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Is it possible that we can hesitate

decide for one or the other. * longer than a moment? In our natural recoil from the perils of revolu tion, and with our clinging fondness for the memories of the past, we may perhaps look around for something to soften the asperity of the issue, for some ground on which we may defer the day of evil, for some hope that the gathering clouds may not burst in fury upon the land.

Then, after answering the objections of those who might be supposed to be not quite ready for the wicked work to which he exhorts them, and to strengthen the timid, he proceeds:

* * I say it with solemnity and pain, * * I throw off the

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this Union of our forefathers is already gone. yoke of this Union as readily as did our ancestors the yoke of King George III., and for causes immeasurably stronger than those pleaded in their celebrated Declaration.

Then, after replying to other objections of the wavering and the Union-loving, he urges "the Southern States" to "reclaim the powers they have delegated;" to "take all the necessary steps looking to separate and independent existence ;" and "thus, prepared for every contingency," to "let the crisis come.' ." Fearing that these exhortations may not be effective, he flatters Southern pride a little :

The position of the South is at this moment sublime. If she has grace given her to know her hour, she will save herself, the country, and the world. It will involve, indeed, temporary prostration and distress; the dikes of Holland must be cut to save her from the troops of Philip. But I warn my countrymen, the historic moment, once passed, never

returns.

THE PROPHECY FULFILLED UNEXPECTEDLY.

It is a noticeable fact, and finds its illustrations all over the Southern rebel States, that the very evils which the rebels imagined were to be averted by their revolt, are the evils which their rebellion has brought upon them. Dr.

DR. PALMER'S SERMON STEEPED IN SIN.

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Palmer, in view of the consequences of "submitting to Lincoln," thus warns:

Our children will go forth beggared from the homes of their fathers. Fishermen will cast their nets where your proud commercial navy now rides at anchor, and dry them upon the shore now covered with your bales of merchandise. Sapped, circumvented, undermined, the institutions of your soil will be overthrown; and within five-and-twenty years, the history of St. Domingo will be the record of Louisiana.

The picture here drawn of New Orleans is wellnigh true, but from “resistance" rather than "submission," and much sooner than was anticipated; and so of the South at large. We hope the horrors of St. Domingo are not to be added to what they already suffer, but if they are, posterity will blame none but the rebels themselves.

On the last page of this eloquent utterance of treason, Dr. Palmer says:

I am impelled to deepen the sentiment of resistance in the Southern mind, and to strengthen the current now flowing toward a union of the South in defence of her chartered rights. It is a duty which I shall not be called to repeat, for such awful junctures do not occur twice in a century.

HIS SERMON STEEPED IN SIN, GUILT, AND CRIME.

No man who has correct ideas of the moral responsibility of a minister of the Gospel in the pulpit,—to God and religion, to society and civil government,-can rise from the perusal of this discourse, delivered at such a juncture and in such a place, without a painful sense of the great guilt of making such an utterance. Our hope is, that such men may see the sin and repent of it before they die. IT WAS A SIN, AND AN EXHORTATION

TO SIN.

It will be seen from the date of the discourse, that three weeks before the secession of the first State, and before

any public movement for secession had been made in New Orleans, and while the masses of the people there were still strongly attached to the Union, as is known by the Union meetings which were held long afterwards, Dr. Palmer threw himself into the van and made these bold utterances for treason. He mounted the very crest of the wave and became the king of the storm.

HE FURTHER VINDICATES SECESSION.

