f ^ M'i^M-a\?VLwJ ^^m v®&~ •4w -* THB DEBT,' THE DlfifY AND THE HOPE OV THE Citizen Soldiersof America: * r ♦ , d£N, ^ 223 332 £}□: C£> £2T ADDRESSED TO THE MILITARY j FREDERICK CITY, NOVEMBER 30rH 1843, A DAY OF PUBLIC THANKSGIVING. JOHN MILLER, ■' PASTOR OF TH» PREaBTTEBIAR CHURCH, FREDERICK CITT. FREDERICK: PRINTED AT THE OfTICE OF TH» EXAMINER. 1843. ft T * THE DEBT}, THE DUTY AND THE HOPE OF THE Citizen Soldiers of America: ADDRESSED TO THE MILITARY OF FREDERICK CITY, NOVEMBER 30TH 1843, A DAY OF PUBLIC THANKSGIVING. BY JOHN MILLER, \/ Pastor of the Presbyterian Church, Frederick Cjtt. FREDERICK: PRINTED AT THE OFFICE OF THE EXAMINER. 1843. • PROCLAMATION . State of Maryland, to wit : The numerous blessings enjoyed by the people of Maryland, during ths present year, in the estimation of all who cherish a proper sense of gratitude for the abundant bounties of our Creator, demand that some one day of those usually devoted to secular employments, should be dedicated to thanksgiving and the praise and glory of Almighty, and as it is usual for the Chief Magis- trates of the several States of this Union to designate such days, Now, Therefore, I Francis Thomas, Governor of the State of Maryland, do most respectfully recommend, that on Thursday the thirtieth day of JVbflem- ber next ensuing, the people of Maryland abstain from all secular employment, and publicly engage in thanksgiving and prayer to the Almighty, because of the maniiold blessings enjoyed by them under Divine protection. In witness whereof, I have hereunto affixed my name, and the Great Seal ot the State of Maryland, this thirtieth day of October, in [seal.] the year A. D. 1843, and of the independence ot the United States, the sixty-seventh. FRANCIS THOMAS. By the Governor, John C. Legrand, Secretary of State. Frederick, December 1st, 1843. Rev. John Miller: Reverend and Dear Sir:—The " National Guards," having appointed us a committee, to tender to you their warm acknowledgments for your kind- ness, and to solicit a copy of your eloquent and instructive sermon, delivered before the Military of this city, on thanksgiving day, for early publication, we cheerfully undertake the pleasing duty, begging at the same time, the privilege of offering our personal regards and congratulations. With high esteem, We have the honor to be, Reverend and dear sir, Your obedient servants, Lieut. E. LOUIS LOWE, fKEEFER, SERGEVfTsJ SINN' bERGEA.fTS-j CHAMBERS> Lrichardson. Frederick City, December 1st, 1843. Gentlemen :—I accede, while with many thanks, yet with much doubt to the unexpected honor, the Company you represent proposes to do me, as I fear that your kind feelings to a minister and a stranger, have warped your judg- ment of a sermon, the usefulness of which, if published, I can rather hope than expect. Do me the favor to make known to your Company, my sense of this token of their regard, while I remain, Gentlemen, Yours, with sincere respect, JOHN MILLER. Lieut. E. Louis Lowe, TKeefer, Sergeants^ChTmbers, (.Richardson. Frederick, December 5th, 1843. Rev. Sir: At a meeting of the Mohawk Invmcibles, we were appointed a committee, to tender to you their thanks for the very eloquent discourse delivered by you on Thanksgiving day, to which they listened with so much pleasure. We are also deputed to request a copy of the same for publication. We beg you to accept personally our warmest thanks, and truest wishes for your future welfare, and have the honor to be, Yours respectfully, EDWARD B. BALTZELL,-) JACOB FAUBLE, > Committee. CHARLES PERCIVAL, > Rev. John Miller. Frederick, December 5th, 1843. Gentlemen : Have the goodness to represent to your Company my deep sense of their kindness and attention, and say to them, that the sermon in reference to which they do me too much honor in asking a copy for publication, is by a like request, in the hands of their brother Company, the National Guards, with whom it gives me pleasure to unite them in expression of my warm and honest acknow- ledgment. I beg you, Gentlemen, to accept individually an assurance of the true per- sonal regard with which I am, Your most obedient servant, JOHN MILLER. Capt. E. B. Baltzell,^ Lieut. J. Fauble, > Committee. " C, Percival, j SERMON. Psalm 46: 8, 9. " Come behold the works of the Lord;—He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow and cutteth the spear in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire" Citizen Soldiers : I hail you by an honorable title. Military dress—the belt and the casque and the plume, are badges not always of such an order of men. The same audience, in every outward seeming, might be made of venal hirelings—foreign swords, sold like corn or bread, to risk life on any soil, and to fig-ht under any colors. I would try to teach them duty, but I would hurry over all preface in their praise. Even a regiment from our own tried army, though our countrymen—though not forced to fight, without the privilege of being at once patriots and soldiers, would be looked upon not at all with like feelings, and would be addressed with quite another spirit. Citizen Soldiers ! the title is itselt a eulogy ; men whose own fire-sides and well