is nothing of false excitement about it; it is the natural state of mind of those who have conscientiously and devotedly offered to God, to Truth, to Humanity, their best beloved child. They gave and it is given to them again, full measure, pressed down and running over. They gave a son; they receive back from God a saint and a hero.

Then look at the spirit of generosity and devotion which this war has called out at home. Look at the voluntary contributions, which seem to be more free and generous the longer the war goes on. I have had occasion, in my time, to collect money for various purposes; and I never saw anything so easy as to obtain money now. When I went to beg, formerly, I generally prepared myself beforehand to hear no three times to every yes, and to have people look at me, as though I were begging for myself. Now, on the other hand, I have yes said to me three times for one no. And, indeed, they sometimes beg of me to come. Only last week I was getting some contributions for the freed negroes in the South-west, who are in great want, and suffering for clothes and provisions now; and I was asked to come to one business place, and each of the partners handed me, without a word, fifty dollars, so that I went away with a generous contribution to the fund given at that one place without my asking for it. People get into a habit of giving, and it becomes easy.

So,

One of the most striking aspects of the war is, that it comes as a JUDGMENT, and is full of God's judgments. It is not well, I know, to interpret the ways of God very freely, or rashly to call suffering judgment. The whole book of Job is a warning against that. Job's friends came to him in his woe, and said to him that his sufferings were judgments on him for his sins, and that he ought accordingly to repent of his sins. He replied that he did not see how he had sinned, so as to deserve these judgments more than other people. They said "He must have sinned in some terrible way, because he suffered so terribly." But they were told in the end that they were wrong and that Job was right. His sufferings were not judgments, but trial and discipline. too, Jesus rebukes the tendency to call suffering judgment, when his disciples wished to know about the man born blind: "Did this man sin, or his parents?" When, then, may we say that God has sent judgments? I think we may do so when we see that there is a law of God at work, by which a man has sowed sin and reaped punishment; that a nation has sowed the wind and reaped the whirlwind. Judgments make the necessary connection between sin and its consequences; long deferred, perhaps, but sure to come at last, and when they come, involving often the innocent with the guilty, visiting the sins of the parents upon the children, to the third and fourth generation. In the Bible we see a great many judgments on the

Israelites and on the Egyptians, on David and on Pharaoh. But though these are represented as direct and immediate acts of God, it does not follow that they did not come also by divine laws. God's acts are never arbitrary. In the Bible we see the law on its supernatural side, in its sense, and in its meaning. The Bible merely shows the inner side and spiritual side of natural laws. The Bible, therefore, is like a watch with a transparent face, in which we can see the inner movements, and main-spring which turns the hands.

Now in this war we may see a divine judgment, because it is evil working out its natural results. We, as a nation, established ourselves on the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and declared that "all men were born equal, and endowed with an inalienable right to life and liberty." Meantime we held slaves, and took no measures, as a nation, to abolish slavery. Here was war already; a latent war, indeed, but none the less real; war between the national idea and the national conduct; between the national institution, on the one side, and the national convictions on the other. Now, in such a war, one of two things must come, the institution must give way to the convictions, or the convictions to the institution. Failing this, the inner war must at last terminate in an outward struggle, in outward war. God's judgments are in bringing to light the things of darkness, and

making manifest the man of sin hidden away in the secret consciousness.

Judgment brings evil to light, and, by bringing it to light, prepares the way for repentance and reformation. When the consequences of an evil principle appear, men are ready to see the wrong of it, and repent of it. And to repent is the first step in any effectual progress. The Apostle Paul, you will remember, says in one of his Epistles, that his readers must not suppose, even from his former letter, that the coming of Christ and his day of triumph was near. It cannot come, he adds, till the "Man of Sin" is revealed. This "Man of Sin" he describes as an evil principle of spiritual and ecclesiastical ambition, at that time latent in the church,—a secret poison. It must come out, he says, and be seen and understood and judged by the truth, and condemned and repented of before the day of Christ can come. Just so we needed this judgment to bring out and expose the inner conflict in this nation, between its principles and its institutions.

Therefore, for seventy years has been this inward war, this hidden conflict in the heart of the nation, between the idea of Liberty and Equality which make the nation's soul, and this outward institution from which the North and South got their gain, by which they were growing rich and richer day by day. We had seventy years given us by God, in any part of which we might have prevented this war by

removing its cause.
refused to do it. The Revolutionary fathers said,
"We have done enough in gaining independence for
the nation. Let our children put away slavery when
they choose!" Their children of the next generation
said, "Time enough by and by. Slavery is a very
wrong and bad thing, we know, but by and by it will
be easier to abolish it. By and by it can be done, or
will come to an end of itself." The third generation
arrived, and found slavery the source of great and
growing wealth and power to the nation, and said,
"No! we will not touch it." The South said, "Our
fathers were mistaken when they said slavery was
wrong. Slavery is not wrong; it is right. Call all
our doctors of divinity, and let them prove it to be so
out of the Bible. Call our ethnologists and anatomists,
and let them prove it right from the negro's skull
and shin-bone. Call our moralists and let them
show that it is right, because it makes the slave
happy." So at the call of the cotton lords, they came
and did their work. And so the whole South was
united and agreed not to abolish, but to maintain
and extend slavery; and to secede from the Union,
or at least threaten to secede, if they were not
allowed to do it.

But three generations have

On the other hand, at the North the people also finding themselves growing prosperous and powerful by means of this institution, said, "Let it alone. It is nothing to us. Am I my brother's keeper? Why

!