Full text of "The man for the hour : a sermon preached in the church of the covenanters, in the city of Cincinnati, on the evening of January twenty-second, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, which day was observed as a day of public fasting, humiliation and prayer, by order of the general synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, it being Thursday of the week of oecumenical prayer for the conversion of the world to Christ.."

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TH iD

MAN FOR THE HOUR:

A SERMON,

i PREACHED IN THE CHURCH OP THE COVENANTERS, IN THE CITY ? I

3 OP CINCINNATI, ON THE EVENING OF JANUARY TWENTY-SEC- < |

r OND, ONE THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED AND SIXTY-THREE, > '

p WHICH DAY WAS OBSERVED AS A DAY OF PUBLIC FASTING, ; '

? HUMILIATION AND PRAYEP, l^Y ORDER OF THE GENERAL c |

g SYNOD OP THE REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, $ 1

> IT BEING THURSDAY OF THE WEEK OP CECUMENICAL € |

> PRAYER FOR THE CONVERSION OF THE WORLD TO 5 j
5 CHRIST, AND THE LIBERATION OF ALL THE NA- 'l

I TIONS FROM BONDAGE AND BIGOTRY, TO HIS ? :

'? GLORY ; AND ALSO IN OBEDIENCE TO THE J :

<t CHIEF MAGISTRATE OF THE UNITED < '

? STATES, WHO HAD ISSUED HIS PROC- > j

S LAMATION, CALLING UPON OUR < I

I CITIZENS TO KEEP SUCH A DAY C

I HOLY UNTO THE LORD. 5

5 By the Pastor, S [

i WILLIAM WILSON, D.D., LL.D. I !

^ "I will make a man more precious than the golden wedge of Opbir.'' — Isaiah. € |

C " By a man of understanding and knowledge the state shall be prolonged."' — Prov- % •
~i ERBS or Solomon. v I

CINCINNATI:

FB.\NKLAND & TIDBALL, PRINTERS, 2S FOURTH ST

1863.

^(Oi.i'i.i't.f'wc.i'iii'i.cuCH'Sn.i'i.CiiX.i'i.ci.cun.in.in.ci.n.i'w".. (7) y'^-W—

TH E

MAN FOR THE HOUR

PREACHED IN THE CHURCH OF THE COVENANTERS, IN THE CITY
OP CINCINNATI, ON THE EVENING OF JANUARY TWENTY-SEC-
OND, ONE THOUSAND EIGHT HUNDRED AND SIXTY-THREE,
WHICH DAY WAS OBSERVED AS A DAY OF PUBLIC PASTING,
HUMILIATION AND PRAYER, BY ORDER OF THE GENERAL
SYNOD OF THE REFORMED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH,
IT BEING THURSDAY OF THE WEEK OF (ECUMENICAL
PRAYER FOR THE CONVERSION OP THE WORLD TO
CHRIST, AND THE LIBERATION OF ALL THE NA-
TIONS PROM BONDAGE AND BIGOTRY, TO HIS
GLORY ; AND ALSO IN OBEDIENCE TO THE
CHIEF MAGISTRATE OF THE UNITED
STATES, WHO HAD ISSUED HIS PROC-
LAMATION, CALLING UPON OUR
CITIZENS TO KEEP SUCH A DAY
HOLY UNTO THE LORD.

By tlie JPastor,

WILLIAM WILSOK, D.D., LL.D.'

" I will make a man more precious than the golden wedge of Ophir." — Isaiah.
" By a man of understanding and kuowledge the state shall be prolonged." — Pbov-
SRBS OP Solomon.

CINCINNATI:

PRINTED BY PEANKLAND & TIDBALL, 28 ^VEST POUETH ST.

1863.

CiNCiNKATi, January 22, 1863.
Rev. and Dear Sir:

We respectfully ask a copy of the Sermon preached by you, in
" The Church of the Covenanters," of which you are Pastor, on this evening,
for publication. Such sentiments, at the present crisis of our country, should
be widely diffused. Our request is our highest encomium upon its merits.
Very respectfully, <fec.

JACOB BLACK, Reformed Pres. Church.
THOS. BUCHANAN, " " "

WM. S. TAYLOR, " " "

ARTHUR ROBINSON, Baptist Cliureh.
K. W. STRONG, " "

JORIi A'RMOHR, Pre8hyterian{0.S.) Church.
ALEXANDER STEWART, Meth. Episcopal.
G. B. ROGERS, 'Wesleyan Methodist.
Rev. Dr. Wilson.

Cincinnati, January 30, 1063.
Gentlemen :

Your respectful request for a copy of the Sermon preached by
me, on the evening of the 22d inst., on the subject of the President's Proclama-
tion of Emancipation, for publication, is before me, and my reply is, that as
soon as convenient, I shall write it out from my brief notes, and give it, through
the press, to the public. This I prefer to its repetition, as has been requested,
at Pike's Opera House. The subject, with its antecedents, concomitants and
consequents, is of no ordinary importance. And as the text from which the
discourse was preached, is, " Show thyself a man," which the dying David
gave in charge to Solomon, his son and successor, so its title shall be, " The
Man foe the Hour."

I am. Gentlemen,

Yours in Christ and his Gospel,

WILLIAM WILSON.
Jacob Black, G. B. Rogers, and others.

ABRAHAM LINCOLN,

PRESIDENT OF THE U N I T E D ST ATE S,

HIS CABINET,

THE CONGRESS, THE JUDICIARY, THE ARMY AND NAVY, AND ALL WHO
SUPPORT THE WAR AGAIN3T REBELLION,

THIS DISCOURSE

IS MOST RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED

THE AUTHOE.

Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive

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Tile Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant

http://www.archive.org/details/manforhoursermonOOwils

SERMON.

1 KiNos, ii : 2. — "Show thyssU a mBn."

These are the words of David, the Shepherd-King of
Israel. He was a child and youth of promise, and a man
of mark throughout his chequered and eventful life.
Endowed by his Creator with the physical, intellectual
and moral elements for being a great man, he early be-
came a child of grace, and devoted himself supremely,
under all his circumstances, to the promotion of the glory
of his God, and the good of his people. Amply and long
trained in the school of adversity, surviving all his foes,
he emerges from obscurity, and ascends the throne of
empire. He was elected of God for this purpose. " He
chose David also his servant, and took him from the
sheep-folds ; from following the ewes great with young
he brought him to feed Jacob his people, and Israel his
inheritance. So he fed them according to the integrity
of his heart ; and guided them by the skilfuluess of his
hands." Being now about to " go the way of all the
earth," he gives this as a part of his solemn dying charge
to Solomon, his son and successor, who, although Adoni-
jah his brother had said, "I will be king," and had, as a
usurper, temporarily reigned, had been made kin^ by his
aged father in his stead, the people submitting to it, be-
cause the kingdom " was his from the Lord." The charge
was not in vain. Solomon, with many infirmities, showed
himself a man. His courage was great, and his wisdom

unparalleled, in tlie management of his private matters,
and the most momentous affairs of state.

Adonijah was a usurper. He was a rebel also, together
with the multitudes, high and low, whoj^'with great fa-
cility, became his followers, against [his father and his
king, against the laws and the throne, and against the
God of order throughout the universe,'^by whom " kings
reign and princes decree justice." So came of it. All
rebellion against right must be extirpated.

Our own country, Christians, as'you well know, is in-
volved in civil war. The cause of this, so far as the
United States is concerned, is the most groundless ; and
it is the most gigantic and atrocious rebellion against the
republic, and therefore against the ordinance of God,
which history has ever recorded. The attack is from the
rebels. The defensive war against them is most right-
Gus and holy. The cause of our nation is the best. God
is for and with us. In his sovereignty, grace and wis-
dom, he has furnished us with a President who shows
himself a man. His Proclamation of Emancipation,
which has been issued on the first of this month, will re-
verberate among all the nations, and, under the smiles of
an approving and all-governing Messiah, produce its ap-
propriate fruits, until the sun shall not look down upon
a slave, nor an oppressor, upon the face of our globe.

And now, my Christian Brethren, called as we are, by
our beloved Zion, and by our worthy Chief Magistrate,
to " sanctify a fast," and penitently, fervently and believ-
ingiy ask from him all promised mercy and aid, in our
emergency, while ascribing to him all the glory, let us,
for a little, attentively and devoutly, consider the three
following topics :

I. The 2^resent crisis of our country requires a Chief Magis-
trate icho shall shoio himself a man.

II. God has always, in every critical emergency, furnished
the MAN FOR THE HOUR; and such a man is Abraham Lin-
coln, the present President of the United States.

III. The obstacles in the way of a successful prosecution of
the war, and its speedy and victorious termination, on the part

of the nation, together with the objections which are daily and
everywhere made both against it and the Administration, impe-
riously demand that he who holds the reins of government,
show himself a man. And,

I. The present crisis of our country requires a Cliief
Magistrate who shall show himself a man. For,

1. The very existence of free civil and religious institu-
tions, of free soil, of free speech, and of a free press, are

at stake.

