■3 •3 m /?^ THANKSGIVING SEEMON, DELIVEKED IN COETLAND, N. Y., ^UaUST 6tli, 1863, BY REV. I. L. BEMAN. ri'HLlSHKl) Fnil THK lil'.XI'.FIT iiF THK LMUKS' VOU'NTEEl! ATI) SOCIETY. I>IiIOE---10 CEHSTTS. CORTLAND, N. Y. : CIIAKI.KS I'. C'lil.K. liODK AND JOB PRINTKR. (iAZHTITF, A.VD HAXNKR OKI'K'K. 1863- J OOERESPONDENOE. Rev. I. L. Beman : Sir — In accordance with the unanimous vote of the Congregation who heard your Thanksgiving Sermon, the undersigDcd committee at that time appointed, re- spectfully solicit a copy thereof for publication. Yours, &c., RUFUS EDWARDS, J. C. POMEROY, JAMES S. SQUIRES, HORACE A. JARVIS Committee. Gentlemen of the Committee : In compliance with your request, I hereby submit to your disposal a copy of the Sermon delivered on the National Thanksgiving Day, Aug. 6, 1863. i = Respectfully yours, IRVING L. BEMAN. 05~ V',t SEKMON. " If 1 forget thee, Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let ray tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth : if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy.'' Psalm 137 : 5. G. The words of the text amount in substance to a strong, imprecatory pledge of religious faithfulness to God, and patriotic devotion to that land which is the gift of God. The Israelites had been sinful ; had displeased God and departed from his laws. As a consequence, they had grown timid and imbecile. Their valor had fled ; they were not, like their fathers of old, able to conquer giants ; they were often and signally defeated ; the fastnesses of their hill country no longer availed them against their enemies ; they had no Gideon to strike for them with his awful battle cry ; they had no Samson warrior to match his single arm against the foes' haughty host ; they had no boy David to deliver them by a pebble from the brook. Shalmanezer, with his Assyrian cohorts, had come up against them, and carried away many captives to the river Gozan ; and then, from the other side, the Egyp- tian prince, Pharaoh-necho, had attacked them and slain their king at Megiddo ; and finally, came the Babylonish monarch, Nebuchadnezzar, hurling his myriads across the fords of Jordan, against their devoted land, and car- ried away their "mighty men of valor" captives into J D THANKSGIVING SERMON. Chaldea, enslaving both old and young; profaned and robbed the holy temple, leaving the whole land a wasted province ; and for two generations they sat by the rivers of Babylon and wept at the memory of Zion. They un- strung their harps and hung them on the willows ; their voices were choked with the tears ol captivity. It was a scene (if national woe, such as the whole world has seldom, if ever, afforded. In this 187tli Ps., which is but a wail of grief from their })rison-house, we have an eloquent example of true religious patriotism. The story is quickly told. They were sitting in silent woe, weeping at the memories of their native land, when their pagan captors came and required a song of Zion. j They refused to sing, with the sad remonstrance, " Hoiv \can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?" And then, by these words reminding themselves more intense- ly of the far away city, the vine-clad liills, the towering \ mountains, the spreading plains and the winding streams of dear and s icred Palestine, they burst forth in that ghiwing pledge of life-long fealty to God and country, re- corded in the text, which may thus be paraphrased : " Jerusalem, holiest spot of eajth, if we so far forget thee as to touch thy harp-strings in this land of captivity, may our right hand be palsied ! If we do not so faithfully remember thee as never to undertake thy songs save in thee, our God's abode, our fathers' home, may our tongues be paralyzed !"' The Jews had country and church both in one. With- out one, they were without the other. In the Temple at Jerusalem only, could they legitimately offer sacrifices. There only, could the Levitical choir assemble to chant the Psalms of David. There only, could they congregate on the days of the great national feasts. There was their birth-place, there all childhood memories clustered, there were the battle-fields of their valiant sires, there were e THANKSGIVING SERMON. the graves of their kindred. There rested the hones of Joshua and Gideon, Othniel and Samson, Jonathan and David, the patriarchs and prophets ; all their holy, wise and mighty men. That was the land not only of Promise, but of inheritance. Sacred Palestine ! It was both church and country to them ; they could take neither away. The old hills were immovable, and so the "City of the great King!" The worship of God in accordance with His commands and in Jewish grandeur, could