Almighty One, from amidst the thick darkness, is looking out upon the hosts of the South in this judgment, as he looked upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians at the Red Sea. This lust of extension and power in order to enthrone King Cotton, in the just providence of God, is made to re-act upon them fearfully, and is shaking the system itself to its speedy overthrow.

And the North was not wholly guiltless in this matter. The Government of the country was an active participant in much of this movement, and connived at the sin. And hence it was meet that God should rebuke and humble us also, the entire nation, in this day of righteous visitation.

There is a lower deep still to our iniquity in this matter. The framers of our Constitution-the men who achieved our liberties and gave being and form to our institutions-men like Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Patrick Henry-held slavery to be an evil and contemplated its ultimate extinction. This is an important historical fact which can not be denied. Let any one look into our colonial history and see what resolute and persistent efforts were made by the leading colonies-by Virginia and Georgia in particular-to keep slavery out, and when it had been forced upon them by the policy and veto power of the mother country, to circumscribe its evil influence and gradually eradicate it from the land. And do we not see in the loss and suffering to which England is made to endure by reason of this war, a Divine retribution, just and deserved, for her guilt in planting and fostering the iniquitous system in her American dependencies against their solemn and oft-repeated protests?

And the Church of the South, likewise, until a very recent period, mourned over slavery as a great sin, and prayed and looked for its final extinction. The statesmen and divines of the South have given utterance to the sternest reproofs and the severest condemnation of slavery.

But what a change-oh! what a fearful change, has come over the South in a few years! The views and position of her statesmen, her ministers, and the mass of the people, have been totally reversed. Slavery is no longer admitted by them to be an evil. The views of the fathers, the testimonies of past generations, are repudiated and set aside. Instead of an evil, it is now held to be a blessing; it is the normal state of society; the Bible justifies it; it is a Divine institution, as much so as the family, or the state; and the high and special mission of the South is to conserve and magnify and propagate the institution! The civilized world stands aghast at the utterance of such atrocious sentiments. Blindness, judicial blindness, has smitten the South. Its conscience is gone. It has come to put darkness for light, and evil for good. A terrible delusion is driving it madly and recklessly to ruin. It is resting in a lie and has staked all on the issue.

Surely it was time for God to rise in the majesty of truth and justice when men-when a whole community-when his Church, even, came thus to make void his law. It was fitting that his word, and the principles of his government, should be vindicated against the bold offenders by a retribution that should be memorable in all after time. And as the North has, to a large

extent, been guilty of complicity in this sin, and for the sake of southern trade, or to secure political ends, or to save the Union, has winked at this moral degeneracy, and come to look with favor on the stupendous iniquity, and yield almost everything to its craving demands; it was just that the people of the North and the Government of the country should suffer; it was just that our punishment should spring mainly out of the very sin which we had nourished, and should fall upon the very Union and the party organizations, and the business and social and ecclesiastical interests for which we sold the truth.

These are not all; but I believe they are among the moral causes which have brought us as a nation under so heavy a chastisement. There are others which will readily occur to your minds, and should receive your attention to-day.

The nature of these Causes points to the Remedy. Repentance, reformation, sincere, thorough and general, is the only thing that will deliver and save us. It is the folly of madness to think to heal such a hurt by political moves, by party tactics, by administrative appliances, by popular clamor, by hushing up the quarrel, or even by fighting it out! No; such a devil can be cast out only by much fasting and prayer. The sore can be healed only by a Divine hand. Rulers and people have sinned-greatly and wantonly sinned and they must repent in dust and ashes before God and the world, or there is no help for us. The spirit of a deep and genuine contrition and reformation must come down on the nation, and humble and chasten and purify it. We must search out our sins, personal, social, and national, and confess them and put them away. We must realize in the depth of the national being that God is just, and we have deserved this visitation. And we must resolve to set up this memorable experience as a beacon and a landmark to warn and guide us in all coming time.

A word more and I have done. The nature of the Causes which have brought us where we are, may serve to shed some light on the question as to the time when we may hope for deliverance. Let us not flatter or deceive ourselves on this point. Two dreadful years of carnage and suffering have already passed over us and the time of the end is not yet. Moral causes are necessarily slow in their operation. The causes I have named as bringing this calamity upon us, have been a long while culminating. They are deep-seated and inwoven in the national sentiment and life. They cannot be corrected in a day. It is too much to expect that a year or two will suffice to show our rulers and people all their sin, and to work in the heart of the nation genuine contrition, and bring out in the life of the nation the fruit of a thorough reformation. And until this is done, I believe God will keep his hand heavy down upon us; and I pray that he will. He has entered upon the needed work of correction in earnest. Already the furnace glows with intense heat. The nation is smitten, humbled, broken, full of mourning and sorrow and fear. And let us not expect-nay, let us not pray for deliverance until the end of the discipline is reached; only through the humiliations of a true and hearty repentance, and return to a renewed and higher social, political and religious life,