That these should all be free, under the regulations of
just and wholesome laws, is a truth demonstrated by the
light of nature in the human soul, and by the supernatu-
ral revelation which God has given us in the holy Scrip-
tures. Who that knows and has tasted the sweets of
rational civil liberty, would desire, for a moment, to be
trodden down by the heel of an arbitrary and cruel
tyrant ? " Give me liberty, or give me death," is a senti-
ment worthy of the revolutionary patriot who uttered it,
and should be adopted by all the children of men. This
liberty, however, cannot be enjoyfed where there are not
free civil institutions. And who would live where liberty
of conscience was refused, where the Church of God was
enslaved, and where the pulpit— that mouth of God when
well manned— was gagged, and the " preacher of right-
eousness" was liable to the penalty of a coat of tar and
feathers, or be exiled from his home, or be put to death
without' judge or jury? Can any man intelligently be-
lieve that God made this green earth, which he freely
gave to the children of men. as such, and not to a few,
nor to privileged classes, to the degradation of the many,
in order that^t should groan under the tread of the op-
pressor and his victims? Is not the right to think, and
freely to utter, in a becoming manner, his thoughts, inal-
ienable to man .? Shall a censorship of the press be
established which would prevent it, in every way that is
not licentious, from giving information to the citizens?
These are questions which answer themselves. They need
no direct reply.

Until a very recent date, the trutli that all these should
be free, was considered almost axiomatic in our favored
country, except by some in its Southern section, and even
they ought hardly to be admitted as forming an excep-
tion. This is the theory of our government. All our
national institutions are founded upon it; which every
section of the land voluntarily and solemnly bound itself
to support. "Was it not to secure these blessings to them-
selves and their posterity that the thirteen colonies brake
the annatural and always cruel yoke of Great Britain, at
the Eevolution, and abjured all the despotisms of the
Old World ? These inestimable blessings were not pur-
chased too high when their price was blood, and we are
now called to secure and perpetuate them by blood. The
price must be jDaid, to the fullest extent which the crisis
demands.

Now it is against this government of the people, found-
ed by our fathers under the providence of God, and by
the direction of his Word, so mild, and yet so stern, so
geutle, and yet so strong, that the Southern rebels have
lifted up their heel. The great rebellion has created the
present alarming crisis. It would destroy the nation which
its leaders and armies were sworn to support. Hence our
civil war. The nation must defend itself and the cause
of God and man, or perish, and with it the hopes of man-
kind, and the interest of Immanuel on the earth, so far
as it is concerned, in the present, and in all the future.
And for what end would they destroy the nation ? The
answer is found in their own professions and acts. They
would establish an oligarchy upon the ruins of democ-
racy. They would pervert the elective franchise, and
degrade the ballot-box. They would perpetuate human
slavery where it now is, and extend it in all directions to
territories now free of this curse. They would gyve con-
science, and allow no man to speak out the sentiments of
his soul, or the honest convictions of his heart and con-
science. They would muzzle the pulpit, and, in the name
of religion and patriotism, make hirelings and time-sery-

Ing parasites of tbo ambassadors of Jesus Christ. They
would establish a military despotism, the most lawless
and cruel that was ever felt or witnessed by man. And
O, what specimens of all this they have already far-
nished during their brief and inglorious career ! And
O, what wide-spread and unutterable calamities they
have brought upon themselves, since the commencement
of their rebellion ! We shrink with horror, however,
from touching the subject here any farther. The future
historian will, as far as possible, do it justice.

It is against such, a huge and accursed rebellion, as
well as for its own preservation, and the maintenance
and extension of the blessings already enumerated, that
our nation has engaged in a defensive civil war. Could
it do less ? Shall it not succeed ? Yes. The cause is
God's, and he will not allow it to be dishonored. But m
order to this, it requires a President who shall show him-
self a man; who shall, like Solomon with Adonijah, and
Shimei, and Joab, and with the whole people of Israel,
answer every puzzle as it is proposed, be prepared for
•every emergency as it arises, and do always the right
thing in the right manner, and in the right place ; and
who shall hold the helm of the ship of state, as ISTeptune
his trident on the stormy sea, vigorously, determinedly,
and calmly, until the storm is past, and the waves repose,
when she shall glide on with dignity and rapidity to the
port of national glory.

2. At the present crisis, the great question to be deter-
mined is, " What is the true dignity of man ?"

Man is a o;eneric term, and includes the whole of the hu-
man race. This w aoOqwizoa^ man the creature looking upward,
as the Greek word signifies, is a noble creature. When
he came from the hands of his Creator, he bare his im-
age. But he has lost it by the fall. Still, however, there
are elements of greatness in his character, and there is
majesty in his mien, as he walks out among the works of
God; while the mere animal creation can not behold the
stars, nor scan the heavens, but are prone toward the
earth.

Of this, tlie liitraan species, God never made but a sm--
gle pair — the first parents of all mankind were Adam
and Eve. This is his own testimony in his most holy
Bible; and "it is impossible for God to lie." Adam
called his wife Eve ; because, said he, " she is the mother
of all living. Again, Paul, standing in the midst of Mars-
hill, and addressing the learned Athenians, thus affirms r
" God that made the world hath made of one blood all
the nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of the'
earth ; and hath determined the times before appointed^
and the bounds of their habitation." And the royal
Psalmist David thus affirmeth the doctrine of the unity
nf the human race : " The Lord looketh from heaven ; he'
beholdeth all the sons of men. From the place of his-
habitation he looketh upon all the inhabitants of the-
earth. He fashioneth theik hearts alike." To this phi-
losophy, sound reason and experience cordially and uni-
tedly give in their assent; the vagaries and speculations^
of dreamy infidel, so-called philosophers, or of nominal
Christians, following in their wake, to the contrary not-
withstanding.

The advocates of the duality against the unity of the-
human race, have had chiefly in their view the establish-
ment of the monstrous and brutal doctrine, as of God,-
that a large portion of that race should be enslaved by
the other. But the doctrine is false, and the end of its-
promulgation damnable. The negro is a man. The^
holding of unofifending men in involuntary bondage, is
malum in se, essentially a sin. God never made a negro-
slave, or a negro-slaveholder, as such, any more than he
made "Lucifer, the son of the morning," the DeviL
"God made man upright, but he has sought out many in-
ventions "; and among the worst of these is human sla-
very. The Creator and Disposer of all things gave untO"
man at his creation dominion over all the creatures be-
neath him, in the extended scale of being ; but he never
gave him the right of property in his fellow-creature^
his equal and his brother. " Have we not all one Fatb-

er ?" And you might as easily prove to me that Jehovah
made a law by which water would at once run up-hill
and down-hill, as that the Author of the Decalogue, to
say nothing of the whole of the Old and new Testament
Scriptures, established, or can have fellowship with, ne-
gro slavery. And I have no doubt that one great reason
of his present controversy with all sections of our coun-
try, by which the South has been made one " field of
blood," and scene of all manner of desolations, and the
Korth, although while traveling over its length and its
breadth, it is so tranquil and happy, it is hard for any
person to believe that a most devastating and extermi-
nating civil war is raging in our borders, has been bereft
of so many thousands of her sons, and depleted of so
many millions of her treasure; is, not merely the guilt of
the sin of slavery, but the daring attempt, so generally
made, to bring in God himself as the abettor, and even
founder, of the essentially immoral relation between the
master and his slave, in our land, by philosophy, falsely
so called, and by false and illiterate criticism upon the
sacred Scriptures, on the part of many professed Christ-
ians. ISTow " God has come out of his place to punish ter-
ribly the inhabitants " of our land, for the long-continued
violation of the second of "the two great commandments
of the law, upon which," with the first, "hang all the law
and the prophets," viz., " Thou shalt love thy neighbor
as thyself." But it may be asked, as it was by the young
lawyer in the gospel, " "W ho is my neighbor f To this
the answer is given by Christ himself, the great Teacher,
in the parable of the "man who went down from Jerusa-
lem to Jericho, and fell among thieves," and the kind offi-
ces of the good Samaritan toward him, while the priest
and the Levite " passed by on the other side," that he is
simply our fellow-being, however prosperous or distressed
in his condition. And w^hen the sable sons of Africa, en-
slaved in our land, shall step forth as freemen, it will be
a glorious assertion and vindication of the true dignity
both of the oppressor and the oppressed. For this result
the present crisis had to come. It is worthy of all the
expenditure.

But there is another, and not less important, way in
which the true dignity of man is to be asserted and vin-
dicated at the present crisis, and by the existing civil
war. There is to be a demonstration to all the world,
and to all the coming ages, in onr nation's coming off
from the field of conflict more than a conqueror, of the
fullest capacity of man for self-government, in order to
cheer the patriots of every land, and to affect their op-
pressors as Belshazzar was affected, when he saw the
hand-writing upon the wall. This capacity has been de-
nied by tyrants, and doubted even by sages and saints.
The American Republic has been the largest experiment
of this which the world has ever witnessed. It has ever
been the scoff of the foes of freedom, as well as the object
of their malice and their envy. " The Republics of an-
tiquity," say they, " perished, and this shall share their
fate." Hence the l)ase attitude of England and France
toward ns, in our present conflict. They beheved our in-
stitutions to be like a large paper-house, which the first
wind of insurrection would blow down. This, too, w^as
the faith of that arch-traitor, Jeff' Davis, and of his coad-
jutors, without which they had not brought upon them-
selves such "shame and everlasting contempt," and upon
their country such unutterable woes. But what have they
seen, to their surprise and consternation ? The greatest
army of earth, and a proud navy, raised, as it were, in a
day. The sinews of war, in money, furnished and secured
without hmit; and battles fought in the cause of freedom,
and for the grand principle, that man was endowed with
dio'uity by his maker; that he is capable under God, of
governing himself ; and that life and property are wiUing-
ly held in subservience to honor, to the dignity of man,
and to tlie twin-sisters Liberty and Rehgion, which would
compare favourably with any recorded by history. And
is this not worth this painful, expensive and sanguinary
war? And is it not incumbent upon him who, under
Messiah, supremely holds the reins of the Government in
his hand, that he show himself a man? Such is the com-

mandment addressed to him by the Lord of all. "Show
thyself a man."

