Those who took part in the proceedings represented the widest range of the most important interests. Secretary Chase, who presided, represented the Government, the approval of which was given most cordially not only by him, but also by the letter received from the President, to the United States Christian Commission, and its great national work for the army and navy: -

Executive Mansion, Washington, February 22, 1863.

Whatever shall be sincerely and in God's name devised for the good of the soldiers and seamen in their hard spheres of duty can scarcely fail to be blessed. And whatever shall tend to turn our thoughts from the unreasoning and uncharitable passions, prejudices, and jealousies incident to a great national trouble such as ours, and to fix them upon the vast and long-enduring consequences for weal or for woe which are to result from this struggle, and especially to strengthen our reliance on the Supreme Being for the final triumph of the right, cannot but be well for us all.

The birthday of Washington and the Christian Sabbath coinciding this year, and suggesting together the highest interests of this life and of that to come, is most propitious for the meeting proposed.

A. Lincoln.

The Sabbath,

In its proper observance and influence in the army and navy, enlisted the earnest efforts of the Christian public. The following petition was extensively circulated, and sent to the President: -

To His Excellency the President, Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States.

The petition of the subscribers, loyal citizens of the United States, and heartily pledging all righteous support to the national Government, particularly in the present unhappy struggle with a rebellion most criminal and fearful, very respectfully showeth -

That we are, in fact, a Christian people, believing obedience to God's will, revealed in the Holy Scriptures, to be our sole security for his blessings; that our soldiers and sailors go forth usually from Christian communities and homes, with at least strong religious convictions; that many of them are communicants in Christian Churches; that our army and navy, therefore, are distinctly a Christian army and navy, and entitled, in war as well as in peace, to Christian care and privileges; that experience has conclusively proved that moral and religious improvement, and a reasonable respect paid to conscientious convictions, always promote the loyalty and efficiency of men engaged in warfare, while nothing can well demoralize and discourage them so thoroughly as an apprehension that God's favor has been forfeited by either themselves or their commanders; that men returning home debauched in a service characterized by vice and irreligion ever prove a bane to society; and that the Christian people of this land, in sending forth from their dwellings and churches those who are to fight the battles of the country, do therefore reasonably expect, as your petitioners do most earnestly pray, that your Excellency will give careful attention to the moral and religious interests of the whole army and navy under your command; and particularly -

1. That you will adopt the most stringent measures to banish, as far as possible, from our forces all temptation to intemperance or any other vice.

2. That you will employ your whole authority to secure the general appointment of chaplains, regularly ordained, and of good standing in their respective denominations, with a faithful discharge of duty on their part, and all proper encouragement and independence in the same, and to insure to both officers and privates entire religious liberty and the right of attending upon a ministry of their own choice.

3. That you will issue such orders respecting parades, reviews, receptions, the admission of visitors, military services, and the giving of battle, as will, excepting in cases of absolute necessity, secure uninterrupted the rest and worship of the Sabbath, to none more important, for both body and soul, than to the soldier or sailor, and to him never more important than upon the eve of battle.

And your petitioners will ever pray, &c.

The ministers of Cincinnati, Ohio, addressed the President the following paper: -

Cincinnati, Ohio, June 29, 1861

To The President of the United States:

Sir: - The undersigned, members of the "Union of Protestant Ministers of Cincinnati," desire to address you, briefly, on a subject which lies very near to our hearts. It respects the moral and religious welfare of the troops called forth to suppress the present causeless and wicked rebellion. Our Churches, as you are aware, have fully and without reserve entered into the purpose of the Government to defend and maintain the national life. They have freely given of the choicest of their members, and sent them to the camp and the fields of conflict, with their benedictions and their prayers.

At the same time, we cannot be indifferent to the moral dangers to which they are exposed. They are mostly young men; and, in their name and in the name of those with whom they are assoeiated, we therefore ask the Government to do all that it consistently can to guard their morals and provide for their religious welfare. We would especially mention the steady encouragement of the observance ef the Sabbath in the camp, and the furnishing of all reasonable facilities for religious instruction and edification. War, we know, has its own exigencies; and we would ask for nothing impracticable, or that would in the least impair the efficiency of the military arm. It is with great satisfaction, also, that we have learned the determination of the Government to provide for the maintenance of a chaplain in each regiment, while the army regulations in respect to religious matters must recommend themselves to every mind.

At the same time, we feel assured that the expression of the interest of the Government in the carrying out of these regulations, its expressly discouraging all unnecessary drilling and other work in the camp, and the making suitable provision for the erection of sheds or other temporary accommodations for religious worship in stationary camps, would have an exceedingly beneficial influence, and do much to strengthen the religious element, which, we are happy to know, prevails so largely among our troops, and which in all wars of principle has been found to contribute so essentially to the final result.

Invoking upon you, sir, and your Cabinet the blessings of Heaven, and assuring you of our fervent intercession, and those of our congregations, in public and in private, at the throne of grace, in your behalf,

We are, respectfully.

