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POLITICAL RIGHTS. OF MINISTERS;
A SERMON
PREACHED ON FAST DAY, APRIL 6, 1854.

THE TIMES, AND
THE MEN EOR THE TIMES;
SERMONS
PREACHES OUT SABBATH DAYS, JV.M' 11 «tt 18, 1854.
By DANIEL C. EDDY.

BOSTON:
DAYTON & WENTWORTH,
86 Washington Street.
1854. *

% tomrafltttoliJL
POLITICAL EIGHTS OF MINISTERS;
A SEBMON
PREACHED ON FAST DAY, APRIL 6, 1854.

THE TIMES, AND
THE MEN FOR THE TIMES;
SERMONS
PREACHED OUT SABBATH DATS, JUKE 11 <fe 18, 1854.

By DANIEL 0. EDDY,

BOSTON:
DAYTON & WENTWOKTH,
86 Washington Street.
1854.

J. M Hemes, Printer, 81 Cornhill, Boston.

POLITICAL RIGHTS OF MINISTERS.

" PUT THEM IN MIND TO BE SUBJECT TO PRINCIPALITIES AND POWERS, TO
OBEY MAGISTRATES, TO BE READY TO EVERY GOOD WORK."— Titus 3 : 1.
This was a part of the instruction given by an aged
and experienced apostle, to a young minister just going
out into the broad battle-field of life, to enter into the
conflict of ages. Christianity is not one little subject
measured by a creed, and bounded by the decisions of
Bishops and Councils. It is a world-wide philanthropy,
measured only by the wants of man, and bounded only
by the infinite benevolence of God. The Bible is not a
book of religion merely ; it was not made to lie upon
the altar of the temple in golden, clasps, or to be
explained on holy days alone. It is a book for the
people ; as well adapted to the fireside and the workshop
as the sanctuary ; as easily understood by the humble
artisan as by the robed ecclesiastic. It is a manual of
domestic economy ; it contains the moral law of trade ;
it is an enlightened code for the government of nations
and a sublime ritual for the church of God.
Earthly governments and laws tend to the happiness
of man and the perfection of the race. The principles
on which those governments are to be founded are clearly
revealed in the inspired volume, and Christ and his
apostles taught and yielded obedience to governments
which on many occasions refused to protect them. By

the beautiful example and the positive precept of Him
who spake as never man spake, it has been made the
duty of the Christian minister to counsel obedience to
just law, and submission to good government. Of all
men, he should be the last to enter the temples of justice "
and break down the sacred safeguards of wise legislation,
or from his pulpit preach the doctrines of anarchy and
bloodshed. Subjection to principalities and powers has
been ordained of God for the common good, and govern
ment deriving its authority from the consent of the
governed, tends to the highest good of all the people.
Government wisely administered is the protection of
property, the defence of civil liberty and the guarantee
of all the great rights of conscience. To crush govern
ment, is to dismember society ; to break down just laws,
is to introduce universal anarchy and confusion among
all men. Hence, the minister is ex officio a politician ;
the political duties of men being one of the themes upon
which he is to speak. A politician is not necessarily a
party man, with narrow, selfish, party schemes. He
may be acquainted with the political economy of his
country, — may act in all political matters with decision,
and yet be above that narrow spirit which hates a man
because he wears another badge, or subscribes to another
political opinion ; which can see no good in one who is
known by another name ; which overlooks all the faults
of its own friends, and all the virtues of its enemies.
With these views and feelings I wish to call your atten
tion to THE POLITICAL EIGHTS OF THE CLERGY.
This day has been set apart by the Governor of this
Commonwealth, as a day of humiliation before God on
account of national sins and evils, and the theme which

I have announced seems to me to be peculiarly fitting
and proper.
The clergy of our country have acted from the first, a
prominent part in all its great movements. When our
taxed colonies declared themselves independent of the
mother country, and the storm of Revolution went raging
along the coast, the pulpit was true as steel to freedom,
and some of the most earnest appeals made to the people
were from the lips of the ministers of the Prince of Peace.
Since that day there has been no great and good move
ment which has not looked to the clergy for support.
The cause of Education has been to a great extent in
the hands of ministers, who have been its chief patrons
and supporters. The foundation of almost every' college
in the land has been laid by ministers, and to them more
than to any other class in the community do we owe the
blessings of our common schools. " The best universities
of the old world," says an able writer,* "have been
founded by clerical influence. Nearly all our own
colleges, as those at Waterville, Middlebury, Hanover,
Providence, New Haven, Princeton, were organized by
ministers, for the main purpose of disseminating the
religious truth which loves to make and to find men
intelligent. When Boston contained no more than thirty
houses, and Massachusetts no more than twenty-five
civilized towns, the pastors devised the plan of Harvard
College, with the primary intent of making worthy
preachers, and fit hearers of the truth, which is the life
of the soul." To-day, the president of almost every New
England college is a clergyman ; a large majority of the
professors are clergymen ; the present Secretary of the
Board of Education is a clergyman ; a large number of
active members of the school committees in the cities and
* Edward A. Park, D. D.

towns are clergymen. Dr. Sears, the Secretary of the
Board of Education, whose observation is extensive and
whose judgment is reliable, says with emphasis : —
" The efficient coadjutors which I have had the happiness
to find in all parts of the State, while engaged in my
official duties, belong to no one profession or class of
men. It may, however, be said, without any injustice
to others, that the clergy, of every name in the Common
wealth, have been second to no other men in respect to
an enlightened policy and energetic action in promoting
the education of the people."
Professor Stowe, who in our Western country has been
largely engaged in managing public school systems,
says:- — "My experience has taught me to despair of
establishing, with any permanency, even a good district
school, where there is not a good church and an intelli
gent ministry to watch over and sustain it."
This we believe would be the general testimony of all
those men who have had the fairest and most extensive
opportunities of judging of the feelings of the clergy on
the subject of popular education, which has such a high
place in the affections of a free people.
In the Temperance reformation, the clergy have taken
the lead from the onset. When the rallying cry was first
heard, the ministers of the gospel were the foremost to
banish ardent spirits from their side-boards and dash the
poison to the ground. The name of Beecher and some of
our older ministers are indissolubly connected with that
mighty movement, which has turned the earthy hell of
the drunkard into a retreat of domestic affection, and a
home for every social virtue.
The Anti-slavery cause has ever found in the ministers
of the North its warmest and safest advocates. When
a martyr's blood was needed at Alton, a minister stood
forth as the victim. When the prisons of Baltimore

needed an inmate to groan, pine away and die there for
freedom's holy cause, a minister was found to leave his
family and home to die for truth. And in the last
conflict with slavery, when the names of those who
defame and abuse the clergy are forgotten, ministers of
Jesus Christ will stand in the front of the battle, to
contend for truth and righteousness.
But why, it is asked, this plea for ministers ? Cir
cumstances which have recently occurred, and speeches
which have been made on the floor of Congress, render
it the imperative duty of the minister to stand forth in
vindication of his brotherhood and in defence of his
rights. American Slavery has always been of a grasping,
selfish spirit. Founded on wrong, a contradiction of the
primary principles on which our government is based, it
has always been jealous of its institutions and arrogant
in its claims. Step by step it has advanced, setting its
iron heel not only on the poor negro stolen from Africa,
but on the rights of free born citizens of the North, on
the sacred privileges which so justly constitute our pride,
our glory. The right to petition Congress on any subject,
the right to speak freely on any of the perplexing questions
before the nation, the right to agitate wrongs and to
redress grievances, has each, in turn, been denied, until
the last ingredient seems to have been cast into the cup
of bitterness.
The history of legislation in our land has been one
series of compromises with the slave power. For the
sake of peace, the North has yielded one point after
another, until the bold-faced South has considered the
ground her own, and has treated the representatives of
Northern capital, industry, intelligence and religion,
with the same contempt that she has treated her own
'slaves.

8
In January of 1820, the famous Missouri Compromise
was made. At that time, Missouri stood knocking at
the door of the Union, asking permission to enter. The
people of the North who had just recovered from the
shock occasioned by the admission of Louisiana, were
unwilling that another slave State should be added to
our increasing number. Eloquent voices were heard
against extending the area of slavery, and at last Hon.
Jesse B. Thomas, of Illinois, proposed the compromise
which admitted Missouri, but shut out forever the dark
curse of slavery from all the rest of the territory com
prised in the Louisiana purchase. The North yielded to
the compromise, hoping that here the dark tide would be
stayed. For thirty-four years that compromise has stood
unviolated. The great minds of 'the land have all
regarded it as sacred. Calhoun, and Clay, and Webster,
the giants of a mighty race, planted themselves upon it,
and no man has dared to lift his hand to strike down its
provisions. It was a compact made between two intel
ligent parties, ratified by the general consent of the
people, and sanctioned by the Executive of the nation.
To preserve that compromise, the North has submitted
to every kind of indignity. She has seen her sanctuaries,
her homes, her courts of justice, made hunting grounds
by blood-thirsty villains ; she has seen her sons bowing
down at the Moloch of blood, and her wreaths of honor
have been plucked away and laid as a votive offering
upon the altar of human slavery. Her priests have cried
" peace, peace." Her statesmen have counselled blind
submission. Her cotton bags have yielded to the
pressure, with the single hope that slavery might come
no farther North.
But in the year 1854, in this jubilee year of the
world — a year when the patriots of the old world are
rising in their might and preparing for a tremendous

9
struggle with the old, crumbling forms of despotism — a
year when the thrones of tyrants shake as they never
shook before — a year when liberty rears her banner on
the Alps, and shakes out its folds to the gaze of the cold
North and the sunny South — a year when along the
banks of the heavy rolling Vistula and Volga, the mother
learns her child lessons of liberty ; when the turrets of ¦
Constantinople gather around them a lurid light which
bodes no evil ; when the seven hills tremble, not with
the tramp of the steeds of Hildebrand, and when the
sluggish Tiber seems to quicken its very pace for joy
that the morning of freedom has so nearly come — in this
year of God, 1854, a Senator from a free State proposes
to repeal that compromise, and cover with the curse
of slavery the immense territory known as Nebraska,
embracing thousands of square miles of territory, open
to millions of settlers. As might be supposed, this
infamous proposition arouses the indignation of the whole
North, and one universal remonstrance is heard in every
quarter. Slavery has taken one step too much, and
forbearance ceases to be a virtue. From every church
and every home, arises a deep, earnest cry against such
an inhuman proposition. Among others, the clergy of
New England have remonstrated against such iniquity.
Like the old prophets, 3,000 of them, in the name of
God* protested against the scheme. One would suppose
* The Protest sent to the Senate reads as follows : —
To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives, in Congress
assembled :
The undersigned, clergymen of different religious denominations in New
England, hereby, in the name of Almighty God, and in his presence, do
solemnly, protest against the passage of what is known as the Nebraska Bill,
or any repeal or modification of the existing legal prohibitions of slavery in
that part of our national domain which it is proposed to organize into the
territories of Nebraska and Kansas. We protest against it as a great moral
wrong, as a breach of faith eminently unjust to the moral principles of the
2

10
that such a protest would have weight in the Senate of
the United States. Never before was such a protest
read in that body. It was respectful, it was earnest, it
was truthful, it was dignified. It was signed by 3,000
educated men, religious teachers, and many of them men
of the highest standing in the land. And how was it
received ? A Senator of medium calibre, of a general
character entitling him to no extraordinary respect, rises
in his seat, and in a heated and indignant manner,
denounces those protestants.
" Here we find," he says, " a large body of preachers, perhaps three
thousand, following the lead of a circular, which was issued by the
Abolition confederates in this body, calculated to deceive and mislead
the public, have here come forward with an atrocious falsehood and an
atrocious calumny against this Senate, desecrated the pulpit, and pros
tituted the sacred desk to the miserable and corrupting influence of
party politics. It matters not whether the description is confined to
narrow limits, or whether it extends to all the clergymen of New Eng
land. It matters not whether the misrepresentation has taken a broad
scope, or been confined to a few ; I hold it as our duty to expose the
conduct of men, who, under the cloak of religion, either from ignorance
or wilful misrepresentation, will avail themselves of their sacred calling
to arraign the conduct of Senators here in the discharge of our duties.
Sir, I hold that this Senate is as capable of judging whether our action
involves moral turpitude, whether it involves the subversion of morals,
whether it subjects us to the judgment of the Almighty, as are these
political preachers, whose protest proves them to be without any reliable
information upon the subject. It is evident, sir, that these men know
not what they are talking about. It is evident that they ought to be
rebuked, and required to confine themselves to their vocation, instead
community, and subversive of all confidence in national engagements ; as a
measure full of danger to the peace and even the existence of our beloved
Union, and exposing us to the righteous judgments of the Almighty : and
your protestants, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
Boston, Massachusetts, March 1, 1854.
This protest was signed by three thousand and fifty clergymen, among
whom were the following : — Francis Wayland, D. D., LL. D., President of
Brown University, Manton Eastburn, D. D., Bishop of Massachusetts, Ly
man Beecher, D. D., Edward Beecher, D. D., Ezra S. Gannett, D. D., Baron
Stow, D. D., and others, representing every shade of religious and political
opinion,