3. At the existing crisis, national justice needs not only
to be proclaimed, but enacted and practised.

The American people have truly performed many and
signal exploits. They have twice vanquished Great
Britian, that "destroying mountain ;" first, before they
were a nation, and only scattered over avast and howling
wilderness, and second, as a nation, but still existing in a
state of nonage. They created, under a kind Providence,
there own resources. They have in a short period, over
a vast territory, made the wilderness to smile. They
have become unsurpassed on the ocean ; hav'e built large
cities and villiages ; founded and reared common schools,
colleges and universities ; spanned their vast domains with
canals, rail roads and telegraphic wires ; and have held
out the olive branch of peace to all the nations, while wel-
coming the poor and oppressed of all lands to their hap-
py shores, and furnishing them with a home where, duly
improving the facilities afforded them, they may earn a
competency, or acquire wealth, or arise to posts of honor
and emolument. They have formed treaties of commerce
with, and sent ambassadors to, the nations over the face
of the earth. They have been true to all their national
engagements. Their ambassadors are respected at every
court, and their flag upon every ocean. But they have
done too little in the name of God and his Christ. They
have been too profane, arrogant and self-confident. They
have trusted too much to their powers, and too "lightly
esteemed the T^ock of their salvation." They have seem-
ed to say, and, in effect, have said, with Belshazzar, when
his ruin was at the door, in view of the monuments they
have raised: "Is not this great Babylon which I have
built"? They have attempted to govern God by their in-
ventions, enterprises, and activities ; and have criminally
ascribed their unparalleled successes, not to Him whose
blessing, alone maketh rich without the addition of sor-
row, but unto themselves. They have sacrificed too much

"to their own net, and burned incense to their own drag."
Hence the Supreme Euler of the nations, who " will not
give his glory to another, neither his praise to graven
imasjes," has been justly offended. He has spoken out.
His hand is upon us. He is effectively demonstrating
among us the inspired declaration : " The nations that
forget God, shall be turned into hell."

Now is the time for national repentance, fasting, hu-
miliation and prayer. To this the nation is called by its
estimable President. To this the Church calls us to-day.
Let us put our hearts into the work, in an evangelical
manner. This is the occasion for putting sin far from us,
with loathing and indignation. For "if we regard in-
iquity in our hearts the Lord will not hear us." Let na-
tional justice be done to the four millions of slaves in
our borders, in their emancipation, the enslaving of
whom has given rise to this atrocious rebellion, while
they are obviously the right arm of its power for the de-
struction of our once happy, ^Drosperous and promising
Republic. Who would have peace, after the severe lesson
we have been taught, and are still being taught, with this
curse of God in our bosom, which, sooner or later, could
not fail to produce the same or worse causes for " weep-
ing, and lamentation, and mourning, and woe ?" This is
manifestly the voice of God to us in our present deep
affliction. " Touch not the unclean thing ; but put it away
far from your midst. Execute, Joshua, my law upon
Achan, and you shall surely conquer Ai." But the thing
is done. ^National justice has been proclaimed and
enacted by the proper authority, in the most appropriate
terms. The rebellion ipso facto is dead, and he who has
killed it, as by the deed he has shown himself a Man, so
he shall receive the admiration and the thanks of the
nation, the nations, and of all posterity.

4. In the present crisis the glory of God is deeply in-
volved.

It is true the essential glory of God can neither be in-
creased nor diminished, but his declarative glory may.

Wicked men, laws, institutions and practices dishonor
diim. Those of the opposite character promote his glory,
•*'Whoso ofFereth praise glorifieth me." And is not his
glory profoundly concerned in the preservation of this
mighty, Protestant, Christian nation, through which he
has done so much good in the past, and which he has
laden with incalculable blessings for all the w^orld, and
for all the future ages; as well as in the utter extirpation
of this uncaused and unholy rebellion against it ? Did
he not plant it? lias he not copiously watered it ? Is
he not now pruning it for its good ? If the civil war in
which we are now involved be, on the one side for, and
-on the other side against, free civil and religious institu-
tions, free men, free soil, free labor, free speech, and a
free press, can any sane man suppose that he will not
utterly crush out the latter, for the glorj^ of his own great
name? Think you that he intends to be dishonored by
the Vandal rebels demolishing the fair temple of liberty,
law, and religion, and carrying their barbarities, their
savag'eism, and their slavery over the land ? Is not civil
government the ordinance of God ? and is not the civil
magistrate his vicegerent ? Therefore, " whosoever re-
■sisteth the powder resisteth the ordinance of God; and
they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation."
This rebellion against lawfully constituted civil govern-
ment, although immediately against it, is ultimately
against Messiah, upon whose shoulders, by the arrange-
ments of the eternal council of peace, the government of
the universe is laid. God is with us in this war. And
" if God be for us, who can be against us ?"

It is true the sins of the Free States are innumerable,
but they are not like the sum of all sins — JSTegro Slavery.
For these we are now receiving severe but merited chas-
tisement. But God will not cast oif the nation. Thus
he dealt wuth the Israelites. He chastised them, but
spared them ; and all to the glory of his own name.
Hear his language : " I said I would scatter them into
corners, I would make the remembrance of them to

cease from among men ; were it not that I feared the
wrath of the enemy, lest their adversaries should behave
themselves strangely, and lest they should say : Our hand
is high, and the Lord hath not done all this." And we
may well rejoice that the Executive of our nation views
the subject in this light, and makes his appeal to the
Christian's God for help, in order to the promotion of his
own glory. Hereby he shows himself a Man.

II. God has always, in every emergency, furnished the
MAN FOE THE HOUR ; and such a man is Abraham Lincoln,
the present President of the United States.

1. The manner in which he came to the high, honorable
and responsible station which he now so worthily occu-
pies, sufficiently indicates that the Sovereign Disposer of
all persons and things had chosen him as the man for the
hour.

It is well known that President Lincoln is a man
of humble, but highly honorable, pedigree. This is his
glory, considering the eminenceto which he has attained..
In the ordinary pursuits of life, he always did his busi-
ness well. Having become a lawyer by his own efforts^
through the assistance and benediction of God, he ac-
quitted himself at the bar, in the remote Springfield, Illi-
nois, with decided but unostentatious distinction. There
he was known to be a good citizen, and an ingenious
man. He served with honor his constituents, in the
Senate of the United States, and there is nothing recorded
of him there as more remarkable, when taken in connec-
tion with what has actually taken place, than his cheer-
ful jesting — in which he is understood to be an adept —
in relation to what he would do when he came to be
President of the United States. He debated successfully
with the late Hon. Stephen A. Douglas, in his own State^
upon the subject of Slavery. He read his lecture, by in-
vitation, at the Cooper Institute, in the city of New
York, a short time before his nomination to the Presi-
dency. But he did not seem to be a politician, and was
not spoken of, even by his own party, as a candidate for

its nomination, in May, 1860, at Chicago. Another dis-
tinguished man was their favorite, with whom they
declared they would rather he defeated than succeed with
another. And when the news of his nomination spread
over the land, as on the lightning's wing, there were
great disappointment and dissatisfaction, very generally,
among the Republican party, his own, not on account
of objections to him, but because the man of their choice
had not been selected. When nominated, he behaved
himself. lie stayed at home, giving attention to his do-
mestic and professional duties. He made no long jour-
neys, nor spake under the burning sun, nor under torrents
of rain, in order to secure his election. He left the result
with God. God placed him in the Presidential chair.
This is instructive to future aspiring politicians.

All this is in conformity with the uniform ways of
God. "His ways are not as our ways; nor his thoughts
as our thoughts." It is well to be noted and pondered.
History is meaningless, and comparatively useless, with-
out the recognition of this. This truth Adonijah hand-
somely states, in his address to Bathsheba : " Thou
knowest that the kingdom was mine, and that all Israel
set their faces on me, that I should reign ; howbeit the
kingdom is turned about, and is become my brother's, for
it was his from the Lord." " Promotion," says the Psalm-
ist, " cometh neither from the East, nor from the West,
nor from the South. But God is the Judge : he putteth
down one, and setteth up another." I^Tebuchadnezzar
was made to herd " with the beasts of the field," " till he
should know that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom
-of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will." And
Daniel thus affirmeth : " He removeth kings, and setteth
up kings." How happy for a free people, when the man
of their choice is elected of God !

2. His intellectual qualities indicate that the Supreme
Ruler of the nations prepared and selected him, as the
man for the hour.

I am not to be understood as pronouncing a mere

eulogy upon the President of the United States. That
be far from me. Mere flattery is a sin, and is akin to
calumny. Both proceed from the same principle, or
rather from the want of any principle. " I know not to
give flattering titles ; in so doing my Maker would soon
take me away."