The President made the following reply: -

Executive Mansion, July 21, 1861.

Reverend and Dear Sir: - I am directed by the President to acknowledge the receipt of a communication signed by yourself and many others of the "Union of Protestant Ministers of Cincinnati."

The President desires me to express his deep appreciation of the motives which prompted your address, and his entire sympathy with the views you hold, and to assure you that, as far as practicable, the principles to which you give utterance shall guide the conduct of the Government in the troubled scenes upon which we are entering.

I have the honor to be your most obedient servant,

John Hay, Assistant Secretary.

Address of the New York Sabbath Deputation to the President.

To the President:

We wait on you, Mr. President, as a Deputation from the New York Sabbath Committee, in conformity with the request of a meeting of influential citizens from all parts of the country, held last August at Saratoga Springs, to promote the better observance of Sunday in the army and navy of which you are the honored commander-in-chief. To this end we respectfully solicit your sanction of an appropriate General Order protecting the rights of our brave soldiers and sailors to their weekly season of rest and worship, - the emergencies of the service excepted, - and recommending such use of sacred time as will best secure its sanitary, moral, and religious benefits.

We deem it superfluous in this presence to discuss the civil or sacred relations of an institution as old as time and as prevalent as freedom and Christianity. We address the civil and military ruler of a republic whose busy population weekly pause in their industrial pursuits and throng the temples of Christian worship, attesting their reverence for the Lord's day and its Author, and whose laws and customs reflect, as they have ever done, the popular appreciation of the national rest-day. It is no unintelligent, superstitious principle that has moulded the legislation of more than thirty States of the Union and stamped its impress on the character of the nation. The law of periodical rest is written on the human constitution and on the framework of free, self-governing institutions, as indelibly as it is on the pages of revelation. A government of law must have its foundations in morality: its liberties inhere, under God, in its virtues. But it is the recorded axiom of the late Justice McLean, "Where there is no Christian Sabbath there is no Christian morality; and without this free institutions cannot long be sustained," - a sentiment impressively illustrated by the fact that the only free nations in existence are those in which the civil Sabbath is incorporated in their laws, as is the sacred Sabbath in their cherished convictions and habits.

The respected Attorney-General of the United States has well defined the fundamental connection of the Sabbath with public morals, and so with regulated liberty. " The religious character," says Mr. Bates, " of an institution so ancient, so sacred, so lawful, and so necessary to the peace, the comfort, and the respectability of society, ought alone to be sufficient for its protection; but, that failing, surely the laws of the land made for its account ought to be as strictly enforced as the laws for the protection of person and property. Vice and crime are always progressive and cumulative. If the Sunday laws be neglected or despised, the laws of person and property will soon share their fate and be equally disregarded." The Deputation may be pardoned for alluding to the recent records of crime in New York City as a striking confirmation of the Attomey-General's views. They show that the partial suppression of Sunday abuses and temptations resulted in a relative change of sixty-five per cent, in the arrests for violating "the laws of person and property," as compared with the period when "the Sunday laws were neglected or despised." The Deputation appeal to the results of our national system of moral discipline in the general supremacy of law and liberty throughout the Northern States, even in a time of civil war, as revealing at once the root and the fruits of the tree under whose shadow the republic has sought its weekly repose and rendered its weekly homage.

Assuming, then, as we surely may, the President's patriotic and Christian respect for the Lord's day, we pass to the specific object of the Deputation.

In response to the call of the Government, nearly a million of citizens have become soldiers. They have been transferred from home, Church, and neighborhood influences, so fruitful in incitements to virtue and restraints from vice, and are exposed to the temptations of the camp and forecastle. The laws and habits of civil and domestic life are superseded by the. military code and customs. It may be hoped that individuals or entire commands have borne the transition without injury to principle or character; but the tendency of the novel influences must be towards demoralization, and every available counteracting agency is demanded by the highest considerations of philanthropy, patriotism, and religion.

It is due to the army and navy. The common right of soldiers and tailors to their weekly rest, unless abridged by military necessity, will not be questioned; nor the correlative duty to observe the day according to its design. But tens of thousands of men have enlisted into one or other branch of the national service from Christian Churches. Bible-classes, Sunday-schools, and religious homes, - twenty-seven froma single Bible-class within our knowledge. We would vindicate the rights of these Christian men, and of all others who have moral sense enough to make good soldiers, to immunity from outrage of feeling or oppression of conscience in matters as sacred as life. They cherish, for example, a profound reverence for the name of God, and regard "profane cursing and swearing," as Washington did, as "a foolish and wicked practice," "a vice so mean and low that every man of sense and character detests and despises it." They esteem the Sabbath as sacred to rest and devotion, and have been taught from infancy "that the observance of the holy day of the God of mercy and of battles is our sacred duty." They have been trained to devout reliance on the Divine arm in their exposure of life itself in defence of a just cause, and they recoil from the violation of Divine statutes and from the wanton disregard of them by their companions in arms. They may justly claim such leadership and discipline as shall respect their most sacred convictions, when those convictions contain the elements of principled courage, unswerving obedience, and undying patriotism. If any of their officers lack the tact, self-respect, or principle to recognize these claims, superior authorities should exact the recognition, as the simplest justice to the men and the most obvious requisite of military discipline. Immorality and irreligion will sufficiently abound in spite of law and example: when these are lacking, the drift is fearful towards moral degeneracy and consequent military inefficiency.

