Nay, young braves will still lead on Guarding what their fathers won, Keep their stainless altars pure, From ambition's treacherous lure, Pray that God may shield the right Aimé de mon Cœur ! But should victory crown thy brow, Sires and sons on battle plain- Pardon, if he thus adjure; God will thus avenge thy cause, Aimé de mon Cœur. THE MORAL STRENGTH OF OUR COUNTRY'S CAUSE. GOVERNMENT is of God. Himself a King, and King of kings, when He commands that earthly kings should be honored, He means the Law of the State, in whatever legitimate form it may be embodied. God is love; peace is one of the ministers of that love, and, in such a world as this, the sword is another. Justice must march in even step with mercy. The welfare of man as urgently requires that wrongs should be set right by some "terror to evil-doers," as that there should be tranquil air and cheerful praise for them that do well. We find no habitable or tolerable dwelling-place anywhere without the solemn array of courts, penalties, magistrates and arms. Together, these constitute the venerable and divine character of Law; venerable, because she is from everlasting; divine, because her seat is the bosom of God. Her hands may be of iron, but her countenance is benignant, and her heart is tender. Providence has hedged her about from the beginning with sacred safe guards and immunities, turning all history into a record of her benefits, binding up all public prosperity and domestic comfort in her arms, and making her "the gracious mother of our peace and joy." In the light of this comprehensive and profound truth, we are able to see the moral strength of our national cause. One of the grand compensations we are to reap for its vast sufferings, is a new realization of this majestic supremacy and divine sanctity of Law, curbing the conceit of our rampant and conceited individualism, exploding the philosophic fallacy of a "social compact," and putting an effectual contradiction on the current notion of so many victims of crude European democratic oracles, that it is competent to a majority of the people anywhere, if they happen to choose, to vote Government out of existence! "The people" cannot do this till they can vote one of God's designs out of existence. First of all, our cause is the cause of Government, which God ordains and loves, against reckless and selfish insurrection, which he denounces and hates. With our adversary, it is not a case of the last and desperate resort of the right of revolution; for that exists only under actual and intolerable abuses or oppressions; whereas in this rebellion, even the grievances alleged are only prospective and contingent, on confession of its abettors. In the principles indirectly involved, ours is also the cause of liberty against bondage, honor against treachery, constitutional protection against usurpation, lawful administration against public fraud, and equal rights against feudalism and caste. Now, God loves liberty, honor, order, and brotherly equality among his children. In the distinction often drawn between offensive and defensive war, we have the further moral advantage of being on the defensive; actual aggressions being begun on the other side. In the second place, lending this confidence of right to the cause, the Christian view of the subject points out in what spirit, and by what principles, the war shall be carried on. If it is a righteous cause, it can be righteously prosecuted. Man can make war not only in the name of the Most High, but in the solemn and tender spirit of His religion. Anger, cruelty, personal revenge, and all the hateful brood of satanic passions, have no more necessary place in the camp and on the field, than they have on farms and in counting-houses. In a conflict so sacred as ours, there can be no reason why regiments shall not be enrolled, batteries planted, campaigns planned, strategy conducted, battles fought, and blood poured out, with all the energy of the bravest soldiership, and with all the skill of the most masterly generalship, yet with every trace of wrath extinguished Indeed, I observe no brighter sign in the horizon than the intelligent testimony of one of the eminent statesmen of the country, after extensive travels through its great seats of population, that something like this is already true. He says: "I have nowhere found any feeling of exasperation against the people of the South, but in every point, a solemn determination to uphold the Government, at the same time with a sadness and a depth of tenderness I will in vain endeavor to describe. Strong and brave men when speaking of the distractions which rend our country, have wept in my presence. This is not a war upon the people of the South, but a war undertaken for their defence and for their deliverance." I cannot see why men should not move to the defence of such a cause as ours, with all the intensest energies of muscle and will strung to the combat, yet with just as complete an absence of personal spite or ill-will, as in the judge who, under the august forms of law, sentences a single criminal to the scaffold, or as in the sheriff who executes the sentence. These civil magistrates discharge their duty, and fulfil their oath, as a high and awful act of Christian obligation. So it might be, and ought to be, with division of our army. soldier in every We can conceive of his being quartered in a Christian camp, where not only temperance and purity and reverence keep the air clear, but where the voice of God's daily praise is heard. where an altar is erected in every every |