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 Book. 
 
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 ^^>KI 
 
 THE 
 
 RELIGION OF LOYALTY: 
 
 DOCTRINAL SEmiON, 
 
 PUEACHKD IN THE 
 
 iiv^t (flJonijvniivtiottal Chuvdt, (!)nl^Urtul, 
 
 Al'SIT. 23(1, 1S6S. 
 
 BY GEORGE MOOAR 
 
 PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 
 
 1^ SAN FRANCISCO: 
 
 PRINTED BY TOWNE AND BACON 
 
 18G5. 
 
THE 
 
 RELIGION OF LOYALTY: 
 
 DOCTRINAL SERMON, 
 
 PREACHED IN THE 
 
 ixv^t (^mni^vtq^tl^nnl (^UnvtU, ©^feUwa, 
 
 AFJtIZ 23d, 186S. 
 
 BY GEORGE MOOAR 
 
 PUBLISHED BY REQUEST. 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO: 
 
 PRINTED BY TOWNE AND BACON* 
 
 1865. 
 
£745' 
 
SERMON. 
 
 "For when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world 
 WILL learn righteousness. — Isaiah xxvi : 9, 1. c. 
 
 Certainly God's judgments have been in our land. 
 Certainly the inhabitants of this country have had the 
 chance to learn the great principles which lie at the 
 root of all righteousness. Often during the four years 
 of these judgments, it has seemed to me that a most 
 instructive volume might be written with some such 
 title as The Religion of Loyalty. It should be the 
 purpose of such a volume to gather up the illustrations 
 which the Rebellion has supplied, of the truth and force 
 of Biblical doctrine. And if it will not seem presump- 
 tuous in me, I will undertake to suggest some of the 
 themes this book might more fully discuss. 
 
 1. The scenes through which we have been passing 
 teach us the importance of correct doctrinal opinions. 
 
 Among the most common remarks which you will 
 hear concerning religious matters is this : '' It is no 
 matter what you believe. Your creed njakes no differ- 
 ence with your life or your prospect of salvation." 
 But the difference between such men as Webster and 
 Calhoun was a difference of opinion, of belief almost 
 solely. One was not any purer or safer man personally 
 than the other. Indeed some might think that if either 
 had the advantage in this respect, the Southern states- 
 man had it. And what was the difference between 
 
Jefferson Davis and Stephen A. Douglas ? Both were 
 ambitious ; both were lovers of power and fitted to be 
 leaders of the people. Doubtless there were great dif- 
 ferences in natural disposition. But the point at which 
 tlie two men separated was quite as much one of belief 
 as of sympathy. They differed in their political creed. 
 The one exalted the sovereignty of the State, and the 
 other the sovereignty of the Nation. Did this differ- 
 ence between those men lead to no serious conse- 
 quences? Why, the Rebellion, with all its enormity, 
 has grown in great part out of that disagreement in 
 respect to the theory of our Government. For thirty 
 years the one creed had been industriously preached on 
 platform and in pulpit in one section, and the other 
 creed in the other section. This political opinion of 
 State Rights poisoned the whole Southern mind and 
 heart. We said : " Oh, it is only a difference of opin- 
 ion." But it was an entering wedge, which well nigh 
 split a nation asunder. 
 
 We may laugh at opinions, and make merriment of 
 creeds and catechisms. But, " as a man thinketJi in his 
 heart, so is he." No personal sincerity or correctness 
 of general behavior can prevent the injurious influence 
 of his opinions, if those opinions are wrong. If these 
 opinions do not seem to affect him, they will affect his 
 children. If they do not cause ruin in the first genera- 
 tion, they will in the second. 
 
 Doubtless thousands of men who have drawn the 
 sword against this Government have been as sincere 
 and conscientious as any thousand of our own soldiers. 
 They have felt it sweet to die for country as well as we. 
 They have shown their sincerity by sacrifices great as 
 any that we have made. The very spies and assassins 
 have professed to be doing their country service. But 
 
we condemn tliem. History will condemn them to dis- 
 grace. At their doors will be laid the accusation of a 
 great crime. And why ? Because they were mistaken 
 in opinion ! Because they had adopted an incorrect 
 theory of our institutions ! Is it then of no importance 
 what men believe ? Does sincerity whiten the assassin's 
 bloody hand ? Does it prevent the flowing of a nation's 
 blood and treasure ? Rather we know that this fimati- 
 cal sincerit}^ has prolonged and aggravated the war. 
 