The official intervention we seek is due to the country. The camp cannot become a school of vice without entailing irreparable injury on the numberless homes and hamlets represented in a vast volunteer army, nor without lasting damage to the morals and so to the liberties of the republic. Nor can the fact be overlooked that the cause itself for which the country and the army are contending is imperilled just in the measure in which impiety and immorality characterize its defenders and provoke the displeasure of Heaven.

It is conceded that the limit of official interposition in this matter is quite restricted. The rights of conscience are sacred. The exigencies of military service, too, must frequently overrule the choice of commanders and the natural rights of the soldier. But is there not a sphere within which the legitimate exercise of authority and moral influence may restrain the tendencies to evil that awaken alarm and grief among right-minded citizens?

The action we solicit might be mandatory so far as relates to needful weekly rest, the wanton invasion of Christian rights, and the choice of Sunday for aggressive warfare, due discretion being accorded to generals commanding, under their responsibility to God and the Government. Beyond this, paternal counsels only might suffice to encourage the virtuous and self-respecting, and to bring into disrepute the lawless trifling of officers or men with sacred interests.

The records of our Revolutionary period furnish memorable precedents for the action we venture to suggest. Repeatedly did the Father of his Country address orders to the army rebuking immorality, and encouraging purity of conduct as only befitting the holy cause for which they contended, and reminding officers and men, as we need to be reminded, that "we can have little hope of the blessing of Heaven on our arms if we insult it by our impiety and folly."

The President issued the following order: -

Executive Mansion, Washington, D.C., Nov. 16, 1862.

The President, commander-in-chief of the army and navy, desires and enjoins the orderly observance of the Sabbath by the officers and men in the military and naval service. The importance for man and beast of the prescribed weekly rest, the sacred rights of Christian soldiers and sailors, a becoming deference to the best sentiment of a Christian people, and a due regard for the Divine will, demand that Sunday labor in the army and navy be reduced to the measure of strict necessity. The discipline and character of the national forces should not suffer, nor the cause they defend be imperilled, by the profanation of the day or the name of the Most High. At this time of public distress, adopting the words of Washington in 1776, ''men may find enough to do in the service of God and their country, without abandoning themselves to vice and immorality." The first general order issued by the Father of his Country, after the Declaration of Independence, indicates the spirit in which our institutions were founded and should ever be defended: - "The general hopes and trusts that every officer and man will endeavor to live and act as becomes a Christian soldier defending the dearest rights and privileges of his country."

Abraham Lincoln.

General McClellan, who for more than a year was commander of the Army of the Potomac, issued the following order: -

General Orders No. 7.

Head-Quarters Army of the Potomac, Washington, Sept 7.

The Major-General conmianding desires and requests that in future there may be a more perfect respect for the Sabbath on the part of his command. We are fighting in a holy cause, and should endeavor to deserve the benign favor of the Creator. Unless in case of an attack by the enemy, or some other extreme military necessity, it is commended to commanding officers that all work shall be suspended on the Sabbath; that no unnecessary movements shall be made on that day; that the men, as far as possible, shall be permitted to rest from their labors; that they shall attend Divine service after the customary morning inspection, and that officers and men alike use their influence to insure the utmost decorum and quiet on that day. The general commanding regards this as no idle form. One day's rest is necessary for man and animals. More than this, the observance of the holy day of the God of mercy and battles is our sacred duty.

Signed     Geo. B. McClellan.
Major-General Commanding.

General Casey, a veteran officer of the United States army, at a public meeting in Washington in January, 1863, held to promote the observance of the Sabbath in the army, made the following statement: -

I have been thirty-six years in the military service, and I know that the army need a Sabbath. I was five years in the Florida War. In long marches better time will be made, and the men will go through in better condition, by resting on the Sabbath than by continuous marching. No prudent general will plan for a Sunday battle. I would appeal to the American people to save our American Sabbath. If our wealth is loet in this terrible war, it may be recovered; if our young men are killed off, others will grow up; but if our Sabbath is lost, it can never he restored and all is lost.

Commodore Foote, who as a commander in the navy was distinguished for his eminent and practical piety, as well as for his patriotism and earnest efforts to serve his country and put down the rebellion, issued the following order in respect to the Sabbath and profanity: -

General Order No. 6.

A strict observance of the Sabbath, so far as abstaining from all unnecessary work, and giving officers and men the opportunity of attending public worship on board, will be observed by all persons connected with the flotilla.

