afford no sustenance, let her answer, with the death-rattle mingling with the murmuring tones, that mark the last struggle for life-let the dying mother and her babe

answer!

us.

It was but a day past and our land slept in the light of peace. War was not here-wrong was not here.Fraud, and wo, and misery, and want, dwelt not among From the eternal solitude of the green woods, arose the blue smoke of the settler's cabin, and golden fields of corn looked forth from amid the waste of the wilderness, and the glad music of human voices awoke the silence of the forest.

Now! God of mercy, behold the change!-Under the shadow of a pretext, under the sanctity of the name of God, invoking the Redeemer to their aid, do these foreign hirelings slay our people! They throng our towns, they darken our plains, and now they encompass our posts on the lonely plain of Chadd's Ford.

'They that take the sword shall perish by the sword."

Brethren, think me not unworthy of belief, when I tell you that the doom of the British is near! Think me not vain, when I tell you that beyond the cloud that now enshrouds us, I see gathering, thick and fast, the darker cloud and the blacker storm of a Divine Retribution !

They may conquer us on to-morrow! Might and wrong may prevail, and we may be driven from this field but the hour of God's own vengeance will come!

Aye, if in the vast solitudes of eternal space, if in the heart of the boundless universe, there throbs the being of an awful God, quick to avenge, and sure to punish guilt, then will the man, George of Brunswick, called King, feel in his brain and in his heart, the vengeance of the eternal Jehovah? A blight will be upon his life -a withered brain, an accursed intellect-a blight will be upon his children, and on his people. Great God! how dreadful the punishment!

A crowded populace, peopling the dense towns where the man of money thrives, while the laborer starves;

want striding among the people in all the forms of terror; an ignorant and God-defying priesthood chuckling over the miseries of millions; a proud and merciless nobility adding wrong to wrong, and heaping insult upon robbery and fraud; royalty corrupt to the very heart; aristocracy rotten to the core; crime and want linked hand in hand, and tempting men to deeds of woe and death-these are a part of the doom and the retribution that shall come upon the English throne and the English people!

Soldiers-I look around upon your familiar faces with a strange interest! To-morrow morning we will all go forth to battle-for need I tell you that your unworthy minister will march with you, invoking God's aid in the fight?-we will march forth to battle! Need I exhort you to fight the good fight, to fight for your homesteads, and for your wives and children?

My friends, I might urge you to fight, by the galling memories of British wrong! Walton-I might tell you of your father butchered in the silence of midnight on the plains of Trenton; I might picture his gray hairs dabbled in blood; I might ring his death-shriek in your ears. Shelmire, I might tell you of a mother butchered, and a sister outraged-the lonely farm-house, the night assault, the roof in flames, the shouts of the troopers as they despatched their victim, the cries of mercy, the pleading of innocence for pity. I might paint this all again, in the terrible colors of the vivid reality, if I thought your courage needed such wild excitement. But I know you are strong in the might of the Lord. You will go forth to battle on the morrow with light hearts and determined spirits, though the solemn duty -the duty of avenging the dead-may rest heavy on your souls.

And in the hour of battle, when all around is darkness, lit by the lurid cannon glare; and the piercing musket flash, when the wounded strew the ground, and the dead litter your path-then remember, soldiers, that God is with you. The eternal God fights for you-he

rides on the battle cloud, he sweeps onward with the march of the hurricane charge-God, the Awful and Infinite, fights for you, and you will triumph.

"They that take the sword shall perish by the sword."

You have taken the sword, but not in the spirit of wrong and revenge. You have taken the sword for your homes, for your wives, for your little ones. You have taken the sword for truth, for justice and right, and to you the promise is, be of good cheer, for your foes have taken the sword in defiance of all that man holds dear, in blasphemy of God-they shall perish by the sword.

And now, brethren and soldiers, I bid you all farewell. Many of us may fall in the fight to-morrow-God rest the souls of the fallen-many of us may live to tell the story of the fight of to-morrow, and in the memory of all will ever rest and linger the quiet scene of this autumnal night.

