en and bad men, lovers of
country and lovers only of lucre, men who will fight to the death for a
grand idea and men who fight only for some low ambition, worshippers of
God and worshippers of Mammon, are alike putting their hands to the
plough which is to overturn and overturn till the ancient evil is
uprooted. The very father of lies is, perforce, become the servant of
truth. That old enemy which is the Devil, the malignant messenger of all
evil, finds himself,--somewhat amazed and enraged, we must believe, at
his unexpected situation,--with all his executive ability undiminished,
all his spiritual strength unimpaired, finds himself harnessed to the
chariot of human freedom and human progress, and working in his own
despite the beneficent will of God. So He maketh the wrath of men and
devils to praise Him, and the remainder of wrath He will restrain.

Unspeakably cheering, both as a sign of the sincerity of our leaders in
this great day and as a pledge of what the nation means to do when its
hands are free, are the little Christian colonies planted in the rear of
our victorious armies. In the heart of woods are often seen large tracts
of open country gay with a brilliant purple bloom which the people call
"fire-weed," because it springs up on spots that have been stripped by
fire. So, where the old plantations of sloth and servitude have been
consumed by the desolating flames of war, spring up the tender growths
of Christian civilization. The filthy hovel is replaced by the decent
cottage. The squalor of slavery is succeeded by the little adornments of
ownership. The thrift of self-possession supplants the recklessness of
irresponsibility. For the slave-pen we have the school-house. Where the
lash labored to reduce men to the level of brutes, the Bible leads them
up to the heights of angels. We are as yet but in the beginning, but we
have begun right. With his staff the slave passes over the Jordan of his
deliverance; but through the manly nurture and Christian training which
we owe him, and which we shall pay, he shall become two bands. The
people did not set themselves to combat prejudices with words alone,
when the time was ripe for deeds; but while the Government was yet
hesitating whether to put the musket into his hand for war, Christian
men and women hastened to give him the primer for peace. Not waiting for
legislative enactments, they took the freedman as he came all panting
from the house of bondage; they min