 Differences there may be in religion ; differences as 
 to mere dress, which will have little effect ; because 
 they do not pertain to the substance of the faith. But 
 all differences of creed, which do run down into the 
 substance of faith, however slight they may seem, are 
 of the greatest moment, of gravest concern. 
 
 2. Among the most prominent lessons in doctrine, 
 w^hich these times of rebellion have taught us, is, that 
 government is a great good. 
 
 The Bible has often told us indeed, that the ruler of 
 a land is minister unto it for good. But liberty was the 
 American idol. The people were irksome of restraint. 
 We liked to do that which was good in our own eyes. 
 We did not appreciate the value of civil authority. 
 But we have been taught to think of government as a 
 great comfort, a shelter, and a defense. It seems now 
 like the rocky coast, with green grass and clumps of 
 flowers in its clefts, which keeps back the angry waves. 
 We have seen its strong arm uplifted, and we have 
 rejoiced in that arm, as a little child in a moment of 
 danger rejoices in the strength of his father. 
 
 Government is no longer, in our eyes, a convenient 
 arrangement, a shrewd political contrivance ; nor is it a 
 kind of copartnership, into which men enter for a httle 
 while, which is to be dissolved as soon as a personal 
 
whim or interest may dictate. It is an ordinance of 
 God, a venerable and blessed institution, with which it 
 is a sacrilege to trifle, indispensable to personal comfort, 
 to growth of country, to peace, to progress, to the secur- 
 ity of all that men hold dearest on earth. Our fathers, 
 brothers, sons, have laid down their lives by thousands 
 — for what ? To maintain the Government of the 
 Union. They counted not their lives dear ; we have 
 not counted our taxes dear ; nothing has been counted 
 too dear to be given up to keep the Government un- 
 harmed. Then, surely, government — just, equal, and 
 strong — is a great good. 
 
 But if human government be a great good, then 
 God's government is good and blessed also. There are 
 persons who profess to like to hear concerning the love 
 of God, the fatherhood and motherhood of God, as they 
 fancifull}^ speak, but of his law and government they 
 cannot bear to think. But the Government of God is 
 the stability and security of the Universe. " The Lord 
 reif/neth,^^ therefore "let the earth rejoice." He might 
 live, but if He did not reign, the world would be an 
 anarchy. 
 
 Because, after the assassins had done their work, and 
 had left the noble President dead, the Government, 
 nevertheless, in all its departments, remained ; its au- 
 thority could reach every part of the loyal land, and 
 every soldier in the national army ; therefore we were 
 able to pursue our business, and to look forward to the 
 future with hope. Even the national currency drooped, 
 if at all, but for a moment. No panic ran like a wild 
 fire through the States. The Government, that invisi- 
 ble, but strong and blessed thing, was still in Washing- 
 ton, and omnipresent also in America. Even the rebel, 
 camps felt its power. Its flags, floating though they 
 
were at half-mast, were glad emblems still of national 
 majesty. 
 
 The moral Government of God is, in like measure, a 
 joy and pride. Because it is strong, the world is secure. 
 Infinite goodness, unswerving justice — God himself 
 reigns. Crime often rears its head ; sin plots in the 
 dark places of the heart ; rebellion so wide and so defi- 
 ant, seems ready to break all cords asunder. He that 
 sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. For he hath set his 
 king in Zion. He " hath prepared His throne in the 
 heavens, and his kingdom ruleth over all." 
 
 3. The events of the past four years have taught us 
 the reality of the divine providence mid purposes. 
 
 It has been gratifying to notice how men have loved, 
 in the shadow of these passing events, to detect the 
 hand of God in our affairs. This has been true not of 
 professedly religious men only, but of men who make 
 no pretensions to personal piety. Their language has 
 been surprisingly religious in its tone. When prosper- 
 ity has come, they have felt like thanking God ; when 
 there have been reverses, they have even more notice- 
 ably said : It is God's hand ; He has some great and 
 good lessons for us to learn. What they have said, has 
 been strangely true. The humiliating things have been 
 put into our national experience just at the place and 
 time in which they were wanted. If the war could 
 have come to an end in one year, what a curse to us ! 
 if in two years, what would the land have gained ! If 
 certain men had been permitted to win the victories for 
 us, how would they have fastened on us the old bond- 
 age! And even now, it is a feeling universal, sponta- 
 neous, that this last and most sad event is from the 
 hand of the same watchful and kind providence. If 
 you have read speeches and sermons, and talked with 
 
