthquake and the tornado are let loose in all their 
 fury. We look, and lo ! the tall column of the 
 Federal Union, reared by the sweat and blood of 
 heroes, the bulwark of our greatness, the Pharos 
 of the world, is struck by the thunder-gust, and 
 rent in twain ; its Southern half toppling away into 
 scattered fragments. Around the mighty ruin, and 
 in the deepening gloom that gathers over it, the 
 fierce elements career and rage ; while, mingling 
 with them, black fiends of Discord flap their sooty 
 wings, and yell forth their demon cries, "Dis- 
 union, Secession, War." And there, too, in the 
 very centre of the wild uproar, we see the Pillar, 
 seemingly tossed amid the conflict, and borne hither 
 and thither by the rush of encountering armies. 
 But the Shekinah is within it ; and as the darkness 
 grows more dense, we see the Pillar of Cloud be- 
 come a Pillar of Fire, beaming hope and strength 
 into the hearts of those who struggle for the great 
 principles of Freedom and Justice; but darting
 
 140 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 lurid and destroying flames on the traitors who, in 
 their fanatical devotion to Slavery, would pull down 
 the noblest government the world ever saw, and 
 deluge the land with fraternal blood. In what 
 manner He who dwells in the Pillar will overrule 
 these events for the furtherance of His own glory 
 and the interests of humanity, we know not. Yet 
 we have the fullest confidence that He will so over- 
 rule them ; that He will bring the nation out of the 
 terrible shock and the scorching furnace, regener- 
 ated, purified, shorn of nothing but the mighty 
 Wrong which has weakened and dishonored it ; and 
 that when the night of strife is past, and light and 
 day return, we shall see the Pillar changed to a 
 golden Cloud floating serenely above the scene of 
 battle, and moving straight forward to Peace, Lib- 
 erty, and a grander Civilization than the history of 
 our race has yet witnessed. 
 
 And while we thus descry, beyond the black 
 waves of desolation that now surge around us, a 
 new career of prosperity and greatness awaiting the 
 American people, the same vision reveals a bright 
 future for the spoiled and trampled ones who have 
 so long been the victims of our injustice. Slavery 
 is the deadly source from which all our woes have 
 sprung. Its enormous guilt, unforsaken, cherished, 
 championed against natural and Divine law, against 
 reason and conscience, against everlasting Eight,
 
 THE MO VINO PILLAR. 141 
 
 against the moral sense of the world, has at length 
 worn out the patience of all-suffering Heaven, and 
 drawn down its thunder. Slavery is the true origin 
 of the war. Slavery fomented, inspired it. Slavery 
 sowed the seed, and ripened the red harvest. 
 Slavery laid the train and kindled the explosion 
 which shakes the continent. Slavery has filled the 
 land with graves, and our homes with mourning. 
 Slavery is the great criminal on whose head God is 
 pouring the vials of His wrath. And all the inti- 
 mations of His will, and all the outstretchings of 
 His hand, declare His purpose utterly to destroy 
 this giant iniquity, this "sum of all villanies," foul 
 with hideous pollution, and steeped in the blood of 
 innumerous murders. Whatever else of good the 
 dread crisis may develop, its bearing in this direc- 
 tion is too plain to be misapprehended, too mighty 
 to be withstood. He who sits above the din and 
 turmoil of the storm is evidently so shaping its 
 forces as to sweep away forever the curse of bond- 
 age, and eliminate the last vestige of its poison from 
 the political and social life of the Eepublic. On, 
 through our doubts and hesitations on, through 
 our victories and our defeats on, ever on toward 
 the goal of Universal Emancipation goes the Pil- 
 lar of His Providence. It marshals the way of the 
 slave out of the prison-house, by manifestations as 
 distinct and signal as those which of old led the
 
 142 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 exodus of the Hebrews. And across the Red Sea, 
 whose gory billows are opening the path of his re- 
 demption, it points him, as it did them, to the 
 happy bourn where manhood and equal rights shall 
 be the heritage of all. This high and beneficent end 
 solves the mystery of God's dealings with us. In it 
 we read the design, for the attainment of which He 
 has permitted civil war to break forth and rage in 
 all our borders. He saw that the slave-demon could 
 be cast out by no means less violent, and He deemed 
 the blessings that would follow its extrusion more 
 than compensative of whatever throes -might attend 
 it. And here, too, we may discover the reason of 
 the slow progress we are making in putting down 
 the Rebellion, and of the many reverses which our 
 arms have suffered. Our cause is righteous dear 
 to Humanity, and to the God of Humanity. It is 
 the cause of Xationality, Order, Constitutional Gov- 
 ernment, against Disunion, Anarchy, Despotism. 
 Its final triumph is sure. But in our methods of 
 conducting it, we are not working in harmony with 
 the Divine intention. We are aiming to restore the 
 Union as it was, with slavery in it. God is aiming 
 to restore the Union as it shall be, with every trace 
 of slavery expelled from it. Disaster will pursue 
 us till we accept His plan. In the track of Provi- 
 dence, and there alone, shall we reach full success 
 and durable peace.
 
 THE MOVING PILLAR. 143 
 
 If we turn our view to foreign nations, we there 
 behold the Pillar heralding, not less visibly and di- 
 rectly than among ourselves, the cause of the op- 
 pressed, and the advancement of true religion. 
 How straightforward it moves along the path of 
 Italian Independence ! We see it hanging over the 
 bloody fields of Magenta and Solferino, giving vic- 
 tory to the patriot hosts, while it flashes defeat upon 
 the legions of despotic Austria. Next we see it 
 guiding the heroic Garibaldi straight to Sicily, and 
 leading him straight onward from triumph to tri- 
 umph, till the last chain is broken from that long 
 enslaved land. Then we see it conducting him 
 straight across the narrow sea to Naples, and the 
 expulsion of the Bourbon from, his sanguinary 
 throne. Straight to Gaeta we see it pursue the fly- 
 ing tyrant, and having driven him thence into igno- 
 minious exile, it is now moving straight for the 
 Vatican, to rend away the secular arm of the Papa- 
 cy, thus breaking the horn with which the Beast has 
 for ages gored the Church, and removing the chief 
 obstacle to free thought and free speech throughout 
 regenerate Italy. 
 
 Not less undeviating is its forward course in the 
 abolition of Russian serfdom. Over all the broad 
 steppes and mighty provinces that compose the em- 
 pire of the Czar from the fertile shores of the 
 Crimea to the Frozen Ocean, from the plains of Po-
 
 144 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 land to the newly explored regions of the Amoor in 
 the utmost East we see it taking its straight, 
 swift way, sowing the seeds 'of improvement, plant- 
 ing liberal institutions, unbinding fetters, till thirty 
 millions of slaves step forth from vassalage into the 
 dignity and immunities of freedom. 
 
 Look where we will on the map of the world, we 
 see the track of the Pillar clearly marked, and 
 stretching in direct lines to definite ends. Every- 
 where we recognize the presence of a Power, work- 
 ing through human agencies, yet above them ; ap- 
 parently identified with their forces, yet separate 
 and independent. We see it acting upon the varied 
 populations, inspiring them with a sense of their 
 rights, and the purpose to assert them. We see it 
 modifying governments, abrogating or softening 
 unjust laws, increasing the franchises of the subject, 
 and rendering him more secure in their enjoyment. 
 We see it controlling the rivalries of thrones and 
 the ambitions of dynasties, and making kings and 
 cabinets, Congresses and Parliaments, diplomacy 
 and statecraft, unconscious pioneers in raising the 
 valleys and levelling the mountains for the un- 
 shackled Word of God to enter in and conquer. 
 So distinctly may we trace the movings of the Pil- 
 lar in the political changes which are taking place 
 on the earth. 
 
 Equally manifest is its influence in the extension
 
 THE MOVIXG PILLAR. 145 
 
 of commerce, the pushing forward of discovery, 
 and the growth of the useful arts. Does the ever 
 active spirit of trade, in opening doors for itself, 
 open doors for the Gospel as well, throw down 
 the wall of Chinese exclusiveness, and, breaking 
 through the jealous insulation of Japan, bring to 
 our shores ambassadors from those mysterious Isles 
 which for untold ages have slumbered behind their 
 ocean barricades, refusing all communion with the 
 nations? The Pillar is there. Do Livingstone, 
 Barth, and their associates, lift the veil from the 
 heart of Africa, and show us, in place of burn- 
 ing Saharas roamed over by naked savages, wide 
 and fruitful plains, covered with luxuriant vegeta- 
 tion, intersected by broad rivers, studded with cit- 
 ies, and thickly peopled by thrifty, intelligent races, 
 already progressing in the industrial arts, and long- 
 ing for the blessings of Christian civilization ? The 
 Pillar is there. In the improved state of naviga- 
 tion, and the means of rapid communication with 
 all parts of the world, are we furnished with op- 
 portunities for spreading the knowledge of Divine 
 Truth, such as no former times have seen? The 
 Pillar is there. These are the beckonings of Prov- 
 idence, indicating to us what to do, and where to do 
 it, and supplying the needed facilities. Follow the 
 Pillar wherever it goes, whether to the frozen North, 
 or the blazing South, to the old East, or the young
 
 146 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 West, to the lost myriads abroad, or the equally lost 
 myriads at home. You cannot err, you cannot fail 
 under such a guidance. As the Shekinah was in 
 the Pillar, so God is in Providence. And where 
 God is, victory is. 
 
 But it is not alone on the high plane of public af- 
 fairs that the Pillar moves. While it marches in the 
 van of commonwealths and empires, it enters not 
 less into all the walks of individual life and history. 
 It goes before us in personal duty. The path of 
 each one is strewed thick with intimations of his 
 Master's will with occasions of usefulness, and 
 calls to lay himself out for Christ and the souls of 
 men. Do you know a neglected child, growing up 
 in ignorance, and ripening for crime? Do you 
 know a young man led away by temptation, and 
 falling into the snare of the destroyer? Do you 
 know a family that keeps itself aloof from the house 
 of God a neighborhood destitute of religious in- 
 struction a haunt of guilt a home of want a 
 dwelling darkened by sickness and sorrow a body 
 crushed under burdens a heart broken with mise- 
 ry ? There is the Pillar pointing you to your work. 
 You need no other voice to teach you what to do. 
 Every opening for your activity, every appeal to 
 your benevolence, every case of need, every object 
 of pity, every votary of sin, that meets your view, 
 is a command as authoritative and as clear, as if it
 
 THE MOVING PILLAR. 147 
 
 were written on the sky in letters of fire, or thun- 
 dered forth from the battlements of heaven by an 
 archangel's trumpet. Go where the Pillar goes. 
 No matter through what weariness of toil, and 
 depths of self-denial, and severity of sacrifice, obe- 
 dience to it may carry you. Peace with yourself, 
 the approbation of God, the smile of the Comforter, 
 will lighten every labor, and support you in every 
 trial, till you reach the world of perfect compensa- 
 tions, receive the crown of Righteousness from your 
 Saviour's hands, and hear from His lips the glorious 
 words, w Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of 
 the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto 
 Me." 
 
 The Pillar goes before us in personal experience. 
 The dispensations of the Almighty in relation to 
 His people, are as wise as they are sovereign. 
 With infallible foresight He adapts His appoint- 
 ments to the peculiar character and exposures of 
 each, and so diversifies His dealing as most effectu- 
 ally to promote their salvation. Does He ordain 
 for us poverty, affliction, loss? It is because He 
 knows that we shall there walk most safely. Does 
 He place us in higher positions, and surround us 
 with wealth and honors, and all the seducing glitter 
 of worldly prosperity? It is because He knows 
 that such circumstances will furnish the fittest disci- 
 pline of our faith, most successfully develop our
 
 148 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 spiritual energies, and best educate us for His ser- 
 vice. Thus, whether our journey lie through grief 
 or joy, through gloom or sunshine, through deserts 
 parched with drought, swarming with serpents, and 
 frightful in their desolation, or through scenes of 
 peace and beauty, by the banks of bright rivers, 
 along "the vale of Beulah," over the "Delectable 
 Mountains" in either case, we do but march after 
 the Pillar in the path which it chooses as most suit- 
 able for us. Fear not to tread where the Pillar 
 leads. Infinite Knowledge and Infinite Love de- 
 termine all its movements. It cannot err ; it can- 
 not miss the true course, nor take you, in ignorance 
 or in wantonness, over rugged ways, when more 
 pleasant ones would have been as direct and sure. 
 Submit your whole pilgrimage to its disposal. 
 Keep it ever in sight. Follow it implicitly to the 
 end. And when your toilsome sojourning in the 
 wilderness is finished, and you stand, at length, on 
 the brink of Jordan, the Pillar will be there, and 
 the Shekinah will shine out upon the dark flowing 
 river, and the Ark of the Covenant will go in before 
 you, and as your feet touch the waters, they will 
 cleave asunder, and permit you to pass dry-shod 
 through the cold, heaving billows to the shore of 
 Immortality.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE FREEDMEN OF THE WAR. 
 
 "HE BRINGETH OUT THOSE WHICH ABE BOUND IN CHAINS." Psalm 
 
 lxviii.6. 
 
 history of the world is marked by sudden 
 changes and startling evolutions. It is not 
 a dead uniformity an unvarying expanse. 
 We cannot compare it to a vast prairie, 
 where scarcely an undulation, and never a 
 hill, breaks the view ; where the streams all flow 
 with a sluggish and leaden current ; and where the 
 same succession of low banks and monotonous plains 
 forever repeats itself. Much more does it resemble 
 portions of our own Atlantic scenery, where the 
 traveller sees rugged mountains, jagged rocks, and 
 tumbling cascades, interspersed with glimpses of 
 fair and smiling valleys, and is surprised at every 
 step by some new feature in the landscape. 
 
 Such is the aspect which the progress of our 
 race presents. To a careless observer, survey- 
 ing it through the dim haze of the ages, it may 
 appear almost an unbroken level, with only here 
 
 149
 
 150 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 and there a salieut point to arrest the eye. So 
 when you look forth from some Alpine summit 
 on a wide stretch of country over which the morn- 
 ing shadows are yet sleeping, its inequalities and 
 roughnesses may be so toned down by distance and 
 obscurity, as to render the prospect apparently 
 tame ; but, on a nearer inspection, the bold lines 
 come out, and you discover lofty ranges, precipitous 
 gorges, and rushing waterfalls, where before all 
 seemed so smooth and placid. 
 
 In following back along the centuries the way 
 of Divine Providence in the government of our 
 world, we are often perplexed by its intricacy, 
 often bewildered by its sinuosities, often con- 
 founded by its deviations from the course which 
 we ignorantly judge to be the true one. We 
 find that the ongoing of terrestrial events is not 
 equable and regular, like the flow of a broad 
 river rolling on in calm majesty, without a rut 
 in its current or a bend in its shores. Instead 
 of this straight and even movement, we perceive 
 in it all the diversified windings and alternations 
 of the mountain brook ; now leaping wild and 
 free from its rocky birth-place ; now pent up 
 and stagnant in its confined bed; now creeping 
 about among the hills, and losing itself in deep, 
 shadowy glens; now hurrying through volcanic 
 chasms ; now spreading out into a clear, still lake ;
 
 THE FREED MEN OF THE WAR. 151 
 
 now roaring over rapids ; now plunging down cata- 
 racts ; yet ever pressing forward, swift or slow, 
 through turmoil or repose, to its goal in the sea. 
 
 So it is with human history. It is full of abrupt 
 turnings and unexpected vicissitudes. In fact, it 
 would seem to be the design of God that the cause 
 of man should go forward, not with a quiet and 
 continuous progression, but by leaps and bounds 
 by forces brought to it at long intervals from 
 great epochs transition periods when civiliza- 
 tion and philanthropy enter upon new careers, and 
 put forth their energies in new directions. Such 
 an epoch was the Introduction of Christianity. It 
 closed up the old channels of thought, and opened a 
 new path of progress for the world. Similar epochs 
 were ushered in by the Invention of the Art of 
 Printing, the Reformation from Popery, and the 
 Discovery of America. Each of these events 
 changed the course of human opinion, and inaugu- 
 rated a new scene in the drama of the world's 
 life. 
 
 Now, as these grand crises powerfully affect 
 the destiny of our race, so they modify in an 
 equal degree the duties and responsibilities of all 
 who would shape that destiny for good and 
 happiness. And hence the highest wisdom, in 
 times of social disturbance and upheaval, is to
 
 152 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 know the lesson of the hour, and to do the 
 work of the hour. 
 
 We stand to-day at one of those momentous 
 turning-points in human affairs, which change 
 the face of history, and send down their influence 
 to the latest generations. Consciously or uncon- 
 sciously, we are actors in a struggle out of which 
 the Future is to be born. Without our knowl- 
 edge, and contrary to our desire, Jehovah has made 
 us His instruments in a strange and terrible con- 
 vulsion, through which it is clearly His purpose to 
 prepare the way of righteousness and peace. 
 
 Long have the prayers of the pious and the hu- 
 mane been going up to the Eternal Throne, that this 
 land might be purified from the guilt of Oppression ; 
 that it might be lifted out of the slough of wicked- 
 ness into which Slavery had plunged it, to the high 
 ground of fidelity to its own principles, and of jus- 
 tice to all ; and that Freedom might grow and tri- 
 umph, till not a chain should clank, nor a bondman 
 cower, under the symbol of our nationality. We 
 hoped, we believed, that hour would come. But we 
 deemed the period of its coming to be far distant. 
 And we looked for its dawning, not in thunder, and 
 storm, and earthquake, but amid scenes of tranquil- 
 lity its golden beams flushing an azure heaven, and 
 welcomed with the melody of songs, and voices of 
 love and blessing. That day has come sooner than
 
 THE FKEEDMEN OF THE WAR. 153 
 
 we thought, and not in the way we thought. Its 
 sun is above the horizon ; but it rises on a sky red 
 with blood, and lurid with the smoke and flame of 
 battle. The nation is in the throes of its second 
 birth. In the hot furnace of civil war its purifica- 
 tion is being accomplished. And out of the con- 
 suming fire, out of the strife and the agony, out of 
 the carnage and the woe, up from the gory fields 
 where our sons and brothers have fought and fallen, 
 up from their graves, springs the glorious form of 
 our new National Life, waving aloft the banner of 
 Emancipation, and "proclaiming Liberty through- 
 out the land, to all the inhabitants thereof." 
 
 In the pride of our vain wisdom, we marked out 
 for ourselves the way to political greatness. Across 
 the shaking morasses of Expediency, over the bot- 
 tomless bog of Compromise, we formed the track, 
 and laid the rails, and put on the train, and got up 
 the steam, and with rush and roar were sweeping 
 onward in our self-confidence, heedless of the abyss 
 which Slavery had dug in our path, and whose 
 yawning depths lay just before us. But God put 
 his hand to the brakes, and switched us off on a new 
 track, which He laid, and not man. There was 
 surprise, terror, outcry, at first. There are doubts, 
 apprehensions, tremblings still. But the road is 
 firm and straight, the engine sound, the cars stanch, 
 the Conductor all-wise and all-powerful, and the end
 
 154 LATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 of our journey a vindicated Government, a re- 
 stored Union, a Free Nation already in sight. 
 
 A period so eventful must be full of grave prob- 
 lems ; and of these one of the gravest relates to the 
 measures which should be adopted in behalf of those 
 lately bound in chains, whom God, through the in- 
 strumentality of the war, is bringing out of bondage. 
 
 At the beginning of the fierce struggle that now 
 convulses the land, the people of the North had but 
 a dim perception of the stupendous issues which it 
 involved, and no clear foresight of the consequences 
 to which it would lead. They were animated by 
 the single purpose of suppressing treason, upholding 
 the Government, and maintaining the integrity of 
 the Bepublic. The overthrow of Slavery was not 
 their direct object ; for with whatever feelings of 
 abhorrence they may have regarded the system, and 
 however unquestioned may have been their right to 
 prohibit it in the Territories, they were precluded, 
 by the compromises of the Constitution, from any 
 forcible attempt to abolish it in the States where it 
 had been established by law. But as the war went 
 on and assumed unexpected proportions, as the 
 conflict grew thicker and more deadly, as the Re- 
 bellion developed its real strength and its atrocious 
 ami, it became more and more evident that we could 
 conquer it only by destroying the institution in 
 whose interest it had been commenced, and from
 
 THE FREED MEN OF THE WAR. 155 
 
 which it drew its vitality and its chief support. 
 Slowly and reluctantly we accepted this alternative. 
 It required the protracted frown of an angry Provi- 
 dence, months of disaster and defeat, the sacrifice 
 of countless millions of treasure, and of almost 
 countless lives, to bring us to it. But we reached 
 it at length. In obedience to the voice of the 
 people, the President, recognizing military necessity 
 as superior to all constitutional provisions, issued 
 his proclamation, declaring forever free the slaves 
 of the conspirators who were seeking to overturn 
 the Government. 
 
 This fact, the grandest in our history, infused a 
 new element of power into the conduct of the war. 
 It revived confidence. It gained for us the suffrage 
 of the world. It allied us with Heaven. It enlist- 
 ed in our cause the invincible might of Eternal 
 Right and Justice. It arrested the almost unbroken 
 tide of reverses that had carried mourning into 
 myriad homes, and ushered in those subsequent 
 successes and victories which have filled all loyal 
 hearts with rejoicing, and cast over the Rebellion 
 the shadow of its approaching doom. 
 
 Since this potent word of deliverance was spoken, 
 more than a million of slaves have obtained the 
 blessed boon of freedom, partly by escaping within 
 our lines from districts yet held by the rebels, and 
 partly by the progress of our arms in restoring the
 
 156 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 authority of the Government over large portions of 
 the revolted States. And these are but the ad- 
 vance-guard, the forerunners of millions more who 
 will follow them out of the prison-house of bondage, 
 as the victorious forces of the Union open the way, 
 till Slavery and Secession foul mother and foul 
 child shall be driven forever from our shores. 
 
 With what glowing interest and sympathy must 
 we contemplate this multitude, thus led forth, by 
 the hand of God himself, from life-long vassal- 
 age to liberty and the possession of those person- 
 al rights which Heaven ordains as the inalienable 
 heritage of all ! And as we behold them strug- 
 gling up into the light of a better day, stamped 
 with the brand of chattelhood ; scarred with the 
 lash of the task-master; all covered with the 
 traces of the degradation and misery to which 
 they have been subjected, how impressively 
 must these questions present themselves to every 
 thoughtful and benevolent mind ! What is their 
 condition? What are their most pressing needs? 
 What must be done to prepare them for the 
 new circumstances in which they are placed? In 
 what way can their welfare be most effectually 
 secured ? And what are the reasons which render 
 this the great work of our time, and summon us 
 to give to it our utmost zeal and energy ? 
 
 Of the million already freed, about two hun-
 
 THE FREEDMEN OF THE WAR. 157 
 
 dred and thirty thousand are in the military 
 service of the United States ; one hundred and 
 eighty thousand as soldiers, organized into regi- 
 ments and brigades, and so armed and drilled 
 as to be highly efficient ; and fifty thousand as 
 army laborers, workmen on fortifications, wagon- 
 ers, and hospital servants thus releasing an 
 equal number of white troops for active duty 
 in the field. The remaining seven hundred and 
 seventy thousand, though more or less dispersed 
 over the whole territory recovered from the 
 rebels, are chiefly to be found at Port Royal in 
 the Department of the South; at Newbern in 
 North Carolina; at Norfolk in Virginia; in the 
 District of Columbia ; on the Mississippi from 
 Helena to Vicksburg ; and in New Orleans. The 
 peculiar circumstances attending the early days of 
 their exodus exposed them to much suffering from 
 the want of food, clothing, and shelter. But 
 through the care of the Government, their own 
 industry, and the prompt aid of societies and 
 individuals, these necessities have been so far 
 supplied, that the freedmen are now, for the 
 most part, in a state of comparative physical 
 comfort. This statement, however, is not to be 
 received as absolutely and universally true. 
 
 Among the liberated bondmen, as among all 
 other classes of our population, examples of
 
 158 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 indolence and unthrift may be found. Many, 
 too, have recently escaped from slavery, and 
 have not had time to redeem themselves from 
 the rags and beggary which they brought with 
 them. Such cases of distress, we are happy to 
 say, are now chiefly confined to the region of the 
 Mississippi. Owing to the unsettled and insecure 
 state of that Department, and the consequent 
 greater difficulty in organizing labor on the plan- 
 tations, large numbers there are still in great 
 destitution. But, leaving out of view these sad 
 instances of suffering, instances exceptional in their 
 character and rapidly passing away, we recognize 
 everywhere the broad and cheering fact, that the 
 condition of the freed slaves as to employment and 
 subsistence is far more satisfactory than even the 
 most sanguine could have ventured to predict. 
 So well provided are they in these respects, that, 
 as a general thing, they may be said no longer to 
 require our aid, or call for our solicitude. It is 
 in reference to their intellectual and spiritual wants, 
 that the most urgent appeal now comes to us. 
 
 In studying their needs under this aspect, it is 
 important to bear in mind the fact, that hitherto 
 they have been debarred from all means of educa- 
 tion, and from all correct religious teaching. Des- 
 potism always endeavors to keep its victims in ig- 
 norance, in order that they may be more patient and
 
 THE FREED MEN OF THE WAR. 159 
 
 submissive under its control. This has been its aim 
 in all lands and ages. In whatever form it exists, 
 whatever name it bears, whether that of hierarchy, 
 monarchy, aristocracy, or oligarchy, it seeks ever 
 to perpetuate its power by holding in darkness the 
 minds it would subject to its will. The motive 
 which induces the ruling classes of Great Britain to 
 withhold free schools from her crushed and imbruted 
 masses, is precisely the same as that which led the 
 oligarchy of the South to prohibit the instruction of 
 the slaves. The English aristocrat dreads the diffu- 
 sion of knowledge among the common people, lest 
 it should diminish their subserviency to the privi- 
 leged orders. His brother, the Southern oligarch, 
 feared to permit his slave to be educated, knowing 
 well that an educated slave would soon be a slave 
 no longer. Plence in all the slave-holding States the 
 most severe laws were enacted against teaching the 
 slaves to read. Little better were the opportunities 
 allowed them for religious instruction. They were, 
 indeed, permitted to hear what their oppressors 
 called the Gospel, dispensed by such lips as their 
 oppressors chose. But it was the Gospel of the 
 trafficker in human flesh the Gospel of the child- 
 seller and the woman-whipper a Gospel which 
 nullified marriage, denied their manhood, trampled 
 on their God-given rights, and held forth obedience
 
 160 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 to their masters as the essence of all grace and 
 virtue. 
 
 Coming out from such a condition, with the im- 
 press of generations of servitude and darkness upon 
 them, is it surprising that they should be ignorant, 
 superstitious, degraded ; or that the most energetic 
 endeavors should be demanded to fit them for the 
 new position into which they have been so suddenly 
 brought ? What else could we expect ? To suppose 
 that men, born and reared under the debasing influ- 
 ences of slavery, will become, by the mere act of 
 emancipation, intelligent, self-reliant, and compe- 
 tent to their own welfare, is to hope for that of 
 which the annals of civilization afford not a soli- 
 tary example. There is needed for them as once 
 there was needed for every race that has emerged 
 from barbarism the guiding hand of a wise phi- 
 lanthropy, to lead them on to knowledge, independ- 
 ence, and happiness. This necessity the Govern- 
 ment has felt strongly from the first, and has done 
 all to meet it which the overwhelming burdens of 
 the war have left it the ability to do. Numerous 
 voluntary associations are also co-operating in the 
 work with a liberality and an earnestness that are 
 full of promise. The noble enterprise is begun; 
 and it is only requisite that the Christian sentiment 
 of the North should be deeply imbued with the feel- 
 ing of its importance, and thoroughly roused to its
 
 THE FREED MEN OF THE WAR. 161 
 
 prosecution, iii order to put in action an array of 
 agencies that shall pour the light of education and 
 of a pure Gospel upon those millions of immortal 
 minds, which long years of chattelhood have be- 
 nighted and brutalized. 
 
 A single glance at what is being done, even in 
 this incipient stage of the movement, is enough to 
 inspire us with confidence and joy. For the freed- 
 men in the District of Columbia a village of neat, 
 comfortable homes has been built on Arlington 
 Heights, formerly the residence of the rebel Gen- 
 eral Lee. Who sees not the righteous retribution 
 of Providence in the fact, that the princely estate 
 of the man who has been the ablest champion of a 
 rebellion undertaken for the perpetuation of slavery, 
 should have been converted into an asylum for ne- 
 groes whom the crushing of that rebellion has set 
 free ? What a striking instance of that poetic jus- 
 tice which, though often portrayed in fiction, is so 
 seldom witnessed in real life ! Into this village the 
 freedmen have been gathered from the various camps 
 around Washington ; and there the problem of their 
 social amelioration is in process of successful solu- 
 tion. The men are employed on work for the Gov- 
 ernment, and in cultivating the adjoining farms. 
 They labor regularly and earnestly. And although 
 the season was far advanced before operations were 
 begun, the experiment has already more than repaid
 
 162 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 the expense incurred. The charge of their mental 
 and religious training has been assumed by the 
 Tract Society at New York, under whose auspices 
 a commodious building has been erected, intended 
 for the double purpose of a chapel and a school- 
 house ; and at its opening, a few months since, cab- 
 inet ministers, members of Congress, and high offi- 
 cers of the army, made congratulatory addresses. 
 And well they might, for never did statesman or 
 warrior utter words on a nobler theme or at a 
 grander hour. In this house a day-school for chil- 
 dren has been commenced, with hundreds of pupils ; 
 and also an evening school for adults, which is nu- 
 merously attended. The capacity of the learners, 
 their desire for improvement, and their proficiency, 
 are eminently encouraging. In the formation of 
 provident habits, in domestic economy, in moral 
 culture, they manifest an equal progress. Indeed, 
 the whole population is represented as evincing, in 
 its industry, its thrift, its sobriety, strong indica- 
 tions of soon becoming an intelligent, self-support- 
 ing, well-ordered community. 
 
