"o^ *»' V '-^..^^ ,^;^m^o \/ /,^, %.^^ ^- .40, > -<"%' '^ ^oV^ >o ^o^ ^oV" <'. <^, t^o^ • ^^' o ,0 h^^^. '^ ♦ ^"-^^ '* ^0 -^^0^ .^ .* ^0 ^^-^^^ <^j. 'O , A '^ ^~^ *W^% ^-. ..^^ /^Xh<' ^^ .. J" *-^'P'^^ C 5 ' J , . s^ ^ O o v*^' ^^o ^^ •V, 4 o '^ ' . . s ' v'^ % ^ .^^ -> ^.' "^^.^ r 1^^ DESTINY OF Ti A 'BISCOUeSE DEL.IVEH.EJ:> JOL.Y I-v BY mmm ib« lEEiircfED, "WmV^t t>i t&e Fjree BPresbyteriau Charch af N«w CtM^s NEW CASTLE: W. IP, CLA.RK' 8 STKAM TPOW1EPIS&15 9S •1855,. Ij)&kii2L ii : 44. — " And in the days of these Bangs shall the God of Hoa- ■»eii set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed ; and the kingdom shall jiol be left to other people, but it shall break in pieces and consume all these jkaagdoms, and it shall stand forever. " The subject of prophecy is one of the most interesting and thers to this western continent to set up a system of civil G^r • emmeDt freo from the contaminating iafluences of the oli 24 world, that it might wear itself out and go to pieces by the friction of its own parts ? Does it not look reasonable that; a nation of such capabilities as we possess, having awakened the expectations of the world, should use its power to realize them, and advance courageously to the discharge of those du- ties which no other people on earth can perform ? Two obstacles stand in the way of the fulfilment of such a destiny. First, the influence of the Popish Priesthood. That politico- religious system called Popery, is, in a double sense, at war with the kingdom of the "Little Stone." Eome is the centre of its power, and its territory in Italy, denominated " the States of the Church," is a part of the Image. As a system, it is also the embodiment of a despotism which lerds it over the soul and conscience of its victims. It is confederate with the crowned heads of Europe, against the cause of human liberty, and with them must bite the dust, and go down into the gx-ave. The Priesthood cf the United States are part and parcel of the European system. They are of European ori- gin and character, and are laboring with a single eye to bring about a European state of things in this country. If there was the remotest affinity between Popery and Republicanism, why did the revolution of 1848 fail? The power of the Priesthood was omnipotent in Italy and Austria — why did they not advocate the rights of the people against their op- pressors ? Instead of this, the Pope himself is an absolute despot, denying the liberty of conscience and the prpss to his subjects, and holding the key to the dungeons of the Inquisi- tion, as terrible to-day as it ever was. Men may delude them- selves as they will, but unless all history is a lie, and all phi- losophy folly, the Popish Priesthood are every where, in Eu- rope and America, necessarily and inevitably the foe of Re- publican Institutions. And hence it was that when the great Hungarian was sent to invite this nation to the performance of its mission in Europe, he met a deadly enemy in every Pa- pal emmissary from the Arch Bishop of New York, down to the Austrian or Portuguese Priest, who mumbles over his La- tin prayers in the ears of an American audience. However, that system is dead at the heart. It has life only in the ex- tremities. It flourishes in Protestant England and in the United States ! The breat-h of the Pope is in the nostrils o£ 25 Louis Napoleon. Let the French Regiments at Rome be witlt* drawn, and in thirty days the Pope and his Cardinals would be bung up to the cross of St. Peters by the Italian people 5 We entertain the hope too, that this power which so lately con,- trolled the politics of this nation, is knocked on the head by the revolution of the last year ; and that being forewarned, w* are forearmed against the cunning craftiness by which it lies iit wait to deceive. The country will not soon again relapse ia- to slumber. With the religion of Popery we have nothing to do. Let its votaries be protected in the enjoyment of their rights as the Protestants are. But as a political system, re- cognizing the Pope as God's Vicegerent, and entitled to th& Temporal as well as the Spiritual sword, we war against it *a the death ! Secondly, the Slave power stands in the way of this natioa fulfilling its mission. By this term I mean the religious, social and political influ- ence of 200,000 persons in the United States, who are allied; in principle and sympathy with the despotisms of Europe- This oligarchy, so contemptible in numbers, when compared with the population of the whole country, sided with the Po- pish priesthood in the United States, in treating Kossuth with cold scorn. In 1848 they sympathized with Francis Joseph, and Nicholas and Haynau and the Grand Duke of Tuscany — all oppressors together. It is the wonder of wonders how thia handful of men can