The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1869-05-26
AUTHORSHIP AT THE SOUTH.

Southern Presbyterian ReClelC Tor April we nope
to make large extracts from it in future numbers of
the paper, but have only room this week for the
closing paragraphs:
"The tranquility of our career, the bar
renness of romance of our localities, have
departed. We have had our trials and our
suferings. We have deathless names to
care for and defend, of those who have
wrought heroic deeds, investing localities
with golden charms. We have made ac-
quaintance ample with that adversely,
(which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet precious jewel IN his head"
Occasion golden .slppered has come. Beau
tiful upon mountain and plain are her feet,
if we can forget the dread time which brought
her to our literature. Upon our soil and
in our story are bead-roll of battle-felds,
to which Chalgrave, Naseby, Worcester, and
Marston, were mere skirmishes. Upon our
recent annals are names which yield nothing
in real lustre to those of Hampden, of Rus,
sell, and of Sidney. Deeds have been done,
words have been spoken, principles have
been announced, which have far more vital
ity in them than all human weapons of war,
or any of the power and pride of transient
success can give them.
Never were any people placed in circum-
stances which called more loudly for dill
gence and fidelity in history, than those
which at this time encompass the people Of
the South. We have every reason to be-
lieve that the people who, in former years,
avowed their purpose to have an anti-slavery
Bible and an anti-slavery God, whether they
were the true Bible and the true God or
not, will have radical history of their at
tacks upon the South before the war, rad
ical history of the war, and radical his
tory of the persecution since the war;
Such histories will be written; they are be-
ing written in great numbers. The impor-
tant question is, are they loyal?-nOt, are
they true and impartial? And there are
few sane men, North or South, out of the
radical party, who can accept such histories
as either impartial or true. 1t is held to be
the bounden duty of such historians to re-
present their armies as always victorious Gf
it can be done and yet account for the four
years fghting) and ours always defeated 4;
to represent all the fearful colors of cruelty
to prisoners as shown at Andersonville, and
none at Camp Chase or Fort Delaware; to
represent Davis, Lee, Beauregard, Johnston,
Jackson, Hampton, and Hill as fends, and
Lincoln, Seward, Brownlow, Butler, and
Hunter as sages and saints. The practice
of loyalty to the powers that be, will be
esteemed as much duty in history as in
other walks of life. 1t will be deliberately
chosen and preferred to truth in the sight
of God, if truth is seen to be in favor of the
rebels And he is already subject to severe
reproach, and very poisonous name is
ready to be applied to him, who feels called
on to speak the truth, when the truth is in
favor of the rebels. 1t is as much a part
of the common law of the land that justice
shall not be done to the South, nor to its
cause, nor to its leaders, nor to its armies,
nor to its principles, nor to Its battles, as it
was before the war that the Bible was to be
forced to be an anti-slavery Bible, the Con-
stitution an anti-slavery Constitution, and
God an i,slavery God. Under these Cir
cumstances, every man who has brain and
nerve to WELD pen, and a heart in his
bosom which loves truth for truths sake, is
called on more solemnly than has often been
known in all the history of historic truth the
world over, to see to it that materials for a
correct judgment of our cause, our conflicts,
and our heroes, shall go down to posterity.
And never were any States more enriched
than ours have been with all the romance Of
true heroism. Never were any set of homes
such series of 'altars of sacrifice" as ours
have been. Never were any fields of con,
fict better baptized with the best blood Of
the youth of the land than ours have been,
No Spartan mothers were ever superior to
ours in fidelity, nobleness, and self-sacrifca,
And never, that we now recall, were set Of
heroes clustered together in any single cause,
in whose breasts, as far as man can judge,
so much of pure Christianity breathed.
Dead and cold and ignoble indeed, must
be the heart of any generation to whose ears
such voices as these shall speak in vain
But we shall not permit ourselves to think
that such voices will utter themselves in vain
in the ears of our men of letters. Already
we have the earnest of the vintage. Histo-
~, biography, and romance, press as eager,
ly forward to the notice of our impoverished
people as if they were not impoverished
Once they were able pecuniarily to encour,
age their home authors, but unfaithfully
sighed after English literature. Now Eng
lish literature utters but cold voice over
the ruins of their, cause-but cold, un,
sympathising voice over the trampled good
names of their Christian sages, patriots, and