 Similar accounts come to us from almost every 
 point where any attempt has been made to succor 
 and benefit the freedmen. In the neighborhood of 
 Norfolk, large numbers of them have been placed 
 on the plantation of Henry A. Wise, where they 
 are now sustaining themselves by their own labor,
 
 THE FREEDMEN OF THE WAR. 163 
 
 and are being rapidly educated by the churches and 
 schools which have been established among them. 
 A short tune ago in New Orleans, a lady, a native 
 of the city, perhaps one of those whom General 
 Butler converted, felt herself moved in spirit to 
 open a school for colored children. The first day 
 she had three pupils, and the third, three hundred. 
 A movement was then begun to increase the number 
 of schools, which has since been carried forward, 
 partly by governmental and partly by individual 
 patronage, until now there are ten schools, thirty 
 teachers, and two thousand pupils under instruc- 
 tion. A prominent citizen of West Virginia in- 
 forms us, that when that portion of the Old Domin- 
 ion became an independent State, there were in the 
 city of his residence several thousand slaves who 
 were then emancipated ; and that since that period, 
 they have built, chiefly with the avails of their 
 own labor, comfortable dwellings for their families, 
 erected two chapels and four school-houses, and are 
 now supporting their own pastors and teachers. In 
 North Carolina there are twenty-three schools, for- 
 ty-six teachers, and three thousand pupils. 
 
 At Port Royal and the adjacent islands the ex- 
 periment has been longer in operation, and the re- 
 sults are correspondingly more decisive. When 
 this portion of South Carolina came under our con- 
 trol, the Secretary of War immediately instituted
 
 164 RATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 measures for the protection and welfare of the ne- 
 groes who had been abandoned by their owners in 
 their hasty flight from our victorious army. The 
 population of the Sea Islands has always consisted 
 almost entirely of colored people ; and since their 
 occupancy by our forces, this population has been 
 largely increased by slaves who have fled thither 
 from all parts of the State, to find freedom and safe- 
 ty under the flag of the Union. Over these growing 
 numbers the Government has exercised a watchful 
 and paternal care. Superintendents have been as- 
 signed to the plantations, and the freedmen encour- 
 aged to work by the offer of suitable wages. And 
 so fully has the effort succeeded, that the plantations 
 are now in a good state of cultivation, and the la- 
 borers well supplied and contented. Many have 
 even been able, from their surplus earnings, to pur- 
 chase land of the Government, and are now working 
 it on their own account ; and instances have occurred 
 of individuals realizing for their crop the past sea- 
 son, two or three thousand dollars beyond what was 
 needed for the support of themselves and families. 
 Nearly the whole town of Beaufort has thus passed 
 into the hands of freedmen, who now hold as owners 
 the mansions in which they once crouched and trem- 
 bled as slaves. If we take into account the de- 
 rangements which a change from compulsory to vol- 
 untary labor must at first inevitably create, the in-
 
 THE FREEDMEN OF THE WAR. 165 
 
 terruptions incident to military occupation, and the 
 shortness of the period during which the new order 
 of things has existed, we cannot but acknowledge 
 the cheering character of the results. One impor- 
 tant step has at least been gained. It has been 
 demonstrated that the negro will work, and work 
 well, under the stimulus of compensation. He has 
 got over the idea that freedom means immunity 
 from labor. He has tasted the luxury of wages, 
 and is eager to acquire property and a home which 
 he can call his own. And when once this desire has 
 been aAvakeued, the ground has been won for higher 
 influences, that will enter in and complete his 
 elevation. 
 
 Accordingly we find that while this improvement 
 has been going on in the industrial character of the 
 freedmen, there has been a similar progress in their 
 intellectual and religious development. Various 
 philanthropic associations have sent out teachers 
 and organized schools, which are filling those 
 dark places with the light of intelligence and truth. 
 In the Department of Port Royal, there are now 
 about fifty schools, with fifty teachers, and nearly 
 four thousand regular attendants, besides a like 
 number who- are receiving occasional instruction. 
 Little more than a year has passed since the educa- 
 tional arrangements were in such forwardness that 
 these schools could begin their work. Then, not
 
 166 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 one among their pupils knew a single letter. Now, 
 nearly all of them can read with ease almost any 
 chapter in the Bible, and such plain pieces as are 
 found in ordinary school books. They have ac- 
 quired some knowledge of writing and arithmetic ; 
 can answer simple questions in geography ; give the 
 names and boundaries of the different States ; and 
 point out on a map the oceans, continents, and prin- 
 cipal countries of the globe. Their memories are 
 quick and susceptible, and they learn as readily, and 
 give as much evidence of capacity for intellectual 
 attainment, as children of any race whatever. They 
 are docile and affectionate, fond of going to school, 
 and delighted at being free. And, as an expression 
 of these feelings, they take great pleasure in the 
 singing exercises of the schools, and love to roll out 
 with the full strength of their voices, 
 
 " My Country, 'tis of thee, 
 
 Sweet land of Liberty, 
 
 Of thee, I sing;" 
 
 or those beautiful lines of Whittier, written express- 
 ly for the school on the Island of St. Helena : 
 
 " The very oaks are greener clad, 
 
 The waters brighter smile, 
 
 Oh, never shone a day so glad 
 
 On sweet St. Helen's isle. 
 
 For none in all the world before 
 
 Were ever glad as we ; 
 We're free on Carolina's shore, 
 
 We're all at home, and free."
 
 THE FREED MEN OF THE WAR. 167 
 
 Let any one visit the plantations where these 
 freedmen live ; let him note the evidences of in- 
 creased comfort which gladden their homes ; let him 
 mark the new-born dignity, the look of recovered 
 manhood, with which they ply their voluntary toil ; 
 let him go into their schools, and watch those dark 
 minds brightening and expanding under the beams 
 of knowledge ; let him listen as they sing the songs 
 of Freedom ; let him enter their crowded places of 
 worship ; let him contemplate their churches with 
 thousands of members, which fresh accessions are 
 constantly augmenting, let him ponder all this, 
 and he cannot but be convinced that a social and 
 moral transformation is here going forward, might- 
 ier than human sagacity ever contrived or human 
 statesmanship ever wrought ; and that never, since 
 the light of the Gospel first broke on the hill-sides 
 of Judea, has the earth presented a spectacle so 
 fraught with sublime and inspiring auguries. 
 
 Such is the field which now invites our culture, 
 and such are the bright signs of promise which it 
 everywhere displays. There is room here for all ; 
 and the Providence of God summons all to enter in 
 and reap. The whole Christian strength of the 
 North could not suffice to gather a harvest so wide 
 and so ripe. To the Baptist churches, however, the 
 appeal addresses itself with peculiar significance 
 and emphasis. The pious among the freedmen
 
 168 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 are largely of our denomination. At Port Koyal 
 they are almost exclusively so. And everywhere 
 throughout the South, vast multitudes of the colored 
 people profess our faith, or harmonize with us in 
 sentiment. They naturally look to us for their re- 
 ligious teaching. We can most readily gain their 
 confidence and sympathy. Hence it is clear that on 
 us the care of their educational and spiritual inter- 
 ests pre-eminently devolves. If we neglect the 
 trust, God will transfer it to more faithful hands ; 
 but this will not alter the fact that to us the work 
 appropriately belongs. Others may help us; and 
 most gladly do we welcome their co-operation. Yet 
 let us never forget that ours is the chief and fore- 
 most place in this godlike undertaking. 
 
 What, then, as Baptists, are we called to do in 
 this matter? The first and most urgent demand 
 that meets us a demand that cannot be neglected 
 a single day without incalculable injury to the cause 
 of Christ is to supply these broad wastes with 
 missionaries and pastors, at least in sufficient num- 
 bers to occupy the central points, superintend the 
 churches that still exist, gather new ones, and direct 
 the general work of evangelization. We cannot 
 longer defer this duty on the plea that the South is 
 inaccessible to our efforts. The brazen wall which 
 Slavery had built around it has been beaten down 
 by our victorious cannon. Already wide regions
 
 THE FEE ED MEN OF THE WAR. 169 
 
 invite our occupancy ; and the whole land will be 
 open to us sooner than we shall be prepared to go 
 up and possess it. In those parts of the rebel terri- 
 tory which the advance of our armies has brought 
 back under the control of the Union, there are many 
 vacant houses of worship once belonging to our de- 
 nomination, and many desolate altars on which the 
 fire still feebly burns amid the ashes of devastation 
 and the deluge of war. These the national authori- 
 ties have placed in our hands, with the guaranty of 
 military protection, and the promise of similar fa- 
 cilities in all the revolted States, whenever they 
 shall have been reclaimed to their allegiance. Thue 
 does the Providence of God summon us to the 
 mighty task of reconstructing, on a Christian basis, 
 the religious institutions of the South. In place of 
 a Gospel so corrupted by false views of human 
 rights, so distorted by the selfish greed of the op- 
 pressor, as to stand forth an abomination to heaven 
 and earth, we must plant there the Gospel which 
 He taught who came to save the poor and to lift up 
 the fallen a Gospel which proclaims liberty to the 
 captives, and the opening of the prison doors to 
 them that are bound. And as an evidence of the 
 pressing necessity that we should engage in this 
 work at once and with the utmost vigor, and as an 
 incentive to our zeal, it will be sufficient to cite the 
 history of our operations in the Sea Islands. Here
 
 170 BATTLE ECHOES, 
 
 was the beginning of our labors for the spiritual 
 welfare of the freedmen, and here they have been 
 most thoroughly and earnestly prosecuted. And 
 what is their actual amount ? How large is the sup- 
 ply which we have sent to this our earliest and most 
 favored field? On these Islands there are sixteen 
 thousand liberated bondmen, all needing our aid, 
 all placed within the reach of our Christian sympa- 
 thies. In this population there are three Baptist 
 churches, comprising an aggregate of thirty-three 
 hundred members. The church at Beaufort con- 
 tains, with its five branches, fifteen hundred mem- 
 bers ; that on St. Helena Island nine hundred ; and 
 that at Mitchelville, near Hilton Head, a similar 
 number. In these churches thirteen hundred and 
 fifty .have been baptized during the two years since 
 missionary work commenced among them. And 
 yet at this important point, so peculiarly our own, 
 and so rich in promise, there are only three ordained 
 Baptist ministers, two white, and one colored. Of 
 the former, one is there merely for the purpose of 
 regaining his health, and will soon return to his 
 home in the North, if he has not already done so ; 
 and the other, worn down with exhausting toil, and 
 unsupported, is also expected ere long to leave the 
 field. So that, unless reinforcements are speedily 
 sent, there will be only one colored preacher of our 
 denomination for sixteen thousand souls. And if
 
 THE FREEDMEJf OF THE WAR. 171 
 
 such is the destitution in the spot where we have 
 done most, how great must it be throughout the 
 vast regions in which we have done nothing ! Oh, 
 how thrilling, how importunate is the cry which 
 comes to us from all parts of the recovered South 
 for men to break to these famishing multitudes the 
 Bread of Life ! 
 
 But the preaching of the Gospel does not com- 
 prehend our whole duty in relation to this momen- 
 tous matter. These degraded and outcast masses 
 need to be educated for this world as well as for 
 the next. Along with an adequate number of com- 
 petent ministers, we must send out a host of teach- 
 ers, qualified not only to take charge of the business 
 of secular education, but also to assist in organizing 
 and sustaining Sunday schools, and in the various 
 departments of Christian labor. This is a want 
 which has been greatly felt. A large proportion 
 of the teachers now on the ground, however com- 
 petent to instruct in the week-day schools, have 
 little fitness for the duties of the Sunday-school. 
 Many of them are rationalists, deists, skeptics ; and 
 instead of seeking to instil into those clouded minds 
 the knowledge of Christ and of His salvation, are 
 laboring to infect them with the gospel of Theodore 
 Parker and Wendell Phillips. 
 
 Here is our work ; and this is precisely the re- 
 lation in which the Baptists of the North stand to
 
 172 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 the^ Freedmen of the South. God has pointed us 
 out as their guides in the upward course which he 
 is opening before them. What Moses and Joshua 
 were to the Tribes which Divine Power, with 
 mighty signs and wonders, delivered from the thral- 
 dom of Egypt, we should be to the myriads whom 
 the same Almighty hand, by manifestations not less 
 startling, is bringing out of a more cruel bondage. 
 On us rests the obligation to lead them into the 
 Land of Promise; to train them for freedom on 
 earth, and for immortality in heaven. 
 
 Let the vastness of the work rouse us. Here are 
 a million of human beings, just risen from the black 
 night of Slavery, now waiting to be enlightened, 
 elevated, and prepared for the rights of manhood 
 and the heritage of salvation. And behind them 
 are three millions more, yet lingering in the prison- 
 house, from whose limbs the fetters are breaking, 
 and are destined to fall utterly away, when the 
 design of God in this civil war shall have reached 
 its triumphant fulfilment. And, following these, 
 are eight millions of white men, who, when the 
 curse of bondage is removed, will rise up from 
 their darkness and degradation, to claim the fran- 
 chises of which a tyrannical oligarchy has robbed 
 them, and ask for the blessings of education and of 
 true religion. Where in all the ages is there a 
 movement so stupendous as this? On what page of
 
 THE FREEDMEN OF THE WAR. 173 
 
 the world's annals can you find anything so majestic 
 as the moral uprising which will pervade the entire 
 South, when once the Rebellion has been suppressed, 
 and its authors and leaders have fled to the shelter- 
 ing arms of foreign despots ; or, like Judas, their 
 great prototype, have emigrated to their "own 
 place ! " Oh, what a day of redemption will that 
 be for the South, when over her sunny fields, now 
 blasted by slavery, and ravaged by the fury and the 
 despair of a merciless usurpation, free labor, free 
 schools, a free press, and a free Gospel shall pour 
 their living energies, renovating the whole land, 
 and covering all its fertile plains and valleys with a 
 thriving and peaceful population! This is to be 
 the great social revolution of our day, and the 
 grandest of all the days. Whose heart is so dead 
 as not to kindle at the thought of taking part in an 
 enterprise so mighty in its scope, and so benign in 
 its results? 
 
 There are some, perhaps, to whom the force of 
 this appeal may be lessened by the imagination that 
 an undertaking so immense, requiring such large 
 expenditures of men and of means, must neces- 
 sarily cripple our endeavors for the evangelization 
 of the West, which they have been wont to regard 
 as our sole, particular sphere. Even were this 
 objection well founded, were it indeed true that 
 we should be compelled by the inadequacy of our
 
 174 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 resources to neglect either the new West or the 
 new South, I hesitate not to affirm that wisdom 
 and benevolence would alike justify us in leaving 
 the West for the present to take care of itself. The 
 West is free. The West is strong. No burdens 
 have weakened her gigantic youth ; no chains have 
 clogged her swelling muscles. She has at her 
 command all the requisites and appliances of her 
 own intellectual and moral progress. Her soil, from 
 the surface of the earth to its centre, is one huge 
 treasure bed. Her plains are granaries, her hills 
 mines, the sands of her rivers richer than those of 
 old Pactolus. Her power of self-help is limited 
 only by her inclination. By the munificence of 
 His gifts God has made her the mistress of her own 
 destiny. And the boundless energies which she 
 has displayed in this hour of the nation's peril, 
 show her sufficient for the trust, and equal to all 
 the exigencies of her magnificent future. 
 
 But the trampled and crushed ones for whom we 
 plead have hitherto had no agency hi deciding their 
 condition. No opportunity for better things has 
 ever been theirs. Their darkness and their debase- 
 ment have been forced upon them by circumstances 
 beyond their control. Slavery, and not their own 
 free choice, has made them what they are. And 
 now as they come forth, in countless throngs, from 
 the pollutions and the horrors of their involuntary
 
 THE FREEDMEN OF THE WAR. 175 
 
 bondage, and with outstretched arms implore us to 
 succor them, must not humanity, and "the mind 
 that was in Christ Jesus," prompt us to take them 
 by the hand, stanch their wounds, wipe away their 
 blood, and raise them up, even though in doing so 
 we should be obliged for a tune to let go of others 
 less exposed, or less helpless ? 
 
 There is, however, no necessity that in respond- 
 ing to this special call of God we should withdraw 
 from other fields of labor on which He has led us to 
 enter. If we faithfully use the resources which He 
 has conferred upon us, we shall find that we have 
 ample ability to do all that needs to be done for the 
 freedmen and for the South, without setting aside 
 the claims of any Christian enterprise whatever. 
 We have means enough and men enough to meet 
 the sudden and large demands arising from the 
 downfall of Slavery, and at the same time to plant 
 the banner of Christ throughout the destitute West 
 and the pagan East. Nevertheless, we cannot but 
 recognize, in the magnitude of the cause we advo- 
 cate to-day, in its momentous bearings on the pub- 
 lic weal, in the solemn emphasis of its claims, in 
 the fearful hazards which indifference to them in- 
 volves, the clear handwriting of Heaven, marking 
 it out as the paramount interest of the hour, and 
 invoking us to comprehend and earnestly promote it.
 
 176 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 The hopeful aspects of the work should inspire 
 zeal and confidence. Let us not be kept back by 
 the cry of slavemongers and their upholders, that 
 the negro belongs to an inferior race, and is inca- 
 pable of improvement. That he is at present low 
 down in the social scale, may be admitted. It 
 would be a miracle if centuries of servitude and 
 debasement had left him in any other condition. 
 But he is no lower than God's chosen people were 
 when He brought them out of Egypt no lower 
 than any portion of the human family would be, if 
 subjected for the same length of time to the same 
 deteriorating influences. We hesitate not to affirm 
 that whatever of defect there may be in .the charac- 
 ter of the freedmen is to be ascribed, not to pov- 
 erty of intellectual or moral endowment, but to 
 the circumstances in which they have been placed. 
 They have bent all their lives under burdens. Is it 
 strange that they cannot at once stand erect ? They 
 have just come up from the foul dungeon of Slav- 
 ery, with the scent of its abominations yet clinging 
 to them, and its deadly vapors still paralyzing every 
 sense and every faculty. And shall we marvel that 
 they do not walk forth with the strong step and up- 
 lifted brow of those who have always trodden the 
 mountain tops, breathing the free air, and basking 
 in the glad sunshine? Notwithstanding the dis- 
 advantages which surround them, disadvantages
 
 THE FREEDMEN OF THE WAR. 177 
 
 springing alike from their past deprivations and 
 from their present unsettled state, they neverthe- 
 less manifest qualities of mind and of heart which 
 prove their capacity for better things, and prophesy 
 well of their future. Even through the deep gloom 
 that overshadows them, flashes of a noble nature 
 gleam forth, indicating that they need only oppor- 
 tunity and culture, to emerge from their depression, 
 and take their place by the side of the more favored 
 races. 
 
 When the policy of emancipation was inaugu- 
 rated, its enemies, both at home and abroad, as- 
 sailed it as inviting the slaves to insurrection, and 
 as tending to produce among them wild disorder 
 and outbursts of brutal ferocity. And even its 
 friends feared that a measure, for which so little 
 preparation had been made, might leave its objects 
 helpless through indolence, or lawless from sudden 
 liberty. But the event has justified none of these 
 predictions. The liberated bondmen have shown 
 no unwillingness to labor wherever employment has 
 been furnished them, and no disposition to avenge 
 the insults and wrongs heaped upon them as well by 
 loyal as by rebel hands. And those who yet remain 
 in slavery are waiting for the deliverance which they 
 know to be near, with a patience and forbearance 
 actually sublime. That this calm endurance of in- 
 juries, this quiet demeanor under hope deferred, 
 12
 
 178 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 springs merely from constitutional timidity, or from 
 lack of spirit to assert their rights, no one can be- 
 lieve who has witnessed the manliness with which 
 they bear themselves as soldiers. Their firmness 
 and courage in many a bloody field have silenced 
 forever the taunt that the negro is a coward. The 
 glorious dead of Port Hudson, of Fort Wagner, 
 and of Olustee, who fell bravely fighting for a 
 country which gave them no citizenship, and which, 
 even in accepting them as its defenders, dishonored 
 and robbed them, prove that dark skins may cover 
 souls as heroic and patriotism as unselfish as the 
 world has ever known. It is idle to deny that a 
 race exhibiting such examples of magnanimity and 
 valor, possesses elements of greatness which require 
 only to be developed, to raise it to a high order of 
 civilization. 
 
 Equally promising is the strong religious ten- 
 dency so manifest in the negro character. Grant 
 that his piety is often deeply tinged with supersti- 
 tion ; that it sometimes resembles more the wild 
 Fetishism of his ancestral Africa than the soberness 
 of the Gospel ; that it is a thing of emotion and ex- 
 citement rather than of holy living ; and that even 
 when apparently most ardent it is not seldom dis- 
 severed from morality. These peculiarities are ac- 
 cidental the fungus growth which the poison of 
 Slavery has spread over his moral life. Neverthe-
 
 THE FREEDMEN OF THE WAR. 19 
 
 less, the tendency is there, vital and potent in his 
 nature, and, when purified and rightly directed, 
 will become a powerful auxiliary in his uplifting. 
 
 These striking capabilities, displayed by the col- 
 ored population of the South under circumstances 
 so adverse, viewed in connection with the wonder- 
 ful unfoldings of Divine Providence in their behalf, 
 are full of encouragement to those who would seek 
 their welfare. Nor is it an extravagance to say, 
 that nowhere on the face of the globe is there a de- 
 partment of Christian labor so rich in presages of 
 success, or where the reapers may gather sheaves 
 so abundant and so precious. 
 
 The elevation of this race is as important to our- 
 selves as it is to them. Their home is upon our 
 soil. Our destiny is bound up with theirs. Their 
 numbers forbid their removal. And even were this 
 possible, it would be a disaster, and not a blessing. 
 The industry of Spain was ruined for a century by 
 the expulsion of the Moors, and that of France by 
 the banishment of the Huguenots. And the pro- 
 ductive power of our own country would be crip- 
 pled, if not destroyed, by the colonization of the 
 negroes in other lands. While all sections would 
 suffer from such an immense loss of labor, there 
 are vast regions which would become a desert, were 
 the brawny arms that now till them withdrawn. 
 They are here, and they are needed here. We can-
 
 180 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 not expatriate them if we would ; and it were sui- 
 cide to do it if we could. The only choice left us 
 is, to allow them to remain in their degradation, a 
 blot on the nation's fame, a gangrene in the body 
 politic, a festering mass of ignorance and vice, im- 
 perilling alike the present and the future ; or to 
 rouse ourselves, and put forth instant and vigorous 
 efforts to fit them, by all the appliances of Chris- 
 tian truth and Christian education, for the new 
 sphere into which God is so unexpectedly con- 
 ducting them. Patriotism and humanity, the com- 
 mand of Christ, and the finger of Heaven, all beck- 
 on us forward to the work. Interest, duty, consist- 
 ency, benevolence, unite to intensify the summons. 
 We have prayed we have battled for the free- 
 dom of the slave. And now that God is suddenly 
 breaking his chains, how tremendous will be our 
 guilt, if by neglect we turn the blessing into a 
 curse ! What dishonor will such neglect bring to 
 the cause of emancipation among all the struggling 
 peoples of the earth ! What woes will it entail on 
 the generations that are to come after us ! If we 
 fold our hands in listless inaction while the day of 
 decision is upon us, and events big with the fates 
 of unborn ages are rushing on, how shall we answer 
 it at the bar of conscience at the bar of posterity 
 at the bar of the world at the bar of that Om- 
 niscient and Holy One, who will judge us for our
 
 THE FREED MEN OF THE WAR. 181 
 
 not doing as for our misdoing ; and who has de- 
 clared that " to him that knoweth to do good, and 
 doeth it not, to him it is sin? " * 
 
 Followers of Jesus ! you see the path of duty 
 and of labor to which your Master points you. 
 Whatever you do must be done now, and done 
 with your whole strength, or the succor will be too 
 late and too feeble to avail its objects. They are 
 afloat on the wild sea of uncertainty, and will perish 
 if left to their own guidance. Helpers of the help- 
 less ! hasten to their rescue. Let not the All-rul- 
 ing Hand wave before you unheeded. Let not the 
 blood of sons and brothers slain on the high places 
 of the field be poured out in vain. By your coun- 
 try's peril, by the woes of the down-trodden, by the 
 pity of Christ, so meet this solemn crisis, that the 
 verdict of the ages shall bless you, and eternity 
 confirm the award, " WELL DONE 1 "
 
 CHAPTEK VII. 
 THE LAND CARING FOR ITS DEFENDERS. 
 
 " TAKE NOW FOR THY BRETHREN AN EPHAH OF THIS PARCHED CORN, 
 AND THESE TEN LOAVES, AND RUN TO THE CAMP TO THY BRETH- 
 REN J AND CARRY THESE TEN CHEESES TO THE CAPTAIN OF THEIR THOU- 
 SAND, AND SEE HOW THY BRETHREN FARE." 1 Sam. XVii. 17, 18. 
 
 one of the islands that stud the broad bosom 
 of the Pacific, there is a region scarred by 
 wreck and havoc. A volcano, whose fires 
 never slumber,^ rises in its centre ; and all 
 around are strewed lava rocks, and the still 
 smoking cinders of recent eruptions. There are no 
 trees, no verdure, no vegetable life. The whole 
 scene is black and drear traversed by yawning 
 fissures, and covered with masses of scoria. Yet, 
 amid this desolate expanse, at the very foot of the 
 heaving and belching mountain, a spring of pure 
 water gushes up ; and from it a clear, sparkling 
 brook flows off through the blasted waste, with 
 many a playful winding and jocund ripple, down to 
 the sea. And wherever it flows a belt of soft green 
 appears, glinting joy and brightness upon the en- 
 compassing gloom. Strange union beauty allied 
 
 182
 
 THE LAND CARING FOB ITS DEFENDERS. 183 
 
 with horror coolness and refreshment bubbling 
 from a soil hot with flame and vomiting death ! 
 
 How like to this is the spectacle which our coun- 
 try now presents ! A fearful civil war is raging 
 through all our borders a war unexampled in its 
 magnitude, in the gravity of the questions it in- 
 volves, in the energies it develops, in the wide 
 sweep of its destructive power. Loyalty and Re- 
 bellion have met in fierce and deadly encounter, and 
 the whole land reels with the shock. A moral vol- 
 cano, more wrathful than Vesuvius when it shook 
 and roared in the battle of the demi-gods, now rocks 
 the nation with its convulsive throes, and disgorges 
 its molten floods, shrouding the heavens in sulphur- 
 ous clouds, and pouring devastation on the earth. 
 Broad commonwealths are ravaged, vast industries 
 submerged, untold treasure and life swallowed up. 
 The entire continent seems one huge crater spouting 
 fire and blood. 
 
 But in this appalling view there is one feature on 
 which the eye may linger with delight. Welling 
 up from the deep heart of the people, a stream of 
 patriotic beneficence winds through the lurid land- 
 scape, visiting every scene of carnage and suffering, 
 and spreading health and gladness in its course. A 
 tiny rill at its birth, it has become a mighty river, 
 fed by countless aifluents, and sending its healing
 
 184 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 waters by a thousand channels wherever the exi- 
 gencies of the strife demand their presence. 
 
 In this remarkable war, unprecedented in so 
 many of its aspects, there is nothing more remarka- 
 ble, nothing more unprecedented, than the prompti- 
 tude and fulness with which the individual contri- 
 butions of the country have flowed forth to minister 
 to the needs of its soldiers. That a people so 
 young, so wedded to the arts of peace, so unprac- 
 tised in military operations, should have been able, 
 hi an emergency so sudden, to raise and equip ar- 
 mies whose muster-roll registers millions, is one of 
 the most surprising facts of history. How, then, 
 must the surprise and the wonder grow upon us, 
 when we see that same people not only sustaining 
 such a tremendous drain of men, and the equally 
 tremendous cost of their mobilization, but following 
 them to the field, in outgoings of personal kindness 
 and munificence, which, for system, comprehen- 
 siveness and extent, are without a parallel in the 
 annals of war ! Other nations have created great 
 armies. But what nation ever cared for its armies 
 as we are caring for ours ? What were the paltry 
 and ill-regulated attempts of England to lighten the 
 miseries of her troops in the Crimea, compared with 
 the vast, harmonious, all-embracing movement that 
 now stirs the patriotism of the North to its profouiid- 
 est depths, uniting every heart and every hand in
 
 THE LAND CARING FOR ITS DEFENDERS. 185 
 
 the work of succoring the brave men who are endur- 
 ing peril and privation in the cause of freedom and 
 justice ? Nor has this movement been necessitated 
 by any neglect or deficiency on the part of the mili- 
 tary authorities. No government ever paid its 
 troops so liberally as ours ; and none ever furnished 
 such ample supplies for their subsistence and com- 
 fort. But the nation, in its intense solicitude for its 
 defenders, cannot be content with what it is doing 
 for them through the Government. It longs to do 
 more ; to pour out its bounty with a copiousness 
 that shall meet all their wants, and satisfy every re- 
 quirement of the camp, the hospital, and the battle. 
 For such sympathy it must find its own modes of 
 expression. 
 
