Our ship lay tumbling in an angry sea,Her rudder gone, her mainmast o'er the side;Her scuppers, from the waves' clutch staggering free,Trailed threads of priceless crimson through the tide;Sails, shrouds, and spars with pirate cannon torn,We lay, awaiting morn.Awaiting morn, such morn as mocks despair;And she that bore the promise of the worldWithin her sides, now hopeless, helmless, bare,At random o'er the wildering waters hurled;The reek of battle drifting slow a-leeNot sullener than we.Morn came at last to peer into our woe,When lo, a sail! Now surely help is nigh;The red cross flames aloft, Christ's pledge; but no,Her black guns grinning hate, she rushes byAnd hails us:—"Gains the leak? Ah, so we thought!Sink, then, with curses fraught!"I leaned against my gun still angry-hot,And my lids tingled with the tears held back;This scorn methought was crueller than shot;The manly death-grip in the battle-wrack,Yard-arm to yard-arm, were more friendly farThan such fear-smothered war.There our foe wallowed like a wounded brute,The fiercer for his hurt. What now were best?Once more tug bravely at the peril's root.Though death come with it? Or evade the testIf right or wrong in this God's world of oursBe leagued with higher powers?Some, faintly loyal, felt their pulses lagWith the slow beat that doubts and then despairs;Some, caitiff, would have struck the starry flagThat knits us with our past, and makes us heirsOf deeds high-hearted as were ever done'Neath the all-seeing sun.But one there was, the Singer of our crew,Upon whose head Age waved his peaceful sign,But whose red heart's-blood no surrender knew;And couchant under brows of massive line,The eyes, like guns beneath a parapet,Watched, charged with lightnings yet.The voices of the hills did his obey;The torrents flashed and tumbled in his song;He brought our native fields from far away,Or set us 'mid the innumerable throngOf dateless woods, or where we heard the calmOld homestead's evening psalm.But now he sang of faith to things unseen,Of freedom's birthright given to us in trust;And words of doughty cheer he spoke between,That made all earthly fortune seem as dust,Matched with that duty, old as time and new,Of being brave and true.We, listening, learned what makes the might of words,—Manhood to back them, constant as a star;His voice rammed home our cannon, edged our swords,And sent our boarders shouting; shroud and sparHeard him and stiffened; the sails heard and wooedThe winds with loftier mood.In our dark hour he manned our guns again;Remanned ourselves from his own manhood's store;Pride, honor, country throbbed through all his strain;And shall we praise? God's praise was his before;And on our futile laurels he looks down;Himself our bravest crown.
Our ship lay tumbling in an angry sea,Her rudder gone, her mainmast o'er the side;Her scuppers, from the waves' clutch staggering free,Trailed threads of priceless crimson through the tide;Sails, shrouds, and spars with pirate cannon torn,We lay, awaiting morn.
Awaiting morn, such morn as mocks despair;And she that bore the promise of the worldWithin her sides, now hopeless, helmless, bare,At random o'er the wildering waters hurled;The reek of battle drifting slow a-leeNot sullener than we.
Morn came at last to peer into our woe,When lo, a sail! Now surely help is nigh;The red cross flames aloft, Christ's pledge; but no,Her black guns grinning hate, she rushes byAnd hails us:—"Gains the leak? Ah, so we thought!Sink, then, with curses fraught!"
I leaned against my gun still angry-hot,And my lids tingled with the tears held back;This scorn methought was crueller than shot;The manly death-grip in the battle-wrack,Yard-arm to yard-arm, were more friendly farThan such fear-smothered war.
There our foe wallowed like a wounded brute,The fiercer for his hurt. What now were best?Once more tug bravely at the peril's root.Though death come with it? Or evade the testIf right or wrong in this God's world of oursBe leagued with higher powers?
Some, faintly loyal, felt their pulses lagWith the slow beat that doubts and then despairs;Some, caitiff, would have struck the starry flagThat knits us with our past, and makes us heirsOf deeds high-hearted as were ever done'Neath the all-seeing sun.
But one there was, the Singer of our crew,Upon whose head Age waved his peaceful sign,But whose red heart's-blood no surrender knew;And couchant under brows of massive line,The eyes, like guns beneath a parapet,Watched, charged with lightnings yet.
The voices of the hills did his obey;The torrents flashed and tumbled in his song;He brought our native fields from far away,Or set us 'mid the innumerable throngOf dateless woods, or where we heard the calmOld homestead's evening psalm.
But now he sang of faith to things unseen,Of freedom's birthright given to us in trust;And words of doughty cheer he spoke between,That made all earthly fortune seem as dust,Matched with that duty, old as time and new,Of being brave and true.
We, listening, learned what makes the might of words,—Manhood to back them, constant as a star;His voice rammed home our cannon, edged our swords,And sent our boarders shouting; shroud and sparHeard him and stiffened; the sails heard and wooedThe winds with loftier mood.
In our dark hour he manned our guns again;Remanned ourselves from his own manhood's store;Pride, honor, country throbbed through all his strain;And shall we praise? God's praise was his before;And on our futile laurels he looks down;Himself our bravest crown.
