Let the tongues and pens whose words have helped to demoralize the North, to discourage, dishearten, and perplex the Government, and to delude the South into the belief that multitudes of our population would stand by them in any mad scheme against the Union and the nationality-tongues and pens upon which rests to-day a responsibility of crimson dye-cease their false testimony, and if they can not speak for freedom and patriotism, at least learn the safety and wisdom of silence; and if they have no loy. alty in their hearts, either put on its colors openly, or openly join the league of parricides. Such men are but few to-day, any where in all the united North-very few within this old stanch Commonwealth. Would to God there were none !

We have, let us not forget, our own hearts to guard. If war is a duty, it is a Christian duty, as sacred as prayer-as solemn as sacraments. That which is sometimes called the war spirit must have no home in our breast. We must watch against its savageness-its hate-its revengefulness-its murderous rancor. When public justice smites with her sword on the neck of crime, there is no passion in her stroke, only a stern and awful sorrow. I have read of a minister of the Gospel who went into battle and dispatched one after another a score of unerring bullets; and as each took effect, he apostrophized from afar the victim: "My poor fellow, God have mercy on your soul." That is the spirit in which to fight and in which to wait.

But in this spirit we ought to make the war overwhelming. Not a hundred thousand, but a half a million of men ought to be in motion. We ought to pour our legions forward. It is mercy now to go strong and strike hard. The grapple has come-finish it quick and finish it forever. Let this contest never need to be renewed. Let it be settled from henceforth in this land that a government has a right to be a government. Let discontent and treason learn that when they stretch out sacrilegious hands to tug at the pillars of the Union, and of all constitutional law, that hand shall be stricken down, and forever palsied. Let us meet and settle this issue now, and bury it so deep, in a grave so blood-cemented, that it shall have to the end of time no resurrection. Let us not be so eager for peace as to heal this hurt slightly. Let the laws go with the armies. HANG TRAITORS. Above the terror of sword and bayonet, let there be the terror of the gibbet and the rope. Give not to treason, when it can be helped, the honor of a soldier's death. Widen the streets through riotous cities. Make a broad passage for the country's defenders. Raze the nests of conspirators with axe and fire. This is shortest and surest, timesaving and life-saving. Let the cautery burn this ulcer out. That is the message to-day of the law of love.

And we have finally on our hearts a solemn charge of intercession. We must let no excitement separate between our souls and

God. We have to bear up before him our friends and neighbors who have put on the soldier's uniform, that they may be Christ's soldiers as well as the country's, and be at peace with God. We have to entreat his great mercy for bleeding hearts in lonely homes-hearts whose thoughts will be straying with an irresisti ble fascination to the field of strife, and searching in the onset and amid the iron storm, and after sunset on the trodden ground, for well-remembered and familiar forms. We have to pray as did the royal singer and captain of Israel: "Wilt not thou, O God! go forth with our hosts ?" We have to remember our enemies, and remember that they are brothers, and that their sufferings will be equal to ours, and greater-and beseech God to quell the madness of their hearts, and to be gracious to their distress. We have to entreat the Lord especially that the tempest of war may speedily pass, that the bow of peace, righteous and abiding peace, may span the dark retiring cloud, and that no such frenzy may break in again upon that great mission which he appointed us as a nation to fulfill. We have to remember, too, all the sweet charities, and kind and tender offices, and great and good endeavors, that belong to us as men and citizens and disciples, and make our almsgiving abound, and roll forward with helping hand every scheme of human amelioration and Christian zeal on which the progress of civilization and the triumph of the Gospel dependcauses and endeavors which droop in time of war-and earnestly and continually to commend these great and good enterprises to God's favor.

Waiting thus upon God, we shall best steady ourselves in the midst of whatever fluctuations. One day shall give us tidings of victory, the next perhaps of defeat. One day the flag shall rise amid the huzzahs of triumph, the next it shall sink beneath the trampling of hostile feet. If we go by the sight of the eye and the hearing of the ear, our souls will be in perpetual commotion. If we stay ourselves upon God, and look into his calm face, and remember that the issue is with him, that "the Lord is a man-ofwar," that "the Lord is his name," that he will give, if our faith and constancy fail not, the victory to the right, we, too, shall be calm and courageous and of good hope.

TO REV. A. L. STONE:

The undersigned, who had the pleasure of listening to your able, eloquent, and patriotic discourse, preached before the Park-Street Church and Society this morning, believing that its sentiments should be widely diffused, would most respectfully request a copy for publication.

We are very truly, your obedient servants,

A. O. BREWSTER,

HENRY HOYT,
JAMES A. DIx,
C. L. BARTLETT,
H. O. BRIGGS,

JNO. J. NEWCOMB,

BOSTON, April 21, 1861.

EBEN CUTLER,
W. T. GLIDDEN,

EZRA FARNSWORTH,

SAMUEL NEAL

NATHAN CROWELL,

EDWARD B. HALL

GENTLEMEN: If I yield to your request, it must be of course on the instant, with no opportunity of revising or reconsidering the words I have uttered. But I am willing to stand by them, and to speak them to the wisest possible auditory. I submit the MS. to your disposal.

Yours in devotion to our common country,

Messrs. A. O. BREWSTER, and others.

A. L. STONE.

SERMON XVII.

BY REV. E. E. SEELYE, D.D.,

PASTOR OF THE FIRST REFORMED PROTESTANT DUTCH CHURCH.

THE NATIONAL CRISIS.

"BE of good courage, and let us play the men for our people, and for the cities of our God: and the Lord do that which seemeth him good."-2 SAMUEL 10: 12.

IT is a sad and stern necessity which calls upon the ministers of peace to speak of war. As Christians, and as men, we feel an instinctive recoil from the dreadful subject; and were we able, we would gladly shut our eyes and turn away from the painful events which hourly startle us.