 And it has found them. The anxiety for the wel- 
 fare of the soldier which animates all classes, has 
 crystallized in the Sanitary and Christian Commis- 
 sions, the one intended to relieve his physical 
 sufferings, the other combining with care for the 
 body the higher care of the soul. Having thus es- 
 tablished appropriate vehicles for dispensing their 
 gifts, what zeal, what abounding liberality, do the 
 inhabitants of the loyal States everywhere exhibit in 
 filling those vehicles, and keeping them ever in mo- 
 tion ! All ranks, all conditions, unite in the blessed 
 service. The dwellers in towns and the tillers of 
 the soil, men and matrons, youths and maidens,
 
 186 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 gray age and rosy childhood, find here a common 
 interest and a common object. The rich give their 
 wealth; the poor, their labor and their prayers. 
 Votaries of fashion, devotees- of idleness, gay fre- 
 quenters of the opera and the ball-room, turn from 
 their wonted pursuit of pleasure to the stern tasks 
 of the hour; and soft hands, that never knew toil 
 before, busily ply the needle for those whose strong 
 hands are plying the musket. Woman, ever fore- 
 most where pity calls, brings out all the warmth and 
 enthusiasm of her nature in this benevolent work. 
 In such ministerings lies her peculiar sphere, and 
 nobly she fills it now. What words can do justice 
 to the patriotic fervor, the untiring self-devotion, 
 which the loyal women of the country have dis- 
 played in this solemn crisis of its destiny? Their 
 hearts have listened to the eloquent appeal ad- 
 dressed to them by one of themselves, and eloquent- 
 ly have their deeds responded. 
 
 " In hospitals, and in camps, so thickly crowded, 
 
 They are wasting life away, 
 With no blessed touch of Home to balm and soften 
 
 The pain which maketh gray ! 
 Oh ye daughters ! Oh ye sisters ! Oh ye mothers ! 
 
 Are ye haunted by their eyes ? 
 The weary, dying look of sons and brothers, 
 
 Who shall never more arise ! 
 Let us help them ! We, who sit in careless comfort, 
 
 In our happy, cheerful homes
 
 THE LAND CARING FOR ITS DEFENDERS. 187 
 
 Shall we leave our brave defenders pining, dying, 
 
 For the help that never comes ? 
 Oh ! remember that the quiet of each hearth-stone 
 
 Is purchased by their blood ; 
 And for us they wear the cross and thorns of Christhood, 
 
 In their noble, martyr mood." 
 
 A voice of woe, a voice of pleading, a cry from 
 thousands wounded in battle, from thousands per- 
 ishing in pestilential swamps, from thousands starv- 
 ing in rebel prisons, goes swelling over the land ; 
 and swift feet and swift fingers move in answer, 
 and husbands must give when wives entreat, and 
 lovers must work when loved ones command, and 
 " monster Fairs " spring up as by magic, and help 
 is on its way. It is a sublime, a thrilling sight. 
 The war is giving us new and loftier views of the 
 grandeur of woman's mission. And when the tri- 
 umph is gained, as gained it surely will be, the his- 
 toric pen that records the heroism of the sons of the 
 North, will record, on a page equally imperishable, 
 the heroism of its daughters. 
 
 Not less deserving of grateful eulogy are the 
 agencies through which these benefactions find 
 their outlet and distribution. The Sanitary and 
 Christian Commissions, what soldier does not bless 
 them ? What one does not regard them with emo- 
 tions of thankfulness like those of the parched wan- 
 derer in the. desert, when he hears the murmur of
 
 188 BATTLE ECHOES, 
 
 the fountain, and sees before him the cool verdure 
 of the oasis ? What angels have these organizations 
 been to our suffering heroes ! How often have their 
 kindly offices cheered them on the weary march, 
 revived them after the exhaustion of the fight, 
 soothed them in sickness and pain ! Such is the 
 perfection of their arrangements, such the breadth 
 and amplitude of their scope, that they reach the 
 most distant point to which our forces have pene- 
 trated, and cover the whole expanse of the war. 
 Wherever want is to be found, there their ministra- 
 tions extend. Hundreds of earnest, self-denying 
 men, acting as their delegates and representatives, 
 carry supplies to the wounded on the field of battle 
 and in the hospitals, comfort them with words of 
 holy cheer, and point the dim eye of the dying to 
 Christ and heaven. No language can adequately 
 set forth the value of the merciful work thus per- 
 formed, and no arithmetic can grasp the full meas- 
 ure of its results. We know that, in this way, 
 eighty millions of dollars, the free gift of the peo- 
 ple, have been expended in relieving our sick and 
 wounded soldiers. But who shall reckon up the 
 number of precious lives which this expenditure has 
 saved, or estimate the amount of suffering it has 
 prevented or assuaged ? Go to the bloody field of 
 Gettysburg. Survey the frightful scenes which fol- 
 lowed the Battles of the Wilderness. See hosts of
 
 THE LAND CASING FOB ITS DEFENDERS. 189 
 
 helpers flocking from every part of the land to 
 these high places of Slaughter, clergymen, law- 
 yers, physicians, merchants, all eager to render 
 aid ; searching for the wounded among heaps of the 
 slain ; bearing them to the hospital-tents ; adminis- 
 tering cordials ; distributing food ; watching by the 
 couch of agony ; consoling the departing with prayer 
 and Christian hope, and receiving their farewell 
 messages to the dear ones they will -see no more. 
 In such humane labors we have but a specimen of 
 what these institutions have been doing all through 
 the war. 
 
 But the most important feature of this noble work 
 may be seen in its religious bearings. The efforts 
 which have been made, in connection with it, for the 
 spiritual good of the soldiers, constitute its chief in- 
 terest, and its brightest renown. Here the Chris- 
 tian Commission has found a wide and open door. 
 Here has been its special province. It was the felt 
 need of more direct labor in this department that 
 led to its formation ; and faithfully has it sought to 
 fulfil the purpose of its originators. By its means, 
 the army has been largely supplied with Bibles and 
 religious books ; Sabbath schools have been estab- 
 lished, and meetings for preaching maintained, 
 whenever the state of military affairs would permit. 
 Every delegate has been a missionary, dispensing, 
 along with comforts for the body, the richer com-
 
 190 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 forts of heavenly Truth. Churches of every de- 
 nomination, all over the land, have sent their pas- 
 tors to visit the soldiers, and carry to them the 
 Bread of Life ; and many an eloquent apostle has 
 preached the word in the camps of the Potomac or 
 of the Tennessee, to larger and more eager gather- 
 ings than ever listened to his voice in the thronged 
 temples of the city. By these varied and continu- 
 ous labors, superadded to those of the regular chap- 
 lains, the Gospel has been brought into direct con- 
 tact with every division, and brigade, and regiment ; 
 and it is not extravagant to affirm that to multitudes 
 the means of salvation have been furnished more 
 abundantly, during their connection with the army, 
 than in any period of their former life. 
 
 As a consequence of this fact, a strong religious 
 element pervades the great body of the Union 
 forces. We say not that there are none among 
 them who are insensible to spiritual things. Many 
 desperate characters have entered the service ; and 
 these have been rendered more reckless and obdu- 
 rate by mutual influence and example. But it is 
 far otherwise with the majority. The constant pres- 
 ence of danger and death has produced an abiding 
 seriousness, and brought nigh the thought of God 
 and eternity. Never since the days of Cromwell's 
 Ironsides has there been an army with so much of 
 true piety in it never one in which the sanctions
 
 THE LAND CARING FOR ITS DEFENDERS. 191 
 
 of the Bible were so generally revered, and the au- 
 thority of the Divine law so fully recognized. There 
 is many a Havelock among the officers ; many a de- 
 vout Christian in the ranks. From many a tent 
 may be heard, in the still evening hour, the voice of 
 prayer and the hymn of praise. Many a sentinel, 
 as he treads his lonely beat under the watching stars, 
 lifts his heart to God. And many, very many, can 
 face the hottest fire with a courage as steadfast and 
 serene as that of the noble commander, 1 who, as he 
 led his division up the heights of Fredericksburg, 
 along which the rebel batteries poured their terrible 
 hail, being asked by a brother officer if he felt no 
 fear, gave this sublime answer : " I never go into 
 battle without seeming to see Christ above me in 
 the sky." 
 
 When the instrumentalities of the Gospel are 
 brought to bear upon masses of men in which 
 such elements exist, special displays of converting 
 grace may well be expected. Nor has this expecta- 
 tion been disappointed. In instances not few, the 
 power of the Divine Spirit has been signally mani- 
 fested, awakening great numbers from their care- 
 lessness, and bringing them in penitence and faith 
 to the feet of Jesus. During the period of inaction 
 that preceded the final advance on Richmond, an 
 extensive revival prevailed for months In the Army 
 
 1 Gen. Couch.
 
 192 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 of the Potomac ; and hundreds, who afterwards fell 
 in that fearful battle-march, were among the sub- 
 jects of the work, and had found eternal life 
 through the blood of the Lamb. Who but the 
 All-Knowing can tell how many souls went up, 
 amid the roar of earthly strife, to the realms of 
 everlasting peace, guided thither by the instructions 
 which they had received from the Christian teacher ; 
 or how .many, left mangled and bleeding in the 
 dense thickets of the Wilderness, cut off from mor- 
 tal succor, and slowly perishing with thirst and hun- 
 ger, were thus enabled to gaze with trustful eyes 
 upon the calm heaven above them, till death dis- 
 missed their spirits to the rest of the glorified? 
 One such instance would more than repay all the 
 efforts that have been devoted to the moral welfare 
 of the soldier. What, then, should be our esti- 
 mate of the work which the Commission has accom- 
 plished, when we consider that thousands are now 
 among the saved on high, and thousands among the 
 renewed below, who were rescued by its agency 
 from guilt and ruin ? 
 
 The cursory view which we have taken of what 
 the nation is doing for its armies, naturally suggests 
 the inquiry, by what principle, or combination of 
 principles, a result so great and beneficent has been 
 achieved. It might, perhaps, on a hasty glance, be 
 deemed sufficient to ascribe it to the humanizing
 
 THE LAND CAKING FOR ITS DEFENDERS. 193 
 
 influence of Christianity alone. Yet, to those who 
 look deeper, this answer will not appear entirely 
 satisfactory. Countries, whose Christianity is as ac- 
 tive and as controlling as our own, have carried on 
 wars without any such accompanying manifestations 
 of wide-reaching care for those whose blood has been 
 shed in their defence. Doubtless, the desire to do 
 good which the Gospel inspires, underlies this whole 
 movement, and gives to it impulse and vitality. 
 But there are subsidiary causes which must not be 
 overlooked. While the Christianity of the land is 
 at once the originating and the upholding power in 
 the grand exhibition which we witness, it is Chris- 
 tianity, not as we see it under despotic or monarchi- 
 cal governments, but as it develops its benign ten- 
 dencies in connection with republican institutions, 
 and amidst influences that harmonize with its spirit, 
 and afford scope for its broadest workings. In the 
 military systems of the Old World, the soldier is a 
 mere machine, a vitalized clod. He comes from 
 a class that has no political rights, and no interest 
 in the questions about which nations contend. He 
 fights for his government because he is hired to fight 
 for it, or because he is compelled to do so by author- 
 ity against which he has no resource. His thews and 
 sinews are regarded in the same light as cannon and 
 muskets and other munitions of war ; and when he 
 falls by disease or in battle, his death is regretted
 
 194 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 only as the loss of so much fighting material. But 
 the men who compose our armies are citizens, 
 our sons, brothers, neighbors, men who are fight- 
 ing to defend a Government which their suffrages 
 helped to create, and who have the same stake as 
 ourselves in the stupendous struggle. They have 
 gone out from us to save the nationality in which 
 we and they have equal franchises ; and when their 
 task is done, they will return, and be with us and 
 of us again. Hence the peculiar relation which 
 the soldiers sustain to the country has had no incon- 
 siderable share in awakening the general concern 
 felt on their behalf, and in calling forth the over- 
 flowing generosity with which their wants have been 
 met. Christian philanthropy has been quickened 
 and intensified by the claims of civic brotherhood. 
 Patriotism blends with religion ; and devotion to 
 freedom expresses itself by showering benefits on 
 the champions of freedom. How significant the 
 fact ! We hail it as the fruitage and the sign of 
 advancing civilization, showing that no people is so 
 humane, no land so just and noble, as that in which 
 a pure Gospel walks hand in hand with Liberty. 
 
 But however highly the country may value and 
 cherish its heroes, its munificence cannot surpass 
 their deservings. Our glorious Volunteers ! What 
 words can do them fitting honor ! What tribute of 
 sympathy and love can equal the debt which we
 
 THE LAND CASING FOB ITS DEFENDERS. 195 
 
 owe them ! Among all the mighty legions of migh- 
 ty empires on which the ages have looked, never 
 has so grand a host rushed to arms, in a cause so 
 holy, under an inspiration so exalted. As the Ro- 
 man matron, when commanded to show her treas- 
 ures, presented her sons, saying, "These are my 
 jewels ; " so, with greater truth and emphasis, may 
 America point to the vast and stalwart array of young 
 men thronging beneath her banner, and proclaim, 
 These are my Ornament, my Bulwark, my Hope ! 
 Under whatever aspect we view them, whether 
 in regard to their personal qualities, their sacrifices, 
 or their deeds, their claim to the gratitude and 
 admiration of the present and of coming genera- 
 tions, will appear manifest and indisputable. Con- 
 template their character. The traitors of the South, 
 and their English abettors and allies, have asserted 
 that the armies of the Union are made up chiefly of 
 "base hirelings," the " scum" of our great cities and 
 of foreign countries. Lying lips never uttered a 
 viler falsehood. A few of this class , gathered from 
 the slums of vice and the haunts of debauchery, 
 have been sent forward as substitutes, in the vain 
 expectation of manufacturing them into soldiers. 
 But they have proved far more expert at deserting 
 than at fighting ; and their number is so small in 
 comparison as not to afiect the general estimate. 
 The main bulk of our troops is composed of the
 
 196 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 best blood of the land its very bone and sinew 
 farmers and farmers' sons, mechanics, tradesmen 
 choice contributions of youthful vigor from every 
 industrial pursuit, and from every social condition. 
 And while representatives of other nationalities stand 
 by their side, nobly battling for the country of their 
 adoption, yet the overwhelming majority in all our 
 armies are natives of the soil. "Hirelings" are 
 they ! Mercenaries, fighting only for pay and plun- 
 der, and caring nothing for the great principles at 
 issue ! Away with the foul slander ! Had money 
 been their object, they could have found it far more 
 abundantly and safely in civil avocations than in 
 the gory fields of war. No, no ! Human records 
 contain no instance of devotion more unselfish, of 
 patriotism more unbought, than that of the men 
 who are waging the deadly strife with treason and 
 rebellion. They have heard their country's call ; 
 they have seen their country's danger ; they have 
 comprehended the magnitude of the crisis ; and, 
 with purpose as high as their hearts are brave, they 
 have hastened to the rescue. For this they have left 
 homes and altars, fathers and mothers, brothers and 
 sisters, wives and children, all that they love, 
 all that love them, to encounter the privations 
 and diseases of the camp, and face death in its 
 most hideous forms. The motive that impels them 
 is not gain nor ambition, but reverence for Justice,
 
 THE LAND CARING FOR ITS DEFENDERS. 197 
 
 consecration to the Eight. Freedom, Humanity, 
 the wrongs of the lowly these nerve their arms 
 in the fierce heat of the conflict; and these, when 
 they fall, mingle with their last thought of home, and 
 their last prayer to the All-Righteous One in whose 
 cause they die . " Hirelings ! " Not Leonidas and his 
 Spartans, not Tell and his Switzers, were truer and 
 loftier of soul. Honor to the Volunteers, living or 
 dead ! May their patriotic zeal and their martyr 
 spirit never be forgotten ! 
 
 * The hardships which they are undergoing for their 
 country's sake merit all, and more than all, the coun- 
 try can do for them. Who but a soldier can fitly 
 describe the toil and discomfort of the soldier's life ? 
 The very nature of his calling subjects him to in- 
 cessant labor and sacrifice. Exposed to all changes 
 of weather and all vicissitudes of climate, to scorch- 
 ing suns by day and chilling damps by night ; often 
 without food or shelter, harassed by fatigue, and 
 drenched by tempests, how are his powers of endur- 
 ance tasked to the utmost ! Now, out on the distant 
 picket, he watches through the long and dreary 
 night, shivering with cold, and pelted by the driv- 
 ing hail ; nor dares once to close his eyes, lest the 
 lurking foe should steal on him by surprise. Now, 
 in some hurried march, he struggles forward, over 
 mountain and gorge, through tangled swamps, and 
 swollen rivers, and deep mire, sweltering under his
 
 198 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 heavy musket and haversack, till darkness falls, 
 and, famished and exhausted, he sinks down to rest 
 upon the bare ground. Now he mingles in the 
 stern tumult of battle rushing from point to point 
 in the rapid evolutions of the fight up the cliff, 
 down the ravine in the charge, in the retreat, in 
 the pursuit amid smoke, and roar, and flame 
 faint with hunger, parched with thirst, stifled with 
 heat and dust till his strained energies can bear 
 no more. Now, wounded and bleeding, he is left 
 on the field to wait, through weary hours and days* 
 of anguish, for the help which is so long oh ! so 
 long in coming. And now he is stretched on a 
 narrow cot in the hospital, racked with pain and 
 fever, with no loved voice to cheer him, and no hand 
 of wife or sister to wipe the death-drops from his 
 brow. All this he endures for us. He goes to the 
 war that we may remain at home ; toils that we 
 may rest ; sleeps on the frozen earth that we may 
 sleep securely in our beds of down ; braves danger 
 that we may be in safety ; invades the enemy that 
 the enemy may not invade us ; dies that we may 
 live. And shall we not care for them who thus 
 care for us, and are preserving, at such fearful cost, 
 all that we hold precious ? Must not every manly, 
 every Christian sentiment invoke us to a just ap- 
 preciation of their sacrifices, and to earnest endeav- 
 ors to alleviate, as far as we may, their sharpness
 
 THE LAND CARING FOR ITS DEFENDERS. 199 
 
 and severity ? Withered be the hand that opens not 
 to their needs, and palsied be the tongue that is si- 
 lent in their praise ! 
 
 With an emphasis not less potent, the achieve- 
 ments of our defenders demand from us the tribute 
 of grateful regard. Do you ask what they have 
 done ? Done ! They have saved the nation, 
 saved it from a death of violence and shame, and 
 opened before it a new life, and a brighter career 
 than nation ever trod. Done ! They have saved 
 'the Union from dismemberment, and established it 
 on a broader and more impregnable basis. Done ! 
 They have saved Freedom and Constitutional Gov- 
 ernment to us, to our children, and to mankind. 
 Done ! They have struck and shivered with their 
 bayonets the chains of four millions of slaves. 
 Done ! What have they not done that the awful 
 exigency required? But for them, vain would have 
 been the wisdom of the statesman, vain the zeal 
 of the patriot. But for them, all would have been 
 lost ; Treason would have triumphed ; and our na- 
 tional unity, our material progress, our political and 
 social blessings, our industry, our wealth, our rights, 
 our altars, our homes, would have sunk together in . 
 the gulf of anarchy or of despotism. They have 
 grappled the giant might of the Rebellion. They 
 have hurled it back. They have laid it prostrate 
 at their feet. Their work is nearly finished. One
 
 200 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 blow more, and it will be complete complete in 
 stupendous victory and everlasting fame. 
 
 And then they will return to their old places 
 among us, and mingle again in the scenes and activ- 
 ities of peace. Let the nation spread wide its 
 arms to embrace its deliverers. Eeceive them with 
 thanks and honors, with high festival and loud re- 
 joicings. With ringing bells, and waving banners, 
 and pealing artillery, ye celebrated their outgoing. 
 With demonstrations more glad and exulting, cele- 
 brate their " Welcome Home." Study to promote 
 their interests. Open to them avenues of employ- 
 ment. Cherish them ever as the saviours of their 
 country, its strength, and its glory. 
 
 They will return but, alas ! not all. A mighty 
 host will come back no more. They lie in bloody 
 graves all over the Southern land, guarding the soil 
 which their swords have won, and holding it in trust 
 for Freedom. But their memory can never die. 
 It is with us a holy charge an immortal legacy. 
 It was a beautiful fancy of ancient Paganism, that 
 the good and brave were changed at death into 
 stars ; and that, whenever a hero left the earth, a 
 new star blazed out in the firmament. So is it with 
 our fallen sous and brothers. They have not per- 
 ished. They are translated fixed in the shining 
 arch of the moral heavens, among the illustrious 
 ones, of all climes and ages, who have died for the
 
 THE LAND CASING FOR ITS DEFENDERS. 201 
 
 Right. And there they are four hundred thou- 
 sand stars in the sky of Liberty stars never to 
 set, never to grow dim a glorious galaxy for gen- 
 erations to gaze at and worship, while centuries re- 
 volve. 
 
 " Four hundred thousand men, 
 
 The brave, the good, the true, 
 In tangled wood, in mountain glen, 
 On battle plain, in prison pen, 
 
 Lie dead for me and you ! 
 Four hundred thousand of the brave 
 Have made our ransomed soil their grave, 
 
 For me and you ! 
 
 Good friend, for me and you ! 
 
 " On many a bloody plain 
 
 Their ready swords they drew, 
 And poured their life-blood, like the rain, 
 A home, a heritage, to gain, 
 
 To gain for me and you ! 
 Our brothers mustered by our side, 
 They marched, and fought, and nobly died, 
 
 For me and you ! 
 
 Good friend, for me and you ! 
 
 " In treason's prison-hold, 
 
 Their martyr spirits grew 
 To stature like the saints of old, 
 While, amid agonies untold, 
 
 They starved for me and you ! 
 The good, the patient, and the tried, 
 Four hundred thousand men have died, 
 
 For me and you ! 
 
 Good friend, for me and you !
 
 202 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 " A debt we ne'er can pay 
 
 To them is justly due, 
 And to the nation's latest day 
 Our children's children still shall say, 
 
 ' They died for me and you! ' 
 Four hundred thousand of the brave 
 Made this, our ransomed soil, their grave, 
 
 For me and you ! 
 
 Good friend, for me and you ! "
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE DEEP PLEADING FOR ITS HEROES. 
 
 "THE DEEP UTTERED HIS VOICE." Hob. ill. 10. 
 
 deep uttered his voice ! " Aye, the deep 
 has a voice, and a meaning one too ; a voice 
 of many tones, and of various import. Who 
 that has stood beside it, on a still summer 
 night, while stars were shining above it, and 
 soft breezes floating over it, and gentle waves rip- 
 pling to the shore, has not heard its voice, low and 
 sweet, yet full of power, coming up from its far 
 abysses, whispering of hope and peace, and telling 
 of that glorious Being, of whose repose, infinitude 
 and eternity it is the emblem? Or who that has 
 looked on it when the tempest was abroad, lashing 
 it into wild tumult, has not felt, as he listened to its 
 roar, the force of the inspired words, " The floods 
 have lifted up their voice " ? Oh, eloquent is the 
 sea ! In all its ever-changing aspects, in calm and 
 in storm, flashing with sunshine, silvered with the 
 moon's milder beams, or rolling dark and mountain- 
 ous in its hour of wrath, it speaks a language alike
 
 204 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 solemn, mysterious, sublime preaching of Immen- 
 sity, declariug the Omnipotent. 
 
 But the sea has another voice, less majestic in- 
 deed, but not less impressive to the philanthropist 
 and the Christian the appeal which it sends forth 
 in behalf of its children. To a benevolent mind 
 the ocean is interesting, not only as it is in itself a 
 world of wonders, the grandest mirror of the Crea- 
 tor's power ; but also as it is the home of myriads 
 of human beings, whose lives are spent in travers- 
 ing its pathless solitudes. It is their sphere of 
 labor, the theatre of their exploits, the scene of 
 their cares, and joys, and sorrows. Its winds and 
 waves are their companions ; its soundless depths 
 too often their sepulchre. For these, its foster sons, 
 "the deep uttereth its voice." 
 
 Poets have told us that, on the far Indian coast, 
 there is a shell which, when held to the ear, repeats, 
 in low breathing murmurs, all the sounds of its na- 
 tive ocean. Such is the design of this chapter. 
 Its object is to respond to the sea to echo the cry 
 of the sailor. Let us, then, draw near, and listen 
 to the message which it brings from the expanse of 
 waters. 
 
 There is a voice of Complaint from the sea. No 
 class of men have conferred higher benefits on so- 
 ciety than mariners ; yet none have received from 
 it so little appreciation and reward. The men of
 
 THE DEEP PLEADING FOR ITS HEROES. 205 
 
 the land, engrossed by the busy activities of their 
 own sphere, and living in immediate contact with 
 the course of human development, are apt to regard 
 themselves as the chief agents of social progress, 
 and to look upon their brethren of the sea as bring- 
 ing to it no important contributions. But so far 
 from this being true, it may be asserted with confi- 
 dence that seamen have borne their full share in 
 those great achievements of peace and of war, 
 which have wielded so potent a ministry in improv- 
 ing the condition of our race. Who, with incred- 
 ible hardships and perils, amidst polar ice, and be- 
 neath tropic suns, has explored the briny waste, 
 and given new continents to man? The sailor. 
 Who, connecting nations otherwise separated by 
 impassable barriers, has diffused the light of arts, 
 science and civilization, and poured their blessings 
 over the world? The sailor. Who bears to dis- 
 tant lands the surplus products of our soil, and 
 brings back in return the riches of all climes 
 sweeping every coast, from the frozen North to the 
 golden South and the spicy East, to gather what- 
 ever can increase our wealth, or enhance the com- 
 fort and luxury of our homes? The sailor. Who, 
 when the invading foe hung on our shores, covering 
 every bay and harbor with his fleets, encountered 
 him on his own element, and bore " the star-span- 
 gled banner " in triumph over the waters ? The
 
 206 BATTLE ECHOES.' 
 
 sailor. And in the gigantic Rebellion of the South, 
 which has cost us such a fearful expenditure of 
 wealth and of blood to subdue, our obligations to 
 the sailor have been unspeakably augmented. It is 
 true that the position of the revolted States neces- 
 sarily confined the chief theatre of strife to the 
 land ; and hence the naval forces employed, though 
 vastly larger than at any former period, have been 
 small compared with the immense armies in the 
 field. Nevertheless, they have accomplished mag- 
 nificent results. No portion of the nation's defend- 
 ers has surpassed them in zeal and daring, and none 
 have rendered more effective aid in the overthrow 
 of treason, and in the final triumph of freedom and 
 justice. All through the war, the record of the 
 navy has been full of patriotic enthusiasm and noble 
 deeds. Had it done nothing else, its vigilance and 
 success in maintaining the blockade, shutting in the 
 Confederacy from outside help, and thereby hasten- 
 ing its fall, would alone have entitled it to the lasting 
 gratitude of the country. This, however, is but an 
 insignificant part of its achievements. To its prow- 
 ess we owe the splendid victories of Fort Henry, 
 of Port Royal, of New Orleans, of Mobile, of Fort 
 Fisher, and a long list of others that have contrib- 
 uted materially to bring about the grand consumma- 
 tion in which we rejoice. How often, when our 
 sky was the darkest, and disaster after disaster had
 
 THE DEEP PLEADING FOR ITS HEROES. 207 
 
 shrouded the land in doubt and gloom, has some 
 telling blow struck by the navy broken through the 
 cloud, and restored hope and confidence ! When 
 the tidings flashed over the country, that the terri- 
 ble Merrimac had entered Hampton Roads, sunk 
 two of our finest ships of war, and, having proved 
 herself invulnerable to the fire of all our batteries, 
 was waiting only for morning to renew the attack, 
 destroy our entire fleet, dismantle Fortress Monroe, 
 and plough her way out to sea, carrying destruction 
 to our cities, what anxiety and fear oppressed every 
 loyal heart ! But how great was the relief, how 
 jubilant the exultation, when fast upon the news of 
 evil and the omens of dread came the cheering in- 
 telligence that, during the night, the little Monitor 
 had crept into the bay, met the iron-ribbed monster, 
 and driven him back wounded and crippled to his 
 lair ! This is but one, out of the many instances 
 that might be cited, in which the timely presence 
 and the dauntless courage of the 'sailor have averted 
 impending danger, and changed defeat to victory. 
 In all the gulfs and estuaries that indent the rebel 
 territory, on all the rivers that intersect it, wher- 
 ever a gunboat could swim or a launch could pene- 
 trate, sailors have borne the Stars and Stripes, 
 scattering the foe with their huge artillery, turning 
 the tide of battle, and co-operating with our armies
 
 208 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 in re-establishing the authority of the Government 
 over all the insurgent domain. 
 