men on tlie street, they all tell you God is in this mat- 
 ter. And would it not be a curse to think that all 
 these things were happening, just as men throw dice, 
 that there was no Hand of a personal God on the secret 
 springs, ordering events, and bringing good out of evil? 
 Hardly less disagreeable would be the supposition that 
 all has come from the mere destiny of things — fate. 
 We want to feel, and these years of war have taught 
 us to feel, that it is the will of "Creation's Lord and 
 friend " which is being fulfilled in these times. 
 ■ Well, if the doctrine of Divine Providence has been 
 thus commended to us in national affairs, let it be com- 
 mended to us in all affairs. The same hand which leads 
 our nation, leads all nations and all individuals, and all 
 things work together for good to those who love him. 
 How does this doctrine of Providence come with its 
 comfort in many a home to-day, in which strange and 
 dark things have happened ! Tliese strange and dark 
 things, things not to be explained by any human wit, 
 do not break the heart, because that heart takes to itself 
 the great Christian doctrine that God does all things 
 well : nothing is out of his inspection and sway. Little 
 things as well as great, terrible things as well as beau- 
 tiful, are embraced in his providence and obey his be- 
 hests. Oh, well for us, if we can feel that we love Him 
 and are adopted into the family of Him who watches 
 the sparrow as it falls, numbers the hairs of the head, 
 as well as rules in the movements of mighty armies ! 
 
 But it deserves marked notice how in these times of 
 war, loyal men have rejoiced in the doctrine of Divine 
 Purposes. Not merely has it been a comfort to us to 
 feel that God's hand was in charge of all our affairs, but 
 we have been confident that our national future was sure 
 by his eternal purpose. We were "elected" to be United 
 
9 
 
 States. The great heart of the people has been buoyed 
 up by the very general belief that God had "foreoi'- 
 damed" that we should be one, and free. To use a 
 current phrase, we have believed in a "manifest des- 
 tiny " for our Republic. Physical geographers have 
 shown us that this destiny was written for us in the line 
 of our coasts, in the course of our rivers, in the moun- 
 tain chains, which traverse our territory. We were 
 never meant to be divided. Philosophers in history 
 have traced out the same divine purpose in the coun- 
 try's annals. Where no such reasonings have been em- 
 ployed, yet somehow men have said over to themselves : 
 We were not made to fall. No disaster, bad as that of 
 Bull Run, or horrid as this at Ford's theater, could 
 repress the national conviction that God had marked us 
 out for deliverance. So certain have we been of this, 
 that immediately on the news of such an event, we 
 have set ourselves to studying how it was likely to sub- 
 serve the plan of God concerning us. 
 
 The war could not have been waged except for this 
 firm persuasion that it was purposed to end in victory. 
 This has nerved the arm of the soldier ; this has cheered 
 him in toilsome marches ; this has reconciled us all to 
 "fighting it out on this line," because we have held a 
 firm faith that this line was the one marked out from 
 the foundation of the world. It is this conviction of a 
 Divine piu'pose in our war which breathes in the sec- 
 ond Inaugural of President Lincoln, and gave that doc- 
 ument its place in the American heart. ' ' The Almighty 
 has his own purpose." That was the opening sentence 
 of a paragraph, which read like words of inspiration, 
 and which compelled the awe of men on both sides of 
 the Atlantic. 
 
 Again and again men have spontaneously quoted 
 
 B 
 
10 
 
 against our enemies the proverb : " Whom the gods 
 destroy they first make mad." Steadily the faith grew 
 that God meant they should fail, signally and terribly 
 fail. 
 
 If we have found no objection to holding this faith in 
 God's purposes with respect to the war, why should we 
 find any to holding it with respect to all events ? If 
 it has cheered and spurred men to valorous deeds, why 
 should it not spur the sinner to work out his own sal- 
 vation with fear and trembling? If such a faith be 
 nowise inconsistent with the firmest possible conviction 
 of personal resjDonsibility and obligation in national 
 affairs, how should it be inconsistent with such respon- 
 sibility and obligation any where or at any time ? If 
 the American mind believ-es in destiny and a divine pur- 
 pose in the domain of politics, why should it not in the 
 domain of religion? If Paul, and Augustine, and Cal- 
 vin, and Edwards utter our belief respecting our na- 
 tional redemption, why not respecting our personal 
 salvation ? 
 
