God's Message to the Nation.
By Dr. Swain
A YEAR ago God gave this message to our nation. We have driven our war-chariots over it up to the rebel Capital. To-day he takes up this trampled message and traces it in lightning on the skies. The events of the fatal week are “a strategic retreat,” say our generals. “We must have 300,000 more men,” says the President. “Give us new men and measures,” say the politicians. “Let my people go,” saith the Lord. It is because we have not listened to this word that our armies are not in Richmond to-day—that our young men lie heaped in slaughter, while tens of thousands3are borne in bleeding agony to our cities to die, or if they live, to spend crippled and helpless lives. It is because we have not obeyed this voice that our treasures have been poured out by hundreds of millions, and that foreign powers are tempted as never before to thrust themselves into our national affairs. The duty was laid upon us at the beginning of the war, to open the house of bondage, because then we had the right and power. What the Constitution did not give us the power to do, treason gave us; God thus uses the wrath of man. With the power and the right came the responsibility and the duty. It is we now who are responsible for the continuance of slavery. There are no such perils of servile insurrection as are usually associated as inseparable from emancipation. More than 100,000 soldiers would, ere this, have enlisted in our cause—100,000 men more would have been efficient workmen in the Federal service. By a striking coincidence, the very day that the columns of sickening defeat were read in Congress, and the President's call was sent forth for 300,000 men, Hunter's famous letter was read. How will the country respond, till they know how the President will respond to this letter? Will they send their sons, when they know that twice that number are ready to die in defense of their liberties and our own, and when our present policy says to the slave, You shall not help us, but you must stay and help the enemy who is slaying our sons? God has put the key of the house of bondage into our hands, and held them to the key, and kept us standing at the door for months, saying to us, “Let my people go.” We refused to open the door, and refused to have it opened. Fremont, Phelps, Hunter, have been recalled, superseded, or their orders countermanded. When the inmates of this house of bondage opened the door, we have thrust them back. God has treated us as he did Pharaoh. Halleck drove the contrabands from his lines, and after infinite labor to make the enemy's escape impossible, he had the satisfaction to find that Beauregard's army had gone, and left no footprints or tidings of their destination. If information had been welcomed from the slaves, the rebel army might have been captured or cut to pieces. But it had leisure to make its way to Richmond, and, two to one, the rebellion launched its forces upon us, and drove us back eighteen shameful miles in that terrible and fatal week. God has bound up our interests in the same bundle with those of his oppressed people. Shall we say, We will conquer the rebels, and bring them to terms by opening the house of bondage? But the experiment of waiting has already cost us too much. It may yet appear that we have hardened our hearts one day too long. Our army may be cut to pieces. France and England may be upon us. Let the word of God be obeyed before the hour of a death-bed repentance. If you will not in the name of God and justice, then in the name of our national life, smite slavery down, smite it speedily. If we do not stay it, it will stay us. Say to the President, Take the 300,000 men you call for. Yet give him 300,000 besides; but tell, entreat, him, “Let my people go.” We thank God that the President is neither Pharaoh nor a king. He is only waiting for your voice. He would have opened the house of bondage long ago if you had said so.—Sermon by Dr. Swain, of Providence.