The dangers and duties of the present crisis! : a discourse delivered in the Union Church, St. Louis, January 4, 1861 / Page: 11 of 18
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11
embrace the whole country. Our Boards of Education, Publication,
Domestic Missions and Church Extension, know no North, no South,
no East, no West. Ministers and families have been freely inter-
changed from the extremest bounds of our confederacy. Thoughtful
men have looked on with wonder and admiration at the beautiful
spectacle of brethren dwelling together in unity. I know that our
delightful experience in the past has induced some to hope that
our ecclesiastical might outlive our national union. And already
earnest efforts are making to secure an object so desirable. But
while I would most cordially second such a scheme, I am compelled to
fear that it must fail. In the chaos of contending parties, the seam-
less mantle of Christ would be torn in pieces, and religious zeal would
add its sanction, and give bitterness to sectional strife.
But waiving this view, and admitting that no further church divi-
sion should take place, there are certain inevitable evils that civil war
would inflict on the whole church of Christ. A heated presidential
canvass, even, is not favorable to the cultivation of the christian graces.
The hustings and the closet are not congenial. Now add to the vio-
lence of discussion, the fierceness of actual war, and make it not peri-
odical, as our elections are, but permanent as war must be, and there
can be no difficulty in seeing that the gentle spirit of all grace would
be grieved away from us, and the spring, summer and autumn would
pass away from our zion, and give place to perpetual winter. History
tells us that civil commotions are the hot-beds for the growth of giant
vices. War, in its mildest form, is the devil's master device for de-
morising men. Young men taken from the school, the counting house,
the work-bench or the plough, return, if they return at all, not only
with the manners, but the .morals of the camp. The recent Mexican
war illustrates what I say. We are prone to forget the horrors of
war. The fable tells us that a young angel besought a venerable
patriarch among the bright ranks of the blessed, to show him the
green and beautiful earth which God had made so good, and of whiPh
he had heard so much. They caine down hand in hand, and hung
over a scene of enchanting natural beauty. But the French and
English feets were engaged there, and through the sulphureous
canopy that hung' over them like a pall, fierce flashes of fire darted,
and thunder pealed, and the groans of the dying, the pitiful plea for
quarter, and the exultant shout of the victor, mnineled as they fell on
ear. Oh, said the young angel to his venerable companion, you have
deceived me, I asked you to show me the earth, and you have brought
me to hell. No, no, was the reply, these are brothers of earth, that
are contending-brothers in blood-brotlrs iii christian faith and
hope.
Brethren, I can Lear to think of the rtagn tion of ho tn s, of ars,
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Anderson, S. J. P., (Samuel James Pierce), 1841-1873. The dangers and duties of the present crisis! : a discourse delivered in the Union Church, St. Louis, January 4, 1861 /, pamphlet, Date Unknown; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth497972/m1/11/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Schreiner University.