11
of neglecting their flocks, and bringing our holy religion into disrepute
by violating its sacred principles, and disregarding the obligations of
truth and honor, by presenting here a document which is so offensive
that no gentleman can indorse it without violating all the rules of
courtesy, of propriety and of honor.
" Sir, there seems to be an attempt to pile upon our table offensive
document after offensive document, slander after slander, libel after
libel, in order that the Abolition press may copy it as coming from the
records of the Senate, and go back and give it credit in the country.
They are smuggled in here, the offensive matter concealed from our
knowledge until we happen to look into them and see what they are,
and then these gentlemen expect to carry on a political campaign by
quoting from our own records that we are traitors to our country,
traitors to God and traitors to humanity. I think it is time that this
miserable system of electioneering by violating the rules and courtesies
of the Senate to get an indorsement of libels which men ought to be
ashamed to adopt, should be exposed and rebuked. I am not willing
that they should be permitted to pile up slander of that kind, insult of
that kind, upon our table, and let it then be used for such a purpose.
You know, sir, that that memorial is not intended to affect the action of
the Senate. We have no such bill before us. Our action is passed.
It is not for the purpose of influencing our official conduct. Why is it
brought here ? There can be no other object in presenting it here now
than simply to furnish capital for organizing a great sectional party,
and trying to draw the whole religious community into their schemes of
political aggrandizement."
Another Senator, in a manner less excited, uttered
language as undignified and unmanly : —
' ' But, sir, the Senator from Mississippi [Mr. Adams] says he has
great respect and great reverence for the clergy, for the ministers of the
Gospel, as such, while they keep their robes pure and unspotted ; but
when they descend to the turbid pools of politics, and bedabble then-
garments all over with the mud, and slime, and filth which he would
make you believe is to be found there, he loses all respect for them.
So should I, if I could be led to believe that the waters of the pool of
politics were any more turbid or filthy than the waters which flow
through their contradictory streams of theology. I do not believe it,
sir. I hold, on the contrary, that the waters of the pools of politics
are infinitely more pellucid, and pure, and cheering, and refreshing,
than the pool which surrounds their stagnant waters of theology, — no
two of them agreeing on any proposition which can be presented.

12
' ' I am, however, totally incompetent to judge of this matter. These
men, as has been well said by the Senator from Virginia, have not
come to you as fellow-citizens. The Constitution has secured to the
citizens of the United States the right at all times to petition, and they
shall never be denied that right by me, whether they choose to use the
name of citizens or any other. But they have not remonstrated in their
own name as citizens, nor in behalf of their fellow-citizens ; but they
have come, as they tell you, as the ambassadors of a higher and an om
nipotent power. They use the language of an ambassador who says,
' in the name of my Government, I declare to you this, that, or the
other.' In the name of God, and in the name of his violated law, they
declare this. They say that to them alone is given the power to di
vulge or to divine that law on earth. Sir, being totally incompetent,
avowing here my total incapacity and inability to expound, divine, and
illustrate that law, I shall leave it to a different forum and a different
place." And on that floor there was not found a New England
member to stand up boldly for those protestants ! Mr.
Everett, whose duty it was, replied, but in a manner
which did more harm than the ravings of Douglas. He
apologized for himself and the clergy instead of defend
ing their rights. He attempted to ward off the blow
instead of hurling back the base calumny of the accuser,
who stood before him with his bloodshot eye and defiant
look. Since then, the clergy of New England have been
subjects for abuse without measure. The Washington
Sentinel calls them, " a pious and godly mob," — " a pie
bald regiment of arrogant parsons," — " a scurvy set of
fellows." The Richmond Examiner says of them: —
" They only disclose the devil's cloven foot, and teach
our people what they are charitably, but stupidly, slow
to believe, that there is no friendship, or tolerance, or
Christian charity for the South, where she is taught to
believe they exist, namely, in the Northern pulpit."
And who are the men who are thus denounced ? Way-
land, Vinton, Woods, Eastburn, Beecher, Gannett, Park,

13

Hitchcock, Adams, Pattison, and a host of men of like
eminence, who are as far above Douglas and Petit in
moral character and intellectual acquirements, as heaven
is above the earth which they pollute with their unholy
tread. The Southern press is extremely violent, and
the same sheets which applauded such of the clergy as
preached in defence of the Fugitive Slave Law, denounce
those who now have protested against the Nebraska Bill.
To show this change in the tone of these Southern jour
nals, and those Northern presses which are in Southern
pay, an able paper of the metropolis has gathered and
placed in parallel columns a few quotations from articles
written in 1850 and in 1854. When the clergy, for a
moment, in their love of law and their hatred of anarchy
bowed the knee to slavery, the satanic press was exultant
and besmeared the pulpit with praises ; but when the
members of the sacred host refused to bow to aggression,
when they dared, in the name of God, to remonstrate,
they were denounced. But to the extracts.

Journal of Commerce, Dec. 28,
1850.
" The subject [the duties of
Government and of citizens under
the Compromise] is one which
ought to be understood. When
such men as Stuart, Spring, Cox,
Adams, Hodge, Spencer, Krebs,
Potts, Hawkes, Taylor, &c, turn
the full energy of their minds to a
consideration of it, we are in a fair
way to understand it."
" In the name of an abused
community, we thank these gentle
men for at length standing forth in
vindication of Bible principles on this
subject. We know the reluctance
of some of the abovenamed gentle-

Journal of Commerce, March 10,
1854.
" The fact is, clergymen, as a
class, are not the best judges on
political questions. They do not
study them with the thoroughness
nor with the impartiality, of states
men.. Faithful ministers have not
time to do so. They look only on
one side."
" We yield to none in our re
spect and veneration for good and
faithful ministers. But it always
diminishes that respect, (and in
this we know we represent a large
class in the community,) when
we see them dabbling with poli
tics. With a large, and, we fear,

14

men to touch upon political topics,
or topics partly political, and we
honor them for this reluctance.
But when so many of their brethren
abuse their calling and their pulpits
to poison the public mind, ....
where shall we look but to the
Nestors of the same profession for
an antidote to the mischief? For
tunately, the recurrence of Thanks
giving Day at the auspicious mo
ment, gave them a fit opportunity
to utter their sentiments, and very
many of them improved it to the
best advantage. We augur the
most happy results from their gen
erous efforts. They have spoken
fearlessly, faithfully, and as became
men placed on the watchtowers of
Zion." ' ' Extraordinary exigencies re
quire extraordinary measures."

an increasing number of ministers,
the practice is habitual."
" When clerical influence is in
voked, as such, — when it is sought
to be used by party and sectional
interests as a means of carrying
their points, — when it is employed
by way of deterring honest states
men from the discharge of what
they conceive to be their duty,
under the responsibilities which
they have assumed as legislators
before God and man, — then we say,
it is a dangerous influence, and
the less we have of it the better."
" ' Crises* are always occurring,
when, in their own view, their in
terference is necessary, to prevent
the ship of state from running upon
the quicksands."

Having now viewed the circumstances which led the
clergy to vindicate themselves and demand their political
rights, let us turn to consider what rights they have,
and what common justice should lead the people to
surrender.

I. . The minister has rights as a citizen. When he
becomes a minister, he does not relinquish any of his
rights as a man. He is a citizen, bound by the laws,
and entitled to all the privileges of a freeman. Any
favor of Government, any right claimed by a mechanic
or a farmer, he may claim. But is this the common
sentiment among the people ? Are they willing that the
minister should have the same rights that others enjoy ?
The language used in the speeches made in Congress, and
in articles in political newspapers, and by the people of

15
North and South, would indicate that a minister has no
political rights whatever ; that he is a cypher in all
political matters. This is gross injustice, arising from
mistaken notions of the clerical profession ! What, then,
are a minister's political rights as a man and a citizen ?
1. He has a right to an honest, intelligent opinion
on political men and measures, and is entitled to a frank
avowal of that opinion at all proper times and in all
proper places. A minister has not done his duty well
until he has made himself acquainted with the laws of
the land, with the workings of various institutions, and
the results of uncertain measures. But public sentiment
seems to forbid the investigation of political subjects by the
minister ; and if he has an opinion he must keep it to himself.
If he meets in a social gathering of his people, he may
talk on all subjects but this. He may discuss European
or Asiatic matters ; he may avow his preference for this
custom or that, but if he touches the hem of any political
garment, he is considered a partisan and his influence is
injured accordingly. A lawyer may be a Whig or a
Democrat, a Bank man or a Sub-treasury man, a Tariff
man or a Free Trade man, and no one complains. None
of you think less of your family physician because he
holds to this or that political opinion. But if the min
ister holds and dares to express views which do not
coincide with those held by his people, it is magnified
into a cause of difficulty and rupture. He may differ
from his parishioners on other questions ; he may differ
from them on scientific questions, on theological ques
tions, on literary questions, on moral questions, but if
he differs from them politically, he gives offence. Now
it is a right which the minister should claim, on every
proper occasion, to hold and express his political views.
He should be allowed to converse as freely on the politi
cal questions of the day, as he is on any other matters,

16
and no one should feel aggrieved if the minister differs
from him. The same right which the people have to
their views, the pastor has to his ; the same right which
they> have to talk politics in stores, and houses, and
streets, and fields, he has, and if it is profitable for them,
it is profitable for him. This right the people should be
willing to recognize, and no expression of political opin
ion or preference should be allowed to create discontent
between those who sustain such close and * intimate
relations. 2. He has a right to vote openly according to the
dictates of his conscience. The elective franchise is
one of the sacred guarantees of freedom, and the minister
should be, the last person to neglect its exercise. He
who refuses or neglects to go to the ballot-box, is as
culpable as he who goes and votes for bad men. But
the right of ministers to vote is often questioned, and
perhaps a majority of our ministers do not vote except
on special occasions. In some parishes, a vote cast by
the minister would dismember the society and cause a
separation between pastor and people. This is the result
of wrong instruction on this subject, and a church should
no more object to the exercise of the elective franchise
on the part of the pastor, than he should object to the
same exercise on their part. They have no more reason
to expect him to vote as they do, than he has to expect
them to vote as he does. If they are just men, they
will neither wish him to stay away from the polls, nor
change his vote to please them, but will give him every
facility for doing what in his judgment is wisest and
best. There is no law which forbids the exercise of this
right on the part of the minister, but there is a common
public sentiment which almost entirely disfranchises him
in any contested election. By the statute of the Com
monwealth he has equal rights with the highest and

17
most honored man in society, but by the common feeling
of his people he is often denied a privilege which is
granted to every reeling drunkard and to every abusive,
blasphemous hack in the nation. The sham patriot, from
the houses of refuge and prisons of Europe, are welcomed
at the polls after a speedy naturalization ; the infidels of
Germany, the papists of Ireland, are marched to the
ballot-box with banners and music ; but the clergyman,
whose home and friends are here, whose life is devoted
to the moral and religious instruction of the people, is
met by men of both parties with frowns of disappro
bation, and it is a wonder that some Douglas or
Petit, who is so solicitous for the moral purity of the
clergy, who has such holy aversion to their dabbling in
the dirty waters of the political current, has not intro
duced into Congress, or into our State Legislatures, a
bill to disfranchise them entirely for their own gogd.
Clergymen do vote sometimes, but they often go to
the polls to do a sacred duty under the eye of a dozen
parishioners, each of whom turns away from him with a
dissatisfied look and a disaffected heart. If he votes
" our ticket," they may pardon him, but if he votes the
ticket of the opposite party, it is a sin which often hath
no forgiveness, but which continues to be a source of
complaint until his relationship to his society ends, and
he leaves the people of his charge for having conscien
tiously exercised a natural and inalienable right.
3. He has a right to hold any office for which he is
qualified and to which the people may elect him. The
opportunity of securing high offices under our State or
National Governments, is one of the most beautiful fea
tures of our republican Government. A poor lad, with
out the honors and aids of wealth or birth, without illus
trious parentage and long and respected titles, can, by
his industry and perseverance, elevate himself to the

