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SERMON, DELIVERED IN
ST. JOHN'S CHURCH, SAVANNAH,
On Past Day, Nov. 28, 1860,
BV THE
Rev. Greorge HE . O 1 a r k

S AV AN N AH :
I860.

CORRESPONDENCE.

SAVANNAH, NOV, 29th, 1860.
Rev. Geo. H. Clark,
Rector of St. John's Church :
Dear Sir — The undersigned, members of your Church and Con.
gregation, and others who were present, appreciating highly, and
cordially approving, the sentiments of your discourse delivered on
Wednesday last, 28th instant, that day having been set apart by the
Governor for prayer throughout this State — and believing that good
would result from a more general dissemination of the christian and
patriotic views pronounced on that occasion, beg leave to request a
copy of your Sermon for publication.
Very truly,
Your friends and fellow citizens,
GEORGE H. JOHNSTON,
WM. H. CLTYLER,
JOS. B. RIPLEY,
F. W. SIMS,
J. WALDBURG,
WM. H. BULLOCH.

SAVANNAH, NOV. 30, 1860.
Gentlemen — I have had the honor to receive your polite request ;
and, though my Sermon of Wednesday last was written, with no
reference to its publication, it gives me pleasure to place it at your
disposal. I am, gentlemen, Very respectfully and truly,
, Your obedient servant,
GEORGE H. CLARK.
Messrs. George H. Johnston, Win. H. Cuyler, Jos. B. Ripley, F.
W. Sims, J. Waldburg, Wm. H. Bulloch.

SERMON

oKKo

" They shall look unto the earth, and behold
trouble and darkness." — Isiah : Chap, viii., verse
XXII. People of the North, forgetting that Slavery has
come to the African as a blessing, and has raised a
most degraded race in every way, physically, socially,
intellectually and morally; and overlooking the neces
sity of its continuance, not only for our protection and
our prosperity, but for the preservation and welfare
of those, to whom they would entrust the dangerous
gift of liberty, have entered a crusade against the in
stitution, and are bending their energies to sweep it
from the land. They propose, they can propose, no
plan beyond that of giving freedom to those to whom
freedom would not come as a blessing. They ignore
the rights, and they invade the privileges of those
with whom they have entered into a solemn contract
for the common benefit of all. They would trample
beneath their feet that Constitution, which was created
by the wisdom, and sealed by the blood of our
fathers Urged on by unscrupulous politicians and by
ignorant demagogues, they have refused, by their
suffrages, to preserve to the South her just preroga
tives, and have recklessly attempted to undermine her
possessions. What we regard as a necessity, they look
on as a curse. What we know to be a benefit, they as
sume to be an evil ; and looking at the subject with

passions heated, they have, by their numerical power,
raised to the highest position, which a citizen can
hold, one whose antecedents would indicate, that he
will look, in the high place which he is to occupy, to
the interests of a section and a party, rather than to
the interests of the whole country.
And to what has this agitation brought our land ?
It has brought it to a position of extreme peril. The
horizon is dark on every side, and storms of which
no statesman can see the consequences, are impending
over us.
It is under such circumstances that we are called,
by the Governor of our State, to gather here for hu
miliation and for prayer. Instead of coming together,
as in years gone by, for joy and gratitude and thanks
giving, we meet in sorrow and in fear. A country
rich in physical resources of every character ; a coun
try locked together in all its parts, by mighty rivers,
and by iron roads, intended, it would seem, by God
and man, to be forever one and inseparable ; a country
containing a people, who speak the same language
and profess the same religion ; a country over which
the banners of liberty have proudly waved for nearly
a century, and to whose shores exiles from tyranny and
despotism have come for refuge and for shelter; a
country where commerce has accomplished its noblest
triumphs, and where science has achieved her grandest
victories ; a country whose rapid progress in wealth,
in population, and in art, has given the promise of a
marvellous future ; a country, which has cemented it
self socially, fraternally, in the hallowed rites of mar
riage, by that love, which is the purest and holiest of
earth, is now rent with faction and with discord:
already the sound of conflict reaches us, which, if the