Here comes the First of January, Eighteen Hundred and Sixty-Five, and we are all settled comfortably into our winter places, with our winter surroundings and belongings; all cracks and openings are calked and listed, the double windows are in, the furnace dragon in the cellar is ruddy and in good liking, sending up his warming respirations through every pipe and register in the house; and yet, though an artificial summer reigns everywhere, like bees, we have our swarming-place,—in my library. There is my chimney-corner, and my table permanently established on one side of the hearth; and each of the female genus has, so to speak, pitched her own winter-tent within sight of the blaze of my camp-fire. I discerned to-day that Jennie had surreptitiously appropriated one of the drawers of my study-table to knitting-needles and worsted; and wicker work-baskets and stands of various heights and sizes seem to be planted here and there for permanence among the bookcases. The canary-bird has a sunny window, and the plants spread out their leaves and unfold their blossoms as if there were no ice and snow in the street, and Rover makes a hearth-rug of himself in winking satisfaction in front of my fire, except when Jennie is taken with a fit of discipline, when he beats a retreat, and secretes himself under my table.
Peaceable, ah, how peaceable, home and quiet and warmth in winter! And how, when we hear the wind whistle, we think of you, O our brave brothers, our saviours and defenders, who for our sake have no home but the muddy camp, the hard pillow of the barrack, the weary march, the uncertain fare,—you, the rank and file, the thousand unnoticed ones, who have left warm fires, dear wives, loving little children, without even the hope of glory or fame,—without even the hope of doing anything remarkable or perceptible for the cause you love,—resigned only to fill the ditch or bridge the chasm over which your country shall walk to peace and joy! Good men and true, brave unknown hearts, we salute you, and feel that we, in our soft peace and security, are not worthy of you! When we think of you, our simple comforts seem luxuries all too good for us, who give so little when you give all!
But there are others to whom from our bright homes, our cheerful firesides, we would fain say a word, if we dared.
Think of a mother receiving a letter with such a passage as this in it! It is extracted from one we have just seen, written by a private in the army of Sheridan, describing the death of a private. "He fell instantly, gave a peculiar smile and look, and then closed his eyes. We laid him down gently at the foot of a large tree. I crossed his hands over his breast, closed his eyelids down, but the smile was still on his face. I wrapped him in his tent, spread my pocket-handkerchief over his face, wrote his name on a piece of paper, and pinned it on his breast, and there we left him: we could not find pick or shovel to dig a grave." There it is!—a history that is multiplying itself by hundreds daily, the substance of what has come to so many homes, and must come to so many more before the great price of our ransom is paid!
What can we say to you, in those many, many homes where the light has gone out forever?—you, O fathers, mothers, wives, sisters, haunted by a name that has ceased to be spoken on earth,—you, for whom there is no more news from the camp, no more reading of lists, no more tracing of maps, no more letters, but only a blank, dead silence! The battle-cry goes on,but for you it is passed by! the victory comes, but, oh, never more to bring him back to you! your offering to this great cause has been made, and been taken; you have thrown into itallyour living, even all that you had, and from henceforth your house is left unto you desolate! O ye watchers of the cross, ye waiters by the sepulchre, what can be said to you? We could almost extinguish our own home-fires, that seem too bright when we think of your darkness; the laugh dies on our lip, the lamp burns dim through our tears, and we seem scarcely worthy to speak words of comfort, lest we seem as those who mock a grief they cannot know.
But is there no consolation? Is it nothing to have had such a treasure to give, and to have given it freely for the noblest cause for which ever battle was set,—for the salvation of your country, for the freedom of all mankind? Had he died a fruitless death, in the track of common life, blasted by fever, smitten or rent by crushing accident, then might his most precious life seem to be as water spilled upon the ground; but now it has been given for a cause and a purpose worthy even the anguish of your loss and sacrifice. He has been counted worthy to be numbered with those who stood with precious incense between the living and the dead, that the plague which was consuming us might be stayed. The blood of these young martyrs shall be the seed of the future church of liberty, and from every drop shall spring up flowers of healing. O widow! O mother! blessed among bereaved women! there remains to you a treasure that belongs not to those who have lost in any other wise,—the power to say, "He died for his country." In all the good that comes of this anguish you shall have a right and share by virtue of this sacrifice. The joy of freedmen bursting from chains, the glory of a nation new-born, the assurance of a triumphant future for your country and the world,—all these become yours by the purchase-money of that precious blood.
Besides this, there are other treasures that come through sorrow, and sorrow alone. There are celestial plants of root so long and so deep that the land must be torn and furrowed, ploughed up from the very foundation, before they can strike and flourish; and when we see how God's plough is driving backward and forward and across this nation, rending, tearing up tender shoots, and burying soft wild-flowers, we ask ourselves, What is He going to plant?
Not the first year, nor the second, after the ground has been broken up, does the purpose of the husbandman appear. At first we see only what is uprooted and ploughed in,—the daisy drabbled, and the violet crushed,—and the first trees planted amid the unsightly furrows stand dumb and disconsolate, irresolute in leaf, and without flower or fruit. Their work is under the ground. In darkness and silence they are putting forth long fibres, searching hither and thither under the black soil for the strength that years hence shall burst into bloom and bearing.
What is true of nations is true of individuals. It may seem now winter and desolation with you. Your hearts have been ploughed and harrowed and are now frozen up. There is not a flower left, not a blade of grass, not a bird to sing,—and it is hard to believe that any brighter flowers, any greener herbage, shall spring up, than those which have been torn away: and yet there will. Nature herself teaches you to-day. Out-doors nothing but bare branches and shrouding snow; and yet you know that there is not a tree that is not patiently holding out at the end of its boughs next year's buds, frozen indeed, but unkilled. The rhododendron and the lilac have their blossoms all ready, wrapped in cere-cloth, waiting in patient faith. Under the frozen ground the crocus and the hyacinth and the tulip hide in their hearts the perfect forms of future flowers. And it is even so with you: your leaf-buds of the future are frozen, but not killed; the soil of your heart has many flowers under it cold and still now, but they will yet come up and bloom.