18
highest pinnacle of fame. We tell of one of our states
men who had a double share of national honor, and who
now sleeps in the quiet shades of Ashland, who was once
known as the "Mill-boy of the Slashes," but who as
cended, step by step, to a dizzy height. We record the
name of another, now lying by the sounding sea,
who on a farm toiled all through his boyhood, but who
lived to be the greatest man of his age. We look into
living cabinets and legislatures, and we find men who
from the condition of wagon boys, hatters' apprentices,
farmers' sons, have become the great men of this great
nation. These high offices, these distinguished honors,
have been open to men of all ranks and all professions.
But there is one class of men, one profession against
which all these doors are most effectually barred. There
is in the community a very common sentiment that cler
gymen should not have office, and when a man holding
this position in society is nominated for any responsible
situation, he is deprived of votes which he would receive
were he a lawyer, a physician, a farmer or a mechanic.
There are hundreds of men who will not vote for a cler
gyman for any office ; not because he is not qualified for
the situation, but because he belongs to a marked pro
fession. What should we think of our citizens who
should resolve never to vote for a physician ? It would
be an act of injustice to that profession, and a species of
tyranny which would show a base and unworthy spirit
in those who exercised it.
As men and as citizens the clergy have the same right
to hold office, and receive their emoluments, as any other
class of men, and the proscription which they meet is
unworthy of a republican community. It may be said
that there is no law which shuts the clergyman out from
the offices and honors of his country. True, but there is

19
a public sentiment which is as effective as law, and
which does its work in a far more tyrannical manner.
If it be said that a faithful minister will have no time
to hold office, I reply, that is another matter, and does
not affect the question of his rights. It may be inexpe
dient for me, with the cares of a congregation, and
employed by a society, which by a compact I have
made with them, have a claim on all my services, to
hold office, but that does not justify the common senti
ment which shuts out the whole clerical profession, from
the common rights of citizenship. It might be inexpe
dient and improper for an agent on one of your cor
porations to hold an office. His other duties might
absolutely forbid it, but that would not justify a pro
scription of a whole class of agents. A man might be a
clerk, and his agreement with his employer might render
it inexpedient and wrong for him to accept office, but
that would not justify the proscription of clerks as a
class. So it may be inexpedient for a pastor to hold
office ; and, under ordinary circumstances, I admit he
should not be so encumbered, but does that justify
the universal proscription under which the clerical pro
fession is placed 1 His engagements are with his church
and society. If they wish, and are willing for him to
hold office, there should be no proscription beyond.
If it be said that a minister lowers himself from his
great calling, that he is faithless to God in accepting
office, I , again reply, that does not affect the ques
tion of his rights. The minister holds a position from
which he must descend in order to enter the political
arena, and, under ordinary circumstances, it would be a
positive sin for him to do so. I fully agree with the
sentiments once expressed on this subject by President
Jackson, who, when addressing in private a clerical
company, said : —

20
" It is a business in which no good minister will engage ; and, per
haps, because only the bad become politicians, disgrace has been
brought upon them for so doing. The minister of the gospel holds the
highest office upon earth ; it is above that of Kings and Presidents.
In that office, an individual is engaged in beating up recruits for the
armies of heaven. He is the recruiting officer of the the King of kings
and Lord of lords. For a man to neglect or forsake the duties of such
a station, to engage in the paltry concerns of party politics, is like the
President of our great republic giving up his office to tipstaff or con
stable ; or the General of a mighty army in the midst of battle, neglect
ing his duties in order to aid in the contests of a chess-board. No ! I
suppose the inspired man spoke the feelings of all real ministers of God,
when he exclaimed, ' Woe is me if I preach not the gospel.' Let that
be done faithfully, as did our Saviour and his holy apostles, and bank
monopolies and all other monster evils will disappear like the mists of
the morning before the sun in his strength."
So it would be derogatory to a minister to enter into
many other occupations which are laudable and proper.
It would degrade his high office to descend to them, and
yet his rights would be invaded and his privileges de
stroyed, should there be created any public sentiment
which would close that occupation against him. Because
the minister covenants with God to give him all his life, the
people have no right to take away his privileges as an
equal citizen. He may not want office ; it may not be
right for him to accept it, it may be a breach of his cov
enant with God, but that does not concern the people.
Any law or any form of public opinion which shuts him
out on account of his profession, is a gross injustice to
him and highly derogatory to the people.
II. We come now to consider the rights of the min
ister as a religious teacher. Hitherto we have regarded
him merely as a citizen. His rights as a religious
teacher are more absolute than his rights as a citizen
can be. His rights as a man and as a citizen grow out
of the condition in which he is placed, and is bounded

21
by compacts and constitutions, and are subject to many
contingencies. His rights as a minister he derives mainly
from God, and to him is fully, responsible. Hence we
remark, 1. It is his right to use his pulpit in denouncing bad
laws, and in enforcing good ones. Merely political
questions have no place in the pulpit. Whether a bank
shall be established, or a high or "low tariff bill passed,
are matters of no importance to the minister, and though
he may have an opinion on them, they do not come
within the scope of his labor as a religious teacher. But
if any law is enacted which conflicts with the great law
of God, he is bound to denounce it as treason against the
high government to which he owes allegiance. If the
passage of any good law is needed, he is bound, in his
official capacity, to present the arguments in its favor.
We have capital illustrations at hand. A few years
ago the Fugitive Slave Law was framed. In an hour of
madness an act was passed, which for fiendish barbarity
has but one parallel in the history of the world. It was
a law which was alike abhorrent to humanity and the
gospel. It forbid the exercise of the common charities
of life, and if the slave mother, with her babe in her
arms, came panting to our doors, pursued by blood
hounds and human tigers, it denied us the privilege of
giving the poor creature a home, or supplying her babe
with food. It was a law which spurned humanity and spit
upon the gospel of Christ. By every sacred principle
the minister was bound to denounce it as inhuman and
devilish. It was a wicked law, and as it crossed his path,
he was under obligation to speak of it as Christ would
have spoken of it were it made in His time, in terms of
unmeasured disapprobation. It was a law which de
stroyed the power of the gospel and crushed humanity,
and he who remained silent was a traitor to God.

22
At a later date, another law was made by the Legis
lature of this ancient Commonwealth, suppressing the
sale of intoxicating liquors. It was a good law, with a
good object, to be accomplished in a good way. It was
calculated to dry the widow's tears ; to lift up the fallen,
degraded drunkard ; to save our young men from the
fatal influences of rum ; to shield our young women from
the awful fate of the drunkard's wife ; to correct evil
habits ; to reform men from vice, and to improve and
bless society. It was a moral law, and religion was
indebted to the Legislature for its passage. To sustain
this law by his private influence, by his vote, and by his
religious teachings, was the duty of the minister. Chris
tianity demanded this of him, and had he, as a religious
teacher, refused to render his aid, he would have been a
traitor to his principles and to his Master. Eobert Hall
eloquently states the position which the minister should
take, and, his language, though uttered for a particular
locality and time, are applicable to all countries. He
says : —
" Though Christianity does not assume any immediate direction in
the affairs of government, it inculcates those duties and recommends
that spirit which will ever prompt us to cherish the principles of free
dom. It teaches us to check every selfish passion, to consider ourselves
as parts of a great community, and to abound in all the fruits of an
active benevolence. The particular operation of this principle will be
regulated by circumstandes as they arise, but our obligation to cultivate
it is clear. If we are bound to protect a neighbor or even an enemy
from violence, to give him raiment when he is naked, or food when he
is hungry, much more ought we [ministers] to do our part toward the
preservation of a free government, the only basis on which the enjoy
ment of these blessings can securely rest. He who breaks the fetters
of slavery and delivers a nation from thraldom, forms, in my opinion,
the noblest comment on the great law of love, whilst he distributes the
greatest blessing which man can receive from man ; but next to that is
the merit of him, who, in times like the present, watches over the
edifice of public liberty, repairs its foundations and strengthens its
cement when he beholds it hastening to decay."

23
Nor does a minister step out of his place when he
defends a good law or denounces a bad one. He is only
doing what his common sense requires, and what God
demands of him.
2. He has a right to petition or remonstrate in his
official capacity to any legislative body. This right has
been violently assailed and barbarously denied. The
remonstrances of 3,000 ministers of New England, and a
large number from New York, and a limited number
directly to the President from his own city amid the
granite hills, have awakened a storm such as never raged
before, and from one end of the South to the other, the
clergy have been shamefully abused. And why ? The
real reason is concealed. The truth is, the clergy of the
North for once, for the first time, stand in a united band
protesting against the advance of slavery. An army so
formidable alarms the enemy of freedom, and he gnashes
his teeth with rage. Hitherto the South in all her
aggressions has had defenders in the North, and among
the clergy. In this new attempt to violate public faith
and enlarge the area of slavery, she has no defender.
As yet, no Northern clergyman of any order has stood
forth to apologize for the Nebraska fraud. The men who
defended the Fugitive Slave Law are silent now, or unite
with others in condemning this new invasion of the
North. But occasion is taken to denounce the clergy because
they protested in a body. Have they lost the right to
do this ? When, and where did they lose it ? When,
and by what process did they forfeit it ? The drunken
legislators seem incensed at the idea of being addressed
in the name of God, and the secular press, and even the
religious journals of the South echo the same slang. The
Baptist paper at Louisville, holds up its hands and
says :^—

24
"Will these ministers, from some source or other — either from the
volume of nature, or of reason, or of revelation — condescend to produce
the authority upon which they assume to speak ' in the name of Al
mighty God and in His presence,' upon the subjects in their protest ?
Will they be kind enough to make good their right thus to take the
name of the Lord their God?"
The Baptist paper of North Carolina exclaims in pious
horror, which is really amusing : —
" Their course is without parallel in the history of the government.
Not content with meddling privately with political topics, many of them
have ascended their pulpits, and availing themselves of their ministerial
authority and influence, and in connection with the solemnities of the
sanctuary of God, have denounced the civil legislation of a body of
statesmen, whose political wisdom is known to all civilized nations.
Not content ^with this kind of politico-religious preaching, they have
separated themselves from the great body of their fellow citizens, and
clothing themselves with the title of 'the Clergy,' have thus appeared
by remonstrances and protests before the Congress of the nation. What
construction are we forced to pujt upon such a proceeding ? Assuredly
it can be nothing short of clerical dictation to the National Legislature.
These professed ministers of Jesus Christ, having used their ministerial
influence to excite religious fanaticism in the masses, have finally com
bined together to hold a clerical rod over the legislators of the country."
The same objections have been made in the Senate.
But suppose the clergy had pursued a different course,
and had united with politicians, and had laid aside the
clerical character, what would the South have said then ?
"0, you have degraded your profession ; you have
united with pot-house brawlers." Suppose they had
protested in the name of the party, or of the section —
the South would have complained because the protest
was not in the name of God. It was proper for the New
England clergy to protest in the name of God ; they
preach in the name of God, and in His name they are
bound to protest against this infamous attempt to crowd
territory now free with toiling slaves.
That they should protest in a body is not strange,