It is the wish of the commander-in-chief that on the Sabbath the public worship of Almighty God may be observed on board of all the vessels composing the flotilla, and that the respective commanders will either themselves, or cause other persons, to pronounce prayers publicly on Sabbath, when as many of the officers and men as can be spared from duty may attend the public worship of Almighty God.

Profane swearing being forbidden by the laws for the better government of the navy, all officers and men will strictly observe this law; and every officer who uses profane language towards the men in carrying on duty will be held amenable for such gross violation of law and order.

Discipline, to be permanent, must be based on moral grounds, and officers must in themselves show a good example in morals, order, and patriotism, to secure those qualities in the men.

Andrew H. Foote,
Flag-Officer commanding U.S. Naval Forces on the Western Waters.

The Chaplains of the Army

Were from all denominations of Christians; and the following testimony to their fidelity and usefulness is from sources entitled to the highest credit. Rev. Granville Moody, who relinquished one of the largest and wealthiest pastorates of the Methodist Church in Cincinnati in order to accept the position of colonel in the army, and who was earnest and eloquent in infusing a spirit of patriotism into the people from the pulpit, bears the following testimony: -

As I have had the amplest opportunities for noticing the operations of chaplains in the army, allow me to pay a passing tribute to their worth and work.

With very few exceptions, they have been men of one work, "watching for souls as they who must give account of the souls committed to their care'' in the wise, Christian, patriotic, and humane provision for their office and work by our glorious Government.

It is, indeed, refreshing to meet these men of Grod in all the departments of military operations. In camp, on the toilsome march, on the battle-fields, or in the hospitals with their crowded wards, we meet these humble ministers of peace, vindicating their claims as successors to the apostles, evangelists, pastors, teachers, and helps, who have received their commissions from Him "who went about doing good'' to the bodies and souls of men.

Pray for the chaplains in the army, in disseminating gospel truths, in advertising and applying God's remedy for man's misery, in the timely utterances of the precepts and promises of God, in restraining vice and encouraging virtue, in consoling the afflicted, comforting the comfortless, pointing sinners to the Lamb of God, sanctifying patriotism, sustaining Government, and serving their generation in their day. They are doing a great and glorious work, which will redound to the glory of God and the good of men.

As they appear before listening thousands in these sun-hot Southern groves, leading the solemn, simple, and sublime devotions of the Sabbafh in camp, we are compelled to say, with Cowper, -

"Then stands the solemn legate of the skies,
His theme divine and his credentials clear.
By him the violated law speaks out its thunders.
And by him, in strains as sweet as angels use,
The gospel whispers peace."

Long may the bright succession run, represented by those "who shall turn many to righteousness, and shine as the stars forever."

Granville Moody,
Colonel commanding 74th Reg't 0. V. I.

Rev. Mr. Alvord, Secretary and Superintendent of the operations of the American Tract Society of Boston in its work among the soldiers, and who was with the Army of the Potomac in active Christian service for two years, and in frequent conferences with chaplains, testifies as follows to their power and influence: -

Give the chaplains opportunity, facility, material; they are the organic, established ministration to the army, "God's ordinance," therefore, to advance Christianity. They are to be strengthened, not thrust aside. Link them all back to the people at home for sympathies and supplies, and in every way rally the Christians of the army around them; then let all the volunteer agency be as "Aarons and Hurs," and, whatever the Government or mere military men may do, religion will, under this Divine agency, magnify her supremacy and show her power to save. This is the way God is evidently now working. Christian appliances, especially through the chaplains, are rapidly gaining in effect.

Rev. Dr. Marks, as a chaplain in the Army of the Potomac, who by his fidelity and fitness for the work won a high distinction among the officers and soldiers, and who wrote a popular book on the military and Christian scenes of the Peninsular campaign, gives the following testimony: -

'During more than two years of my connection with the Potomac army I was most intimately acquainted with a large number of the chaplains in that service, and, with few exceptions, they were very excellent men, and, in spite of the difficulties of their position, accomplished an amount of good that never can be told. When sickness came, they were the most patient and sympathizing of nurses and friends. Their words of faith and loyalty cheered the soldiers in their long marches and on entering into battle. As a general thing, their office and character brought them into more intimate communion with the troops than any other officers, and the men felt that the chaplain was the link that bound them still to their homes, their churches, and their other's house.

And to the wounded and dying on the battle-field they were like angels sent of God. Many a dying soldier have I seen, with his hand grasping that of the chaplain as the friend to whom he clung in his last moments with the greatest confidence; and the presence and words of the good man encouraged and blessed the departing hero.

His work, from the nature of the case, could not find place in bulletins and despatches from the field, but was no less valuable because thus unheralded.

The various Christian agencies produced the most happy and beneficent results.

