THE BEGINNING OF THE END.*

"SURELY OPPRESSION MAKETH A WISE MAN MAD.". Eccl. vii. 7. "I AM NOT MAD, MOST NOBLE FESTUS.". · Acts xxvi. 25.

"So I RETURNED, AND CONSIDERED ALL THE OPPRESSIONS THAT ARE DONE UNDER THE SUN: AND BEHOLD, THE TEARS OF SUCH AS WERE OPPRESSED, AND THEY HAD NO COMFORTER; AND ON THE SIDE OF THEIR OPPRESSORS THERE WAS POWER, BUT THEY HAD NO COMFORTER. WHEREFORE I PRAISED THE DEAD WHICH ARE ALREADY DEAD, Eccl. iv. 1, 2.

MORE THAN THE LIVING WHICH ARE YET ALIVE.'

-

NEW act opens in the great drama of the rights and destiny of humanity, which is now being performed by this nation, in the presence of an astonished world. It opens with a sound of war, a cry

for blood. Is it the last act of the tragedy, when deaths are frequent; where the innocent first fall, the wicked follow; or is it but a slight interruption to the former movement, and without effect on that which shall come after? Let us consider it in the sacred light that falls upon us from Heaven. Let us dwell upon it in no frivolous spirit, but in deep solemnity.

* A sermon preached at Harvard Street Methodist Episcopal Church, Cambridge, November 6, 1859, on the occasion of the capture at Harper's Ferry of Captain John Brown and his associates. See Note VII.

"Things now,

That bear a weighty and a serious brow,

Sad, high, and working, full of state and woe,
Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow,

We now present."

Let us keep before us the great fact the violent enslavement of forty hundreds of thousands of our kindred in the flesh and in the Lord, in Adam and in Christ. Let us not forget what this system is and does; how it thrusts its miscreated front athwart the path of all national and religious progress, breaks churches to pieces, rules and ruins great Christian charitics; and above, beyond all this, sets its satanic foot on man, created in the image of God, crushes out his freedom, his culture, his piety, his every God-given right and privilege. Connect with this defiant, triumphant on-marching institution of perdition this little act of a score of men, and see if, and how, such a small stone can indeed sink into the forehead of the mighty Goliath and smite him to the dust. And may God help us to speak and hear in all sincerity and godly fear.

You all know the published history of the transaction. About twenty men, led by one before famous, now immortal, seized a few slaveholders, and a United States arsenal, delivered a few score of slaves, were taken, most of the number instantly killed, a few captured, their leader tried, condemned, and sentenced to be hanged. That is all. How can this, you may say, be the beginning of the end of American Slavery? A glance at the excitement it has created may guide you to a perception of this great fact.

Not less than three orations upon it were published in the papers of last week; every journal has abounded with. editorials upon it; every political speech has been burdened with attempts to fasten it upon their opponents and ward it off from themselves. Within a month, ten thousand thanksgiving sermons will dwell upon its lessons. Every ear and

tongue, from Galveston to Eastport, is on fire for every item pertaining to it. Never has any single event in our annals so enthralled the whole nation. The court of justice instantly takes up the wondrous tale. With an astounding speed it connects itself with the moans of the wounded and bereaved, drags its bleeding prisoners to its bar, refuses all demands for needed and brief delay, heeds no claim of judicial impartiality, driving its deadly business at this fearful rate, and only breathing freely when it has pronounced over the doomed gray head the sentence of death. Nay, it does not breathe freely yet. He is in prison, and the centurion and his band keep watch day and night over him, lest his friends come and steal him away, and the last error be worse than the first. Whether released or hung, his influence has but just begun. If dead, he will speak as no dead have spoken in this land, since Warren fell asleep in his bloody shroud. If alive and in prison, to no walls will such a multitude of earnest eyes be aimed as to those that shut him in. If at liberty, his steps will be followed by myriads of sympathizing friends or curious focs.

