7 relieved by a burst of enthusiasm, and we are assembled upon a day and in a house pre-eminently designed to control the ebullitions of feeling and make them subservient to the establishment and growth of solid principles, let us enquire as those who know that individual happiness and true national prosperity are secured alone by adherence to God and His truth, — as those who believe that Governments are ordained of God, as an instrumentality for the protection, education, and development of men, — as Christian men who feel the responsibility which God has placed upon us as active agents in shaping the character and influence of that under which we live, — as those who love their country and their countrymen, who are jealous of the honor of the one and sympathetic with the sorrows of the other, as mindful of their own prosperity and careful of their children’s inheritance, — uninfluenced by any consideration but a desire to know the truth, — let us ask the question which rises to our lips, to gain, if not a direct and satisfactory answer, at least such as we may : What meaneth the noise of this great shout I I. There is but a single response which can be given with absolute certainty. We know it means one thing ; all else is speculation. It means that there are some additional spots of earth fertilized by human blood. It means that other “ stricken fields” have been made, where the plowman of future years shall rout with the coulter’s point, from their shallow graves, the skulls and bones of the fathers, husbands, brothers, and lovers of yesterday ; and grandsires will tell, to listening ears, tales of the “famous victories.” It means that the light and joy have gone out from hundreds of homes and thousands of
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