n in the
last stages of consumption who insists that he has only a bad cold, so
the entire North urged that slavery was not the cause of the war: it
was a little local misunderstanding. But the death of the gallant Col.
Elmer E. Elsworth palsied the tongues of mere talkers; and in the
tragic silence that followed, great, brave, and true men began to
think.

Not a pulpit in all the land had spoken a word for the slave. The
clergy stood dumb before the dreadful issue. But one man was found,
like David of old, who, gathering his smooth pebble of fact from the
brook of God's eternal truth, boldly met the boastful and erroneous
public sentiment of the hour. That man was the Rev. Justin D. Fulton,
a Baptist minister of Albany, New York. He was chosen to preach the
funeral sermon of Col. Elsworth, and performed that duty on Sunday,
May 26, 1861. Speaking of slavery, the reverend gentleman said:

"Shall this magazine of danger be permitted to remain? _We must
answer this question. If we say no, it is no!_ Slavery is a curse
to the North. It impoverishes the South, and demoralizes both. It
is the parent of treason, the seedling of tyranny, and the
fountain-source of all the ills that have infected our life as a
people, being the central cause of all our conflicts of the past
and the war of to-day. What reason have we for permitting it to
remain? God does not want it, for His truth gives freedom. The
South does not need it, for it is the chain fastened to her limb
that fetters her progress. Morality, patriotism, and humanity
alike protest against it.

"The South fights for slavery, for the despotism which it
represents, for the ignoring the rights of labor, and for
reducing to slavery or to serfdom all whose hands are hardened by
toil.

"Why not make the issue at once, which shall inspire every man
that shoulders his musket with a noble purpose? Our soldiers need
to be reminded that this government was consecrated to freedom by
those who first built here the altars of worship, and planted on
the shore of the Western Continent the tree of liberty, whose
fruit to-day fills the garners of national hope.... I would not
forget that I am a messenger of the Prince of Peace. My motives
for throwing out these suggestions are three-fold: 1. Because I
believe God wants us to be actuated by motives not one whit less