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The two ideas are abroad in the earth; they are wrestling for the crown of the world. Democracy has clothed itself with continental thunders, is regnant in a mighty state. The world is too small for two such hostile systems to hold equal sovereignty. All peoples are fast becoming one people. They can have but one system of government. It must be that of themselves. We are its divinely appointed representatives and defenders. We may be its divinely armed and appointed propagandists.

Such is the clear, unanswerable logic of principles, the necessary precursor of the more evident but not more certain logic of events. Our propositions are stronger than Euclid's. They are the mathematics of humanity, of morals, of the Spirit of God.

Thus stand the relations, past, present, and future, of America to Europe, its kings and its peoples. The first century of our nationality is rapidly concluding. It is a century of greater progress in political thought and life than any, in some respects, than all its predecessors. In all this activity America is foremost. She is a sign that is spoken against. Yea, a sword has pierced through her own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts, at home and abroad, may be revealed. Many states have already risen, and fallen, and risen again under her involuntary influence. That influence is but just begun. If she casts off the grevious sin that has beset her, if she humbles herself before her God and Savior, if she carries out faithfully her own principles of equality and fraternity through all her social and civil life, ignoring distinctions of color as she does those of language and birthplace, she will stand forth, under Christ, the redeemer and mistress of the world. The enslaved of Europe will hail her midday glory with greater acclamations than they have her dawning beauty. They will struggle the more fiercely in their chains. They will map them asunder. We are set

for the fall of tyrants and the rising of the nations. Our influence will not be confined to this continent, but will renew and unite the world. The nations that have so long sat in darkness, and have now seen the great light, will come to that light, and kings to the brightness of its rising. Thus and then will wars cease to the end of the earth, the millennial glory rest upon the world-republic, and universal liberty, equality, and brotherhood bring universal peace.

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"THE MORNING COMETH. Isaiah xxi. 12.

"THROUGH THE TENDER MERCY OF Our God, whEREBY THE DAYSPRING FROM ON HIGH HATH VISITED US." - Luke i. 78.

FTER a long, long night of clouds, and darkness, and storm, thunderings, and lightnings, and tempests of blood, with `faint gleamings of the muffled stars at times, to show us that the heavens still abide, yet with no grayness even betokening the actual dawn, suddenly we see the "King of Day rejoicing in the East." The shadows flee, the golden glory covers the horizon, and shoots its radiance across the whole heavens. Even the blindest bats of night, that beat their leathery wings and eyeless heads against the walls of the national temple, confess that something bright and beautiful is stealing over their feeble senses. They know not what it means or is. For they have torn out their eyes with their own claws. They feel a warmth, a sunniness, pervading their spirits, that compels their unwilling recognition of the coming day. But these poor, darkened creatures apart, the people see

* A sermon preached in Boston on the day of National Thanksgiving for General Sherman's capture of Atlanta, September 11, 1864.

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the light, and rejoice in it, and hasten to the brightness of its rising. Most true in this case was the familiar saying verified — the darkest hour is just before day. Last July and August were probably the gloomiest months since the night of war closed us in. Our armies lay in their trenches while marauding bands vexed their rear. Our mines exploded only to our loss and not the enemy's. The North was invaded, and triumphantly trampled by robbing feet. For the first time since the war the enemy cut off our communications with the capital, and defiantly approached its very gates. Our villages were sacked and burned to the ground. Gold leaped up to three hundred. Provisions and wares followed at a yet swifter pace. The earth burned like an oven. Nature, too, lay sick with a fever, and seemed to be dying with the dying nation. And, as a fitting crown of all the calamities, thousands upon thousands of traitors, a generation of vipers, "a coil voluminous and vast," assembled in one of our greatest cities, the especial symbol and proof of the magnificent workings of our free institutions, on the birthday of our first great traitor, Benedict Arnold, great, but far less than these his children, and there under the guidance of men who had been openly consulting with our open foes for months before, with jubilant and hopeful hearts, plotted the dismemberment, the reënslavement of the nation nay, not plotted, boldly exulted in her ruin.* Through the words of one who had once been placed by the nation in its highest seat, they defied the government to prevent traitors from seizing and controlling the polls, declared the only rebellion in the land to be that of the rulers against the people, spoke no word of reprobation against those who for more than three years have struck terrific blows at the national life, and but for God's right arm would have long since cast it as dead among the nations as Egypt or Rome. Such was the dreadful record of those

*The Chicago Democratic Presidential Convention.

burning months; drouth in the heavens and on the earth, the war hanging dubious, weakness in the hearts of the people, and treason stalking boldly through all the land.

"The red-ribbed ledges dripped with a silent horror of blood;
Echo, whatever was asked her, answered, 'Death.'”

Yet, lo! almost in the twinkling of an eye, the scene changes. The heavy clouds not only seemed to shut out the day, but to proclaim an everlasting night -the night of death and national destruction. Beasts of prey roamed everywhere through our land. Their hideous howls affrighted our ears. Across the continent rolled their cannon. The grave yawned, and multitudes of ghosts of cowards and traitors went gibbering through the streets.

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And now we cry, the morning cometh! the blessed morning of peace and liberty! It is really breaking. These are no cold, deceitful, auroral beams betokening a deepening winter. They are the true dayspring. The Dayspring from on high is visiting us. The present Thanksgiving Proclamation of the President has a more confident and cheerful tone than any of its predecessors. He penetrates the dread entangled forest. This valley of the shadow of death, with its fiery, flying serpents hissing and stinging, with its darkness, and storms, and desolation, its groans and death,

how dark, how woful, how deadly; he can almost see through it. Dangers yet stand as thick around him as serried soldiers, but a glimmering comes through the strait and narrow way that he is steadfastly pursuing, which be speaks a blue sky, peaceful fields, and the light of heaven.

With these encouragements we are invited to assemble in our respective places of worship, and offer thanksgiving to God for His mercy in preserving our national existence against the insurgent rebels, who have been waging a civil war against the government of the United States for its overthrow. And surely no locality is more worthy of our

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