Neither would I be understood as meaning to affirm
that he is a prodigy of learning and intellect. This is
not requisite. For there are many of such who could
not safely be entrusted with his high and responsible
position. He is by no means one of those visionary and
chimerical philosophers, whom Gulliver in his travels
found, learnedly, seriously and hopefully, engaged in en-
deavoring to " extract sunbeams from cucumbers." He
is a practical man. He possesses both tact and talent.
He has common sense.

My remarks, too, in regard to the whole character of
the President, will be enhanced in value when it is con-
sidered that I do not owe him anything, and that I have
no personal object to accompHsh by what I utter. I
speak in justice to the man and the cause which he is
honored to represent and promote, and for the good of
our afilicted nation.

Mr. Lincoln, it is known, is a self-made man. This is
all the better for, and the more honorable to, his charac-
ter and his intellectual powers. For the man who hon-
orably cuts his own way to learning, fame and fortune,
must, it is evident, possess more merit than he who, hav-
ing hereditary wealth, is pushed by his parents or patrons
through schools and colleges, without knowing much, if
anything, about self-exertion and self-reliance. He pos-
sesses a bodily figure which would entitle him to be
taken as a remarkable man, in any place, or in any
sphere of life. There is room enough in it for a large
soul. His learning is high and sound ; what he knows is
with definiteness and certainty. This is the only knowl-
edge that is available to any man. All his intellectual
faculties are of no common order. His memory is good ;

his judgment sound ; his perceptive qualities keen and
clear ; his understanding capacious and enlightened ; and
his power of concentration, selection and discrimination
remarkable. Even the peculiarity of his idiosyncrasy
and ratiocination stamps and proclaims him the man for
the hour. He is cool and deliberate — takes a large view
of his subject — investigates everything for himself — hears
the opinions of the members of his distinguished Cabinet —
and then forms his own judgment, upon which, as he
ought, he, with firmness, acts. He is perfectly accessible,
affable and communicative, but no man was more non-
committal than he.

His published debate with Douglas — his brief addresses
on his way from Springfield to Washington, so varied
and so apropos — and his messages and letters, as well as
his whole course, since he sat in the Presidential chair,
as they furnish fair specimens of, so they speak
very highly for, his intellectual qualities.

3. His moral and religious qualities evince that he
was prepared and selected by Jehovah, as the man for
the hour.

There is not so much delicacy clustering about this
particular as the former, and, therefore, I shall proceed
to its elucidation at once. A certain distinguished
writer — Dean Swift — who was well acquainted with hu-
man nature, says, in substance, that no man is so much
offended if you reproach his moral character as if you
reproach his intellect.

Abraham Lincoln, President of these United States,
is, without controversy, represented by those who knew
him best, to have been a youth of noble and exemplary
character. He cultivated his soul, and studied and prac-
tised temperance in all things. Having emerged into
manhood, he became the chaste husband of one wife.
He has since proved himself to be a good and faithful
husband, and a kind and loving father. He has been
found true and faithful in all the relations of life. He
has been a good citizen, a good neighbor, a man of

charity, of enterprise, and a trusty friend. Perhaps
there never was a man, in public political life, whose
record was more clear. He is conscientious almost to
excess. He is kind, even to his enemies, to a fault. He
is just in all his dealings with men. He is merciful and
philanthropic. He is gentle, bland, cheerful and facetious.
He is prudent and sagacious. He is gentle and yet firm.
He has an iron will. In few men have the suaviter in
modo, et fortiter in re, been more happily exhibited. He
beautifully unites the rd ^pe-ov with the to xadrjy.ov,
and blends right with propriety. This is his record
in comparative obscurity, and, since his elevation to the
Presidency, the citizens of the metropolis, instead of his
being spoiled like the most of men, will add to its luster.
He is an honest man. The purity of his purpose, in the
management of affairs, is known to all. And with regard
to his religious qualities, which are the only pedestal
upon which good morals can rest, [ believe him to be a
God-fearing man. He is, indeed, an " able man, a man
fearing God, and hating covetousness." He keeps
sacredly the Christian Sabbath, or Lord's Day, called
in the Constitution Sunday. He is a devout and atten-
tive worshipper of God in the sanctuary. Under his
eye the Capitol is a model for the best of the cities of
our land, or of Christendom. All places of trade, except-
ing apothecaries' shops, are closed. The street railroads
do no business. Comparative stillness reigns. Listen
to his invocations of the God of Washington, in all his
speeches on his journey to the metropolis in order to be in-
augurated as President of a great people, in stormy
times, to which office they had confidingly and joyously
elected him. "Why, it puts me in mind of the language
of the prophet Elisha, when about to perform his first
miracle, after the ascension of Elijah to the heavenly
glory : " Where is the Lord God of Elijah ?" And look
at his messages and proclamations. Why, the one under
which we meet this evening, as a Christian document,
would do honor to any Church on earth. And this is

from principle. He is a man above duplicity or insin-
cerity. This is the man that God has elected and pre-
pared for this trying, momentous and solemn hour.

4. His Proclamation of Emancipation demonstrates
that God has chosen, and endowed, and nerved him as
the man for the hour.

This act stamps and exhibits our President as a man
among men — as entitled to rank, as he will rank in all
the future, with the greatest and the most courageous of
men. Like the hero of old — a noble Roman — he has
"jumped into the burning gulf, which could not be
stopped but by the oracle of his own wisdom." He has
answered the riddle of the Sphinx, and, therefore, shall
not be degraded, nor slain, but be more than a conqueror.
He rises with emergencies and difficulties. Like ISTa-
poleon the Great, he climbs the Alps rather than relin-
quish his object. "JSTo turning back! but onward! ox-
ward !" is his motto. He acts in the spirit of, and in
obedience to, the counsel of the Latin author : " ne cede
mails, sed contra audentior ito." This Proclamation of
Emancipation, as I have elsewhere said and published,
will take its place with Magna Charta and the Declara-
tion of American Lidependence.* It is hardly inferior
to the theses which the immortal Luther nailed to the
doors of the Church at Wittemburgh, by which he threw
down the gauntlet against the apostate Church of Rome,
and " the whole world which wondered after the beast."
It is the declaration of God's truth before a rebellious
mob, and other nations laughing at our calamities, and

* The Ohio Presbytery of the Reformed Presbyterian Church unanimously
adopted the following minute upon this subject :

"The Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States,
bearing date September 22, 1863, we regard, and, no doubt, enlightened and
liberal men over all the earth will regard, as one of the greatest events, and
one of the best signs, of our extraordinary times. To have been destined to
issue it is glory enough for one man. It will stand in future history in the
same category with Magna Charta, and the Declaration of Independence. It
is a living, hearty, and generous seed, which will produce, through God, much
good, local and world-wide fruit. It will save and exalt our nation. It is,
in the result, the death of Slavery and Rebellion. 'This also cometh forth
from the Lord of Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in
working.' "

trying, cowardlj, witliout the declaration of, thongh
virtually at, war against us, to lielp forward, by all con-
traband means, our tribulations. It is the death of the
great rebellion, as the sequel will unquestionably demon-
strate. It mortally wounds the monster, although it
may, for a time, kick, and writhe, and vainly struggle
for restoration to health, and to destroy its conqueror.
In one of my published sermons, entitled, " The Cause
of the United States Against the Eebel Confederacy,"
etc., I styled this, " The great rebellion of 1861 and
'62." In this I now rejoice. For on the 1st of January,
1863, the cause of these conspirators against God and
man, was lost forever. It is, too, in the result, the death
of slavery. Slaveholders and traitors may afiect to
sneer at it, as so much waste paper. They know better.
It sounds to them such an alarm as they never heard
before. And its constitutionality cannot be questioned
by any intelligent and candid man, both as an act of just-
ice and of military necessity. For is not the Executive
the Commander-in-chief of the army and navy, tacitly
but really, empowered to do everything in his power, that
is moral, m a state of foreign or of civil war. to save the
nation over which he presides? And if the constitu-
tional toleration — not establishment — of slavery be re-
pudiated by the traitors and rebels, is it not the i^rovince
of the Chief Magistrate, in accordance with the Consti-
tution and his own oath of office, to let justice have her
free course, in the total and perpetual overthrow of the
black institution in the seceded States ? Yerily, it was
a military necessity, a matter of justice, and a golden
opportunity, furnished by the rebels themselves, for per-
forming an act of justice, and for wiping away forever
the deep and foul disgrace of Republican America.

Were this the place, or the occasion, or did time per-
mit it, it were easy to show, by the most rigid and fair
calculation, that if slavery were permitted to live, it
would, in the lapse of time. Africanize, at least the United
States, just as certainly as the slaveholders' war is now

attempting, by its guerrillas, to Mexjcanize them. If
there be not vital force in the body politic to throw it oft",
it will destroy it. It has been at the basis of all our
national troubles. It has alienated one section of the
Union, all along from the period of its formation, from
the other. It has made Congress, instead of attending
to the affairs of the nation, a proverb and a reproach, not
07jly at home, but all over the world, as a mere arena for
gladiators — a great political bear-garden. It has fur-
nished the occasion and the pretext to our enemies
abroad, such as England and France, to interfere in our
domestic affairs, first, in favor of its immediate abolition,
and second, — 0, the hypocrisy and the villainy ! — to
sympathise with, and covertly but materially aid, the re-
belhon for the overthrow of the nation, and for the per-
petuation and propagation of this monstrous evil, and
earth-defiling, and heaven-daring iniquity. It has defiled,
and degraded, and ruined the South, and the North this
day sufiers severely for tolerating it at all, or for any
complicity she may have had with the hideous immo-
rality. It has provoked a just but patient God to over-
throw the whole Eepublic, — and it is near enough to this
at the present day, — " as when he overthrew Sodom and
Gomorrah." It has plunged our peaceful and prosper-
ous country into an unnatural and bloody civil war,
bringing almost complete ruin to the South, and covering
the North with anguish and weeping for her children
slain by the sword, for her depleted treasures, and for
the broken fortunes and the broken hearts of the best
of her citizens. What that is evil has it not done?
What that is evil is it not capable of doing?