history of the past teaches any lessons, is but the dis
tant rumbling, on the far horizon, of a tempest, which
shall sweep with terrific power, and with universal
desolation, over the length and breadth of the land ;
already that flag, whose stars have shone for eighty
years, as fixed and constant as the constellations of the
heaven, and which in the ice bound Arctic, and on
the broad Pacific, under the rocks of Gibraltar, and
in the waters of the British Channel, we have watched
with pride and admiration, waving over our com
merce, and over our peaceful ships of war, is trailing
in the dust, and is stamped on as the emblem of a
glory no longer worth preserving. God of our fathers,
we need to bow ourselves! God of nations, have
mercy on us !
But all this, some of you tell me, -will pass away.
We are too prosperous, too great, too civilized for
war ; science, and art, and a thousand industrial in
terests, make that an impossibility. It cannot be, that
such a country can be permanently checked in its
prosperity. Did not the people of Babylon, doubt
less, think the same, at the time that mighty Empire
extended from Armenia to the deserts of Arabia, and
from the Euphrates to the boundaries of Egypt, and
her capital, sixty miles in circumference, with its eight
story buildings, and its vast trade, and its hewn stone
bridges, and its immense towers, shone with so much
splendor, when they first knew that Cyrus was look
ing to a war ? Did they think then, that so wide and
so rich an empire would be merged into Persia? Did
they think, that in five centuries their superb capital
would become a mass of ruins, and that, at some dis
tant epoch, men would search her grass covered
mounds for relics of her greatness ?

Did not the people of Carthage, doubtless, think
the same, just before the third Punic war, when this
metropolis is said to have contained seven hundred
thousand inhabitants, and when her territories
stretched from Egypt to Gibraltar ? She, then, held
supremacy over the seas. Her docks contained ship
ping on which her merchant princes looked with
pride. Mago wrote twenty-eight books on her agri
culture. " She had a commerce," says McPherson,
"which, by its unrivalled extent, and judicious man
agement, relieved all nations of their superfluities, sup
plied all their wants, and everywhere dispensed plenty
and comfort." How little did those seven hundred
thousand prosperous inhabitants of Carthage dream
of what their destiny would involve; that, out of
seven hundred -thousand strong men, and gentle wo
men, and fair children, in three short years, only fifty
thousand would be left to surrender in despair before
the armies of Rome ; how little did they dream, that
those magnificent docks, which they had excavated
for their ships, would no longer hold their magnifi
cent commerce ; that those splendid gardens, which
stretched away, for a score of miles in the country
around, and in which music, and beauty, and love,
had mingled their fascinations, would all be turned
into a desert; and that, one day, some earnest voy
ager would land on that fair shore, and search, in vain,
for the ruins of its proud capital.
Passing over a hundred lessons of history of a
similar character, and coming nearer to our own
times. I ask, did not the people of Prussia think some
what the same, when their third Frederick, to gratify
his personal ambition, began to make havoc on the
kingdoms around him. Did they see, that a seven

years defensive war was coming ? Did they believe
that their population would be decimated ? that whole
villages would be depopulated ? that for lack of men,
delicate women would be driven to the fields to dig
for bread ? and that it would take as-es to restore what
so ruthlessly had been lost ? No. The previous reign
had been a peaceful one, and they expected peace to
continue. People slowly come to the conviction that
a great calamity is near them ; it is on them, often, be
fore they begin to realize it.
Floating down the crimsoned currents of history,
we come to France. I would like to know who of her
Statesmen or Philosophers, in August, seventeen hun
dred and eighty-nine, when the revolution was inau
gurated, had prophetic vision of seventeen hundred
and ninety-three. What far-seeing Peer, what keen-
sighted Legislator, throwing his possessions on the
" altar of fatherland " and proclaiming the rights, but
not the duties of man, penetrated through the laby
rinths of those four years ? Who thought then, of the
rushing downward to destruction ? Who thought
then, of the Revolutionary Tribunal and the axe of
the guillotine ? Who thought then, that the cradle of
fraternity would, so soon, be exchanged for the death
eart, bearing grey headed philosophers, and eloquent
advocates, and lovely women to an ignominious end?
Who thought then, that the demon of anarchy, under
the very shadow of the statue of Liberty, would drink
the blood of the virtuous and the beautiful ? that the
hospital where brothers languished, would be crushed
down, and its sick inmates be buried alive ; that spies
would be lurking everywhere, and private enmity
have the power to carry men from the tribunals of injus
tice to their tombs ; that day after day, and week after
2