The dear old book of comfort tells of no present healing for sorrow.Nochastening for the present seemeth joyous, but grievous, butafterwardsit yieldeth peaceable fruits of righteousness. We, as individuals, as a nation, need to have faith in thatafterwards. It is sure to come,—sure as spring and summer to follow winter.
There is a certain amount of suffering which must follow the rending of the great chords of life, suffering which is natural and inevitable; it cannot be argued down; it cannot be stilled; it can no more be soothed by any effort of faith and reason than the pain of a fractured limb, or the agony of fire on the living flesh. All that we can do is to brace ourselves to bear it, calling on God, as the martyrs did in the fire, and resigning ourselves to let it burn on. We must be willing to suffer, since God so wills. There are just so many waves to go over us, just so many arrows of stinging thought to be shot into our soul, just so many faintings and sinkings and revivings only to suffer again, belonging to and inherent in our portion of sorrow; and there is a work of healing that God has placed in the hands of Time alone.
Time heals all things at last; yet it depends much on us in our suffering, whether time shall send us forth healed, indeed, but maimed and crippled and callous, or whether, looking to the great Physician of sorrows, and coworking with him, we come forth stronger and fairer even for our wounds.
We call ourselves a Christian people, and the peculiarity of Christianity is that it is a worship and doctrine of sorrow. The five wounds of Jesus, the instruments of the passion, the cross, the sepulchre,—these are its emblems and watchwords. In thousands of churches, amid gold and gems and altars fragrant with perfume, are seen the crown of thorns, the nails, the spear, the cup of vinegar mingled with gall, the sponge that could not slake that burning death-thirst; and in a voice choked with anguish the Church in many lands and divers tongues prays from age to age,—"By thine agony and bloody sweat, by thy cross and passion, by thy precious death and burial!"—mighty words of comfort, whose meaning reveals itself only to souls fainting in the cold death-sweat of mortal anguish! They tell all Christians that by uttermost distress alone was the Captain of their salvation made perfect as a Saviour.
Sorrow brings us into the true unity of the Church,—that unity which underlies all external creeds, and unites all hearts that have suffered deeply enough to know that when sorrow is at its utmost there is but one kind of sorrow, and but one remedy. What matter,in extremis, whether we be called Romanist, or Protestant, or Greek, or Calvinist?
We suffer, and Christ suffered; we die, and Christ died; he conquered suffering and death, he rose and lives and reigns,—and we shall conquer, rise, live, and reign; the hours on the cross were long, the thirst was bitter, the darkness and horror real,—but they ended. After the wail, "My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" came the calm, "It is finished"; pledge to us all that our "It is finished" shall come also.
Christ arose, fresh, joyous, no more to die; and it is written, that, when the disciples were gathered together in fear and sorrow, he stood in the midst of them, and showed unto them his hands and his side; and then were they glad. Already had the healed wounds of Jesus become pledges of consolation to innumerable thousands; and those who, like Christ, have suffered the weary struggles, the dim horrors of the cross,—who have lain, like him, cold and chilled in the hopeless sepulchre,—if his spirit wakes them to life, shall come forth with healing power for others who have suffered and are suffering.
Count the good and beautiful ministrations that have been wrought in this world of need and labor, and how many of them have been wrought by hands wounded and scarred, by hearts that had scarcely ceased to bleed!
How many priests of consolation isGod now ordaining by the fiery imposition of sorrow! how many Sisters of the Bleeding Heart, Daughters of Mercy, Sisters of Charity, are receiving their first vocation in tears and blood!
The report of every battle strikes into some home; and heads fall low, and hearts are shattered, and only God sees the joy that is set before them, and that shall come out of their sorrow. He sees our morning at the same moment that He sees our night,—sees us comforted, healed, risen to a higher life, at the same moment that He sees us crushed and broken in the dust; and so, though tenderer than we, He bears our great sorrows for the joy that is set before us.
After the Napoleonic wars had desolated Europe, the country was, like all countries after war, full of shattered households, of widows and orphans and homeless wanderers. A nobleman of Silesia, the Baron von Kottwitz, who had lost his wife and all his family in the reverses and sorrows of the times, found himself alone in the world, which looked more dreary and miserable through the multiplying lenses of his own tears. But he was one of those whose heart had been quickened in its death anguish by the resurrection voice of Christ; and he came forth to life and comfort. He bravely resolved to do all that one man could to lessen the great sum of misery. He sold his estates in Silesia, bought in Berlin a large building that had been used as barracks for the soldiers, and, fitting it up in plain commodious apartments, formed there a great family-establishment, into which he received the wrecks and fragments of families that had been broken up by the war,—orphan children, widowed and helpless women, decrepit old people, disabled soldiers. These he mad his family, and constituted himself their father and chief. He above with them, and cared for them as a parent. He had schools for the children; the more advanced he put to trades and employments; he set up a hospital for the sick; and for all he had the priestly ministrations of his own Christ-like heart. The celebrated Professor Tholuck, one of the most learned men of modern Germany, was an earlyprotégéof the old Baron's, who, discerning his talents, put him in the way of a liberal education. In his earlier years, like many others of the young who play with life, ignorant of its needs, Tholuck piqued himself on a lordly skepticism with regard to the commonly received Christianity, and even wrote an essay to prove the superiority of the Mohammedan to the Christian religion. In speaking of his conversion, he says,—"What moved me was no argument, nor any spoken reproof, but simply that divine image of the old Baron walking before my soul. That life was an argument always present to me, and which I never could answer; and so I became a Christian." In the life of this man we see the victory over sorrow. How many with means like his, when desolated by like bereavements, have lain coldly and idly gazing on the miseries of life, and weaving around themselves icy tissues of doubt and despair,—doubting the being of a God, doubting the reality of a Providence, doubting the divine love, embittered and rebellious against the power which they could not resist, yet to which they would not submit! In such a chill heart-freeze lies the danger of sorrow. And it is a mortal danger. It is a torpor that must be resisted, as the man in the whirling snows must bestir himself, or he will perish. The apathy of melancholy must be broken by an effort of religion and duty. The stagnant blood must be made to flow by active work, and the cold hand warmed by clasping the hands outstretched towards it in sympathy or supplication. One orphan child taken in, to be fed, clothed, and nurtured, may save a heart from freezing to death: and God knows this war is making but too many orphans!