established business are at stake on hazard of war, and therefore, whose whole attitude of defence is one of deep personal interest and almost of necessary courage—the sturdy virtue and the hardy strength of a free country banded and waiting, without with- drawing pay from her treasury, or their labor from her fields, or shops, interrupting by none of the evils of a standing army, the full tide of her prosperity—waiting to do her good service, whenever our peace may be invaded. Who a better right to a greeting and a welcome, than the armed yeomany of states like ours? But let me hurry over, too, all preface in your praise. We are met to honor God to-day, not to waste our poor honors upon each other. I. A Soldier's Thanksgiving ;—that you have invited me to offer. How shall I offer it? My text seems to single out for me Peace as the gift to be acknowledged; but most unhappily, to more than half the world, peace is no blessing. As to many a sister nation words that some of you saw we struck out from the text, might have remained. "Come G behold the works of the Lord, what desolation he hath made in the earth. He maketh wars to cease—breaketh the bow—cutteth the spear in sun- der—burneth the chariot in the fire." With millions peace is but another name for "desolation"—a curse from the rod of God—a heavy wrong under the hand of nran. Ah ; a soldier's eye, I know, will look well to the question, what kind of peace he thanks God for. The plains of India are in peace, but the mouth of the debased Hindoo is full of deep-toned curses against a foreign tyranny—at peace as the forced alternative, because too besotted for war—at peace, when his gold swells the main current of his master's revenues—his lands their garden to feed themselves, and to raise poisons for their neighbors—his child- ren their slaves, to be worn out on their estates, or to die in their armies. Surely their Brahmin priest must choose for them some other ground of thanksgiving to their idols. The Empire of China is again at peace, but alas for her! under a double tyranny, still stooping, as she has for ages, under civil bondage to a Tartar despot, and now still more abjectly, her monarch and his slaves together, under a moral yoke; forced to consent to an iniquity—to har- bor a ruinous and corrupting commerce—to seal a peace with her own seducers—to graft upon her own body a moral lepros}-—because, to the shame of Britain, too weak to shake them off. Will she thank God for peace ? I will take a worse example—civil, moral, spiritual oppression—and yet peace. This triple night has fallen upon the millions under the Ottoman despotism. The sullen Mussulman must not only bow with cringing servility at the feet of his young master—not only sell his conscience,(if indeed, light enough be left within it, to own the sacrifice) not only sink his character to feed that master's luxury, and to fill that master's harem; but must consent to be chained to an absurd religion. The lies of the False Prophet are bound upon his soul by the most sanguinary laws, so that no Moslem dare learn enough to be a Christian; his faith and his life can only be renounced together. Can he thank Allah for peace? Not rather, unless dead to his own wrong, hail the tokens of crumbling and decav in that power under which he suffers ? No, no; better that the iron heel of war should be ever trampling upon those Eastern lands—making their gardens a wilderness, treading down their prosperity, and wasting the lives of their crowded millions, than that they should sink down, mind and soul and strength together, rust- ing in their chains. 7 No, fellow citizens, it is for your peace, in one land at least the hand- maid of wealth and morality, and religion—a virgin undefiled, whom God has crowned as the Queen of your prosperity—for your peace, that I call you to a warm hearted and honest thanksgiving. On this soil the blessing i? no mere dream of the moralist—no figment of a misconceived philanthropy, that would pronounce the horrors of war too dear a pur- chase or too foul a means to cast back a nation's wrongs or to win back a nation's liberties. To make clear your debt to God, I need advocate no such sickly morality as would make peace an idol, hug it to the heart at all risks, and bow down to it under all dishonors. Not at all. Your own better ordered reason would repel the attempt. It will be time enough to make merchantmen of our public ships, and to silence our public arsenals—to disband our paid troops and to forbid your military arrays- time enough, even before conscience at its strictest bar, when nations cease to wrong us,rand all internal feuds are hushed; quite soon enough to beat our swords into plough shares, and our spears into pruning hookS| "when the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling-together, and a little child shall lead them." Your very presence here, shall point out the true ground of praise. It tells of civil liberty. Slaves dare not thus rally and appear in arms. The chain, not the eagle, is the badge of the bondsman. Few nations on earth could so consecrate a day as to make it shelter such a scene as that before me; so free from