"Who is it then that desires or asks the Union to be
restored as it was ? Would we have the same horrible
scenes enacted, or worse, every four years ? Would
desolated but once proud Virginia, or any other insurgent
State, desire the restoration of the Union, by embracing
slavery once more in its bosom ? If so, their infatuation
is not cured by the hardest lessons of experience. But

the question is not wlietlier the seceded States would or
would not have the Union as it was. They cannot, if
they would. They left the V nion for slavery : they can-
not come back with it. And as to the Free States, will
they ever lay down their conquering and glorious arms,
until this point be definitely and forever settled ? A re-
stored Union with slavery ! Forbid it, Eternal Justice !
Forbid it, our murdered soldiers ! Forbid it, our be-
reaved parents, and wives, and brothers, and sisters !
Forbid it, our disconsolate, and unprotected, and perish-
ing widows and fatherless children ! Forbid it, a deso-
lated South ! ! ! No, no. It ought not to be : it cannot
be. I most solemnly protest against it, in the name of
humanity outraged by the proposition ; and of God,
who is provoked by the challenge thrown down to him
to smite us still more and more. Slavery has brought us
into deep waters. Let not the sword be laid down or
returned to its scabbard, until this cause of our sorrows,
in every becoming way, be abolished finally and for ever.
The Border States stand most in the way, with the
exception of Missouri, which has nobly determined to
accept the offered compensation for the emancipation of
her slaves, of carrying out the sagacious, righteous and
patriotic object of the Proclamation. They have always
been conditionally for the Union. Where would it now
be, had it been left to their tender mercies, or to their
patriotism? What soldiers did they ever send to save
the National Capitol ? Were they not shot down in Bal-
timore who came up to the rescue? The "armed neu-
trality" of Kentucky at the critical moment! Fy
shame ! She now rejects compensation for emancipa-
tion, and clings to slavery ! And it is with pain that I
read the elaborate, disingenuous and earnest article of
the distinguished Rev. Dr. R; J. Breckinridge, against
the constitutionality of the Proclamation. He has justly
great influence with the slaveholders of Kentucky, and
with any community, whether civil or religious, that has
proclivities toward " the peculiar institution." He has

written well against the rebellion, and in favor of the
Union. He ought to have thrown his influence in favor
of compensation for emancipation. But when I con-
sider that he is the author — so far as my reading and
knowledge extend — of the plan of three confederacies,
of which Vallandigham and others are merely the copy-
ists, I am not at all astonished at his present unenviable
position. This plan or suggestion will be found in his
published sermon, preached on President Buchanan's
National Fast Day. What is the cause of these things ?
It is slavery. " O slavery, disguise thyself as thou
wilt, thou art still a bitter draught !" Still, the plan of
compensation is a good one, and, if the Proclamation be
carried out, must prevail. The calamity of slavery must
be removed, and, as it is a common one, the nation, as
such, ought to remunerate the slaveholders.

Meanwhile it is happy that, through the grace and
overruling providence of the Most High, the man for the
hour, whom all may trust, occupies the Presidential
chair. He is a man whose intentions are right, and who
is, discreetly, prudently, cautiously, thoughtfully, intelli-
gently and fearlessly, tenax propositi. And, I doubt not,
he will redeem his pledge, in the premises, so often re-
peated by him on his journey to Washington for inaugu-
ration to his high office : " When I set down my foot, it
shall stay there." "And who knoweth whether thou art
come to the kingdom for such a time as this? "

And I now dismiss this topic by the following quota-
tion from the Proclamation of Emancipation, which
should be printed in letters of gold, and circulated, along
with the rest of it, all over the world : " And upon this
act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted
by the Constitution, upon military necessity, I invoke
the considerate judgment of mankind, and the gracious
favor of Almighty God."

III. The obstacles in the way of the successful prose-
cution of the war, and its speedy and victorious termina-
tion, on the part of the nation, together with the objec-

(

tions which are daily and everywhere made against it
and the Administration, imperiously demand that he
who holds the reins of Government should show him-
self a man.

1. The first obstacle which I specify, is the character,
magnitude, and strength of the rebellion, the unprepar-
edness of the United States for meeting and quashing it
at once, when it brake out, and the vast extent of coun-
try and of coast which it covers, or by which it is de-
fended ; as well as the officious intermeddling of Eng-
land and France, whose influence, with their secret
emissaries, had so much to do with the outbreak at first,
in fomenting, engendering and encouraging it, and which
have, from the beginning, while not daring to declare
war against the United States, rendered to it the most
efficient assistance.

This is the Great Kebellion of past or present history.
Its leaders and chieftains, as well as instigators, are men
of considerable science and mark. Their followers are
many millions, accustomed to liberty and to extravagant
notions of chivalry and independence. It is past the mid-
dle of the nineteenth century when it breaks out, and has
all the advantages of modern improvements and discove-
ries in the art of war, and in the munitions and weapons
of defense to itself, and of wholesale destruction to its an-
tagonist. It is an insurrection against brethern, and no In-
dian raid or Sepoy revolt, with whom the traitors were
solemnly bound to co-operate, and whose welfare, to
their own highest advantage, they were in all things to
promote. This embitters it. For " a brother ofi'ended is
harder to be won than the bars of a castle." It is a rising
up against an unoffending nation, prompted by unhallowed
personal ambition ; and, it is well known, that those who
are addicted to this are very reckless and unscrupulous in
their course, and will die rather than not accomplish their
nefarious objects. Hatred to liberty, and its abettors and
advocates, love of human slavery, and the hope of found-
ing a great Southern empire, of which slavery shall be

indisputably the corner stone, and which shall bid defiance
to the whole world; combined with utter alienation
of heart from, and aversion to, the largest jjortion of the
people of the union chiefly because they stand in the way
of this project, prompt these Nimrods to hunt after power —
these foolish builders upon foundations of sand, like the
men of Babel of old, to raise up a superstructure which
shall reach up unto heaven, and overshadow and over-
awe the earth. But they. shall as certainly be divided in
their tongues and scattered abroad as were their insane
and heaven-daring prototypes. It is a rebeUion of des-
peration whose instigators and conductors have staked
their all upon the issue, and whose motto is, "Kule or ru-
in," and that the greatest and the best government and
nation under the sun. It is a rebelhon, too, of powerful re-
sources. For, through tobacco, cotton and negroes, its
supporters had acquired great wealth, which they abused;
and are now suffering for " the sin of Sodom", which
"was idleness, and fuhiess of bread." They believed
that Cotton was King, or else they Ijad not madly plung-
ed themselves into the stagnant, mortiferous gulf of seces-
sion ; and, as is but too evident, but for fear of the United
States, France and Fngland, with all pomp and parade,
would have put a crown of glory upon his head. The
area of their territory is vast and varied, and they have a
coast of some three thousand miles,which, from the nature
of the case, as, for example, in the matter of blockade,
must be a defense to them and a weakness to us. It was
this which made Bull Run Eussell, of the London Times,
give it as his opinion that the Rebellion could not be put
down. The unholy movement is guided by men of con-
siderable military skill, and of talents that would have
been respectable, had their deportment been commensu-
rate with their privileges. Their despotism is the most
severe and relentless. Their conscription knows no
limits nor mercy. Savage warfare, in all places and
ages, has been clement, gentle and holy, when compared
with their barbarities and inhumanities. It is, verily, a
gigantic and formidable emeute.

Anotlier formidable obstacle to the crusbing of tbe re-
bellion in the head, is found in the utter want of prepara-
tion, on the part of the Government, so suddenly, so
causelessly, so wantonly, and so ruthlessly assailed, for
meeting the emergency, and for blotting it out at once
and forever. The traitors had been concocting; their
schemes for some thirty years. They had founded the
order of the Knights of the Golden Circle, for the secret
subversion of the Government — they had placed their
serpentine coils around the Democratic party of the
IlTorth, which they at Charleston — the first in crime, and
the doomed city — ^brake up, in order that, through it, they
might accomplish their unhallowed objects — and they had
wormed and sworn themselves into high offices in order
that, like the Floyds and the Thompsons, they might
betray and rob the nation. And lo, anon, like a thunder-
clap at noon, in a clear sky, the rattlesnake and black
flag of secession and rebellion are unfurled ! This, as
South Carolinians assured me on our passage to Liver-
pool, in the Jura, in 1860, and as ex-Governor Adams,
who figured so largely in the Secession Convention, at
Charleston, on my return, in the Asia, was determined
upon, no matter who should be elected, except he should
be from a slave State. A beautiful and consistent speci-
men, surely, of strict construction of the Constitution,
and of State Eights !

