15 proper governmental structure for* a free people, that the high claims of freedom may be adjusted with the high claims of order. A more solemn question for the welfare of mankind, a nation never before arose in the majesty of its two great parts to decide. A holier cause was never brought to issue ! Holy and solemn for ourselves as a divided nation—divided in opinion, divided in arms! Holy for our country—holy for our children—holy for the struggling nations of Europe—holy for mankind in all the future ! We are shedding our best blood, that the best blood of other nations may be spared; that we may settle for them a great principle. The clarion call for this contest was sounded by Luther at the gates of Wittenberg. The note was caught by Cromwell and prolonged. Ere it died away it rang clear and loud again, echoing among these hills from Lexington to Yorktown. And now, when its echoes had almost ceased, the blast swells again at Sumter and Baltimore. It is a one long contest in process of completion ; settling not indeed the question of the liberty of man, but what is sound, healthy, permanent, safe liberty —a liberty in which man can rest secure. Pray God, that this blast now sounding may be the last. That this country is destined for ruin, is not to be thought of an instant The God of Battles has not done with this great nation yet. The Republic shall stand like Rome, through centuries. And her end shall lie—not a murder;—but, with the glory upon her brow from hoary institutions, and with a pence there which alone the benedictions of a hundred generations of children could transfuse, her work done, she shall lie down in quiet, lamented by the world. The highest duty of a nation is to develop out into all the glo- rious jwiweis, and attainments, and possibilities, with which God has endowed it. And if there l>e any undecided question—any poison in the nation which will stop such development, it then becomes the duty of that nation to jciuse and eject the jioison utterly from the body politic, that its development may go oil to its acme. We are not, and have not been, a mere experiment, as a free people. We are but putting the lilial conclusion to an ever
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