This dreadful war may soon come to a close and the supremacy of the Constitution and laws be vindicated and established. But will that alore heal our wounds, stay the thunders of Divine wrath, and restore peace and unity and prosperity to us? By no means. The nation must bow itself low before God, and humbly entreat him to turn away his anger and interpose his providence and Spirit to deliver and purify and heal us. We must as a people root out our evil habits and build anew. We must cultivate the spirit of conciliation, forgiveness, trust, magnanimity. And when this is done the day of our redemption will have come. The sun of a yet greater prosperity will then shine on our land and gladden all the people. And in future years, and in distant generations, the nation will look back upon this dark and memorable period as wise and merciful discipline and the seed-time of glorious blessings. But if God were to cease his correction now, before the needful change has been wrought in us, we should slide straight back into our old ways; business, pleasure, politics, legislation, government, all would return to their death-working channels; the quarrels of sections and parties would go on as before; and this terrible baptism of blood and suffering would result in no real or lasting good to the nation.

And to my mind it is manifest that we are not yet prepared for deliverance. The spirit of rebellion is certainly still alive and as bitter and wicked as ever. The nation is not yet sufficiently contrite and penitent. Party lines and strifes are not yet merged into an all-embracing patriotism. Minor questions are not yet lost sight of, and the mighty strength of the nation brought to bear steadily on the one great issue. Of the accursed lust of gain, and the passion for display, and the spirit of extravagance and corruption, we are not yet cured. We do not yet realize, as we should, to what an extent God is a party in this great national controversy; and that success in arms, wisdom in counsel, and salvation for us are absolutely dependent upon him. The Church of Christ has not yet fully cleansed herself, and come up to the great and solemn duty devolved upon her. Nor are we yet willing to do full justice to the millions whom we have so long enslaved, and on whose unpaid labor the nation has grown rich.

The duration of this war, if I have reasoned correctly, is not alone dependendent on the vigor of the administration, and the skill of generals, and the courage of our soldiers, and grand victories in the field; but the spirit and tempter of the people will have much to do with it. The grand, the decisive victory, will be a moral one. The peace we should pray and labor for is the peace of righteousness, the boon of God's favor. And it may be so I fear it is likely to be so that more and deeper draughts of humiliation, sorrow and suffering are seen to be needful, and the very dregs of the cup may have to be wrung out to us, before we shall be willing to take our true place and be fitted for our mission. May God give us patience to bear it all, and courage to face the trial, and patriotism to make the required sacrifice; and finally lead us on to a victory such as shall exalt His own Government in the sight of all nations, and establish for the coming ages over all this land the principles of righteousness and liberty.

NOTE.

MILFORD, May 4th, 1863.

REV. J. M. SHERWOOD:

DEAR SIR,-The undersigned having heard, with great pleasure and, we trust with profit, your interesting discourse preached, at the united service in Plymouth Church, on the 30th ult., would hereby very respectfully request a copy of the sermon for publication.

NEW YORK, May 7th, 1863.
Although conscious

GENTLEMEN,-My Fast-day sermon is at your service.

of its many imperfections, it is my prayer that it may contribute, in some slight degree, to the end for which it was written and preached.

DAN FENN, Esq., and others.

JAMES M. SHERWOOD.

SERMON XI.

BY REV. ALEXANDER WILSON MCCLURE,

CANNONSURG, PA., LATE ONE OF THE SECRETARIES OF THE AMERICAN AND FOREIGN CHRISTIAN UNION.

THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT.

"The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God."—EPHESIANS 6: 17.

A SWORD is one of those things which few can look upon without some emotion. The very sight of one suggests many thoughts. It kindles the pride of the holiday soldier and of the war-worn veteran. It graces the pomp of the civic festival; it gleams with emblematic solemnity in the halls of justice; and decks the coffin-lid of the departed brave. It is the token, too, of dark passions-malice, ambition and revenge. It brings to mind the throbbing heart that bleeds on the battle-plain and the widowed heart that bleeds at home. Its iron-point has graven on the monuments of the past full many a record of wrong, and violence, and woe. Tears of the fatherless, famine, plague, desolation-these are its triumphs. Burning villages, battered cities, fields fattened with carnage, and "white as snow in Salmon" with the bleaching bones of the slain-these mark the pathway of the sword. Oft has it been the accursed tool of extortion, oppression, and persecution. Oft, in the hands of tyranny and bigotry, has it mowed down the ranks of death.

Yet are there some pleasing sentiments associated with the sight of a sword. As wielded by the chivalrous champion to protect the weak; as uplifted by loyality and patriotism to defend the altar and the hearth; as raised by liberty against invasion and slavery, the sword has done good service. It has "revenged the wronged till he rendered right." Who could gaze without emotion upon the weapon once grasped by Gustavus Adolphus, that stainless hero of the Protestant faith? Or the greenhandled battle-blade of George Washington, the spotless soldier of freedom? The brave defenders of their native land against sedition and rebellion have thrown around their gory weapons the garlands of security to the feeble and protection to the peaceful. Thus even the naked and polished steel may speak of safety, and promise defence to the child, the maiden, and the aged. The sword of Joshua, of Gideon, and of David, still hang bright in the armory of Zion.

But the weapons of the most famed warriors are but children's toys to that mighty weapon of the Christian's warfare-that "sword of the