In the meantime, while the South has been so long
preparing for the utter subversion of the Government,
by any and every means she could employ, we are a
people " dwelling at ease, like the Zidonians." By con-
stitutional law we can have no standing army — our
treasury and our arsenals are robbed — our arms and am-
munition are sent down South — and our forts are seized
by the traitors. Everything has to be begun from the
very foundation. To all this is added, an almost infatu-
ated incredulity in "the malice prepense and intention
damnable " of the rebels. It is supposed the storm will
pass over, and that with gentle treatment they can be

brought back to their allegiance. How formidable the
obstacle thus presented !

England and France, moreover, have had much to do,
both with the commencement and continuation of the
rebellion and the war. They view this Eepublic with an
evil eye. Aside from spite and resentment in regard to
her humiliation, more than once, by America, Albion cor-
dially agrees with her unnatural and dangerous ally,
France, that this nation ia too large and formidable for
them, and that, somehow, it ought to be dismembered.
Hence the unquestionable encouragement given by them
to the rebels, at the outstart, of the recognition of the
Confederacy. Hence the perpetual agitation of the sub-
ject of their recognition, which has kept up their hopes,
and stimulated them to perseverance in their suicidal
and unblessed designs. Hence the cant, and whining,
and sentimentalism deprecating the shedding of blood in
this war, by those whose hands have been imbrued in
blood over all the earth, "from sultry India to the
poles," and from the East to the West. And hence the
aid and comfort furnished to the conspirators, in every
way possible, by nations with whom we are at peace.
But the Lord laugheth at them ; for he seeth their day
coming. This continent will be, ere long, exclusively
our own. All these things, walls of difficulty, in the
case, which are very hard to overleap, shall be scaled ;
and the compensation, under God, in view of them, is
that our President shows himself the man for the hour.

2. Treason and traitors in our own camp constitute a
most formidable obstacle to the suppression of the rebel-
lion, and to the restoration of peace and prosperity,
upon the basis of greatly augmented liberty and right-
eousness. This is a fact too obvious to need either illus-
tration or demonstration. You know it. The Free
States are swarming with them, if they dare show their
hands, or speak out their sentiments. They call them
Copperheads, as denoting that they are peculiarly venom-
ous, and belong to the reptile species, and they are cer-

tainly more dangerous than the South Carolina rattle-
snake. "Without the presence or existence of these, as
the Richmond papers testify, before a gun was fired, the
rebellion would never have broken out. Jeff. Davis and
his fellow-traitors confidently expected that the whole of
the Free States would be in a state of anarchy, and on
flames, as soon as they had formed their Confederacy.
They had good reason for this. But O, how bitter was
their disappointment, when, at the crisis, they found that
the ISTorth was united for their overthrow ! But al-
though, as a whole, the IS'orth was united, after the fall
of Fort Sumter, for the extirpation of the rebellion,
treason and traitors were secretly at work everywhere ;
in the army and the navy, in both houses of Congress,
among the clerks in the several departments at Wash-
ington, and in the highest official stations, and in all
the walks of life. This greatly helped the rebels, and
embarrassed and crippled all the efforts of the Govern-
ment. Its most important secrets were known at Rich-
mond before they were divulged in "Washington. So it
was with the plans of our naval and military command-
ers. This obstacle in the way of wiping out the rebel-
lion has been almost insuperable. A traitor in the camp
is more dangerous than hosts of avowed enemies. The
character of these domestic traitors is too well known to
need description.

By and by the old party lines must be drawn. What!
keep up parties in a nation when it is assailed by a for-
midable insurrection and an aggressive civil war, and
when its very existence is threatened or called into ques-
tion? Could honest patriotism ever commit such an
eggregious blunder ? Better to have the nation first saved
and secured, and then attend to party issues afterwards.
To this the closest unity and the most harmonious and
vigorous co-operation of the whole people are requisite.
Shall fathers give their sons to the cannon's mouth, in
the defense of their country, and stay at home them-
selves in order that the elections shall be against the

Administration and the war ? How treasonable and pre-
posterous ! This required the President to show himself
a man. He has proved himself to be the man for the
hour. And in doing this he has been assisted and en-
couraged, by the dropping, for the moment, of all party
distinctions among all loyal men, and by the hearty and
united efforts of Republicans and Democrats to sustain
the Government, and to bring the war to a victorious
close. Among these stands prominent that pure patriot,
and Democrat of the old school. Governor David Tod,
of Ohio. He has virtually said to his party, while re-
maining true to it as ever : "As I now do to you, so do
with me. I am for my country. Away with everything
partisan until the war is over, and our bleeding nation is
saved."

3. But it is objected by traitors in our midst, and even
well-meaning, but simple and undiscriminating loyal men,
too easily believe it : " There has been a great expendi-
ture of blood and treasure, but still there is nothing
done." And this is a great obstacle cast in the way of
the Administration.

I almost scorn to notice or to answer this objection or
allegation. It is the language either of the liar, the ig-
noramus or the traitor. I deny its truth. It is sheer
falsehood. ISTothing done ! Did ever any nation do so
much, in the same length of time, since the wheels of
time were set in motion, as has been done by our own
nation ? May I not proudly point you to her exhausted
treasury, now so well replenished; to the national cur-
rency, created by the master mind in the Treasury De-
partment ; to the great annual revenue secured by a sys-
tem which hardly anybody feels ; to the able diplomacy
of the distinguished and learned occupant of the Depart-
ment of State, by which our principles and position are
irredarguably asserted and vindicated before the nations ;
to the proud and well-manned navy, which has been
raised, under the direction of its able and competent Secre-
tary ; to the sagacious and able conduct of the "War De-

partment in all that concerns our armies ; or to what has
already, been accomplished for the reduction and exter-
mination of this accursed rebellion? Surely, he who
runs here, if he be not like the bird of night, may read,
and he that readeth may understand. ISTothing done 1
Is it nothing to raise a million of soldiers, or more, and
to have them well-drilled, well-equipped, well-clothed,
well-fed, and, in the main, well-officered ; to have them
occupy vantage positions in the heart of the enemy's
country for striking, at the proper time, a decisive blow ;
to have redeemed Western Yirginia, and saved all the
Border States ; to have repelled invasion by the rebels,
again and again, both actual and threatened ; to get the
heart of our patriotic citizens into the war, as, on our
side, a war of principle ; and to have made ample pre-
parations for cutting in twain, at no remote date, the
rebel confederacy, and for bringing down its strength to
the earth? Nothing done! Can the objector "see
when good cometh ?" These things, and far more, ac-
complished, are the result of the instrumentality of the
man for the hour, his able coadjutors, and the unwonted
patriotism of our citizens. The things done are chiefly
preparatory. They will, ere long, be followed by the
most astounding, and, to all who are patriotic, the most
cheering, consequences.

4. Again, it is objected by traitors, and by loyal men
who are not well-informed, or who lack ballast in their
minds, that the war is too long protracted ; that we have
had sad reverses, and but little success ; and that, there-
fore, the war should be forthwith abandoned, and peace,
on almost any terms, be made with those who are now
in arms for the total subversion of liberty, and the total
overthrow of our nation.

The war too long protracted ! This is the constant
hue and cry of traitors and weaklings in our midst ; of
the British and French tory press ; and of the friends
of absolutism in the French Chambers, and in
the British Parliament, as well as in the Cabinets

of both of these nations, not excepting Monsieur Louis
Napoleon, " the dark man at the Tuilleries." But the
noble Victoria, " Queen of the Isles," and the heart of
these, and indeed of all nations, is with the United
States in this contest for principles, which must yet
beautify and bless the world.

It will not be two years until sometime in next April,
since the President called, after the fall of Fort Sumter^
for seventy-five thousand men, to resist the rebellion.
The South had been at war against us long before this.
And call you this a long war ? Do they call it so, for
sinister purposes, who are never out of war, and whose
" hands are full of blood "? Did it not take the British
empire at least five years to finish the war in Spain, for
the expulsion of the French? And a glance at the map
will show you that Spain is but very little larger than
the State of Virginia. Did it not require " the seven
years' war " for all Europe to conquer l!^apoleon the
Great, when tender-hearted England, so horrified by
bloodshed in America, incarcerated and murdered him,
in the most pusillanimous manner, in the island of St.
Helena ? How long did the wars of the Eoses,. or those
between the houses of York and of Lancaster, last?
How long was the war of the American Revolution ?
Did not "the thirty years' war" succeed the ever-
memorable and blessed Protestant Reformation ? The
fact is, truth and war are the means ordained of God
for bringing in the Millennium, in all its effulgence and
glory. Truth is the olive-branch of peace extended to
the nations, but they hate it, and make war upon it and '
its votaries. But neither it nor they will ever yield.
The Devil must be resisted. Rebellion, everywhere, must
be buried, like the body of Moses, so that no man shall
be able to find it. The war too long protracted ! Why,
if it takes a hundred, a thousand years, or any indefinite ■
period of time, however long, it must go on, until the
great principles for which the United States contend be
rendered absolutely triumphant, in the subjugation of

the rebels, and in the onward accelerated march of civil
and religious liberty. . .....