 Such and so important is the relation which sea- 
 men sustain to the public weal. So marked is their 
 influence on the prosperity of the country hi seasons 
 of quietness so faithful and strong the shield 
 which they interpose for its defence in seasons of 
 peril. And what, in most cases, has been their re- 
 ward? Abuse, degradation, on the sea; neglect, 
 scorn, robbery, on the land. A few, placed in sit- 
 uations of command, have been caressed and hon- 
 ored. But the common mass, the real authors of 
 all these benefits, the men by whose patient labors 
 Discovery has visited every green isle of the ocean, 
 and social improvement spread itself over the earth, 
 from whose sacrifices and dangers Commerce has 
 drawn its life from whose blood Victory has 
 plumed her eagle wing, have been undervalued or 
 forgotten. Satisfied with reluctantly doling out to 
 them their scanty wages, or the trivial remnants of 
 prize-money left from the hands of lawyers and 
 courts and officials, society has felt itself absolved 
 from all further obligation, and has quietly aban- 
 doned them to the caprice of tyrants on board, and 
 to the mercy of sharpers on shore. Paltry and fee- 
 ble are the efforts that have, been made to redress 
 their wrongs ; to improve their physical condition ; 
 to elevate them intellectually, socially, morally ; or
 
 THE DEEP PLEADING FOR ITS HEROES. 209 
 
 to render them, in any respect, a return suited to 
 the magnitude of their services. Even during the 
 war, while the navy has been covering itself with 
 glory, and the brows of commodores and admirals 
 are crowned with laurel, and their names celebrated 
 in song, and their deeds justly extolled by the plau- 
 dits of a grateful people, how little has been thought 
 of the sailor, the toiling, fighting sailor, through 
 whom they have won their renown ? Who has re- 
 hearsed his exploits ? Who has told how he trained 
 and pointed his heavy guns on the bloody deck, and 
 stood fearlessly at his post, while shot and shell 
 were crashing around him ? Here and there an in- 
 stance of heroism may have awakened public regard, 
 like that of the brave tars on the Cumberland, who, 
 when the ship was sinking, and most of her guns 
 were under water, refused to leave her till they had 
 fired another broadside at the enemy, and so went 
 down with her into the engulfing waves. But over 
 the vast multitude of such acts the silence of obliv- 
 ion has been suffered to fall ; and the only guerdon 
 which their authors have received is the conscious- 
 ness of having performed them. There has been a 
 similar indifference with respect to their necessities 
 and their sufferings. For the welfare of our sol- 
 diers the sympathies of the whole nation have been 
 enlisted. Treasure has flowed forth like water to 
 supply them with comforts which the regulations of
 
 210 LATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 the Government did not provide. Sanitary and 
 Christian Commissions have been organized to care 
 for their wants, with a breadth of design, and an 
 amplitude of resources, never before seen in the 
 history of the world. Fair hands, and countless 
 hands, have toiled day and night to furnish them 
 with clothing. Women have left their homes, phy- 
 sicians their practice, clergymen their flocks, to 
 nurse the sick, tend the wounded, and preach the 
 Gospel in the camps. The benevolence of the laud 
 has poured itself out in a mighty stream to minister 
 to the needs of the army. And the army has well 
 deserved it. Too much has not been done, too 
 much cannot be done, for the men who have gone to 
 the tented field in obedience to their country's call. 
 But by what strange oversight is it that the sailor, 
 equally self-sacrificing, equally meritorious, has 
 found no place in these demonstrations of kindness ? 
 "Why has he been shut out from the solicitudes and 
 benefactions of the nation? Why have no earnest, 
 comprehensive endeavors been put forth to mitigate 
 his privations, and promote his temporal and spirit- 
 ual well-being? However this remissness may be 
 explained, it cannot be excused. Xor can we evade 
 the responsibility which rests upon us to do what 
 we can to repair it. We owe a vast debt to sailors 
 a debt which it is high time we should begin to 
 pay. And to enforce this claim, the sea, in every
 
 THE DEEP PLEADING FOR ITS HEROES. 211 
 
 swelling gale and sounding billow, sends forth its 
 summons. By the dead that sleep in its bosom, by 
 the living that wander upon it, by the memory of 
 their glorious deeds, by all the benefits which the 
 children of the Deep have lavished on the children 
 of the Land, it calls upon us to cancel the long ar- 
 rears which ages of neglect have run up against us. 
 There is a voice of Want from the sea. It has 
 been supposed by many, that mariners can have no 
 necessities but such as are common to mankind at 
 large, and that the general benevolence which seeks 
 the good of the whole, is adequate for them. But 
 the sailor is a peculiar being. He resembles no 
 other. The very nature of his pursuits renders him 
 unique in all his habits, thoughts, and feelings. He 
 has mental and moral characteristics, social and re- 
 ligious privations, intellectual and spiritual needs, 
 incident to himself alone. Even his physical state 
 is not only inferior to that of the humblest denizen 
 of the laud, but in some essential features different 
 from it. Compelled to feed on the coarsest fare, 
 served in the rudest manner ; exposed, in the vicis- 
 situdes of his changeful life, to all the extremes of 
 heat and cold, thirst and hunger ; the victim often 
 of oppression and violence from arbitrary power, 
 a power against which he has no remedy at hand, 
 and but an uncertain' one in prospect, he has a 
 special claim on us for relief and protection.
 
 212 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 But it is pre-eminently for his inind and his heart 
 that our sympathy should be enlisted, and our ener- 
 gies called into action. Taken perhaps when a 
 mere child from the fostering care of the parental 
 roof, or from the neglect and desolation of orphan- 
 age, and committed to the companionship and 
 training of men as wild and rough as the winds they 
 encounter, what could you expect him to become 
 but the brutal and reckless creature which he fre- 
 quently is ? Is it wonderful that Ignorance should 
 mark him for its own, Superstition bind its fetters 
 round him, and Defiance, uniting with Despair, 
 render him dead to all self-respect, and heedless 
 alike of the interests of this world and of that which 
 is to come ? What else could be looked for from 
 the tuition to which he has been subjected ? 
 
 "Will it be said that he may, by his own unassisted 
 efforts, or through ordinary aids, ameliorate his 
 condition, and raise himself in the scale of intelli- 
 gence and happiness ? But how is he to do this ? 
 Where are the means" appropriate or accessible to 
 him ? What avails it to him that sources of instruc- 
 tion, temples of worship, and all the appliances 
 of mental and religious culture, are multiplied 
 throughout the land? Lone and insulated, he 
 stands apart from them all. He is not a dweller on 
 the land. The greatest portion of his existence is 
 passed in buffeting the surge and the storm, far
 
 THE DEEP PLEADING FOR ITS HEROES. 213 
 
 away from these benign instrumentalities. When, 
 at intervals, he does visit the haunts of men, it is 
 only to be cheated and plundered, seduced into 
 worse temptations, and made more depraved and 
 wretched than before. And, to crown the evils of 
 his lot, Hope, the grand Uplifter, Hope, the in- 
 spirer of high thoughts and noble endeavors,- is an 
 exile from his breast. He cannot rise, for he 
 cannot hope. 
 
 In behalf of this isolated class specific exertions 
 are demanded. It is our imperative duty to pro- 
 vide and sustain in operation a series of agencies 
 adapted to their circumstances, and commensurate 
 with their wants. In every naval station, in every 
 resort of seamen, fitting accommodations should be 
 furnished, where they may be safe from the arts of 
 those who, for their own purposes, would lead them 
 to ruin. Schools and Libraries should be estab- 
 lished for their improvement. Places of worship 
 should be set apart, and a competent ministry main- 
 tained, whose labors shall be devoted to their espe- 
 cial service. In a word, all the apparatus of benev- 
 olence and of piety must be brought to bear di- 
 rectly on their present and their eternal well-being. 
 Nor should we limit our solicitude to the periods of 
 their transient residence on shore, but seek to sup- 
 ply them when on the deep with every means of re- 
 ligious instruction which it is possible to place
 
 214 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 within their reach. Thus ought we to follow with 
 the tokens of our zeal and of our love the path of 
 those who are "separate from their brethren." 
 
 There is a voice of Sorrow from the sea. Ardent 
 youth in the spirit of rash adventure, and poets who 
 have a license to misrepresent all things, love to 
 paint a sea-faring life in colors of unreal beauty. 
 Thus Byron makes his Corsair exclaim, 
 
 " O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea, 
 Our thoughts as boundless, and our souls as free, 
 Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam, 
 Survey our empire, and behold our home. 
 Ours the wild life in tumult still to range 
 Prom toil to rest, and joy in every change. 
 Oh, who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried, 
 And danced in triumph o'er the waters wide, 
 The exulting sense, the pulse's maddening play, 
 That thrills the wanderer of that trackless way? " 
 
 But had Byron, with all his instinctive fondness for 
 the sea, been a sailor before the mast, his verse 
 would have borne a very different burden. It is, 
 indeed, a kind ordination of Providence, that the 
 human mind, however painful the situation in which 
 it may be placed, becomes at length familiar with 
 its ills, and in a measure insensible to their pressure. 
 And it is also true that sailors, as a class, are pro- 
 verbially thoughtless and void of care. Still, it 
 may be confidently asserted that " life on the ocean 
 wave," notwithstanding the charm which novelty
 
 THE DEEP PLEADING FOR ITS HEROES. 215 
 
 may throw around it, is, in most instances, replete 
 with hardships. The very banishment from society, 
 the severance from domestic ties and enjoyments 
 which it imposes, is in itself a source of constant 
 and severe affliction. The sailor may be vicious 
 and degraded ; but he is never unfeeling. On the 
 contrary, his affections appear to be rendered even 
 more keen and active from the deprivations to 
 which they are subjected. What, then, must he 
 not suffer in that continual separation from kindred 
 and home which his calling demands? Forced to 
 part from all the cherished objects of his love, un- 
 certain what may befall them in his absence on the 
 long and dangerous voyage, how must his heart 
 bleed, as the winds bear him away ! And when the 
 storm comes down in its wrath, and death yawns 
 beneath him, with what agony must he think of the 
 dear ones whom he may see no more ! Or if, with 
 no such connections, he is cast solitary on the 
 waters, to float, like a lone weed, wherever the 
 breeze and the tide may carry him, what isolation, 
 what desolateness, must he not feel ! 
 
 Add to these trials the physical sufferings which 
 fall to his lot. Now, drenched and shivering, he 
 keeps the midnight watch. Now he climbs the 
 frozen and slippery rigging, amidst driving sleet 
 and the howling of the tempest. Now he endures 
 the extremity of famine. Now, wasted with wounds
 
 216 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 or sickness, he lies in the dark forecastle, or in some 
 gloomy hospital, with no mother's or sister's hand 
 to smooth his pillow, and wipe his fevered brow. 
 Xowhe is shipwrecked, and thrown destitute among 
 strangers, or exposed in an open boat, without food 
 or drink, to scorching suns by day, and piercing 
 cold by night drifting on and on, over the wide, 
 wide ocean vainly watching for some friendly sail 
 and proving, in its fullest bitterness, that sick- 
 ness of the heart which spriugeth from " hope de- 
 ferred." Oh, "there is sorrow on the sea." 
 
 But there is a sharper grief which sometimes 
 rends the bosom of the sailor. It is the sting of 
 Conscience, the pang of undying remorse. He 
 often becomes dissolute and abandoned, and plunges 
 into the lowest depths of debauchery. But he 
 cannot so steep himself in forgetfulness as to lose 
 all sense of his guilt and shame. The days of his 
 early innocence, of his father's counsels and his 
 mother's prayers, come back to him, like accusing 
 spirits from the grave. Regret for what he was, 
 loathing of what he is, dread of what he may be, till 
 him with indescribable anguish. Oh, think not, as 
 you see him wallowing in licentiousness, raising the 
 shout of drunken revelry , and giving play to all his 
 unbridled passions, that he is too callous or too be- 
 sotted to know and feel his ruin. A man lying 
 among scorpions, or encircled by fire, is more at
 
 THE DEEP PLEADING FOR ITS HEROES. 217 
 
 ease than he. His breast is the abode of torturing 
 thoughts and secret woes, which it needs but a 
 touch to call forth. 
 
 By all these manifold sorrows we are invoked 
 to come to the help of the mariner. In tones of 
 piercing entreaty, they conjure us to commiserate 
 his griefs, to relieve his distresses, to pluck him 
 from the grasp of the destroyer, and, by pouring on 
 his mind the light and hopes of the Gospel, seek to 
 bring him, when his stormy voyage is ended, to that 
 secure and blissful Haven, where every pain will be 
 forgotten, every joy consummated, in eternal Peace. 
 
 There is a voice of Danger from the sea. In no 
 calling is life so precarious as in that of the sailor. 
 Its average term is shorter with this class than with 
 any other. Not even to the soldier in the field of 
 war does death come with so swift and sure a step 
 as to the mariner on the deep. Destruction threat- 
 ens him in a thousand shapes, and pursues him, with 
 relentless purpose, through all his career. The dis- 
 eases of the various climates which he visits stand 
 ready to seize him as their prey. The slightest 
 miscalculation of his course the fall of a mast 
 a sudden leak a hidden rock fire, wind, or the 
 lightning of heaven may at any moment cut short 
 his existence. Afloat on a treacherous element, with 
 only a frail plank between him and the abyss, he 
 has death ever beneath, above, and around him.
 
 218 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 All this should incite us to do quickly whatever is 
 to be done for his good, lest, while we linger, he 
 pass beyond our sight to the scene of everlasting 
 retribution. 
 
 But these dangers that so thickly beset him are 
 only a type of the far greater moral perils by which 
 he is encompassed. Indeed, the critical position in 
 which his own " home of oak " is often placed, will 
 furnish the fittest emblem of the hazards to which 
 his immortal interests are exposed. See that ship, 
 rocking in the hurricane, on a lee shore, with quick- 
 sands under her keel, and breakers on every side ! 
 Her anchors may be strong, her timbers stanch, her 
 bearing noble and gallant. But, unless some mighty 
 deliverance interpose, she must inevitably perish. 
 Similar is the spiritual jeopardy that environs the 
 sailor. Like all his fellow-men, he is by nature a 
 sinner, and liable as such to final condemnation. 
 Nothing can avert from him this doom but faith in 
 the blood of Christ faith wrought in his heart by 
 the Spirit of Grace, and leading him to repentance 
 and a holy life. But how many obstacles combine, 
 in his case, to prevent such a result ! From the 
 ordinary means of salvation he is, for the 'most part, 
 withdrawn ; while, at the same time, he is brought 
 into close and peculiar contact with the agencies of 
 evil. On ship-board, there may be no teacher of 
 truth to whisper in his ear the word of advice and
 
 THE DEEP PLEADING FOR ITS HEROES. 219 
 
 warning. But he is sure to have vicious compan- 
 ions, ready to infect him with their poison, and lure 
 him into sin and profligacy. On shore, few may be 
 found to guide him to the house of God, and point 
 him to the Fountain of Life. But deceivers are 
 certain to lie in wait at every corner to ensnare and 
 betray him. Here, the siren voices of Pleasure 
 allure him to her deadly embrace. There, Infidel- 
 ity hangs out its false lights, to draw him on the 
 shoals of Doubt and Delusion. Here, the vender 
 of intoxicating drinks throws open his moral pest- 
 house, to invite him to taste the cup of madness 
 and woe ; and there, the theatre, that vestibule of 
 Hell, solicits him to enter its polluted iuclosure, and 
 witness scenes whose catastrophe is the loss of the 
 soul. Thus, while angels of grace and ministers of 
 mercy seldom come within his sphere, the black 
 demons of seduction and ruin constantly hover 
 about his path, and flap over him their death-dis- 
 tilling wings. Oh, how terrible is the state of the 
 poor sailor, with all these engines of destruction at 
 work upon him, and conspiring with his own de- 
 pravity to drag him down to the pit ! 
 
 But the greater his danger, the more earnest 
 should be our effort to save him. If you saw him 
 on the point of being plunged into the waves, or 
 dashed on the rocks, how eagerly would you fly to 
 his aid ! And the more imminent his peril, the
 
 220 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 more prompt and vigorous would be your endeav- 
 ors. Such is our duty now. Men of God ! to the 
 rescue. Your brother of the sea is ready to perish. 
 He is falling. He is overboard. Man the life-boat. 
 Ply the oars. Throw out to him the Gospel. Cease 
 not, till, by the blessing of God, he is brought to 
 the firm ground of scriptural safety. 
 
 There is a voice of Hope from the sea. Signs of 
 promise greet us, heralding the dawn of a brighter 
 day for the sailor. The gloom of neglect and de- 
 basement, that has for centuries hung over him, is 
 passing away. Philanthropy, instead of regarding 
 him as a Pariah, sunk by his vices below her reach, 
 has awoke to a sense of his needs, and is devising 
 plans to elevate and bless him. Christian benevo- 
 lence and Christian zeal have stretched out their 
 arms to embrace him. Many hearts mourn his 
 degradation. Many hands are striving to lift him 
 up. In all the chief centres of Commerce, in every 
 rendezvous of ships, instrumentalities are at work 
 for his recovery. Beside the Custom House and 
 the Exchange, beside the Navy Yard and the Re- 
 ceiving Ship, stand the Seaman's Home and the 
 Seaman's Chapel; and Bethel flags, like Banners 
 of Salvation, are streaming over the waters. The 
 happy effects on his condition and on his character 
 are already manifest, and are full of encouragement. 
 On the distant main, he hears the glad tidings ; and
 
 THE DEEP PLEADING FOR ITS HEROES. 221 
 
 joy kindles in his eye, and on his weather-stained 
 cheek -glistens the tear of gratitude. He rises up 
 from his despondency. He no longer feels himself 
 an outcast, cut off from the sympathies of his spe- 
 cies wandering ever with the ban of exile upon 
 him toiling for all owned and cherished by 
 none. As he walks the deck, in the deep hush of 
 night, beneath the stars of other zones, he thinks 
 of the friends far away who watch for his welfare ; 
 and, in the consciousness that there are those who 
 love him and would do him good, the rock melts 
 from his nature, and despair leaves his soul. And 
 we cannot doubt that, through the exertions now 
 made, and the more comprehensive and energetic 
 ones which, we trust, will yet be made, this whole 
 forsaken class shall be gathered into the fold of 
 the Universal Shepherd. The docility, generosity, 
 frankness, and warm sensibility, which so strikingly 
 distinguish the sailor, render him peculiarly acces- 
 sible to Christian influence, and a most hopeful sub- 
 ject for its exercise. And, more than all, the Word 
 of inspired Truth has expressly foretold his redemp- 
 tion. It is announced, as one of the earliest links 
 in that sublime series of events which is to usher in 
 the final triumph of the Church, that "the abun- 
 dance of the sea shall be converted unto her." The 
 fulfilment of this prophecy is already begun. Al- 
 ready have the laborers in this field brought home
 
 222 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 the first ripe sheaves with rejoicing. And we be- 
 lieve that what we now see is but the commence- 
 ment of a long chain of efforts and successes, that 
 shall go on ever increasing, until the empire of the 
 sea shall be conquered for Christ. 
 
 Then shall the sons of the ocean unite with the 
 sons of the land in spreading the knowledge of the 
 Saviour's grace. Hitherto, one of the greatest ob- 
 stacles in the work of evangelizing the Heathen has 
 been the vicious conduct of seamen from Christian 
 countries, and the unfavorable impression which 
 they have given of the Gospel. Thus, as in the 
 Apocalyptic Vision, "the flood has warred against 
 the Church." But when mariners shall be con- 
 verted, "the flood," as well as "the earth" shall 
 " help her," and extend her reign. The multitude 
 of those that go down to the sea in ships, and do 
 business in the great waters, shall become messen- 
 gers of mercy, publishing on the wings of every 
 wind the news of salvation. And oh ! what victo- 
 ries will the Gospel win, when navigation shall thus 
 be consecrated to its service ; when every dockyard 
 and harbor shall be holy ground, every sailor a mis- 
 sionary, and every vessel that swims a Bethel, wav- 
 ing from its mizzen peak the Flag of Redemption, 
 and bearing the name of Jesus over the world-en- 
 circling deep ! Gloriously will the Cross then tri- 
 umph: and swift, swift will be the flight of the
 
 THE DEEP PLEADING FOR ITS HEROES. 223 
 
 Angel, proclaiming its atoning Sacrifice to all the 
 kindreds of men. And when the blest consumma- 
 tion shall at length arrive ; when Messiah shall re- 
 ceive His appointed kingdom, and introduce the 
 Jubilee of this long scourged and groaning crea- 
 tion, banishing from it every stain of sin and every 
 sound of woe ; then shall the voice of the ransomed 
 Sea, and the voice of the recovered Earth, combine 
 with the voice of a holy heaven, to swell the grand, 
 eternal chorus, "ALLELUIA, FOR THE LORD GOD 
 OMNIPOTENT REIGNETH."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MEMORIES AND LESSONS. 
 
 " I WILL REMEMBER THE YEARS OF THE RIGHT HAUD OF THE MOST 
 
 HIGH." Psalm Ixxvu. 10. 
 
 following the course of a river, we often find 
 it flowing on for many miles with a smooth and 
 uniform current, and without any striking in- 
 crease of volume or change in its direction. 
 Nor is there any marked difference in the 
 scenery through which it passes. We meet along 
 its banks the same succession of soft meadows and 
 gently sloping hills the same expanse of culti- 
 vated country, dotted with farmhouses and villages, 
 and presenting a picture as serene as its own placid 
 waters. But, after a tune, we enter a wilder re- 
 gion. The mountains come nearer, and rise up in 
 rugged grandeur. The river grows narrower, deep- 
 er, swifter. Instead of gliding peacefully on its 
 way, with a surface so calm and still that a child's 
 boat might venture upon it, it becomes rough and 
 turbulent, lashing the shores in its wrath, dashing 
 against rocks, foaming among rapids, till it plunges,
 
 MEMORIES AND LESSONS. 225 
 
 in spray and thunder, down the cataract. Looking 
 at it now, as it shoots like an arrow through the 
 gorge, or leaps in its noisy might over the precipice, 
 we can scarcely believe it the same which a little 
 while ago we saw moving so slowly and silently. 
 Yet not only is it the same, but it was back among 
 those tranquil scenes that its flood gathered strength 
 for the conflict which we witness. Every falling 
 shower, every spring breaking out from the hillside, 
 eveiy little brook stealing through the valley, fed 
 and replenished it, till it acquired a body and a 
 force whose impetuous ongoing nothing can with- 
 stand. We wonder at the power of the angry tor- 
 rent. But the power was in the river before ; the 
 cliff and the defile have merely called forth and dis- 
 played it. 
 
 So in the stream of Divine Providence there are 
 long stretches of repose and quietness. The tide of 
 events, perhaps for centuries, moves on with an 
 even and almost imperceptible progress. There are 
 no upheavals, no abrupt turnings, no sudden hasten- 
 ing forward to great social and moral revolutions. 
 To mortal view, God seems to have forsaken the 
 earth, and left the current of human affairs to pursue 
 its course, without change and without disturbance. 
 But such a conception, however natural, is utterly 
 unfounded. Jehovah has not abandoned His cause, 
 nor ceased to fulfil His purposes in the world, when 
 
 15
 
 226 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 our unbelief can discover no visible proofs of His 
 interposition. Even in those very periods of appar- 
 ent inaction, when we think His hand withdrawn, 
 He is but preparing to stretch it out with more re- 
 sistless vigor collecting the instruments by which 
 He works turning into one channel all the scat- 
 tered rills of influence that permeate society, and 
 directing their united contributions toward the com- 
 ing issue. And then, when the river of His power 
 is full, we see the stir, the commotion, the rush of 
 the accumulated waters to their appointed outflow. 
 
 These great epochs of the world's history, in 
 which the interference of the Almighty has been 
 signally manifested, are referred to by the Psalmist, 
 as " the years of the right hand of the Most High." 
 The right hand of a man is the symbol of his 
 strength, and the organ by which that strength is 
 most commonly exerted. Hence, in the Scriptures, 
 the special forth-puttings of God's agency on earth 
 are figuratively ascribed to His right hand ; and the 
 times in which they occur, are denominated times 
 of His right hand. It is not, however, to be in- 
 ferred that the sacred writers intend to represent 
 the arm of Omnipotence as idle during all those 
 intervals, in which no startling exhibitions of its en- 
 ergy meet the eyes of men. That arm never rests, 
 is never weary, never intermits its manifold opera- 
 tions in the realms of Providence and of Grace. It
 
 MEMORIES AND LESSONS. 227 
 
 rolls round the wheels of the universe, and feeds 
 and upholds all the countless tribes of animated ex- 
 istence. The support of the feeblest insect that 
 lives its brief day and perishes, is as much its work 
 as the deliverance of an empire, or the marshalling 
 of the celestial orbs along their everlasting circuits. 
 Yet, as there are occasions on which the Almighty 
 departs from the ordinary methods of His proce- 
 dure, and displays His overruling presence under 
 new and more impressive forms, coming forth to 
 establish right, to defeat wrong, to punish the op- 
 pressor in a manner so distinct and emphatic as to 
 arrest the dullest mind, we may properly regard 
 these occasions as grand eras of Divine power. 
 
 Such eras there had been in the experience of the 
 nation over which David reigned. With mighty 
 signs and wonders, God had brought them out of 
 the house of bondage in Egypt, surrounded them 
 during their protracted wanderings in the wilder- 
 ness by miraculous manifestations of His care, led 
 them into the land of promise, subdued their ene- 
 mies before them, and settled them in secure and 
 peaceful homes. And often, in later generations, 
 when the environing hosts of the heathen threat- 
 ened to overwhelm them, and their very existence 
 as a people seemed trembling in the balance, the 
 same succoring Hand was revealed for their rescue. 
 The entire history of the Chosen Tribes was marked
 
 228 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 by similar features, and formed an almost unbroken 
 series of supernatural interventions. To these in- 
 stances of marvellous dealing the royal bard alludes ; 
 and how deeply they dwelt in his mind, how grate- 
 fully he reviewed them, how worthy of commemora- 
 tion he deemed them, appears from the frequency 
 with which he made them the burden of his inspired 
 song. 
 
 The year just closed has been to us and to our 
 country pre-eminently a "year of the right hand of 
 the Most High." In all the vast succession of years 
 that have passed over the earth since tune began, no 
 one, save that which hailed the coming of the Sav- 
 iour, can equal it in the greatness of its events, and 
 in their far-reaching influence on the destinies of our 
 race. Its circling months have been full of stupen- 
 dous developments developments not limited to 
 our own land and day, but extending to every land, 
 and to unborn generations. And throughout the ad- 
 vancing centuries, the transactions and results of 
 "the Great Rebellion," and its astounding close, 
 will tower up among the ages as grand peaks in hu- 
 man history, overtopped only by Bethlehem and 
 Calvary. From the high ground of repose and 
 safety on which we now stand, shall we not look 
 back upon these wonders of the Divine Hand, and 
 draw from the review the instruction which it is so 
 fitted to impart? On the memories and the les-
 
 MEMORIES AND LESSONS. 229 
 
 sons of the year let us fasten our thoughtful ponder- 
 ings. 
 
 One memory of the year, which must ever render 
 it conspicuous among the epochs of Jehovah's 
 power, is the final overthrow of the most atrocious 
 Conspiracy against Freedom and constitutional gov- 
 ernment, with which the earth's record is stained. 
 At the beginning of the period over which our ret- 
 rospect extends, that conspiracy, though wounded 
 and staggering, was still unconquered, still defiant. 
 For nearly four years we had been struggling, with 
 changeful fortunes, to subdue it ; now saddened 
 by repulses, now jubilant with victory. Treasure, 
 almost fabulous in amount, had been expended. 
 Battles had been fought whose magnitude aston- 
 ished the nations. Hundreds of thousands of our 
 bravest and noblest were lying in bloody graves. 
 Yet the triumph was not gained. Yet the fight 
 went on. Our sons and brothers were falling still, 
 and still others were going forth to fall. Thus the 
 new year found us still writhing and bleeding in the 
 fell encounter. Huge armies confronted each other. 
 Grant, beleaguering the rebel capital, watched for 
 the favorable moment to hurl a blow at the traitor 
 hordes, which we trusted would be crushing and de- 
 cisive. But the issue none could certainly foresee. 
 Sherman was on his wonderful march, and though 
 sweeping with the speed and havoc of a tornado
 
 230 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 through the very heart of the Confederacy, yet he 
 had vanished from our sight amid pathless swamps 
 and wild savannas, and we knew not what disasters 
 might have befallen him. There was progress, 
 there was hope. The ranks of the loyal were grow- 
 ing stronger ; the ranks of the disloyal were grow- 
 ing weaker. Yet doubt and gloom still hung in the 
 sky ; and no man could assuredly tell when the end 
 would come, or what it would be. 
 
 But the time was now ripe for the God of battles 
 to interpose. He had chastened us for our connec- 
 tion with the foul national iniquity that brought on 
 the war. He had purified us by trial, till we were 
 willing to uproot that iniquity, and cast it away. 
 He had humbled our self-confidence. He had 
 taught us dependence on Himself. He had 
 strengthened our love of country by compelling us 
 to venture all in the grapple for its life. The way 
 of His power having been thus prepared, we saw, 
 while the year was yet in its youth, His right hand 
 stretched out from heaven over the rebel host. 
 Sudden as the crash of thunder, the stroke descend- 
 ed, overwhelming, irrecoverable. We looked, and 
 lo ! the God-defying Babel which Slavery and Trea- 
 son had striven to rear, founded on chains, and ce- 
 mented with fratricidal blood, was shivered into 
 fragments. The House of Bondage was demol- 
 ished, and all its Upas timbers, State-rights, Seces-
 
 MEMORIES AND LESSONS. 231 
 
 sion, Caste, Property in Man, ground to powder. 
 The bloody Despotism of the oligarchs was dead, its 
 citadel taken, its legions disarmed and captive, its 
 officials dispersed, its mock chief flying from the 
 justice of an outraged nation soon to await that 
 justice in a felon's cell, and soon, we trust, to re- 
 ceive that justice in a felon's death. 
 
 That this magnificent result a result as rapid as 
 it was complete is to be attributed to the direct 
 agency of the Most High, no believer in His all-dis- 
 posing providence can hesitate to admit. The crisis 
 was one in which every perfection of His nature, 
 and every principle of His moral administration, de- 
 manded His interference. Our cause was His 
 the cause of law, of order, of human liberty and of 
 human progression ; and so, of Truth and Right- 
 eousness in the earth. We had not begun the con- 
 flict. It had been forced upon us, without provoca- 
 tion, and without the pretence of any, by the ambi- 
 tious leaders of the South, seeking to set up a sov- 
 ereignty in which the many should be the thralls of 
 the few, and where those few might riot in the lust 
 and violence of unbridled dominion. We were 
 compelled to decide between the alternatives of put- 
 ting clown the Rebellion by force of arms, or of see- 
 ing the Government destroyed, the Union dissolved, 
 and our nationality extinguished. Heaven-led, we 
 chose war war in its direst form, civil and inter-
 
 232 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 necine war protracted, sanguinary, all-wasting, as 
 we knew such a war must be yet war better and 
 holier than peace, when peace is bought by the sac- 
 rifice of all that patriotism and humanity hold dear. 
 Had we failed in the struggle, what words can paint 
 the evils that would have followed ? Or what re- 
 wards of inglorious submission could be deemed a 
 recompense for them ? This noble Republic, built 
 by the wisdom and prowess of our fathers, the 
 Home of Liberty the Refuge of the outcast the 
 Hope of down-trodden races, would have been 
 split into antagonistic and ever warring sections, 
 and made the byword of tyrants the scoff of the 
 privileged orders that have hated and feared it. 
 Amid the roar of intestine anarchy, and the perpet- 
 ual encroachments of the slave-power, free institu- 
 tions would have perished from the continent ; and 
 while their death-knell rung through the world, civ- 
 ilization and Christianity, the honor of God, and 
 the well-being of man, would have felt the shock, in 
 all lands, and for all time. Shall we not, then, ever 
 hold in vivid remembrance the year, in which the 
 right hand of the All-Merciful warded off from us a 
 catastrophe pregnant with consequences so deplora- 
 ble, and gave to our principles a new career of de- 
 velopment, and to our example a higher plane of 
 influence ?
 
