THANKSGIVING SERMON. 41 hands of a wise and almighty Providence. They have “sown the wind,” and it would be no unusual and no undeserved result if they “reap the whirlwind.” I can excuse the ignorant, and even the arrogant, for the part they have been instigated to tread on this field of blood, but I can not excuse Christian ministers. I could say something to palliate the perfidy and intrigue of ambitious statesmen; but for good men, able men, God’s ministers, knowing as they do that the North asked nothing, aimed at nothing, and were pursuing nothing but the supremacy of the laws and the maintenance of equal rights in every part of the Union, to stamp upon and tread in the dust the principles which their and our fathers secured by so much service and suffering— for this we have no apology. They are traitors, striking blow after blow upon all that is vital in the structure of human society; and not a few of them, in all the sanctity of their official robes, are armed traitors. War is a fearful remedy, but history teaches us that there are greater evils than the shock of battle. God grant that we may never learn that the destruction of our Constitution and our Union is a greater evil; that the loss of our civil and religious liberty is a
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