not be rightly conducted elsewhere. The wine from other vineyards was not sanctified ; the flocks of other liills were not acceptable sacrifices ; the fruits of other soils were not holy offerings. The Theo- ciatic principles of government were to be enjoyed and practiced no wheie on eartli, save on the other side of Jordan, in Canaan's spreading plains. They had dared the Red Sea, and from its wilderness shore looking back, had beheld it engulf their Egyptian masters; they had toiled miraculously through the desert, drinking from Marah and the Rock, eating quails and manna, and lea- ving tlie bones of their fathers bleaching there, to gain that blest asylum And, reaching the land of Promise, there they had fought and conquered, reigned and pros- pered, for a period of more than eight hundred }ears. But now, in a foreign realm, enslaved, without a coun- try, without a religion, their sacred places profaned by stranger's feet, and their sacred vessels sacrileged by im- pious lips, they were required to sing a song of Zion ; to kindle the burning measure of Divine praise, and pour upward to an injured Lord the rich and stately anthems from sad and exiled hearts. Is it strange then, that they should refuse, and pledge themselves so solemnly to never forget the fatherland ? Could the pride of such a glorious history be broken so easily, and the crimson blush of so many splendid victo- THANKSGIVING SERMON. ries pale so soon ? Could the right of Promise, the right of Divine bequeathment, the right of the Conqueror, and the right of possession, in all those broad plains and grand mountains, be forfeited and forgotten so quickly? Could they now, by singing a holy song in unholy Baby- lon, volnntu'ily pui their necks beneath the oppressor's heel, and thereby confess they had no God and no coun- try ? No! By the memory of their majestic past, by the memory of all their valiant deeds and triumphant cam- paigns, by the memory of all their mighty and holy men, by the memory of tlieir deserted hearthstones and Tem- ple, and by their huije in God for all the future — No I No base submissionists were they. They could be de- feated, but never subdued ; enslaved, but never degra- ded ; oi'ushed, but not destroyed. They were beaten, they had unstrung their harps, they wept ; yet were stern and inflexible in their ])atiiotism and faith. Now, what of America and American patriotism and faith in this dark crisis of her history ? Shall we ever sing the hallowed airs of Columbia in a strange land, or in our own land humbled and abased ? The Amerian people have something such a history as had the Jews. TIku left Egypt because of bondage, daring the sea to escape. Our forefathers left the Old World because of bondage, religious intolerance ; because their consciences were dictated, their rights restricted ; and thf-y coped with the s ronger storms of a wider sea in the angry mood of winter. The Jews struggled through the Arabian wilderness for nearly h df a century. .Our Puritan fathers, when they had crossed the sea, found themselves also in a wil- derness, the terrors and difficulties of which they man- fully grappled and subdued : and let the early graves in Massachusetts, that Matron of the States, which the vicious would eject from the Union to wMch she gave THANKSGIVING SEBMON. birth — let those early graves, filled by cold, weariness, starvation and the tomahawk, witness to the sturdy christian manhood they possessed. The Jews went forth to a land where they might estab- lish a government with God at its head, eternal truth and inalienable rights its foundation. So the Pilgrims came to found a nation on the same everlasting principles, having no restrictions of conscience, no limitations of birth rights and natural equalities; a nation with no sceptre to come between them and God. The J«ws did not possess their inheritance except by bloody wars. So our fathers in the Revolutionary strug- gle, rushing from hillside and valley, waded in blood, leaving their red footmarks on the snows of Valley Forge and along the icv road to Trenton's sanguine field. As the Israelites had the proud memories ot Ai, Eglon and Kishon, so have we the glories of Bunker Hill, York- town andLundy's Lane. i\.s they had a Joshua, a Barak and a Gideon, so we have a Washington, a Warren and a Put- nam. They had more than eight hundred years' posses- sion in Canaan, while we can number but eighty-seven since the old bell in Philidelphia rung out our Indepen- dence in 177(3; but while they Had increased only to some three millions, we have grown, since Miles Standish set his foot on Plymouth Rock, from a few hundreds to thirty millions; thus equalling