It is easy to subscribe to an orphan asylum, and go on in one's despair and loneliness. Such ministries may do good to the children who are thereby saved from the street, but they impart little warmth and comfort to the giver. One destitute child housed, taught, caredfor, and tended personally, will bring more solace to a suffering heart than a dozen maintained in an asylum. Not that the child will probably prove an angel, or even an uncommonly interesting mortal. It is a prosaic work, this bringing-up of children, and there can be little rosewater in it. The child may not appreciate what is done for him, may not be particularly grateful, may have disagreeable faults, and continue to have them after much pains on your part to eradicate them,—and yet it is a fact, that to redeem one human being from destitution and ruin, even in some homely every-day course of ministrations, is one of the best possible tonics and alteratives to a sick and wounded spirit.
But this is not the only avenue to beneficence which the war opens. We need but name the service of hospitals, the care and education of the freedmen,—for these are charities that have long been before the eyes of the community, and have employed thousands of busy hands: thousands of sick and dying beds to tend, a race to be educated, civilized, and Christianized, surely were work enough for one age; and yet this is not all. War shatters everything, and it is hard to say what in society will not need rebuilding and binding up and strengthening anew. Not the least of the evils of war are the vices which a great army engenders wherever it moves,—vices peculiar to military life, as others are peculiar to peace. The poor soldier perils for us not merely his body, but his soul. He leads a life of harassing and exhausting toil and privation, of violent strain on the nervous energies, alternating with sudden collapse, creating a craving for stimulants, and endangering the formation of fatal habits. What furies and harpies are those that follow the army, and that seek out the soldier in his tent, far from home, mother, wife, and sister, tired, disheartened, and tempt him to forget his troubles in a momentary exhilaration, that burns only to chill and to destroy! Evil angels are always active and indefatigable, and there must be good angels enlisted to face them; and here is employment for the slack hand of grief. Ah, we have known mothers bereft of sons in this war, who have seemed at once to open wide their hearts, and to become mothers to every brave soldier in the field. They have lived only to work,—and in place of one lost, their sons have been counted by thousands.
And not least of all the fields for exertion and Christian charity opened by this war is that presented by womanhood. The war is abstracting from the community its protecting and sheltering elements, and leaving the helpless and dependent in vast disproportion. For years to come, the average of lone women will be largely increased; and the demand, always great, for some means by which they may provide for themselves, in the rude jostle of the world, will become more urgent and imperative.
Will any one sit pining away in inert grief, when two streets off are the midnight dance-houses, where girls of twelve, thirteen, and fourteen are being lured into the way of swift destruction? How many of these are daughters of soldiers who have given their hearts' blood for us and our liberties!
Two noble women of the Society of Friends have lately been taking the gauge of suffering and misery in our land, visiting the hospitals at every accessible point, pausing in our great cities, and going in their purity to those midnight orgies where mere children are being trained for a life of vice and infamy. They have talked with these poor bewildered souls, entangled in toils as terrible and inexorable as those of the slave-market, and many of whom are frightened and distressed at the life they are beginning to lead, and earnestly looking for the means of escape. In the judgment of these holy women, at least one third of those with whom they have talked are children so recently entrapped, and so capable of reformation, that there would be the greatest hope in efforts for their salvation. While such things are to be done in our land, is there any reason why any one shoulddie of grief? One soul redeemed will do more to lift the burden of sorrow than all the blandishments and diversions of art, all the alleviations of luxury, all the sympathy of friends.
In the Roman Catholic Church there is an order of women called the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, who have renounced the world to devote themselves, their talents and property, entirely to the work of seeking out and saving the fallen of their own sex; and the wonders worked by their self-denying love on the hearts and lives of even the most depraved are credible only to those who know that the Good Shepherd Himself ever lives and works with such spirits engaged in such a work. A similar order of women exists in New York, under the direction of the Episcopal Church, in connection with St. Luke's Hospital; and another in England, who tend the "House of Mercy" of Clewer.
Such benevolent associations offer objects of interest to that class which most needs something to fill the void made by bereavement. The wounds of grief are less apt to find a cure in that rank of life where the sufferer has wealth and leisure. Thepoorwidow, whose husband was her all,mustbreak the paralysis of grief. The hard necessities of life are her physicians; they send her out to unwelcome, yet friendly toil, which, hard as it seems, has yet its healing power. But the sufferer surrounded by the appliances of wealth and luxury may long indulge the baleful apathy, and remain in the damp shadows of the valley of death till strength and health are irrecoverably lost. How Christ-like is the thought of a woman, graceful, elegant, cultivated, refined, whose voice has been trained to melody, whose fingers can make sweet harmony with every touch, whose pencil and whose needle can awake the beautiful creations of art, devoting all these powers to the work of charming back to the sheepfold those wandering and bewildered lambs whom the Good Shepherd still calls his own! Jenny Lind, once, when she sang at a concert for destitute children, exclaimed in her enthusiasm, "Is it not beautiful that I can sing so?" And so may not every woman feel, when her graces and accomplishments draw the wanderer, and charm away evil demons, and soothe the sore and sickened spirit, and make the Christian fold more attractive than the dizzy gardens of false pleasure?
