Lamoille newsdealer. [volume] (Hyde Park, Vt.) 1860-1877, 1864-01-13

temporariesmust expect for the time being

w orihS not peace out Sworu, anu 10 DC
made perfect if at all, like the great Cap
tain of our Salvation, Through sufferings" )"
Nay, did not this very divinely accredit.
ed, and veritable Prince of Peace. bring
with him, nevertheless, religion of war
fare and sorrow? AS benignant and
beautiful as was the civilization which
he came to introduce, is it not fact that,
because it assailed the prejudices and re-
buked the sel6shness and cruelty of wick
ed men, its course is to be tracked along
through eighteen centuries in blood ?
Assurcdly Christ's own personal career,
marked as it is with series of agonles
and bloody sweat, forms but fit type of
the long agonizing and seemingly endless
and hopeless struggle in which His Truth
seems, thus far at least, to have been in
volved. But then, as but just now init
mated, none of these tribulations are
without their high uses. On the contra
ry, as it is in season of storm and tenn
pest that trees are won't to strike their
roots deepest into, and take the 6rmest
hold upon the earth, so it has been in Pc
riods Of precisely such apparent disaster,
during the suffering and sorrows of a
whole generation, that the greatest i'm
provements on human character have
been effected and a foundation laid for
those changes which ultimately prove Of
the greatest benefit to the species The
God -forsaken Jews thought that cruciix-
ion meant death. To Him. however, who
by their wicked hands was slain, it
was but the great tribulation" through
which he must come up his direct
passage to his eternal glorifcation.
Thus with reforms, social and national
The wars of the Heptarchy in England,
and Of the Norman Conquest; the contest
| VI tHc lsooeS anu tue uICd1 ttCpCiiion
are apparently the most disasterous peri
ods in the annals of the English nation
those in which civil discord was most
furious, and the public suffering was the
most universal. Yet these are precisely
the periods in which the historian5 will
tell you its peculiar temper was given to
English character and the greatest adai
ton made in the causes of English pros
perity; periods in which courage rose out
of the extremity of misfortune, national
union out of oppression, public emancipa-
ton out of aristocratic domination. and
general freedom out of regal ambition =
the national character which they now
possess. the public benefits which they
now enjoy, the freedom by which they
have since been distinguished, and the
almost omnipotent energy by which they
are at present sustained being in great
measure owing to the renovating storms,
that in former ages have swept over that
country. Where, in a word, can more
brilliant periods in the history of the
race be found than that, for instance Of
Pericles in Athens, of the Medicis in It,
ally, of Louis XIV in France, and OIL
Elizebath in England Aud yet, is it not
well known by every even moderately
read student Of history, that these wer,
such, not by any means in consequence o.
the Justly illustrious men Unidentified with
the same, but rather because of th'
. mighty moral struggles Immediately
preceding them. And thus it is Th'
law of progress ever is that Of perfection
| alone " through suffering"
4 We toll we win
:, Or lose. Our people bleed ; yet slow and ia
! The mighty cause of man presses ever on. /"
. War in itself, is always terrible 1t
. visage is ever very grim and dark, Tn
. mere announcement of the word suggest
y at once the most wild and terrific scener,
-" the glittering march of armies ant
the revelry Of the camp; the shrieks AM
groans. the blasphemies and all the hor
rors of the battle 6eld the desolation 0
the harvest and burning cottage; tn
storm, the sack and the ruin of cities
lands once beautiful and rich in tn
flowers and fruits of peaceful culture
n stained with blood and blackened wit
,e fire Z the energies Of the nation weigbe
T. down as by the hand Of death. and tn
is country filed with the lamentations (
Il disconsolate widows and orphans" Sue