The Christian sentiment of the loyal States was elicited to sustain the Government and to relieve and benefit our brave men of the army and navy. The Government was called on to confess and express its dependence upon God for support, and to manifest deep interest for the moral and religious welfare of our gallant defenders. The Home and the Church have been brought to the men in the field, and cheering, consoling intelligence from the men in the field to the Home and the Church. Thousands of lives have been saved to the country and to loving home-circles. Thousands have been led to the Saviour, and hundreds of thousands comforted, instructed, and cheered in the hour of agony, despondency, or death.

The army felt it was engaged in a most holy cause, and the inspirations of religion and righteousness imparted faith, courage, and resolution, in the protracted and terrible struggle for the life of the republic and its free institutions against the rebellion.

No army was ever set on foot so thoroughly imbued with enlightened religious sentiment as ours. The Crimean army, with its Hedley Vickars, and the large class of devout soldiers of whom he was a type, the Indian army, with its Havelock, the Puritan hosts of Cromwell, are no exceptions. The respect of our soldiers for the Sabbath, their family altars in messes, their prayer-meetings, their devout observance of religious ordinances, and the numerous instances which have occurred even of conversions in the camp, are circumstances which fill the Christian heart with delight. Whole companies have been devoted, with prayer and self-consecration, to God's peculiar service.

The nation owe the heroic and patriotic men of the army and navy a boundless debt of gratitude, and theirs is the honor and imperishable glory of saving, under God, the republic, and handing it down to future ages. Let the meed of praise be given to the living, and a nation's tears and gratitude to the memories of the hundred thousand fallen in battle.

The Loyal Women

Of the Northern States, during the great conflict, in their unselfish and ceaseless works of patriotism and piety, received the following tribute from a leading religious journal: -

It is inspiring to see the abounding and ever-increasing enthusiasm of the intelligent Christian women of the North for the triumph of liberty, righteousness, and truth, in that momentous national controversy now coming at last to a conclusion and settlement through the dread and final arbitrament of battle. What multitudes of women have met during the last two years, in private houses, vestries, churches, with spontaneous alacrity hastening together to prepare beforehand for the wants of the wounded, or for the comfort and relief of the sick, in the campaign that is imminent! How many, with far more signal exhibition of their love for the right, have sent their own husbands, brothers, sons, into the field, or have bidden their betrothed go forth undaunted in the cause of God and their native land! How many pastors, preaching on the great and urgent theme and pouring their full souls into their message, have been encouraged, reinforced, lifted to higher levels of feeling, penetrated with more fervent and powerful conviction, by the responses they have met from the voices or the faces of those whose delicacy has been heretofore more conspicuous than their daring, and into whose dwelling no sound of strife was ever admitted! It is one of the most remarkable phenomena in that whole series of astonishing wonders which we have of late been permitted to see.

Yet there is reason for this; and the fact has a vast and deep significance. Women have reason to love the land which is their ample, bounteous home. They have reason to value the social system which cherishes and guards them with its chiefest care. They have reason to prize the great institutions of civil and religious freedom, which furnish them with the richest means of culture and advancement, which open to them the most varied paths to happiness and usefulness. No civilzation that has ever existed on the face of the earth has had a larger, so large a claim on the love and loyalty of virtuous women as that which we have here enjoyed, - that which now is threatened and assailed by the headstrong violence and the vindictive passion of the Southern slave-masters. It is well, therefore, that women should rally to contribute their part to maintain it, - well and fit that they should give all that God enables them to give in defence of a past so glorious as ours, in defence of a present so sheltering and benign. They would be unmindful of the sources of their own highest prosperity, or ungrateful for the blessings that hitherto have distilled each day and hour upon them and their children, except they did this!

But there is yet another relation of this wide-sweeping, spontaneous enthusiasm, inspiring to contemplate. It indicates and vindicates the holiness of the cause in which our whole vast Northern force is now engaged. The moral instincts of such a multitude of Christian women could not possibly have been enlisted or conciliated by any enterprise of ambition or aggression, by any expedition prompted by desire of territorial expansion or of martial renown. Rather from such a scheme or purpose, however plausibly advanced and advocated, such is the Christian culture of the sex in our land and in our time, they would have been instantaneously repelled. As one immense, unconquerable host they would have set themselves in the way of its progress, and with infallible certainty have arrested it. It is because they, whose moral instincts are finer and more sensitive than man's, whose moral judgments are more immediate and more authoritative, whose souls stand nearer to God and to his Son, nearer the cross, nearer the crown, - it is because they know and feel that this now coming and imminent war, however protracted, fierce, and terrific it may be, is still to be a war for freedom, for truth, for the gospel, for the coming Christian civilization of the land, for the coming hope and glory of mankind, therefore it is that they rise to the height of the sacrifice it demands; that they give to it the verdict of enthusiastic acceptance; that they dedicate themselves already not only to the mitigating of the sufferings it must cause, but to the furnishing of the ranks with their recruits, of the soldiers with their equipments, of the whole army with their own temper of intrepid, self-denying, and heroic faith.

God bless forever the worthy daughters of the glorious and ever-honored Revolutionary mothers!

