American citizen. [volume] (Butler, Butler County, Pa.) 1863-1872, 1863-12-23
Our NEercies Of Re-Dccupation

men of Young North America-physically
and morally lly-appeared in Philadelphia
from Boston. He became the Rector ol
the Church of the Holy Trinity in the city
of Philadelphia-and very shortly filled
this new church organization toits utmost
capacity. Among his pewholders was
George w. Woodward, who, in December
1860, expoupded not only constitutional
law, but INDUCED quite largely in that
species of Theology known as the Bible
argument in behalf of slavery. The Rev,
Phillip Brooks has the slightest possible
reverence for the Bible Argument in be-
half of slavery, and so frequently express
sed himselfo this subject that the said
George w. Woodward, in disgust, order
ed his pew to be sold and left Mr.. BIS
church. The preacher has not in the
least lowered his tone since his church
suffered the calamity of the Judges with
! drawal.
A friend has just sent a Thanksgiving
Sermon preached by the said Reverend
Brooks, under the title at the head of
this article. His text is the 14th and
18th verses Of the 10Th chapter of Jere-
miah. We append few sentences as
specimen bricks-on page 9.
When this war began, you know how
heavy the air was with gloomy prophecies
of the ruin that was to come upon us here
at home, in the arrangement Of labor, in
the scarceness of supplies, in the stop
page of business, in the insecurity of
| III, 4l,,,,
old, and industry was never richer, homes
were never happier, trade never paid so
well, harvests never crowded the bursting
barns more fully than in the abundant
prosperity of this battle-autumn What
shall we do? Is it the part of earnest
men just to come up to our churches and
! thank God for the corn-feld and the busy
stores, and say nothing about the war, un-
der whose red glare the. sickle does its
peaceful battle with the grain, and the
quick dollars pile themselves upon your
desk ] think not. | think no graft
tude is loyal or reasonable that does not
carry the earnestness and soemnity of
all our present life into every thanksgiv-
ing that it has topay.
On page II, he says:
1t seems to me every dollar made in
these war times ought to be sacred. ]
should think every man who is staying at
home and making fortune now, would
want to take at least one poor man who has
been to the war and been disabled and,
counting him his substitute;' provide for
him and his for life. A man who is coin
ing money out Of his country agony. and
keeping it to spend upon himself, must
feel so like very Gchazi. sis it time
to receive money and to receive garments,
and oliveyards, and vineyards, and sheep,
and oxen 2" When those whose duty to
be there is no more than ours, are putting
every comfort by and standing between us
and the traitors, camping in the wretched-
ness Of the cold open corn field, fighting
the front ranks of our thinned armies, suf-
fering in the solitude of far-off hospitals,
starving in that loathsome prison which is
going to make Southern civilization the
everlasting by-word of the nineteenth cen
tury-what right hslve we to occupy the
prosperity, under whose groaning portals
we enter in with thanks to-day, save as the
guardian holds his solemn trust, sacred
from common use, ready TO answer to the
last demand of those forwhom he holdsit,
to whom it all belongs.
On pages 23, 24 and 25, he thus sketch
es his views of Bishop Hopkins argu-
mcnt on slavery The fifty-fve Demo
cratic members of Congress who voted for
the Bishop for Chaplain must have esti-
mated it more highly than did,,Mr. B.:
| should do great injustice to ourselves
and to the day, if it did not commemorate
another great re-occupation of this past
year, whereby not only the people but the
church has entered in and repossesscd the
old land that the Lord gave to her fathers
Christianity, | believe, will never cease to
sorrow that the Church of Christ was led
and not leading in the crusade against hui
man slavery in the United States. The
future historian of the Church will look
back and wonder at the sight he sees.-
Year after year the Church stood back,
while they who fought the battle went out
from her, and the whole movement against
slavery became not only unchurchly but
openly infdel, disowning all interest in
every presentation of that Christianity of
whose spirit and operation it was never
theless itself the legitimate result. The
child Philanthropy not merely deserted its
mother Religion, but disowned her. But
like many another lost child in the worlds
moral history, its inherited birth-marks,
the brow and eyes it took from her, would
keep speaking out its parentage in its own
despite. If in this year the recreant moth
er has at all. come out and claimed her
child; if in this year the Christian Church
has taken among us an rrevocable position
of his hostility to human slavery in every
shape, let us thank the Lord / rejoice in
every symptom tending that way Ireioice
in this last struggle whereby it is fighting
its way into its dishonored grave, of that
old miserable creature, the most foolish of
all folles, if it had not been the most i'm
pious of all impieties, which has been
dignifed so many years with the name of
''The Bible Argument for Slavery"
cannot tell you the half of my joy-some
of you will understand it by your own