In such associations, and others of kindred nature, how many of the stricken and bereaved women of our country might find at once a home and an object in life! Motherless hearts might be made glad in a better and higher motherhood; and the stock of earthly life that seemed cut off at the root, and dead past recovery, may be grafted upon with a shoot from the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.
So the beginning of this eventful 1865, which finds us still treading the wine-press of our great conflict, should bring with it a serene and solemn hope, a joy such as those had with whom in the midst of the fiery furnace there walked one like unto the Son of God.
The great affliction that has come upon our country is so evidently the purifying chastening of a Father, rather than the avenging anger of a Destroyer, that all hearts may submit themselves in a solemn and holy calm still to bear the burning that shall make us clean from dross and bring us forth to a higher national life. Never, in the whole course of our history, have such teachings of the pure abstract Right been so commended and forced upon us by Providence. Never have public men been so constrained to humble themselves before God, and to acknowledge that there is a Judge that ruleth in the earth. Verily His inquisition for blood has been strict and awful; and for every stricken household of the poor and lowly, hundreds of households of the oppressor have been scattered. The land where the family of the slave was first annihilated, and the negro, with all the loves and hopes of a man, was proclaimed to be a beast to be bred and sold in marketwith the horse and the swine,—that land, with its fair name, Virginia, has been made a desolation so signal, so wonderful, that the blindest passer-by cannot but ask for what sin so awful a doom has been meted out. The prophetic visions of Nat Turner, who saw the leaves drop blood and the land darkened, have been fulfilled. The work of justice which he predicted is being executed to the uttermost.
But when this strange work of judgment and justice is consummated, when our country, through a thousand battles and ten thousands of precious deaths, shall have come forth from this long agony, redeemed and regenerated, then God Himself shall return and dwell with us, and the Lord God shall wipe away all tears from all faces, and the rebuke of His people shall He utterly take away.
Washed in the blood of the brave and the blooming,Snatched from the altars of insolent foes,Burning with star-fires, but never consuming,Flash its broad ribands of lily and rose.Vainly the prophets of Baäl would rend it,Vainly his worshippers pray for its fall;Thousands have died for it, millions defend it,Emblem of justice and mercy to all:Justice that reddens the sky with her terrors,Mercy that comes with her white-handed train,Soothing all passions, redeeming all errors,Sheathing the sabre and breaking the chain.Borne on the deluge of old usurpations,Drifted our Ark o'er the desolate seas;This was the rainbow of hope to the nations,Torn from the storm-cloud and flung to the breeze!God bless the Flag and its loyal defenders.While its broad folds o'er the battle-field wave,Till the dim star-wreath rekindle its splendors,Washed from its stains in the blood of the brave!
Washed in the blood of the brave and the blooming,Snatched from the altars of insolent foes,Burning with star-fires, but never consuming,Flash its broad ribands of lily and rose.
Vainly the prophets of Baäl would rend it,Vainly his worshippers pray for its fall;Thousands have died for it, millions defend it,Emblem of justice and mercy to all:
Justice that reddens the sky with her terrors,Mercy that comes with her white-handed train,Soothing all passions, redeeming all errors,Sheathing the sabre and breaking the chain.
Borne on the deluge of old usurpations,Drifted our Ark o'er the desolate seas;This was the rainbow of hope to the nations,Torn from the storm-cloud and flung to the breeze!
God bless the Flag and its loyal defenders.While its broad folds o'er the battle-field wave,Till the dim star-wreath rekindle its splendors,Washed from its stains in the blood of the brave!
It is right and fitting that this nation should enter upon the new year with peculiar gratitude and thanksgiving to the Most High. Through all its existence it has rejoiced in the sunshine of divine favor; but never has that favor been so benignly and bountifully bestowed as in these latter days. For the unexampled material prosperity which has waited upon our steps,—for blessings in city and field, in basket and store, in all that we have set our hand unto, it is meet that we should render thanks to the Good Giver; but for the especial blessings of these last four years,—for the sudden uprising of manhood,—for the great revival of justice and truth and love, without which material prosperity is but a second death,—for the wisdom to do, the courage to dare, the patience to endure, and the godlike strength to sacrifice all in a righteous cause, let us give thanks to-day; for in these consists a people's life.
To every nation there comes an hour whereon hang trembling the issues of its fate. Has it vitality to withstand the shock of conflict and the turmoil of surprise? Will it slowly gather itself up for victorious onset? or will it sink unresisting into darkness and the grave?
To this nation, as to all, the question came: Ease or honor, death or life? Subtle and savage, with a bribe in his hand, and a threat on his tongue, the tempter stood. Let it be remembered with lasting gratitude that there was neither pause nor parley when once his purpose was revealed. The answer came,—the voice of millions like the voice of one. From city and village, from mountain and prairie, from the granite coast of the Atlantic to the golden gate of the Pacific, the answer came. It roared from a thousand cannon, it flashed from a million muskets. The sudden gleam of uplifted swords revealed it, the quiver of bristling bayonets wrote it in blood. A knell to the despot, a pæan to the slave, it thundered round the world.
