5
complain, have sprung, at least proximately, from
our own evil passions.
We may ascribe the evils we experience to God's
special providence, but with manifest injustice. Our
Heavenly Father never constrained as to that indo¬
lence or imprudence resulting in bankruptcy, nor
to the physical intemperance ending in disease.
Nor is it the great and gracious God, that for half
a century has excited at the North and the South
those extreme and intolerant fanaticisms which have
brought this sore distress upon us. On the contrary,
it is the very prodigality of His goodness unto us
above all peoples of the earth, which, working per¬
versely upon a corrupt nature—like Heaven's sun¬
shine on tropical jungles, developing noxious and
deadly growths—has strengthened thus malignantly
these principles of evil.
Verily, if our land be doomed to destruction, and
this fair fabric which we fondly deemed Liberty's
great temple, be now abandoned of God to the de¬
stroyer, nevertheless, will its mighty ruins remain
through all time monumental of God's marvelous
love unto a self-destroyed people, and upon every
stone of shattered pillar, and arch, and aisle amid our
death-dust will be found inscriptions testimonial of
the tender mercies of our God ! If the American
Nation be to-day dying on these hills like a strong
giant in the very flush of its youth, it is not because
God's thunderbolt hath smitten it—it dies as a
suicide
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