 4. The rebellion has made men learn the truth of the 
 Scriptural doctrine of total depravity. 
 
 We have long since learned to say that such and such 
 a man is disloyal, totally disloyal. We well understood 
 what was meant by the phrase. The man might be a 
 good father, and an honest man in many relations — nay, 
 he might be a praying man ; but he was totally disloyal 
 to his country. There was not one sentiment of true 
 affection for his Government ; his sympathies were all 
 against it. That gave him his character ; that divided 
 him from his fellow-citizens ; it made a deep and black 
 line between him and them. Taking this position, he 
 became more and more like those with whom he asso- 
 ciated. Some of them will be more mad and desperate 
 
11 
 
 than he ; they will not observe the proprieties so much ; 
 they will do fouler deeds than he. But then we know 
 that these gentlemanly, and chivalrous, and high-bred 
 rebels are just as totally disloyal as Wilkes Booth or 
 any of his accomplices. They differ among themselves, 
 and some of them are much more enjoyable than others ; 
 but they all are one in disaffection and alienation from 
 their country. They are committed to one unholy 
 cause. 
 
 But is not this precisely what is meant by^the theo- 
 logical phrase of total depravity? It means, simply, 
 total disloyalty. A man either is or is not loyal to his 
 God — he either does or he does not choose to have God 
 reign over him ; if he does not choose, we say he is un- 
 godly, and totally ungodly. We do not say, he is totally 
 unamiable, or totally dishonest, or totally untruthful. 
 He is not as bad as he could or may become ; but godli- 
 ness — a disposition to serve the Governor of the world — 
 he does not possess — he does not possess it at all ; and 
 not to possess that, is indeed to be totally wrong. The 
 main, central pillar of a holy character has fallen, and 
 the house is a ruin. 
 
 With the first moment of secession, the sunny South 
 became a foreign land. It still was sunny, and there 
 were memorials of the old Union ; but the atmosphere 
 was oppressively vacant to the American heart. So with 
 man's soul ; it^till gives traces of its Maker and Lord, 
 but the supreme loyalty to God is strangely, unnatu- 
 rally, and yet wholly absent. 
 
 6. We can not help, also, learning in these times the 
 ierrihkness of sin. One great part of Biblical religion 
 consists in setting forth the evil and bitter thing it is to 
 sin against God. On a small scale, and in a single person, 
 sius of all kinds seem to lose their enormity ; but dur- 
 
12 
 
 ing three years we have seen them on a large scale, and 
 as they affect millions of people. If we suppose that the 
 rebellion spnmg from ambition and from the disposition 
 to perpetuate human bondage, who can compute the 
 ruin those sins have brought in their train ? If, as is 
 doubtless true, all that has happened can be traced in 
 great measure to a few leading individuals — to their 
 personal lust for power — how many murdered lives 
 throw back upon those few a criminality such as must 
 appall and overwhelm them with accusations ? Sin ap- 
 pears in its full light to us only in its consequences. 
 
 It would have been a small thing for Kennedy to have 
 started a fire here and there in the City of New York, 
 if each building fired stood alone ; but it was in his 
 heart to lay the great city of a million of people in ashes. 
 Arson, with such purposes, becomes a colossal crime. 
 We mention the crime of treason in a single breath ; 
 but that crime, as it lay in the purpose, and went out 
 into the deed of the rebel conspirators, meant the mur- 
 der of at least a million American men, and the sorrow 
 and anguish, and poverty, to a greater or less extent, 
 of ten millions more. It meant wasted cities, devas- 
 tated towns, ruined industry. All this enormity of evil 
 sprang out of a sinful heart. You may put that sinful- 
 ness into what hearts you please, and into as many as 
 you please ; but you cannot rise from this enormous 
 spectacle of suffering without feeling tjpit in a world 
 such as this is, it is dangerous to trifle w^ith sin — just 
 as it is dangerous in a powder mill to strike as much as 
 a spark of fire. That single spark may instantaneously 
 destroy the labor and hopes of a life time. 
 
 It has often been to me a serious and solemn thought, 
 as the months have more and more revealed the immen- 
 sity of crime, to reflect that the authors of all this are 
 
13 
 
 just such men as ourselves. We are ajot to figure great 
 criminals to be persons of peculiarly revolting history 
 and personal appearance ; but they are not always such. 
 They have the same flesh and blood as ourselves ; they 
 have no worse natures than loyal men. Exactly such 
 sins as we indulge have led them into the crime which 
 now appalls us. At first thought we assume that at least 
 Wilkes Booth and his accomplices are the worst per- 
 sons, and the worst looking, that walk the earth. It 
 will not be found so, very likely. Some leading men 
 of the South may disavow them — may profess great 
 horror of them, possibly ; but if you were to converse 
 with these assassins, it is not improbable they might 
 even win your sympathies. It would be found that 
 they were influenced by no worse feelings or motives 
 than the men who profess to abhor them ; nay, it might 
 be found that they were ruled by the same sinful mo- 
 tives which actuate ourselves. Covetousness, or love of 
 notoriety, or personal resentment may have prompted 
 the deed. These motives look bad when we see them 
 seeking the lives of men so eminent and so kindly as 
 Abraham Lincoln and William H. Seward ; but Oh ! 
 how many times have we given way to precisely these 
 motives in our own life ? In how many millions of our 
 countrymen are the same sins working to will and to 
 do ? So we come out on that exposition of the matter 
 which our Lord gives : " He that hateth his brother is 
 a murderer." He who does not love Grod with his 
 whole heart, and his neighbor as himself, he is an assas- 
 sin ; that is to say, there is no knowing what a sinner 
 may do — may be left to do. The most revolting crimes 
 spring from nothing worse than sin. If covetousness 
 was Judas' motive in betraying his Master, then that 
 Master has been virtually betrayed many and many 
 