Then the thing which we had greatly feared came upon us, and that spectre which we had been afraid of came unto us, and, behold, length of days was in its right hand, and in its left hand riches and honor. What the lion-hearted warrior of England was to the children of the Saracens, that had the gaunt mystery of Secession been to the little ones of this generation, an evening phantom and a morning fear, at the mere mention of whose name many had been but too ready to fall at the feet of opposition and cry imploringly, "Take any form but that!" The phantom approached, put off its shadowy outlines, assumed a definite purpose, loomed up in horrid proportions,—to come to perpetual end. In its actual presence all fear vanished. The contest waxed hot, but it wanes forever. Shadow and substance drag slowly down their bloody path to disappear in eternal infamy. The war rolls on to its close; and when it closes, the foul blot of secession stains our historic page no more. Another book shall be opened.
Remembering all the way which these battling years have led us, we can only say, "It is the Lord's, doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes." Who dreamed of the grand, stately patience, the heroic strength, that lay dormant in the hearts of this impulsive, mercurial people? It was always capable of magnanimity. Who suspected its sublime self-poise? Rioting in a reckless, childish freedom, who would have dared to prophesy that calm, clear foresight by which it voluntarily assumed the yoke, voiced all its strong individual wills in one central controlling will, and bent with haughty humility to every restraint that looked to the rescue of its endangered liberty? The cannon that smote the walls of Sumter did a wild work. Its voice of insult and of sacrilege roused the fire of a blood too brave toknow its courage, too proud to boast its source. All the heroism inherited from an honored ancestry, all the inborn wrath of justice against iniquity, all that was true to truth sprang up instinctively to wrest our Holy Land from the clutch of its worse than infidels.
But that was not the final test. The final test came afterwards. The passion of indignation flamed out as passion must. The war that had been welcomed as a relief bore down upon the land with an ever-increasing weight, became an ever-darkening shadow. Its romance and poetry did not fade out, but their colors were lost under the sable hues of reality. The cloud hung over every hamlet; it darkened every doorway. Even success must have been accompanied with sharpest sorrow; and we had not success to soften sorrow. Disaster followed close upon delay, and delay upon disaster, and still the nation's heart was strong. The cloud became a pall, but there was no faltering. Men said to one another, anxiously,—"This cannot last. We must have victory. The people will not stand these delays. The summer must achieve results, or all is lost." The summer came and went, results were not achieved, and still the patient country waited,—waited not supinely, not indifferently, but with a still determination, with a painful longing, with an eager endeavor, with a resolute will, less demonstrative, but no less definite, than that which Sumter roused. Moments of sadness, of gloom, of bitter disappointment and deep indignation there have been; but never from the first moment of the Rebellion to this its dying hour has there been a time when the purpose of the people to crush out treason and save the nation has for a single instant wavered. And never has their power lagged behind their purpose. Never have they withheld men or money, but always they have pressed on, more eager, more generous, more forward to give than their leaders have been to ask. Truly, it is not in man that walketh thus to direct his steps!
And side by side, with no unequal step, the great charities have attended the great conflict. Out of the strong has come forth sweetness. From the helmeted brow of War has sprung a fairer than Minerva, panoplied not for battle, but for the tenderest ministrations of Peace. Wherever the red hand of War has been raised to strike, there the white hand of Pity has been stretched forth to solace. Wherever else there may have been division, here there has been no division. Love, the essence of Christianity, self-sacrifice, the life of God, have forgotten their names, have left the beaten ways, have embodied themselves in institutions, and lifted the whole nation to the heights of a divine beneficence. Old and young, rich and poor, bond and free, have joined in offering an offering to the Lord in the persons of his wounded brethren. The woman that was tender and very delicate has brought her finest handiwork; the slave, whose just unmanacled hands were hardly yet deft enough to fashion a freedman's device, has proffered his painful hoards; the criminal in his cell has felt the mysterious brotherhood stirring in his heart, and has pressed his skill and cunning into the service of his countrymen. Hands trembling with age have steadied themselves to new effort; little fingers that had hardly learned their uses have bent with unwonted patience to the novelty of tasks. The fashion and elegance of great cities, the thrift and industry of rural villages, have combined to relieve the suffering and comfort the sorrowful. Science has wrought her mysteries, art has spread her beauties, and learning and eloquence and poetry have lavished their free-will offerings. The ancient blood of Massachusetts and the youthful vigor of California have throbbed high with one desire to give deserved meed to those heroic men who wear their badge of honor in scarred brow and maimed limb. The wonders of the Old World, the treasures of tropical seas, the boundless wealth of our own fertile inland, all that the present has of marvellous, all that the past has bequeathedmost precious,—all has been poured into the lap of this sweet charity, and blesseth alike him that gives and him that takes. It is the old convocation of the Jews, when they brought the Lord's offering to the work of the tabernacle of the congregation: "And they came, both men and women, and brought bracelets, and ear-rings, and rings, and tablets, all jewels of gold; and every man that offered offered an offering of gold unto the Lord. And every man with whom was found blue and purple and scarlet and fine linen and goats' hair and red skins of rams and badgers' skins brought them. And all the women that were wise-hearted did spin with their hands, and brought that which they had spun, both of blue and of purple and of scarlet and of fine linen. And the rulers brought onyx-stones, and stones to be set, and spice, and oil for the light. The children of Israel brought a willing offering unto the Lord, every man and woman."
