And O hear Thou the prayers of all Thy faithful ministers and servants, who stand in the gap, interceding in the anguish of their souls for this sinful nation, which has so long abused Thy mercy: spare us, good Lord, by the right hand of Thine omnipotence, that we may yet see the good of Thy chosen, and rejoice in the gladness of Thy nation, and glory with Thine inheritance. Amen.

A HYMN.

MY COUNTRY.

My country, 'tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,

Of thee I sing:

Land where my fathers died,
Land of the Pilgrims' pride,

From every mountain side

Let freedom ring!

My native country, thee-
Land of the noble free-
Thy name I love:

I love thy rocks and rills,
Thy woods and templed hills;
My heart with rapture thrills

Like that above.

Let music swell the breeze,
And ring through all the trees
Sweet freedom's song:
Let mortal tongues awake;
Let all that breathe partake;

Let rocks their silence break—
The sound prolong.

Our fathers' God, to Thee,

Author of liberty,

To Thee we sing:

Long may our land be bright
With freedom's holy light;
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God, our King!

A BRIEF ADDRESS TO OUR SOLDIERS

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF THEIR MISSION, DURING THE PRE

THE true soldier is an intense man; and the most momentous interests hang upon his fidelity. The aim of the following address is to aid the United States soldier, in the crisis of 1861, to see the grandeur of his providential calling, and with the highest moral and physical courage so to pursue it as to save his country from impending

* Abridged from a small pamphlet by REV. T. N. HASKELL.

IMPORTANT MISSION OF OUR SOLDIERS.

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ruin, and be ennobled in personal character for this and the future world. He is the best soldier who is justly conscious of being the best man.

RIGHTFULNESS OF DEFENSIVE WAR.

Owing to the imperfections and wickedness of mankind, wars are necessary evils, sometimes wrong on both sides, always wrong on one. When waged in defense of civil and religious liberty and morality, or for the overthrow of organized systems of wrong, they are not inconsistent with the purest philanthropy, or even with Christianity itself; often, indeed, are positively required by them.

Indeed, angels were sometimes sent by God to lead His hosts to battle and to victory, as in the cases of Joshua and Gideon. So when the Midianites were about to force upon Israel their system of barbarism and idolatry, and threatening to exterminate them from the face of the earth, God summoned His people to come up and defend their rights and principles, making their cause His own.

Let the soldier, then, dismiss all scruples against the righteousness of his awful work, when called in the providence of God to resist, even unto death, the encroachments of any barbarous wrong. War to defend the right against the drawn sword of wrong, is a righteous necessity, and let them that first drew the sword perish by the sword!

THE AMERICAN CONTEST IN 1861.

Never was there a cause more just than is that of the United States and its government in the present contest.

For nearly fourscore years the several States have dwelt under a Constitution established by our fathers, enjoying, with scarcely an interruption, marked prosperity. Not an act of the government can be pointed out which infringed upon the rights of any section of the country. But a conspiracy, originating more than thirty years ago, has at length been emboldened to attempt the overthrow of this confederacy, and establish on its ruins another, whose corner-stone is officially declared to be African Slavery. effect this traitorous design open war has been inaugurated, and armed hosts arrayed against the authority of the Union, and its flag, consecrated to Liberty.

Το

The insurgent army, who first fired into the Star of the West, forbade unarmed men to carry food and fuel to our scanty but brave garrison, and then bombarded Fort Sumter, and became intoxicated with joy over their "bloodless victory," are commanded by usurped authority; they march under the flag of treason. They are perjured men, from their commander-in-chief down to the meanest private, having leagued together to destroy those institutions which they had sworn to preserve, protect, and defend ” They have assailed the right of every citizen, and sapped the foundation of Liberty's only citadel, by resisting the will of the people in the choice of the President, constitutionally expressed. They have pursued a system of official peculation, perjury, and theft. They have decreed the system of barbarism which has been the bone of our contention from the first, to be perpetual, and assuming that it

THE AMERICAN CONTEST IN 1861.

21

is the most sacred of all their trusts, they declare themselves ready to cling to it "till the last man behind the last rampart has fallen."*

These are the men and their minions, who, with stolen arms, are defying the patriot hosts of the country. They must be overcome and subdued, or else the doom of our republic will be to disappoint the hopes of the world, and demonstrate that there can never be on earth "a home for the brave, or a land for the free."

To resist them unto death is no less our duty than to protect our abodes from the approach of assassins. We may feel toward them much as David did when he said to the Philistine, "Thou comest to me with the sword; but I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. And the Lord will deliver thee into my hand, and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; that all the earth may know there is a God in Israel; for the battle is the Lord's, and he will give you into our hands."

Haste, soldiers, to the altar

Of Freedom and the Laws;

Let not devotion falter

When God is in your cause.

RULES OF CONDUCT.

A United States soldier should observe the following general rules:

* DR. PALMER, of New Orleans.