control a nation where the majority go vcrng^ And yet they do it. Wc, who would scorn a European yokej^ and spili every drop of blood in our veins, in resisting the im- position of a foreign chain, have yet a Master. It shapes the- foreign and domestic policy of the Government. It puts a. padlock on the lips of the Christian ministry, and reduces thee Church to the condition of a handmaid. It has divorced hu- manity from religion, and by offering to the people a stone when they ask bread, is spreading infidelity and atheism all over the land. The solemn covenant made by our fathers^ guarding the territories of the Union against the curse of hu- man bondage, is broken up ; and when free laborers under the disadvantages of a strange doctrine, emigrate to those territo- ries to find a home, reckless and unprincipled men trample their rights into the dust. And such a mere tool is the pre- sent Administration of the Government in the hands of thi» c 28 oligarchy, that these outrages go unrebuked and unavenged. Our representatives in Europe, instead of cherishing the grand object of our Revolutionary struggle, hold a Conference and lay plans to steal the Island of Cuba from Spain, for the very purpose of adding it as another Slave State to the Union. These, and other soul harrowing facts which might be men- tioned, create an anomalous state of things, and allow the despots of Europe to laugh to scorn the realization of oar hopes for our country's future. And yet we have an abiding faith, that these things shall not be always. The tide in our publis affairs has at length turned and we see signs of reaction. The American people must yet abolish American Slavery, and put their Government actively and positively on the side of liber- ty. We must repudiate the idea, that the Nation in the exer- cise of its sovereign power, cannot abate a national nuisance. If a City, a Commonwealth, or the Nation of Commonwealths, hjive a right to enact quarantine laws to preserve the public health, to the destruction of commerce and capital, why may not the nation take the scalpel and dissect away from the body politic that ccneuming cancer vrhich is fast eating into its vitals and must cause death? It is alleged that the Constitu- tion is a pro-slavery document, containing a guaranty for the continuance of the evil we complain of. So were the Consti- tution and laws of England declared to be, both by Judges and people, up to the year 1772, when Lord MansQeldgave his im- mortal decision in the case of Somerset. Give us the public sentiment, and we will furnish a Congress that will find power in the Constitution to destroy this national curse. And in case death is tardy in overtaking the Yorkes and Talbots and Jeffreys of the present Bench of the Supreme Court, such a Congress could increase the number of Judges, so that a de- cision could be had declaring the institution of Slavery in- compatible with the provisions of the Constitution and there- fore null and void. There are Man&fields ready to give the decision as soon as an enlightened and huoiane public senti- ment shall deraand it. Yoa perceive, bretl ren, that I fay nothing of a dissola- tion of the confederacy, as a means of abolishing slavery. — I enter not into the plans of those who would destroy the Union, cemented together by the blood and tears of our fathers. Great as the evil of slavery is, and deep as is the 27 humiliation of tbe Nortli, the (lifSo''ution of the Union would bo a greater misfortune to humanity. There is no dan- ger of the South ever taking steps towards such a crisis, and there never was any danger. It was always a bugbear, which their sagacity and boldness enabled them to use, to alarm the North and carry their own ends in the Legislature of the Na- tion. Valuable as the Union is to all, it is infinitely more valu- able to them than to us, and well they know and feel it. But such has been the relentless despotism of the Slave Power over the rights and honor oi the North, that many of our people and some leading journals, advocate a separation. Let us re" member, however, that the contest now waging is not between, the Northern people and the Southern people, but between a handful of slaveholders in the North and South on the one hand, and all the rest of the people of the United States on the other — two hundred thousand men, women and children against twenty millions ! The non-slaveholders of the South constituting the overwhelming majority of the population, are degraded and oppressed next to the slaves themselves, and have a deep stake in the issue of the contest. If the Union were dissolved by a geographical line, these millions of our fellow- citizens can have no hope, but will suffer on with the slaves till the judgments of Heaven descend upon their oppressors, and make