tions among citizens by their professions, business, or other circumstances; they can know and deal with two classes of persons only, friends and foes, the loyal and disloyal. Nor, if they would save what is at stake, can they always wait for treason to develop itself in overt acts. They may act on reasonable grounds of apprehension, with regard to individuals and bodies of men. He who denies this, denies the most settled principles of public law and the most common usages among all civilized nations.

Now, how do these rules apply to the present case? General Rosecrans believed that ecclesiastical convocations within his Department needed watching,-might act, or counsel, or concoct disloyalty, or in some way add to the perils with which the people and the Government were environed. Any man, having but half an eye open to what has occurred in the history of this rebellion, must see that there may be ample reason for such apprehensions. What, then, does he do? Does he forbid the meeting of ecclesiastical bodies? By no means. He might even do that, if in his judgment the facts should warrant it. But he allows all to meet when and where they please, and sit however long, Protestant and Catholic, Jew and Gentile; only prescribing that they shall take an oath. What! the State prescribe a religious test for the Church! How dreadful! He prescribes an oath of allegiance to the Government of the United States; that Government which protects their assembling by its civil and military power; and, even then, allows a dispensation to all who had previously taken the oath prescribed by the State civil authority, the Convention of Missouri! This is the whole of the dreadful thing.

We should like to know, on what principle of Scripture, public law, reason, or common sense, those individual men

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composing a body calling themselves "the Presbytery of St. Louis," can claim exemption from such a requisition? It was just that which might be made of a body of merchants, shoemakers, or any other class of citizens proposing to assemble. The order regarded religious bodies simply as citizens. It could regard them in no other character. It specified them by their ecclesiastical names, -Conferences, Associations, or whatever terms were used, -simply as descriptive terms of certain bodies of citizens; just as it might have said of others, Knights of the Golden Circle, Red Men, or "Anacondas."

If the members of the Presbytery of St. Louis, or any other ecclesiastical body in that military department, cannot take the oath prescribed, so much the worse for them. We respect their tender consciences, but they need a more enlightened conscience. Without any disparagement of them personally, for they are mostly strangers, conscience, in these times, like some other mental and moral qualities brought into action, is affected by latitude, particularly where it respects taking an oath of allegiance to the Government. But be that as it may, it cannot be taken as a rule of public duty for the Government, nor be made a criterion by which it is to be condemned.

66 HONOR TO WHOM HONOR."

One word with the religious press. As we have already said, so far as we have seen, the religious press, with one accord, condemned this order of General Rosecrans at the time it was issued. In every instance of this condemnation that we saw, the fact was prominently brought out that General Rosecrans was a Catholic, and a brother of the Roman Catholic Bishop of Cincinnati. This was dwelt upon as an important ingredient, as was

believed, leading to the issuing of the order. The fact, also, was mentioned in at least one religious journal in a Metropolitan city, that while commanding the army in Tennessee, General Rosecrans never disturbed a Catholic Church, while Protestant Churches were freely taken for military purposes.

Let us do justice to the patriot-soldier. Let us honor the man, if honor is his due, who took the demoralized army of General Buell, and led it in triumph over the terrific fields of Stone River and Murfreesboro', and finally planted it in Chattanooga. We claim, personally, as strong an adherence to the Protestant faith as any of our brethren of the religious press, and yet we honor the brave, whether commanding an army or standing in the ranks, who perils his life to put down this rebellion, and save the national flag from disgrace, without inquiring of what religious faith he may be.

As to the reports from Tennessee, about the distinction which General Rosecrans made between the Churches, we know nothing, one way or the other. But certain things which were noticed in the secular prints, just after the issuing of the order of which complaint was made, occurred in the Department of Missouri, and which we searched diligently for in the religious papers, but searched in vain. It was stated that General Rosecrans had repri manded or suspended two Catholic priests in Missouri for their disloyalty, and that he had, for the same reason, forbidden the circulation within his Department of the well-known Roman Catholic journal, the Metropolitan Record. This is quite enough to relieve him of all suspicion that he was impelled by any sectarian considerations in giving an order which has called forth the strictures of religious journals and Church courts.