 MEMORIES AND LESSONS. 233 
 
 " Did we dare, 
 
 In our agony of prayer, 
 Ask for more than He has done? 
 
 When was ever His right hand 
 
 Over any time or land 
 Stretched as now beneath the sun ? " 
 
 Another event of the year which ought never to 
 be forgotten, is the Restoration of Peace. Who can 
 recall the long and weary months during which the 
 war continued, without a feeling like that which we 
 experience at the recollection of some frightful 
 vision departed, some dread peril escaped, some 
 deadly agony past ? How sad were those days ! 
 Plow we rose up, calm and stern indeed, yet full of 
 sorrow, when the tidings came that traitorous guns 
 had dishonored our country's flag ; and from city 
 and hamlet, from mountain and valley, from lake 
 and prairie, the cry of a roused nation went forth 
 in its majesty ! How our hearts were wrung, what 
 tears we shed, what prayers burst from our lips, as 
 our young heroes left home and loved ones for the 
 gory fields where Freedom summoned them ! How 
 we watched and waited for the expected meeting 
 with the foe ! How we hoped for victory ! How 
 we were startled and appalled by defeat ! What 
 trembling and sickness of soul came over us, as the 
 woeful echoes of Bull Run and Ball's Bluff swept 
 through the land ! With what harrowing suspense
 
 234 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 we wore out the dreary winter, in which the omin- 
 ous words, "All quiet along the Potomac," alone 
 greeted our impatient ears ! How our courage 
 drooped at the disasters of the Peninsula, of Fred- 
 ericksburg and Chancellorsville ! With what anx- 
 ious eyes we scanned the lists of the killed and 
 wounded ; and what anguish pierced us, as we read 
 there the name of son, husband, brother, slain in the 
 bloody fray, or, -worse still, prisoners in the hells of 
 Libby or of Andersonville ! And though better 
 news, reports of battles won, of successes achieved, 
 sometimes came to cheer us, yet, as the contest 
 dragged slowly and painfully on ; as army after 
 army was exhausted, and levy after levy went forth 
 to take its place, and still the end seemed no nearer 
 what ceaseless solicitude hung upon us, banish- 
 ing sleep from our pillows, and joy from our fire- 
 sides ! Oh, those weary, weary years ! Can we 
 ever forget them ? 
 
 Thank God, they are gone gone, we trust, 
 never to come back. The conflict is ended, 
 ended by the triumph of the Right, and Peace 
 has returned. Oh, what delight swelled all hearts, 
 what gladness shone in all faces, when the glorious 
 fact first stood revealed to our long waiting eyes ! 
 It was as when mariners, tossed for many perilous 
 days and nights on the stormy deep, and driven 
 hither and thither by the tempest, reach at last a
 
 MEMORIES AND LESSONS. 235 
 
 secure haven, and see the still waters, and the 
 green infolding landscape spread out invitingly be- 
 fore them. It was as when the hurricane has gone 
 by, and the blue sides appear, and the sun- looks 
 down from a tranquil heaven, and the earth drinks 
 new life from its beams, and every plant and flower 
 sparkles with fresh loveliness. 
 
 " Oh! those were hours when thrilling joy repaid 
 The long, long days of darkness, doubts and fears, 
 The heart-sick faintness of the hope delayed, 
 The waste, the woe, the bloodshed, and the tears, 
 That marked the track of those four frightful years. 
 All were forgot in the great jubilee. 
 E'en wan affliction raised its downcast eye, 
 To sigh a thankful prayer amid the glee 
 That pealed the shout of triumph loud and high, 
 To hail thy battle won, O Liberty ! " 
 
 Yes, Peace has returned ! From Maine to Oregon, 
 from Canada to the Gulf, a redeemed nation rejoices 
 at her coming. Her glad song rings out from every 
 crag and hilltop, from every ocean-coast and far 
 western river. The ploughman sings it in his fur- 
 rowed field, the reaper as he gathers the golden 
 harvest. The merchant sings it at his desk, the 
 weaver at his loom, the smith at his anvil. Every 
 centre of business, every walk of occupation, re- 
 sounds with it ; and, at the life-giving music, In- 
 dustry and Commerce start up like giants refreshed.
 
 236 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 No more the land is drained of its productive forces 
 to fill the maw of all-devouring war. No more its 
 fertile plains are converted into deserts by fire and 
 rapine* No more the light of blazing homes flashes 
 on the midnight sky. No more are heard the tread 
 of marching hosts, and the shock of battle. No 
 more the fallen strew the ground like Autumn 
 leaves. No more the mother weeps for her dead 
 boy, lying cold and still when the fight is done, 
 with white face upturned to the silent stars. These 
 are things of the past. They have vanished, like a 
 horrid dream ; and, in their place, labor secure of 
 its reward, and revived enterprise, and unfettered 
 material and social improvement, go forth, chanting 
 hymns of deliverance, over the whole expanse of 
 our emancipated country. 
 
 To the right hand of the Most High we owe this 
 priceless blessing. He gave to our commanders 
 wisdom, to our soldiers courage and endurance, to 
 our people persistence and fortitude, till His direct- 
 ing agency had brought round that grand conjunc- 
 ture of widely converging plans and movements, 
 whose mighty folds enveloped and crushed the Re- 
 bellion. And then, from out the smoke and tur- 
 moil of the terrible arena, from amidst charging 
 squadrons, the roar of strife, and garments rolled 
 in blood, He led the smiling angel, Peace Peace, 
 not basely born of Concession and Compromise,
 
 MEMORIES AND LESSONS. 237 
 
 but the bright Daughter of Victory Peace, her- 
 alded by vindicated Authority and asserted Jus- 
 tice Peace glorified by the shame of her foes, 
 and rendered immortal by the utterness of their 
 overthrow. " Peace at any price " might have been 
 a fatal boon. But such a peace, a peace so safe, so 
 honorable, so free from submission to disloyal de- 
 mands, so fraught with securities for its perpetuity, 
 is a gift as ennobling as it is beneficent. And does 
 not the year, in which a propitious Heaven con- 
 ferred it upon us, deserve an illustrious place in the 
 calendar of the ages ? 
 
 One more memory of the year, which will make 
 it loom up in regal splendor to all after times, is 
 the Death of Slavery. Human chattelhood has 
 been the chief sin and scourge of our country. 
 Its admission ir.to the organic frame of the Govern- 
 ment was a fearful mistake a political crime 
 whose consequences have come down to us in a 
 deluge of evils increasing from year to year. The 
 wise and good men who formed the Constitution, 
 were induced to incorporate with it an element so 
 hostile to its great principles, and so abhorrent to 
 the very nature of free institutions, by the hope 
 that it would gradually die out and disappear under 
 the ameliorating tendencies of higher knowledge 
 and advancing civilization. But it was a yielding 
 to expediency that well-nigh destroyed the fabric
 
 238 BATTLE ECHOES, 
 
 they toiled so anxiously to erect. They little con- 
 sidered how enduring Wrong is, and how elastic 
 and far-spreading it becomes, when private greed 
 and public tolerance unite to furnish scope for its 
 expansion. Instead of quietly dying, Slavery soon 
 showed itself imbued with a terrible vitality, and a 
 power of extension that defied all attempts to cir- 
 cumscribe and restrain it. It grew, grew rapidly, 
 grew in the number and degradation of its victims, 
 grew in the richness of the prizes which it offered 
 to its patrons, grew in its besotting effects on the 
 national mind, grew in its demands for countenance 
 and support, until it became the dominant interest, 
 overshadowing all others, dictating the policy of 
 every administration, and controlling the entire 
 legislative and executive functions of the country. 
 From being a creeping, ignoble thing, hated by all, 
 confessing its own vileness, and asking only to live 
 till decay should complete the work already begun, 
 it suddenly sprung up into fearful vigor, assumed 
 the port and bearing of a virtue, vaunted itself a 
 blessing, claimed to be God-born and God-descend- 
 ed, and exacted universal homage and obedience. 
 
 A few philanthropic thinkers, the prophets of the 
 time, saw the danger, and lifted up the voice of 
 warning. But the nation neither heard nor re- 
 garded. Only here and there a moral hero stood 
 forth to swear on the altar of humanity and of God
 
 MEMORIES AXD LESSORS. 239 
 
 eternal resistance to slavery. As years went on, 
 their numbers increased. The monstrous guilt of 
 making merchandise of the bodies and souls of 
 men became better understood, and more widely 
 acknowledged. Then Conscience woke, and Ke- 
 monstrance shook the land. There was discussion 
 in Congress, discussion in society agitation every- 
 where. Still slavery grew. We knew that the 
 spirit of the age, the world's collected will, the 
 voice of Christianity, and the fiat of Jehovah, om- 
 nipotent over all, had. decreed the extinction of 
 slavery. Yet it flourished and was strong. We 
 believed that the evil was to be conquered by light 
 and truth ; and we poured upon it, without stint or 
 pause, all the artillery which they could supply. 
 Slavery shook our weapons from its brazen hide, 
 and was only made more raging and rampant. We 
 hoped that, after decades and centuries of this moral 
 aggression, the Gospel would finally subdue slavery, 
 and expel it from the land. Slavery laughed at our 
 predictions, and declared itself to be the child of 
 the Gospel, destined to share with it a joint heritage 
 of life and power. 
 
 But God, wiser than we, was preparing for this 
 invulnerable foe another kind of logic " the logic 
 of events." We meant to kill it by argument. God 
 meant to kill it with the sword. We purposed to 
 melt it away by the soft breath of Christian influ-
 
 240 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 ence. God purposed to blow it out of the universe 
 with Parrott guns. We thought to see it gently de- 
 cline, and, like other old sinners, repent at the last, 
 ask pardon of the world, and depart in peace. God 
 intended that its exit should be amid the rocking of 
 the earthquake, the commotion and carnage of bat- 
 tle, the fall of cities, and the rout of armies amid 
 demonstrations of such awful vengeance, as should 
 make its death a warning to ungodly nations for- 
 evermore. We expected it to die by the verdict of 
 a jury, with benefit of clergy, and with all the pa- 
 rade and honors of a public execution. God deter- 
 mined that it should die by suicide, and lie unburied 
 at the cross- ways, with a stake thrust through its 
 body, a mockery and a horror to all the ages. 
 
 Hence, by that all-governing energy which causes 
 even the wickedness of man to subserve His pur- 
 poses, He chose the very, madness which slavery 
 begets in its votaries, as the instrument of its de- 
 struction. In their insane attachment to it, the 
 States of the South rushed into treason and civil 
 war, with the design of extending and perpetuating 
 its supremacy. But this enormous crime, inaugu- 
 rated for the preservation of their idol, proved to be 
 the signal of its fall. The free North was com- 
 pelled, by the stern necessities of the crisis, to 
 gather up its might, and repel the assault aimed at 
 the nation's life. We thought only of defending the
 
 MEMORIES AND LESSONS. 241 
 
 Government, and maintaining the Union. But God 
 had other and broader views. He refused to go 
 forth with our armies. He inflicted calamities 
 upon us. He led us deeper and deeper into the 
 conflict. He made the darkness thicker, and the 
 woe heavier. He sent us failure in the work which 
 we sought to do ; and all the while pointed, with 
 the finger of His Providence, to the work which He 
 meant us to do. At length, we saw that slavery 
 must die, that the nation might live. Then, high 
 above the tumult and the wailing, rung out the im- 
 mortal words of our martyred President, proclaim- 
 ing the emancipation of the bondmen throughout 
 the rebel domain. This was the first step in the 
 right path, and it changed at once the aspect of the 
 strife. Still it was but the beginning. The proc- 
 lamation of freedom could take effect only so far as 
 the victorious forces of the Union carried with them 
 its fulfilment. It was a dead letter wherever the 
 rebellion continued to hold sway. And even after 
 the rebellion was suppressed, and the banner of the 
 Eepublic waved once more over all the land, there 
 was yet enough of life in the prostrate form of 
 slavery to compass, by assassin hands, the murder 
 of the Moses who had guided us across the desert of 
 the strife to the border of recovered peace and uni- 
 ty. Slavery was dying. Slavery was in appear- 
 ance dead. But what seemed death might prove
 
 242 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 only a fainting fit, out of which it would hereafter 
 rise in renovated vigor. The Supreme Court might 
 bring it back to life by annulling the decree of 
 emancipation. Or the States in which it had ruled, 
 when rehabilitated and clothed anew with their for- 
 feited authority, might themselves restore it, in es- 
 sence, if not in name. To give the finishing blow 
 to the monster, there was needed that greatest event 
 of the past year, and of all the years of our coun- 
 try's history the ratification of the Constitutional 
 Amendment. That killed slavery beyond the pow- 
 er of resurrection. It is now forever prohibited, by 
 organic law, in all the States and Territories of the 
 Union, and can never pollute our soil again, until 
 three-fourths of the States shall vote to repeal the 
 glorious interdict a contingency as unlikely as 
 that the sun should set in the east, or the Missis- 
 sippi flow toward the frozen zone. 
 
 "Blotted out! 
 
 All within and all about, 
 Shall a fresher life begin, 
 
 Freer breathe the universe, 
 
 As it rolls its heavy curse 
 On the dead and buried sin." 
 
 Yes, slavery is dead dead and cannot be re- 
 suscitated. In all the broad land which God has 
 given us for our heritage, there is not a slave ; and 
 while the heavens are over the earth there never can
 
 MEMORIES AXD LESSORS. 243 
 
 be again. As I stand here, and say this, and think 
 what a stupendous fact the statement involves, I can 
 hardly believe what my lips declare. When I 
 recall the former greatness of the Slave-Power, its 
 endless ramifications, its all-pervading and all-con- 
 trolling influence ; when I consider how trade and 
 commerce pandered to it, how wealth and fashion 
 worshipped it, how society caressed it, how Litera- 
 ture and Art flattered it, how the Press and the Pul- 
 pit obeyed its behests, how statesmen trembled at 
 its frown, how the mightiest fell before it, how the 
 whole nation lay prostrate under its feet ; and then 
 look at its huge corpse, rotting in the sight of a re- 
 joicing world, my faith can scarcely grasp what my 
 eyes behold ; and I find it difficult to suppress the 
 fear that the demon-curse may start up again, and 
 rule and ravage as before. But, no ! thank God, 
 no ! Slavery is dead ! My heart swells and grows 
 exultant at the thought of all which such a consum- 
 mation bears in its bosom for us and for our chil- 
 dren, for humanity and for Christ. We can now 
 stand up before the nations, and, with honest pride, 
 point to our country as having purged the foul blot 
 from her escutcheon by a baptism such as no other 
 people could undergo and live ; as having broken 
 every shackle at a cost such as no other people has 
 ever paid ; a country as great in justice as in power, 
 as merciful in victory as invincible in battle; a
 
 244 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 country that has proved itself the grandest on the 
 face of the earth grandest in intelligence, grand- 
 est in resources, grandest in military strength, 
 grandest in its freedom, grandest in the glory of its 
 present, grandest in the promise of its future. 
 And, what is infinitely more important, we can now 
 " lift up our face without spot unto God," and sup- 
 plicate His blessing on the land we love, and on the 
 world for whose salvation we labor, unchilled by 
 the thought that the dread guilt of the nation stands 
 between us and the nation's weal between us and 
 the darkling myriads we would reach and redeem. 
 This fatal barrier broken down, this prolific foun- 
 tain of corruption dried up, this blaring scandal put 
 away, there lie before the American people a new 
 era and a new career an era of peace, union, and 
 equal rights for all a career of material, social, 
 and moral progress at home, of influence and author- 
 ity abroad, more benign,, wide-stretching and majes- 
 tic than earth's annals have ever recorded. 
 
 True, the clouds are not all gone from our sky. 
 The question of reconstruction in the subjugated 
 States is attended with many and great difficulties. 
 Nor does the condition of the millions so suddenly 
 emerging from the ignorance and helplessness of 
 bondage, present a problem less momentous. In 
 the mighty transition through which we are passing, 
 something of disorder and confusion is inevitable.
 
 MEMORIES AND LESSONS. 245 
 
 But there remain no obstacles in our path which 
 Christian statesmanship and Christian benevolence, 
 following the beckoiiings of the Divine Hand, may 
 not easily overcome. In the case of the States 
 lately in rebellion, we have only to insist that, 
 before they are received back into the Union, they 
 shall so shape their constitutions and domestic poli- 
 cy, as to insure permanent fidelity to the Govern- 
 ment, and justice and the rights of citizens to the 
 victims of their former oppression. Thus guarded, 
 their rehabilitation will be safe. With respect to 
 the emancipated slaves, our work, though more ar- 
 duous, and requiring a longer time for its comple- 
 tion, is equally plain and simple. They are the na- 
 tion's wards ; and it is alike our interest and our 
 obligation to protect them in their freedom, to re- 
 move from them all legal disabilities, and to prepare 
 them, by education and the Gospel, for industry, 
 self-help, and usefulness. These conditions ful- 
 filled, our course will be onward and upward. 
 Capital and labor will soon adjust themselves to the 
 new order of things. All friction and disturbance 
 will cease. The South itself, freed from the incu- 
 bus that has so long paralyzed her energies, will ex- 
 perience, in the increased production of her great 
 staples, a prosperity which she never knew in the 
 palmiest days of the whip and chain. Side by side 
 with her advancement, the whole country will press
 
 246 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 forward in the march of civilization ; and the happy 
 auguries which the vanished year has left us as its 
 memorial, will be realized in a political horizon 
 without a speck to break its clearness, and in a na- 
 tional growth and a national greatness unexampled 
 through all the centuries that have swept over the 
 globe. 
 
 The occurrences which we have reviewed are full 
 of important and varied lessons lessons bearing 
 on all our relations to God, our country, and the 
 world. But we can now only indicate a few of 
 them, which may be regarded as most comprehen- 
 sive and suggestive. 
 
 In the memories of the year there is a lesson of 
 Hope. How fitted are they to inspire us with con- 
 fidence in the future of our country, under the same 
 sheltering Arm that has so signally defended it in 
 the past! Who can believe that the Almighty, 
 after the wonderful deliverance which He has 
 wrought for this nation, will suffer it to perish? 
 Would He have led us out from the Egypt of 
 Slavery, through the Red Sea of Civil War, if He 
 did not mean to go with us in the journeying be- 
 yond, to guide us in the true course, and conduct 
 us to the Canaan of established harmony and re- 
 pose? He corrected and scourged us while we 
 clung to the sin which He had determined to extir- 
 pate ; yet His goodness and mercy were over us
 
 MEMORIES AND LESSONS. 247 
 
 still. And now, that, taught by His discipline, we 
 have put that sin forever away, will He abandon us 
 to anarchy and ruin ? No, no ! In all that He has 
 done for us there is the assurance, not of wrath, but 
 of favor, not of decay, but of stability ; the indica- 
 tions of a Providence purposing, not to destroy, but 
 to build up and bless. The manifestations of His 
 kindness in the year that is past are a prophecy and 
 a pledge of similar manifestations in the years that 
 are to come ; and we gather from them the firmest 
 grounds for trust in God, and trust, through Him, 
 in the destinies of our glorious land. 
 
 The events which we have contemplated should 
 invigorate our faith in the strength and permanence 
 of Republican institutions. It has been the favorite 
 dogma of the advocates of monarchy and absolut- 
 ism, that free commonwealths were deficient in that 
 energy and concentration which result from the su- 
 premacy of a single mind ; and that when danger 
 assailed them from without or from within, there 
 was no central authority of sufficient force to call 
 out and wield the resources of the nation. And we 
 ourselves were sometimes disposed to admit the 
 truth of this assertion in reference to our own gov- 
 ernment, and to regard its excellence in peaceful 
 times as hardly compensating for its anticipated 
 weakness in the hour of a great emergency. But 
 the experience of the last four years has shown the
 
 248 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 falsehood of the despot's prediction, and the ground- 
 lessness of our own fears. The facts of our terrible 
 struggle have disappointed and amazed both the 
 friends and the enemies of freedom throughout the 
 world. We have done what no arbitrary govern- 
 ment on earth could have ventured to attempt. At 
 the voice of no king or emperor could such armies 
 have been summoned into being, or such boundless 
 means called forth for their support and efficiency. 
 So vast a demand made on its subjects by an abso- 
 lute Power would be instantly followed by revolu- 
 tion, the fall of dynasties, and the crash of thrones. 
 Or, if this did not happen, the mighty host evoked 
 would be a greater terror to the land than the dan- 
 ger it was created to repel. We have encountered 
 no perils like these. During the war, more than 
 two millions of our citizens have gone forth to de- 
 fend the government, because it was their own gov- 
 ernment, the government which they had aided to 
 establish; and the whole nation poured out its 
 wealth after them in a ceaseless tide, whose fulness 
 and amplitude confounded every onlooker. And 
 when these heroic men had finished their work, the 
 million that survived came quietly back to the occu- 
 pations which they had left, and were reabsorbed in 
 the industries of the country. This magnificent 
 spectacle, the sublimest which history shows, viewed 
 in connection with the spirit of self-sacrifice, the
 
 MEMORIES AND LESSONS. 249 
 
 patriotic zeal, the exhaustless forces, which the 
 crisis developed, has settled forever the question of 
 the stability of free institutions, and demonstrated 
 to the world that a representative government is not 
 only the strongest and most effective of all govern- 
 ments, but the most enduring and indestructible. 
 
 The memories of the year are richly fraught with 
 occasions for gratitude. Is there among us a mind 
 so grovelling, a heart so dead, as not to feel,/ at a 
 moment like this, some emotion of thankfulness to 
 the Dispenser of such unparalleled benefits ? One 
 glance at the perils and sacrifices in which He has 
 upheld us, one glance at the redemption which He 
 has accomplished for us, one glance at the bright 
 Future which He has opened to us, is enough to in- 
 spire our souls with love and our lips with praise. 
 Our soldiers have done nobly. Cherished be the 
 living ; sacred the memory of the fallen. Our com- 
 manders have been brave, and wise, and skilful. 
 Let the nation reward and honor them. Our mur- 
 dered Chief piloted the ship of state well and surely 
 amid the storm. Let his name and his deeds be a 
 hallowed legacy to the generations that are to come 
 after us. But our Deliverer was the God of Hosts. 
 He prepared all, superintended all, achieved all. 
 To Him, then, let our worship and our thanks be 
 rendered evermore.
 
 250 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 The memories of the year inculcate a lesson of 
 duty. Never were the Christians of this land 
 placed in circumstances so favorable as the pres- 
 ent for the extension of true religion, and for bring- 
 ing its benign influences to bear upon all classes of 
 our population. The impassable wall of slavery, 
 which has hitherto shut in the whole South, and 
 rendered it impervious to a pure Gospel, and to all 
 the humanizing and elevating agencies which that 
 Gospel carries with it, is thrown down and scat- 
 tered to the winds ; and we may now go where we 
 will, bearing the light of knowledge and the mes- 
 sage of salvation. There is no hindrance, no ob- 
 struction. All places, all conditions, are open to 
 our efforts. The same enlarged scope is given to 
 our philanthropy in its endeavors to uplift the de- 
 graded of all climes and peoples. The one dark 
 stain on our national character, which excluded us 
 from the sympathies of the world, and made our 
 benevolence a mockery, and our Christianity a re- 
 proach, is removed forever ; and we can toil for 
 humanity with all the moral advantage resulting 
 from the fiery ordeal which we have undergone in 
 its cause. The old prejudice against us has passed 
 away ; the old barrier between us and our race has 
 been levelled ; and a higher path and a wider sphere 
 await our entrance.
 
 MEMORIES AND LESSONS. 251 
 
 Men of the New Era ! I greet you. It is your 
 privilege to labor for God and man in a new civil- 
 ization, under new auspices, and with new facilities. 
 Be true to your grand position. Recognize the ob- 
 ligations which it involves. And study to show 
 yourselves as unselfish and beneficent in peace as 
 you were patriotic in war. 
 
 From the memories of the year we may draw a 
 lesson of admonition. We read in them a solemn 
 revelation of God's wrath against iniquity. They 
 proclaim to us, in words of fire, and with tongues 
 of thunder, that great public wrongs cannot be 
 committed without calling down the vengeance of 
 Heaven ; and that, in the day of their doom, their 
 supporters and champions will be overthrown with 
 them. The South clung to its fatal sin, defended 
 it, cherished it, adored it ; accounted it more sacred 
 than God and His law, more precious than Christ 
 and His Gospel. Jehovah's right hand smote the 
 foul Dagon to the dust, and with it the whole tem- 
 ple which the South had built for its worship. The 
 desolation that has swept over the rebel States, the 
 havoc that has wasted and impoverished them, the 
 blood that has drenched them, the graves that make 
 their sunny plains one vast sepulchre, are all the 
 legitimate consequences of their adherence to slav- 
 ery. But the same God, who so fearfully punished
 
 252 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 them, will as surely punish us, if we break His 
 law, and refuse to repent. He is the Sovereign of 
 individuals as well as of communities ; and His au- 
 thority can no more be despised with impunity by 
 the one than by the other. He commands us to 
 love Him, to obey Him, to forsake our transgres- 
 sions against Him, and to rely for pardon and ac- 
 ceptance on the merits of His only-begotten Sou. 
 If we set at nought His behests, then as certainly 
 as His vengeance overtook the South, so certainly 
 will it overtake us. It may not be now it may 
 not be here for while nations are judged in this 
 world, individuals are judged in the next. But the 
 punishment will come, inexorable and endless. The 
 South, if faithful to the Government to which she 
 has now submitted, and just to the freedmen whom 
 she so long oppressed, may rise up from her ruins, 
 and be again prosperous and happy. But if once 
 the retributions of eternity become our portion, 
 there will be for us no recovery. In the delusions 
 of sin we may flatter ourselves that the Holy One 
 will never reckon with us for our disobedience ; 
 that He will always be to us as forbearing and mer- 
 ciful as He is now. So thought the devotees of 
 slavery. They were sure that God was on their 
 side, and would ultimately crown their cause with 
 triumph. Nevertheless, their destruction came.
 
 MEMORIES AND LESSONS. 253 
 
 Oh ! let the memories and the lessons of the year 
 now ended lead us to repentance, lead us to faith in 
 Jesus, lead us to reconciliation with God, and holy 
 activity in His service. So shall our future years 
 on earth be bright with Hope, and our eternal years 
 blessed in its fruition.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 GOD'S METHOD OF RECONSTRUCTION. 
 
 "TAKE COUNSEL; EXECUTE JUDGMENT; MAKE THY SHADOW AS THE 
 NIGHT IN THE MIDST OF THE NOONDAY ; HIDE THE OUTCASTS ; BEWRAY 
 NOT HIM THAT WANDERETH. LET MINE OUTCASTS DWELL WITH THEE, 
 MOAB ; BE THOU A COVERT TO THEM FROM THE FACE OF THE SPOILER } 
 FOR THE EXTORTIONER IS AT AN END ; THE SPOILER CEASETH J THE OP- 
 PRESSORS ARE CONSUMED OUT OF THE LAND." Isaiah Xvi. 3, 4. 
 
 'N the current of the ages great conjunctures 
 often arise, analogous to those which marked 
 its earlier course, and giving fresh significance 
 to the Divine counsels and warnings which 
 were then enunciated. Human wickedness 
 stamps the same characters on all periods of the 
 world, and creates similar moral crises, which re- 
 quire to be met by the application of similar princi- 
 ples. Thus history repeats itself, and renders the 
 inspired teachings of the far Past ever appropriate 
 and timely. 
 
 Sacred narrative supplies an instance of civil re- 
 construction, closely resembling that which now 
 forms, in our own land, the chief interest of the 
 hour. It grew out of the political relations exist- 
 
 254:
 
 GOD'S METHOD OF RECONSTRUCTION. 255 
 
 ing between the Hebrew nation and the adjacent 
 kingdom of Moab. The conquest of the latter 
 country by David, and its annexation to his do- 
 minions, was one of the many splendid successes 
 that attended his reign. Though permitted to re- 
 main nominally under its own rulers, it became, in 
 fact, a dependency of the Jewish crown, paying 
 tribute to it, and acknowledging its supremacy. 
 When, on the accession of Rehoboam, the Hebrew 
 territory was divided, the subject province followed 
 the fortunes of the Ten Tribes, and continued to 
 adhere to them, till the death of Ahab. The con- 
 nection was then sundered by rebellion. A strong 
 and wicked king having been succeeded by one who 
 was as weak as he was wicked, the people of 
 Moab took advantage of the imbecility and dis- 
 order which ensued, to set up ait independent gov- 
 ernment. Through many conflicts, and for nearly 
 two centuries, they maintained their autonomy. 
 But after the destruction of Israel by the invad- 
 ing hosts of Assyria, an effort appears to have been 
 made for the restoration of Moab to the kingdom 
 of Judah. This portion of the chosen race was 
 now prosperous and powerful under the wise rule 
 of Hezekiah ; while its neighbor had sunk into de- 
 cay. It is probable that Moab herself proposed the 
 alliance. Enfeebled as she had become by frequent 
 wars and protracted anarchy, diminished in popula-
 
 256 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 tion and resources, and exposed more and more to 
 the encroachments of Nineveh, whose colossal might 
 was overshadowing the East, she would naturally 
 desire to strengthen her position by uniting with a 
 kindred people, and securing its aid against the 
 common danger. 
 