But it is utterly impossible to ignore them. It is vain to attempt to keep silence concerning them. The condition of our unhappy land awakens the anxious solicitude of every member of our communities. All day long we talk of it; it haunts our dreams through the troubled night.

At length the political conflicts which have long agitated our nation have culminated in deliberate violence and bloodshed. The angry cloud, so long hovering in the Southern sky, has burst in fury and disgorged its stormy magazines of wrath. The authority of our Federal Government has been defied; rebellion has reared its bloody standard, and treason has put on "the horrid front of war." That glorious old flag of the Union, whose Stars and Stripes have so long waved in peace-that symbol of freedom and hope, under whose folds the American citizen has rested in safety upon the fartherest shores, and in the strangest lands-that flag, so glorious in peace and terrible in war, has been trampled under foot upon our own soil, by the men whom it has sheltered from their cradles, and who have solemnly sworn to defend it with their lives. For two days a handful of brave men in a beleagured fortress upheld it in the face of thousands of enemies; till wearied out under the fire of their destructive batteries, our

national standard was lowered before the flag of rebellion. The very Capitol of the nation is endangered, and hostile armies are marshaling to overthrow it.

In this emergency the proclamation of the President has gone forth, summoning the loyal people of the land to arms! And though it be a terrible thing to contemplate, yet I know of no grander, sublimer spectacle in human affairs, than the prompt, the universal response of the Northern millions to this call. Like a slumbering giant suddenly aroused, the nation has sprung to its feet and rushed to arms. Party differences and political animosities have been swept like the chaff of the threshing-floor. The plowman has left the furrow. The smith heard the tocsin, and dropped his hammer upon his anvil. Young men fly from the desk and the counter, from the office and the factory, from the shop and the fireside, and hurry to the rendezvous. Daily we hear the shrill fife and the stirring drum-daily the cry is: "To arms!" Fond mothers clasp their sons in agonizing sorrow, and with bedimmed eyes and fervent prayers to heaven, bid them go to their country's call. Fathers kiss their children, and with a hurried "Good-by," exchange their quiet homes for the soldier's ranks. All know the cause. The Chief Magistrate of the nation has proclaimed that our Federal Union was imperiled, and asked the people to rally for its defense. Twenty millions of freemen stand up to-day and answer: IT SHALL BE DONE.

It is useless for me to come here to-day, and affect to pass over in silence the events which crowd upon us. Even while the Sabbath's light smiles around us, and the hallowed walls of the sanctuary inclose us, we strive in vain to withdraw our thoughts from the thrilling scenes of the hour. We will not try to do it. As patriots and as Christians, it becomes us now, in this house of God, to ask what is our duty, and where is our hope?

We can find no more appropriate words to bring to you to-day, than the animating appeal of Joab to the armies of Israel, when they stood in array against the allied powers of Ammon and Syria, and carried the war to the gates of their foes: "Be of good courage, and let us play the men for our people, and for the cities of our God: and the Lord do that which seemeth good in his sight."

The crisis of our country repeats to us the stirring exhortation: "Be of good courage, let us play the men."

True courage is a noble virtue, a most important element of Christian character. It is a sentiment far removed, and easily distinguished from a blind recklessness of danger-a savage, ferocious violence which is stirred into fury by the volcanic bursts of passion. It has its foundation in the convictions of duty, and can measure danger in its fearful reality, with a stern, unyielding fortitude. It looks the threatening emergency full in the face, it

surveys its dimensions with a cool and steady eye, and prepares to meet it, whatever be the consequences.

I rejoice to discover what I believe to be this genuine courage developing its power in the universal uprising of American freemen during the past week. There has been indeed a wonderful enthusiasm a wide-spread excitement among the masses. But as I pass through the seething crowds, I find no one who rejoices in the strife. Thousands have rushed to arms, but it is not because our people, long used to the arts of peace, have been suddenly transformed into ruffians eager for the strife. No. If I have not mistaken utterly the temper of the people, there is but one universal feeling of deep sorrow-one anxious, earnest desire to avoid, if possible, the shedding of blood.

But back of this and deeper still, I read their stern and fell determination, at all hazards, to sustain this Government, and vindicate the Constitution. He who calculates that this mighty uprising of the past week is but an ephemeral burst of bravery-a sudden paroxysm of excitement, which will soon subside and vanish like the mist, will find that he has failed to interpret aright the phenomenon before him. The men who have mustered to arms and are mustering still, understand the mission they are undertaking. The people are serious, thoughtful, and in earnest-none seem disposed to trifle, none affect to laugh. Regiments march through some of our large cities in silence; no drum need beat to keep their courage up.

This true courage, founded on a sense of duty and a conviction of the right, is the sterling virtue which the times demand. Because it is cool, deliberate, forbearing, not a few Southern Hotspurs have been taught to speak of us as a race of cowards. But woe betide the day when they try the real temper of our people on the battle-field. It is this rational courage which reluctant to strike, and will not strike without a cause to strike for, which we need to cherish now, that we may "play the men for our people and the cities of our God."

for we

I remark also, that such courage well becomes us now, are not driven to despair. I admit that our position is a trying one, but we are not lost as a nation. They who are in rebellion against the Constitution are by far inferior in numbers and resources to ourselves. That divided North-of which Secessionists have dreamed so long and hoped so much-is gone! The people of the free States to-day are a unit, more by far than were the people of the Colonies in seventeen hundred and seventy-six. Thank God! we are a nation still. We have a Government today! The old flag of the Union and the Constitution is the flag the people have determined shall wave aloft over this land. I am not indifferent to the seriousness of the crisis. I know that the path immediately before us looks dim and gloomy. I fear