civil faction—foreign power so little felt— foieign arms so little dreaded, that citizens, equipped as you are, would venture to meet for a civil festival. The part you act is a token— soldiers, yet who have never seen a battle field—soldiers, yet daily busy in all the quiet arts of life. Your broad acres—your busy shops—your offices full of enterprise and honor—all give witness of your debt to God for peace. Your military life but an interlude—a holiday from a wide circle of laborious arts, at once the result, the cause and the proof of high national prosperity; the whole one symptom of that social health which sends its warm circulation through all our country, which makes her dreaded as a foe, and courted as a friend—which feeds a commerce that whitens every sea, and sustains a flag that wins honor in every port. But "who is this thatlooketh forth as the morning, beautiful as Tirzah, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners?" Here is another figure that must take her place upon our canvass—whose 8 smiles and joy shouid stir our warmest gratitude, emblems of religious freedom, the richest pledge of national prosperity. Our church is free. On this soil, if no where else, she stands as a palace, built for God, not for the glory of an earthly master. The consciences that she shelters know nothing of civil oaths and carnal shackles. She scorns at once the test and the fetter. She asks no patronage of power—God only is known in her palaces as a refuge, Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth is our Mount Zion. Here is the darling of peace, her first born, nursed at her side and carried in her arms as the fairest daughter. Her solemn assemblies flourish not in the atmosphere of camps and under the breath of battle. Her notes of praise and prayer die away before the clash of arms and the shout of onset. The Almighty made peace in all our borders, before He filled her garners with her widest harvests. Like Jesus her Redeem- er, she has had an Elias, a John the Baptist to prepare her way, and now she is breaking every yoke, and crowning herself with fresh prospe- rity, One pledge of this we give in your mustering here. Why did you coaie ? Paths of vice and vanity were open. WThy, as in former times and in other lands did you not prefer them ? This movement toward the sanctuary on a day, which in besotted minds would court intemperate festivity, speaks volumes in praise of the foster-mother of religion. It is but one pulsation in that rising life which is casting off the disease of vice, and gathering warmth for virtue and for piety through all our land. What room for joy that the church has been so kindly nursed. The same power that rocked her cradle in the midst of storms, feeds her matur- ing strength under the gales of peace. Clothed in the garments of salva- tion, she stands beckoning at her door, and thousands are hastening to enter. Her solemn work is going forward. The mass indeed still scorn her, have shot at her—wounded her, but her bow abides in strength and her arms are made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob. That secret life—the priceless jewel of her treasury—in whose guard the united armies of the world might be cheaply marshalled, is multiplying itself in a full tide of wealth, swelling our debt to God above all sister nations. It loves our home—America—with all her liberty of conscience and moral independence—here till confusion and war shall come again, it must hasten to do its work and to list many under a holier banner__bar- ring the door of death—making our whole land like Luz, where Jacob 9 slept, one wide Bethel, "none other than the house of God, and the very gate of heaven." We can rise no higher. You have reached the crowning advantage of our nation's peace; now whose hand will you adore ? You have seen the swelling tide of favor; whither will you swell the tide of gratitude. Oh! draw not back from honest, earnest words of devout thanksgiving; the Almighty Jehovah is the father of all our mercies. God has been our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble His hand won our early triumph—His arm encircles our maturer liberties. Peace— civil, moral spiritual peace, knows no other fountain than God. ilHe maketh war to cease unto the ends of the earth; He breaketh the bow and cutteth the spear in sunder; He burneth the chariot in the fire.'1 II. But I know you would think my work but partly done, were I to stop with thanksgiving. A Soldier's duty; let that too come before us. When John the Baptist preached in the wilderness of Judea, and so terrified the multitude by those vsords—"■JVovj the axe is laid at the root of the tree,v—that they came asking him, what shall we do then ? "The soldiers likewise demanded of him, and what shall we do ? And he said unto them, do violence to no man, neither accuse any falsely, and be content with your wages." This Scripture counsel to soldiers, thank God, will meet our purpose no further than to set in salutary contrast the guard of the Roman eagle and of ours. The words were chosen well for those cruel mercenary legions, but for you they will only serve to make illustrious by compari- son the high ground on which you stand amonj; us. You are the third in order of our country's benefactors. I will tell you how ? On the 11 111 of this month (November.) two hundred nnd twenty- three years ago, the Pilgrim Fathers first touched tie rock of Plymouth- Turned many miles from their course, by the arts of a treacherous captain __meeting as their only welcome the gloom of deep forests and tlie chill blasts of coming winter, that rock seemed to them, as well it might, the threshold of the Kingdom of Death—the crazy baik in which they had crossed the sea, a safe asylum in contract with the wilderness. If the rigors of the climate spared them, the savage beasts would do tl.e vo.