10
week, wagon loads of the most harmless people in the
land would be driven along the streets of Paris to the
place of execution ; that captives would be swept down
by grape shot, and boys and girls, by vessel loads, be
sunk in the rivers, for no other crime, than the ex
pression of opinions, adverse to the government/and
perhaps not even under that accusation, but only for
the inheritance of gentle blood. " 0 ! Liberty ! " said
one of the noblest and most beautiful of the victims of
the revolution, looking up at the statue, which repre.
sented Liberty, on her way to the guillotine, "0!
Liberty, what things are done in thy name. "
But it will be said, Why dwell now on the past?
Because the past repeats itself. Human nature is un
changeable. Those, who took a prominent part in
this tragedy were men of high cultivation ; men of
science and learning; many of them were amiable
and honest men; they thought, they were doing right;
they thought, that their country demanded such
mighty sacrifices. We think, having so much knowl
edge, so deep a sense of justice, and such stupendous
interests at stake, that our people cannot allow their
passions to plunge the nation into war, and never
could become so lost to reason, as to permit lawless
ness and violence to desolate the land. Many believe,
having so vast a country, and such immense resources,
that the tide of our prosperity cannot, by any possible
calamities, be turned back. It may be so ; but this I
know, that as regards war, these States are an exception
in the history of the last three thousand years, and that
it would be in analogy with the past, notwithstanding
•all that Christianity has done, and all that it promises,
for the country to be, for centuries to come, the thea
tre of perpetual strife ; and in analogy with the past,

11
for trade, and wealth, and prosperity, to occupy new
localities; perhaps the eastern coast of the Pacific,
perhaps the magnificent and fertile valleys of South
America. Just consider, if you think these state
ments extravagant or unfounded, the fate of all the
ancient nations, excepting China, and one or two des
potisms in Eastern Asia ; remember Egypt, Assyria,
Persia, Greece, Rome, Tyre, Carthage, Venice, Genoa,
Spain, with her vast possessions in the sixteenth cen
tury, Holland, which three hundred years ago, pos
sessed the commerce of the world ; and you will not
doubt that, in the event of the breaking up of this
Confederacy, collisions, at no distant period, are al
most inevitable; and the diversion of traffic, and with
traffic, the diversion of population, wealth, learning,
science and art, not at all improbable.
I have dwelt on this subject, believing the con
sideration of it in harmony with the Proclama
tion of the Governor of our State, and calculated
to lead us to weigh seriously the questions which
are now at issue. It is not wisdom to ignore the
experiences of the past. It is not wisdom to
shut our eyes before the lights of history. We need
the calmest deliberation, and we need the wisest
counsel. The country may have reached its point of
culmination ; its star, this very year, may pass the me
ridian and begin to descend ; and hereafter, of her
destiny, it may be said, as a friend of mine once said
of Carthage: "As one by one the lights that she
has kindled along the coasts of the world were ex
tinguished, the wail of her miserere rose up through
the vaulted galleries and the still cloisters of the past,
and then dumb with inarticulate woe, she lay like the
transient mist of the morning along the borders of the

12
desert, till it is drunk up by the sunbeams, and dissi
pated forever."
And now, let me ask, what, in this crisis, is a chris
tian man's duty, looked at from the stand point of the
Bible ?
I reply first : obedience to law. In this requisition,
it is not my purpose to deny the right of revolution,
but only to indicate the necessity of conformity to the
obligations, which men are under to society and to
government. The duty of obedience to human law
is plainly and emphatically stated in the Scriptures ;
but this does not touch the right or the propriety of
using lawful means to punish offenders, and to guard
one's privileges. How beautifully, and how truly is
it said, by the great Richard Hooker, " Of law, there
can be no less acknowledged, than that her seat is the
bosom of God, her voice the harmony of the world ;
all things in heaven and earth do her homage, the very
least as feeling her care, and the greatest as not ex
empted from her power ; both angels and men, and
creatures of what condition soever, each in different
sort and manner, admiring her as the mother of' their
peace and joy." Let then, no individuals in their indi
vidual capacity, attempt to take the law into1 their
own hands. It is unwise. It is hazardous. It is un
christian. It will, if persisted in, lead to confusion
and to anarchy. Let society relieve itself, but let it
relieve itself by legitimate means ; let its dangerous
elements be removed, but let them be removed by law,
not in violation of it. This not only would be in har
mony with Justice, and for the welfare of Society,
but in harmony with the spirit of the Gospel.
Once more, it seems to -me, to be the duty of a
christian man, notwithstanding the facts to which I

