■ H (s,7 I'S^/ / o E 458 .1 .H67 copyi uR NATIONAL SIN: A SERMON, PREACHED ON THE DAY OF THE NATIONAL FAST, SEPTEMBER 26, 1861, SOUTH REFORMED DUTCH CHURCH, IsTEAV YOKIi CITY. Rev. ROSWELL D. IHTCHCOCK, D. D., PROFESSOR OF CH0RCn HISTORY IN THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. ^eb i)orh : BAKER & GODWIN, PRINTERS, Printing-House Square, rpposite City Hall. 1861. OUR NATIONAL SIN: A SERMON, rPiEACIIED OiX THE DAY OF THE NATIONAL FAST, SEPTEMBER 26, 1861, SOUTH IIEFOEMED DUTCH CHURCH, NEW YORK C 1 T' Y . Eev. ROSWELL D. IlITCHCOCK, D. D., rROFESSOR OF CHUKCH HISTORY IN THE ONION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. "^ t fo U r Ii : BAKER & GODWIN, PRINTERS, Printing-Hoiise Square, oppobite City HalU 1861, IN EXCHANGE 12 O'M South Reformed Dutch Church, Corner 5th Avenue and 21st Street, September 29///, 18G1. Rev. and Dear Sir : The undersigned. Members of the South Reformed Dutch Church, respectfully request the privilege of being permitted to print, in pamphlet form, your admirable discourse on "Our National Sin," delivered on the 26th inst., the day appointed by the Chief Magistrate of the United States for fasting and prayer. We have the honor to remain, in Christian and patriotic affection, Yours, very cordially, JNO. SLOSSON, C. MURDOCK, D. A. WILLIAMSON, THOMAS C. DOREMUS, G. M. CLEARMAN, SAMUEL C. BROWN, JOHN EWEN, To the R. OGDEN DOREMUS. Rev. RoswELL D. Hitchcock, D. D. Neav York, October \st, 18C1. Gentlemex : My Fast-Day Discourse, though written hastilj', and written only to be preached, is now submitted most cheerfully to your disposal, in the hope that it may render some slight service in a cause of such immediate and vital importance to us all. Yours, very trulj', ROSWELL D. HITCHCOCK. Judge John Slosson and others, Members of the South Dutch Church. SEEMOK "The sin which doth so easily beset us." — Hebrews 12: i. The particular sin liere referred to is Apostasy, of wliicli the Heln-ew converts to Christianity were espe- cially in danger, and against which the writer of this epistle especially warns them. But to-day I shall de- tach the few words chosen for our text from the con- nection in which they stand, and apply them, without further preface, to the solemn occasion which has now called us together. Sin, in its essence, is self-assertion : the finite setting up for itself against the Infinite, the creature against the Creator. Its forms are various : such as sensuality, or the lust of pleasure; avarice, or the lust of gain; and ambition, or the lust of power. But its essence is always one and the same. Underneath these and all other possilde forms, there lurks a single malignant principle, which may he best described as self as- sertion. 6 Of sin, in this its essential character of finite rebel- lion against tlie Infinite, we may say it belongs to man as man. It is no mere fortuity, which may or may not occur. "To err is himta?)^ By nature, there is none loyal to his Maker; no, not one. Contempt for the Divine authority may, therefore, be pronounced to be the easily besetting sin of our race, as such. In one form or another, we are I'eljels, all of us. But for each individual, besides this generic de- pravity, which is in him like poisoned blood, there is also some specific infirmity peculiarly his own; some one form of spiritual disloyalty, towards which he gravitates with a special momentum ; some one sin out of all the catalogue of human offences, which he com- mits with the most fatal facility and frequency. It may not he known to the world. It may not be known even to himself, by reason of moral blindness. It may be known only to God. But, in either case, it is his easily besetting sin; stamping its burning seal upon his inmost character, even though it may set no mark of shame upon his l^row. As thus of individuals, so likewise of nations. Nations are not mere masses and aggregates of popula- tion ; they are organisms. Each is endoAved with a sort of moral j^ersonality, and has a determinate char- acter of its own. Individuals may be born and die, generations may come and go ; but the national pulse beats on without arrest, and the millions of the present find their destiny arl)itrated b)- the millions of the past. Tlie whole, in tliis ease, is sometliiiig more, and other, than simply the sum total of all its pai-ts. It is an indivisible, organic whole, planting itself astride the generations and the centuries, and standing face to face with a wakeful Providence, whose retributions are none the less righteous, and often all the more impress- ive and salutary, because they do not come at once. So France is suffering to-day for having exiled her industrious Huguenots nearly two hundred years ago. Thus may each nation be disfigured and crippled l)y its easily besetting sin; its history disclosing to every sagacious observer some one type or aspect of the manifold dejijravity of our common nature, which dominates over all the rest, setting