Solemn twilight advances over the valley; the woods on the opposite heights fling their long shadows over the green of the meadow-around us are the tents of the continental host, the suppressed bustle of the camp, the hurried tramp of the soldiers to and fro among the tents, the stillness and silence that marks the eve of battle. When we meet again, may the long shadows of twilight be flung over a peaceful land.

God in Heaven grant it.

Let us pray.

Prayer of the Revolution.

Great Father we bow before thee. We invoke thy blessing, we deprecate thy wrath; we return thy thanks for the past, we ask thy aid for the future. For we are

in times of trouble, oh! Lord, and sore beset by foes, merciless and unpitying; the sword gleams over our land and the dust of the soil is dampened with the blood of our neighbors and friends.

Oh! God of mercy, we pray thy blessing on the American arms. Make the man of our hearts strong in thy wisdom; bless, we beseech thee, with renewed life and

strength, our hope, and Thy instrument, even GEORGE WASHINGTON, shower Thy counsels on the Honorable, the Continental Congress; visit the tents of our host, comfort the soldier in his wounds and afflictions, nerve him for the fight, and prepare him for the hour of death.

And in the hour of defeat, oh! God of Hosts, do thou be our stay, and in the hour of triumph be thou our guide.

Teach us to be merciful. Though the memory of galling wrongs be at our hearts, knocking for admittance, that they may fill us with desires of revenge, yet let us, oh! Lord, spare the vanquished, though they never spared us, in their hour of butchery and bloodshed. And, in the hour of death, do thou guide us into the abode prepared for the blest; so shall we return thanks unto thee through Christ, our Redeemer.-GOD PROSPER THE CAUSE-Amen.

"Many proofs can be adduced to prove that General Washington was steady in his possessed faith in the helping agency of the strong arm of the living God, made bare to save. That he carried his country and her glorious cause of freedom up to the Most High in fervent supplications or prayers to Him who gives not the race to the swift, nor yet the battle to the strong—to Him who maketh the clouds and darkness his pavilion and who rideth upon the whirlwind and directeth the storm-to him who sitteth at the helm of affairs and guideth all things aright. He was most unquestionably Heaven's constituted servant to gain the Independence of my Columbia.”—Hanna's Glory of Columbia.

The following interesting incident, as proof of the assertion, is placed here for perusal by my readers:

"One pleasant evening in the month of June, in the year 17, a man was observed entering the borders of a wood, near the Hudson river, his appearance that of a person above the common rank. The inhabitants of a country village would have dignified him with the title

of 'squire, and from his manner have pronounced him proud; but those more accustomed to society, would inform you, there was something like a military air about him. His horse panted as if it had been hard pushed for some miles, yet from the owner's frequent stops to caress the patient animal, he could not be charged with want of humanity; but seemed to be actuated by some urgent necessity. The rider's forsaking a good road for the by-path leading through the woods, indicated a desire to avoid the gaze of other travellers. He had not left the house where he inquired the direction of the above mentioned path more than two hours, before the quietude of the place was broken by the noise of distant thunder. He was soon after obliged to dismount, travelling becoming dangerous, as darkness concealed surrounding objects, except when the lightning's flash afforded him a momentary view of his situation. A peal, louder and of longer duration than any of the preceding, which now burst over his head, seeming as if it would rend the woods asunder, was quickly followed by a heavy fall of rain, which penetrated the clothing of the stranger ere he could obtain the shelter* of a large oak which stood at a little distance.

Almost exhausted with the labours of the day, he was about making such disposition of the saddle and his own coat as would enable him to pass the night with what comfort circumstances would admit, when he espied a light glimmering through the trees. Animated with the hope of better lodgings, he determined to proceed. The way, which was somewhat steep, became attended with more obstacles the farther he advanced, the soil being composed of clay, which the rain had rendered so soft that his feet slipped at every step. By the utmost perseverance, this difficulty was finally overcome

*However desirable a shelter a large and branching tree with its thick foliage would constitute, the author of the present work is not prepared to believe that General Washington would for a moment be tempted to act so imprudently as to seek shelter under a tree in a thunderstorm. Let none, therefore, act so unwisely at any time.