their land another Egypt. But let the adulterous union between the Slave Power and the Government be dissolved. Let the nation throw from its bosom the mighty incubus which site as a nightmare upon it. Let Christianity become a reality instead of a sham — a power, influencing the conscience and shaping the opinions of men, and the work is done. We cherish the fond hope and firm^belief that this nation ia to be •ne and indivisible. The Alleghenies and the Mississippi both throw themselves in the way of disunion, and proclaim that the God of Nature never intended' it ! Instead, therefore, of con. tending for an impossibility, let the majority of the people firmly and affectionately declare that slavery shall exist no k>nger, and our slaveholding brethren will bow before the de- tree, and take measures for its execution. They know it is a national disgrace, and a source of national weakness, totally linoonfiistcnt with republicanism, and directly at war with the eiaims of the Christian religion. With such convictions on the jftftrt of those immediately implicated, let the twenty millions 28 «f fre3 people in the Nortli and South decree, in the name of ^od, and through the Congress of the nation, that slavery shall forever cease to exist on a given day, and the arrival of 4he time would see God honored, and the nation saved I The bell which hung in the tower of the old State House at Philadelphia, and rang forth its peals when the Declaration of Independence was adopted, had engraved upon it this appro- priate motto — "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, CNTO all the inhabitants THEREOF." But when, at the close t)f our Revolutionary struggle, and the adoption of our Con- stitution, its tones mocked the hopes of the enslaved, the Geniua •©f Liberty, disgusted and angered at our inconsistency, struck it, and from that day it has been dumb. But it is still pre" Served with pious care in the Hall of Independence, amidst «ther glorious relics of the past, ready for the good time coming. It must be re-cast and replaced where it hung seventy- nine years ago, when it ushered in the birth of the nation ! It mnst peal forth another anthem of joy, and thus obey the di- Tine command in its inscription, by announcing the event for "which we have so long labored and suffered — the breaking of «?ery yoke, and the setting of every oppressed one free ! And now, brethren, from the indications of the Prophet, and the existing state of things in Europe and America, you can form a judgment as to where we are in point of time, and where we are as a people on the field of prophecy ; and what xelations we sustain to that part of Europe covered by the image of Nebuchadnezzar. The present war in the East is probably the beginning of that terrible dispensation of doing and suffering which is to end in the complete destruction of Kings and Kingdoms — the downfall of the Ottoman Power, the total subversion of the Papacy, and the recall of the Jews to their native land. In these interesting events, brought to f)UT very doors by the steam navigation of the Atlantic, the United States must take a part, or else the world will observe the anomaly of a great instrumentality brought into existence for no adequate and worthy purpose. To accomplish our mis. «ion on that august theatre, we must be disentangled from ^oper9/ and Slavery^ two systems of despotism as absolute and as heartless as any represented by the symbol of the Image. When our country, thus regenerated and disenthralled, shall iiave risen in its grandeur, and lifted up its voice of authority 29 unci power among tihe nations, — "when the thrones of Europe shall have given way to Presidential Chairs, and the voice of the Monarch be hushed in the voice of the People, which ifif fche voice of God — then the Seventh Angel will sound, and great voices in heaven shall proclaim, "the Kingdoms of this world are become the Kingdoms of our Lord and his Chriat? and he shall reign forever and ever!" Oh scenes surpassing fable, and yet true ; Scenes of accomplished bliss ! which who can see. The' but in distant prospect, and not feel His soul refreshed with foretaste of the joy? ****** One song employs all nations. The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks Shout to each other, and the mountain tops Prom distant mountains catch the flying joy, Till, nation after nation taught the strain, Earth rolls the rapturous hosannahs round I A 333 V-^,^ 0^ ,<■'■" v-^ ^^' o " c ^ ^^-'^^ < o \i> -^ . , . 'P a\ \^ ^ . . s .G O -o.t '^ •'^ -^fB^^ y,v "*\ •'^^^Xk* aT "^ rp a\ 'C' '..« .0 O 'o , i » A J. <- -v-^ • * <"> «^ o X/ iiS \Vr * ^V *>» . li?^iiP^ C~ if ■J. -J> lOv-, 0^ .0^ "o^ 'o. ;* A -^ N.MANCHESTER ]>'""" A <\. *^T* ^o"^ "^O INDIANA 'I O^ .<^^ , « c ^ <{, ^^ ... -?> .^i"^ .'isS^V. ^-^-^ ,V