 • 
 
14 
 
 a time. If covetousness, ambition, pride, and love of 
 power were the moral causes of the rebellion, then, 
 wherever these sins prevail, there is the motive power 
 which may deluge the continent in blood. 
 
 6. We have learned also, amid these judgments, that 
 retrihdion is hoth a necessity and a great good. Our 
 humanitarian religions, and the peaceful times have 
 caused many people to have a great horror of punish- 
 ment. They do not like to hear about it. They quar- 
 rel with any prospect of future penalty ; but what were 
 our national security if no retribution had been prac- 
 ticed, or were yet to be administered to high-handed 
 offenders ? Who of us does not rejoice that detectives, 
 sharp and keen in scent, were on all the routes that 
 led out of Washington, and that they scoured the coun- 
 try for the arrest of all who had part or complicity in 
 the great crime of assassination ? Is there a loyal man, 
 or woman, or child, who does not pray that the highest 
 penalty which an offender can pay, may be paid when 
 those men shall be arrested ? Has there not been a 
 sense of justice gratified as we have seen the hot-beds 
 of secession trampled into the dust beneath the iron 
 feet of war ? When we have looked on the skeletons 
 of our brave fellows returning from the slow death of 
 Southern prisons, have not our souls clamored for ven- 
 geance on their infamous keepers ? Have we not felt 
 glad, soberly and righteously, and yet almost exult- 
 tantly glad, as we have seen the fomenters of all this 
 mischief reaping the whirlwind which they themselves 
 had sown, falling into the pit which they had them- 
 selves digged ? And if some of them shall hang on the 
 gallows it will be considered by millions a matter of 
 praise. 
 
 Now, if we have learned thus to see the necessity, 
 
15 
 
 the justice, the benevolence, and even the joy, of retri- 
 bution in national affairs, we must admit that it is pos- 
 sible to acquiesce in the retributions which are decreed 
 in the Divine government against those who shall not 
 comply with the proclaimed amnesty of the Governor 
 and Saviour of the world ? I have heard one of you 
 say, you could stand by and see a certain man, once 
 your friend, hung, because of his prominent agency in 
 this rebellion. Doubtless there are friends and kindred 
 who, if they could not, in the temper of the elder Bru- 
 tus, stand by and see such a penalty inflicted upon those 
 of their own flesh, would, nevertheless, admit that it 
 were a just and fitting award. Do we not learn in the 
 light of such feelings, in reference to national crime, the 
 necessary place, and reason, and good, of those penalties 
 which God inflicts upon all sinners who stand out against 
 his supreme and blessed authority? The great loyal 
 heart of the people believes the sentimentality, which 
 would not punish with death the assassin and the perfid- 
 ious traitor, to be sickly and dangerous. From all the 
 four winds the popular breath is, "there must be ret- 
 ribution. Treason must be made odious." The nation 
 must express by condign penalty its estimation of its 
 own life. So God says of those who persist in rebellion 
 against him. They have lifted up unholy hands against 
 a blessed and perfect government ; they have had no 
 excuse for it ; they have struck in the face of Love and 
 Favor — verily they shall have their reward. 
 
