40 THANKSGIVING SERMON. “some strange thing” had happened to her? And I take leave to say, with all frankness, if the ministers of the Gospel at the South had not shut their ears against the instructions of God’s Word—if they had honestly and earnestly sought to know the truth, and had boldness equal to the exigency, this frightful conflict would never have desolated the land. A little firmness on the part of our Southern brethren would have chained “the dogs of war” and saved the country. In my humble judgment, fearful wickedness is attached to the pulpits of the South in this matter. If they had not been given over to great mental blindness, in defiance of all artifice and menaces of perfidious politicians, they would have arrested the hand of the destroyer. The pulpit of the South does not know its power. Does not know its power, did I say ? I recall the words. It knows it too well, and has exerted it too systematically. It was among the earliest and boldest preachers of sedition: the course it pursued was rebellion baptized in the waters of the sanctuary. Its ministers are not only rebels, but among the leaders of a rebellion which they might have crushed in the bud. What the issue will be is in the
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