its own hands in innocency, it will seek to deliver those oppressed from other's wrongs, by prayer to God and by the power of public opinion, rather than by carnal weapons. Yet it cannot be indifferent nor inactive, in its legitimate moral sphere, while the sighs of a downtrodden brother-man are wafted to it by the farthest wind.

The religious character of the sentiment makes it repudiate with holy horror the maxim, "Our country right or wrong," if the latter phrase be taken to mean more than a mistaken policy, and imply further the perpetration of national crime. The Puritan's children love their country as a province of God's domain; and while they will, with a cordial willingness beyond others, render to the subordinate government all which is not due to higher claims, they will never take its part in rebellion against the Supreme Ruler.

These remarks explain the participation of our clergy in the work of suppressing rebellion, and furnish the key to the course of Chaplain Fuller, to be unfolded in our narrative. They are not, probably, at all needed by our countrymen and times. Yet the voice of a published volume is liable to extend to other countries and other times, to whom our holy cause ought to be fairly presented.

For the same reason, we deem it necessary to make a very brief statement of the causes which have led to a rebellion against the best government mankind has enjoyed, and which has been the repository of the world's hopes of freedom, a rebellion with no precedent upon earth, and but one in heaven.

Briefly, then, let it be noted, that, as in the days

of Job, where the children of God resorted, the Adversary also came with them; so, in American colonization, with the Puritan purpose was embodied an antagonistic element. Not merely did the lovers of God seek a sanctuary of freedom in the new world, but devotees of pride, indolence, and Mammon, and needy adventurers, hungry for spoil, came also. In Mexico they sacrilegiously bore the crucifix in a crusade of plunder and oppression; while in South America a desperado, who had been foiled in petty villany at home, so magnified the scale of his robbery as to take his place among those giant Scapins, who make up the catalogue of earth's conquerors.

In the Southern colonies of North America, too, the same element obtained a place, implanting the tares of oppression in the area of liberty, and misotheism in the see of religion.

These elements did not for a time develop their antagonism; but as they were shaken together in the course of history, a ferment was inevitable, and finally an irrepressible conflict, till the sure triumph of God's eternal day should forever dissipate the night. Wickedness always evinces its lineage from the Father of Lies, by dissembling, while its end can thus be accomplished. Hence, in American history, while the word slave was carefully excluded from the Constitution, as thrusting a lie in the face of the instrument, it obtained an anonymous place in the fugitive clause, hiding in liberty, till it should grow strong, and confident to raise its crest. Latet anguis in herbis.

In the growth of the country, slavery finds leisure for political plotting while the attention of liberty is

K

absorbed in thrift and industry. It concentrates, too, its attention and energies upon the one purpose of selfpreservation and aggrandizement, while sectional interests are unwarily permitted to weaken the majority it seeks to control. In its own domain it hateth the light because its deeds are evil, and violently excludes public instruction, while, by grasping the landed property, it impoverishes and at the same time degrades those whose lot is not cast with itself. Thus the slave oligarchy rules, in its own States, a poor, ignorant white population of twenty times its number, and by means of this is able to control the policy of the rest of the nation. Its eye is on the citadel of liberty, to which it advances by secret parallels, and these parallels have the plausible name of Compromises.

The Cerberus of slavery looks with a green-eyed watchfulness from its own wasted domain, to the far exceeding increase of the children of liberty; and it is constantly contriving devices to offset this augmentation which threatens to so outnumber slave representation as to be no longer manageable. Slavery, like the locusts, can only flourish by spreading from land it has ravaged to newly acquired territory. This leads to the acquisition of Louisiana, Texas, the war with Mexico waged for more domain; and by compromise the slave oligarchy partitions the fairest regions for its blighting spread. Yet wickedness cannot grow so fast as virtue and industry and invention, nor the darkness of slavery increase like the light of liberty under the presiding sun of Christian righteousness. Slavery is alarmed for her supremacy, and as she fails to keep step with Freedom in advancing over the new fields,

she contrives fraud and crime. She raises her crest, thrusts forth her hissing tongue, and would strike her fangs into the fair bosom of Liberty. Kansas is the first theatre of unblushing crime attempted by the slave oligarchy, now become desperate. A supple tool of its own occupies the Presidential chair of the nation, and all the means of government are at its command. Bribery, corruption, terror, violence, are alternately levelled at the ark of Liberty, -the ballot-box.*

But the crime is too outrageous for the Christian light of the nineteenth century to look upon. The "north star is at last discovered." The people withdraw their absorbed attention from worldly increase, and fix it in astonishment upon the slave power, wearing now a disguise so thin as to reveal its horrid deformity. The nation is about to speak, and in its ominous murmur, which already begins to surge like the first low breath of an overwhelming tempest, the quick ear of the slave power discerns the presage of doom, and rouses to the climax of crime, "having great wrath, because he knoweth that he hath but a short time."

The slave oligarchy had now installed in the White House a President whose public career has given his character no alternative but treason or beetle-blindness; which horn of the dilemma shall be awarded him we leave to the sentence of History. Conspiracy was in his Cabinet, transferring the munitions of war

* It cannot be necessary to refer the reader to the masterly exposé of the crimes of the slave power contained in the speeches of the Massachusetts Senator, entitled, "The Crime against Kansas," and "The Barbarism of Slavery," and indeed all the utterances of that eloquence, whose burden has still been, Delenda est servitudo!

to the rendezvous of treason, with the army reduced to a shadow, and the navy despatched to distant seas.

The nation spoke at the ballot-box, and commissioned Freedom to the presidential office. The commencement of Abraham Lincoln's administration found the rebellion armed and equipped from the national storehouses, and the government disarmed and depleted by the preceding administration.

The guns of Fort Sumter signalled the onset of barbarism and oppression upon the fairest domain that genuine religion, public education, brotherhood, and liberty had ever acquired. In no heart did it awaken a more patriotic response than in that of the subject of our present narrative. We indeed arrogate for him no superiority nor singularity in this respect, for, thank God! the heart and voice of twenty million freemen in this exigency was as that of one man.

Enthusiastic Union meetings were holden in every city and village of the Free States. The national stars and stripes streamed from the church, school-house, mart, factory, and private dwelling; so that bunting speedily rose to a fabulous price, and could not be had at that. Every profession and calling vied with each other in patriotic expressions. Committees of citizens waited upon the few presses or individuals who manifested any symptoms of disloyalty, and compelled them literally to display their colors, and define satisfactorily their position. It was felt that the nation's critical hour had come, and called for prompt and united

measures.

Patriotic and military enthusiasm pervaded all classes. Boys organized themselves into armed bands, and would