 7. These yeafs of war have taught us the folly and 
 emptiness of mere secret religion. We have not been 
 content with guessing at the loyalty of our fellow-citi- 
 zens. In times like these the demand has been — show 
 your colors ; declare where you stand ; take the oath ; 
 join some league ; contribute to some loyal object ; 
 
16 
 
 show ill some way, in a way which puts the matter be- 
 yond doubt, which side you are on. We have come to 
 feel that what a man thinks and speaks about his coun- 
 try is not a private, it is a public concern. Do I ask 
 my neighbor in regard to his feelings and views on the 
 great question, he is not at liberty to tell me that it is 
 an impertinent inquiry ; it is eminently pertinent — for 
 when such a question is at issue no man can decently 
 pretend to be neutral. This lesson is one which Christ 
 would have men learn in religion likewise. It is not a 
 merely private affair whether I am Christian or not in 
 my decisions and sympathies. If I love some private 
 person, it is at my option, to a great extent, to keep the 
 matter to myself But our Lord is no private person ; 
 if a man loves Him it is public concern that he express 
 his love, and let it be known widely as his influence 
 may extend. Therefore it is that so much stress is laid, 
 in the New Testament, on profession. Christ wants out 
 and out, decided, open followers. In a cause so vitally 
 important as his, our religion must be, not indeed osten- 
 tatious, but pronounced and clear ; if it is not paraded 
 in posters along the streets, it should be written in liv- 
 ing epistles, known and read of all men. 
 
 8. The course of political events during this time of 
 our nation's danger has illustrated the doctrine, that all 
 genuine religion will he loyal to Christ. We have heard, 
 even to sickness, men profess that they were loyal to 
 the Government, but not to the existing administration. 
 That sounds plausible ; but we came fb count all such 
 professions suspicious. Let our conviction concerning 
 this point be well pondered. Some of our fellow-citi- 
 zens, who would not like to be called irreligious or un- 
 godly, make a distinction between God's government 
 and the administration of affairs in the name of our 
 
17 
 
 Lord Jesiis Christ — they are loyal to God, but not 
 to his vice-royal Sou. It is the claim of the New Tes- 
 tauient, that all such loyally is radically defective, God 
 has set his King upon the holy Hill of Zion, and that 
 King is Christ. ' * All authority is given unto me in 
 heaven and in earth ; " and to be disloyal to Him, is to 
 be thoroughly ungodly — "He that hateth me hateth 
 my Father also." We have learned to have a whole- 
 some suspicion of the party which praised the Govern- 
 ment and picked flaws in what they called "Lincoln's 
 Government," Let us beware of that naturalistic relig- 
 ion, current in much of our literature, which exalts 
 God and disowns Christ. We do not like this decep- 
 tion in politics, we should dislike it as much in religion. 
 We have come to look upon it as a mere ruse to dis- 
 guise real opposition there ; is it anything else h^re ? 
 Does a man say, " Well, rehgion is a good thing ; I love 
 religion ; but I do not like this and that policy which 
 Christ pursues and insists upon, I see the importance 
 of repentance and good works, but not of faith," We 
 should have learned that this attitude towards Christ 
 is exactly what has gained in politics the opprobrious 
 name of " Copperhead." It is a want of cordial and un- 
 hesitating loyalty. To oppose the Government and to 
 oppose the administration, in this case, is one and the 
 same thing — for the Government is "upon His shoul- 
 der, and His name shall be called Wonderful, Counsel- 
 lor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince 
 of Peace." 
 
 9. These events of war impress upon the public 
 mind that leading evangelical truth, the necessity of 
 Regeneration. A disloyal man does not become loyal 
 without a thorough change of heart. Doubtless hund- 
 reds and thousands may take the oath of allegiance 
 c 
 
18 
 
 under the immediate motive of personal interest, but 
 we feel that we could not really trust one of them, 
 unless his change came out ©f a truly penitent confes- 
 sion of his wrong. One might become innocuous, might 
 say nothing, and do nothing to the, 'prejudice of the Gov- 
 ernment ; but nothing save a thorough conversion in 
 convictions, and feelings, and sympathies, can make a 
 real rebel into a real patriot. Whether such conver- 
 sions will be many or few, does not appear. From all 
 that appears, it does not seem that they are very nu- 
 merous yet ; but unless such changes do take place, 
 nothing less than immigration of Union men and en- 
 franchisement of the freedmen can make those broad 
 States one in the national bonds. But it is obviously 
 on the same grounds, only of course those grounds are 
 deeper, that Christ says: "Except ye become con- 
 verted, ye cannot enter the kingdom ot heaven ;" ' ' Yer- 
 ily, verily, I say unto you, ye must be born again." 
 Heaven cannot be heaven, if ungodly and godly are 
 mixed in its inclosures. There is no doctrine, which 
 comes to us with so obvious a force as this of conver- 
 sion. I have preached it here sometimes, and heard 
 that men went away sayitig it was a hard doctrine. 
 Surely it is the easiest of doctrines to believe. The 
 necessity of a change of affections toward Grod in order 
 to heavenly peace, is as clear as the sunlight. 
 
