l be much like what
I imagine the condition of a freed, redeemed soul to be, just escaped
the thraldom, perplexity, and sin of this lower life, and entered on a
purer, higher, freer plane of existence. Then comes reconstruction,
reorganization, a getting acquainted with the new order of things, and
the new duties and experiences to which it will give rise; then will be
discoveries of new truths, and new applications of old; old errors and
superstitions have been renounced, and facts and principles which have
long lain in abeyance, smothered under a weight of neglect and
unappreciation, will start into fresh magnitude. And, withal, will come
a sense of the reality and security there is in this great change, and
of infinite relief and blessedness therein, such as I suppose attends
every change from a lower to a higher condition, from darkness to light,
from cloud, mystery, and trouble, to the white air of peace and the
clear shining of the sun of knowledge.

_Then_, think of the career that lies ahead of this regenerated nation.
This war, fearful and costly as it is, was needed, to rouse men and
women to the conviction that there is something more in a people's life
than can be counted in dollars and cents; and that their strength
consists not alone in commercial superiority or material development,
but, principally, in virtue, justice, righteousness. It was needed, to
give the lie to that impious and infidel assumption of the South that
_Cotton is king_, and to prove that the God of this heaven-protected
land is a true and jealous God, who will not give his glory to Baal. It
was needed, to arrest the nation in the fearful mechanical tendency it
was assuming, whereby it was near denying the most holy and vital
principles of its being; and it was needed, to warm and quicken the
almost dead patriotism of the masses, and to educate them anew in the
high and pure sentiments they had suffered to be forgotten, and, in
forgetting which, many another ration has gone to irretrievable decay
and ruin.

I trust in God that this people have not suffered many things in vain,
and that the time is dawning when we shall be a _nation_ indeed, a
Christian nation, built upon those eternal ideas of truth, justice,
right, charity, holiness, which would make us the ideal nation of the
earth, dwelling securely under the very smile and benediction of
Jehovah.

In this time of which I speak, the people will see that to be a _nation_
we must no