 It was while this measure was in contemplation, 
 that the prophet gave utterance to the message 
 which we have chosen as the theme of our present 
 remarks. He exhorts the inhabitants of Moab to 
 renew their fealty to the House of David, and to 
 evince their sincerity and good faith by sending the 
 ancient tribute to " the mount of the Daughter of 
 Zion." At the same time, he reminds them that 
 much more than this was necessary to establish a 
 safe and firm basis of reunion. During the long 
 and bitter strife which had raged between them and 
 the Hebrews, large numbers of the latter had fallen 
 into their hands, either as captives taken in battle, 
 or as exiles who had been driven by adversity to 
 seek an asylum among them. These homeless ones 
 they had plundered and enslaved, and had aggra- 
 vated their misfortunes by every cruelty which mal- 
 ice could invent. A wrong so flagrant must be re- 
 paired before there could be any solid and lasting 
 peace. Judah could never allow them to return 
 with their feet on the necks of her children ; and 
 even were it possible that she should so forget her
 
 GOD'S METHOD OF RECONSTRUCTION. 257 
 
 duty and her honor, the God of Judah would frown 
 on the unholy compact, and bring it to naught. 
 
 Hence the servant of Heaven, commissioned to 
 declare its will, admonishes them to abandon at 
 once a course of conduct so productive of present 
 alienation, and so certain to engender hostility and 
 disruption in the future. "Take counsel; execute 
 judgment." Ponder the outrages which you have 
 committed. Atone for them by doing justice to the 
 victims of your tyranny. "Make thy shadow as 
 the night in the midst of the noonday." As the 
 cool screen of darkness shields the traveller from 
 the heat of the blazing sky, so let your equity and 
 kindness shelter the lowly. "Hide the outcasts." 
 Be to them a refuge from oppression. "Bewray 
 not him that wandereth." Break not your pledge 
 to the exile ; cheat him not with a hollow perform- 
 ance. Let the robbed and down-trodden dwell with 
 you in the full enjoyment of every immunity which 
 you claim for yourselves. Accord to them equal 
 rights ; guard them from spoliation and violence. 
 Sully not with your old infamies the new national 
 life to which you aspire. In that life, "the extor- 
 tioner is at an end, the spoiler ceaseth," the tram- 
 piers of the weak have no place. Disasters have 
 befallen you ; ruin threatens you. In the immi- 
 nence of your peril, you ask to come back under 
 the protection which you renounced. This can be
 
 258 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 granted only on the condition that you henceforth 
 forbear to prey upon the helpless. In justice, and 
 in justice alone, can you find deliverance. This 
 accomplished, your reinstatement will be, to both 
 lands, a permanent security. " And in mercy shall 
 the throne be established; and" Judah's ruler 
 your ruler once more " shall sit upon it in truth, 
 in the tabernacle of David, judging and seeking 
 judgment, and hasting righteousness." 
 
 How suggestive is this fact, which Scripture has 
 brought to us from the dim centuries ! What a 
 striking parallel does it bear to events which are 
 occurring in our own time and country ! And how 
 clear the light it sheds on the way in which God 
 would have us deal with those events ! 
 
 The war of the Great Rebellion is ended. Strong 
 hands and bold hearts have upheld the unity of the 
 nation, vindicated its majesty, and swept from its 
 domain the fell Despotism, which shot up, like 
 some Stygian exhalation, to pollute and scare the 
 world. The States which threw off their alle- 
 giance, and, hi their mad purpose of overturning 
 the Government, drenched the whole laud with 
 blood, discomfited and subjugated, are now sup- 
 pliantly waiting at the doors of Congress, to be in- 
 vested anew with their forfeited franchises. What 
 answer shall be given them ? On what conditions 
 shall they be permitted to resume the rights which
 
 GOD'S METHOD OF RECONSTRUCTION. 259 
 
 they have so enormously misused, and to stand 
 again in the places which they have so frightfully 
 desecrated ? 
 
 This question should be approached in no re- 
 vengeful spirit. To measure out to the South the 
 full penalty of its treason, and repay it for all the 
 loss and woe which that treason has cost us, would 
 consign to a felon's death well-nigh its entire pop- 
 ulation, already decimated by want and carnage. 
 This we cannot do ; this we ought not to do, even 
 if we could. Invincible, victorious, honored before 
 the world, raised to the highest point of national 
 greatness by the stupendous energies which the 
 struggle has developed, we can afford to lay aside 
 vindictiveness, and leave retribution to Him who is 
 sovereign alike over communities and individuals, 
 and from whose sentence none can escape. Ven- 
 geance is His ; and in His own time and way He 
 will dispense to the guilty the appointed punish- 
 ment. It is ours to manifest forbearance, clemency, 
 magnanimity. 
 
 Yet, along with the exercise of these qualities, it 
 is of the utmost importance that impregnable bar- 
 riers should be erected against the dangers which 
 remain. _ While we demand not retaliation, we 
 must demand security. The method of the Di- 
 vine government indicates to us our true line of 
 action. The All-Kuler pardons transgressors, and
 
 260 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 restores them to the favor which they have lost. 
 But He does it only on grounds that sustain the 
 sacredness of His law, and the happiness of His 
 moral empire. The principles on which He acts 
 should be our guide. In dealing with the con- 
 quered rebels, we must so blend mercy with firm- 
 ness, as not to ignore their criminality, and encour- 
 age its repetition. The process of rehabilitation 
 must be accompanied and guarded by every precau- 
 tion requisite to insure the public faith and the 
 public safety. And it must be put forever out of 
 their power to plunge the nation again into civil 
 war, or to embarrass it in the noble career of free- 
 dom and equality on which it has entered. 
 
 How, then, can this be done ? In what circum- 
 stances, under what safeguards, may the insurgent 
 Commonwealths, that tore themselves away from 
 the Union with intent to destroy it, be installed in 
 their former position, without imperilling the wel- 
 fare of the country, and sapping the foundations of 
 liberty and justice? Here is the great problem 
 which the people of this laud have to solve ; a prob- 
 lem so intricate, so complex, so many-sided, that 
 the profouudest statesmanship stands baffled before 
 it ; and yet a problem so grave and momentous as 
 to involve the very life of the Republic, and the 
 destinies of unborn generations. 
 
 We cannot hope to bring to this vexed subject
 
 GOD'S METHOD OF RECONSTRUCTION. 261 
 
 any elucidation that will fully remove the doubt 
 and uncertainty which have gathered round it. 
 Where senators long versed in political affairs are 
 at fault, and men, equal in wisdom and in patriot- 
 ism, entertain views widely divergent, we may well 
 hesitate to propound our conclusions. Neverthe- 
 less, we are thoroughly persuaded that, vast as the 
 difficulty is, and environed as it is with manifold 
 antagonisms, it may be met and overcome, by with- 
 drawing it from the realm of theory and preposses- 
 sion, and applying to it the simple test of common 
 sense and experience. Putting aside, therefore, the 
 various conflicting hypotheses in reference to the 
 status of the communities lately in rebellion 
 pausing not to inquire whether secession took them 
 out of the Union, or whether they were still held 
 in it by a bond which they could not break we 
 come to the real, actual fact that, with regard to all 
 the practical workings of government, they were 
 and are out of the Union. Thus, by a single step, 
 we reach the naked, vital question, In what manner, 
 and by what provisions, can they be safely brought 
 back into the Union? And the same plain, straight- 
 forward course of reasoning will give the answer. 
 
 Every thoughtful mind must perceive that the 
 wound which treason has inflicted on the nation, 
 is too deep to be healed by any superficial treat- 
 ment. The remedy must be radical and funda-
 
 262 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 mental. To pardon and restore the traitors, while 
 they profess no repentance, while their disloyalty is 
 as pronounced as ever, and while they accept the 
 proffered amnesty only because their means of re- 
 sistance are exhausted, is an expedient as vain as it 
 is dangerous. Nothing can be gained, everything 
 is hazarded, by concession and compromise. The 
 disease, checked for a time, will break out afresh, 
 in a new form it may be, but with all its old viru- 
 lence. No bridge of half measures can span the 
 gulf between the free North and the oligarchic 
 South. That gulf must be filled up. The only 
 reconstruction that will be sound and permanent, 
 must rest on the grand basis of Equal Rights for 
 all. If we would not have our work crumble into 
 fragments, we must build here here, on the broad 
 platform of the Constitution here, on the Rock 
 of Eternal Justice. But, on such a foundation, the 
 subjugated States are no more prepared to build 
 with us now, than they were in the palmiest days 
 of their pride and power. Even the dread school- 
 ing of defeat and humiliation has failed to teach 
 them the first lesson in the lore of freedom. It is, 
 therefore, indispensable that they should be kept in 
 a state of abeyance and probation, till, by the logic 
 of events, and the discipline of delay, they are edu- 
 cated into harmony with the spirit of republican 
 institutions, and the great ideas of humanity, civ-
 
 GOD'S METHOD OF RECONSTRUCTION. 263 
 
 ilLzation and progress. If we would eradicate Dis- 
 union so utterly that it shall never show a sprout or 
 leaf again, we must expel from the soil the poison 
 seeds from which it sprung, and the poison roots 
 which ministered to its' growth. 
 
 One of the principal causes of the unrest and re- 
 pulsion which finally culminated in civil war, was 
 the doctrine of State Rights. It was a ground prin- 
 ciple in the political creed of the South, that the 
 States were complete sovereignties within them- 
 selves ; that to them supreme allegiance was due ; 
 that the Union was a mere League of independent 
 Commonwealths ; and that the General Government 
 was but the Deputy of the States, having no au- 
 thority beyond the limits which they prescribed. 
 This fatal heresy, long a prolific source of discord 
 and strife, obstructing every national measure, and 
 crippling every national interest, occupied a con- 
 spicuous place in the Dance of Devils that ushered 
 in the Rebellion. And when the Rebellion was 
 put down, we thought it dead, crushed, with Slav- 
 ery and the whole sisterhood of Furies, under the 
 trampling feet of our triumphant armies. But re- 
 cent indications have undeceived us. It is not 
 dead. Though weakened and shattered, it still 
 lives, and lives for mischief. A demon's spell has 
 recalled breath into its nostrils, and vigor into its 
 limbs. It is struggling up from its fall, and shak-
 
 264 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 ing itself for fresh combats. It swaggers in the 
 haughty port of impenitent rebels. It blares in 
 Executive Vetoes. It is arrogant, defiant. No 
 other relic of the Southern past is so full of dan- 
 ger. Its malign influence is at this moment a chief 
 obstacle to any just and comprehensive settlement 
 of our difficulties. It taints the fountain-head of 
 the Federal Administration, and thus prevents the 
 consummation of laws for the succor of the op- 
 pressed, on the plea that such laws are an interfer- 
 ence with the prerogatives of the States. It is a 
 centrifugal force, pregnant with the elements of 
 disintegration ; and so long as it exists, it will con- 
 tinue to be the foe of order, and a standing menace 
 to the perpetuity of the Union. While the South 
 clings to this destructive dogma, no confidence can 
 be reposed in her loyalty. However she may ac- 
 cept for the time what she cannot resist, her sub- 
 mission will be insincere, her homage false; and 
 whenever opportunity shall be ripe, she will again 
 abjure her allegiance, and renew the horrors of 
 fratricidal war. How evident, then, is it that every 
 dictate of prudence, every law of safety, all the 
 lessons of the past, all the omens of the present, 
 combine to forbid her return, till the firebrand of 
 State Supremacy be hurled into the abyss of for- 
 getfulness, and quenched forever in its unrestoring 
 waters !
 
 GOD'S METHOD OF RECONSTRUCTION. 265 
 
 The Right of Secession is another evil root that 
 must be extirpated. As the branches of the ban- 
 yan tree, drooping to the ground, throw out radi- 
 cles, and become themselves trees ; so from the as- 
 sumed sovereignty of the States grew the belief, 
 that to each state belonged the power of lawfully 
 separating itself from the Union, and breaking up 
 the glorious fabric cemented with the blood of 
 heroes. And if once the premise is admitted, the 
 inference logically follows. Let it be conceded, as 
 the South even now asserts, that the authority of a 
 State is paramount, and that her people owe obe- 
 dience to the Union only at her command, and the 
 conclusion is impregnable that rebellion, sanctioned 
 by her behest, is no treason. The noxious sucker 
 springs naturally from the noxious stem. True it 
 is that the trunk and limbs of this deadly offshoot 
 have been shivered and laid prostrate by the levin- 
 bolts of battle. But its stock remains in the earth, 
 and will be sure to reproduce the same baleful 
 growth, unless it be dug up, even to its minutest 
 fibres, committed to the flames, and its very ashes 
 scattered to the winds of heaven. Ought we 
 not, then, to insist that the people of the South, 
 before resuming their share in the Government, 
 should proclaim secession, past or future, a nullity 
 and a lie, and renounce it for all time? 
 
 A perilous influence exists, alsj, in the spirit of
 
 266 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 Caste by which Southern society is pervaded. 
 This is the child of Slavery. The mother, having 
 crowned a long career of crimes and ignominies by 
 the attempted murder of a nation, has perished 
 under the curse of God, and the vengeance of man. 
 But its vile progeny survives, in pride of race, col- 
 or-exclusiveness, and the self-assertion of the domi- 
 nant few. Southern communities have been bred 
 up in the idea, that both Nature and Providence in- 
 tended one class to enjoy a monopoly of political 
 and social power, and to live in ease and luxury ; 
 while all other classes were designed to obey theii 
 will and serve their pleasure. And it was with the 
 view of more fully realizing this idea, of reducing it 
 more completely to practice, and of guarding it 
 more securely from the invasion of whatever might 
 be in conflict with it, that they undertook to dis- 
 solve the Union, and to found an Oligarchy, in 
 which the lordly race were to rule over an empire 
 of serfs. They failed ; but the tone of thought and 
 feeling which begot the infamous endeavor, is as 
 potent now as in the days of the Confederacy. In 
 some respects, it appears to have been even intensi- 
 fied by the disappointment it has suffered. The 
 impoverished planter, clothed in rags, and depend- 
 ent for bread on the bounty of the Government he 
 sought to overthrow, still regards himself as belong- 
 ing to a privileged order, and looks with as haughty
 
 GOD'S METHOD OF RECOySTBUCTIOy. 267 
 
 a scorn on all whom he deems beneath him, as when 
 he feasted in marble halls, and rolled in wealth 
 coined from the tears and blood of his slaves. He 
 looks upon labor as a degradation, and despises the 
 working man, whether white or black. And to 
 these aristocratic prejudices is now added a bitter 
 hatred of the class lately in bondage, and of the 
 power which has freed them. Such a state of 
 public sentiment with few exceptions, universal 
 wherever slavery existed not only tends to dis- 
 courage industry and enterprise, and thus to hinder 
 the material renovation of the South, but impedes 
 also its political and moral recovery, by disqualify- 
 ing its people for the new issues and the new rela- 
 tions which the result of the war has necessitated. 
 Their whole history is alien to the principles on 
 which alone the Union can be securely re-estab- 
 lished. The Constitution guarantees a republican 
 form of government to all the States ; and this vital 
 provision, imperfectly carried out in the past, must 
 henceforth be rigidly maintained. But not one of 
 the Southern States ever had a republican form of 
 government, and not one is prepared to adopt such 
 a government now. In all the movements which 
 those States have inaugurated for re-organizing their 
 civil institutions, the same narrow policy is every- 
 where apparent. Class distinctions and class inter- 
 ests govern throughout. Predominance of race is
 
 268 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 the beginning and the end. There is no recognition 
 of the equality of all men before the law ; of their 
 common brotherhood as the children of one Father ; 
 nor of the sameness of rights with which that broth- 
 erhood invests them. And, until the South receives 
 and comprehends these great truths, her presence in 
 the councils of the nation cannot but be incongruous 
 and belligerent. 
 
 The ^nost formidable difficulty, however, in the 
 way of reconstruction, arises from its bearing on the 
 present and future condition of the millions just 
 emerged from slavery. Of a similar nature was the 
 obstacle to which Isaiah referred, as opposing the 
 alliance of Moab with Judah ; and the command of 
 the Almighty respecting it is not less pertinent to 
 our own circumstances. We are in like peril of 
 setting aside the claims of justice ; of neglecting to 
 "hide the outcasts " ; and of so consummating na- 
 tional unity as to " bewray ", with broken or deceit- 
 fully kept promises, the fugitives from oppression. 
 
 The organic law of the land now inhibits forever 
 the ownership of man by man. Slavery, therefore, 
 can never be restored in name and in form. But con- 
 ditions may exist, under which it will be possible to 
 revive many of its most odious features, and to ren- 
 der emancipation comparatively a worthless boon. 
 When once the States which seceded, have been 
 recognized as full members of the Union by the ad-
 
 GOD'S METHOD OF RECONSTRUCTION. 269 
 
 mission of their representatives to Congress, milita- 
 ry supervision must be withdrawn, and the internal 
 affairs of each left to its own management. They 
 will then have it in their power to pass such laws, 
 and to impose on the freedmen such disabilities, as 
 to take from them nearly all that is valuable in their 
 liberty, and subject them to a state of serfdom and 
 civil inferiority little less cruel than the chattelhood 
 from which they have escaped. And who believes 
 that they will not use this power? Already, in 
 many of the States, "Black Codes" have been 
 enacted, based on the same principles, and instinct 
 with the same spirit, that pervaded the old Slave- 
 Laws. And the general feeling of hostility, which 
 has given birth to this legislation, shows itself in 
 acts of personal violence and outrage, often more 
 shocking and barbarous than any with which the 
 darkest annals of slavery were stained. For the 
 slave as property, there was some love, and some 
 care. For the slave transformed into a free man, 
 there is neither. We say not that all thus dislike 
 and abuse him. Doubtless, many of the old mas- 
 ters honestly "accept the situation", and are dis- 
 posed to deal fairly with their former vassals. But 
 the number of such, not small perhaps in itself, is 
 small in comparison with the multitudes whose tem- 
 per and conduct are widely different. It is to be 
 feared, that equity and forbearance are the excep-
 
 270 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 tion; wrong aiid cruelty the rule. And if this is 
 so, while the Federal Government still holds them 
 under military control, and the pressure of its au- 
 thority checks and restrains them, what will it be 
 when that control is relinquished, and they are lords 
 again in their own domain ? What is there in their 
 past history, what in their present attitude, which 
 will warrant the confidence that they will treat with 
 kindness, or even justice, the helpless ones whom 
 they once enslaved ? The abolition of bondage was 
 not effected by their co-operation, nor with their 
 consent. They look upon it as an evil, wantonly 
 inflicted on them by their conquerors an evil to 
 which they submit on compulsion, and under pro- 
 test. They regard the negroes as property of which 
 they have been unrighteously despoiled; believe 
 that capital should own labor ; that God meant the 
 blacks to work without compensation, and created 
 the whites for the express purpose of making them 
 do it ; and that any other relation between the races 
 must be injurious to both. Can we expect them to 
 bring forward any measures, or to put forth any ef- 
 forts, the success of which will prove the falseness 
 of their own theories ? No, they have no faith in 
 the freedom of the negro ; they deem it a bane and 
 a delusion ; and will do all they can to render it so. 
 They will surround him with oppressive restrictions, 
 hedge up his path with special statutes and prohibi-
 
 GOD>S METHOD OF RECONSTRUCTION. 271 
 
 tions and penalties, and strive, in all possible ways, 
 to prevent his raising himself* to a higher social and 
 intellectual level. If they cannot fasten the chain 
 on him again, they will keep him in a state of igno- 
 rance, helplessness and debasement. t ''*"* 
 
 Humanity and justice, therefore, alike require 
 that men, entertaining such views, and cherishing 
 such malign intentions, should not be restored to 
 their place in the Union, until they have given the 
 most satisfactory evidence of their readiness to fulfil 
 to the freedmen all the pledges of the nation. This 
 should be, in every case, an indispensable prerequi- 
 site to their return. And for this Congress should 
 provide by adequate legislation. Such a course is 
 demanded of us by all the claims of public faith and 
 honor, and by all the sanctions of everlasting Right- 
 eousness. We have abrogated slavery, and pro- 
 claimed its death to the world. We have invited 
 the emancipated slaves to aid us in putting down 
 the Rebellion, under a promise, expressed or im- 
 plied, that their liberty should be assured, and their 
 race elevated to citizenship in the redeemed Repub- 
 lic. Two hundred thousand of them have fought 
 valiantly by the side of our sons and brothers, and 
 eighty thousand have died for a country, which yet 
 treats them as outcasts. On many a bloody field, 
 in many a desperate charge, they have proved their 
 courage, their manhood, their loyalty, their fitness
 
 272 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 for civil enfranchisement. And if we now abandon 
 them to the power of their old oppressors, and give 
 them, in place of solid, real freedom, a base coun- 
 terfeit shadow for substance, stones for bread 
 of what shameful ingratitude and treachery shall we 
 be guilty ? This is the very sin which the prophet 
 denounced. " Bewray not him that waudereth." 
 Left to the mercy of reconstructed rebels, the poor 
 freedmen will be indeed "bewrayed" exposed 
 naked and defenceless to their adversaries de- 
 frauded, by an empty semblance, of the reward for 
 which they have toiled and suffered. What a stig- 
 ma will rest on the American name ! And how 
 will the friends of Humanity mourn, and despots 
 exult, over our perfidy ! 
 
 But this is not all. In proving false to the men 
 who have trusted us and bled for us, we prove false 
 to ourselves. We cannot sacrifice their liberties 
 without sacrificing our own. A brief experience of 
 the true nature and scope of the Rebellion, revealed 
 to us the fact, that its animus, its impulse, its 
 strength was Slavery ; and that, to save the nation, 
 we must destroy Slavery. But we killed only its 
 body. Its soul migrated underwent a sort of 
 metempsychosis took another form. Nor has it 
 yet gone to its own place. It is still "marching 
 on." It is still among us, like the cast-out demon 
 of whom Christ spoke, "walking through dry places,
 
 GOD'S METHOD OF EEC OBSTRUCTION. 273 
 
 seeking rest, and finding none." If we deny the 
 claims of the freedmen, we give it rest. It will re- 
 turn to its old place of power, in a new shape, and 
 with a new name. It will go back to the Chamber 
 of Southern Brass and Northern Copper, whence it 
 came out, but will not find it "swept and gar- 
 nished." We shall have the same meanness, the 
 same truckling to wrong, the same betrayal of the 
 right, the same insolence and domination, the same 
 corruption, and time-serving, and falsehood, which, 
 before the war, made the land a Babel, and our in- 
 stitutions a by-word. All the substantial fruits of 
 victory will be wrested from us. The great prize 
 for which we strove a recovered, purified Union 
 will turn to ashes in our hands ; and those glori- 
 ous children of Freedom's Battle Equal Rights, 
 Equal Justice, National Righteousness will be 
 strangled in the hour of their birth. With the 
 South, not with the North, will be the final triumph. 
 And shall this be ? Shall the struggle, and the woe, 
 and the agony have been in vain ? Shall those ter- 
 rible years leave us no harvest? Have our billions 
 of treasure been cast into the sea ? Is the precious 
 blood, poured out like water all over the Southern 
 soil, only seed sown upon a desert? Forbid it, 
 shades of the noble dead that fell on a thousand 
 gory fields ! Forbid it, ye myriad martyrs, immo- 
 lated in rebel prisons ! Forbid it, ye countless
 
 274 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 homes, whose loved ones will return no more ! For- 
 bid it, Truth, Honor, Patriotism ! Forbid it, Mer- 
 cy ! Forbicl it, Christianity ! Forbid it, all-ruling 
 Heaven ! 
 
 There is more than this. No people can afford to 
 be unjust. In the Divine administration, nations 
 are regarded as entities, having moral existence and 
 responsibility. Their judgment-hour, however, is 
 in tune. And retribution follows their sins in this 
 world as certainly as it follows the sins of individ- 
 uals in the next. Can we doubt this ? After the 
 dread outstretchings of Jehovah's arm which we 
 have witnessed, is it any longer a question with us 
 whether He visits collective bodies for their collect- 
 ive guilt? From cotton-field and rice-swamp, from 
 the auction block and the slave-pen, from under the 
 whip and the branding-iron, the cry of our fettered 
 brother long went up into the ear of the all-avenging 
 One. The skies gave no response. Generations, 
 centuries, rolled away, and still the earth was green, 
 and heaven was silent. But when the iniquity was 
 ripe, and wrath was full, down thundered the answer, 
 and shook the globe. Oh ! yes we have seen, we 
 have felt that the Almighty can punish. The bat- 
 tle's shock, the cannon's roar, the ensanguined land, 
 the million graves, the mourners in every street, 
 have attested that the Almighty can punish. And 
 dare we again brave His displeasure ? If we repeat
 
 GOD'S METHOD OF RECONSTRUCTION. 275 
 
 the wrong, will He not repeat the punishment? 
 And will not that punishment be more severe, be- 
 cause of the greater hardihood that coulcfr venture to 
 provoke it ? Sure may we be that if judgments so 
 awful fail to instruct us, the lesson will be voiced in 
 judgments yet more awful. 
 
 Let none imagine that the Sovereign of the uni- 
 verse is too high, or too remote in His majesty, to 
 concern Himself about the uplifting of a trampled 
 race. The very thought is impiety. It is the 
 glory of our God that He cares for the lowly. No 
 perfection of His nature has been more clearly 
 revealed in His word, or more impressively illus- 
 trated in His providence. "He shall deliver the 
 poor that crieth, and him that hath no helper." 
 "He giveth power to the faint, and to them that 
 have no might He increaseth strength." What 
 characters are more explicitly denounced in Scrip- 
 ture than the down-treaders of the weak? All 
 along the pages of Inspiration threatenings flame 
 out against oppressors, and against those who coun- 
 tenance and abet them ; and all along the track of 
 History those threatenings loom up in terrible ful- 
 filment. And can we hope to escape, if, from want 
 of sympathy with the wronged, or indifference to 
 their needs, we fail in the exigency that is now 
 before us?
 
 276 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 "We see dimly, in the present, what is small and what is 
 
 great ; 
 Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of 
 
 Fate; 
 
 But the soul is still oracular ; amid the market's din, 
 List to the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave 
 
 within; 
 They enslave their children's children who make compromise 
 
 with Sin." 
 
 What, then, ought to be done? More, doubt- 
 less, much more than it is in our present power to 
 accomplish. The surest and readiest way of de- 
 fending the freedmen, is to confer on them the 
 elective franchise. The ballot is the most effectual 
 safeguard. Give them that, and they can protect 
 themselves. But, in the existing state of public 
 opinion, not only at the South, but in the North as 
 well, it were vain to expect this, and idle to insist 
 upon it. Until the national mind is more broadly 
 educated, and rises to a higher conception of the 
 natural rights of all men, it would be putting our- 
 selves on impracticable ground, to demand the im- 
 mediate bestowment of political immunities. These 
 will come with the growth of freedom, and the 
 progress of events. In the mean time, we shall find 
 ample occasion for all our energies in securing to 
 the emancipated the enjoyment of those civil rights 
 the rights of person, the rights of labor, and the 
 rights of property without which their freedom
 
 GOD'S METHOD OF RECONSTRUCTION. 277 
 
 will be but a shadow. Here let us take our stand. 
 Here all who hate vassalage can unite. And here 
 we can begin and prosecute the work which shall 
 end in perfect enfranchisement. 
 
 Some there may be, avowed friends of emancipa- 
 tion, and of the elevation of the colored race, who 
 will refuse to come up to this point. However true 
 to the Union, however loyal in intention to Liberty, 
 they cannot so far shake themselves from the influ- 
 ence of old prejudices and old affiliations, as to 
 take the part of the negro against the tyranny of 
 the white man. When such are invested with vast 
 power, then* scruples are the more to be regretted, 
 inasmuch as they may seriously retard the righteous 
 adjustment of the questions now agitating the coun- 
 try. It is not in the school of slavery that Free- 
 dom's champions are trained. Pharaoh may bear 
 the rod of Moses, and profess to guide the people 
 to the Promised Land ; but, in such hands, the rod, 
 instead of pointing across the sea, and straight on 
 to Canaan, will whirl round, and point directly 
 back to Egypt. Nevertheless, whether the rod 
 beckon falsely or truly, we must obey, not the rod, 
 but the Shekinah. That never misleads. As the 
 Pillar of Cloud and of Fire went before the Tribes, 
 shaping all their movements, so the Word of the 
 living God appoints and marshals our way. And 
 the course which it prescribes is onward, ever on-
 
 278 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 ward, farther and farther from the house of bond- 
 age, nearer and nearer to the goal of full deliver- 
 ance and rest. 
 
 God's Moses, after conducting his charge through 
 the returnless waters that separated them forever 
 from their former thraldom, watched and taught 
 them during the long delay of the wilderness ; and 
 it was not till the period of probation had passed, 
 and discipline and culture had prepared them for 
 the ordained inheritance, that they entered upon its 
 fruition. Let us follow in his steps. We are 
 already over the sea, and the reign of chattelhood 
 is behind us. Protection, guidance, preparation, 
 constitute the work which we have now to do.' 
 While we guard the freedmen from wrong and 
 violence, we must endeavor, at the same time, to 
 improve their condition, by bringing to bear upon 
 it all the ameliorating appliances of education and 
 Christianity. In this direction lies their way to 
 Canaan ; and by such a process must they be fitted 
 for its responsibilities. Redeemed by intelligence 
 and religion from the darkness and debasement 
 which ages of servitude have induced, they cannot 
 long be debarred from political privileges. In a 
 country like ours, men so qualified must sooner or 
 later acquire the right of suffrage, whatever antipa- 
 thies and repulsions may array themselves against 
 it. And when this is gained, the machinery of
 
 GOD'S METHOD OF RECONSTRUCTION. 279 
 
 their elevation will be complete. A race, acted on 
 by the three mighty levers, Education, the Gospel, 
 and the Ballot, must rise. No force of prejudice, 
 no power of custom, no ban of exclusiveness can 
 keep it down. As well might an eagle lie grovel- 
 ling in the dust, with three pairs of wings beating 
 the air, as a people remain in a low social status, 
 when schools, Bibles, and the right to vote, com- 
 bine to lift them up. Advancement is the neces- 
 sary result of the influences operating upon them. 
 They will rise rise in spite of every clog and of 
 every attempt at repression rise in manliness, in 
 civilization, in knowledge, in skill, in industry 
 rise in all that imparts dignity to the citizen, in all 
 that insures repose and prosperity to the state. 
 
