shall dwell with thee, even among you, in
that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates, where it liketh
him best: thou shalt not oppress him." The warning which the prophet
Isaiah gave to oppressing Moab was of a similar kind: "Take counsel,
execute judgment; make thy shadow as the night in the midst of the
noon-day; hide the outcasts; bewray not him that wandereth. Let mine
outcasts dwell with thee, Moab; be thou a covert to them from the face
of the spoiler." The prophet Obadiah brings the following charge
against treacherous Edom, which is precisely applicable to this guilty
nation:--"For thy violence against thy brother Jacob, shame shall come
over thee, and thou shalt be cut off for ever. In the day that thou
stoodst on the other side, in the day that the strangers carried away
captive his forces, and foreigners entered into his gates, and cast
lots upon Jerusalem, _even thou wast as one of them_. But thou
shouldst not have looked on the day of thy brother, in the day that he
became a stranger; neither shouldst thou have rejoiced over the
children of Judah, in the day of their destruction; neither shouldst
thou have spoken proudly in the day of distress; neither shouldst thou
have _stood in the cross-way, to cut off those of his that did
escape_; neither shouldst thou have _delivered up those of his that
did remain_, in the day of distress."
How exactly descriptive of this boasted republic is the impeachment of
Edom by the same prophet! "The pride of thy heart hath deceived thee,
thou whose habitation is high; that saith in thy heart, Who shall
bring me down to the ground? Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle,
and though thou set thy nest among the stars, thence will I bring thee
down, saith the Lord." The emblem of American pride and power is the
_eagle_, and on her banner she has mingled _stars_ with its _stripes_.
Her vanity, her treachery, her oppression, her self-exaltation, and
her defiance of the Almighty, far surpass the madness and wickedness
of Edom. What shall be her punishment? Truly, it may be affirmed of
the American people, (who live not under the Levitical but Christian
code, and whose guilt, therefore, is the more awful, and their
condemnation the greater,) in the language of another prophet--"They
all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net.
That they may do evil with both hands earnestly, the prince asketh,
and the judge asketh for a reward; and the great man
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