25
surprising or alarming. Suppose the merchants of New
York or of New England had protested. Would it have
been a cause for violent comment? If the street-
sweepers had all signed one petition, would it have been
any cause for blame ? No ; here is not the evil. The
clergy have struck a blow which makes the old charnel
of slavery ring with the echo of a death knell. They
have placed in jeopardy the hopes of the slavery propa
gandists, and blasted the prospects of a political aspirant
for presidential honors. This it is which makes the
drinking, drivelling, slave-whipping tyrants of the South
denounce the ministers, the dust of whose feet they were
ready to lick, when they defended the Fugitive Slave
Law. In 1850, the clergy were the eminent, educated
conservators of society ; but now Mr. Douglas says
indignantly of 3,000 of them at once : —
" I doubt whether there is a body of men in America who combine so
much profound ignorance on the question upon which they attempt to
enlighten the Senate, as this same body of preachers. How many of
them, do you suppose, sir, have ever taken up and read the act of 1820
to which I allude ? Do you think there is one of them who has clone
so ? How many of them ever read the votes by which the North repu
diated that act of 1820 ? Do you think one of them ever did ? How
many of them ever read the various votes which I quoted on that act
and the Arkansas act ? Do you think one of them knew any thing
about them ? How many of them have ever traced the course of the -
compromise measures of 1850 on the record? One of them? Yet
they assume, in the name of the Almighty, to judge of facts, and laws,
and votes, of which they know nothing, and which they have no time to
understand, if they perform their duties as clergymen to their respective
flocks." The time will come when the clergy of the land will
have the thanks of the nation for the noble stand now
taken. Justice and truth must reign at last, and when
the hour arrives, the conduct of the clergy in this crisis
will be applauded by alL Slavery is mad and hastening

26
to its fall. Its very anxiety to preserve its empire and
extend its Teign, will hasten its overthrow. • The mam- .
moth protest signed by 3,00.0 clergymen, of all persua
sions, Baptist, Methodist, Congregationalist, Universalist,
Unitarian, Roman Catholic, orthodox and heterodox,
Calvinist and Armenian, all sinking other differences,
and with one voice protesting in God's name against the
violation of a solemn covenant, is a glorious sign of the
times, and a bright omen of future good. When before
did the world ever behold such a company knocking at
the gates of a nation's senators, and pleading against a
monstrous wrong ?. When before did men of all creeds
and parties, of all degrees of wealth and culture, merge
all their differences for such a noble protest 1 And when
before did the unmanly senators who have been sent to
Congress by the Ann Streets and Broad Streets of great
cities, receive such a sudden check to their congratula
tions over the success of a scheme which is worthy of
Satan himself 1
Men and brethren, a mighty evil is creeping upon our
nation ; it is binding the strong arms of this young
republic ; it is feeling for the heart that it may tear that
out ; it is covering with a dark pall our future prospects,
and concealing the light which we shed on other nations.
That mighty incubus is slavery ; which is endeavoring
to spread itself over a territory seventeen times as large
as our own Commonwealth. Against that monstrous
wrong the clergy of New England have risen up like
men, and for the sake of mercy do not say a word to
quench their ardor or make them hate oppression less:
Too often have ministers bowed to public sentiment, and
yielded their rights to the pressure of the public will.
Too often have they spoken patronizingly of an evil
which God hates, and if they have cast off this slavish
fear, 0 do not rebuke them.

27
Far be it from me to justify a minister in leaving the
gospel of Christ and entering the arena of party strife.
The narrow issues discussed by mere party men are
beneath the consideration of him who reasons of right
eousness, temperance, and judgment to come. But
slavery is not a party question. It is a broad, deep,
moral evil, which introduces adultery, theft, tyranny
and other abominable crimes. It denies to those whom
God has made, the gospel of his Son ; it abrogates the
marriage vow ; it strikes down the primary principles of
human brotherhood, and shakes a menacing finger at
God himself. 0 no, that is not a political question,
which may be debated in caucuses and settled by party
votes. It is a question which comes under the immedi
ate notice of the pulpit, and the minister who refuses to
speak upon it will not stand guiltless before God.
Who in the light, lurid light of passing events, can
fail to see that our nation walks amid dangers ? There
is a class among us who advocate the open violation of
public faith ; who demand the conquest or purchase of
all the territory around us into which slavery can be
introduced ; who are projecting fillibustering schemes
which will involve us in war with other nations, if not
create" scenes of bloodshed and civil commotion at home.
Dr. Channing long ago declared that in case the Missouri
Compromise was violated, and the solemn compact made
in 1820 nullified, the Northern States were bound at
once to " separate themselves from the confederacy."
And now from the halls of that ancient University, just
by where freedom's early champion labored and strug
gled, comes the voice of a Wayland, calmly uttered and
speaking the hearts of a mighty host, — "The Union
itself becomes to me an accursed thing, if I must first
steep it in the tears and blood of those for whom Christ
died."

28
The passage of the Nebraska Bill would be a step
backward towards the dark night of the middle ages.
And 0, what a step that would be ! Taken when the
world is waking to freedom ; when oppression is relaxing
its iron grasp on human life ; when the slave every
where, but here, is rising up to manhood.
Have you not heard that the Autocrat of Russia is
becoming tolerant to his serfs 1 that the House of Haps-
burg is trembling for its dominion 1 that crazy Pope
dom is waiting a decent execution 1 Have you not
seen the indignation of honest men vented at oppressors ?
at Haynau in England — at Bedini in America ? And
shall free, democratic America, the land of Washington
and Jefferson, be the last to echo the cry of human
brotherhood ?
Where shall slavery stop ? asked the nation long ago.
At 36 deg. 30 min. replied Mr. Calhoun ; at 36 deg.
30 min. replied Clay and Webster. But ere their ashes
have been scattered, a mean, cowardly nullification of a
sacred compact between sovereign States is openly advo
cated on the floor of Congress, and those who protest
against it, are denounced with merciless severity.
The bleeding bondman, the whole North, the whole
land, the' patriots of Europe, aye, the world, wait the
issue, and there is no appeal but to Him who has said,
" Break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free." In
His name we have protested, and to Him we commit the
result. God grant that the time may soon come when
there shall be no slaves from • the mountains of New
England to the Gulf of Mexico ; the time
" When every man in every face,
Shall see a brother and a friend."

THE TIMES

" AND WHO KNOWETH WHETHER THOU ART COME TO THE KINGDOM FOR
SUCH A TIME AS THIS '"—Esther 4 : 14.
The Ahasuerus spoken of in the chapter from which
our text is taken, is supposed to be Artaxerxes Longima-
nus, King of Persia. This supposition grows out of the
similarity of characters and conditions, and so strong is the
probability, that the Septuagint through the book employs
the word Artaxerxes for Ahasuerus. The great Jewish
historian, Josephus Flavius, expresses the opinion, as if
there was no doubt on the subject whatever. With the
narrative of the book of Esther you are all well acquainted.
The queen of Ahasuerus was commanded by her lord to
come into his banquet in a time of carousal. She prob
ably knew that her husband was drunken with wine, and
that proud of her beauty, he would expose her to the
gaze and perhaps the insulting compliments of his
drunken nobles. With womanly dignity she refused to
go, and sent a sharp, quick message to the king. Ahas
uerus was unaccustomed to have his commands disobeyed,
and when he heard of the refusal of his queen he was
angry. In Persia, under the ancient rule, a law which
was nothing more than the word of a king, could not be
repealed. Right or wrong, it must be executed. Thus
was it on one occasion when a king had unwittingly

30
condemned his prime minister, Daniel, to death. He
wished to save him ; would have given riches and honor
if he could have revoked his own cruel law. But his
word had gone forth, and it must be executed. So in
the case before us. In a moment of rashness, counselled
by wine -heated nobles, the king decreed that Vashti was
divorced from him ; her queenly dignity gone, and her
place to be filled by another. The word went forth, and
could not be recalled. Vashti retired in disgrace from
her husband's palace, and wandered into exile. A de-"
cree was then sent through all that country for the fair
young women to be gathered at the palace, that one
might be selected to fill Vashti's place. Day after day
they came, one by one, into the royal presence, and
were examined by his majesty. But none of them suited
until the young Jewish maiden Hadassah, or as the poetic
Persians called her, Esther, came. When the king saw
her he was pleased, for in all the hundred and twenty-
seven provinces, among which were Circassia and Georgia,
where it is said dwelt the most beautiful women of the
world, none could be found to rival Hadassah. How
strange that the king should have selected her. She,
the only worshipper of the living God, of all who came
to Shushan, was chosen by the pagan monarch to share
his throne. Who says God had no hand in this ? Who
affirms that God did not paint that maiden's cheek with
the vermillion of health, and on his own fingers turn the
raven tresses which so charmed the eye of a wicked king ?
Who thinks that God did not fashion that symmetrical
form, and kindle the eye of her, who, never in the weak
ness of her youth or the fulness of her womanhood, had
bowed the knee to any Venus or Bacchus, — whose very
soul was the temple of God ? When the king saw her, he
was glad. He wished to search no farther for the sharer of

31
his throne. He made choice of Hadassah, put the crown
on her head, and she was proclaimed Queen of Persia.
Ahasuerus had a prime minister named Hainan, as
treacherous in his heart and as abandoned to schemes of
wickedness as any of the satellites of the weak, ambitious
man who now rules at the head of this nation, and
advise him to his injury. Haman found a formidable
rival named Mordecai, to whom the king was under obli
gation. Haman supposed Mordecai stood in the way
t)f his advancement ; and you know political aspirants in
all lands have endeavored to rise to power by destroying
their rivals. It is so among us ; one politician kills
another's prospects, and thus secures the prize. Haman
did not know that the queen was related to Mordecai,
for Esther had kept her Jewish origin a secret from
all, even from the king. How to destroy Mordecai,
Haman hardly knew. There was no political press to
write slander in ; there was no sectional feeling that he
could inflame ; there were none that could help him.
But his wicked heart at length devised a way to consum
mate his purpose and remove Mordecai from his path.
He learned that his rival was a Jew, and he projected a
scheme to remove all Jews by an indiscriminate mas
sacre. So he goes in to the king, tells him that the
Jews are a dangerous people, troubling the state, and
obtains a bloody decree, that at such a time all the Jews
in the hundred and twenty-seven provinces shall be slain.
The news comes to the ears of Mordecai, who is sitting
calmly at the king's gate. He clothes himself with
sackcloth and ashes, and mourns for his people. Esther,
who like every true and loyal wife, does not trouble her
self with political matters, learns that her kinsman is
arrayed in sackcloth, and sends to learn the reason. The
old man unfolds to her all the wicked plot, and entreats
her to intercede with the king. It is a time of carnival,

32
and the king is feasting with his nobles, and it is against
the law for any female to approach him.. Should she go
in to the king and he should not hold out to her his
golden sceptre, the officers of the court would drag her
away and put her to an ignominious death. She hesi
tates ; the danger is great. But Mordecai urges.
"Who knows," he asks, "but you have come to the
throne for this very occasion and hour ? Who knows
but this is the very object for which thou hast been
elevated to queenly honors?" The noble resolution o£
Esther is, "I will go in to the king, and if I perish,
I perish," Arraying herself in the most attractive man
ner, and perhaps wearing those robes which she knew
best suited the taste of the king, she went into the inner
court and approached Ahasuerus who sat on his throne.
The king saw her come, and touched with her beauty
held out the sceptre which saved Esther from death.
Graciously he said to her, " What wilt thou, queen
Esther?" He doubtless supposed that some important
thing was desired, as she had braved death to secure it,
and he wished to know at once. But the queen was too
shrewd to pour out all her sorrows there before the
nobles, who, awed by Haman, might take up cause
against her. So she merely said, " Will the king and
Haman come this day to a banquet which I have pre
pared ?" He consented, doubtless, with the feeling that
he had a noble wife who braved death simply to minister
to his pleasure. They came to the banquet, the king
and Haman. While there Esther used all her ingenuity
to get the heart of the king; and he, charmed by her atten
tions, so different from the ceremonies of the proud
Vashti, again asked her what she would, promising
to give even to the half of his kingdom. Then she
besought him to come with Haman to-morrow to another
banquet, and again he consented. At the second ban-

33
quet the king was more enamoured than at the first, and
he again inquired what she desired. She then revealed
to him her Jewish origin, and explained to Ahasuerus
how Haman, to ruin Mordecai, was dooming a whole
nation to death, aroused his rage against Haman, obtained
a decree, which though it could not repeal the former
bloody act, nullified it and rendered it powerless, and
secured the just punishment of Haman, who was hanged
on a gallows which he had made for another.
In this narrative we see that God raised Esther to the
Persian throne that she might act a noble part in the
salvation of the Jews. He had foreseen the wicked plot
of Haman and had provided against it ; He aroused the
ire of Vashti that she refused the demand of the king ;
He inspired the heart of Ahasuerus with love to a Jew
ish .beauty in preference to a pagan maiden ; He
arranged the plan by which treachery was to overact
and crime be defeated. It is a beautiful illustration of
that divine Providence which " shapes our ends, rough
hew them as we may."
From this narrative I wish to show that God raises us
up for the times in which we live, gives us work which
no others can perform, and furnishes us with facilities
for doing good in his cause. This has always been the
case, and peculiar times have developed peculiar men.
Moses and Aaron were fitted by God for their times ;
David and Solomon were fitted for the times in which
they lived ; Paul and Peter had characters and faculties
adapting them to the state of the world in their age ;
while we are fitted to our times. Different ages of the
world and different states of the church demand piety
of somewhat different stamp. One age will demand a
Revival spirit ; another age will need a Martyr piety ;
another will want a spirit of investigation and of Biblical
study. The times of Roger Williams needed the Martyr

