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without a shudder the sordid, selfish apathy which, not many months ago, stood by with folded arms, anxious only for the cargo, while our noble ship of state, with torn flag, and abandoned by traitorous officers, was driving straight upon the rocks? For this apathy, which has so nearly ruined us, an apathy engendered of our gross materialism, let us hang our heads to-day in honest, bitter shame. And in all the time to come may it haunt our guilty memory as a stupendous warning against similar delinquencies. Made wiser by these perils, which we have barely escaped, by these disasters which are now upon us, may our country henceforth be more to us than its vulgar soil; may it be to us a sacred trust, a theater of devout and righteous enterprise, a heritage of freedom, and an asylum to the oppressed of every kindred and of every clime.

Of individual sins, so widely prevalent as justly to be considered national, let us also be mindful. Prominent among these is that profaneness of speech, so common in all parts of the land, which exceeds the profaneness of every other nation on the globe. No where else on God's footstool does the awful name of God encounter such flagrant irreverence as here with us. If the Ruler of all the earth be indeed jealous of his honor, as the Scriptures declare him to be, well may we tremble to think of this wanton and shocking profaneness, incessantly rolling up, in such heavy volume, into his listening ears. As a nation, we profane also his Sabbaths; less, it is true, than some of the nations of Europe, but vastly more than becomes us, whether we consider the better example of our fathers, or the wholesome laws which stand unrepealed upon our statute-books. Filial insubordination must also be reckoned as one of our crying sins. Family government, that divinely appointed type and germ of all civil authority and order, is shamefully slack amongst us. We are slow to rise up before the hoary head and honor the aged man. Hence our sadly irrev erent attitude toward all rightful authority; our shallow and godless theory of civil government as simply a human compact; and our loose, low notions of the sacredness of public law. We are inclined to think of constitutions as only so much parchment, and of statutes as only enactments, representing the opinions of accidental majorities. These, we admit, are faults incident always to republican institutions. But with us they have had a rankness of growth, and have attained proportions, which can be explained only by reference to the peculiar conditions of our national life. Gathered out of all nations, and planted here on this fresh continent, so teeming with stimulants to material enterprise and aggrandizement, we have sucked up poison out of the fatness of our territory, till now at length we are in that state which is nigh unto cursing.

And now the judgments of God are upon us. His red artil

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lery has started down the slope of the heavens; nay, has already opened its thunders against our rebellious and boastful ranks. It is not for me to say which one of our offenses is the special target of this dreadful artillery. Let no one section of our common country angrily upbraid another for its vices or its crimes. are offenders, all of us, North and South, East and West. Material good, an overweening sense of which threatens extinction to every nobler sentiment, has been the grand Dagon of a universal idolatry. Mad has been our pursuit of gain; cruel our indifference to the rights and happiness of oppressed and inferior races within our borders; inexcusable the arrogance of our attitude toward other nations; shameful our reckless surrender of political power into the hands of corrupt and greedy demagogues; heinous our irreverence toward God, toward parental, and toward all civil authority, ordained of God. These are our offenses, any one of which may justly have waked up against us the divine displeasure.

Of these offenses let us now heartily repent, with our hands. upon our mouths and our mouths in the dust. And let us prove the sincerity of our repentance by the patience with which we endure this present bitter chastening of Providence. It may be that we have not yet tasted the dregs of this cup of wrath. In the dreadful struggle into which we have entered for the maintenance of our national integrity and the reestablishment of the national authority, other disasters, heavier than have yet befallen us, may still be in store for us. If they come, let our courage, inspired by our Christian faith, be such as not to be staggered by them. If in our extremity, battling desperately for the Union, the Constitution, and the laws, a new purpose is forced upon us, and a new watchword is commended to our lips, even the emancipation of the enslaved, let us accept it with alacrity as the behest of God. Our wisdom may not have counseled it; but the wisdom of man is sometimes foolishness with God.

Our nationality, I am confident, is destined to survive this conflict, emerging from the smoke of battles more radiant and pow erful than ever. But not as a godless, boastful, corrupt, and cruel nationality, can it thus emerge. He who sits as King in Zion, be assured, will vindicate his own mastership of the continent. Along the sky, which overarches it, the Hand that grasps our destinies is unrolling the scroll of the Ten Commandments; and if we stand here victorious, puissant, and prosperous, it must be in loyal, cheerful subjection to these Commandments. Our idolatry of ma terial good, with all its brood of sins now wasting our moral stamina, must be exorcised; and our one ambition, our one lifelong struggle, must be, to establish and maintain embodied here, in its grandest proportions, the true idea of a Christian State.

SOUTH REFORMED DUTCH CHURCH, Corner 5th Avenue and 21st Street, September 29th, 1861.

REV. AND DEAR SIR: The undersigned, members of the South Reformed Dutch Church, respectfully request the privilege of being permitted to print, in pamphlet form, your admirable discourse on “Our National Sin," delivered on the 26th inst., the day appointed by the Chief Magistrate of the United States for fasting and prayer. We have the honor to remain, in Christian and patriotic affection, Yours, very cordially,

JNO. SLOSSON,

C. MURDOCK,

D. A.. WILLIAMSON,
THOMAS C. DOREMUS,
G. M. CLEARMAN,
SAMUEL C. BROWN,
JOHN EWEN,

R. OGDEN Doremus.

To the Rev. ROSWELL D. HITCHCOCK, D D.

