24 THE SACRIFICE OF CONTINUAL PRAISE. 1855, when a Classis of the German Reformed Church, in which were professing Christians who were slaveholders, ap. plied for admission into the Reformed Protestant Dutch Church, the Church did speak with practical force, refusing any fellowship with the unclean thing,] “yet as in the overruling providence of that God, who knows how to make the wrath of man to praise Him, there is a prospect opened for the ultimate and entire removal of that system which embodies so much of moral and social evil, and as by such removal, there is opened a wide field of Christian labors, to employ the energies of the Christian church in this land, the synod expresses its gratitude to God for this bright prospect, and would join in the prayer that the day may be hastened when Liberty shall be effectually and finally proclaimed, throughout all the land, to all the inhabitants thereof.” Amen and Amen —God speed the day. T say, then, that the time for discussion has past. The whole church unites in the prayer that this great evil, that has worked so much of disaster and of ruin, that, in its damnable rebellion against a righteous government, has demanded the lives of many of the best and bravest of our young men, be forever obliterated from among us—buried deep, never to rise again. It is a legitimate theme for gratitude to God, that so many hundreds have passed out from under the yoke, to Liberty and self-ownership. Instinctively the soul of every man welcomes Liberty. Even the President of the so-called Confederacy, proposes to give it, as a boon to those slaves f •
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