Too long protracted! The war against iniquity,
whether individual or social, can never cease, where vir-
tue exists, until it, as ashamed, shall for ever hide its de-
formed head. The London Times, from the information
which it received from its notorious correspondent, Mr.
Kussell, of the first battle at Bull Eun, very sagely as-
serted that, considering its magnitude, this must be the
battle of Armageddon. In this it shows itself to be as
much at home in prophecy as it is in geography. This
is the same sheet that, a number of years ago, informed
its readers that certain things had occurred m Pennsyl-
vania, in.the State of Philadelphia ! and again, that such
and such things existed either in the State of Massachu-
setts or ^ew England; it could not be certam which,
but it was positively in one of the two ! This is worthy
of those who will affirm to an American traveler, with
all confidence, upon the banks of the Thames, that it is
the largest river in the world! The truth is, that the
masses of the English are so self-sufficient, so wrapped
up in themselves, and so averse to Republican institu-
tions that they do not wish to know much about us, m
order that they may deal out more copiously their envi-
ous and venomous slanders. The battle of Armageddon
forsooth, in America! Let the rotten boroughs and
dynasties of the Old World know that, if Europe, or any
of its powers, interfere in our domestic concerns, it will
lead to the battle of Armageddon, not on our shores, but
in the Latin Empire, the seat of the Beast. And when
that day comes— and it is, doubtless, at the doors —
whatever part of the old holy Roman Empire, m its
present divided state and Antichristian character, be
the scene of the tremendous conflict, if liberty and re-
ligion be imperiled, rejuvenated America, although tor-
bidden by Washington to involve herself in the quarrels
or pohtics of foreign nations, with her glorious stars and
stripes, and her proud, soaring and royal eagle, will be

there, to show her hand in the best of services for God
and the world. Let each of them beware ! " Why
shouldcst thou meddle to thine hurt?"

And with regard to our disasters, I have only to say
that, in my judgment, we have not had enough of them.
Anything in war is better than the timid, procrastinating
and do-nothing policy. As " it is good for a man that
he bear the yoke in his youth," so, as this is the youth
of the war, it is good, in our want of experience, to
have met with all our disasters. We have measured
weapons with the enemy. We know their spirit and
pluck, their whereabouts and their resources. We have
ascertained, moreover, what is to be remedied or im-
proved among ourselves. This is invaluable. Had Fort
Sumter not been captured, the Free States would, in all
probability, have gone for peaceable secession. The
good in things evil, under the dominion of Jehovah, can
not be estimated. And why do the traitorous and faint-
hearted at home, or the enemies of our cause and country
abroad, magnify our reverses, and urge them as a reason
for concluding the war by an unjust and inglorious
peace ? What army ever went into the field without
meeting with disasters ? Even England, that mighty
pugilist and gladiator over the earth, met with so many
disasters in her war with the French, under Napoleon
Bonaparte, that Sir Walter Scott said, as tidings after
tidings of losses, repulses and defeats came across the
waters, that he had almost ceased to believe in the over-
ruling providence of God ; and so low was the credit of the
nation sunk, that a vote of thanks was moved in Parlia-
ment, by the opposition, to the Premier, for his endeavors
and success in negotiating a small loan to meet the emer-
gency. And what of the disasters of the English and
French combined, at Inkerman and Sebastopol, when en-
deavoring to uphold the tottering throne of the Turk ?
Did not the Sepoy insurrection visit with the most ruin-
ous disasters both the British residents and the British
army in Northern India ? And yet Great Britain has

generally been ultimately the conqueror in her wars;
and perhaps was never so signally foiled and disgraced
as in her two attacks upon ourselves. By disasters, the
man for the hour puts on strength, is stimulated to in-
creased courage, and presses on, more surely and rapidly,
to victory. ^

5. A final objection which I consider is this, and it has
a strong tendency, being in the mouths of so many, to
parahze the Government in its plans and operations :
" This war is for the manumission of the negroes from
slavery, but they ought to be in perpetual bondage. If
our Southern brethren want to hold their slaves, to fan
. them when they are warm, to warm them when they are
cold, to pick their toes, to scratch their soles, to curl their
hair, to dress them, to black their boots, and to perform
other more servile acts, they are their property, and we
have no business whatever with their matters. I am a
free white man, and, therefore, in every respect, the su-
perior of the black man, while he is in a state of slavery,
but if he is set free, I am in all respects his equal, except
as to his color, his hair, and his odor. This I can not,
and will not have. I am, consequently, for putting a
speedy end to this war upon any terms that the rebels

may dictate."

This is a long objection, and is scarcely deserving of
any notice, additional to that which I have already said
in this discourse upon the subject of slavery. Still, as it
has a great influence in the community, however false
and vulgar it may be, it may be well enough to say a few
words to the exposure of its fallacy. It is a great mis-
take to affirm that this is a war for the abolition of
slavery. The objector knows, or ought to know, better.
The platform upon which our present Chief Magistrate
was elected evinces this. Slavery was to be untouched in
the States where it existed, and it could have remained
for the present in the District of Columbia, but for the
slaveholders themselves. This is properly a slavehold-
ers' war, and they have, like the foolish woman, pulled

'down tlieir house with their hands. If they seek to
destroy the nation for slaveiy, it must take care of itself;
nay, farther, the nation has a right, upon the ground ot
military necessity, to use it against the rebels, and to bid
their slaves go free.

As to the position that the negroes should be in per-
petual bondage, it is not only false and heretical, but de-
grading to him who maintains it. What is the philan-
thropy of such a man, or what are his hopes for the fu-
ture elevation of the whole family of man? Is not aur
whole world yet, and ere long, to enjoy its predicted mil-
lennium of rationul freedom and of universal brother-
hood ? Is not " Ethiopia to stretch out her hands unto
God?" Would the puny objector thwart or nullify the
decrees, -or stop the wheels of the providence, of the
Almighty ?

Farther, the objector unwitingly furnishes an unan-
swerable argument why the negroes should not be in a
state of slavery, for a moment. For if there be no dif-
ference at all between the whites and the blacks, except
the slavery of the latter, then they are our fellow-beings,
and ought not to be bought and sold, and, in all respects,
treated as chattels or mere animals, upon the principle
that " might makes right," by the stronger race ; but
should be immediately emancipated, and allowed the
possession of all the rights of man. For myself, I would
not put the case in this manner. The white race is the
superior ; and slavery altogether out of the question.
But if the blacks are admitted to be men and women,
is it acting according to the golden rule : " Whatsoever
ye would that men should do unto you, do ye also so
unto them," to bring them into, and hold them, with-
out their own fault, perpetually in, a state of involun-
tary bondage ? Alas, for those who are the apologists of,
or the sympathiz?ers with, such an enormous and parent
crime ! l^o man can be made or held as the property of
another, permanently and involuntarily, without treason
and rebellion against Heaven of the deepest dye.

Still farther, if the slaves perform such services to
their owners as are stated in the objection which I am
now refuting, and I know not but they may be required
to perform others much more degrading and vile, I
would only reply to this part of it by affirming, without
fear of contradiction, that it would be a blessing to their
masters to have the black and nondescript thing forever
abolished, and to cease from their effeminacy, and learn
to be men. It is a false dependence. He who walks on
crutches all his days, is incapable of using properly the
feet that God has given him. Even our street railroad
cars are, by their abuse, depriving our citizens of their
wonted power of locomotion. If there be swamps in
the South which white men cannot cultivate, let them
remain uncultivated to eterniay, rather than sin against
God. Let the white men of the South cultivate self-
reliance, and send their slaves adrift; By this, in all re-
spects, they will be unspeakably blessed.

And as to the slaves being the " property " of their
owners, as chattels, I unqualifiedly deny it, in the light
of the law of God. They were at first stolen from the
place where the Creator placed them. They are stolen
still. " The receiver of stolen goods, is as bad as the
thief." The slaveholder, like the idolator, " feedeth on
ashes ; a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he
cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my
RIGHT HAND ?" And as nothing can come from a lie but
a lie, so, acting upon this with more than geometrical
progression to all eternity, would only result in an in-
finite accumulation of fallacies. To buy and sell that
which is born of woman, is the highest crime, and the
parent of all other crimes, against God and humanity,
known to the history of moral depravity. Lawful in-
dustry is holy. Let the slaveholders seek for honor and
dignity, in "quitting themselves like meii." Let them,
like all the virtuous of the earth, " labor with their own
hands," and then their " hands" shall cease to be " full of
blood."

"When Adam delved and Eve Bpan,
Where was then the gentleman?"

The enormity of this matter is happily illustrated by
Cowper, one of the best of our English poets, in the fol-
lowing verses :

" Canst thou, and honored with a Christian name.
Buy what is woman-born, and feel no shame?
Trade in the blood of innocence, and plead
Expedience as a warrant for the deed?
So may the wolf, whom famine has made bold.
To quit the forest and invade the fold;
So may the ruffian, who, with ghastly glide.
Dagger in hand, steals to your bed-side;
Not he, but his emergence, forced the door,
He found it inconvenient to be poor."

"He finds his fellow guilty of a skin
Not colored like his own, and having power
T' enforce the wrong, for such a worthy cause.
Dooms and devotes him as his lawful prey."

" I would not have a slave to till my ground,
To carry me, to fan me while I sleep.

And tremble when I wake, for all the wealth ^

That sinews bought and sold have ever earned."

Such being the case, it is a most happy thing that the
MAN FOR THE HOUR, with a great and invincible nation at
his back, has his foot upon the neck of the " seven-
headed hydra, which emanated from the arch-fiend of
man." There it stands, with justice, dignity, composure,
firmness and strength. Let our motto be " Thorough,"
in order that we may never have a repetition of these
revolting and bloody scenes. Re-union must be uncon-
ditional, with a subjugated South returned to her alle-
giance. For this, our Secretary of War, with leonine
potency, also shows himself a. Man.