NEW-YORK, October 1st, 1861. GENTLEMEN: My Fast-day discourse, though written hastily, and written only to be preached, is now submitted most cheerfully to your disposal, in the hope that it may render some slight service in a cause of such immediate and vital importance to us all. Yours very truly,

Judge JOHN SLOSSON, and others,

Members of the South Dutch Church.

ROSWELL D. HITCHCOCK.

SERMON XXXII.

BY J. HAWES, D.D.

*

NORTH AND SOUTH; OR, FOUR QUESTIONS CONSIDERED: WHAT HAVE WE DONE? WHAT HAVE WE TO DO? WHAT HAVE WE TO HOPE? WHAT HAVE WE TO FEAR?

I NEVER expected to see a time like this, when every day, and at all times of the day, we see soldiers in arms, and hear the sound of martial exercises along our streets, and about the avenues of our city. I never expected to be called to preach on an occasion like the present, a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer, ap pointed by the President of the United States, in conformity with the recommendation of both Houses of Congress, and seconded

* Preached in the First Church in Hartford, Ct., on the day of the National Fast Sept. 26th, 1861.

by the Chief Magistrate of our own State, on account of war, civil war having broken out in our country, and which is spreading devastation and ruin over the land. I never rose to address an audience, when I was so much at a loss what to say, in order to meet the demands of the occasion, and at the same time not to offend against the dignity and sacredness of my office as a minister of Christ. As I look round on this assembly, and think of the circumstances in which we meet here to-day, a solemn awe comes over my mind, and I tremble lest I shall prove unfaithful to my trust, or fail to meet the reasonable expectations of those whom I address. May God guide the service, and make it profitable to us all.

I find a text suited to my purpose in 1 Sam. 17: 29: "And David said, What have I now done? Is there not a cause?" The case was this:

The Philistines, whose country bordered on the south and west of Judea, made war upon the people of Israel, and gathered their armies at Schochoh, which belonged to Judah. Saul and the men of Israel gathered together their hosts and pitched by the valley of Elah, over against the Philistines. On this occasion, an aged Israelite, who had eight sons, sent three of them into the army, while David, the youngest, was retained at home to keep his father's sheep at Bethlehem. The father, naturally anxious for the three sons in the army, sent David with provisions for them, and bade him inquire how his brethren fared, and to take their pledge. Leaving the sheep with a keeper, David rose up early in the morning, and hastened to execute his mission of sympathy and kind

ness.

He reached the camp as the host was going forth to fight, and ran into the army and saluted his brethren. Here it was that he contemplated the approaching storm, which threatened to overwhelm his country. Here he saw the battle in array with fierce invaders, led on by a champion whose stature and prowess were only equaled by his pride and blasphemy. He heard no terms proposed but absolute submission and slavery. The whole bearing and look, and defiant menace of the proud man, Goliath of Gath, were appalling, and Israel fled at his presence as he marched forth at the head of armed hosts, bidding defiance to the hosts of Israel. A holy indignation rose in the bosom of the young shepherd, and he panted to enter into the conflict that he might take away the reproach from his countrymen, and show that there was courage which was ready to meet the challenge of the champion, with all his pride and impious boasting. But what could he do? He was there as a private man, and not as a soldier. Yet he could not restrain the flame that glowed within and impelled him to the battle. So he modestly inquired, what shall be done to the man that killeth this Philistine and taketh away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should

defy the armies of the living God? Eliab, his eldest brother, heard when he spake thus, and his anger was enkindled against him; and he said: Why camest thou down hither? and with whom hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness? I know thy pride, and the naughtiness of thy heart, for thou art come down that thou mightest see the battle. And David said: What have I now done? Is there not a cause? As if he had said: Have I done any thing wrong, or any thing which I had not a just cause for doing? Came I not down at the command of my father? Is it not right that I should feel indignation at the blasphemies and boastings which I have heard, and should have an earnest desire to bear a part in withstanding the enemies of my country and of my God, in their impiety and rage? The reply of David was just. It proceeded from a true love of his country, and showed a willingness to do what he could to repel the foe then encamped on its borders and warring for its overthrow.

The text suggests my subject, and in pursuing it, I shall attempt an answer to four questions:

What have we done? what have we to do? what have we to hope? and what have we to fear? Let us consider:

1. What have we done? I mean, we at the North; we in the free States; what have we done to provoke the wrath of the South, and bring on the terrible war which has burst upon us, like thunder from a clear sky? But a few months since, we were a united and happy people. All the great interests of the country were in a high state of prosperity, and the prospect of a long bright future in reserve for us was perhaps never more promising. Now we are a divided people, the Union is rent asunder; fourteen of the States have rushed away from the Constitution, and having formed themselves into a Confederacy, are carrying on a war against the remaining States, and threatening the overthrow of our Government. Terrible guilt attaches to one party or the other, engaged in this conflict. To which does it belong, to the North, or the South: to the slave States, or the free? I have long and earnestly sought to know the truth on this subject; to discover what articles of indictment the South could bring against us to justify the course she has seen fit to adopt in this unnatural and terrible conflict. And I must confess that after the most careful inquiry, I have been unable to discover any one cause for the war that can for a moment stand the test of truth or sound reason; and I am constrained still to ask: What have we done? We have violated no principle of the Constitution; we have resisted no law of Congress; we have invaded none of the rights of the South; we have despoiled none of her citizens of their property; we have done violence to none of them while visiting at the North, or residing among us on business; we have driven none of them from our midst as exiles; we have tarred and

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