 " I held it truth, with him who sings 
 To one clear harp in divers tones, 
 That men may rise on stepping-stones 
 Of their dead selves to higher things." 
 
 So simple and yet so thorough is the method of 
 reconstruction, which the supreme Governor sets 
 before us. If we " hide the outcasts " under the 
 shelter of equal laws, make the justice of the nation 
 " a covert to them from the face of the spoiler," 
 and do not ' ' bewray " them by any device of com- 
 promise or any yielding to expediency, the great
 
 280 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 problem will be solved. On such a basis, the 
 Union may be rebuilt with a firmness and solidity 
 that will defy all the shocks of change, and all the 
 assaults of time. And to this consummation we 
 believe the providence of God is leading us. We 
 believe that the same unerring Wisdom that di- 
 rected our steps in all the critical hours of the 
 Rebellion, will continue to guide us in the per- 
 plexities and perils by which we are now sur- 
 rounded. The All-Ruler has too grand a purpose 
 to work out in the future of this country, to permit 
 our folly to frustrate or endanger it. If we disre- 
 gard His teachings, and set His commands at 
 defiance, He may humble us by failure, and visit 
 us with rebuke, till, in despair of our own counsels, 
 we consent to execute His ; but He will not sur- 
 render us to anarchy and ruin. What He has done 
 for us is a pledge of what He will do. The past 
 foreshadows the future. His agency will so mould 
 opinion, and so shape events, that, however dying 
 treason may toss and struggle, the calm, strong 
 heart of the nation will remain steadfast to the 
 right ; loyalty and humanity will triumph ; and this 
 mighty Federation of States be perfect once more, 
 with every breach repaired, every element of dis- 
 cord eliminated. And thus will our political sys- 
 tem, founded on the Civil Equality of all men, rest-
 
 GOD'S METHOD OF RECONSTRUCTION. 281 
 
 ing on the firm arches of Free Schools and Uni- 
 versal Suffrage, pillared by Justice, and buttressed 
 by Christianity, tower up in MATCHLESS STRENGTH 
 
 AND GRANDEUR, THE MARVEL OF THE AGES, AND 
 THE HOPE OF THE WORLD. 
 
 " No floundering more, for mind or heart, 
 
 Among the lower levels ; 
 No welcome more for moods that sort 
 
 With satyrs and with devils ; 
 But over all our fruitful slopes, 
 
 On ail our plains of beauty, 
 Fair temples for fair human hopes 
 
 And altar-thrones for duty. 
 
 " Wherefore, ransomed people, shout ! 
 
 O banners, wave in glory ! 
 O bugles, blow the triumph out ! 
 
 O drums, strike up the story 1 
 Clang, broken fetters, idle swords I 
 
 Clap hands, O States together ! 
 And let all praises be the Lord's, 
 
 Our Saviour and our Father."
 
 CHAPTEE XL 
 OUR DAf AND ITS WOKK. 
 
 1 A WISE MAN'S HEART DISCEBNETH BOTH TIME AND JUDGMENT." 
 
 Ecclesiastes viii. 5. 
 
 ?HING is more essential to success in the 
 work of life, than an intelligent comprehen- 
 sion of the period in which that work is to be 
 done. Whoever would achieve aught of mo- 
 ment for the welfare of his race, must pon- 
 der well the salient features of his own time, and 
 know the channels along which the current of the 
 world's thought is moving. From a defect here, 
 many noble men, gifted with great powers, and 
 stirred by lofty aims, have lived in vain. They un- 
 derstood not their age ; and their age neither under- 
 stood nor heeded them. Striving to draw back the 
 live, progressive Present into the dead, still Past ; or 
 laboring, with equal folly, to hurry forward the im- 
 mature Present into the ripe Future, they won only 
 scorn, neglect, and failure; and, after all their 
 efforts, all their enthusiasm, all their sacrifices, 
 their whole history may be written in the one
 
 OUR DAT AND ITS WORK. 283 
 
 brief sentence, " Born out of due time." He who 
 would influence men in politics, in social reforms, 
 in the industrial arts, must not hope to do it by 
 shaking over them the dry bones of by -gone ideas ; 
 but must take his stand on those living questions of 
 the day, in which humanity feels a warm and active 
 interest. 
 
 " New occasions teach new duties. Time makes ancient good 
 uncouth ; 
 
 They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast 
 of Truth ; 
 
 Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires ! we ourselves must Pil- 
 grims be, 
 
 Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desper- 
 ate winter sea, 
 
 Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted 
 key." 
 
 This knowledge of the Present, however indis- 
 pensable it may be to the right conduct of secular 
 affairs, is far more so to the progress of religion. 
 The Christian, of all men, most needs to understand 
 the time in which the claims of his high calling are 
 to be met. The truths of the Gospel, and the obli- 
 gations which grow out of them, are the same at all 
 periods ; but the manner in which the one is to be 
 applied and the other fulfilled, varies with the shift- 
 ing scenes of the world's history. And he who, in 
 our versatile and rapid age, thinks to push on the
 
 284 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 victories of the Cross, and combat the thousand 
 new forms which error and sin are every moment 
 assuming, with precisely the same weapons, and the 
 same methods of attack, that were used in slower 
 and less eventful generations, is as unwise as the 
 soldier who should bring the cumbrous mail, the 
 battle-axes and battering rams of the old crusaders, 
 to contend against minnie muskets and rifled can- 
 non ; or as the naval commander who should oppose 
 the wooden walls of a lumbering seventy-four to 
 steel-pointed rams and iron-clad Monitors. 
 
 This is the thought enunciated by the Sacred 
 Writer, when he says, W A wise man's heart dis- 
 cerneth both time and judgment." In other words, 
 he comprehends his epoch, and forms a just esti- 
 mate of its character and of its demands. The 
 subject, therefore, to which I invite your attention, 
 is Our Day, and its Work. 
 
 That the features of our day are diverse and 
 many-hued, no thoughtful observer can doubt. 
 They accord strikingly with the sublime descrip- 
 tion of prophecy, that " the light shall not be clear 
 nor dark ; a day, not day nor night " that is, 
 neither shining in full splendor, nor overshadowed 
 by unbroken gloom. How accurate a portrait is 
 this of the time in which our lot is cast ! Some 
 of its aspects apparently indicate the triumph of 
 evil ; others the triumph of good. Some are dark
 
 OUR DAT AND ITS WORK. 285 
 
 with prognostics of the gathering tempest; others 
 bright with the precursors of coming peace and 
 joy. It is, however, my firm conviction that, in 
 any comprehensive view that may be taken of the 
 social and moral movements of the present day, 
 hope must greatly preponderate over fear ; and that 
 these movements furnish far more cause for encour- 
 agement than for despondency. This will be evi- 
 dent if, beginning with those characteristics that are 
 most unfavorable, we pass on to the more cheering 
 ones by which they are overbalanced and counter- 
 acted. 
 
 Our day is marked by flagrant wickedness. I am 
 not about to commit the folly which Solomon so 
 pointedly rebakes in the complainers of his age. 
 " Say not thou, What is the cause that the former 
 times were better than these ? for thou dost not in- 
 quire wisely concerning this." It is not my design, 
 therefore, to institute any comparison between the 
 amount of sin in our own and in other periods of 
 the world's dark annals. Man has always been 
 vile ; and man always will be vile, till the Gospel 
 has pervaded and purified the race. Yet while the 
 inward corruption of our nature remains ever the 
 same, the degree of outbreaking iniquity may be 
 greater in one generation than in another. It is ac- 
 cording to the course of human depravity, that the 
 farther it proceeds, and the longer its base impulses
 
 286 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 continue to act, the more daring and shameless it 
 should become. But however this may be, the 
 most careless onlooker must acknowledge that un- 
 godliness is now fearfully rampant. When were 
 the claims of Jehovah more disregarded; the au- 
 thority of His law more contemned ; the sanctities 
 of His Sabbath, His Word, and His House more 
 dishonored? When was irreligion more dominant 
 among the masses the power of earthliness more 
 intense neglect of the great salvation more deter- 
 mined and universal?" If we pass from the domain 
 of things spiritual to that of morals, there too we 
 find a downward tendency equally decided. Does 
 any one doubt this ? Let him examine the statis- 
 tics of crime, furnished by the records of police 
 and the proceedings of criminal courts, and he can- 
 not but b'e appalled both at the number and the 
 enormity of the offenses which they proclaim. Who 
 has not shuddered at the frightful increase of mur- 
 der and suicide ? Who does not stand aghast at the 
 growing frequency of crimes against property the 
 defalcations in office the dishonesty hi business 
 the adulterations and robberies that permeate all 
 departments of trade ? With respect also to those 
 sins of which human laws take little or no cogni- 
 zance, we perceive the same startling and abnormal 
 development. Even Intemperance, for whose sup- 
 pression so much has been done, is at this moment
 
 OUR DAT AND ITS WORK. 287 
 
 rapidly spreading ; while the enormous sin of Li- 
 centiousness has attained a prevalence in all classes 
 of society, and shows itself with an unblushing 
 boldness, that must cause every friend of his spe- 
 cies to shrink back in dismay and horror. 
 
 Along with this growth of atrocious immoralities, 
 there have sprung up also an effrontery in guilt, a 
 disregard of decency, and a contempt for the very 
 name and appearance of goodness, which indicate a 
 most polluted state of public sentiment and feeling. 
 Formerly, men reverenced Virtue, if they did not 
 follow her. But now they throw dust on her sacred 
 head, and trample down her altars in scorn ; while 
 Vice, caressed and honored, decked in gaudy trap- 
 pings, with multitudes shouting in her train, is pa- 
 raded forth in the light of the sun, and beneath the 
 gaze of astonished Heaven. 
 
 In like manner, the temptations to evil are more 
 numerous and open now than in other days. No 
 longer hidden under the veil of darkness, nor con- 
 fined in their influence to the loathsome purlieus of 
 profligacy, they stand out before all eyes, spreading 
 their snares in every walk of life, and in every path 
 of human pursuit. So insidious, so all-reaching are 
 they, that no asylum is sacred, no retreat secure 
 from their presence. 
 
 Connected with this increase of vice and of the 
 incitements to it, there has been, as alike its pre-
 
 288 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 cedent and its consequent, a most deplorable exten- 
 sion of skeptical and infidel opinions. In every age, 
 there have been men of minds so distorted and de- 
 praved as to reject the authority of Revelation. 
 But hitherto these have been mostly retired scholars 
 and idle speculatists who, dwelling apart from the 
 intercourse and sympathy of the masses, have mut- 
 tered their doubts in the seclusion of the study, with- 
 out doing much harm to any except themselves. 
 It is a peculiar feature of our day, that Infidelity 
 has gone forth from the closets of philosophers and 
 theorizers into the walks of common life, and claims 
 its votaries among merchants and tradesmen, me- 
 chanics and artisans, the tillers of the land, and 
 the wanderers of the sea ; thus infecting that prac- 
 tical class which gives character and tone to the 
 community. No longer elaborating its destructive 
 dogmas in learned disquisitions and ponderous folios, 
 destined to be safely entombed in the dust and si- 
 lence of some vast library, it gives them lighter and 
 more winged forms ; and in the shape of small books, 
 magazines, and newspapers, scatters them through 
 the dwellings of the poor, the cottage of the laborer, 
 the bar-rooms of taverns, the cabins of steamboats 
 and ships, in the solitude of the rural hamlet, and 
 in the bustle of the thronged city. By this change 
 in the mode of its operations, it not only manifests 
 a hostility to revealed truth unusuallj' active and
 
 OUR DAT AND ITS WOBK. 289 
 
 bitter, but employs a species of attack most of all to 
 be dreaded. 
 
 From these few and brief references, it seems 
 evident that glaring impiety is a prominent charac- 
 teristic of the present day. Whether this constitutes 
 one of those alarming portents, which, as prophecy 
 informs us, shall appear in the closing age of the 
 world, when Satan shall come down in great wrath, 
 knowing that his time is short, we venture not to 
 decide ; but certainly some of the marks of that pre- 
 dicted period are now clearly and strongly devel- 
 oped. And we cannot avoid the conviction that 
 wickedness will become more and more outrageous, 
 until it shall be at last overthrown and annihilated 
 by the final victories of the Cross. 
 
 Our day is pre-eminently a day of change. The 
 human mind roused from the torpor of centuries, 
 seems determined to make amends for its past apathy 
 by tearing everything in pieces. Like a blind giant, 
 it deals forth its blows of power in all directions, 
 eager only to destroy, and little heeding what it 
 assails. Confounding together worthless abuses, 
 and institutions whose value has been proved by 
 the experience of ages, it attacks all without dis- 
 crimination, bent only on making a clean sweep. In 
 political affairs this spirit of innovation is strikingly 
 apparent. The whole continent of Europe is at 
 this moment one vast bed of fire, smouldering and
 
 290 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 seething under the thin crust of external quiet ; 
 and though suppressed for a tune by the strong 
 hand of military rule, yet all the while collecting 
 its forces for a grand, terrific explosion, which shall 
 scatter kings and thrones and all existing govern- 
 ments, like the dust of the summer's threshing-floor. 
 Nor are other quarters of the globe exempt from sim- 
 ilar commotion. Over our own land the hurricane 
 has already swept. Justice and Oppression, Free- 
 dom and Slavery have here met and grappled in the 
 mightiest and bloodiest struggle which the earth has 
 ever seen ; and the signal triumph which Liberty has 
 won is a sign of hope for all the down -trodden races 
 of suffering humanity. And everywhere among 
 those races we see the stir and tumult of preparation 
 for a similar conflict of antagonistic principles. In 
 the sphere of morals and religion the same tokens 
 of the coming strife are manifest ; while, through 
 all the departments of civil and social life, there is 
 a restlessness, a discontent, a yearning after some 
 dimly apprehended good, which cannot but be 
 deemed ominous of mighty convulsions in the near 
 future. The whole face of the world, like the 
 ocean before the tempest breaks upon it, is agitated 
 and upheaved as by some unseen power. Every- 
 where there is disturbance, tumult, revolution. All 
 things betoken the approach of the great Battle of 
 Armageddon, where, in the last final encounter of
 
 OUR DAY AN D ITS WORK. 291 
 
 truth with error, holiness with sin, every principle 
 and every institution, not emanating from Heaven, 
 and rendered immortal by righteousness, shall be 
 destroyed by the breath of Jehovah. 
 
 " Not in vain the distance beacons. Forward, forward let us 
 
 range. 
 Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves 
 
 of change, 
 Through the shadow of the globe we sweep into the younger 
 
 day." 
 
 Viewing thus the gathering of the thunder-cloud 
 ere it burst, and listening to the deep mutterings of 
 the volcano ere it sends forth the desolating erup- 
 tion, where is our confidence, where our comfort, 
 except in Him to whom the thunder and the volcano 
 are but ministers, and who wields all the move- 
 ments both of physical and of intellectual nature for 
 the promotion of His own sovereign purposes ? On 
 the simple, but all-comprehending truth, "The Lord 
 reigueth," the Christian may plant his feet, and 
 stand secure, while worlds are crashing around him. 
 
 The present is a day of unwonted activity. Nu- 
 merous causes now combine to call out the energies 
 of men, and stimulate them to intense endeavor. 
 The opening of new fields of enterprise and of new 
 sources of wealth ; the inventions and improvements 
 in science and the arts, which render them avail- 
 able ; the facility with which, by the present rapid
 
 292 LATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 means of communication, the most distant points 
 may be reached, and the almost instantaneous trans- 
 mission of intelligence, have supplied fresh objects 
 of human desire, and given fresh vigor to human 
 effort. Every sphere, every occupation, feels the 
 awakening impulse. The sea swarms with ships 
 exchanging the products of all climes. The laud 
 echoes with the bustle of trade, the din of manufac- 
 tures, the noise of multitudes hurrying to and fro ; 
 and even the far wilderness rings with the tramp of 
 eager adventurers, seeking homes or treasure in its 
 hitherto silent wastes. Over all the secular pur- 
 suits and employments of man there has come the 
 breath of a new life. The whole earth quivers with 
 the excitement. Its pulsations have reached even 
 the insulated Chinese, and he longs to leap the wall 
 of the Celestial Empire, and mingle in the rush of 
 "the outside barbarians." The sleep of the world 
 is over its long dream is broken. A spirit is now 
 abroad that is destined to move onward from conti- 
 nent to continent, rousing up the slumbering nations 
 in its course, until it shall convert the globe into 
 one wide theatre of stirring life. 
 
 This increased activity, which is now animating 
 all ranks, is capable, if rightly directed, of working 
 out the most beneficent results in the physical, in- 
 tellectual, and moral condition of men. But there 
 is also great danger that by fixing their regards too
 
 OUR DAT AND ITS WORK. 293 
 
 exclusively on earthly things, it may become a snare 
 to their souls, and contribute to their everlasting 
 ruin. How urgently does this call for correspond- 
 ing activity on the part of Christians, in order to 
 counteract the overflowing tide of worldliness that is 
 now setting in upon society ! 
 
 Our day is distinguished by the wide diffusion of 
 knowledge. In point of intelligence, we stand on 
 an eminence far above any of the ages that have 
 preceded us. This distinction lies not in the fact 
 that the scholars of our day are more learned than 
 those of other periods ; although in the most recon- 
 dite departments of science advances have been 
 made, the possibility of which our fathers would not 
 have believed advances which are producing great 
 practical effects on the whole circle of social exist- 
 ence. But the true glory of modern knowledge is 
 its dissemination. For the first time in the history 
 of the world, the subject of general education is en- 
 listing the sympathies of governments, of statesmen, 
 and of philanthropists. The change which has thus 
 been wrought is as wonderful as it is cheering. By 
 means of public and Sabbath schools, the multipli- 
 cation of books in a cheap form, and the teeming 
 issues of the Periodical Press, there is now educed, 
 from myriads of minds hitherto neglected, an 
 amount of intellectual and moral energy, that must 
 be fraught with vast influence on the destinies of
 
 294 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 coming ages. We rejoice in this diffusion of intel- 
 ligence, and long, for the day when its light shall 
 reach every darkling inhabitant of our earth. At 
 the same time, it must be remembered that knowl- 
 edge, divorced from religion, may become only an 
 engine of mischief and destruction. How impor- 
 tant, then, is it that we should cast into these grow- 
 ing streams of secular learning that element of Wis- 
 dom from above, which alone can render them 
 healthful and salutary ! 
 
 Our day is characterized by an ardent spirit of 
 reform. Christianity, acting in concert with ex- 
 panding knowledge, and giving impulse and direc- 
 tion to it, is now developing its benign influence on 
 human welfare with unprecedented power. The 
 wrongs of centuries have been redressed. Abuses, 
 hoary with age, and fenced round by interest and 
 prejudice, have been partially or wholly swept 
 away. Without pausing to mention other specific 
 instances, let me refer you to the progress which 
 has been made in the cause of human freedom. By 
 freedom, we mean not that wild anarchy which has 
 sometimes been invested with its sacred name, but 
 that well organized, rational liberty, which is the 
 friend of order and of law, and which, while it 
 teaches men to respect the rights of others, impels 
 them to assert and maintain their own. And this 
 a blessing of inestimable price is growing
 
 OUR DAT AND ITS WORK. 295 
 
 apace with the spread of intelligence and religion. 
 Indeed, wherever true Christianity and Knowledge 
 combine, Freedom must always spring from the 
 union. They are allied to each other by the indis- 
 soluble relation of cause and effect; and any at- 
 tempt to sunder them would be as futile as that of 
 the ancient despot to still the winds with his breath, 
 and bind the Hellespont in his chains. 
 
 In the administration of civil governments, a 
 great advance has been made on the theory and the 
 practice of former times. The truth has been dem- 
 onstrated, and is rapidly extending, that govern- 
 ments were ordained, not for the aggrandizement of 
 the few, but for the good of the many ; that the 
 subject is not a mere machine, to serve the caprice 
 or ambition of irresponsible lords, and bound to 
 obey their arbitraiy will, but a being endued with 
 the sacred attributes of humanity, possessing ina- 
 lienable rights, entitled to share in the enactment of 
 the laws and in the choice of the rulers under which 
 he shall live, and claiming to stand forth in the un- 
 shackled dignity of his nature, beneath the broad 
 protection of universal Equality and Justice. This 
 is, of itself, a noble triumph, and is fraught with the 
 promise of triumphs yet more noble. Such a prin- 
 ciple, once fixed in the minds of men, cannot remain 
 inert and unproductive. Like a buried seed, it will 
 swell and expand, till it bursts through all impedi-
 
 296 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 ments, and flowers forth into a new and better civ- 
 ilization. On the progress and development of this 
 social revolution the example of our own country 
 has exerted a most powerful influence. The suc- 
 cess of free institutions here has kindled in the op- 
 pressed masses of other climes an intense longing 
 for similar immunities a longing which has been 
 immensely deepened and emphasized by the recent 
 terrible ordeal through which those institutions have 
 passed. In conquering the rebellion of the oligarchs 
 a rebellion inaugurated for the overthrow of lib- 
 erty a rebellion so vast in its proportions that to 
 all but ourselves its subjugation appeared impossi- 
 ble we have demonstrated the strength and sta- 
 bility of popular government ; and have shown, in 
 the sight of the nations, that such a form of govern- 
 ment is not only the most beneficent, but the most 
 invulnerable and deathless. The nations will not 
 forget the lesson. Henceforth Freedom will walk 
 the earth \vith a bolder step and a loftier brow. 
 And we cannot but believe that she has now reached 
 a position, where her uplifted banner shall no longer 
 stream against the wind, or hang downward in a 
 sluggish and leaden atmosphere, but float gladly 
 and victoriously before the favoring breeze, till its 
 starry folds shall wave over an emancipated world. 
 While so much has been done to ameliorate the 
 civil condition of men at large, the case of one iso-
 
 OUR DAT AND ITS WORK. 297 
 
 luted class, peculiar in its degradation and misery, 
 has not been forgotten. Christian benevolence is 
 putting forth a great and glorious effort in behalf of 
 the bondmen of all races and in all lands. Xearly 
 all civilized nations have united to brand as piracy 
 the accursed traffic in human flesh on the shores of 
 Africa. England has abolished slavery throughout 
 her dominions. France and Holland have done the 
 same. Even Russia, despotic, autocratic Russia, 
 has proclaimed that over all her broad steppes serf- 
 dom shall cease. And now redeemed America 
 stands by their side, purified like them from the 
 stain of bondage. By a wondrous intervention of 
 Divine Providence, she, too, rejoices in the removal 
 of the fearful scourge which has so long blighted 
 her prosperity. Here, however, the emancipation, 
 though equally benign in its results, has been wide- 
 ly different in its method. Not by slow and silent 
 changes not by the calm force of moral opinion 
 has the chain of servitude been broken. The 
 hand of an avenging God has rent it suddenly and 
 violently asunder. From the shock of battle, from 
 the crash and din of internecine strife, has sprung 
 the deliverance of the slave. The devotees of bar- 
 barism, the buyers and sellers of men, madly op- 
 posed themselves to the power of the advancing age. 
 Luxurious taskmasters, fattening on the sweat and 
 blood of their thralls, vented their rage against the
 
 298 LATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 Jubilee that was drawing nigh, and lifted their puny 
 hands to push it back. Venal rhetoricians defamed 
 as mere " glittering generalities " the great words 
 which Liberty had graven on her charter ; and po- 
 litical aspirants, and mercenary placemen, and Traf- 
 fic's minions, and scared conservatives, peeping out 
 from holes and corners, cried, "Halt," to the mill- 
 ions rushing on with the shout of " Free Soil for 
 Free Men." The propagandists of slavery, in their 
 insane struggles to uphold it, " played such fantastic 
 tricks," as to make them the scorn of earth, and the 
 abomination of Heaven. But their resistance was 
 vain. The decree of the Omnipotent had gone 
 forth, that slavery must die. The voice of Chris- 
 tianity, the voice of the world, the voice of the 
 world's Kuler proclaimed that slavery must die. 
 Then came the death-grapple. To perpetuate and 
 extend the institution, the South rushed into treason 
 and civil war, and marshalled all its resources and 
 all its hate for the destruction of the Government 
 and the Union. Long and fierce was the conflict. 
 The land was convulsed by the uproar of encounter- 
 ing legions, desolated by their fury, and red with 
 slaughter. And when victory crowned the right at 
 last, and the smoke of battle rolled away, lo ! 
 slavery lay dead amid the hecatombs of the slain > 
 smitten down in the gory combat which its champi- 
 ons had provoked..
 
 OUR DAT AND ITS WORK. 299 
 
 In the work of general enfranchisement thus be- 
 gun a work which is destined never to cease, 
 until men shall recognize in their fellow-man of 
 every race and complexion a brother and an equal 
 we behold a movement to whose moral grandeur 
 history affords no parallel. Whether we contem- 
 plate the stupendous agencies which energize and 
 guide it, or the magnificent issues to which it leads, 
 we are alike impressed by its greatness and its be- 
 neficence. If this be the spirit of the time and 
 can any one doubt it ? who must not long for its 
 continuance and increase, and for the going out of 
 its redeeming influence to all the nations of the 
 earth? May He, whose sovereign purposes have 
 calle^l it forth, so consecrate and direct it, that it 
 shall wander into no wild excess, but move on, 
 steady, uniform, unsullied, till Humanity shall 
 everywhere be disenthralled, and the world pre- 
 sent one glorious scene of Freedom and Peace. 
 
 But the grandest feature of our day yet remains 
 to be considered. It is pre-eminently the Era of 
 Evangelism. All its aspects, all its tendencies, 
 denote that such is its place in history. It is dis- 
 tinguished beyond all former tunes for the oppor- 
 tunities which it affords for the spread of the 
 Gospel, and for the success which the Gospel is 
 achieving. The proclamation, in all lands, of the 
 Sacrifice offered on Calvary, is the great agency
 
 300 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 which God has ordained for the spiritual improve- 
 ment and salvation of men. To this all the ages 
 have looked forward as their chief scope and end. 
 Whatever their position along the stream of Time 
 whether in the gray mists that veil its earlier 
 course, or amid the light of its later scenes each 
 has gazed ever with steadfast face toward that shin- 
 ing point hi the flowing centuries, when the Angel 
 of the Apocalyptic Vision should " fly through the 
 midst of heaven, having the everlasting Gospel to 
 preach to all that dwell on the earth." 
 
 The whole world now teems with tokens that this 
 glorious epoch is close at hand. The facilities for 
 the universal diffusion of Divine Truth are such as 
 no other days have seen. Until recently, restric- 
 tions arising from hostile governments, prohibitory 
 laws, and various other causes, have, like mountain 
 barriers, shut out the Word of Life from a large 
 proportion of the human family. These restrictions 
 are now in all instances greatly diminished ; in most 
 entirely removed. In our own country, the curse 
 of bondage, which sealed up the Bible to four mill- 
 ions of immortal souls, and barred from them all 
 means of instruction, has been extirpated forever ; 
 and a free path opened for the light of education 
 and of a pure Gospel to reach and penetrate this 
 mass of darkened humanity. In the far climes of 
 Heathenism a similar preparation is in progress.
 
 OUR DAT AND ITS WORK. 301 
 
 Everywhere obstructions are disappearing; every- 
 where hills of difficulty are falling; everywhere 
 the strong bulwarks of caste and prejudice are giv- 
 ing way. The Church of the Eedeemer enjoys rest 
 from external conflict. No longer is she required 
 to expend all her resources in merely providing ref- 
 uge for her harassed and scattered flocks ; nor are 
 her Apostles and Evangelists condemned to the si- 
 lence of prison walls, or the deeper silence of the 
 martyr's grave. With no hindrances but such as 
 spring from her own want of faith and zeal, she 
 may go forth wherever she will on her sublime mis- 
 sion of subduing the world to Christ. And for this 
 work all the modern discoveries and improvements 
 in science and the arts contribute to equip her. 
 Geography, Navigation, Commerce not limited 
 as of old to the narrow waters and shores of the 
 Mediterranean or the Euxine, but embracing every 
 ocean and every continent the Printing Press, 
 Steam, the Telegraph all these are her ministers 
 and auxiliaries, enabling her to multiply her points 
 of attack and her means of victory almost to an 
 indefinite extent. The modes of communication 
 between nation and nation are easy and rapid. 
 From the mercantile and other relations which 
 connect the different parts of the globe, ready 
 avenues are provided for conveying the message 
 of salvation to the most distant abodes of the hu-
 
 302 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 man race. There is no spot on earth so remote or 
 secluded, no island so hidden amid the wastes of 
 unexplored seas, that Christian intelligence has not 
 heard of it, that Christian sympathy does not go 
 out to it, that Christian effort cannot reach it. 
 