 10. Once more, the distinctively Christian. (Zoc^rwze of 
 costly sacrifice for the redemption of men, has been com- 
 mended to us in the midst of these judgments. From 
 beginning to end, our national redemption has been 
 advanced only at the price of blood. In thousands and 
 thousands of cases this blood has been of the purest 
 and most virtuous. We used to read occasionally an 
 English memoir of some noble youth who perished in 
 
19 
 
 the Crimea or among the Sepoys. It seemed odd to 
 us to associate sacrifices so pure, offerings so blame- 
 less, with the altars of war. We held such lives to be 
 rare in the ranks of soldiers ; but they have not been 
 rare in this struggle. The beauty of our Israel has 
 been slain again and again on the high places, and amid 
 the low and malarious swamps of our battle fields and 
 trenches. What murderous assaults ! It makes the 
 blood curdle to see the poor fellows slaughtered in those 
 awful fires — in the Seven Days, at Fredericksburg, at 
 Fort Wagner, at Yicksburg, at Fort Hudson, in the 
 battle-month of May, and at Petersburg. The tales told 
 of Andersonville surpass not our belief, indeed, but 
 our conception — " we have been bought with a price ! " 
 But we little thought that when the price had nearly 
 all been paid — in what has been softly called regular 
 warfare — we little thought that they would wreak from 
 us that charmed and precious life, which seemed to rep- 
 resent precisely what was best and most characteristic 
 in our average American manhood. Many a Barabbas, 
 many a shoddy contractor and army robber we might 
 have released unto them ; but we could not easily find 
 another offering to their rage so hard, so cruel to give 
 up, as Abraham Lincoln. The first shock stunned us, 
 for it was sudden ; but the more you look upon it, the 
 more does the deed seem atrocious — the costlier does 
 the victim appear. He was an American in every in- 
 stinct. He was, in every fibre, of national lineage. 
 All his education was of the most unmixed home man- 
 ufacture. His dominant associations were with the 
 yeomanry of his own land. He represented the hund- 
 reds, we might say the hundred thousands of Amer- 
 ican youth, who have struggled up from poverty and 
 have acquired knowledge under difficulties. ' He had 
 
20 
 
 cultivated familiar acquaintance with his fellow-citi- 
 zens, and was eminently a man among men. He 
 spoke to their understanding, and their good sense and 
 best feelings. He was hedged about by no scholastic 
 or professional ways. He had that homely, unaffected 
 kindness, which knew not how to stilt its phrases, but 
 spoke its sympathy with laconic simplicity to many 
 a stricken widow, and many a wounded soldier. ' ' Hon- 
 est" was what the people called him, and honesty 
 is the highest compliment that the common men of 
 America can pay. His one fault in public affairs was 
 said to be leniency, but it was leniency which sprung 
 from no defective reprobation of crime, but from the 
 native kindliness and toleration of his nature. A finer 
 sense of justice never dwelt in a statesman's mind ; a 
 truer exponent of the American institutions never sat 
 in the Presidential chair. You would not expect from 
 a man of his broad humor and his somewhat rough com- 
 panionship, temperance ; bat he was well nigh, I be- 
 lieve wholly, abstinent. You would fear that the sense 
 of religion would be weak, but even a passing traveler, 
 as Goldwin Smith, noticed it as a controlling element 
 in his nature ; and no one could read his letters and 
 messages without feeling that that element seemed to 
 flow from fuller and fuller fountains, as if the rock in 
 which the fountains were had been cleft far down into 
 its heart by the providence and grace of God ! This 
 man, just then in the hight of his esteem — when radical 
 impatience had changed to praise, and the conservative 
 fear had turned to love — ^just as the sounds of victory 
 long wished for had come to his ear — just after his own 
 safe return from Richmond, the surrendered capital — 
 just at the hour when he was studying how his four 
 years' kindness to come might complete what four years 
 
21 
 
 of war had now fairly begun — this man, the typical 
 wild flower of our civilization, was deemed the last and 
 crowning sacrifice of our national redemption. No won- 
 der strong men wept. And no wonder if now that 
 he is offered, men think that offering is done, and the 
 war is over ; for surely our foes cannot take anything, 
 and we have nothing to give, which is worthier. 
 
