26 lion, is to destroy it, for it may say with Shylock: “You take away my life when you do take the means whereby I live.” Let us praise and give thanks to Him therefore, for his simple, grand and awful negative. Let us bow down and adore Him. And then let us thank Him for those positive successes in which though we were the actors, yet if He had not gone forth with our hosts, we had been the vanquished too. Recall the splendid victories of the year. Listen to the booming cannon that proclaims to-day, a new victory to our arms, and fresh disaster to the bad cause. These successes have at last pent in the active rebellion to five States — have tamed its confidence, cut off its supplies, and reduced it to a condition in which its courage is desperation, and its very victories, if it achieve any, will be almost as disastrous as defeats. It cannot afford to win battles and live, and surely it cannot afford to lose them. In fact, it can only afford to die. We may praise God therefore, not only with devout gratitude but with hope. We may look forward to the period of restored unity, of ripened loyalty, of a more fervent patriotism, and of universal freedom. In fact, we may anticipate a day when the moral and mental developments, and the wide play of sympathy elicited by this great struggle, shall have so exalted the character of this people, and joined the thirty mil
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