What does all this mean?

What does it portend? Is

it simply the excitement of politics, which periodically ebbs and flows? Politicians may seek to usc and abuse it; but the feeling that produced it, and that it has produced, is vastly greater than any they can create or control. Theirs is but the tiny vessel, Great Eastern though it be, this is of the mighty upheaval of the ocean underneath. The vessel may reach its desired haven, or go down among the billows it has sought to ride; the waves sweep on, under the laws of their Creator, to the goal IIc has set for them. Is it the ordinary excitement over a murderous riot? Other riots are constantly occurring. One has transpired since this event, by which several men were killed and wounded, and a great city surrendered to a lawless mob; and yet a brief telegram satisfies the general hunger for the bloody feast.

Why this difference? Because the one is exceptional, transient, casily and palpably curable; the other connects itself with the great iniquity that covers half, and darkens all the land. It is the first blow that gigantic power ever felt. It is a blow from which it cannot recover. How is this the case? How can this brief, and apparently unsuccessful, act be considered as the beginning of that longprayed for-we can hardly say, long looked-for hour, the death of Slavery? For two reasons: —

I. 1. It has taught the slaveholders their weakness. Never has such trembling shaken their knees before. Never has such a thrill of horror made so many great States to quake. Over fifteen States, over a million of square miles, there has run one feeling, one fear, one Belshazzar sense of awful guilt, and awful weakness, and awful punishment. That handwriting on the wall of the great Southern palace of pleasure needed no slave prophet, like Daniel, to interpret it. They understood its meaning; they feared its instant accomplishment. Their action, or want of action, in this conflict, has placed them before the world as totally incapable of defending themselves against any moderately well-devised and well-executed rising of the slaves. Had John Brown been half as successful as he anticipated, had but five hundred slaves joined him there, he could have marched to New Orleans, freeing all the slaves on his way, for all the slaveholders could have done to stop him. His folly appears to be, not in counting on the weakness of the South, but in neglecting to count on the strength of the Federal arm. Well may they tremble. They are but men guilty, and therefore most weak. We who are so free with our gibes, would be palsied with equal horror and faintness, if we stood on the same rocking and cleaving soil, over the same mine which we had wickedly filled with deadly explosives, as we saw the torch approaching it.

"Thus conscience doth make cowards of us all."

men most

Suppose you had stolen a man's wages from his youth, had trampled out his manhood, beat him often and cruelly, robbed him of his wife and children and sold them from his arms, how would you feel if you saw, or dreamed you saw, that man stand before you, rifle in hand, demanding his freedom? This is their condition. They slept but little before, they will sleep less now. The planters in the vicinity of the outbreak dare not spend the night on their plantations. They flee when no man pursueth. Let us not revile them. Let us with larger, and so tenderer, heart lament their state, while we call them, by these fears, to repentance. They may thus be led thither. The terrors of the Lord have persuaded multitudes of men to be holy. God surrounds all His laws with great punishments, so that those who will not be led by love may be driven by fear. May we not hope that this sense of helplessness, and dread of the just vengeance of their oppressed brethren, will persuade them to give them that which is just and equal?

Had Pharaoh hearkened to his fears, he would have emancipated his bondmen before the great wrath of God fell so awfully upon him. So, if these Pharaohs, who have so long combined against the Lord and against His children, will but heed these feelings of danger and powerlessness that their loving Creator has given them, as warnings and incentives to duty, they will instantly inaugurate the work of emancipation.

Mr. Thackeray has said that Great Britain, in the Revolution, never overcame the influence of Bunker's Hill. Much less will the slaveholders overcome Harper's Ferry. Whether bloodier outbreaks follow, or more peaceful counsels prevail, be assured that the lessons of this hour will not be lost on them. They may, for a season, wear the bold face they have borne so long. They may still utter great swelling words of vanity, and defy the armies and the truths of the living God, but their hearts are moved out of their place;