Truly, not the least of the compensations of this war is the new spirit which it has set astir in human life, this acknowledged brotherhood which makes all things common, which moves health and wealth and leisure and learning to brave the dangers of the battle-field and the horrors of the hospital for the comfort of its needy comrade. And inasmuch as he who hath done it unto one of the least of these his brethren has done it unto the Master, is not this, in very deed and truth, Anno Domini, the Year of our Lord?
And let all devout hearts render praises to God for the hope we are enabled to cherish that He will speedily save this people from their national sin. From the days of our fathers, the land groaned under its weight of woe and crime; but none saw from what quarter deliverance should come. Apostles and prophets arose in North and South, prophesying the wrath of God against a nation that dared to hold its great truth of human brotherhood in unrighteousness, and the smile of God only on him who should do justly and love mercy and walk humbly before Him; but they died in faith, not having obtained the promises. That faith in God, and consequently in the ultimate triumph of right over wrong, never failed; but few, even of the most sanguine, dared to hope that their eyes should see the salvation of the Lord. Upright men spent their lives in unyielding and indignant protest, not so much for any immediate result as because they could do no otherwise,—because the constant violation of sacred right, the constant defilement and degradation of country, wrought so fiercely and painfully in their hearts that they could not hold their peace. Though they expected no sudden reform, they believed in the indestructibility of truth, and knew, therefore, that their word should not return unto them void, but waited for some far future day when happier harvesters should come bringing their sheaves with them. How looks the promise now? A beneficent Providence has outstripped our laggard hopes. The work which we had so summarily given over to the wiser generations behind us is rapidly approaching completion beneath the strokes of a few sharp, short years of our own. Slavery, which was apologized for by the South, tolerated by the North, half recognized as an evil, half accepted as a compromise, but with every conscientious concession and every cowardly expedient sinking ever deeper and deeper into the nation's life, stands forth at last in its real character, and meets its righteous doom. Public opinion, rapidly sublimed in the white heat of this fierce war, is everywhere crystallizing. Men are learning to know precisely what they believe, and, knowing, dare maintain. There is no more speaking with bated breath, no more counselling of forbearance and non-intervention. It is no longer a chosen few who dare openly to denounce the sum of all villainies; but loud and long and deep goes up the execration of a people,—the tenfold hate and horror of men who have seen the foul fiend's work, who have felt his fangs fastened in their own flesh, his poison workingin their own hearts' blood. Hundreds of thousands of thinking men have gone down into his loathsome prison-house, have looked upon his obscene features, have grappled, shuddering, with his slimy strength; and thousands of thousands, watching them from far-off Northern homes, have felt the chill of disgust that crept through their souls. The inmost abhorrence of slavery that fills the heart of this people it is impossible for language to exaggerate. It is so strong, so wide-spread, so uncompromising, so fixed in its determination to destroy, root and branch, the accursed thing, that even the forces of evil and self-seeking, awed and overpowered, are swept into the line of its procession. Good men and bad men, lovers of country and lovers only of lucre, men who will fight to the death for a grand idea and men who fight only for some low ambition, worshippers of God and worshippers of Mammon, are alike putting their hands to the plough which is to overturn and overturn till the ancient evil is uprooted. The very father of lies is, perforce, become the servant of truth. That old enemy which is the Devil, the malignant messenger of all evil, finds himself,—somewhat amazed and enraged, we must believe, at his unexpected situation,—with all his executive ability undiminished, all his spiritual strength unimpaired, finds himself harnessed to the chariot of human freedom and human progress, and working in his own despite the beneficent will of God. So He maketh the wrath of men and devils to praise Him, and the remainder of wrath He will restrain.
Unspeakably cheering, both as a sign of the sincerity of our leaders in this great day and as a pledge of what the nation means to do when its hands are free, are the little Christian colonies planted in the rear of our victorious armies. In the heart of woods are often seen large tracts of open country gay with a brilliant purple bloom which the people call "fire-weed," because it springs up on spots that have been stripped by fire. So, where the old plantations of sloth and servitude have been consumed by the desolating flames of war, spring up the tender growths of Christian civilization. The filthy hovel is replaced by the decent cottage. The squalor of slavery is succeeded by the little adornments of ownership. The thrift of self-possession supplants the recklessness of irresponsibility. For the slave-pen we have the school-house. Where the lash labored to reduce men to the level of brutes, the Bible leads them up to the heights of angels. We are as yet but in the beginning, but we have begun right. With his staff the slave passes over the Jordan of his deliverance; but through the manly nurture and Christian training which we owe him, and which we shall pay, he shall become two bands. The people did not set themselves to combat prejudices with words alone, when the time was ripe for deeds; but while the Government was yet hesitating whether to put the musket into his hand for war, Christian men and women hastened to give him the primer for peace. Not waiting for legislative enactments, they took the freedman as he came all panting from the house of bondage; they ministered to his wants, strengthened his heart, and set him rejoicing on his way to manhood. The Proclamation of Emancipation may or may not be revoked; but whom knowledge has made a man, and discipline a soldier, no edict can make again a slave.
