Year: 1866

Very Sad!-Very Distressing livery Ter
rible Very Awful Awful Awfull
All ye good people, read the following
from the Wilmington Dispatch, and prepare
to be terrified The Radicals not only refuse
to let us go out of and into Congress at our
pleasure, but they are determined to take
away our religion. We beg them to let that
alone. We have no religion to spare.


Our cotemporary of the Dispatch is evident
ly in earnest. We sympathize with him.
We condole him. He sees "hydras, gorgons,
and chimeras dire" May the hydras be di-
J minished, may the gorgans not bite him,
may the chimeras speedily vanish away
"Hear him for his cause, and be silent that
ye may hear" Laugh not, oh scorner, but
listen and take warning from what he says
"We think that one of the most appalling
consequences of the success of Radicalism in
this country, will be the entire destruction of
the religious liberty of our people. Should
the fanatics who are now largely in the ma
jority in Congress succeed in fixing their
| hold on the government, we may look, i'm
1
civil rights, to see the hand of despotism
| clutch the church, and dictate what men
shall believe, and in what manner they shall
worship God. Indeed, we have already seen
the disposition to do this evinceds In Mis-
souri, an obnoxious oath is required of the
ministers of the Gospel of that State before
they are allowed to perform the rites and
|! discharge the duties of their holy Offices
While in Alabama a Bishop of the Episco-
pal Church was restrained by an order of a
military despot from opening the churches
of his Diocese until he should comply with
certain regulations which were prescribed by
his orders. Should their power continue
what may we not expect when all response
bility to law and Constitution is repudiated,
as will most certainly be the case whenever
it appears that conservatism is too weak to
check illegal action with its resistance.


We do not see now the American people
are to escape another reign of persecution, in
| which the inquisition and the torture will
seek to regulate the consciences and reli-
gious actions of men. Puritan persecution,
| such as burnt innocent old women ON the
charge of witchcraft, is not likely to be any
more reasonable or acceptable, than such
persecution as lit the faggots that made mar
| tyrs of the Protestants of Spain the last
century. If fanaticism shall achieve a last
ing triumph in America, then may expect
to see such scenes as the massacre of ST. Bar
tholomews day re-enacted, and thousands
like Catharine de Medici melting the execu-
toner to do his bloody, cruel work with re-
lentless earnestness.


He who "tempers the wind to the shorn
lamb" alone can protect His people from this
calamitous fate. The Christian people oi
America should unite in petition to Him
to avert the pressing dangers that threaten
them. Woe INTO them should that day Of
persecution come to present for their choice
the alternative of a recantation of their faitl
or death of martyrdom.n


This is what we call firing the Southern
heart" The same thing was done in 1860
and the result was harvest OF blood and
tears. 1t is much easier to feign zeal fol
Christianity than it is to practice it.


We beg the Dispntch to dismiss its fears
Religion is safe. Hundreds of thousands O
the friends of that paper bave already showr
that they will have their own religion, ant
that they win thrash any man or set of mer
who may attempt to~interfere with them OF
that subject.