in stature what we lack in years. And while they had become a j^ower of only second rate, which w^as utterly broken by a neighboring monarch who carried them into captivity, we have ex- panded into a stalwart nation, and with God's smile upon a righteous cause we can defy the world. Our Institutions are as sacred as were those of the He- brews. Every patriot believes they are the gift of God, as much as theirs ; they were christened by as sacred blood, that of our fathers ; they were dedicated to God J THANKSGIVING SERMON. and humanity by the " Declaration of Rights." These Institutions are our priceless 2)atrimony. In education, invention, agriculture, commerce, conscientious living, in our social system, in beneficent and philanthropic enter prise, in all secuhir advancement, and hence in all reli- gious attainment ot which secular enterprise is the ser- vant, we are leading the old Jews by the breadth ot shining ages. Our country and our church are as necessary to each other as were their's. Though not united as among the Jews, in no evil sense combined, giving no ojjportunity whatever for the invidious influences of priestcraft ; yet essential to each other, since it is under the wide dome ot these free Institutions that the church has liberty to grow and sti'cnotlien in her proper sphere ; and it is by the preserving, leaven-like presence of the Christian church, that these Institutions are and must be perpetu- ated. The Divine ideas that underlie and constitute the church of Christ, gave birth to, and have since })reserved, the nation; vvhile the nation, as a republican form of government, is the rightful protector ot the church. Here only, of all the nations of the earth, Tlieocratic Jewry in her palmiest days not excejjted, is man fully his own king under God, obeying tlie dictates of his own conscience, appointing from among the people his own legislature, judiciary and executive, and thus govern- ing himself in thought, in worshij^, in sjDeech and in all supposable action ; having moreover, a free press, free soil and free labor. But shall this comparison be continued ? Shall it run forward by the ferocity of treacherous rebels, aided by the yet baser action or inaction of concealed traitors at the North and the fiendish work of mobs, until we shall sit. as did weeping Israel, by the rivers ; save that it shall be by our own rivers, our Connecticut, our Hudson, our THANKSGIVING SERMON. Susquehanna, our Ohio and our Mississippi ; enslaved, fettered, degraded ? We have carried up the comparison as far as completed history will permit ; and now shall we, by imbecile recreancy, permit our history and their's to run parallel any farther ? Men and brethren, the aw- ful Thermopylae in which we stand impresses this ques-i tion. It appeals to you who wear the Federal blue; toi you whose sons or brothers are in the field, or hospital,! or under the sod ; to you who by your influence through ' action or word are helping to sustain or destroy. Shall I our history run a farther parallel with that of the scat-i tered and disgraced Jews ? When the cruel hands, clutching at the throat of the government, shall succeed ; { when the sly enemies now working so insidiously at the | North, like the fox the Spartan boy hid under his plaid till it gnawed into his vitals, shall gain what they seek ; then shall we have no country in any broad, true signifi- cation whatever ; and then no liberties ; and then no church as a free religious system. When we are beaten the very springs from which we drink will flow through Confederate fetters ere they reach the sea by Southern outlets, symbolizing our thoughts and purjioses which then cannot pour out into deeds save through shackles. Success to the insurgents is death to our nation, and hence thraldom to the individuals who compose the nation. Any lack of entire final triumph to our Administration, any cowardly concession or iniquitous compromise, will strike the death blow to our Republican institutions, for it will destroy the vital principles of these institutions — the Elective Franchise. The beginning — not the cause — but the signal for the first shot in this war, was the the election of the present Chief Magistrate by the constitu- tional ballot of the people. If now we fail, and the felo- nious instigators of the war succeed in securing conces- sion or compromise of any kind —even to their lives, or J 10 THANKSGIVING SERMON. choice of the way in which they shall be executed — it undermines the supremacy of the ballot box, and here- after subjects to the decision of arms every election whereby an unprincipled minority is displeased. We become then a military despotism ; anarchy