 The whole world is accessible to the Gospel. 
 Aye, more the whole world is waiting for the 
 Gospel. A spirit of inquiry, of hope, is abroad 
 among the nations, pointing them to the Star of 
 Bethlehem, to the Sun of Righteousness, just rising 
 on their awakened vision. Myriads have renounced 
 their superstitions, and welcomed the truth as it is 
 in Jesus ; and myriads more need only to be taught 
 that truth, to receive it with joy. And while Chris- 
 tianity is thus growing stronger, and is making con- 
 stant inroads upon false religions, those false reli- 
 gions themselves, through all their motley systems, 
 show marks of decrepitude, paralyzation, decay. 
 Nor are the people of God altogether insensible to 
 the obligations which these facts involve. Though 
 but half awake to their duty, they are awake to it 
 as never were the people of God before. Never 
 before were the wants of the world so fully under- 
 stood and felt. Never before was labor for the 
 world so thoroughly recognized as the rule of Chris- 
 tian life. Never before were offerings for the world 
 so large and free. Never before was prayer for the 
 world so universal and so fervent. Never before
 
 OUR DAT AND ITS WORK. 303 
 
 was the conversion of the world, the entire world, 
 so deliberately, solemnly, unblenchingly proposed 
 as the one great purpose of the Church of Christ. 
 The harvest of the earth is ripe. The harvest of 
 the earth is begun. Go where you will on the face 
 of the peopled globe the reapers are there before 
 you. And already, in places not few God in- 
 crease them a thousand-fold ! the golden sheaves 
 stand thick over all the field. 
 
 Such are some of the bright indications of the 
 day in which we live. And do they not more than 
 compensate for those that are dark and ominous? 
 Can we study them without perceiving that they are 
 rich with auguries of the approaching triumphs of 
 the Gospel ? We should do violence to Eeason and 
 Religion alike, did we not recognize in them the 
 Voice of Providence, crying in the Wilderness of 
 this outcast world, " prepare ye the way of the 
 Lord ; make straight in the desert a highway for 
 oui' God." And as that way is now being pre- 
 pared, we seem to hear, mingling with the sounds 
 of the pioneer's axe, the trencher's spade, and the 
 builder's hammer, the distant roll of His chariot 
 wheels, as He comes onward, onward, " conquering 
 and to conquer." 
 
 We mean not indeed to say that all things are 
 now ready for the ushering in of Messiah's final 
 reign. Many and great changes mast take place
 
 304 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 before that glad consummation can arrive. There 
 are mountains to be levelled, valleys to be raised, 
 gulfs to be bridged, ere the word of the Lord can 
 have free course, and be glorified over all the earth. 
 Even in the character and position of the Church 
 itself there is much that needs to be reformed. But 
 what then? Shall we do nothing because we cannot 
 at once do everything? Shall we abandon the work, 
 because our coadjutors in it are not all that they 
 ought to be, and all that they yet shall be? Oh ! 
 no, no. Let us rather wait on, pray on, toil on, 
 till a mightier effusion of the Spirit from above 
 shall so renovate the Church, that the Church shall 
 renovate the world. The Host of God's Elect, 
 though but imperfectly organized, ill disciplined, 
 and broken into separate and o'ften belligerent 
 bands, is nevertheless passing through a course of 
 training that shall fit it for glorious deeds. And 
 soon, marshalled in one vast phalanx under the 
 great central Banner of " One Lord, One Faith, 
 one Baptism," marching shoulder to shoulder, and 
 keeping step to the music of the angel's Hymn, 
 "Glory to God in the Highest, on earth Peace, 
 Good will toward men," it shall be led forth by its 
 Omnipotent Captain to the conquest of the world. 
 
 We have thus finished our promised review of 
 the tune in which we live. It is emphatically a 
 time of transition, important and exciting, not only
 
 OUR DAT AND ITS WORK, 305 
 
 for the grand events which are taking place in it, 
 but for the still grander ones of which they are the 
 forerunners. Regarded thus as a season of prep- 
 aration for the world's enfranchisement, the Sat- 
 urday evening that heralds the world's Sabbath, 
 it manifestly brings with it peculiar obligations, and 
 inculcates momentous lessons. With a distinct- 
 ness that cannot be mistaken, and an emphasis that 
 should thrill every heart, it summons the people of 
 God to be not merely indolent observers, but ear- 
 nest actors in the great scenes which are opening 
 before them. 
 
 "We are called upon to survey our work. To un- 
 derstand precisely what we have to do, is as neces- 
 sary as it is to discern the fitting season for its per- 
 formance. In the development of human affairs, 
 each generation of men has a specific part assigned 
 it, which, from the prominence it holds in the move- 
 ments of the period, may be denominated the work 
 of that generation. In physical progress this law 
 may be observed. The province of one age is Dis- 
 covery. Public enterprise is strongly bent in that 
 direction ; and wealth and talent and ambition find 
 their chief outlets in traversing unknown seas, and 
 giving new continents to the world. Another is 
 the age of Colonization, in which realms hitherto 
 uninhabited or barbarous are peopled with civilized 
 races. Then follows the age of Material Improve-
 
 306 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 ment, clearing the forests, constructing highways, 
 founding cities, developing industry, creating com- 
 merce. The growth of Science is marked by the 
 same successive stages. One century thinks out 
 the philosophies on which it resits. Another invents 
 the instruments for giving practical effect to those 
 philosophies. Another perfects the instruments, 
 sets them at work, moves the wheel, plies the 
 spindle, drives the car along the track, speeds 
 the steamship over the deep, sends the harnessed 
 lightning round the globe. 
 
 There has been a similar order in the establish- 
 ment and spread of the Gospel. Since its first 
 promulgation by Christ and His Apostles, it has 
 passed through various conditions, and stood in dif- 
 ferent attitudes to society and the world, requiring 
 of its votaries corresponding lines of conduct. It 
 has had its eras of persecution, when suffering was 
 the testimony of the Church, and calm endurance 
 her highest duty. It has had its eras of doctrinal 
 discussion, in which the course of events sum- 
 moned its adherents to examine its foundations, 
 and strengthen its defences. But these eras are 
 not ours. The call on believers now is not to die 
 for the Truth, but to live for it ; not to discover the 
 Truth, but to publish it; not to surround the Truth 
 with iutrenchments, but to carry it out into open 
 combat with the powers of darkness and sin. The
 
 OUR DAT AND ITS WORK. 307 
 
 army of the Lord is not now in garrison, and, 
 therefore, cannot meet the claims of its Divine 
 Leader by merely fortifying its position, and re- 
 pulsing the attacks of the foe. Not alone the 
 parade, the drill, but the onward march, the battle 
 array, the charge, are demanded of us. The great 
 business of Christians in our day is to hold forth 
 the Word of Life ; to confront with it every public 
 and every private vice, every system of wrong, 
 every form of falsehood and imposture ; to illumine 
 with it every home of ignorance, every den of crime, 
 every dwelling of sorrow ; to overthrow the empire 
 of Satan ; to liberate his captives ; to enlighten, 
 reclaim and save the whole family of man. This 
 is the work which the voice of Jehovah, emphasized 
 by the time, commands the work of the entire 
 Church of each individual member your work, 
 and mine. Survey it; measure its extent; weigh 
 its importance ; mark the authority which prescribes 
 it ; look out over the field which it covers ; listen to 
 the cry of the darkling nations and you cannot 
 but feel that the end of your calling, your life-mis- 
 sion, is to bear the message of redemption to a 
 perishing world. 
 
 To prepare for our work, is another behest of the 
 time. No great undertaking can be accomplished 
 without adequate preparation. It is the law of all 
 human affairs, that a neglect to provide the means
 
 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 requisite for success is sure to be followed by de- 
 feat. In secular enterprises this law is universally 
 recognized and acted on. How strikingly has its 
 operation been witnessed in the gigantic war which 
 has just closed ! What vast and manifold arrange- 
 ments were necessary to its prosecution ; what wis- 
 dom in the choice of commanders ; what labor in 
 raising, disciplining, replenishing the armies ; what 
 forethought and system in supplying the material 
 and apparatus of effective service. In the earlier 
 periods of the struggle, what terrible reverses we 
 suffered from deficiency in some or all of these par- 
 ticulars. And when, taught by disaster, we brought 
 to the conflict the most perfect equipment which the 
 resources of the country could furnish, how speedily 
 its aspect changed, and how magnificently it went 
 on to its triumphant end. In the mighty warfare 
 which " the sacramental host " is waging against the 
 powers of wickedness, there is need of the same 
 completeness in the appliances essential to its vig- 
 orous ongoing. The instrumentalities which God 
 has ordained for carrying forward His designs of 
 mercy in the earth, are the preaching of the Gos- 
 pel by the lips of living ministers whom He calls 
 and sets apart to this service ; and the bringing its 
 truths into personal contact with the minds of men 
 through the example and efforts of private Chris-
 
 OUR DAY AXD ITS WORK. 309 
 
 tians. Both of these departments require to be 
 greatly enlarged and energized. 
 
 The work before us calls for more and for better 
 qualified ministers. To proclaim the tidings of sal- 
 vation in all lands, and to all the diversified tribes 
 of our outcast race ; to meet the endlessly varying 
 phases of character which human nature presents ; 
 to lead on the armies of Zion in their assault upon 
 the strongholds of ungodliness, that bristle defiance 
 against Christ in every community and in every 
 clime men are wanted in vast numbers, and of 
 more ample endowments than the Church has seen 
 since her primitive confessors left the earth. In 
 this day of popular excitements, when society is 
 borne hither and thither in ceaseless agitation, and 
 greed and worldliness reign supreme, the messen- 
 gers of Heaven can make little impression, if they 
 lack the power to grapple with the crisis. None 
 can do this but men of ardent piety, thorough cul- 
 ture, ready skill, and earnest purpose. The Apos- 
 tle Paul exhorts his disciple Timothy to " make full 
 proof of his ministry ; " or, according to the literal 
 meaning of the Greek word, to "give it full meas- 
 ure " make it round and complete in all its func- 
 tions and capabilities. Such rounded ministers are 
 needed now. Of flat ministers there are enough. 
 Of square ministers, angular ministers, one-sided 
 ministers, there are enough, more than enough.
 
 310 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 The demand of the time is for round ministers 
 ministers symmetrically developed in all the quali- 
 ties that pertain to their office robust in body, 
 vigorous in mind, mighty in faith and love. If in 
 any of these particulars defect exist, there will be 
 proportional weakness. Our age is a strong one 
 strong in impulse, strong in action and only strong 
 hands can guide it. Physical strength alone cannot 
 do it. Intellectual strength alone cannot do it. 
 Moral strength alone cannot do it. These must 
 unite, and form a ministry muscular, educated, 
 holy a ministry elastic with health, full of cour- 
 age and zeal, in sympathy with God and humanity. 
 Such are the men to "endure hardness," scale moun- 
 tains, cross oceans, traverse continents, laugh at fa- 
 tigue, brave cold and heat, "quench the violence of 
 fire, stop the mouths of lions, turn to flight the ar- 
 mies of the aliens," and carry the banner of salva- 
 tion in triumph round the world. And such are the 
 men whom the Church must raise up in hosts, if she 
 would be found ready for the solemn emergencies 
 that await her. Glancing over the fields ripe for 
 the sickle, and at the reapers few and feeble, she 
 must pray the Lord of the Harvest to send forth 
 more laborers ; to touch by His Spirit the hearts of 
 her most gifted young men, separate them from 
 their secular callings, and devote them to the minis- 
 try of reconciliation. And she must feel herself
 
 OUR DAT AND ITS WORK. 311 
 
 sacredly bound to supply whatever may be neces- 
 sary to train and furnish them for their work in 
 the most effective manner, sustaining them in their 
 course of education, sympathizing with them in their 
 struggles, bearing them ever on her heart ani- 
 mated by the conviction that in thus aiming to pro- 
 vide a more numerous and a more able ministry, 
 she is meeting a most imperative want in the king- 
 dom of the Saviour. 
 
 In the Christian Body at large increased activity 
 and power are still more urgently demanded. It 
 is a fact as strange as it is mournful that the vast 
 majority of those who profess allegiance to the 
 Redeemer, do nothing directly to advance His 
 cause. They regard their connection with the church 
 solely in its bearing on their own comfort and sal- 
 vation, ignoring the grave truth that they have been 
 brought into the family of God, not only that they 
 may taste the sweetness of Christian hope, but 
 proffer that hope to others ; not only that they may 
 reach heaven themselves, but draw after them the 
 perishing multitudes of their fellow-men. Hav- 
 ing thus little sense of religious obligation, they are 
 content to enjoy the privileges of the Gospel, and 
 resign to others the richer privilege of extending 
 it. They are always receiving, never imparting. 
 Like the sands of the desert, like the salt waves of
 
 312 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 the sea, they drink in the sweet rain of heaven, but 
 give back no products to feed a starving world. 
 
 In Ezekiel's vision of the emblematic waters 
 which, issuing from under the threshold of the Tem- 
 ple, flowed into the surrounding country, increas- 
 ing in volume as they flowed, till they grew to a 
 broad and deep river certain marshy places are de- 
 scribed, that received the waters, but instead of send- 
 ing them out again to fertilize the regions beyond, 
 absorbed them, and became, in consequence, stag- 
 nant pools, breeding disease and death. The trav- 
 eller in Italy may often see this imagery illustrated 
 in those districts where, from a scarcity of rain, 
 irrigation is extensively practised, and reduced to a 
 system. A mountain stream, gushing from its par- 
 ent lake high up among the Alps is conducted, by a 
 series of embankments and sluices, from terrace to 
 terrace, along the face of the hills, and down through 
 the valleys, wherever its refreshing tribute is needed. 
 The distribution and use of the water are regulated 
 by strict laws. While all have the right to turn it 
 in upon their fields, none are permitted to confine it 
 there ; but each one, as soon as his thirsty crops are 
 satisfied, must lift the gate and let the stream pass 
 to the terrace below ; the owner of which must, in 
 turn, send it down to the next ; and so on in suc- 
 cession, till the last terrace is reached. It some- 
 times happens, however, that the sluiceways get
 
 OUR DAT AND ITS WORK. 313 
 
 stopped up by earthy deposits ; or that some selfish 
 cultivator, caring only for his own supply, heedless 
 of his neighbor's needs, neglects to open them. 
 In this case a double mischief is done. The fields 
 from which the water is kept back are parched and 
 withered ; and those in which it is shut up are con- 
 verted into swamps, where nothing can grow but 
 reptiles aud malaria. Alas ! how many of these 
 swamps are there in the church of Christ spots 
 flooded with privileges, drowned in mercies spots 
 on which the waters of the sanctuary fall in a con- 
 stant stream, and are seen no more, swallowed 
 up by spongy consciences and souls of mud ! God's 
 form lacks drainage. This mass of dead material, 
 lying cold, sluggish, inert, in the mire of sloth 
 and worldliness, must be broken by the ploughshare 
 of the Spirit, stirred, pulverized, thrown up to the 
 sun, warmed by love, quickened into activity, be- 
 fore that grand Harvest can come, which is to strew 
 the earth with salvation, and fill full the garners of 
 heaven. Too long has the relation of members to 
 the church been practically that of the parasite to 
 the tree living on its juices, but yielding it no 
 support. Too long and too largely have the troops 
 of Zioii been composed of non-combatants silken 
 soldiers, whose highest idea of warfare is going once 
 a week to the commissary's tent for rations, dressing 
 for parade, and mustering at reviews and anniversa-
 
 314 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 ries, to show their feathers, and do the sham fight- 
 ing ; while the real fighting is left to a few pastors, 
 Sunday-school teachers and missionaries. 
 
 From the stern conflict of principles that is now- 
 going on from the stupendous issues that are soon 
 to be decided from the high vantage ground which 
 we have already reached there comes a summons 
 louder than the blast of a thousand trumpets, in- 
 voking every soldier of the King of kings to take 
 part in the struggle, and battle for the right. 
 There is room and work for all. Xone can do so 
 little, that they may be excused for not doing that 
 little. None can do so much, that they may be 
 excused from putting forth their whole strength. 
 There are vices to be extirpated, miseries to be 
 relieved, wrongs to be redressed, chains to be riven, 
 darkness to be dispelled, sinners to be saved, hu- 
 manity to be reclaimed to God and happiness. To 
 these noble ends every redeemed man and woman 
 may contribute. One can seek out a neglected child, 
 and place it under Chrstian teaching. Another can 
 scatter Bibles and tracts along the highways of 
 traffic, and in the abodes of Want and Guilt. One 
 can consecrate his fresh, young powers to a course 
 of study for the Gospel ministry. Another can give 
 him the needed aid. One can speak of Jesus in 
 the private circle, and in the social gathering. An- 
 other can proclaim him in the great congregation.
 
 OUR DAT AND ITS WOEK. 315 
 
 One can go with the message of Life to heathen 
 climes. Another can furnish the means to sustain 
 and cheer him in his exile. One can devote his 
 personal labor to the uplifting of the millions from 
 whose limbs the war has rent the fetters of servitude, 
 but whose minds are still shrouded in ignorance 
 and debasement. Another can help on the god-like 
 work by his contributions and his prayers. 
 
 All can do something, and that something, be it 
 little, be it much, is equally necessary to the final re- 
 sult. The rain-drops are necessary to fill the brooks, 
 the brooks to fill the rivers, the rivers to fill the 
 ocean, the ocean to bear wealth and gladness to its 
 furthest shores. So, in the chain of agencies by 
 which our race is to be lifted out of its ruin, there 
 is the same system of connections and dependencies. 
 And it is only when every link of this chain is in its 
 place, prepared for its portion of the strain, and the 
 Church along the whole line of her membership, 
 cries "All ready !" that God will put his hand to the 
 spokes, and the great wheel of His power go round, 
 and this sunk planet be drawn up from the abyss, 
 and hung to its Redeemer's throne. 
 
 The great interests of the hour give special em- 
 phasis to the duty of following Providence in our 
 work. As the Shekinah led the Chosen Tribes in 
 the wilderness, so "God in History" guides the 
 march of His Church. His agency pervades all the
 
 316 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 movements of men and nations, and makes them 
 the exponents of His will. Events are our teach- 
 ers. They are the beckonings of an all-ruling 
 Hand, showing us what to do, and where to do it. 
 And this, which has everywhere and always been 
 true, is peculiarly true in our own land and day. 
 The present posture of public affairs indicates, with 
 unmistakable clearness and authority, the direction 
 which our efforts should take. The Rebellion of the 
 Southern oligarchs has been conquered by the mili- 
 tary strength of the Government; and in its fall 
 Slavery, the foul mother that gave it birth, has per- 
 ished. War's dread mission is ended. To other 
 weapons the task that remains must now be com- 
 mitted. Moral influences alone are competent to 
 effect the social regeneration of the lately insurgent 
 States, remove the evils entailed on them by centu- 
 ries of bondage, and spread over their wasted do- 
 mains the blessings of order, industry and peace. 
 Free labor, education, Christianity must take up 
 and perfect the transformation which the sword has 
 begun. 
 
 Here, then, is a broad field distinctively marked 
 out by Providence as the scene of our most energet- 
 ic endeavors. In this field there are four millions 
 of emancipated slaves, who have been rendered 
 helpless and abject by long years of vassalage, and 
 who have hitherto been purposely excluded from
 
 OUR DAT AND ITS WORK. 317 
 
 the light of knowledge, and the inspirations of hope. 
 By a display of His power as unexpected as it was 
 awful, Jehovah has struck the fetters from their 
 limbs ; and has thus opened the way for us to strike 
 from their souls the heavier fetters of darkness and 
 degradation. And has not this in itself all the force 
 and significance of a command ? Can we fail to read 
 in it the purpose of Heaven ? Does it not speak to 
 us in tones imperative and solemn as if uttered from 
 the eternal Throne, calling us to go to the help of 
 these spoiled and trampled ones, raise them up 
 from the barbarism in which they have been held, 
 and educate them for the new life to which the Di- 
 vine hand is conducting them? They are strug- 
 gling to lift themselves out of their depression 
 struggling to stand forth, free and self-reliant, on 
 the high ground of equal rights for all. Their past 
 wrongs and their present privations appeal to us for 
 sympathy and succor, and urge us, truinpet-tongued, 
 to put forth our utmost exertions to aid them in this 
 momentous crisis of their destiny. And as we lis- 
 ten to their prayer, there comes mingling with it the 
 cry of eight millions of white men, like them, suffer- 
 ers from slavery ; but not, like them, guiltless suf- 
 ferers. They have upheld and cherished the insti- 
 tution which has been their ruin. They have sinned 
 f or it fought for it for its sake have committed 
 treason, rebellion, murder, and drenched the land
 
 318 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 with their own and their brothers' blood. By that 
 law of righteous compensation, which arms the in- 
 justice of the oppressor with a rod for his own pun- 
 ishment, the wrong which they have done to others 
 has recoiled upon themselves. In robbing the slave 
 of freedom, they have lost their own. In chatteliz- 
 ing him, they have imbruted their own nature. The 
 fell curse for whose continuance they have striven 
 so fiercely, has debased their civilization, corrupted 
 their morals, defiled their Christianity has eaten 
 out patriotism, paralyzed enterprize and thrift, and 
 nourished indolence and pride into an abnormal and 
 monstrous growth. The blight of slavery, and the 
 destructive war for slavery, have covered the whole 
 region in which they dwell with anarchy and deso- 
 lation. To reorganize the South, bring order out of 
 the confusion that now distracts it, recast its socie- 
 ty, and breathe into its dead form the new life of 
 intelligence, of compensated industry, of a religion 
 which inculcates justice to the lowly is the stu- 
 pendous undertaking to which the benevolence of 
 our time and country should be directed. "We say 
 not that this is our only work ; nor that, in order to 
 effect it, we should withdraw from all other depart- 
 ments of Christian labor. But we do say that here 
 lies the chief duty of the hour the grand arena of 
 toil and conflict to which the finger of God points 
 the moral heroism of the nation. And in all that
 
 OUR DAT AND ITS WORK. 319 
 
 we attempt for His glory and the well-being of our 
 race, the more closely .we follow the intimations of 
 His Providence, the more signally will the Pillar of 
 His Presence go before us, and herald us on to 
 victory. 
 
 The nature of our work requires us to make the 
 Word of God the great instrument in its prosecu- 
 tion. This admonition derives peculiar fitness and 
 importance from the attitude which many, while 
 professing to seek earnestly the good of men, have 
 assumed toward the Revelation that has come down 
 from heaven as the sole restorer of an outcast world. 
 In instances not few, those who stand prominent in 
 the philanthropic movements of the day, manifest a 
 hatred of Divine Truth, and a contempt of its au- 
 thority, as criminal in themselves as they are fatal 
 to the cause with which they are allied. Setting 
 aside the Gospel as an effete superstition rejecting 
 its inspired verities as dogmas that have lost their 
 power they think to banish evil from the earth by 
 the mere force of unsanctified enlightenment and 
 culture. Such schemes can have no result but to 
 show the blindness and folly of their authors. They 
 always have failed, and they ever must fail, while 
 the moral character of our r,ce remains what it is. 
 They are as impotent against the outgoings of hu- 
 man depravity, against the surges of passion, 
 against the encroachments of selfishness and vio-
 
 320 LATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 lence, as an embankment of reeds would be against 
 the overflowing of the ocean. The wisdom of the 
 All-Merciful has set forth the only agency that can 
 subdue the wickedness of men, and extinguish the 
 woes which it engenders. That agency is to be 
 found in the redemptive work of Christ. In the 
 sublime facts of His mission, in the propitiation 
 which He made, in the doctrines which He taught, 
 in the renewing energies of the Spirit which He 
 procured, there resides a power, and the only pow- 
 er, that can raise the fallen, and recover the lost. 
 All the ills which humanity suffers have been inflict- 
 ed on it by its alienation from God. The sinfulness 
 of man's heart is the poisoned fountain whose waters 
 have spread contagion and death over the world. 
 Thence flow the manifold disorders, the vice and ir- 
 rcligion, the crimes and outrages, the injustice, the 
 wrong-doing, the domination of the strong, the 
 down-treading of the weak, the darkness, pollution, 
 misery, that deluge the globe ; and thence they will 
 continue to flow with undiminished volume, till their 
 source is dried up. There is no hope for man, here 
 or hereafter, but in the purification of his spiritual 
 nature. And this the Gospel only can achieve. 
 The Gospel, and the gospel alone, has a remedy 
 adequate to his necessities. In its provisions and 
 influences are contained all the elements of social
 
 OUR DAT AND ITS WORK. 321 
 
 and moral amelioration in this life, and of perfection 
 and blessedness in the life which is to come. Let 
 us, then, while devoting ourselves heart and soul to 
 the noble work of vindicating the oppressed, and 
 elevating the degraded, stand fast by the Bible. 
 Let us carry it with us into whatever field of re- 
 formatory labor we enter, and refuse to go where 
 we cannot carry it. While we welcome its teach- 
 ings as the rule of our own life, and the balm of our 
 own sorrows, let them be also the guide, the meas- 
 ure and the means of oar endeavors to do good to 
 others. So shall our plans and our efforts be in 
 harmony with the moral administration of God, and 
 the highest interests of mankind. 
 
 The magnitude and arduousiiess of the work be- 
 fore us call for special dependence on the aid of the 
 Holy Spirit. Without Him, all else is vain. With- 
 out Him, the preaching of the Gospel, the dissemi- 
 nation of truth, and every attempt to succor the dis- 
 tressed, to gather in the wanderers, to purify and 
 save the world, will be ineffectual and powerless. 
 Without Him, the words of mercy which we speak 
 to the wretched around us, will be like music float- 
 ing over graves, unheard by the sleepers below. 
 Without Him, whatever improvement may be 
 wrought in the material and intellectual aspects of 
 society will be but as the flowers which affection
 
 322 BATTLE ECHOES. 
 
 strews over a putrefying corpse, veiling its gliastli- 
 ness, yet leaving it a corpse still. "Not by might, 
 nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord." 
 The voice of the Redeemer in His Word and in His 
 Providence is now saying to each one of us, "Arise 
 and pray ! " Arise and pray for the promised com- 
 ing of the Paraclete, the second Pentecost, which is 
 to baptize the Church anew, and regenerate the na- 
 tions. "Awake, awake, O arm of the Lord, and 
 put on strength ! " Let this be our cry, and the cry 
 of God's people in all lands, and soon a redeeming 
 power will go forth over the whole face of this apos- 
 tate earth, expelling from it all unrighteousness, and 
 filling it with light, holiness and salvation. 
 
 Having thus seen what our work is and what it 
 demands, nothing remains but to do it. This is the 
 crown and consummation of all. To survey our 
 work is well. To prepare for our work is well. 
 To watch the bearings of Providence on our work 
 is well. To shape our work by the Bible is well. 
 To rely on the Spirit in our work is well aye, 
 more than well. But the real matter, the vital mat- 
 ter, is to do our work. To this point we have now 
 come. And as in the time of Ezra, when the Tem- 
 ple was rebuilt, let one say to another, "Arise, and 
 work; the Lord God of our fathers is with us; 
 Arise, and do it."
 
 OUR DAT AX D ITS WORK. 323 
 
 Wait not for great opportunities and a conspicu- 
 ous theatre. If you love Jesus and the souls for 
 which He died, you will quickly discover an appro- 
 priate sphere, and good in it that you can accom- 
 plish. Begin with the first thing your hand finds, 
 the doing of which will honor God, and make a 
 fellow-creature better and happier. Begin with 
 that drunkard whom you saw to-day reeling by 
 your door. Begin with that den of infamy in the 
 next street. Begin with that pale widow who so 
 often passes your dwelling, gazing Oh, so sadly 
 at its cheerful home joys. This morning, as you 
 took your happy little ones for a walk, you met a 
 ragged orphan, dragging his bare feet wearily over 
 the rough stones, and looking into your face with 
 hopeless, beseeching eyes. Begin with that orphan. 
 Begin with that freedmau, just risen from the mire 
 of slavery, who, with his body scarred by the lash, 
 and his mind shrouded in the night of ignorance, 
 implores you to give to him and to his children 
 the rights of manhood, and the uplifting power of 
 knowledge. Begin with your unconverted family, 
 with your servants, your operatives, your neigh- 
 bors, your acquaintance. If you cannot influence 
 masses, influence individuals. If you cannot save 
 man in the lump, save him piecemeal. If you can- 
 not rear in the house of the Lord the ponderous
 
 324 BATTLE ECHOES, 
 
 column or the lofty entablature, carry up a single 
 pebble, and with it fill some unsightly hole in a 
 corner. 
 
 " How speaks the present hour? Act ! 
 
 Walk, upward glancing ; 
 So shall thy footsteps in glory be traced, 
 
 Slow, but -advancing. 
 
 Scorn not the smallness of daily endeavor, 
 Let the great meaning ennoble it ever ; 
 Droop not o'er efforts expended in vain ; 
 Work, as believing that labor is gain." 
 
 The claims of Christ and of the world are before 
 you. Would you not place one stone in the Living 
 Temple? Would you not pluck one brand from 
 the burning ? Would you not emancipate one cap- 
 tive from the prison house? Would you not set 
 one gem in the glittering crown which the Saviour 
 shall wear through eternal ages? The Hour the 
 Cause Time and Eternity God waiting to be 
 glorified Jesus waiting to see of the travail of 
 His soul the groaning earth waiting to be deliv- 
 ered, invoke you to action. Do your work do it 
 lovingly, do it earnestly, do it now, do it to the 
 end. And when that end shall come when the 
 Angel, with one foot on the land, and the other on 
 the sea, shall lift up his hand to heaven, and swear 
 by Him that liveth forever and ever, that time shall
 
 OUR DAY AND ITS WORK. 325 
 
 be no longer when the last trumpet shall unlock 
 the sepulchres, and the Throne shall be set, and the 
 Books of Doom opened then your Master and 
 Judge, unfolding the record of your Time and its 
 Obligations your Day and its Work shall say 
 DONE WELL DONE ! 
 
 "Workaway! 
 
 For the Father's eye is on us, 
 Never off us, still upon us, 
 Night and day ! 
 "Work and pray ! 
 
 Pray, and work will be completer ; 
 Work, and prayer will be the sweeter ; 
 Love, and prayer and work the fleeter 
 Will ascend upon their way." 
 
 THE END.
 
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