34
spirit ; the times of Edwards, Hopkins, and their great
compeers, needed the spirit of Dogma ; the past century
has needed the spirit of Revival ; while the present
times need a Missionary spirit.
The times on which we have fallen are peculiar. The
old landmarks seem to have been removed ; the old
paths deserted ; the former laws abrogated ; the world
unhinged, and society wrecked. This nation has never
seen a more fearful crisis than the present, since its set
tlement. There are elements which threaten to sweep
away the bulwarks of our free institutions, and level
with the earth the temple of our liberties.
Let us, for a few moments, contemplate the times in
which we live, and the men that are needed for the times.
Of the times, let us take a narrow view and consider
them in their relations to our own country alone. This is a
fearful time for the world ; thrones are falling ; sceptres
are breaking ; the chains of caste are loosening, and the
world is convulsed from its centre to its distant outposts.
But this wider, and more general view, we do not now
propose to take. Fearful signs hang in the horizon of
our own land ; ominous mutterings come from the clouds
which lower densely over the towers of our. safety ; un
intelligible voices are heard in our temples of Justice
and in our halls of Legislation ; and the spectre of evil
flits across the school-room and crouches beneath the
altars of Zion. The soul is appalled as it looks upon
the heaving ocean of mind, and beholds the workings of
the tremendous powers which threaten disaster to the
church of God, and utter shipwreck to the ship of State.
These, then, are
1. Times of seeming utter abandonment on the part
of our rulers. For the violation of solemn compacts,
for the insult to public honor, for an abandonment of na
tional integrity, there never was a time like this. Our

35
Congress, at times, has seemed to be more like a conclave
of drunkards, than a dignified legislative assembly ; and
on a few occasions during the past year, when important
votes were to be taken, the members were rallied from
the pot-houses and gambling saloons, and came reeling
and staggering into the hall to vote on questions on
which the welfare of the nation was suspended.
The one great institution of the land is American
Slavery, and that Congress had determined to spread
by all means in its power. The passage of the Ne
braska Bill, a measure in direct violation of national
honor and plighted faith, is, doubtless, to be followed by
other measures as offensive to the North, and as widely
aside from justice. It is evident that the present Con
gress cannot be relied on for integrity of purpose or
purity of action. God seems to have given up the lead
ers in both houses to the mad schemes, which, if not
checked, are sure to bring dissension and civil war upon
the nation. There is an utter abandonment of the great
law of equity and justice, and our Congress stands be
fore the nation and the world, as the patron of the great
est wrongs ever inflicted on humanity. Nor is the
character of the men composing our Congress such that
we can hope a change will come. Unfortunately, we
have in Congress some of the worst among the educated
men of the whole land, — reeling, bloated drunkards,
vicious libertines, corrupted slaveholders, freedom-hating
papists, with a few noble spirits struggling against a
mighty current, and toiling in vain against the down-
rushing tide of corruption and crime. We may turn our
eyes to Congress in vain for wise and patriotic legisla
tion. The men who would press through the Nebraska
fraud, are all ready for any deed of darkness, and the
only hope that remains is in a general uprising of the
people, to hurl these men from the offices they hold.

36
" It is not now a question with us," as Dr. Way land
remarked in his Providence speech, " whether a single
territory shall be cursed with slavery, but whether the
whole North shall be enslaved."
" There is a bondage which is worse to bear
Than his who breathes, by roof, and floor, and wall
Pent in, a tyrant's solitary thrall :
'Tis his who walks about in the open air,
One of a nation who henceforth must wear
Their fetters in their souls."
And so now this whole nation is enslaved. Religion,
liberty, law, commerce, industry, agriculture, art, every
thing which contributes to a nation's greatness and
glory must bow to the Moloch of Slavery, and do hom
age to this foul wrong which men high in office perpe
trate for purposes of selfish, personal aggrandizement.
This is a characteristic of our times ; this is a peculiar-
- ity of our present condition. What the end will be is
not yet foreseen. One more act of this kind will dis
solve all the bonds which hold the two extremes of this
Union together, and array the States in deadly hostility.
2. Times of anarchy among the people. This an
archy runs parallel with the mad acts of our rulers. In
the South it is enlisted in the defence of oppression ; in
the North it is arrayed against it. Women are imprisoned
in Virginia for teaching the children of slave parents to
read the Bible, and schoolmasters are shot down in
Kentucky for doing their duty faithfully. The Southern
press justifies alike the imprisonment of the woman and
the murder of the schoolmaster. The Richmond Exam
iner, speaking of the school teachers who go down into
the South, and are hired as public instructors, thus
remarks : —
" The deliberate shooting of one of them down, in the act of poison
ing the minds of our slaves or our children, we think, if regarded as

37
homicide at all, should always be deemed perfectly justifiable ; and we
imagine that the propriety of shooting an abolition schoolmaster, when
caught tampering with our slaves, has never been questioned by any
intelligent Southern man. This we take to be the unwritten common
law of the South, and we deem it advisable to promulgate the law, that
it may be copied into all the abolition papers, and thundered at by the
three thousand New England preachers. * * * * We repeat, that the
shooting of itinerant abolition schoolmasters is frequently a creditable
and laudable act, entitling a respectable Southern man to at least a
seat in the Legislature, or a place in the Common Council."
At the North the mob spirit takes the form of resist
ance to tyranny. In Ohio the Government Commis
sioner, hunting for slaves, is driven out of town. In
New York violent speeches are made by eminent and
learned men. In Boston it requires all the government
force, all the citizen soldiery, all the regular police to
enforce the Fugitive Slave Law, and carry back one poor
negro to bondage. In one place in Ohio (Akron) the
people met in a mass and drove the officers out of the
place, and passed this resolve,
" Whereas, The people of the shareholding States imprison women
for reading the Bible to their slaves ; therefore,
" Resolved, That we will imprison slavehunters for reading warrants
to our free people."
In New England arms will be freely used and blood
will be freely shed to resist all rendition of fugitives. I
now state the fact without asking who is to blame. The
existence of such a state of society is alarming, and
every intelligent man, North and South, must feel it.
While mobs rule, no man is safe, and in that land where
mob law prevails, there is no security for life or pro
perty. The mob which resists the Fugitive Slave Law
to-day, may resist the anti-drinking law to-morrow ;
the mob which demolishes a Roman Catholic Church
to-night, may destroy yours to-morrow night.

38
The Richmond Enquirer has some sensible remarks on
this subject which we would wish were written on every
door-post in the land. That paper, while exulting over
the capture of poor Burns, feels the terrible danger of
enforcing law against such overwhelming opposition of
feeling. It says : —
" Such instances of the violent repression of the popular passions by
military force as we have just seen in Boston, are terrible necessities in
a republican government. Despotism executes its purposes with the
bayonet, but in free governments the supremacy of law is dependent on
the voluntary submission of public opinion. The institutions of liberty
cannot co-exist with military violence, and when a free government is
driven to invoke the aid of the soldiery to carry out its laws, the day of
its overthrow is not remote. Its decay has already begun, the con
tagion of insubordination will rapidly spread, and the exercise of mili-
itary power in the repression of popular outbreaks will be no longer a
remedy in great emergencies, but an expedient of every-day and famil
iar resort. In such contingency, whatever may be the forms of gov
ernment, a military despotism dominates, and the people are no longer
free. We rejoice at the recapture of Burns, but a few more such vic
tories and the South is undone."
The means taken to capture Burns were of the
meanest kind. The commonest humanities were disre
garded. Honest policemen shrunk from such detestable
work ; and the slave was carried away, against the
monitions of religion, against the voice of the people,
against the wishes of the whole North. Money was
offered, but refused ; slavery must have its flesh and
blood. And who carried him away ? Who were the
agents of the law ? Honest men ? No ! They were
foreigners, who wanted a chance to shoot down our peo
ple ; black-legs, who are banded against every thing
good ; the notorious, infamous Bay State Club. They
were men who had sinned away humanity, who had lost
the rights of citizenship ; some of whom, on their knees,
would ask for the office of hangman, and who, if a Christ

39
was to be crucified, would beg the privilege of driving
the spikes into his sacred hands. A Boston preacher
tells us who they were : —
" He (the Marshal) crowded the court-house with soldiers. Some
of them were drunk, and charged bayonet upon the counsel and wit
nesses for Burns, and thrust them away. He employed base men for
his guard. I never saw such a motley crew as this kidnappers' gang
collected together, save in the darkest places in London and Paris,
whither I went to see how low humanity might go, and yet bear the
semblance of man. He raked the kennels of Boston. He dispossessed
the stews. He gathered the spoils of brothels ; prodigals not penitent,
who upon harlots had wasted their substance in riotous living ; pimps,
gamblers, the succubue of slavery ; men that the gorged jails had cast
out into the streets ; men scarred with infamy ; fighters, drunkards,
public brawlers ; convicts that had served out their time, waiting for a
second conviction ; men whom the subtlety of the counsel or the charity
of the gallows had left unhanged. ' No eye hath seen such scare
crows.' The youngest of the Police judges found ten of his constitu
ents there. Jailer Andrews, it is said, recognized forty of his custom
ers among them. The publican who fed these locusts of Southern
tyranny, said that out of the sixty-five, there was but one respectable
man, and he kept aloof from all the rest. I have seen courts of justice
in England, Holland, Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, and Switzer
land, and I have seen just such men. But they were in the dock, not
the servants of the court. The Marshal was right. He chose fit tools
for fitting work."
That is a terrible state of society which requires the
officers of Government to secure such aid against the
ministers and deacons, the lawyers and judges, the edit
ors and schoolmasters, the artisans and mechanics, the
traders and merchants, and the wives and daughters too,
of Boston, the cradle of the Revolution, the home of love
and the sacred temple of religion and liberty. That is a
fearful state of society which makes the enforcement of
law dependent on the civil and military force, which
plants cannon in the midst of a peaceful city, beneath
the shadow of churches and halls of legislation ; and un-

40
less the law is repealed, the dismemberment of the Union
must take place. It is useless to talk of stopping agita
tion ; it must, it will continue, and God only can tell
the end.
3. Times of the death-struggles of Romanism. The
ultimate defeat of Romanism is foretold in the Bible, and
the predictions of the prophets and the signs of the times
indicate that the hour of their defeat is at hand. But
with the overthrow of Popery there will come its death-
struggle, and the world must not be surprised if blood
should flow. It has been evident for a long time, that
Popery was meditating tremendous designs upon our
country, and preparing to take the land by storm. A
priest in Sullivan county, Pa., in a public discourse to
his people recently, used the following language, which
doubtless expresses the sentiment of every Roman Cath
olic in the land : — " The United States belong to our
Lord the Pope, and are his property ; and the time is
coming, Christians, when the Roman Catholic religion
will be the only one allowed among the people. Our
church has 1800 years experience ; she is right, and has
decreed it. She is infallible, and therefore cannot be
wrong. We are all working to produce so desirable a
result." Glance for a moment at the subject as it is. Here is
a sovereign that has his court, his army, his navy, his
foreign ambassadors, his legates and plenipotentiaries,
establishing a system in the midst of our Republican
Government. He sends here an army of priests, many of
whom are Irish, French, and Italian ; scarcely one of
them is an American. These are the generals, who drill
the rough cohorts of the Pope of Rome, and prepare
them for the emergency. These are the father confessors
of the servants in your families, worming out the secrets
of your households ; these are the teachers of your newly