its seal upon the national character, and suggesting the sort of retribu- tion the most fitting, and therefore the most likely, to be launched, in God's own time, uj^on its guilty head ; — as Greece sinned in her idolatry of art, and sank, emas- culated and nerveless, first beneath the Macedonian phalanx, and finally beneath the iron legions of Rome ; — as Rome herself sinned in her inordinate lust of do- minion, multiplying her slaves as she squandered the lives of her citizens in incessant war, till the Teutonic Barbarians came down and crushed her like an ava- lanche. The circumstances of our assembling to-day require no extended recital, being as well known to all, as they are, or can be, to any of us. So grave an occasion has never before befallen us in the whole course of our national existence. We are in tlie midst of wliat all history declares to Le the bitterest of public calamities. A LH^'-antic armed rebellion is on foot, bent upon ac- complishing a permanent dismemberment of the Ke- public. Should we consent to this dismemberment, it Avould settle nothing. Two clusters of States, such as the proposed dismemberment would give us, cannot possibly divide our territory amicably between them. The very structure of the continent forbids it. All the antecedents of our history forbid it. All the passions of our nature forbid it. The ink upon a treaty of peace so utterly preposterous Avould hardly be dry, before the hot embers of this civil strife, now so fla- grant, would be flaming afresh. The only way out of this frightful war is straight on through it, Avith gleaming steel and bellowing cannon, till the reljellion against the Government is crushed, and so crushed as never to be repeated. Such is the well-nigh unani- mous conviction of the twenty millions of peoj^le still loyal to the Union ; a conviction shared also by multi- tudes, by other millions, perhaps, in the disloyal States, whose voices are now stifled by a reign of terror almost unparalleled in history. Such is our present distress. We are inexorably shut up to the hori'ors of civil war as the only possible condition of a righteous and last- ing peace. It does no good now to inquire whose im- mediate fault this is ; whether it has come about, as some would have us believe, througli the culj^able intermeddling of our Northern Abolitionists, or is the 9 work of disa])poiiite(l Soutlierii Politicians, as the Vicc- Presideut of the seceding Confederacy himself declared not many months ago. It does no good now to in- quire whether the present catastrophe might, or might not, have been averted. Here it is upon us, in all its stupendous proportions; and there is no deliverance for us but by the sword. It is a huge calamity, from whose stunning, stag- gering stroke, it will take us long to recover. Thou- sands of brave hearts must cease to beat, while the voices of other thousands, widowed and orphaned, send up their piteous wail ; miles upon miles of fertile terri- tory must be ravaged ; and millions upon millions of precious treasure sacrificed, l^efore this war is ended. In the midst of such trouljles, thoughtful men recog- nize, instinctively, the presence of a Higher Power, pre- siding over the fortunes, and about to determine the issues, of this gigantic struggle. It is well that the voice of our President, echoing the voice of ])oth Houses of Congress, is to-day calling the whole nation to its knees in humble ftisting and prayer. The hand of God is very heavy upon us. His hottest judgments are abroad in the land. We have no inspired Prophet amongst us, infalliljly to interpret these judgments. Whether leveled against our sins in the past ; or sent as a paternal chastening, to insure us a nobler future ; or charged with the double office of punishment and discipline : who will presume to say ? Nations, Ave know, arc sometimes simply punished, even to their 10 extinction, for tlieir crimes. Sometimes they ap})ear to be hardly more than gently chastened for their obvious and immediate good. But oftener, l)y tar, they suffer a deserved punishment, which it lies Avitli themselves to acce])t, if they will, as a timely and wholesome dis- ci])line. Ho\v it may be with us, we shall know full soon. In our case, as in every other, it will be found that God is his own interpreter, And he will make it phiin. But whatever may be the Divine ])urpose concern- ing us, our own duty in this sharp and ])ainful crisis of our national life is clear. The trumpet of God's Providence, now breaking on us out of the lurid war- cloud, is a startling challenge to thouglitfulness and prayei'. The whole nation finds itself suddenly con- fronting the awful Arbiter of nations. There is no escaping the grand arraignment. The nation must now review its career, as under the eye of an eternal and inflexible justice. While no man, not inspired, may dare to say against Avhat particular offence any ])ar- ticular judgment is hurled, there is no ofience which any man may