While the people have been working in their individual capacity to right the wrongs of generations, our constituted authorities have been moving on steadfastly to the same end. Military necessity has emancipated thousands of slaves, and civil power has pressed ever nearer and nearer to the abolition of slavery. In all the confusion of war, the trumpet-tones of justice have rung through our national halls with no uncertain sound. With a pertinacity most exasperating to tyrants and infidels, but most welcome to the friends of human rights, Northern Senators and Representatives have presented the claims of the African race. With many a momentaryrecession, the tide has swept irresistibly onward. Hopes have been baffled only to be strengthened. Measures have been defeated only to be renewed. Defeat has been accepted but as the stepping-stone to new endeavor. Cautiously, warily, Freedom has lain in wait to rescue her wronged children. Her watchful eyes have fastened upon every weakness in her foe: her ready hand has been upraised wherever there was a chance to strike. Quietly, almost unheard amid the loud-resounding clash of arms, her decrees have gone forth, instinct with the enfranchisement of a race. The war began with old customs and prejudices under full headway, but the new necessities soon met them with fierce collision. The first shock was felt when the escaping slaves of Rebel masters were pronounced free, and our soldiers were forbidden to return them. Then the blows came fast and furious, and the whole edifice, reared on that crumbling corner-stone of Slavery, reeled through all its heaven-defying heights. The gates of Liberty opened to the slave, on golden hinges turning. The voice of promise rang through Rebel encampments, and penetrated to the very fastnesses of Rebellion. The ranks of the army called the freedman to the rescue of his race. The courts of justice received him in witness of his manhood. Before every foreign court he was acknowledged as a citizen of his country, and as entitled to her protection. The capital of our nation was purged of the foul stain that dishonored her in the eyes of the nations, and that gave the lie direct to our most solemn Declaration. The fugitive-slave acts that disfigured our statute-book were blotted out, and fugitive-slave-stealer acts filled their vacant places. The seal of freedom, unconditional, perpetual, and immediate, was set upon the broad outlying lands of the republic, and from the present Congress we confidently await the crowning act which shall make slavery forever impossible, and liberty the one supreme, universal, unchangeable law in every part of our domains.
What we have done is an earnest of what we mean to do. After nearly four years of war, and war on such a scale as the world has never before seen, the people have once more, and in terms too emphatic to be misunderstood, proclaimed their undying purpose. With a unanimity rarely equalled, a people that had fought eight years against a tax of threepence on the pound, and that was rapidly advancing to the front rank of nations through the victories of peace,—a people jealous of its liberties and proud of its prosperity, has reëlected to the chief magistracy a man under whose administration burdensome taxes have been levied, immense armies marshalled, imperative drafts ordered, and fearful sufferings endured. They have done this because, in spite of possible mistakes and short-comings, they have seen his grasp ever tightening around the throat of Slavery, his weapons ever seeking the vital point of the Rebellion. They have beheld him standing always at his post, calm in the midst of peril, hopeful when all was dark, patient under every obloquy, courteous to his bitterest foes, conciliatory where conciliation was possible, inflexible where to yield was dishonor. Never have the passions of civil war betrayed him into cruelty or hurried him into revenge; nor has any hope of personal benefit or any fear of personal detriment stayed him when occasion beckoned. If he has erred, it has been on the side of leniency. If he has hesitated, it has been to assure himself of the right. Where there was censure, he claimed it for himself; where there was praise, he has lavished it on his subordinates. The strong he has braved, and the weak sheltered. He has rejected the counsels of his friends when they were inspired by partisanship, and adopted the suggestions of opponents when they were founded on wisdom. His ear has always been open to the people's voice, yet he has never suffered himself to be blindly driven by the storm of popular fury. He has consulted public opinion, as the public servant should; but he has not pandered to public prejudice, as only demagoguesdo. Not weakly impatient to secure the approval of the country, he has not scorned to explain his measures to the understanding of the common people. Never bewildered by the solicitations of party, nor terrified by the menace of opposition, he has controlled with moderation, and yielded with dignity, as the exigencies of the time demanded. Entering upon office with his full share of the common incredulity, perceiving no more than his fellow-citizens the magnitude of the crisis, he has steadily risen to the height of the great argument. No suspicion of self-seeking stains his fair fame; but ever mindful of his solemn oath, he seeks with clean hands and a pure heart the welfare of the whole country. Future generations alone can do justice to his ability; his integrity is firmly established in the convictions of the present age. His reward is with him, though his work lies still before him.
Only less significant than the fact is the manner of his reflection. All sections of a continental country, with interests as diverse as latitude and longitude can make them, came up to secure, not any man's continuance in power, but the rule of law. The East called with her thousands, and the West answered with her tens of thousands. Baltimore that day washed out the blood-stains from her pavement, and free Maryland girded herself for a new career. Men who had voted for Washington came forward with the snows of a hundred winters on their brows, and amid the silence and tears of assembled throngs deposited their ballot for Abraham Lincoln. Daughters led their infirm fathers to the polls to be sure that no deception should mock their failing sight. Armless men dropped their votes from between their teeth. Sick men and wounded men, wounded on the battle-fields of their country, were borne on litters to give their dying testimony to the righteous cause. Dilettanteism, that would not soil its dainty hands with politics, dared no longer stand aloof, but gave its voice for national honor and national existence. Old party ties snapped asunder, and local prejudices shrivelled in the fire of newly kindled patriotism. Turbulence and violence, awed by the supreme majesty of a resolute nation, slunk away and hid their shame from the indignant day. Calmly, in the midst of raging war, in despite of threats and cajolery, with a lofty, unspoken contempt for those false men who would urge to anarchy and infamy, this great people went up to the ballot-box, and gave in its adhesion to human equality, civil liberty, and universal freedom. And as the good tidings of great joy flashed over the wires from every quarter, men recognized the finger of God, and, laying aside all lower exultation, gathered in the public places, and, standing reverently with uncovered heads, poured forth their rapturous thanksgiving in that sublime doxology which has voiced for centuries the adoration of the human soul:—