Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1864-03-30

preston equal to that which assails us at
this moment. Three years have now elapsed
since the commencement of the war. "A
debt of sixteen hundred millions stares us
in the face; and nearly half million of our
soldiers have been utterly used up. The
elastic hope which buoyed the earlier stages
of the struggle has largely faded out, while
so far rs the Confederates are concerned they
are better off to-day, to sustain three years
more ofcontest, than at any previous period
of the war. The manufactures they at first
required are now constructed; agriculture
and the science Of subsistence have taken
settled shape; and all the sufferings and sac
rifices which are necessary to season peo-
pie to exploit have been endured. More
over, they feel that the period of probation
which foreign powers limit for struggling
populations to earn the stamp of natiOnali-
ty Is very nearly up. Is 1t not, therefore,
painful, nay, alarming, that at such crisis.
mediOcrity and doubtful purpose should
WELD the entire sway? Yet such is the
case; and as we dwell upon 1t, we are al
most driven to believe that God, notonly is
not with US, but against us. He has con-
founded our judgments, divided our coun-
ellis, and delivered us into the hands of the
feeble, the faint-hearted and the blind.
And why should he be with us, base, grow
cling, and corrupted as we are? We are not
with him! We are goddess, conscienceless
religionless people. There is no honor, no
virtue, nodevotion, except among the mass
es, while ninety per cent. of all who range
above thousand-dollar incomes are mere
lynx eyed sharpers, who are watching every
neighbor with suspicion, and who subordi-
nate every sentiment to self Debauched
by an extravagant prosperity, and spared
mercifully from all sacrifices, we have un-
gratefully forgotten due reliance upon
Heaven; and the result is, that, except in
the case of the simple, virtu0us labOring
people, we have practically become COM
.munity of Atheists, There Is no conscience
attached to the intelligence and wealth of
the community; and layman as we are, and
of the world, we may say unto you, fellow
cOuntrymen, that there can be no lasting
Government without public virtue; no en-
during nationality without universal sense
of God. Handled as our country has been
In the field, and stupetied as it is by the
tricksters of the Cabinet, it would seem,
that we are only to arrive at the stage
when we may be permitted to rebuild,
by sufferings and sacrifices, and perhaps
through preliminary chaos which it is
dreadful to anticipate. This mournful des-
tiny would seem to be foreShadowed i'm the
fact that, impatient of our folly, He has al
lowed us to put our nation in the hands OF
men who have attempted to guide it
through this fiery hour without the inspi-
ration of single moral principle, and
whose cold, grovelling natures never rise
above the attitude of calculation. Thus
managed, if He permit us to escape with
out preliminary ruin, it will only be through
miracle of mercy, and for the sake alone
of those more virtuous populations which
are looking toward us for their enfranchise-
ment across the seas.
Let us, therefore, watch eagerly the
spring campaign, and if perchance, we do
acquire sound success, let us secure it to
the nation by naming firm hands to reap
the harvest; but if, as we dread, the old
conservative troublers of the army corps
again betray us to the enemy, let us be
ready to rally in the chaos and prevent at
least West Point Pretorian division of the
empire.
When nation is without faith, and has
turned its face from God, sthe man Oh horse
back" is always fearful figure.