Puritan fled from religious
persecution in the Old World to find room for an idea in the New; and
the planting of one religious idea has yielded a rich harvest of
sects, each an improvement on the last.

Yesterday politics had its center in a party; to-day, in the nation;
to-morrow, it will find an equilibrium in the individual. This is a
stern work, wearing furrows in the cheeks of statesmen, shaking the
frame-work of the Government, letting the blood and drinking the
treasure of the nation. It can not be avoided. God has said, "And unto
you a child is born," and his name shall be called Liberty, Equality,
Fraternity, the Holy of Holies, the Universal Republic. And as God
rested after the first creation, so shall this nation find its Sabbath
of rest when this struggle for freedom is over, and from the little
child to the bowed-down man, all shall breathe through the new
Constitution a fresher, more glorious life. Viewed from the daily
papers, the battle is long, terrific, and uncertain. Go to the
stricken hearthstones, and we exclaim, "Oh, that this cup might pass
from us!" Visit the solemn battle-field, and in anguish we murmur, "My
God, why hast Thou forsaken us?" Retiring to the high mountain of our
faith, we see in this painful view the magnitude of our cause, and
that slowly but surely this contest will end triumphantly. From this
point we mark the milestones that show we have made indelible
foot-prints toward Liberty and Union.

The choice by the people of a Republican President, the firing on
Sumter, the defeat at Manassas, the recognition of Hayti, the treaty
with England for the suppression of the foreign slave-trade, the
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, the decision of
Attorney-General Bates in favor of universal citizenship, the
conversion to the anti-slavery sentiment of Dickinson and Butler, the
President's Proclamation, and the arming of the blacks, are signs in
the political zodiac, showing our revolution certain as that of the
rolling suns in the material heavens. Only Liberty can be our
watchword henceforth! To this standard alone will the country, both
North and South, rally when a few more days of leadership are over.
God saw to this in the frame-work of every living thing, when He made
his wants to be a blessing with freedom and a curse without it. Open
the cage-door to the pining fox, loathing his master's beef and
pudding, and see if his instincts are not true as the needle to