Two thousand women of St. Louis, Missouri, entered into the following

Pledge.

We, the undersigned women of St. Louis, believing that in this hour of national peril to our country every influence, moral as well as military, should be brought to bear in the great struggle for national existence against a rebellion as crafty as it is wicked, and that while our fathers, husbands, sons, and brothers are giving their treasure and blood, it is our duty to contribute the influence God has given us in our social sphere to the same holy cause, and that in this solemn crisis loyalty is bound to be outspoken, even in the case of women, as truly as loyalty to our God:

We, therefore, do constitute ourselves as an association, to be known as the Ladies' National League of St. Louis, and do pledge our unconditional adherence to our national Government in its struggle against the present rebellion, engaging to assist it by whatever means may be in our power, in the maintenance of our national Union and the integrity of our national domain.

To this end, we do further resolve and pledge ourselves to encourage and sustain our brave soldiers by acts of kindness and patriotic cheer; to use every fitting opportunity of expressing our unflinching determination to stand by our dear old flag and to honor those who fight in its defence until the day of sure and permanent triumph; and to prove, in whatever way we can, that loyalty to our country forms a part of our allegiance to God.

The loyal women of New York formed an association and passed the following resolutions: -

We, the undersigned, women of the United States, agree to become members of the "Women's Loyal National League," hereby pledging our most earnest influence in support of the Government in its prosecution of the war for freedom and for the restoration of the national unity.

Resolved, That for the present this League will concentrate all its efforts upon the single object of procuring to be signed by one million women and upward, and of preparing for presentation to Congress within the first week of its next session, a petition in the following words, to wit: -

To The Senate and House of Representatives of the United States.

The undersigned, women of the United States, above the age of eighteen years, earnestly pray that your honorable body will pass, at the earliest practicable day, an act emancipating all persons of African descent held to involuntary service or labor in the United States.

Resolved, That, in furtherance of the above object, the Executive Committee of this League be instructed to cause to be prepared and stereotyped a pamphlet, not exceeding four printed octavo pages, briefly and plainly setting forth the importance of such a movement at the present juncture, a copy of the said pamphlet to be placed in the hands of each person who may undertake to procure signatures to the above petition, and for such further distribution as may be ordered by the said Executive Committee.

A "Loyal Women's League" was formed in Hartford, Connecticut, the members pledging themselves to "encourage and sustain our brave soldiers by constant tokens of love, but still more by the expression of a cheerful and unflinching determination to stand by the dear old flag till the day of its triumph, be it near or remote," and so to instruct their children, and all who may be dependent upon them, that "they may grow into such filial reverence for this best of all governments as shall make them always patriots, never mere partisans." These true-hearted women also declare that they will "in all ways endeavor to create such a sentiment of devoted loyalty in the circles in which they move, that no traitor to liberty, or cowardly recreant, shall utter his sentiments in their presence unrebuked." In token of their loyalty, they have determined to wear publicly a Union badge "until the day of our national triumph."

The loyal women of Philadelphia received the following tribute, for their devotion to the soldiers and the country, from the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, New-School, which met in that city, May, 1863: -

Resolved, That the Assembly hereby express their high admiration of the manner in which the ladies of Philadelphia have contributed, and are contributing, to the comfort of the soldiers who pass through this city, and of those who return as sick and suffering to its hospitals, and that as citizens of the country, and in behalf of those whom we specially represent, we present to these ladies our hearty thanks.

"The politicians are not the great workers in a war of ideas and principles like ours. Noble women, now, as ever, are the great workers, the great feelers, the great hopers, the great lovers, who keep up the morale of men and create the atmosphere which their spirits breathe. Leaving the actual army-work out of the account, they do actually more than the men."

The leading journals of the Northern States, both political and religious, during the great conflict, and especially on the observance of the days of fasting and prayer and of thanks-giving designated by the Government, exerted a wide-spread and beneficent influence in diffusing and strengthening the Christian element, and in pervading the rulers and people of the republic with a just sense of their responsibilities to God. They discussed the religious aspects of the war, reviewed and rebuked the sins of the nation which they stated were the causes of the just judgments of God, exhorted the people to humiliation and repentance, advocated the fundamental principles of the Bible and an obedience to the laws of God as the only true basis of national existence and prosperity, and proclaimed the great truth that God must be honored and recognized in all governmental and political transactions as well as in the social and private walks of life, if the nation would be saved and preserved in its institutions and integrity. Extracts from the elaborate editorials of leading journals, on those great Christian principles which underlie all civil institutions, had been prepared for this volume; but the limits of the work forbid their record. It is, however, an important historic fact that the loyal political papers and all the Christian journals of the country exerted a powerful and a healthful influence in developing and difiiising the religious element.