-k of death, orif escaped from these, then unknown rtces ol'siill no:e savage men. Which should they choose—a grave back in the stormy w'n*.«r of the ocean—or a braver death amid the thickening perils before them > 2 10 They chose neither. They resolved in God's name, to cheat death of his banquet, by wresting it from his very jaws. Have you ever read their thrilling story, without wondering what was the secret of their energy ? Not as the flying come, In silence and in fear, They shook the depths of the desert's gloom, With their hymns of lofty cheer. Amidst the storm they sang! And the stars heard and the sea! And the sounding aisles of the dim woods rang, To the Anthem of the Free. Some principle more than human sustained them, else their early for- bodings surely had been realized. Death did come; many graves were opened; and the strongest frames, and the stoutest hearts bowed under sufiering, till the frozen earth had wrapped in her bosom scarce fewer than she left upon her surface. But the little remnant struggled on, fought manfully against each new peril, and finally and permanently conquered from the wilderness that fair home, their children's inheri- tance. What was their secret ? Human nature is not always made of spirit so firm—knit with such energy—fenced with such courage. It cowers before lighter feais—droops, despairs under less overwhelming burdens. Ah! what was their secret? Tell what first led them to quit comfortable homes; what roused them first—so meanly equipped—to brave the sea; and you may dismiss your wonder. Faith, faith, their persecuted insulted faith—at once their sacred treasure and their strong defence in the whole adventure. It was this patient animating virtue, that stemmed the ocean—braved the chill storms of winter- awed away savage violence, shut the mouths of wild beasts, and con- quered and ruled the forest. It won a double blessing—in itself—in its God. "He found them in that desert land—a waste howling wilderness; He led them about, He instructed them, He kept them as the apple of his eye. As an eagle stirreth up her nest—fluttereth over her young, sprcadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings, so the Lord alone did lead them ; He made them to suck honey out of the rock—and oil out of the flinty rock; He made them ride on the high places of the earth, and fed them M'ith the heiitage of Jacob, Let these stand, the first order of our benefactors—the hardiest and holiest of the three. Bear in memory too the principle by which they blessed us;—Confidence in God. 11 One hundred and fifty»five years afterward, the first gun was fired in the war of our revolution. Another race was on our soil—a race still nourished and defended by the toils of that pilgrim band. "They had labored, and these had entered into their labor." The plough had follow- ed the axe; the smiling farm, the gloom of the ancient forest; towns full of brave hearts and merry voices, the lonely huts of the .ettler. But blessed be God, this was the Puritan's cheapest legacy. Like the house- hold gods of the Roman, his virtues had been handed down as part and parcel of his home. Those early hands that had woven the social fabric, had made both warp and woof of all that was manly in heart, and rich in spiritual religion. The stuff woie well. The patriot soldier was a worthy son of the patriot pilgrim. The mantle of Carver, and White, and Wlnthrop, had fallen upon Adams, and Sherman, and Hancock, and a host of equals. The old colonial blood had suffered little taint by vice or weakening- by luxury in its descent through the intervening cen- tury. There were still giants in the earth in those day?. You know the scenes that followed. Princeton !—Princeton ! let that stand as a type of all ; Princeton ! the turning point of the revolution; Princeton, where a ragged, barefoot army—worn by forced marches- harassed by recent defeat—purged of all cowards by discouragement and desertion—first and finally turned the tide of battle against England. The brave words of Col. Reed uttered but a few days before,—*'if over- powered we must cross the Alleghanies," are a good index at once, of the disasters that were crowding the good cause, and of^ the spirit with which they met them. What was the secret of that spirit ? Much of that courage was mere brute courage; I care not to doubt it. Much of that patriotism was the mere patriotism of nature 5 a mass of the officers and men professed nothing higher. But what was that deepest—best seated principle—that stirred up, as if from the bottom, the sea of popular zeal, which wrecked at last the old ship of monarchy. Those thread bare words—"times, that tried men's souls," match as well the war of independence as the landing of the Pilgrims, what was the strength that rode out those times ?