prevails ; Might usurps the throne of Right; Right is exiled, and we have really no country. Now what does country mean? Primarily, to the American citizen, it means self-ownership. It means possession of our individual, domestic rights to home, family, wives, children, sisters, parents ; these which are ours under God and not another's in any possible sense. Secondarily, it means self-government through the pro- per, legal, civil — or if need be, military — channels. Coun- try, this Country, as our fathers fought for and founded it, means just what God gives to every man, and which no earthly power can rightfully remove: rights, which, by the "Declaration of Independence" and by the Divine will and Word, should belong to all,' black or white, rich or poor, educated or ignorant, and which every man of spirit esteems dear as life. Country! It is these free hills where you gather the })roducts of your own labor; these wide valleys from which God lets you garner such plenteous harvests ; these happy streams and every ma- chine which they propel, yielding manufactures for free men. It is these streets, stores and offices where you drive your flourishing trade ; the mines, mints and quar- ries where our laboi-ers toil ; the railroads and canals, the rivers, lakes and seas, whereon our travelers and com merce ride. It means the reading matter which you take from the post office, and the countless volumes that crowd the shelves of all the libraries in the land. It means the Lecture room and the platform of the Lyceum. It means every school house from Maine to Oregon, with the throngs of gay children coming up to carry this Re- /^^ THANKSGIVING SEKMON, 11 publican cosmos on their shoulders. It means your Academy, and every other academy and college from ' Harvard to Ann Arbor. It means your last evening's ' quiet hour of domestic worship; the free Bible which j lays on your table at home and on these village pulpits. It means the opinions which you hold and utter untram- meled, where you will : these churches where you come at your freedom to hear, and where the clergy speak as we conscientiously think God permits and requires, unlet and unhindered of men. It means the ballot box where you exercise your royal sovereignty, and the jury where you seek redress for grievances. It is the place of your birth, whether in hut or palace ; and the graveyard where, with your fathers' ashes, your own will sleep in God's due time. It is everything dear and sacred ; liber- ty, life, fortune, honor, enlightenment, happiness. And if th'is be our country, and the utter ruin of this what the foe seeks, cannot we repeat the text as our own ; cannot we pour into it the same intensity as did the captive Israelite in the willow shade by Babylon's river ? Truly, we are not captives yet ; we are not weep- ing by the enemy's rivers ; but what matters the difie- rence ? Look at the bleeding country ; see how sore her need of unconditional, uncomplaining devotion ; note how all across the land, by ten thousand hearthstones, sit mothers and sisters, wives and orphans, and white-haired sires whose trusty staves are broken, shedding tears which cannot be stAyed, for their noble dead slain in this terrible strife. And for this reason every dead soldier boy, every rent in the old Banner, every stain on our na- tional honor, becomes an argument for patriotic devotion. The Country for which have died your kindred and mine, for which such enormous sacrifices of treasure have been made, is thereby the more beloved. The more it has or shall cost, the more it is worth to all true men and reali 12 THANKSGIVING SERMON. patriots. Every rebel in arms ; every brutal, Popish mob doing its horrible, rebellious work ; every seditious disci- ple of Vallandigham ; and every disloyal Northerner aid- ing t!ie foe by whatever influence, is an incentive to higher devotion and greater sacrifice to the land of our fathers. Could I call together in one great throng the mill ons of patriots North, and administer to them anew the oath of allegiance, it should be tlie text Americanized, " If 1 forget thee. America, my beloved Country, let my right hand di'op pulseless in death. If I do not remember thee, and prefer thee above all joys, let my tongue be foiever silent." The hour is here when every patriot is chal- lenged to this resolve, if he would witness the triumf)li of freedon^ and tlie salvation of the gover-nment. No com- mon patriotism like that of recent years will avail ; such a spirit is required as that which prompted the signers of the "Declaration of Indei)endence," when Charles Car- roll distinguished himself for the rope of" King George" by a special