The Burlington weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington [Iowa]) 1860-1876, 1863-05-23
An IRISH DIVINE ON AMERI.
CAN AFFAIRS.
Lecture by the Rev. DIR. Dill.


Lecture by the Rev. DIR. Dill.
Yesterday evening, the Rev. DIR. Dill,
Ballymenia Qate Moderator of the General
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in
Ire!and,t delivered a lecture in Rosemary
Street Church Or. Macnaughtan'sl on the
american Conflict" There was a large
and highly respectable attendance
THE LECTURE.
Our Transatlantic cousins are believed on
this side OF the water to be much addicted
to that kind of boastful exaggerstion which
they themselves denominate tall talk. -
In truth this is, if not the greatest, vet their
most striking natural tailing-an infirmity
from which even their educated and en-
lightened men are not altogether free. One
cannot be any length of time in an Ameri-
cans society without hearing that thew
have got the greatest country in the world,
the best Government, the finest nation, and
even the greatest reviyals. A Rev. friend
ofmine in New York, speaking in the
friendliest spirit possible, desired me to in
form my countrymen, on my return home.
Of the interesting geographical fact that, if
Great Britain were ship, they could sup
ply us with lake capable of floating her.
A European traveller, with the laudible
purpose of pulling down the pride of a
would say, to ''take the consate out of
him,') challenged him to produce such a
volcano as Vesuvius. ''True,'' said the
Yankee, "we have not been able to get up
such big bonfire as that, but we have got
waterfall over here that could very soon
put it out!' They have now succeeded in
kindling volcano whose wide wasting
conflagration all the great waters on their
continent are utterly powerless to extin-
guish. [Applause.l War, like everything
else in America, seems to partake of the
national character, and is carried on on IA
Ia 10, Nx<l A II.
op of the Episcopal Church, addressing a
meeting in Philadelphia a few weeks ago,
submitted calculation of the number en-
ployed by the Federal Government in the
naval and military service, which showed
one in five Of the class capable of bearing
arrns-an almost incredible proportion
The Confederacy must have an army of
nearly equal numbers. The armies of the
North occupy a military line of more than
! 800 miles. from the Potomac to kansas
equivalent to a line from Moscow to Ma
drid. An immense armament blockades
the Atlantic coast from New Orleans to
Charleston, and up the Mississippi River.
Without further details, these are quite
sufficient to suggest to us the vastness of
this fearful struggle. The strength and vi
olence of the passions evoked by the con-
test are quite in keeping with the supply
of men and means. Civil war is proverbi-
ally the most savage and relentless of all
wars. Solomon informs us that "a brother
offended is harder to be won than strong
city, and their contentious are like the bars
Ola CASTLE This virulent and implacable
luminosity breaks out on all occasions, in
all places, and among all classes, alike in
the Senate and the camp, the platform and
the pulpit, among the gentler as among the
sterner sex. 1t is sufficiently appalling to
read of brother meeting brother in the
bloody fray; but it strikes the mind as still
more wildly, impiously, homogeneous for
brethren of the same household of faith to
approach the Throne of God with their con-
fiicting and competing supplications, each
asking for the overthrow and destruction
of the other. Actuated by such passions,
no wonder that the slaughter on both sides
should have been fearful, or that America
should be in a condition like Egypt under
the last plague, when there was not a house
in which there was not one dead; whilst
living memorials remain to tell of the hor-
rors of IA war which has placed skeleton
or q cripple at every freside in the land
Truly, this American war ''hath the primal
eldest curse upon it-a brothers blood
[ApplauSe.] Several causes have concurred
to give this conflict IA peculiar interest, and
to attract toward it the eager and anxious
attention of the whole civilized world
The greatness of the struggle itself, the
energy and bitterness with which it is car
ried on, the numbers that have fallen, the
unexpected resources of the South, together
" Itu VIC aUIllTaDle
to absolute heriSm, exhibited by the citi-
zens and soldiers of the Confederacy-these
appeal to the common sympathies of our
nature, and cannot but excite an intensely
painful interest in the breast of every hui
man being. But to us, the inhabitants of
these British Islands, the interest with
which this Struggle is invested is greater
than that which any other people can ex-
perience. The combatants on both sides
are not only of the same race with our
selves, but many of them are near kins-
men. We speak the same language, pro-
fess the same religious faith, glory in a COM
mon literature as we'll rs in a free political
system and laws derived from the same an
cestry. Bothpeople look back almost with
equal pride to the field of Runnymede and
the glories of 1858. And these bonds OF
affinity and historical associations are from
year to year strengthened by means of the
vast and increasing commerce carried on
between the two countries. Some of the
American papers say that the war has an
nexed Lancashire to the United States. Ger
tain II is there are multitudes of capitalists
and millions of operatives in Great Britain,
who have as much material interest in the
issues of the conflict as the mass of Ameri-
can citizens themselves, and it would be
no exaggeration to affirm that the anxiety
with which it is watchedis little lessin Liv
erpool than in New York, in Manchester
than in Philadelphia, i'll Belfast than in
Boston, in Ballymena than in Albany. AS
everyone is interested in the struggle, so
every one feels himself quite entitled to
give an opinion as to the causes that have
led to it, the motives and views of the con-
tending parties, together with the mode in
which 1t must terminate, and the inevitable
results which are certain to flow from 1t.
With very many the small matter of the
necessity of understanding the complex
questions so summary decided is not taken
into account.
1t is understood in Ireland that everyone
can farm and cultivate land by sort of in
stinct, without learning the business at all.
And it would seem that a similar pleasing
conviction rests upon most minds respect
ing the American problem, which everyone
can solve without study. Oracles of pro-
foundest wisdom are speaking from the
Senate, the press, and the platform, and all
ofthem settle the question most satisfacto-
rly to themselves; and, encouraged by
such examples, see no good reason why I
may not try my hand at the work as well