 How impressively this event suggests to us the great 
 G-ospel Sacrifice, I need only mention. It suggests it 
 only, I know ; but though a vastly lesser instance of 
 sacrifice than the death of the Son of Grod, yet it is an 
 instance in the same general line — a filling up, we may 
 reverently say, of what was behind in the sufferings 
 of Christ for the amelioration of men — making us, too, 
 more and more to feel that, awful in some of its aspects 
 as the Scripture Doctrine of Atonement is, it is not all 
 foreign to our human history. Rather it runs through 
 the web of human affairs, everywhere present with its 
 threads of blood. Wilkes Booth, like Caiaphas of old, 
 uttered prophecy to which he himself was judicially 
 blind — '• it is expedient for us that one man die for the 
 people, that the whole nation perish not." Without 
 some such costly shedding of blood, there seems to be 
 no remission of sins for nations or for individuals ; and 
 however costly all our offerings for country and for hu- 
 man deliverance may be, the Christian Doctrine ever 
 glorifies itself in the face of our bleeding sympathies — 
 because it teaches that God has laid the costliest sacri- 
 fice that can be laid upon any human altar. He " spared 
 not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all." So 
 it happens that whatever be the glories of sacrifice, 
 which thrill us in these sublime moments of a nation's 
 crisis, the old tale of our suffering Lord, which we heard 
 in childhood at our mother's knee, loses none of its 
 
22 
 
 interest in the comparison ; rather it is just at these 
 times that we are fitted to appreciate its worth, 
 
 I might show also again how the glow of loyalty with 
 which these events of war have transfigured us is fitted 
 to impart itself to our religion, making our citizenship 
 and service in the heavenly kingdom take on a similar 
 ardor, devotion, generosity, joy, and triumph. Indeed, " 
 I count it one among the greatest gifts of the war that 
 this word loyalty has got fairly at home in our Amer- 
 ican speech. We have now only to say to each other, 
 be as loyal, as delicately, chivalrously loyal to Christ as 
 you are to country. Transfer to Jesus, your King, 
 those very sentiments and emotions which have thrilled 
 you in these eventful years of national danger, and 
 struggle, and triumph. 
 
 It were possible to illustrate likewise how eminently 
 the Bible shows itself the book for war as for peace. 
 Read at the camp-fires, the hot blaze has brought out 
 truths which could not be seen by the parlor lamp or 
 in the gentle light of peaceful days at home. How 
 have men read its hard passages as well as its loving 
 ones, and felt that they also were fitted to this wicked 
 world. Men who have caviled at the extermination of 
 the Canaanite, have come to see in some measure why 
 it needed to be. The very liberals in religion, who 
 have been shocked at the imprecations contained in the 
 Psalms, have been obliged to repeat the same language 
 in order to express their own righteous indignation. 
 Our own Starr King, who was so much inclined to tone 
 down the Biblical threatenings by calling them express 
 sions of oriental passionateness, found it easy and nat- 
 ural to use those very expressions of wrath against the 
 enemies of his country. For them, at least, he felt that 
 no punishment could be too severe. And surely no 
 
23 
 
 religion but the Biblical has had any pertinence or power 
 in the scenes of bloodshed and arms. On the fields of 
 blood and in the prisons of captivity, the Bible has 
 shown itself the book of solid and precious comfort to 
 the dying and suffering. 
 
 But it has been my aim not so much to gather the 
 illustrations of what the war has given the people to 
 learn of righteousness, as to throw out hints of how illus- 
 trations might be gathered. Sure I am that in the ways 
 pointed out, and in other ways, we have been learning 
 righteousness — we have been lifted up toward God — we 
 have come to welcome and rejoice in his government, 
 to feel satisfied in the terror of his retributions. His 
 Providence has seemed to draw close about our lives 
 and our homes. The Biblical view of man's sinfulness, 
 its deep seat and its power, have been made more 
 evident. The one safety of the world as of the nation, 
 has been seen to be in having a new heart, a right loyal 
 spirit toward Christ our King. As country has grown 
 richer and its future more secure, because of the blood 
 that has been poured out in its defense, we have been 
 led to think that that heavenly country must be rich 
 and secure, for it has been purchased at the same kind 
 and a greater degree of cost. Oh ! that the Spirit of 
 God, coming into every city, and town, and village in 
 these States, would take of these things which Divine ' 
 judgments have taught us, and double at once the right- 
 eous men in the land ! God grant that we who profess 
 to be righteous, may find that our righteousness is 
 becoming purer and more perfect in quality. Then 
 violence shall no more be heard in the land, wasting 
 nor desolation within our borders. Our people, being 
 all righteous, shall inherit the land forever. He who 
 has been judgiug us shall give unto them that mourn, 
 
24 
 
 beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the gar- 
 ment of praise for the spirit of heaviness ; that they 
 may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of 
 the Lord, that He may be glorified. Then shall they 
 build the wastes, raise up the former desolations, repair 
 the waste cities and the desolations of former years, 
 which seem like the desolations of many generations. 
 
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