The Ministers

Of religion, of all denominations, throughout the loyal States, in the great crisis of the nation, were, with but few exceptions, true to freedom and the country. Their pulpits were pillars of moral support and strength to the Government, and their influence aided effectively and powerfully in the suppression of the rebellion. Loyalty to the Government was a religious duty, which they in their sermons and examples inculcated upon their congregations and diffused through the nation. Many of them went into the army; and no class of men made greater sacrifices to save the republic and to purify and preserve the Government in its integrity and unity. The fundamental principles of Christianity, as related to civil government and political policies, and to the causes that brought on and sustained the rebellion, were by them thoroughly unfolded and applied, and thus pure and wide currents of Christian influences flowed over all the interests and through every department of the nation. A few illustrations of their earnest patriotism and piety can only be given in this volume.

An association of evangelical ministers of Cincinnati, in the summer of 1861, discussed the question, "How can ministers best serve the interests of our country at the present crisis?" and presented their views in the following paper: -

Deeply grateful to Almighty God, our heavenly Father, for his past mercies to this nation, and particularly noting at this time his gracious goodness in leading our fathers to establish and preserve for us a constitutional government unequalled among the governments of the earth in guarding the rights and promoting the entire welfare of a great people, we, the evangelical ministry of Cincinnati, have been led by a constraining sense of accountability to him, the Author of all our good, and by unfeigned love for our country, to adopt the following statement and resolutions: -

We are compelled to regard the rebellion which now afflicts our land and jeopardizes some of the most precious hopes of mankind as the result of a long-contemplated and wide-spread conspiracy against the principles of liberty, justice, mercy, and righteousness proclaimed in the word of God, sustained by our constitutional Government, and lying at the foundation of all public and private welfare. In the present conflict, therefore, our Government stands before us as representing the cause of God and man, against a rebellion threatening the nation with ruin in order to perpetuate and spread a system of unrighteous oppression. In this emergency, as ministers of God, we cannot hesitate to support, by every legitimate method, the Government in maintaining its authority unimpaired throughout the whole country and over this whole people: therefore,

Resolved, 1. That all Christian ministers and people should be exhorted to unite their fervent supplications to the God of our fathers for his protection of the Government formed under his approving providence, without which neither an empire rises nor a sparrow falls.

2. That the interests of our country demand of all good citizens a firm, united, and loyal support of the Government in destroying the armed rebellion which has risen against it.

3. That, as ministers of the gospel, we will co-operate with the chaplains of the army, so far as we may, in securing regular services of divine worship in camps and hospitals, the freest circulation of a healthful religious literature, especially of the word of God and the happy influence of the Sabbath among the soldiers.

4. That we should be admonished by the present judgment of Almighty God to call upon our nation to repent of the sin of oppression, with all those other vices for which he has thus entered into controversy with us, so that iniquity may not be our ruin.

5. That we will remember, and seek also to impress upon the public mind, that those with whom the Government is thus brought into conflict are our brethren, - misguided and criminal, but still our brethren, towards whom we should maintain the spirit of compassion and kindness even while waging war against them.

6. That, with humble faith, we fearlessly commit the issue of this conflict to the just and gracious God who presides over the destinies of nations, assured that in the answer to the prayers of his people he will cause the wrath of man to praise him and restrain the remainder thereof, until he sends forth judgment unto victory, and the work of righteousness be peace, and the effect of righteousness, quietness, and assurance forever.

The following address "On the Christian's Duty in the Present Crisis," is by Bishop McIlvaine, of the Episcopal Church, who is distinguished for his catholic Christian spirit towards all denominations, and for his influence in this country and in England. He visited England during the great conflict, and exerted a wide- spread influence in favor of the cause of the Government and of the loyal States in suppressing the rebellion. The address was published in 1861: -

War is upon us, - the worst, the most horrid, the most calamitous and sorrowful of all wars, - not only civil war, but civil war in circumstances beyond precedent painful and productive of all the bitterest passions of man's evil nature. The cloud is exceedingly dark. But it reaches not to heaven. God's light is behind it, however hid. His ways, however unsearchable, and "a great deep" to our eye, are in wisdom and goodness; and still "God is our refuge, and a very present help in trouble." But what is our duty? I mean the duty of disciples of Christ, - ours as members of Christ's Church, having brethren in Christ everywhere, - in the States now in array against us, and even in the army now perhaps on the march against us?

First. Our duty is clearly, solemnly, steadily, patiently, bravely, earnestly, to sustain our Government. There is no room for hesitation here. Whatever may be said of persons or localities, or sections of people, our Government has not provoked this war, the country has not. We are pro patria, for our beloved country, - not Ohio, not this State or that, not north, or east, or west, but our country, and our Government as the only representative of our country. All duty says so. And what we are and do in the discharge of this duty should be zealous, devoted, self-sacrificing, undaunted.