41
naturalized voters, who cannot read, and who do not
know whether the name upon the ballot is that of An
drew Jackson or Daniel O'Connel ; — these are the men
who control all the church property from Maine to Geor
gia ; these are the men who are to touch the springs of
foreign military organizations. With American institu
tions they can have no sympathy. They are foreigners ;
they do not mingle with our people ; they have no fami
lies to bind them to our soil ; they have no living link
to connect them with our free and glorious Republic.
These are the men who are moving the mighty organiza
tion of Romanism, and wielding more influence than the
members of the President's cabinet.
Some silly women, and more silly men, are afraid that
Romanists are going to shoot them or poison them, and
they "lose sleep o'nights" on that account. But away
with such fears. Romanism never yet, in all her history,
made such a blunder as that. She aims, — -and we have
something to fear more than that, — -she aims at the sup
pression of free schools ; she aims at the control of the ballot
box ; she aims at the overthrow of the press ; she aims
at the silence of the pulpit. So insidious has been her
work, that she has wormed her members into the Presi
dent's cabinet ; on to the bench of the Supreme Court ;
into both houses of Congress ; into our State legislatures
— everywhere where office is to be held and influence
gained. She is, according to the testimony of her own
children, " the most intolerant of systems." She always
has held to the punishment of heretics, and she holds to it
now. She only wants the power, to kindle the fire and
build the rack. The Shepherd of the Valley, a Romish
paper, published in St. Louis under the sanction of the
Catholic bishop, a print which, within a few months, has
been eulogized on the floor of Congress, and which every
week teems with the most despotic sentiments, hesitates

42
not to say : — " that the temporal punishment of heresy is
a mere question of expediency ; that Protestants do not
persecute us here, simply because they have not the
power ; and that where we abstain from persecuting them,
they are well aware that it is merely because we cannot do
so, or think that, by doing so, we should injure the cause
that we wish to serve."
This is the general tone of all the' Romish presses in
the land, those published in new States being less guard
ed than those in the East. It is a cardinal doctrine of
the Church of Rome, that no faith is to be kept with
heretics. A falsehood with a heretic is no lie ; the kill
ing of a heretic is no murder. Busembaum asserts, that
" a man, proscribed by the Pope, can be murdered every
where, because the Pope has a jurisdiction, at least indi
rect, all over the world, even over civil governments."
Any member of the Roman Catholic Church, when he
takes the oath of allegiance, does it in subordination to
his oath of allegiance to the Pope of Rome. At a word,
the Pontiff has a right to absolve him from all subjection
to this nation, and as a good Catholic he is bound, at the
beck of the priests, to cut himself off from all connection
with Protestants. Hence if a man is a good and loyal
member of the Church of Rome, he is a bad citizen ; if
he is a good citizen, and true to the nation, he is from
necessity a bad Catholic.
We have much to fear from the influence of Roman
ists on our free schools. Already they begin to tell us
what books we shall have, and what books we shall not
have ; how children shall be taught, and how they
shall not. The Freeman's Journal, the organ of the
Archbishop Hughes, in New York, says: — "The
withdrawal of Catholic children every where from the
Godless schools, should be the first step — it is lament
able that it has not long ago been taken. Next we

43
must set to work, patiently, calmly, resolutely, per-
severingly, to break off from our necks the yoke of State
despotism, put upon them by Jacobins in the shape of
the School system in this and other States."
The Catholic editor of the Chicago Tablet, in a lecture
delivered at Joliet, 111., expressed the following opinion
of common schools : — " The common schools of America
are fountains of prostitution and crime, and all manner
of indecencies and immoralities are practised in them : I
know it to be so, because I was educated the first twenty
years of my life in them."
Then there is an attempt to control the preaching of
the Gospel. For a few years past, street preaching has
become somewhat frequent in some of our larger cities.
It has been conducted by good men generally, who have
aimed to reach a class of persons who can never be in
duced to attend our churches. And what harm in such
a mode of preaching ? John the Baptist preached in the
wilderness, and by the river Jordan ; Christ preached on
the Mount of Olives ; Paul preached a crucified Saviour
on Mars Hill, and in other places to which the people re
sorted. Now if, to reach such a class of persons who have
no clothes in which to attend church, or who have no dispo
sition to come, I, on some Sabbath, take my stand at the
gates of the cemetery, ne'ar the reservoir, on the Common,
or any place that is made a scene of promenade, and there
preach of Christ to a sinful congregation, I do nothing
more than John and Paul did ; I do nothing more than
is required of me by Him, who said, " Go out into the
highways and hedges, and compel them to come in."
And if Romanists are allowed to say, that the minister of
the Gospel, the city missionary, or even the insane fa
natic shall not speak in public places, it will not be long
before they will come and tell us that we shall not preach
in our pulpits ; thev will seal our lips in silence even

44
here. If a strolling circus comes along, it is posted to
do its work of demoralization in the heart of the city ;
the officers of justice protect it, and official patronage is
bestowed upon it. The same license should be granted
to any man who wishes to preach. If he says any thing
offensive to the Baptist, let the Baptist keep away, or
listen respectfully ; if he controverts the opinions of the
Methodist, let the Methodist keep away, or behave him
self; if he says any thing which conflicts with the Church
of Rome, let the Romanist keep away, or hear in silence.
The right of free speech is too sacred to be denied even
to an insane man. Let Garrison rail against the Church
of God ; let Parker poison the minds of the young men ;
let Orr blow the trumpet ; let Bishop Hughes puff away
in his canonicals. Freedom is the sacred guaranty of
liberty and law, and it should be defended at all hazards.
But, opposed to the spirit of Romanism, there is also
an excitement which may result in evil or good. The
American people are becoming terribly aroused, and
there is reason to fear that the end may not be peaceful.
There is a feverish excitement, a hot haste, a wildfire
in the community, which needs to be guarded, lest it
consume all before. I tremble when I see young men
arming themselves in our midst, for the very fact tells me
that we have fallen on fearful times. Nor do I see any
prospect of an abatement of this feeling. Our country
is filling up with foreigners, who cannot read or write,
who are filling our prisons, almshouses, and asylums. I
would not prevent the naturalization of them ; but I
would require every foreigner to be in our country from
fifteen to twenty years, before he can cast his vote. I
would make an ability to read and write a qualification
for voting ; I do not believe a man is fit to vote who
cannot read the name on his ballot. I would not stop
emigration ; but I would have every ship-owner placed

45
under bonds to keep all he brings here off the State
for at least five years. This would bring us those only
who are intelligent and industrious, and the ship-loads
of paupers never would come at all. I would not
have convents suppressed ; but I would have them
open to public inspection, that the people may know
what scenes are acted in them, and may be assured
that they are neither brothels nor prisons, where young
girls are confined against their inclinations, visited only
by hooded nuns and shaven monks.
3. Times of religious declension, worldliness, and
superstition. There seems to be an increasing attention
to the things which lead away from God. One form of
evil is what is called Spiritualism, with the history and
developments of which you are all familiar. This delu
sion of the devil, one of the most foolish, absurd delu
sions ever foisted on man, is gaining disciples and con
verts, leading to irreligion and suicide, destroying the
peace of families, and ruining the souls of men. Other
delusions mark the times in which we live as peculiar,
and call for deep, solemn humiliation before God. The
aggressions of Slavery, the noble spirit of resistance to
tyranny, the demands of Popery, and the counter opposi
tion, the general want of piety, and the alarming mani
festations of worldliness, all call for deep, serious thought,
and calm, careful consideration on the part of every
Christian and patriot. Our country is on a volcano,
which threatens to send out its overwhelming tides of
lava, to consume every vestige of beauty and every sign
of holiness. Such are the times on which we have fallen, and
in which we live ; and when I commenced this dis
course, I expected to turn your attention to the "men
for the times," and point out the phases of character,
moral and religious, which are needed for our times.

46
But I have exceeded the time allotted for this service,
and must leave this for the next Sabbath, asking you
as I close, to go home, praying to God for grace in the
emergencies of these latter days, and entreating the fa
vor of Heaven upon our land, which now stretches from
ocean to ocean. To be a good citizen is the next thing
to being a good Christian ; and a love of country is the
next thing to a love of God. The peculiar phases of our
times do not involve merely a political question, for the
gaunt form of Romanism menaces not merely the ballot
box, and free speech and public schools, but also the
altars of the Church, and the liberty to worship God.
Look whichever way you will, and there are dangers
coming thick and fast, and we need men to guide and
control the times ; and to the character of these men I
will call your attention next Sabbath.
Pray for the Republic — the ship in a storm, with a
broken compass, an incorrect chart, a blind pilot, a
mutinous crew, and an insane commander.

THE MEN FOR THE TIMES.

AND WHO KNOWETH WHETHER THOU ART COME TO THE KINGDOM FOR
SUCH A TIME AS THIS >— Esther 4 : 14.
I have described the times in which we live, and
spoken of the causes which are agitating our country
and swelling its dangers. I have said that peculiar
times need peculiar men. When the colonies were about
to declare themselves independent of the mother country,
and assume the dignity and importance of a nation
among nations, it needed just such a man as John Han
cock, on whose head a price was set, to dash his pen
across the noble document which declared our allegiance
to England at an end, and leave there the record of one
. of the sublimest acts which any patriot ever performed.
When the army was cold, and hungry, and mutinous,
and discouraged ; when the contending forces were
strong and powerful, and when on every side there were
evidences of the weakness of our cause, it needed just
such a man as Washington to place himself at the head
of the soldiery and lead them on to a glorious contest.
He was peculiarly fitted for the peculiar emergency, and
was the man for his times. When the great heart of the
nation was to be stirred by eloquence ; when the cold,
dead pulse of public opinion needed to be roused to a
fever heat, and the freezing blood to be sent leaping

48
through the veins of the body politic, it needed just such '
a man as Patrick Henry to sound the clarion notes of
alarm and ring out the peal of battle.
The moral world has always had men for the times.
To meet great events God has always raised up great
men, and each crisis has been met by characters formed
for it, and able to control it. The times in which we
live are peculiar, and we need men adapted to the
times, and ready to meet their emergencies. We sail
on a wild and boisterous sea ; we are driven by all the
force of steam. The old modes of living are cast aside.
The old habits of thought are abandoned. A new order
of things has come, and we need men of the right stamp
to control them. In church and state there are alarm
ing signs, and unless the hand which holds the helm be
steady, we shall dash upon the rocks and be wrecked
among the breakers. Let me describe the " Men for
the Times."
1. They should be free men. We are accustomed to
look to the South for slaves. We see there a nation
groaning beneath the iron rod of oppression ; we hear
the sigh of three millions of human beings on whom the
sun of liberty has never risen. But are these the only
slaves to be found in our land ? Are there none north of
Mason and Dixon's line ? The facts in the case teach
us that there are slaves at the North as well as at the
South ; among white people and black. True, white
slaves are not crushed by any cruel enactments, and
their slavery is not like that which fastens, in strong
fetters, the poor stolen African. White slaves often sit
at banquets, roll in luxury, and in senate chambers lift
up, in eloquent pleading, their jewelled hands. There is
a tyrant that sways his empire over all the land. His
dominion is over North and East and West as well as
South. That tyrant is Party. His slaves are gathered

49
from the far-famed literati ; from the honored statesmen
of an illustrious empire ; from the robed ministers of a
divinely appointed priesthood ; from the studio of the
artisan ; from the marts of commerce ; from the work
shops of genius ; from every rank, character and con
dition of human life. This whole nation for the last
quarter of a century has been the slave of party. From
yon mountain peaks, which mark the boundary of
your northern domain, to the gently rippling waves of
that magnolia-fringed gulf which lies there in the South,
reflecting from its crystal bosom the wrongs of the Indian
and the bondman ; from the steeples of Boston and the
towering shaft on Bunker Hill, from Lexington and
Princeton and Monmouth, away out to the region of sun
set, the wild clime of the buffalo, Party reigns with
an authority which has crushed the manhood out of the
laurelled senator, the titled divine and the epauletted
warrior. Questions of momentous interest have been
matters of party bargaining, and in our halls of legisla
tion men have outraged their consciences, betrayed their
constituents and insulted God at the mandate of party.
A wise law has been made to suppress the sale of in
toxicating drinks, and that law has been the football of
party ever since its passage. The fact which has influ
enced votes has not been the morality or the humanity
of the enactment. Learned statesmen have not asked
how many fountains of tears it would dry up ; how many
wounded hearts it would heal ; how many mothers it
would cause to sing for joy ; how many hopes it would
inspire, and how many souls it would save from hell.
0 no, these have not been the questions which have
been asked by many of the men who have voted for and
against the passage of the law under consideration.
What does the party need ? How will it affect the
party? It has been amended, improved and patched

50
just where the interests of party have required it. If
party demanded it, the law has been used as a hobby on
which aspirants might ride to office ; if party said no,
the whole subject was let alone. While the traffic has
been going on, day and night ; while our young men
have been lured from virtue and God ; while the wid
ow's heart has been breaking ; while the orphan has
cried for bread in vain ; while the shrieking victims of
rum have died amid all the horrors of delirium tremens ;
while the very caverns of hell have echoed with the
groans of the lost spirit, as it went from the mis
eries of this life to the torments of the next, our public
men, the slaves of party, have been measuring the strin
gency of laws by political expediency, and doing or
undoing to retain their respective parties in office.
The Fugitive Slave Law, one of the greatest abomina
tions of our age, the plague spot on our nation's soul,
the stain on our escutcheon, the cloud across our sun,
was made by party. Northern men voted for it because
the interests of party were supposed to require it. Hon
orable men, Christian men, men of thought and action,
cast aside conscience and humanity and voted for that
bill. " The party demands it," was enough, and they
voted for it. They asked not what tender families would
be broken up ; they asked not what peaceful citizens
would be dragged back to chains and lashes, what wails
of sorrow would be wrung from those who had escaped.
And when the law was made, party enforced it, — aye,
party ; and when the black faced, humble minister of
God fled from his toils and stood at the doors of your
houses and knocked for mercy ; at the doors of your
churches and prayed for refuge ; at the gates of your
palaces of justice demanding judgment, his hands were
manacled and he was dragged away. Party did it.

