"AND THE LORD SAID UNTO JOSHUA, FEAR NOT, NEITHER BE THOU

DISMAYED; TAKE ALL THE PEOPLE OF WAR WITH THEE, AND ARISE,
GO UP TO AI: SEE, I HAVE GIVEN INTO THY HAND THE KING OF AI,
AND HIS PEOPLE, AND HIS CITY, AND HIS LAND." -Joshua viii. 1.

HE land trembles with the conflict that has been raging for more than a week in the seat of the rebellion. The smoke of the great agony curls up in the central heavens, and almost casts its lurid darkness over our visible skies. Under its sulphurous canopy our sons and brothers have been wrestling in a death struggle with those who should be our sons and brothers, for principles and privileges that are dearer than life. We gather in this quiet house of prayer, far from the scene of the contest; yet we hear but little save the rapid pelting of the musketry or the fearful boom of the artillery. Our ears are filled with the hurrahs of our boys as they fly up the steep sides of rebel earthworks, or the Indian yells of our foes, as they leap in mighty masses upon our serried columns. The piled dead lie before our vision, ghastly,

A sermon preached in Boston, Sunday, May 15, sion of the advance of General Grant on Richmond.

1864, on the occaSee Note XIV.

torn, trampled, their eyes glazed, or "staring in muddy impurity." The wounded, sinking, fainting, groaning, bleeding, fill our souls with inexpressible anguish. We see not each other's faces, we hear not each other's voices. sights and sounds fill sense and soul to a staggering fullness.

"The fires of death,

The bale fires, flash on high; from rock to rock,
Each volley tells that thousands cease to breathe;

Death rides upon the sulphury siroc;

These

Red Battle stamps his foot, and nations feel the shock."

Amid such powerful presences it is difficult for congregations to gather in churches to-day. Telegrams, not texts, are our spiritual food. The battle, not the Bible, draws our attention. The lives of myriads, nay, the life of the nation, hangs on the dreadful die.

We do not condemn this feeling. Were one of your family to-day struggling with disease, and life or death hung trembling in the balance, you would not be a listener here. You would be busy in the chamber, nursing and praying. The quiet worship of God's house is sometimes more profane than the active worship of out-door philanthropy. Should you, on coming hither, see a horse cast in the street, and say, "It is Sunday; I cannot miss my seat and sermon to relieve this poor beast," you would find no spiritual nourishment in the service. God would scorn your advances. How much more, then, when your country is struggling for existence, when the principles of civil and Christian society are cast into the wavering scales of war, when the welfare of the living generation and unborn generations is subjected to the risks of battle; then, if ever, in every church and congregation, should prayers, meditations, and eloquence, all conspire for one end. Do you suppose, had Joshua's battle been on the bath, that Eliezer and the Levites would have forbidden the non-combatants to think about their contending kindred on that day? Or that

Phinehas would have told the worshipers at Shiloh, "Your brethren are having a terrible civil war down at Gibeah today, but you must think only of your sacrifices and ceremonial service." Nay; he would have said, "Leave here thy gift before the altar, and let us hasten up to yonder hill, where perchance we may see the fearful strife. Let us earnestly pray for their success; let us fly to the dreadful scene, and administer our aid and comfort to the wounded and dying." So now we may, we ought, to pray and talk on the all-absorbing theme.

We are led hither, also, by the request of our Chief Magistrate, who desires us to acknowledge the goodness of God in crowning our onward movement with victory. Especially should we consider this subject, that we may lift it above the bloody phases it presents to the natural eye, or the mere shifts and windings of politics that it exhibits to some minds, into the grand hights of divine workings. God moves with our moving army; God fights with our fighting soldiers; not for the welfare of America, as an especial and peculiar nation; that is a heathen's idea of God, who thought Jove or Zeus was his god only, and not the god of his enemy. He contends for us, because He

has certain ends to be consummated on the earth, that can only be effected through the overthrow of the doctrines and usages of the rebellious confederacy.

We may not see Him. Perhaps Joshua did not when he stole up the high wall of the Jordan valley, and through its passes wound his way to the long and lofty hill upon which Ai frowned contemptuously upon him. He knew that that city must be taken or the hill country of Palestine could not be occupied by his people. He knew that the narrow gorge of the Jordan would soon cease to contain them, if they failed to gain a foothold upon the hights. It was a military necessity. It was an absolute necessity. He saw not that his success involved even the redemption of man.

He did not fully know that out of it would come salvation for the world. Even though this inspiring vision did lift itself before his eyes, yet he felt none the less that his work was to deliver a nation of fugitives from destruction, and establish them upon immovable foundations. As in all greatest duties, there was the vision of future perfection, and the present obligation, hard, painful, bloody.

"God has conceded two sights to a man —

One of men's whole work, time's completed plan,
The other of the minute's work, man's first
Step to the plan's completeness."

So Joshua might have seen the infinite necessities that compelled the capture of the hostile town; but the strong, hard duty of the hour was its capture. We, too, looking over the bloody and blackened field of wasting strife, looking at the yet unsettled, and perhaps most desperate future, may rightfully inspire our hearts, as was that of Joshua, with visions of the plans of God that necessitate our victory.

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This last and greatest ground for our assurance of success covers the final issue. Others, like those that pressed immediately upon the mind of the Hebrew captain, press upon us. The future of revelation may be near or distant dim or clear. In it America may appear shining with a celestial glory, or may be blotted out as completely and indifferently as are Egypt, Assyria, and Rome, or may shine in as baleful light as Judea, whose central principles and Person, like that nation, it may have scornfully rejected.

Whatever be that ultimate summing up of God concerning this nation, depends upon the manner in which we respond to His calls at the present moment.

It is often said that we are settling the question for the rights of man in America and in the world. We are not doing exactly this. For the question of the success of the rights of man does not depend upon America, but upon God. If we follow His orders we may be His favorites

the ministers of this divine purpose. If we fail to follow them, we shall be cast aside as unceremoniously as we have cast aside disobedient or incompetent generals, and He will make others His officers, servants, and friends. So, then, we are led, in considering our grounds for hoping to succeed, solely to the consideration of the manner in which we have responded to the demands of God. We have no political or merely military problems to discuss. We trace our defeats and victories to no incompetent or competent generalship. A higher law regulates these matters. Not that we despise generalship. Not that we believe victory usually follows virtuous imbecility and defeat vicious ability. Success requires sagacity, even in the way of righteousness. Folly is not God's favorite. Moses was as naturally as he was supernaturally gifted. David was of extraordinary powers independent of their extraordinary subjugation to the divine will. Paul was the acknowledged leader of the Jewish leaders before he became the head of the Christian Church. Luther, Calvin, Wesley, were men of the amplest parts, independent of the lofty purpose in which they employed their genius.

And yet the wisest of minds, set against the will of God is weaker than the weakest working with that will. The mightiest steamer tugs in vain against Niagara's current, the tiniest feather flies resistlessly upon its rushing floods. So, in estimating the reasons for our success, we shall ever bear in mind that though great generals are a great necessity, great ideas are a greater. Joshua was a great general. No superior appears in Hebrew, if in any other history. Yet at the very beginning of his campaign he meets with an ignominious repulse. He is chased down the mountains of Bethel a ruinous rout. Why? Why? He had ceased to ally himself with God. He was but a lieutenant of the Divine Captain. He was not in unison with his commander-in-chief. He flies as miserably as the weakest of his soldiers before