Year: 1865

I direct your attention to the hospital
where the victims of disease or the MAIN
ed from the battle field have been convey
ed to inger, suffer and die? Need [
point to those who have been manned and
crippled for life? Should I attempt to
portray the fearful amount of evils or the
awful amount of suffering occasioned by
this war I should utterly fail, and must
leave every one to reflect upon them seri-
ously for himself. Such are some of the
evils brought upon US, but what are they
compared with those evils endured in
other portions of the land? Our fields
are not laid Waste-no hostile army has
passed through our midst-our children
play in the streets-our homes are unmo-
| lested-our cities unconsumed. In the
catalogue Of evils we may refer to the
vast debt which the defense of the nation
has brought upon US. Children yet un-
] born as well as those now in existence
Will be doomed to years of toll to sweep
it away and restore the nation to the
financial condition in which it was few
years ago. Here let us pause and ask
if all this has occurred by chance? If
| these troubles have sprung spontaneous
| " from the dust; and if there is no cause
for this wide spread suffering Our text
teaches US that though God has promised
to bless and prosper a nation, yet if said
nation do evil in his sight he will repent


of the good he said he would do unto


them. Let the infdel sneer at this re-
vealed truth-let the so called philoso-
pher believe in God eternally contem-
plating his own happiness and not troub-
ling himself with the affairs of mortals;


but the christian who reads that not
sparrow falls to the ground without the
notice Of his heavenly father, is not slow
to belive that God superintends the affairs
of nations; prospering the virtuous and
chastising the vicious to bring them to
repentance. Had our nation been true
to God and lived in obedience to his laws
none of these things would have come
upon us.


Not only have we been false to him but
to our own cherished sentiments; senti-
ments uttered on the day of our nations


birth; carefully taught to our children
and exhibited with pride to the nations
of the earth, but practically ignored and
basely trampled beneath our feet. In
days of health and prosperity an individ-
ual may refuse to hear the unpalatable
truth that he is a violatof of Gods laws,
yet in the day of affiietion he may be in
duced to listen to truths that probe his
heart to the quick.


So, nations in the day of prosperity may
turn away from visions Of "a broken law,
an offended God and dasS Of approaching
doom. Yet in the day o5sheir calamity
they may incline the ear and learnright-
eousness when Gods judgments are in the
land.


Among our sins is ingratitude; how
various and great have been the blessings
which God has bestowed upon US. From
the landing of the pilgrim fathers to the
present period has been seen the hand of
the benefcent Father strewing with his
choicest blessings the pathway of our
nation. The few have become numerous
the weak stxong-the INDECENT a wealthy
people-Haxe we not tee aessll.A 1 thn1leht
1t was our skin, our intelligence, our in
dustry, or our superiority as a people,
which produced these results have we
not in a great measure been insensible to
the fact that God has caused us to differ
from others and has there not been a want
of that grateful love which God has had
just right to claim? What visions have
foated in our brain of extending the area
of freedom-aS ace termed enLargi1lg the
domain Of Slavery. How restless we have
been when any portion of the country
joined us till we annexed it to our own
What longing eyes we have cast toward
Cuba, and what crooked policy and unho-
ly means have been used to make this COW
eted prize our own. Have we not looked
north and south, but chiefly south to find
room to extend our domain.


Intemperance, coveteousness, profana-
ton of the Sabbath, profanity, blasphemy,
infdelity, debauchery and prohigacy swell
the awful catalogue of our sins. Bribery
and official corruption had become so com
mon that they almost failed to produce a
passing remark except for political pur-
poses. And among the worst of our sins
is the disposition so fearfully exhibited to
speculate out of our country's woes.


How many by falsehood and corruption
have made princely fortunes during the
war. Foremost among our sins IS rebel
lion and deep-seated sympathy Herewith.
Rebellion is classed in the pages of divine
truth with heinous sins, and God has
placed upon it the seal of disapprobation,
Since the Sons Of the Morning raised the
standard of revolt in the ages of Eternity
and stretched forth the arms of rebellion
against the Almighty, 90 beings have been
led into rebellion with SO little cause as
those who have been arrayed against our
Government.


But there is class meaner, more loath-
some and more contemplate than they
I refer to those who are at heart rebels
whose sympathies are with them; who.
always rejoiced at their success, and now
secretly mourn in their adversely, yet such
is the meanness of their craven hearts
such the cowardice of their bastard souls
that they would not unite their destiny
where their sympathies were. Such was
the falsehood and hypocrisy of their pol
luted natures that while treason lurked IN
their hearts honied words of loyalty
dropped from their lips. They every
effort they could to cripple the Govern
ment, to prevent enlistments and to induce
the noble soldier to desert and make him
a villain black andperjured as themselves;
to create division in the loyal States, to
excite armed opposition to just laws
These men are so vile that l know of no
language to characterize as they deserve.
That their efforts encouraged the rebels
in arms to continue the strife-that they
heightened out the rebellion-that they
procrastinated the peace and caused the
death of our friends in the army by the
thousand, admits not of doubt. Painful
it is indeed to speak of these things, yet
hearts surcharged with grief and wrung
with anguish demand that the truth should
be plainly spoken. Our friends went forth
in the prime of life and stood in serried
ranks of bristling bayonets between us
and hords of madened rebels to protect
our homes from ruin-some of them have
fallen by disease others, by rebel bullets,
some languished in comfortless hospitals,
some in loathsome prisons with no wife or
mother to smooth the couch of suffering
OF wipe the sweat of death from their cold
brow And can we be silent when we
know that these craven wretehes are in
sympathy with and have secretly aided
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