13
alluded in the introduction of this discourse, even
now, to attempt to preserve this confederation of
States, in the hope that fanaticism may yet be checked,
and that wisdom may, hereafter, guide the people in
their suffrages, and in their legislative councils. Per
haps it is too late to entertain this expectation; but
considering how ignorant the great majority of voters
are, and how they have been urged on by their politi
cal leaders; considering, too, those rules of love,
which our divine Master has left for our guidance,
and contemplating the great social and moral evils,
which must be the result of antagonism, does it not
appear to be the part of duty to suspend, for a short
time, a final decision on the dissolution of those
bonds, which, for so long a period, have held together
the various parts of our country.
" Let all the ends thou aimest at
Be thy country's, thy God's, and truth's;
Then, if thou fall'st, thou fall'st a blessed martyr."
And now, in closing these remarks, let me urge
on you the duty of prayer to Almighty God in this,
the great necessity and peril of our land. "Our help
is in the Lord." He is our Preserver in calamity,
and it is He who can give us "songs of deliverance."
Though he hath showed us sore troubles, because of
our sins, yet, by our faith, and our love, and our obe
dience, shall He " bring us up again from the depths
of the earth." "Come and let us return unto the
Lord, for He hath torn and He can heal us; He hath
smitten and He can bind us up." " God is our refuge
and strength, a very present help in trouble." .Pray,
then, my christian hearer, to the God of your fathers.
Pray to that God who hath watched over this nation,
and showered down upon it peace, love, and plenty.

14
If but one hope remains that we may yet preserve the
rich, I had almost said, sacred legacy, which our
fathers have bequeathed to us, 0 pray, that that hope
may not be extinguished. If but one hope remains
that this once strong and mighty ship of state, which
has sailed on so tranquilly and prosperously for more
than three quarters of a century, may yet be saved,
may not sink into that ocean in which so many great
empires lie buried, 0 pray, that that hope may not
be lost ; pray that light may be poured into men's
darkened minds; that faction may be arrested; that
God may be pleased to direct the consultation of our
rulers to the advancement of His glory, and the safe
ty, honor and welfare of his people; that "peace and
happiness, truth and justice, religion and piety, may
be established among us, for all generations."
My hearers, my heart trembles, and the blood thrills
through my veins, when I contemplate the dissolution
of these States. The destruction of such a nation,
lightly as some may hold it, will be no common
calamity; its death struggles will present no common
spectacle. I see, springing up from the battered dust
of the fair and beautiful Statue of Liberty, under which
we and our fathers have reposed, a hundred headed
monster, waving his black flags, and brandishing his
blood red weapons, age after age, over the homes of
our children and our children's children ; crushing his
iron feet, now on some sovereign State, where de
mocracy staggers and reels, and now on some
griping despotism, where power desolates everything it
touches ; at one period of his long dominion, blight
ing with his touch, commerce, agriculture, manufac
tures, art, science, and religion ; at another, laughing,
with infernal gladness, over the clashing masses of

15
men, who once were friends and brothers; in one
century, exulting in commemoration of a shattered
Republic, in the next, beholding, with demoniacal
joy, the fragments of that Republic "scattered and
peeled ; " and off, in the distance, amid the mists that
hang there, I see it only by the lights which come
gleaming up from the past, I see that hundred headed
monster, with his ghastly fingers, writing one more
name among the epitaphs of nations.
Men, citizens, christians, reflect long, labor faith
fully, pray earnestly to God for help, before you make
your last decision ; and then, if there be no remedy,
in darkness and in gloom, in sackcloth and in ashes,
looking up to heaven for light to guide our sons, for
mercy to protect our daughters, we will sing the re
quiem of these United States.

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