Let all men be honored according to their merit, of

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whatever religion or nation, whether Jew or Gentile, Greek, Barbarian, or Scythian, bond or free, who will help us to save the nation by putting down the most godless rebellion the sun ever shone upon.*

*

DOOM OF TRAITORS.-SELF-CONDEMNATION.

We close this chapter by an extract from Dr. Thornwell's Fast-Day Discourse, preached in Columbia, South Carolina, Nov. 21, 1860, upon the National Crisis then impending. It will be another good lesson for disloyalists. We commend it to their serious consideration. If it is "preaching politics;" if it presents before "traitors" an awful doom, and pronounces their "damnation ;" if it seals the destiny of him who penned it, and of multitudes of his co-laborers in the South; if it embraces those in the loyal States, who, though they have not taken up arms against the Government, are doing every thing they dare do to aid those who are in arms and in rebellion; all we have to

* After this chapter was written, and the stereotyping was nearly completed, the Biblical Repertory for July came to hand (received July 30), in which we are glad to find one for whom we entertain so profound a respect as Dr. Hodge uttering himself so decidedly, and sustaining the propriety of General Rosecrans's order. On reviewing the proceedings of the General Assembly in the case of Dr. McPheeters, and referring to the reasons for non-attendance in the St. Louis Presbytery, resulting from that order, he says: "To us it seems that these unfortunate scruples are founded in error. There was no just ground of complaint against General Rosecrans's order. There was nothing therein inconsistent with the independence of the Church or true allegiance to Christ. Suppose the small-pox had been prevalent in that region, and the authorities of the city had issued an order that no one should attend any public meeting, ecclesiastical or secular, who did not produce evidence that he had been vaccinated. Would this be an interference with the liberty of the Church? Not at all-because the object sought (viz., the public health) was a lawful object; and because the thing demanded (vaccination) was something the authorities had a right to demand. So in General Rosecrans's order, the object sought, the public safety, was a legitimate object; and the thing demanded, allegiance to the Government, was admitted to be obligatory. In our view, therefore, the order in question presented no lawful or reasonable objection to a free attendance on the Presbytery." And more than this, too: "the thing demanded, allegiance to the Government," was "obligatory," whether "admitted to be" or not.

say is, that it comes from South Carolina, and from one of the ablest divines in any branch of the Church. Though the original application was different with the preacher from that now given it, the truth it contains applies none the less pointedly to all who are disloyal to the General Government.

In reference to our position as a nation before the rebellion occurred, to our power and destiny among the nations of the earth and upon the welfare of the human race, and to the guilt of destroying the hopes of mankind in this nation by rebellion, the eloquent divine thus says:

The day of small States is passed, and as the federative principle is the only one which can guarantee freedom to extensive territories, the federal principle must constitute the hope of the human race. It was the glory of this country to have first applied it to the formation of an effective Government, and, had we been faithful to our trust, a destiny was before us which it has never been the lot of any people to inherit. It was ours to redeem this continent, to spread freedom, civilization, and religion, through the whole length of the land. Geographically placed between Europe and Asia, we were, in some sense, the representatives of the human race. The fortunes of the world were in our hand. We were a city set upon a hill, whose light was intended to shine upon every people and upon every land. To forego this destiny, to forfeit this inheritance, and that through bad faith, is an enormity of treason equalled only by the treachery of a Judas, who betrayed his Master with a kiss. Favored as we have been, we can expect to perish by no common death. The judgment lingers not, and the damnation slumbers not, of the reprobates and traitors, who, for the wages of unrighteousness, have sapped the pillars and undermined the foundations of the stateliest temple of liberty the world ever beheld. Rebellion against God, and treason to man, are combined in the perfidy. The innocent may be spared, as Lot was delivered from the destruction of Sodom; but the guilty must perish with an aggravated doom.

We trust that for decency's sake nothing may be said, henceforth, about what Northern men may think should be done with " traitors," when Dr. Thornwell dooms those