But, secondly, in what spirit as Christians? There is no necessity of coming down in the least from all that pertains to Christian spirit in the discharge of such duty, wherever it may carry us. Good soldiers, especially soldiers standing for their homes and institutions, repelling invasion, encircling around their Government, contending for the Union, have no need to borrow a spirit not their own. There need be no unhallowed passions, no spirit of bitter revenge, no cultivation of hate, no ceasing to pray for enemies, no passing away of actual kindness and readiness to do good to those arrayed against us, whenever duty, loyalty to our own cause, does not prevent. Especially with those who stay at home and do not plunge into the actual conflict, - the great mass of praying, loving, Christian people, - the highest measure of loyalty and of stern determination to sustain the Government is perfectly consistent with the cherishing in their hearts of all the tempers and spirit, the charities, the kindness, the doing good to them that may hate us, the praying for those who would "despitefully use us," which our blessed gospel requires.

Under these general views, what is duty?

1. Let us keep our hearts with all diligence, with special effort to prevent the encroachment of a war feeling and excitement upon the proper domain of the Spirit of God within you. The danger is great. These strong excitements carry away the mind as with a flood. They overwhelm us, unless our dikes be well kept. Duty to God, the duty of a devotional mind, the duty of prayer, secret and daily and regular and spiritual, remains. Eternity is only the nearer. God's blessing and favor are only, if possible, the more needful. The more exciting the crisis, the more the need of God. If we want an army in the field with carnal weapons, we want also, and for the same cause, an army at the throne of grace, taking hold, by constant prayer, on the arm of the only real strength. In that army, while the other is composed only of those between certain ages, and it must exclude the aged, the feeble, - in that army all can be marshalled; the praying child, the praying woman, the heart on a sick-bed, tottering age, - all can contend in that, and make a great and mighty host before God, holding up the hands of those who go to the battle, praying for the blessings of peace, union, stability, and brotherly love. Let us keep our hearts with all diligence, that we may thus keep ourselves at the throne of grace. Never were praying people more needed in our country than now.

2. Let us watch against the growth in our hearts of all bitterness of spirit against those whom we must now call (most painful as it is) our enemies. Many there are whom we must thus place under that name who are enemies to us only because their cause is against ours, while the bonds of Christian charity and real brotherly love of Christian brethren towards us are not broken. I believe that most truly. So it is, and must be, among us towards them. It is awful to be thus arrayed, brother against brother. No greater affliction could come. It must not be made more awful, so far as religious people can help it, by the kindling of fires of evil passion, which the cause on neither side demands, and by which any cause must be disgraced. Let us stand by the right, but righteously, in the right mind, in the spirit of those whose rule of mind is the word of God, and who desire to "approve themselves unto God" and to have his blessing.

3. Let us still seek peace, and the measures that make for peace. The President seeks peace, and has done nothing inconsistent with his profession of a pacific spirit and aim. Let us seek it also, and, while preparing for war, still cherish the hope and the spirit of peace. We may not see the way by which, consistently with what we ought to maintain, peace can now be restored. But let us remember that we see but little of the ways and power of God. Our hope of peace is not destroyed because our eyes cannot detect its path or our Chief Magistrate and his counsellors cannot devise the means of obtaining it. The, Lord reigneth. God is our refuge. "He hath his way in the sea, and his path in the mighty waters." When the disciples of Christ were on the billows, tempest-tossed, they knew not any path on those waves by which their Master could reach them. It was "the fourth watch of the night." But he had a path in the sea, and they saw him walking therein, and he came to them, and the waves were still. If there be no way of peace, God can make one by dividing the sea. We are not hopeless of peace because we cannot tell how it could be brought about. Let us still hope, and still pray. With arms in hand let us do so. God be with us! God preserve and guide our counsellors, our Governors, our President. May they all learn humbly to feel and acknowledge their dependence on him for wisdom and strength. May the godless-ness which has too long disgraced our public councils and affairs be cast away. May our President seek his help in God, and his Cabinet ask wisdom where only it is to be found, and our legislators know that God's blessing is worth their seeking.

Bishop McIlvaine, in a second address, in 1863, to the clergy and laity of the diocese of Ohio, uttered similar sentiments. "We long," says he, "for such peace as the permanent interests of law and order, of justice and right, will permit our Government to seek and accept."

An important part of the bishop's address of 1863 is taken up with the statements of the Right Rev. James Henry Otey, D.D., LL.D., late Bishop of the Episcopal Church in Tennessee. Bishop Otey said, in 1861, "I am well satisfied that the majority of the people in the seceding States, if their voice could be fairly heard, would speak loudly in favor of Union."

That which I fear most of all is, that God is about to visit us, and deservedly, for our national sins and ingratitude. The only foundation of my hope is that "the Lord reigneth." Oh, there is comfort in that declaration, precious, full, and abiding! Let what changes in government and overthrow of institutions come that may, we shall be safe under the shadow of His wings who "ruleth in the armies of heaven, and doeth all his pleasure among the inhabitants of the earth."

Dr. Stephen H. Tyng, pastor of one of the largest and most influential churches in the city of New York, in a sermon preached on fast-day, April 30, 1863, reflected the loyalty and