appendage to his signature. This is Country, our guardian and our protege. Thig is what they who instituted and crowd on the Rebellion, seek to destroy. At the breast of the Republic they have been fostered. Their military leaders were made, with' out cost to them, at our schools ; their statesmen acquired their skill in the places of national trust; their arms, forts, ships, and means by which to prosecute the insur- rection, were mainly stolen from the Government. The protection they have enjoyed in their domestic circles, in amassing their fortunes, in every advancement made oj i blessing bestowed, in chaffering with and degrading their ; better brethren the slaves, they have received from the Federal Government. By Southern Presidents, or Nor- thern Presidents with Southern principles, by such Cabi- net officerg as they chose to appoint, by total sway in all branches of the Federal Government, they have held do- yJtrz THANKSGIVINa SERMON. 13 minion for fifty six out of eighty-seven years. They have battened on the spoils of office ; tliey have grown insolent and imperious by the long use and abuse of power and privilege. Tliey have bought with millions of Federal money, conquered by Federal arms or acquired by diplo- macy and corruption in the halls of Congress, State after State and Territory after Territory, to secure entire sway by the extension of s'avery : while the North and freedom have not expended one dollar, fought one battle, or con- ducted one successful struggle in the Congressional forum, to acquire one acre of territory, or an iota of power. Now. it is against this, their Mother, their indulgent Benefactor, their obsequious servant for half a century, they have raised their murderous hands; hands slimy with the vileness of their amalgamations, and red with the blood of their hel|)less, black victims. It is not enough that they have had precedence for so long a period; they would destroy the Government which has protected and exalted, pampered and enriched them : not enough that they have enslaved four millions of their fel- low men in the grossest bondage the world has ever known, and that they iiave degraded to almost equal abasement more than two millions of the " poor white trash ;" but now they would make a whole nation cringe — they would humble at their feet twenty millions more! There are men who cry '" compromise ;" parties who profess to be the constituted guardians of this people, though they are the boon companions of the enemy ; like wolves, claiming to be the protectors of the flock, while their jaws drip blood. Their disciples walk in phrensied riot, crazy with incendiarism, robbery and pillage ; turn- ing orphans into the streets ; murdering women and children, and negroes who have neither votes nor influ- ence ; and even burning the mangled dead in wanton ferocity. 14 THANKSGIVING SERMON. Men and brethren, where is our manhood, whjre our christian boldness and purity, where our pati-iotism and where our safety in the future, if at the cry of such submi - sionists we are ready to compromise witli such a foe ? The very sources whence issue these peace projects are tlie strongest aryuments against complicity with tlseni in hold- ing out the olive to the rebels. Have all the battles since Lexington and Concord, all the noble blood spilled by our warriors, all the superhuman effort expended by our states- men, all the treasure employed, amounted to a mere expe- riment, that now we can so basely talk of compromise with outlaws and traitors ? There is no couipromise. There is surrender, there is truckling to wrong, there is ex- changing honor for shame, bartering our birthright for a mess of pottage : but there is no compromise. The strug- gle is between antagonistic principles — principles that cannot be united. One may become mustei- with lash in hand, the other a cringing slave, but they arc foes still. Though associating in this relation they never can be har- monized. It is brute force directed by wicked cunning on the one hand, and on the other the sublime, mental and moral qualities of regenerate manhood lisingto tueir pro- per sphere. When men form a fabric and call it govern- ment, it becomes the arena of contest botween the bi'utal and the humane. Two armed instincts marshal for bat- tle; one the independent, broadly philanthropic, manly, humanizing ; the other the coarse, selfish, heartless, bruta- lizing. One believes in man and man's God ; the other's creed is self. One is from above ; the other from beneath. One says "Might is Servant, Right a master divine ;" the other says '' Might is Right, let it rule because :t can." One is the doctrine of our Northern civilization ; the other the hellish fallacy of their Southern barbarism. The former principle regards humanity as Pharaoh's daughter did the infant deliverer of Israel; a beinofoffair ^^/ THANKSGIVING SEKMON. 