CHAPTER XIII. WHICH SIDE IS THE LORD ON?-TEACHINGS OF SECESSION CLERGY- BLING-HELLS IN RICHMOND-PROFANE SWEARING AND DRINKING FROM the very beginning of this WICKED REBELLION, the advocates of Secession and of a war upon the Government of the United States have arrogantly claimed that God was on their side,-pointing to the evidences of divine Providence favoring the Southern side of the GREAT CONSPIRACY. Secession clergymen, roused by the excitement of the war, have brought reproach upon religion, in many portions of the South, both by the bitterness of their sermons and the wickedness of their sentiments. It is by no means an uncommon thing to hear Secession chaplains, and other clergymen, teach soldiers from the pulpit, and assure the relatives of soldiers in the event of their death, that the cause in which they fall, battling for the inde pendence of the South in opposition to the Vandal hordes of the North, constitutes a passport sufficient to introduce them to all that exceeding weight of joy at God's right hand! On the occasion of the inauguration of Eye-Sham G. Harris as Governor of Tennessee, which took place in the Capitol at Nashville in October, 1861, a prayer was offered up by Mr. Baldwin, a Methodist minister, eminent as an orator and an author, though crazy upon the subject of "Southern rights," of a blasphemous character, most decidedly. He opened in these words: —“WE THANK THEE, O LORD, FOR HAVING INAUGURATED THIS REVOLUTION!" The rest of the prayer was in keeping with the opening sentence. It was blaspheming God, and reviling Him, by denying and ridiculing His perfections and word, and by ascribing to Him work base and sinful. What has been done by the agency of the devil, is ascribed to the finger of God, in this unpardonable prayer. An evil spirit, subject to the powers of Satan, influenced certain bad men in the South, evidently possessed of devils, to precipitate the Cotton States into this revolution. All the agency that God had in the matter was to permit these devils to enter into these Secessionists, just as He permitted them to enter the herd of swine and precipitate them into the Sea of Galilee! May the successors of these devils, who have entered into the Southern leaders in this rebellion, precipitate them into the Gulf of Mexico! When Mr. Baldwin offered up this remarkable prayer, he should have done it at one of the various very ancient altars that existed at Athens, the Greek metropolis, upon which was the inscription, "To THE UNKNOWN GOD," whom the Athenians ignorantly worshipped. An ancient sect has long since taught us that there are two Gods, the one, the author of all good, the other, the author of all evil. It was this evil god who "inaugurated this revolution." What a calmly argumentative and sweetly persuasive prayer this, to offer up to a God of order, justice, and mercy, opposed to falsehood, plunder, and murder! But, gentle reader, let us look calmly at the providences of God, as developed before and since the introduction of this great conspiracy. If the South had been wantonly oppressed and wickedly proscribed by the North, and if the North had "inaugurated" the war, it would have been natural to expect the God of right and justice to espouse the cause of the South. But up to 1861 the South had furnished seven out of the thirteen Presidents, and enjoyed twelve out of the eighteen terms, or forty-eight out of the seventy-two years since the adoption of the Federal Constitution; thus leaving the Presidential office to be occupied by Northern men only twenty-four years, or just onethird of the time! And, to show the advantage the South has been allowed to enjoy over and above what she was entitled to, I subjoin a table of Electoral votes which the fifteen Southern States and the nineteen Northern States cast in the Presidential election of 1860. But another and a strong point is this. Five of the Southern Presidents each served two terms, or eight years; while no Northern man has ever been allowed a re-election. Besides, two Presidents, Messrs. Van Buren and Buchanan, were "Northern men with Southern principles;" and this, in effect, gives eight years more to the South,-making fifty-six years in which they have had almost supreme control, and leaving but sixteen years during which the Government has been administered, even nominally, by Northern Presidents. But during these sixteen years the two hundred and sixty-three thousand slave-owners of the South had a preponderating influence in the affairs of the nation, and in shaping public policy. So long as the country was satisfied with this state of things, the political leaders of the South, of course, did not complain; but the moment the people ventured, by perfectly legal and constitutional means, to elect Mr. Lincoln,—a man who, if not representing the clearly-revealed sentiments of the majority, was at least the choice of that majority, the Southern politicians revolted, and, in eleven of the fifteen Southern States, passed ordinances of Secession. An able writer, in reviewing the events of the last year, in a religious periodical of high standing, together with the circumstances which preceded and prepared the way for them, develops the guiding hand of Providence, and the arguments in favor of His being |