—what was the star that beamed on the darkest hour of patriotism? The cause of freedom was espoused in the face of what sibter nations called inevitable failure. Victory, when it came, rose as if out of the bosom ot sure defeat. What spirit was that which "against hope believed in hope," and at once foresaw and won all lor which the hazard had been ventured. 12 Faith—Faith—the faith of the New England colonist, was, if in less degree, yet signally, the polar star of independence. That living trust, which rocked the cradle of our infancy, triumphed too in our youthful victories—drove back that mother, who, not content with robbing 113 of the t )ter care vhich our age might claim, was greedily—cruelly feeding upon our strength. Yes, confidence in God, first planted the tiee of liberty, and (hen girded it like a wall of fire, and where was the earthly power that could sap its strength r.r bring blight upon its branches? Do you call (or proof? Theie is a name, high above all others, in solitary grandeur, graven with a pen of iron, upon the monument of our early honors. 1 invoke that name as evidence. I summon that illustri- ous spirit from the land of silence to rise among you, my witness. Let him say what sacred aegis shielded him through his thousand perils. How was he steeled, as if in triple mail, against the arms of Britain? Why could not the well ai.Tied rifle of the savage do on him its work of death? The Indian warrior shall stand as our interpreter. "That mounted 1 orseman cannot die. I fight no longer. His shield is the Great Spirit. He cannot die." Would you know, what wove this celestial panoply ? Tell me then the meaning rf those secret devotions, in which Washington was more thin o ice discovered. What must that soldier judge, who saw him prostrate on his knees wrestling with God on the eve of battle? I care not to ra c the question of his piety. Grant—what there is loom to fear — that Washington was not a Christian. That but makes our position stronger. If he, without repentance, saw ci.ough in others of the worth of prayer, to be intent upon its forms, what does it argue for the thou- sands of Gods true Israel, at home and in the camp? I cannot dismiss the feelinjr, that faith was the comer stone ol our success—the key that unlocked the temple of liberty, that a column of prayer ascended daily from our wasted land—like sweet incense to the throne of God—while a host of patriots then fiv*t joiliedthat cloud of witnesses, who through faith''subdued kingdoms—quenched the violence of fire—escaped the edge of the sword—out of weakness were made strong—waxed valiant in fight—turned to flight the armies of the aliens." Now where has that mantle fallen? The rebel followed the pilgrim ; where shall we look for the next on the list of benefactors? The waves of our political oceau have not yet subsided, who man the vessel now ? Who hold her to the wind ? Who strengthen her sails ? Who feed her 13 stores ? Who keep her broadside to the enemy ? Tried men must stand upon her decks as well as in her day of battle, or in her earlier day oi storm—must now maintain her peace, as their fathers triumphed in her conflict. Who are they ? The same that they then were : ••from twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to war.'' You, Fellow Citizens, are the successors of the patiiots—bearing the same rela- tion to the country that you serve. I speak not to you alone, who, half for pleasure—half for preparation—are beforehand trying on the harness, but to the rest of that sterling strength that must join you when the trial comes; who by your very presence among us, do your part in awing away rival nations—in making treaties easy to settle, and in nursing that peace which your fathers won. Now we are ready to tell jou your duty. If you are the third in order, as the supporters of our country, you must respect the secret op your fathers'strength. If confdence in God sheltered the hut of the colonist, and nerved the arm of the tebel soldier, it must still feed the strength of the patriot citizen. If our homes were twice bought by faith, let faith delend there. I ask not respect for the gospel merely— that faith which the dying soul may have. To that this mustering testi- fies. I ask more—your personal npenlance and conversion. Heligion is a farce without it. Had the pilgrims only this faith of the lips—this confidence vague and general—their bones had early whitened the forest —nay they would have left them in their father land. Had the patriots nothing better, A malek had prevailed, like our Northern neighbor*, we might still be clanking the chains of Britain. Therefore, for your coun- try's salvation, as for your own, "fight the good fight of faith; lay hold on eternal life;" believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, at once your Captain and Redeemer. That power of faith before which a howling wilderness has blossomed as the rose, which has shaken hran's on their throne, and wrested from there unwilling hands, the gift of liberty, is the sum of your duty as Soldiers—the foundation of your joy as Freemen. "If the Son then-fore make you tree, ye shall be free indeed." He breaketh the bow__He cutteth the spear in sunder—He burnetii the chariot in the fire. III. Bear with me once again. A Soldier's Hopes ; what are they ? We have learned our debt, for the past—our duly for the present—now our hope for the future. 