15 feature, lovely form and mighty promise, and rears it up- ward toward its gr eat estate: the latter views mankind as carnivora do their prey, and hesitates at no meanness by which to drink the blood; its adherents " confedera- ting for that purpose as wolves hunt m packs," rushing among the tiock, not in the broad daylight of Christianity,! I but under the pall of ignorance and intolerance. The for-' I mer believes in progress and reform ; changing the adap- 1 i tations of men. lifting them up and fitting them for higher :sphei"es, and helping them onward toward the glory of perfect manhood : the latter believes in low, unalterable .adaptations, leaving the slave a slave, the ignoramus an ■ ignoramus, the poor, groaning ones of God poor and gi'oan- ing forever ; hitching them by iron cables to the post of the l)i'iue; wliipping them back to their spheres, by ci uel lashes riglit across the face, if by better aspirations they aie actuated to struggle upwai-d to any heaveiilier level. I When right and wrong ai-e thus battling, when God seems shaking a nation in order to purify and equalize it, one says "go forward and do God's will,'" — while the other lories "hold still, compromise.'" Now liere is an eternal antagonism. Not until elements and principles, origina- ^ ting with and sanctioned by God. can be changed into wrong, can our efforts be justly abated. Any conscien tious man who will observe the character and history of this struggle from its beginning thirty years ago, when Calhoun began to set his political party on fire with tlie doctrine of State riiihts, in direct opposition to the princi- ples of the Convention of 1787 which framed the Cousti- .tution, must perceive that it is the envenomed thrust of joligarchists to save themselves, by the destruction of uni- versal liberty. It is the great death throe of either free- dom or slavery in America. Conquer or perish, then, must < be our motto. It is the divine responsibility laid upon us : ;we cannot evade it. It is bound upon us with the very 16 THANKSGIVINO 8ERMOX. bands that hold our manhood to vs. Tins conflict is the coming to blows of the princi-ples which lauded on Ply- mouth Rock in the hearts of the Mayflower Pilgrims, and from the Dutch ship, which the same year landed a cargo of slaves on the banks of James river^ near Richmond. It is then, Plymouth Rock against James river ; may the Rock turn the river. May Boston stand when Richmond is in ashes; may the principles they respectively represent and entertain meet the same fate. May human bondage disappear at once and forever ; New England liberty cover the earth. There is no use in arguing that the North began the conflict, or sought it, or is in fault for it. Such arji:ument excuses the meanest creatures on earth, wliose guilt is only second to Satan; the murderers of the innocents in New York the other day, of my kindred who fell at Ft. Philips and Shiloh, Centerville and Harper's Ferry, of such chrisiian patriots as Gkover. whose voice, preaching the Gospel, is hardly husiied in this sacred house. He who argues thus, manifests his servile sympathy with the South. For many years the South has stood with sword half drawn, compelling us with bowie knife, pistol and bludgeon, to all manner of concession ; till at last, driven to the direst extremity by the cannon that reduced Sum- ter, we turned at bay, standing on all that was left us, the naked principles of the Constitution and the mere fact of existence. Then we could have permitted secession ,•' but would thereby have branded ourselves cowards, and sur- rendered the glorious championship for the human race, admitting that Republicanism is an impossibility. We should have been, as we ought, the hissing of the earih ; a stench and shame to every independent man through all time. We took up the gauntlet ; have fought over two years ; have offered upon the altar of Country, let histoiy say how much. C' THANKSGIVING SERMON. 