In April, 1861, Dr. Palmer published in the Southern Presbyterian (quarterly) Review his "Vindication of Secession and the South." In this article, as Dr. Thornwell had done before him in the same periodical, he argues at length in favor of the Constitutional right of secession, justifying it on the charge that the rights of slavery had been infringed and were in danger. Here, Dr. Palmer again strikes out boldly for secession, vindicating it in seven States which had already gone out, and indicating the hope and making the prophecy that all the remaining slave States would follow them. We give a brief extract from the article, where he speaks of the course of South Carolina, his native State:

When all hope of safety had died within her, she stood calmly under the shadow of the Capitol, before the clock which silently told the Nation's hours, and which would ere long sound the knell of its destiny. No sooner was this heard, in the shout of Black Republican success, than she leaped, feeble handed and alone, into the deadly breach. History has nowhere upon her records a more sublime example of moral heroism. Ignorant whether she would be supported, even by her sister across the Savannah, relying on nothing save the righteousness of her cause and the power of God, she took upon her shield and spear as desperate and as sacred a conflict as ever made a State immortal. * * * The Genius of history has already wreathed the garland with which her brow shall be decked. Long may she live, the mother of heroes who shall be worthy of their birth!

REV. THOS. SMYTH, D. d.

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There is the same strain of eloquent treason all through the article. But we forbear further quotations, as we have given the same sentiments, at considerable length, in his earlier utterances.

REV. THOMAS SMYTH, D. D., STRIKES THE SAME CHORD.

Among many other examples of labored essays and discourses similar to the foregoing, we give but one. Dr. Thomas Smyth, of Charleston, S. C., a distinguished ecclesiastical author, has written one of the most earnest and passionate articles which the literature of the rebellion has produced. It is found in the Southern Presbyterian Review for April, 1863, entitled, "The War of the South Vindicated," and is divided into four parts, as follows: "1. The war of the South is in self-defence; 2. The war of the South vindicated by the fundamental principles of American Liberty; 3. The war of the South is justified as a defensive war against fanatical abolition; 4. The Divine right of secession."

Like all Southern writers, he makes the dangers to be apprehended to slavery, the cause of secession and justifying resistance to the Government; and making slavery, in its preservation and extension, a religious duty, he thus justifies the war on their part:

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We have taken up arms for the defence of our civil and religious rights, and God, our country, and the world at large, call upon us to acquit ourselves like men, for our wives and our little ones, for our homes, our sanctuaries, and even our religion itself. The war now carried on by the North is a war against slavery, and is, therefore, treasonable rebellion against the Constitution of the United States, and against the word, providence, and government of God.

The groundless assertions of Dr. Smyth form a striking characteristic of the article:

The Missouri Compromise, forced upon the South by the North, only to be immediately and constantly resisted and perverted, rung the death-knell of the Union. The North first entrapped the

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South into the Union, under false pretences and hypocritical promises. The sure beginning of the sad end was formally laid down in the platform of the Republican party, on whose basis the present abolition administration was clothed with power to rend the Union, and to involve in one common ruin the happiness of both North and South.

The total untruthfulness of what is here asserted about this "platform," we have demonstrated in previous pages.

JUDGMENT AND BLESSING.

Here is a contrast between the North and the South: This war is a judgment upon the North, for its persistent, perjured, abolition fanaticism. Nearly severing the Union in 1790, it rung its death-knell in 1820, and has since then inflamed an irrepressible conflict, which has now destroyed the Union, and is overwhelming the North in inextricable difficulties.

Dr. Smyth thus regards attempts to destroy the Union as wicked, bringing down Divine judgment. What, then, is the South to receive for her present attempt? Only blessing, in this way:

God is working out a problem in the physical, social, political, and world-wide beneficial character of slavery, as a great missionary agency, of unexampled prosperity and success, which He is now demonstrating to the family of nations. In this war the South, therefore, is on God's side. She has His word, and providence, and omnipotent government, with her. And if she is found faithful to Him, and to this institution, which He has put under her spiritual care, then the heavens and earth may pass away, but God will not fail to vindicate His eternal providence, and defend and deliver His people, who walk in His statutes and commandments blameless.

RESISTANCE UNIVERSALLY INSTILLED.

This whole article is very much of the character of the foregoing extracts. We give its closing paragraph, as an example to show how the Southern clergy, besides being