boasted armies are vanquished; its most powerful generals have surrendered; its principal cities are captured; its stolen property is recovered; and its chief officers are escaping, or humbly begging for their lives. "Ichabod" is written upon her; for her glory has departed. The prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled in her case: "Associate yourselves, O ye people! and ye shall be broken in pieces: gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces, - gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces. Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us. For the Lord spake thus to me with a strong hand, and instructed me that I should not walk in the way of this people; saying, Say ye not, a confederacy, to all them to whom this people shall say, a confederacy; neither fear ye their fear, nor be afraid. They shall look unto the earth, and · behold trouble and darkness, dimness of anguish; and shall be driven to darkness." Destruction awaits the disobedient and rebellious. "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither and slay them before me." "They that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. If thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil."

While rebellion and the Confederacy are thus broken and fallen, the loyal part of the land-true patriots everywhere — have shouted their hallelujahs, and rejoiced with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

2d. How is American Slavery fallen! This was once mighty, and was the principal cause of involving a nation of twenty-four millions of people in deadly conflict, in a civil war of unprecedented magnitude and ruin. It had long existed among us. had made great progress; and it was mighty in its oppression of

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four millions of human beings. It has been upheld by the artifice of Satan and his ministers. Talent, wealth, and power have all been arrayed in its favor. Its influence has been felt on the floor of Congress, in the halls of our State Legislatures, and in many of our church courts. Public opinion has not only winked at, but often strenuously advocated, the iniquitous system. Both reason and the Bible have been tortured for proofs of a divine warrant for its establishment, necessity, and utility.

But the institution itself is an essential evil in human society. It is at variance with all the benign and redeeming principles of Christianity; and the only remedy for such an evil is its entire extirpation. This, we believe, God has purposed, and will finally and fully execute. The sentiment I uttered in your hearing nearly a year ago was true, and has been literally fulfilled thus far, - that the wail of woe throughout our land was not likely to cease until we suitably humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord for all our sins; nay, it will be but extended and deepened, until we break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free." Just in proportion as this grand consummation has been reached, has prosperity attended us, have light and hope and peace dawned upon us. The South themselves seem to have finally come to the conclusion, that the system of slavery can no longer be perpetuated among them; while those in the North who have long sympathized with it already exclaim, "It is gone!" This is a remarkable attainment, and a wonderful concession for those parties to make. But all the solemn providences of God have tended more and more to its extirpation. His judgments have fallen heavily upon us for the last four years, to this end. "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." But "lift not up your horn on high; speak not with a stiff neck: for promotion cometh neither from the East, nor from the

West, nor from the South; but God is the judge. He putteth down one, and setteth up another. For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red: it is full of mixture, and he poureth out of the same; but the dregs thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out, and drink them." Retributive justice will not always sleep. Those that oppress, whether they be individuals, companies, or nations, shall sooner or later suffer vengeance. The history of all the past is sufficient proof of it. Pharaoh and Herod, Sennacherib and Judas, as specimens of individual oppressors, came to untimely and dishonored graves. And where are Babylon and Nineveh and Tyre and Sidon and Egypt and Rome? Their former glory is in the dust. And where is the chivalrous and slaveholding South? Scattered and peeled, humbled and desolate. "He that, being often reproved, hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy."-"Woe to thee that spoilest, and thou wast not spoiled; and dealest treacherously, and they dealt not treacherously with thee! When thou shalt cease to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled; and when thou shalt make an end to deal treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee." The Saviour's rule was, "With what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." The judgment of the wicked, says the Apostle Peter, "lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not." This is in accordance with an unalterable law of the divine Administration. A day of divine reckoning for sinners of every description will surely come. And it has already come, and may yet still more fearfully come, upon our own land, for its many crimes, and especially for its unnatural, unscriptural, and oppressive violence. American slavery is evidently doomed. Every vestige of it shall, in due time, be rooted out. Its character, conduct, and ruin are vividly portrayed by the beloved disciple, in the eighteenth chap

ter of Revelation, under the title of Babylon, which symbolizes a gross form, or system, of iniquity: "And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye may be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled, fill to her double. How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her; for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death and mourning and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her" (vs. 4-8). "And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all" (v. 21; also vs. 22 and 23, and chap. xix. 6). To President Lincoln, more than to any other human being, is the high honor due of the speedy abolition of the iniquitous system of American slavery.

3d. How is aristocracy fallen in both the Old World and the New! How is it fallen in its opinions, in its expectations, in its wealth and influence! When the rebellion first broke out, and the Southern Confederacy was formed, and civil war became a necessity, there were those, in both England and France, who stood high in official circles, who, through wealth and position, exerted a wide-spread influence, or who wielded the powerful "pen of a ready writer." In all our struggles, they sympathized with the rebellion. They spoke words of encouragement to the South, and did much, by their ships and stores, and munitions of war, to aid her in her nefarious work of destroying our republican institutions, of the most careful growth, and of the very

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highest order; while, at the same time, they applied to the North coarse and opprobrious epithets, rejoiced over our adversities, and declared, time and again, that we could never succeed in our endeavors to conquer the South, and that there was no hope for And their desire evidently was to recognize the independence of the South, if they could only have seen it most in the line of policy so to do, and had not the masses of the common people prevented it. No thanks to them for the kind Providence that frustrated their plans, and protected and blessed us in the hour of our peril. They expected our failure, and the success of the armies of the South. Hence, they indulged liberally in Confederate loans: they built steamers, and loaded them with all manner of provisions and arms; and then, in the face of all international law, would run our blockades, and traffic freely with our sworn enemies as with our true friends. But they sowed to the wind, and they have reaped the whirlwind. They are sunk down in the pit that they made: in the net which they hid, is their own foot taken. "They are snared in the work of their own hands.” Their expectations are cut off, and their wealth will perish by evil travail. They are wofully disappointed in God's marvellous doings in our behalf, and in the divine judgments that have been executed against them. In America, the boasted chivalry of the South, and the moneyed interests of the North that were in league with slavery, and that were acting in opposition to the well-being of a Government that was struggling with a giant's power to preserve its very existence in the hour of fearful conflict, are alike brought low. "And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication, and lived deliciously with this mystic Babylon, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning. Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas! that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come. And the merchants