CON"CLUSION.

1. The civil affairs of our country have come to a
great crisis, and it is incumbent upon our President that
he show himself a man.

"We have seen, my Christian Brethren, that the very
existence of free civil and religious institutions, of free
soil, of free speech, and of a free press, is at stake, at
this crisis — that at the present crisis a great question to
be determined is the true dignity of man, and his capa-
bility of self-government — that at the existing crisis na-

tional justice requires, uot only to be proclaimed, but
enacted and practised — and that in tbe present crisis the
glory of God is deeply involved.

War for these things is not only necessary and justi-
fiable, everywhere, but it shall continue uu'til they pre-
vail over the whole earth. " Peace and safety " declaim-
ers may babble as they please, when and " where there
is no peace ;" but, after all, two of the most prominent
means which our Lord employeth for bringing on the-
Millennial Day, are truth and war. Our blessed Savior
emphatically assures us that " he came not to send peace
on earth, but the sword," and that " a man's enemies,
shall be those of his own household." The whole world
lying in wickedness must be revolutionized by and for
,Christ, and it will not be so without giving battle.
Christianity, or, in other words, Rehgion and Liberty y.
will not yield, but press forward, although there h-e lions
in the way. It is only when unrighteousness shall be
banished from the earth that "the nations shall learn
war no more,"

It is for the defense, maintenance and diffusion of these
things that our beloved nation is now engaged in a gi-
gantic war. For them she acts, as she has heretofore
done, an honorable part. She shall pass through the
fiery ordeal, not only unscathed, but greatly improved.
Her rowers have brought her into deep waters, but, by
the grace of God, she shall not sink, but emerge to a
voyage of unwonted usefulness, prosperity and glor}'.
She is of God; and while she battles for the right, in his
name and to bis glory, he will stand by her, and prove
her present help in her time of trouble. She has been a
religious Christian nation from the beginning. The con-
stitution of Plymouth Eock, formed by those earnest.
God-fearing Puritans and Pilgrims, who left their homes^
and braved the dangers of a wintry ocean, when naviga-
tion was but in its infancy, in order that they might, in
the howling American wilderness, find a place, with
Christian liberty and liberty of consciencCj to worship

the God of salvation, is only, and is well, upon the whole,
developed in the Constitution of the United States, how-
ever it may need, and be open for amendments. There is
no country, and there never was a country, like this. It
has been, and it still is, the home of all nations. Talk
about its conquest, by a causeless, insane and wicked
rebellion ! — or by any, or by all, of its foreign enemies !
Better talk about plucking the sun from his orbit, and
pocketing the stars ! Look at yon proud flag, with its
glorious stars and stripes, surmounted by the American
Eagle, the king of birds, waving gallantly and defiantly
in the breeze, as the herald of " Glory to God in the
highest, and on earth peace, good- will toward men !''
Can it be stricken down, but by the hand of God ? ISTo.
All nations joining in one would prove as " the small
drop of the bucket, and less than nothing in vanity," in
the mad attempt. The security is God's. The duty is
ours to show ourselves men.

2. That God who has, in every critical emergency,
raised up and qualified the man for the hour, has fur-
nished us with one, at this great crisis of our nation, m
Abraham Lincoln, the present President of the United
States.

I have shown you, my dear hearers, somewhat at
length, that the manner in which our President came to
the high, honorable and responsible station which he
now so worthily occupies, sufiiciently indicates that the
Sovereign Disposer of all persons and things had chosen
him as the man for the hour — ^that his intellectual quali-
ties indicate that the Supreme liuler of the nations pre-
pared and selected him as the man for the hour — ^that his
moral and religious qualities evince that he has been pre-
pared and selected by Jehovah, as the man for the hour —
^nd that his Proclamation of Emancipation demonstrates
that God has elected and endorsed him as the man for
the hour.

I have spoken freely and candidly of the President. I
am sincere, I do not flatter, nor disparage him. Both he

and I are above flattery and slander. There is nothing
partisan in my remarks. There can be no party, except
among traitors, until the rebellion is put down, and the
i: £tion is saved. Were he mine enemy, I would not take
back a word I have said. He merits enlightened praise.
Feeling an interest in the great cause which he repre-
sents, I wrote him, before he left Springfield, Illinois, re-
questing him not to go to "Washington, as President
elect, through any slave State, but as a private citizen,
lest he should be assassmated. The scenes in Baltimore
justified my judgment. I have twice visited him at the
White House, but he will bear me witness that I did not
unduly trespass upon his time. He is full of business,
and calm and self-possessed in the discharge of his high
duties. He is an able man.

For this man, viewing him as clothed with the highest
office in our Republic, prayer ought to be continually of-
fered before the throne of the Eternal. If the prayers
of the Church ascend for him, all is well. Prayer is
more potent than powder, in war. But both should go
together. Evangelical prayer is not upon the principle
of the discomfited Syrians, that Jehovah "is the God of
the hills, but not of the vallies," which would seem to
be that of Jefl'. Davis and his victims in their days of
fasting and thanksgiving, as if they could, with impunity
and success, mock, deceive and bribe God, with their
" hands full of blood," by invoking him to pander to
their high-handed iniquities. Pray then, brethren, for
your President, that he may have light, and purity, and
strength, from " the Father of lights," " the God Al-
mighty"— that he may be endowed by the Holy Spirit,
"with the spirit of counsel and might, and sound under-
standing in the fear of the Lord" — that he may be enabled,
and that he may continue, to act as an "able man, fearing
God and hating covetousness " — that he may continue to
have patriotic aims, and be enabled to evince the loftiest
and the most inflexible decision of character — and that,
in all things, he may seek supremely the glory cf Mes-

eiah, the Moral Governor of all the nations. This will be
holding up his hands, as Aaron and Hur held up the
hands of Moses, when he prevailed in fighting against
Amalek. And, in the same spirit, pray for his Cabinet;
for both houses of Congress ; and for our armies, by land
and sea. Thus victory shall perch upon our banners.
Courage and constancy belong to the man for the hour.
The Almighty wills that courage should be cherished by
his servants. " Have not I commanded thee ? Be strong
and of a good courage ; be not afraid, neither be thou
dismayed ; for the Lord thy God is with thee, whitherso-
ever thou goest." Pray, and fast, and give thanks, for
"with such sacrifices God is well-pleased;" but, by all
means, unite with these manly and heroic actions. " Let
us go up at once and possess it," said Caleb ; " for we are
well able to overcome it." " Speak unto the children of
Israel that they go forward." " Show thyself a man."

2. There are, it cannot be disguised nor doubted, tow-
ering obstacles, and plausible, but false and injurious ob-
jections, to the prosecution of the war to a speedy, suc-
cessful and honorable termination.

Some of the most prominent of these I have brought
before your attention. And you will remember, that
the}' are, the character, the magnitude and strength of the
rebellion — the complete unpreparedness of the nation for
meeting and blotting it out at once when it brake ont —
and the vast extent of country and of coast which it
covers, or by which it is defended ; as well as the oflicious
and criminal intermeddling of England and France,
whose public influence, with that of their secret emis-
saries, had so much to do with the outbreak at first, in
engendering, fomenting and encouraging it, and which
have, from the beginning, while not daring to declare
open war against the United States, rendered it privately,
and indirectly, the most efficient assistance : and that they
are the treason and the traitors in our own camps consti-
tuting everywhere most formidable obstacles to the sup-
pression and utter extirpation of the unholy rebellion ;

zind to the restoration of peace, order and happiness, upon
the basis of greatly increased liberty and rigliteousness.

And with regard to the objections, which are in too
many mouths, which I have been considering and re-
futing to an extent more full than they intrinsically de-
serve, viz : " That the war is too long protracted — that
nothing worthy has yet been accomplished — and that, as
negro slavery in our land ought to be perpetual, an-d, as
this is a war for its abolition, it ought, therefore, to cease
immediately, and peace, upon any terms, be made with
the rebels;" you have seen. Christians, that, at the first
touch, they evaporate into thin air. They melt, like the
snows of the north under the influence of the burning
sun, before the light of unsophisticated reason and un-
adulterated truth. Their falsehood is only equalled by
their impudence, folly and futility.

Go on, then, venerable President of the United States,
" one and inseparable, now and for ever," the man for
the hour. " Show thyself a man." Push the war to a
glorious victory. Set up your banners in the name of
Christ, "the King of kings, and the Lord of lords."
By this sign thou wilt conquer. And soon this infamous
rebellion shall be wholly eradicated from our soil ; the
Great Eepublic shall extend, — having come out of the
furnace " as gold seven times purified," with her free
institutions, and her free children— from the most remote
regions of the ]^orth to the sunniest climes of the South,
and from the utmost Eabt to the utmost "West, of the
American continent; and yonder sun, in his passage
through the mid-way heavens, shall not look down
upon an oppressor or the oppressed, in all its
borders: the home of the brave, the home of the
Church, and a blessing to the whole world. Be not
dismayed at diflieulties and obstacles, but rather
let them increase th}^ courage and fortitude. "Fear not,
Abraham ; I am thy shield, and thy exceeding great re-
ward." "Who art thou, 0 great mountain? before

ZeRUBABEL thou SHALT BECOME A PLAI]^." AmEN AND

Amen.

7/. T.&'P^^ £>^H. £?S3& V

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