Meigs County telegraph. [volume] (Pomeroy [Ohio]) 1848-1859, 1858-12-14

lowed to determine the point upon strictly
analogical grounds, has assumed the as
pect of Judgment from Heaven.
More than once, in our historYas a con-
federated government, have the discordant
notes of war resounded throughout these
widespread gions; yet, his progress has
never been attended by that wholesale car
mage and destruction, which we are taught
TO believe, invariably accompany him when
he appears in punishment of national sins.
A single campaign of Napoleon involved
creator waste oflife, and induced broader
harvest of suffering and wretchedness
than we have experienced since our sires'
frst battle with the red man.
Famine, that gaunt enemy of the hu-
man race-the more voracious of victims,
wholly averted from these fair territories
since the hour of their release from colo
nial letters. In all other portions of the
globe millions upon millions of fellow be-
ings, reckoning from the early periods of
mans existence, have withered in his pres
ence, as an iceberg disappears beneath the
glare of a vertical sun. His rattling bones
have been heard, his skeleton hands have
been felt by thousands, even within our
own recollection; yet, we have been Sc
curely shielded against his merciless Wis
itations.
And, while "the pestilence that walketh
in darkness" has, In one Of its most hid
eous forms, ,often invaded our southern bor-
ders, gathering up the trophies of it's power
as it passed along, yet has it not been Ii
censed by the Eternal to go abroad
throughout the length and breadth of the
land, to decimate its population. Nor has
that same noisome visitor, coming, under
a different garb from it's Asiatic home, been
permitted to scourge us, rs not unfre-
quently it vents its fury upon myriads Of
the covering wretches who surround its
own native jungles. And, therefore, al
though "the destruction that wasteth''
does leave it's footprints here and there
upon the surface of our vast domain, they
are comparatively so few, that all hearts
can joyfully unite in praising Him who
sends the pesilence, for his kindness and
long suffering, in not visiting us with Ills
Judgment oD account of our national trans
gressions. sr
For God, my hearers, does not with
hold his scathing hand, because, as peo-
pie, we are righteous before him. No,
nationally, have we disregarded his just
and imperative enactments, and nationally
are we obnoxious to their crushing penal
ties.
True, we do not, as did the Carthage
mans. cause our offspring to pass through
sacrifcial fires glowing in honor of Saturn;
but, we do not refrain from laying them
upon the gilded altars of Mammon.
lN
erect vast and magnificent temples. and
dedicate them to Bacchus, as did the an
cient Greeks and Romans; but, throughout
this land-with some honorable except
ions, as 1 rejoice to testify-every man
who chooses, is permitted, either in ac-
cordance with legislative enactments, or
in defiance of them, to consecrate to Satan
physical and moral pest-hcuse, the at
mosrhere of which infects and poisons all
who frequent it, bringing them to an early
grave, and their wives and children not
only to premature widowhood and orphan
age, but, to heritage of poverty, wretch
edness, and, in multiplied cases, of crime
and its penal consequences. Nor do we,
in imitation of infdel France, legislate
away the Sabbath, and by statutory provis-
ions make every tenth day season, not of
holy rest, but ofrecreation and amusement;
yet, we suffer those in authority over us,
practically to ignore it's claims TO sacred
observance, by legalizing the transit of
Sunday mails, and the opening of ten thou
sand Offices for the delivery of their con-
tents. Nay, so e-spread is the moral
obliqutY in regard to the sanctity of this
portion of time, that In all parts Of our
country multitudes devote tie day to the
qualification of their own selfish desires,
wholly irrespective of that divine injunet-
ion, "RemembeI the Sabbath day to keep
it holy!'
And we. do not, after the cnstorn of
many nations of antiquity, reduce to serv-
itude the capives taken in war; but, we
hold in cruelest bondage nearly four mill
lions of human beings, whose ancestors
were Stolen- not cong nquered--and conveyed
into realms where their felowmen were
ready to receive them as cattle, for this is
the original of the word chattel, as Ghe en-
slaved African is regarded, and by virtue
of such consideration, may be transferred
without his own knowledge or consent,
from one master to another. Yet, deplor-
able as is this feature of American serf-
dom, there is something beyond it. A
still lower deep has been excavated for
these human chatlels--excavated too,
blush to own, by the highest judicial Off
Ger in the land! We are gravely told that
at the time of the adoption of the Consti-
tuition of the United States, and for more
than a century previous to this period, the
civilized and enlightened portions Of the
world regarded that class of persons who
had been imported as slayeg, as well as
their descendants. whether they had be-
come free or not, 'as beings of an in
ferior order, and SO far inferior, that
they had no rights which the white man
was bound to respect; and that the negro
might justly and lawfully be reduced to
slavery, for his the white mans benefit.
And this declaration is SO interviewer into