The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-08-07 00:00:00

" STRIPES AND STARS."

THE struggle between light and darkness began
the moment when, amid the murky chaos of a
void and formless creation, the loud and puissant
accents of the OMNIPOTENT reverberated along the
face of the tuinultitous deep and said, " Let there
be light." When bright bands of cherubim sang on
high a thrilling welcome to that first dawn of glo-
rious light on earth, it was but a song of partial
I iriumphi for even then one half the earth lay
veiled under the curtains of night. When the
sun burst forth from his chambers in the east to
gladden the bowers of Paradise, he left vast ter
ritories .uncheered by his rays. In his ceasele
round, while PECE:BUS drives forth before his path
the chequered gloom of the west, the nations of
the east become again wrapt in dreary darkness.
In the moral world there exists, and ever has
prevailed, a similar contest between truth and
error, which also is coeval with the history of
man. Scarcely had the Aemi6itne pronounced
his high approval of the works of his hand when
the subtle agency of darkness began to tempt our
first mother from the paths of truth. Ever since
that primitive epoch war has been unceasingly
waged among men between the principles of good
and evil. The success of the encounter has varied
marvellously from age to age, and the heat of
the 'conflict has been shifted continuously from
kingdom to kingdom, and froth one great 'divi-
sion of the earth to another ; and now we watch its
progross on tb vast continent for long centuries
unknown to the history of civilisation. The
fierce contention which now rages there between
Slavery and Freedom is only another manifesta-
tion of the• undying struggle between right and
wrong, which is as old as the human race. itself.
For the moment it attracts unusual attention,
owing to the weighty consequences likely to be
evolved in history of• a great nation as the
combat in this form approaches a climax.
The North American Republic had scarcely
numbered fourscore years of existence when it
began to be apparent that it contained within
itself the elements of certain if not speedy dis
solution—as if destined to realise in the history
of its national life the truth, of the 'words applied
to man's life. "if by reason of strength they be
four score years, yet is their strength labour and
sorrow ;"—and, we might add, " it is soon cut off
and flies away."
paeans ondeclaration
the
ofe inde-
pendence, pendenee, when vii
We have scarcely ceased to
hear these republicans sing
the
e
fourth anniversary
of
eehear shouts announcing the
approach of a doom which has, more or less,
threatened the existence of the Union for several
orme ade
years back. The crisis, we are told, is imminent
The dissolution of tßheetwlionenionthiiss
a a factd
xo already
r
determined upon.
the wreck will be complete. The confUsion
likely to ensue in commercial ar.d mone-
tary affairs is scarcely to be estimated.
It is anticipated not without reason that trade
will receive an all but fatal blow ; all kinds of
property will be ruined; and fortunes accumu-
lated by ..ars of toil and care will be swept away
in a moment. The dissolution of the confederacy
is an event which, although at first regarded with
the utmost alarm by all parties, is now to be
looked upon as a foregone conclusion—one which
might be temporarily arrested, but which can bY,
.no means be entirely averted. Merchants who