venture to shield or 2)alliate. Any one of our offences, for which conscience reproaches us, nuiy justly enough evoke against us the Divine displeasure. Now, then, is the time for us to bend our heads, in penitential shame, over each and every offence which has marked our national career. Nor is this all. The nation must now reckon Avith itself in resj)ect to its in- 11 most life, and come to a rioilit iinderstandinoj of its moral state. If tlie ideas wliicli liave inspired the na- tional life, and the j^urposes wliicli have guided the na- tional career, and the enterprises which have moulded the national character, are beneath the noldeness of our origin and the dignity of our errand in history, now is the time for us to discover it. If, by reason of glaring faults or serious defects of character, we are misimprov- ing our unexampled opportunities ; if, by bringing lib- eral institutions to needless reproach, we are embarrass- ing the friends of such institutions in other lands, and so are impeding the general progress of the race : now is the time for a thorough self-knowledge, for rej)ent- ance and amendment. Brayed as we are in this ter- rilde mortar of Providence, it is of the last moment that we so confess and renounce our folly as to have it depart from us. For myself, holding as I do the office of a public teacher, a constraint of conscience is upon me which I dare not resist, requiring me to attempt what will l)e confessed to be a much-needed analysis of our national infirmities and defects, as the}" now stand revealed to us under the light of these flaming judgments of God. Assuming that this nation, like every other, has its easily besetting sin, some one type of evil peculiarly its own, my task now is, if possil )le, to determine what it is. The delicacy of the task, imagined or real, shall cause me no disquietude. Honest plainness of speech, inspired l^y the fear of God, and by a love for our 12 common country wliicli only deejiens under disaster, can, sui'ely, oifend no honest hearer, if lie l)e either a Christian or a patriot. The inherent difficulty of the task is quite another matter. It is not easy for a man to understand, exactly, his own nation or his o^vn age. A philosophic foreigner like De Tocqueville will some- times see more in a month than any native had ever seen. And yet it seems to me that the rawness of our national character has given it a boldness of outline, wdiich precludes the possihility of any very serious misjudgment. Were I re(|uired to express, in a single word, what strikes me as the grand characteristic of our American civilization, that one word would he Materialism^ — em- ploying the word in its etymological and largest sense. Not materialism as a speculation in philosophy, but materialism as the passion and the presiding genius of our life. A slight historic survey, which need not detain us long, will suffice to set this matter in its proper light, and show us precisely where we stand. The Middle Ages, hirsute and turbulent as in some res])ects they may have been, were yet singularly thoughtful and spiritual ages. In politics, they laid the foundations of modern Europe. In art, they reared Gothic cathedrals and liung their walls with Madonnas. In science, they have bequeathed us prodigies of metaphysical and theological acuteness and p<)\ver. But in agriculture and manufactures, they were rude and clums}^ They 13 had almost no commerce, and no physical science. Men were consequently poor; wore coarse garments; lived on eartlien floors ; ate from wooden trenchers ; had, in short, scarcely one of our modern luxuries, and but very few even of our modern comforts. We now build our harns better than most of those mediaeval saints and heroes Imilt their houses. Such was the Europe of the Middle Ages. But, in the fifteenth century, the whole aspect of society iniderwent a sudden and signal change. There came on a crop of wonderful discoveries and inven- tions which put the world upon a new stadium of its career, discoveries and inventions for several of which we are indebted to the monks of the Papal Church. Printing, gunpowder, the mariner's compass, the doubling of the Cape of Good Hope, the discovery of America, and the revival of classical learning conse- quent upon the fall of Constantinople into the hands of the Turks in 1453 : these are the things we name as of chiefest significance in modern -history. Printing cheapened books immensely, and so sent knowledge down in due time into the peasant's cottage. Gun- powder revolutionized the art of war, l)ringing in artil- lery to decide the fortunes of l)attles and the fate of empires. The mariner's compass gave daring to timid sailors, whitening dangerous seas with swelling canvas. The new passage to the East Indies shifted the theatre of commerce from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The discovery of America gave 14 not merely a new continent to g<'ography, l)nt a new life to tlie world ; while tlie revival of classical learning waked np the slunil)ering fires of genius like a new in- spiration. Close upon the heels of this remarkable cluster of inventions and disco^•eries trod the great leaders of the long procession of our modern workers and heroes: Erasmus, Luther, and Melancthon, fol- lowed at due intervals by Gustavus Adolphus, and Lord Bacon, and Oliver Cromwell, and George Washington, and the two Napoleons; in whose train are votaries of natural science, inventors of useful ma- chines, steamboats, and telegraphs, such as Whitney, Fulton, Morse, merchant princes rolling in wealth, newsj^japers, socialistic reformers, and many-minded revolutionizers of society and Governments without number and without end. These names, events, and features of our modern civilization, as you readily perceive, are mostly Protest- ant. The Roman Catholic part of Christendom has been jealous of all this stir and thrift. If France and Belgium are industrious and thrifty without being Protestant, it is in part, and in large part, because they were both of them quickened by the Keformation, re- ceiving an impulse which could not be lost. It cannot be denied that Roman Catholic Europe, left to itself, is mostly poor and torpid ; Protestant Europe, rich and enterprising. Commerce and the mechanic arts, though not begotten of Protestantism, were rpiickly adopted by it, baptized at its altars, and made to fight its battles for the dominion of the world. 15 Tliis continent now underneatli our feet, tliongli discovered by Koman Catholics, first colonized and desperately struggled for by tliem, soon passed into Protestant hands ; and, of all Protestant countries, this is the most intensely Protestant. The adventurous energy which came of the Lutheran Reformation, sul)- sidizing the inventions and discoveries which shortly preceded it, has found here its amplest and most con- genial theatre. Everything about the continent, and about its history, has served to stimulate to the utmost the material development of its occupants. Its vast and virgin territory, which had been for centuries gathering fatness ; its bays, and lakes, and rivers, ofler- ing its harvests a ready exit to market ; its varied and boundless mineral resources ; its j^opulation, a cunning amalgam of the boldest blood of the best races of Europe ; its free institutions, electrifying the char- acter of every immigrant: these things have all told uj^on us with tremendous power, im2)elling us, as no peojde were ever l^efore impelled, towards a rank and rampant materialism. I am no extravagant eulogist of the Middle Ages. I do not stand up here to depreciate the achievements of modern times. I admit, without reluctance, that great improvements have passed upon the whole face and the whole structure of human society. We must certainly believe in progress, as we believe in Provi- dence, whose Avheels roll ever forward and not back- ^vard. We may, certainly, allow that the world is 10 manifestly nearer its milleiiiuni than it was six hun- dred years ago ; and yet, let us not fail to observe, that this entire mass of improvements, which distinguish the Modern Age, is distinctively material rather than spiritual. The mind of the Middle Ages, loyal to the Organon of Aristotle, as then interpreted and applied, was introspective and metaphysical ; its social and public life unthrifty, but chivalric ; its i)iety ascetic and cloistered, l)ut meditative and climbing. The mind of the Modern Age, loyal to the Organon of Bacon, and swayed still more by his example, gazes and travels ever outwards amongst the phenomena of time and sense. Use is its watchword. It levels forests, builds factories, bridles rivers, tunnels mountains, bridges oceans, and sends the mysterious Avdiispers of its intelligence like lightning around the glol)e. In science, the branches most honored have been Astron- omy, Geology, Chemistry, and the like, since these help us most in commerce, agriculture, and the mechanic arts. Our social life is noisy, flaunting, and feverish. Even our religion is more of the hands and the head, than of the heart. Men would rather carry the Gospel amongst the gray ruins of Asia, or into the wilds of Africa, than into the unexplored territory of their own souls. They would rather assault some outAvard insti- tution than a bosom sin. They would rather serve God by doing good, than by being good. And so the genius of our age, especially in Protest- ant lands, and pre-eminently in our own, is distinct- 17 ively mecliauical, objective, and practical. An age ])y no means to l)e utterly decried. On many accounts, an age to l)e admired and applauded ratlier. We give it credit for seeking to realize, as it never lias l)een real- ized, tlie noble idea of man's dominion over nature ; wrestlino; to subdue to itself all iiiaterial elements and forces, and all brute instincts, making tliem docile and subservient to liuman uses. It lias added largely to tlie sum total