17 Shall v^e now compruraise? No! We must not at- tempt it, unless we would become the offscouring of the earth ; the apostate of civilization and humanity; the Ju- das Iscariot of the nineteenth century. A lull of arms may be contrived, but it will be neither a real compromise nor a just peace. The " good Book" says "Righteousness and Peace have kissed each other;" but grim Unrighteousness may never come so near that holy maiden, Peace. If the war was right on our part in the outset, it is right now, and will be till the Rebellion is subdued. If it was wrong in the beginning, the constitu- tional election of a President is wrong, and we must repu- diate the Constitution and all that has ever been done in accordance therewith. Then self-defense against pirates is wrong. Then human bondage, the root and virus of the insurrection, is right, and Liberty is an evil. Then the strong may do God service by enslaving and debasing the weak. Then we ought to have let the "wayward sisters," drunk with their oppressions and black with their harlot- ries, "depart in peace;'' while we stood, the gaunt, un- crowned, sceptrcless coward among nations. But no ; — we know our cause is right — right when Warren fell at Bun- ker Hill — right when Ellsworth was murdered at Alexan- dria — right now. We cannot ultimately be defeated ; this people must not fall. We are ready to gird on our fathers' swords, by enlistment or by draft, and on our fathers' ancient Bibles swear, " It cannot, must not, shall NOT BE." We shall succeed because our Government is righteous ; because in the past it has colt so much ; be- cause in the future it will be worih so much. It is God's > ■ especial charge among the nations ; it answers the long- ings of the enslaved world. Would that the freemen of the North were men of less noise and theory, but more thought, higher devotion, sterner resolves ; silent, yet desperate ; putting their pre- 18 THANKSGIVING SERMON. tensions and complainings into practical, terrible force, until the whole world should stand aghast at the tremen- dous power of a determined people, and tlie Crowned Heads who hanker for our destruction should fear our invincible might. When this nation, through every voice by which it can reach the Presitlent's ear, shall say, "' Go on, Abraham Lincoln, draft, emancipate, confiscaie, make negro soldiers, do what your wisdom devises, and we. while praying for you at your request, will bear you through," — then we shall win a Country of which we may consistently sing, "Land of the free and home of the brave." Then we shall conquer a peace which will abide, since it will not have hidden underneath the elements of diecord and i-apine; and God will give us a cliuich which will afford an uni-estricted conscience, an unmolested wor- ship and an untrammeled pulpit. When that chant, " We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand more" — now but a burlesque because of the draft — shall become, " We are going, God of battles, to vindicate the Right," — we may expect the trump of Jehovah to sound the charge, and we shall wring victory from the traitorous hand cf the foe. Italy is wheeling into freedom's line ; Hungary is restless in her chains ; Poland is again putting on the divine crown of Liberty ; Russia's thirty million serls are fast becoming men ; then let America lead the world's van, fulfilling her royal destiny. Friends, I have endeavored by these remarks to bring your minds to a proper frame for this special Thanks- giving. 1 deem it not my duty to render thanks in your stead, but by unfolding our Country's worth, move your hearts to personal gratitude for the growing signs of de- liverance. What special reasons are there then, for Thanksgiving ? 1st. The enforcement of the righteous emancipation policy. ;2//\^ THANKSGIVING SERMON. 19 2d. Making soldiers of Negroes ; the favorable solu- tion of the problem wiiether they will fight, and tlieir pro- tection as other soldiers. 3d. An Administration with stamina to enforce a draft. 4th. The failure of- the Riots devised to aid the Rebels, and the exposure of the disloyal purposes of compromising, peace-pleading Northerners. 5th. The victory of Gettysburg and tlie ex])ulsion of the foe from Northern soil. 6th. The capture of Vicksburg and Port Hudson, and final opening of the Mississippi. Vth. The capture of Morgan and his raiders, together with more than twenty smaller victories. 8th. The possession or parole of more than seventy-five thousand Rebel prisoners, and general demoralization of all tlieir armies. And finally, the probable speedy fall of Charleston, the hot-bed of Secession fallacies, demands both our prayers and praises. May its capture be the nominal close, as it was the nominal beginning, of the terrific strife! For all these great and undeserved blessings we render thanks to Almighty God. " Oh magnify the Lord with "me, and let us exalt his name together." And, though this is an occasion of Thanksgiving, we cannot forget the wounded and sick, and the thousands I who mourn our valiant dead. May a merciful Heavenly Father visit them with divinest consolation. C; ^' LIBRARY OF CONGRESS II II' mil III III' iiiiiiiiiiU'iiiiiiiii 012 609 271 4