14 Were you a troop of paid soldiery, or a clan of oppressed bondsmen, war would be your hope-as free citizens your earnest desire is peace. Bnt, alas for us, there are sagacious statesmen, whom no charge can reach of "loomv temperament or poverty of spirit—no suspicion of sinister or party ends, who predict a peace factious and short lived. In discern- in-the face of the political sky, they see tokens of a hastening storm, no* merely Elizah's cloud, no bigger than a man's hand, but a black cur- tain looming up over half the heavens. Many men bare seen it; all men can hear the distant thunder, and can find some food for tear. Let me point you, fellow citizens, to one strong ground of hope. Do you recol- lect how the Lord blessed the house of Obed-Edom, because that poor svmbol of his presence-the ark of the covenant rested there? Then who shall forbid high hopes of his blessing here, where an ark so much more noble rests and flourishes? Christ's body, the Church, hallows the soil over which you march, "Aye, call it holy ground." Your arms defend one of the strongest fastnesses of Mount Zion—a circle of the purest sister churches, that the world containi. May we not trust that the Power, that has borne England up so long, for that measure of sound- ness ihat her chuich retains, may spare us for ours? May we not say, to the statesman seer, like Caesar to the frightened boatman, 'Quid times, Caesarem vchis ?" or translating it into the fitter words of Christ in the storm, on lake Genesaret, when his trembling disciples forgot that their ship, feeble as it was, bore in it the salvation of the world and could not wreck—"O thou of little faith wherefore didst thou doubt ?" Did God call his church across the flood into the wilderness, nerve those who brought it, to toil and courage more than human—nurse it in the same cradle with our government, and nourish them together through storm and cloud and war—now just reaching maturity, to cast them off forever? "Ask now of the days that aie past, since God created man upon the earth—ask from the one side of heaven unto the other, hath God assayed to go and take him a nation from the midst of another nation, by Temptations, by signs, and by wondeis, and by war, and by a mighty hand, and by a stretched out arm, according to all that the Lord our God did for us?"' and shall he now, when we are scarce planted, our branch yet tender, the bloom of our early promise just ripening into fruit—now when we have become a centre of holy influence and heathen lands are just learning to take from us those leaves that are for the healing of the nations, shall he now root us up, and cast us aside to wither? 15 He may!—He may! IgiveyouAope—alas! not certainty. A strong church is a safe neighbor, not a sure one. Like Israel she may forget her confidence—renounce the faith of the pilgrim, forget tne prayer of the patriot and die as the fool dieth, though with her ripe honors cluster- ing on her head. We may trust much, but be sure of nothing for the nation, and the cburch together, may prove recreant to their mutual charge, and spendthrifts of their hard earned peace. Oh I fellow citi- zens, do your part at least in remembering the Cod of your prosperity— your strong tower against every foe—"He maketh wars to cease from the ends of the earth—He breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder —He burneth the chariot in the fire." Follow me one moment longer, and I will lead you to a sure hope. The walls of our Jerusalem may again be broken down, and another Titus may plough up her foundations, and send the daughter of Zion, like a stricken dove, to mourn in the wilderness. But there is a city that God is building, whose peace must live ; it is sealed by a deathless covenant. No storm can gather over it; its foundation is in a land like Egypt, of eternal sunshine. No civil broil can vex it; there may in no wise enter therein anything that defileth. Mo alien foe can threaten it; for round, and round about it are the fiery chariots of God. Its pilgrims are the sacramental host, that have crossed the flood. Its soldiers are the bright armies of heaven. The Lord shall be unto it an ererlasting light, and its God, its glory. I bespeak for you all to-day a place in that holy city. I offer you a reception there as welcome as to this house of God.its type and threshold, where worn down by this long campaign of life, weary with marching through this vale of tears, sick alike of the camp, the city and the field —having born hardness as good soldiers of Christ—you shall enter forever into the Soldiers Rest