of liuman comfort and happiness; eman- cipating the race from many grievous burdens and afflictions, formerly endured; and holding forth the promise of still wider conquests, and still more splen- did l)eiiefactions, in the ages to come. These are the good points and cheering aspects of our case. But there are other points and aspects, as already intimated, which are not so good and cheering. It is distinctively an industrial and not a spiritual civiliza- tion which is thus multiplying its triumphs and its trophies. A material enterprise like that which now galvanizes the world, issues, of course, in wealth. The leading nations, especially the Protestant nations of the earth, have all been immensely enriched within the last two or three hundred years ; and, as a natural result, there has arisen an immensely enhanced regard for riches. Those who have wealth are more courted and honored and envied, while those who have it not are more mad after it. Solid and homely comforts, it is true, are vastly more alnindant. The fowl, which Henry the Fourth desired for the peasant's ])ot on Sun- 18 day, has found its Avay tliitlier almost every day in the week. From comforts, the masses have pushed on fast and far towards luxuries which enervate. Men have hecome dainty, self indulgent, and selfish. A ])assion for display comes in — disjday in dress, in equipage, and in the entire economy of the household. Large exjiend- ituros are rendered necessary, and these lead, too often, to eml)arrassments, out of which there is no exit l)ut l)y atrocious forgeries and frauds. Thus on all sides there is an impatient chafing against the straight and sober boundaries of virtue. This madness invades all ranks and orders of society. It seizes upon the farmer behind his plow, making him unhappy over his slow returns. It makes the mechanic restive under his incessant and heavy toil. It tempts the merchant to engage in desperate ventures in the ho2)e of extempor- izing a fortune. It degrades the physician, who should l)e an honor to science and an angel of mercy, into a drudge for fees. It turns the lawyer aside from high endeavors after a strictly professional reputation, to l)e a mere broker of estates and stocks. Instead of states- men, proud of being poor in their country's service, it sends us politicians, who are hunters of jilace for the sake of jx'lf It assails even the sacred office of the Gospel ministry, thinning its ranks, and scaring candi- dates away fr<^m its gates 1 )y raising the cry of poverty. The finer kinds of rejDutation, friendship, duty, honor, the things which, in more chivalric ages, used to l»e esteemed and died for, are now nnder a cloud. The 19 insane passion for gain lias l)een overriding all. There never, probahly, Avas a time since tlie world began, when, throuirhout all classes and conditions of men, the sense of property was so acnte as no\v ; Avlien fortunes were so intensely coveted, and indigence so intensely feared. In short, the age, in its dominant ideas and activities, is pre-eminently a commercial age. All higher ideas are, of course, imperilled. Science, art, religion — all must suffer. " With all thy gettings, get wisdom," is the reading of the Ancient Scriptures. But, according to the Modern Gospel of Mammon, the injunction is : " By all means get money ; honestly, if you can ; dishonestly, if you must." What is thus true of all Protestant Christendom, is, as 1 have said before, pre-eminently true of us. En- gland is bad enough, with her greedy fingers out all over the globe. We are worse. Here, on this magnificent continent, hid aAvay for ages behind the western horizon, and sternly interdicted to Europe till Europe had cradled the Iveformation, a continent washed on either side of it by the chief oceans of the jxlobe, these oceans now swarming with our ships ; our broad acres groaning beneath the burden of their har- vests ; our mountains stufted Avitli coal, and iron, and o-old ; our institutions about us as free as the breezes of the sky; here we are, a nation of sturdy workers; athletic, eager, adventurous Nimrods of a boundless material invasion and conquest. Nimrods, did I say ? Titans, rather ; for, not content to sul)due the earth, we ' are also storming the heavens. 