51
A little while ago an ecclesiastic from another land
came to our shores from Europe. He was a noted man,
and as soon as he arrived he was furnished with facili
ties for consummating his ecclesiastical mission. A
government vessel was put at his disposal on the lakes ;
banquets were made for him in our cities ; his character
was endorsed by honored men, and noble Senators in
our Parliament advocated his public reception ! Who
was he ? Was it Gavazzi, the noble Roman, the gifted
orator, the true-hearted patriot ? No ; the officials of
New York were hardly willing to protect him even from
mob violence ! Was it Dr. Duff, the famous Highlander,
whose name is known in three continents as the friend
of Education, the eloquent minister, the great pioneer of
Christianity ? No ; like Christ, his Master, he met a
feeble welcome from the men in office here ! Was it
Oncken, the apostle of Germany ? No ; none of these.
I will tell you who it was. It was a Jesuit priest, a
spy of the Propaganda, a man familiar with all the mys
teries of the Vatican, and who was skilled in the use of
the horrid instruments of torture now found rusting in
the Inquisition. The murder of Ugo Bassa weighed on
his soul, and the blood of the Italian patriots besprinkled
his garments. He was to Rome what Haynau was to Aus
tria ; to the Vatican what that same tyrant was to the
house of Hapsburg. Party said he must be provided for,
and the President put at his service a government vessel.
Mayors, governors and councillors turned out to wel
come him. He comes to the capitol, and noble Senators
endorse him, — all for party.
The times demand different men from these; men
who fear God and are not slaves to party ; men who will
trample on the chains which the political creed places on
them ; men who do not fear the denunciations of the
demagogue ; men who will not sell their consciences,

52
their liberties, their country, their religion, their souls,
for an office.
The other day when that man was in that chained
court house, and those marines were planting cannon in
the streets of Boston, the captain of one of the depart
ments of the city police resigned his office rather than
assist in the execution of the Fugitive Slave Law. He
engaged to serve the city as a peace officer, to quell dis
turbances, to detect criminals, to subserve the purposes
of justice, and not as a slavehunter. He threw his
office in the teeth of a government which called him to
do so mean an act, and like a man and not a slave, laid
his commission at the feet of the public authorities.
Most noble Roman ! Man for the times !
2. Brave Men. By brave men I do not mean those
who talk the most ; I do not mean those who arm them
selves with revolvers and go about provoking mischief ;
they are assassins. I do not mean those who hoot and
groan around the houses and offices of peaceful citizens
at night ; they are cowards. The brave man is he who
goes to his duty with no coat of mail but a good con
science, and no sword but the truth. It requires but
little bravery for a man to fire up his brain with alcohol,
and with a revolver in his pocket go into a crowd and
swear, and fight, and yell, and scream like a madman
or a devil. It requires but little courage for such a
man to fire into a crowd, or commit murder unprovoked.
Bravery is tested under other and more peculiar circum
stances ; it is known by other demonstrations. Why
but a little while ago an honorable Senator was com
missioned to bear from these New England towns and
villages a protest to Congress. It was signed by 3,000
men, all belonging to one profession. No mortal man
ever carried such a petition to Congress before ; no
legislative body ever received such a document in the

53
whole history of its deliberations. The Parliament of
Great Britain would have stayed its proceedings while it
was received, had it been presented there. Brougham
and the nobles would have thundered and lightened over
it in the House of Lords, and Macaulay and his glorious
colleagues would have echoed the thunder and glanced
the lightning of that eloquence in the House of Com
mons. But when the protest, signed by the clergy of
New England, was presented in our Congress, half-
drunken Senators denounced, in the fiercest language and
with the most intolerant spirit, the document itself and the
men who had signed it. 0, then it needed some brave
man to step forward and defend those remonstrants. It
needed some one to tell that traitor to freedom and hu
manity, — that Northern man with Southern soul, that
those remonstrants were infinitely above the reach of his
calumnies ; that Wayland, and Hopkins, and Hitchcock,
and Bushnell, and Hawes, and Park, and Sears, and a
noble host, knew more of law as well as gospel than the
men who thronged those halls, some of whom were stim
ulated almost to madness by the liquor they had drank.
But the man who had been honored by the presentation
of that document, failed in the moment of trial. The
crisis had come and he did not meet it. But let that
pass ; for what more could be expected of one who, in
1829, arose in his seat in Congress and said, while even
Southern men looked on him with pity and disgust, and
when he had closed, Southern lips replied in biting,
withering sarcasm : —
" Sir, I am no soldier. My habits and education are very unmili-
tary ; but there is no cause in which I would sooner buckle a knapsack
on my back, and put a musket on my shoulder than that of putting-
down, a servile insurrection at the South. The great relation of servi
tude, in some form or other, with greater or less departure from the
theoretic equality of men, is inseparable from our nature. Domestic

54
slavery is not, in my judgment, to be set dqyon as an immoral or irre
ligious relation. No, sir ; the New Testament says, ' Slaves obey
your masters.' I cannot admit that its duties are not presupposed and
sanctioned by religion. I know of no way by which the form of this
servitude can be fixed but by political institutions."
In the late scenes of riot in Boston, some of the
greatest mistakes were made by men who lacked the
nerve for the occasion, and who were not men for the
times. The mayor one day charged his police not to lift
a finger in the rendition of Burns, and the next day,
frightened by telegraphic despatches from the capitol,
in hot haste ordered out the citizen soldiery, against the
laws of the land. There was nerve enough while Faneuil
Hall was crowded with enthusiastic freemen, but it failed
when Court Square was thronged with marines.
We have arrived at a point of time when Slavery and
Popery will be making new demands. Slavery will soon
ask to have laws passed allowing any Southern man to
stay a month or year in Massachusetts with his slaves ;
to. have Cuba and a part of Mexico annexed to our do
main ; to have all the territories covered with the foul
blot of human oppression. Popery will demand the re
moval of the Bible from our schools ; a division of the
school fund, allowing the church to take a part of the
school money for its convents ; the suppression of preach
ing in the open air ; the silence of the press on this
subject ; the restriction of the pulpit to generalities,
and the padlocking of every honest man's mouth from
Maine to Georgia. It will demand a share in the offices
of trust and honor ; it will require official patronage ;
it will expect a deference not shown to any other sect,
and its claims will arrogantly be forced upon the notice
of every State and city corporation. Men are needed to
meet all these demands ; men who will stand firm under
all the influences which can be brought to bear upon

t)5
them ; men who will not bow at the shrine of St. Peter,
or yield to the demands of priests, or fall down at the
bid of the Nebuchadnezzar of slavery.
3. Incorruptible men. Facts of an alarming charac
ter have recently been developed, showing to what an
extent some of our public men have been swerved from
principle by bribes and threats. In Washington the
buying of a member of Congress is said to be as frequent
as the buying of slaves, and, doubtless, many a Northern
vote was controlled on the Nebraska Bill by the promises
of official patronage, or some such pap. In a conversa
tion in the metropolis the other day, a Southern member
of Congress, a firm friend of the Nebraska measure,
who had had much to do in passing that obnoxious law,
said to some of his friends who were gathered around
him :— " The Northern men had no honor ; each had
his price, — some an oyster stew and trimmings, some
$1,000 to $5,000, while some wanted the purchaser to
pile up and up till he said stop." ' Yes,' exclaimed a
Western member of Congress present, jumping up with
a Western oratorical gesture and emphasis, ' And then
they come to Washington and we buy them there.' "
Look over the doings of Congress on all such contested
moral questions, and you will see here and there men
voting against the testimony of their past lives, against
all antecedents, against common public sentiment at the
North, against the generally expressed wishes of their
constituents, and evidently against their - consciences.
Soon they receive an appointment as custom house
waiter, or postmaster, or have a mission abroad. They
are bought up, and this nation now presents the sad
spectacle of a Republic whose leading men are constantly
bidding for the gifts, and bowing to the power which
has patronage to bestow.

56
The Church of Rome well understands the character of
some of our leading men, and well does she adapt her
policy to meet their baseness and provoke their cupidity.
There has not been an election for the last twenty years,
which has not been influenced by the wily Jesuit, and
to some extent controlled by the crafty priest. Men
have purchased elections, and paid for them by base sub
serviency to the Romish hierarchy. A few years ago, a
convent stood on Mount Benedict. Its blackened ruins
are still there, and every time you visit the metropolis,
you see them, black and frowning like Rome herself. A
mob destroyed that edifice, and scattered its inhabitants.
It was supposed that that convent was a priestly brothel;
that young women were confined there against their wills ;
that orgies took place within those walls, the bare men
tion of which would bring the blush of shame and indig
nation to every honest cheek. There was no law to open
it ; it was a religious prison, fenced, hedged and guard
ed. A mob broke off the gate, trampled the flowers in
front, and set the Bastile on fire. I do not defend that
mob ; it disgraced the Commonwealth.
Since that time, almost every year, some of our politi
cians have secured an election on pledges of personal
effort to indemnify the Church of Rome for that burning,
and no city of the Commonwealth has been disgraced
more than our own by such politicians. We have had
men here who were willing to purchase a seat in the le
gislature by the sacrifice of $50,000 of the public money.
A little while ago a man was defeated in an attempt
in his own State to receive an inconsiderable office. He
was defeated because he was an intolerant supporter of
the Pope of Rome. The people of his own neighbor
hood threw him aside ; those who knew him best repu
diated him. But when the newly- elected President saw
his disgrace, he passed over the noble men of our nation,

57
the eminent and the brave, and scooped down into the
mire, and placed this repudiated subject of the Pope in
his cabinet ; gave him the immense official power of the
post-office department, and left him to control the corres
pondence of the whole nation. And why these acts of
subserviency to the Church of Rome? Do -our rulers
sympathize with the bowings, the grimaces, the mumme
ry of Romanism ? Certainly not. The Roman Catholic
Church has power in America. Her priests control thou
sands and tens of thousands of blind voters ; and to se
cure the votes of the Church, our public men are willing
to accept the bribe, and betray their sacred trusts.
I have spoken of Bedini, the legate of the Pope, who
was in our country a while ago, the murderer of Ugo
Bassi. No sooner was he on our soil, than the people
were aroused to indignation ; his effigy was burnt, and
every European refugee cried out against him, until,
panting with fright and pale as a corpse, he fled to Wash
ington, and knocked at the door of the Senate, expecting
to be received with open arms. But there were eloquent
voices raised against him. " We want no tyrant here,"
was the universal declaration of the people. Just then
an old democrat rises from his seat, and pleads for him ;
declares that there is no blood on his hand ; holds him
up for admiration. What is the secret ? Why, that ad
vocate of the tyrant has a son at Rome, and violence to
Bedini might cost that son his lucrative office. Self! —
self! instead of patriotism and national honor !
Now the men for our times must be men who are
above bribery ; ' who will vote and act conscientiously,
regardless of the consequences ; who cannot be bought
at any price, but who are firm in resisting tyranny,
bigotry and superstition. Such men you have not now.
The highest offices are up at auction. Whoever bids the

