The dangers and duties of the present crisis! : a discourse delivered in the Union Church, St. Louis, January 4, 1861 / Page: 3 of 18
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<1 Rul C RI ) d ll'O 1ties of the jIrcicut (frisIs.
PSALM CXXII: 6, 7, s, 9.
"Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee.
Peace be within thy walls, and prosperity within thy palaces.
"For my brethren and companions' sakes, I will now say, Peace be witliin
thee.
"Because of the house of the LORD our God I will seek thy good."
Joy and sadness mingle in my bosom as I approach the duty
signed to me joy, that as a nation we have been brought to tbi
mercy-seat, acknowledging God and his providence as the true a 1
only source of hope - sadness, that we have been driven here, by a
calamity so portentous as that which hangs over us to-day.
No thoughtful observer of the course of events, can have failed
to see a wonderful change in popular sentiment in the last few month;.
I can well remember the horror with which I traced the outline <
Burr's scheme for the dismemberment of this confederacy, and looked
upon each step of it as an approach toward sacrilege ; and this senti-
ment of sacred reverence for our Union, has been a prevailing one
a very recent period. Even in the last Presidential canvass, when one
of the candidates was accused of heading a disunion party, the charge
was repelled with indignation as a foul slander. But now, many of
our best citizens look on disunion as the only remedy for existing evils,
and have been so absorbed in contemplation of the grievances of which
they complain, that they have almost persuaded themselves that this
dread remedy is in itself no evil at all. The suddenness of this out-
burst of popular feeling, has, I know. suggested to many the hope o,
its transientness. But I see no hope in that quarter. All great popu-
lar movements have been sudden in their manifestation, though the
secret preparation has been of long continuance. The cornfields and
the vineyards flourish, and the thoughtless villagers labor and play, on
the soil that covers i-ith a thin crust the rIesrvoir of destruction that
has been for a lifetime seething and boiling beneath, till the appointed
limit is reached - the frail barrier breaks away, and the desolating
tide of lava sweeps over the land. For at least twenty-five years,
causes have been incessantly at work, whose results are now around us.
But I see more than these mutual jealousies and wrongs in the
agencies that have placed us where we are. God is at work. He
often punishes nations by letting them go mad, and in one hour of in-
fatuation find food for years of bitter and unavailing repentance. Te
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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/m1/3/?rotate=90: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Schreiner University.