20 It n'(|iiircs no special insight to catalogue our Na- tional oftcnccs. Tliey are known and i-ead of all men : the offences committed by us in our organic capacity ; with those other individual offences, of such general prevalence as to be fairly chargealjle on us as a people. Foremost amongst our organic offences, some would reckon the apparent, though doubtless undesigned, atheism of our National Constitution, which is silent in regard to the Divine authority and Providence. This silence is certainly imfortunate, but cannot be allowed to militate against the universally admitted fact, that our institutions rest uj)on a Christian basis. Our high- est legal authorities have again and again pronounced us a Christian people. But most unchristian, surely, has been that territorial rapacity, which, from genera- tion to generation, has been so sternly crowding the Red Man towards the setting sun ; which has sent (3ur conquering arms into the Halls of the Montezumas; and which has menaced Spain with the seizure of her wealthiest colony. Most unchristian is that cruel greed of gain, ^vhich has doomed the Black Man to a vas- salaii:e, abhorrent to the laws of nature and offensive to the genius of our religion. These are palpalde, organic offences, laying the heavy burden of their guilt more or less upon the nation as a whole. But they are all only branches of a single tree, whose noxious I'oots have been fed by the common soil of the continent. In all sec- tions alike there rages a madness for material good, crowning Cotton as its King in the South, crowning 21 Corn in tlic North ; a madness, av liicli luis debauched the general conscience of tlie nation, so as nearly to have wrecked our fortunes, and 'Ijlasted all our hopes, as a I\e2:)uLlic. Noav, indeed, wa are at length aroused, flinging our treasures and our lives into the deadly l)reach ; Init wIkj can recall without a shudder the sor- did, selfish apathy, which, not many montlis ago, stood l)y with folded arms, anxious only for the cargo, while our noljle Slii]^ of State, with torn flag, and abandoned Ijy traitorous officers, was driving straight u})on the rocks. For this apathy, wliicli lias so nearly ruined us, an a])athy engendered of our gross materialism, let us hang our heads to-day in honest, bitter shame. And in all the time to come may it haunt our guilty memory as a stupendous warning against similar delinquencies. Made wiser by these perils, which we have barely escaped, by these disasters, which are now upon us, may our country henceforth be more to us than its vulgar soil ; may it be to us a sacred trust, a theatre of devout and righteous enterprise, a heritage of free- dom, and an asylum to the oppressed of every kindred and of every clime. Of individual sins, so widely prevalent as justly to be considered national, let us also be mindful. Promi- nent amongst these is that profaneness of speech, so connnon in all parts of the land, which exceeds the profaneness of every otlier nation on the globe. No- where else on God's footstool does the aAvful name of God encounter such flagrant irreverence as liere with 00 118. If the Ruler of all the earth l)e iiMk'ed jealous (►f his liouor, as tlie Scriptures declare him to Le, well may A\'e tremhle to think of this wanton and shocking pro- faneness, incessantly rolling up, in such heavy volimie, into his listening ears. As a nation, Ave profane also his Sabbaths; less, it is true, than some of the nations of Euro])e, but vastly more than becomes us, Avdiether we consider the better exam])le of our fathers, or the Avholesome laAvs Avhicli stand unrepealed upon our statute books. Filial insubordination must also be reckoned as one of our crying sins. Family govern- ment, that Divinely appointed type and germ of all civil authority and order, is shamefully slack amongst us. We are sIoav to rise uj) before the hoary head and lionor the aged man. Hence our sadly irreverent atti- tude toAvards all rightful authority; our shalloAV and godless theory of civil gOA^ernment as simply a human compact ; and our loose, Ioav notions, of the sacredness of public hiAv. We are inclined to think of constitu- tions as only so much parchment, and of statutes as only enactments, representing the opinions of accidental majorities. These, Ave admit, are faults incident ahvays to Republican institutions. But, Avith us, they have had a rankness of groAvth, and have attained proj^or- tions, Avhich can be explained only by reference to the peculiar conditions of our national life. Gathered out of all nations, and planted here on this fresh continent, so teeming with stimulants to material enterprise and aggrandizement, Ave haA^e sucked up poison out of the 23 fatness of our territoiy, till now at length we are in that state wliicli is nigli unto cursing. And now tlie judgments of God are upon us. His red artillery has started down the slope of the heavens; nay, has already opened its thunders against our reliel- lious and boastful ranks. It is not for me to say which one of our offences is the special target of this dreadful artillery. Let no one section of our common country angrily up1:)raid another for its vices or its crimes. We are offenders, all of us, North and South, East and West, Material good, an overweening sense of which threatens extinction to every nobler sentiment, has been the grand Dagon of a universal idolatry. Mad has been our pursuit of gain ; cruel, our indifference to the rights and happiness of oppressed and inferior races within our borders ; inexcusable, the arrogance of our attitude towards other nations ; shameful, our reckless surrender of political power into the hands of corrupt and greedy dema