58
highest, and who to secure them, will crawl the lowest
and bite the dust oftenest succeeds, and sits in power.
4. Consistent men. There are very few men who
practice just what they preach. The minister sets a
high standard of religious excellence, but where is he who
comes up to it ? The politician preaches loudly of patri
otism, but where is he who is patriotic enough to fill the
measure which is made ? The grossest and most lament
able inconsistences fill society, and destroy all the effi
ciency of virtue and truth. Our political parties, a few
years ago, were rivalling each other in the passage of
anti-slavery resolutions ; those resolutions were eloquent
in freedom's cause, and manly in their advocacy of jus
tice ; but a year rolled round, and those same men were
swearing allegiance to the Fugitive Slave Law ; clergy
men were preaching in its favor ; and public presses
were advocating its passage and defending its abomina
tions. Temperance men are eloquent in defence of the Maine
law, and paint you a picture of the glorious millenium
we shall have when that law is enforced. Yet they will
go away and vote for men steeped in rum, whose first
movement will blot that law from the statute-book.
Men are in favor of religious liberty, and can make
noble speeches on the subject, but they vote for men
who will indemnify Roman Catholics for the loss of
their religious brothels ; who will favor a division of the
free school fund ; who will place in office those who are
most hostile to our liberties and laws, and who will do
all in their power to give the ascendency to men who
hate freedom and love slavery. The spirit of our New
England is so fickle, that little dependence can be placed
upon its present position, and more than likely the glori
ous bursts of freedom which are now echoed from ten
thousand hill-tops, will be hushed before another presi-^

59
dential election, while the mass of the people go in for a
slave-catcher for the highest office in the gift of the
people. The times in which we live demand a different stamp
of character. We are beset by evils which threaten to
overwhelm us in one wild deluge of ruin. These fitful
bursts of patriotism will not arrest the danger or turn
away the impending calamity. If the people of this
country would save themselves from the snare of the
Church of Rome, they must meet the evil in a far differ
ent spirit from what has ever been manifested. Rome is
using all means to conquer America. She has her secret
orders, her Jesuits, who fill all ranks in life. - If circum
stances require, they enter the pulpit and preach ; if
they are wanted in the army, they enlist, and sow their
poison in the camp ; they are often the porters at your
hotels ; they creep into your churches ; they edit your
newspapers, — never seeming to be papists, but every
where devoted to Rome. The same Jesuit to-day will
be acting out the part of a servant, tomorrow playing
the illustrious stranger at some public house, and anon
hearing confessions in some Catholic church. Such have
been the means which the Jesuits have used to obtain
influence and power that Catholic countries have banish
ed and proscribed them ; Popes have sent them into
exile, and the Catholic Church itself has trembled at their
terrible malignity. They are men who have no homes
on earth ; who have cut themselves away from all the
God-ordained influences of the family circle ; who have
nothing in common with the rest of mankind. The
means they have used to accomplish their purposes,
have been almost infernal ; the methods to which they
have resorted to extend their empire, have been really
diabolical. They have crept into the cabinets of nations,
wormed out the secrets of wise men and betrayed them.

60
They have scattered themselves among the people, and
sowed corruption and poisoned the public morals.
Through the influence of the confessional they have ob
tained influence over wives, and made them the accu
sers and the involuntary executioners of their husbands.
They have sought and obtained the affection of young
girls, and accomplished their ruin, that they might gain
them to the Church. There has been nothing too mean
and too devilish for their capacities, and they have prov
ed the most desperate enemies our race has ever had.
These are the men that are to be met. Driven from
other nations, they assemble here, and though they work
silently, they are doing it effectually. Be not deceived ;
a loose newspaper, full of looser stories, will not stay
such a plague ; a few street rows, disgraceful to all who
engage in them, will not undermine or frighten the
crafty men ; they are not afraid of a crazy man with a
fish-horn ; they laugh at the tame presentations of Ro
manism from the pulpit; they ridicule Kossuth, "the
democrat with a feather in his hat," and Gavazzi, the
"noble orator of the Revolution," and tremble only when
they hear you demand the alteration of the naturalization
laws, and when they see you going by thousands to meet
them at the polls.
' ' There is a weapon surer set
And firmer than the bayonet, —
A weapon that comes down as still
As snow-flakes fall upon the sod,
Yet executes a freeman's will
As lightning does the will of God,- — ¦
And from its force, nor doors nor locks
Can shield you,— 'tis the BALLOT BOX !"
5. Temperate, intelligent and pious men. The men
who are elected to office now are evidently of the wrong-
stamp for the times in which we live. To prove this, I

61
have only to point you to the members of Congress.
Scenes are witnessed in the House of Representatives,
which would disgrace a bar-room. Should the rows take
place in any brandy saloon in your city, which take place
in Congress, the police would go in and take possession
of it. No longer ago than Tuesday last, a drunken riot
took place. Language was used which would disgrace
the vilest place ; profanity, which must have made the
blood curdle in every honest "man's veins, came from the
lips of your honorable men. One leaped from his seat,
with oaths on his lips, his fists upraised, his whole self
the picture of a demon let loose from the pit, struggling
towards another member, calling for his arms, and yet
held back only by a crowd of his colleagues. Men who
are sent to Congress to represent the people, and who are
elected in part by Christians, become excited, mad,
drunken, and insult each other ; and then, to close it
up honorably, challenge each other to fight, to shoot at
each other, and deliberately go out with friends to do
their best to murder each other. They go into their
seats daily, armed to the teeth, and ready to shoot down
any body who intimates any thing about their real char
acters. When they become sober, they explain, apolo
gize and overlook ; and such a fracas does not occur until
they are drunk again.
But the evil lies back of these representatives : it lies
with the people. The election of such persons shows that
we have not the men for the times among our voters ;
that we have not the proper moral influence at home. If
a man who is known to be notoriously intemperate is sent
to Congress, the fault of his course and the disgrace
which he brings upon the nation, he is less to blame for
than are his constituents. If you vote for drunkards, and
libertines, and madmen, and they go to Congress, and
disgrace the State, you are to blame, for you have put

62
such men there, and you should be held responsible at
the bar of public opinion.
There is a lack of intelligence among us oftentimes
when we vote. A man is set up by a caucus composed
of a few political gamblers and party hucksters, who
make a business of dealing in politics, who secure for
ambitious men the nominations, and have their pay for
it ; and we do not inform ourselves of the character of
the nominees, and vote for them because they are setup by
our party. There is also being infused into our political
matters a large proportion of the ignorant element.
Every year a batch of men from other countries are nat
uralized. Some of them cannot read nor write. They
see some letters on the ballot, and put it into the box,
because it has been given to them by some demagogue
or some priest. They have no notions of the issues be
fore the people ; their only idea of American liberty is,
that they can swear, and get drunk, and throw stones,
and do as they please. They have no acquaintance with
those great principles of civil and religious freedom
which lie at the basis of our government, and without a
knowledge of which, no man can be a good citizen, or
true to the nation.
There is also a lack of the religious element in office.
Christian men should vote for Christians, other things
being equal. For instance, two men are up for office.
One is a loose man, a gambler, a profane man, a dema
gogue ; the other is a good man, of piety and holy life.
But he is not on your side ; he is nominated by the
opposite party. Now how do you differ from these men ?
The man against whom you will vote, the pious, godly
man, he whom you would love to welcome to your home
and your church, may differ from you in one respect.
He goes in for a high tariff, and you for a low one ; he
for a bank and you against it, or vice versa. These

63
little insignificant questions divide you and make you
political foes. But how do you differ from the man of
your own party whom you will vote for ? You differ
from him in your views of God and eternity ? You
differ from him in the wide gulf of moral character !
You differ from him in all the excellencies of manhood !
You differ from him in his views of public justice and
morality ! You differ from him in almost every thing
which is worth contending for !
Now I say it is time for Christian men to be sent to
our halls of legislation. We have had atheists, drunk
ards, libertines, gamblers and demagogues long enough.
Religion, public safety and national honor call upon us
to break the chains which are being riveted upon us,
closer and closer every year ; and if we would ever be
free from the restraints of party power, the time has
come. Thus, my brethren, have I departed somewhat from.
the usual mode of pulpit discussion, to turn your minds
to the "Times; and the Men for the Times." I have
shown the evils and pointed to the remedy. I leave
these with you, to return, on future Sabbaths, to the
usual themes of the pulpit, hoping I have stirred your
own souls with the emotions which pervade my own.
This is not a time when we should allow slavery to
obtain advantage over us. In other nations the chains
are being broken off ; thrones are tottering into ruin,
and more liberal principles are obtaining ground. Our
Republic should be the last to enlarge the area of slavery,
or extend the empire of human oppression.
Romanism, too, in other nations is' being subdued.
It has lost its main power in the world, and even in the
Eternal city it requires a large force of foreign troops
to keep on his throne the Sovereign Pontiff, who used to
depose emperors and cast down kings. Old St. Angelo

64
is there, as frowning as ever, but a French flag floats on
its towers and French soldiers guard its gates ;' the In
quisition is there, but its rack is rusty and old ; the
Vatican remains, but French and Austrian soldiers throng
its galleries and halls.
Romanism is more active in America than any where
else in the world ; her struggle, her death-gasp is to be
on our shores, and here she is to be met. She is stretch
ing every nerve ; using all her power to obtain influence,
and we need a very different class of men to meet her
than we have yet seen. And who knows but you are
some of the men whom God has chosen for the emer
gency ? He may have raised you up for such a time as
this, as he raised up Esther for her great work of deliv
erance. He may want martyrs ; and you may be the
men. He may want intelligent voters ; and you may
be the men. He may want some to sit in office ; and
you may be the men. He may want you for fires or
swords ; to be his songsters, his orators, his martyrs.
The world's conflict hastens, and He may want you to
" Raise your bleeding hands on high,
And supplicate Almighty God,
Rome's gloomy altars to destroy,
Reeking long with human blood. "
God calls the men of our times to noble deeds and
heroic acts. Fearful emergencies summon upon us to act,
not for self, not for party, but for God and humanity.
There never was a time in the history of our nation so
portentous as this ; when so many conflicting elements
seemed to combine, and when order and disorder, truth
and error, light and darkness seemed to have entered so
fearfully into a death-struggle. We have some part to
act. Life does not consist in what we eat and drink
and the clothes we put on. It is an immense achieve
ment, a glorious work.

65
" Life is real, life is earnest,
And the grave is not its goal ;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.
Art is long, and life is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating,
Funeral marches to the grave.
" In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle,
Be a hero in the strife.
Lives of great men all remind us,
We may make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us;
Foot-prints on the sands of time :
"Foot-prints that, perhaps, another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, may take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate ;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait."
I will not close without protesting against any invasion
of the rights of others. It may be the case that some
persons in their detestation of popery, and heated by an
intemperate zeal, may be unjust to those whom they
oppose. The Roman Catholic has his rights, and no
good man will infringe them. His house, his temple,
his property, his life, should be guarded as sacredly as
our own With the excitements, the street mobs, the
useless, degrading measures, no true man win have
any thing to do. Roman Catholics should be taught
that our only object is to guard our own liberties and do
them good. The Bible, the school-book, the ballot-box,
are the only weapons we need, and when we for a

66
moment countenance the disgraceful scenes which have
been enacted among us of late, we cut off our power
and lose our influence. It is not enough that we out
vote and outnumber our foreign population ; the men
for the times must aim at their conversion. We cannot
entirely stay the tide of emigration which is rolling in
upon us, and we must endeavor to turn it into pure and
healthful channels. If we do not send tract distributors
among these ignorant people, they will Nhave the Romish
catechism ; if we do not send the colporteur, they will
be trained by the Jesuit priest. Be wise as serpents
and harmless as doves. Act for God and his everlasting
truth, and pray for the Republic, — that its sun may
never go down, that its banner may never be soiled, that
its people may never be enslaved. Appeal from corrupt
rulers, and party dominance, and subtle priestcraft, to
the God of heaven, and you will prove that you have
come to the kingdom for such a time as this.

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