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ARTICLE VI.-SOUTHERN EVANGELIZATION.

Ar the commencement of this war we were often sneeringly asked the question-"Suppose you conquer the South, what are you going to do with it?" This question, impertinent then, becomes pertinent now. A considerable part of the South is conquered. The Federal flag floats in triumph over the principal parts of Missouri, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Louisiana. United States laws are enforced, United States Courts administer justice, United States authority is recognized and submitted to. And now the question does arise, full of perplexity, what are we going to do with the conquered territory.

For it is apparent to the dullest of vision that we must do something. To conquer alone is not enough. It is impossible permanently to substitute military rule for civil authority, or make the President a permanent autocrat of the subjugated territory. All military governorships are temporary expedients;-doubtful ones at that. Where the Confederate authority has been destroyed, there the Federal authority must be restored in its legitimate and constitutional forms. Where the political and social despotism of the slave oligarchy has been destroyed, a permanent republicanism must be reorganized. Destruction must be followed by reconstruction. The history of liberty teaches us this necessity. When the despotism that enthrals has been destroyed, it still remains to frame liberty into institutions and political organisms, or the victory proves short-lived indeed. Thus, in the French Revolution brave men battled successfully against despotism: conquered the enemies of liberty, destroyed the throne, and deprived the aristocracy of place and power. But there was no one wise to gather up the fruits of victory, and to organize institutions. of liberty adapted to the people and the times. So the torch of freedom became the incendiary fire of anarchy, and one despotism was overthrown only to make room for another. The Roman people did not lack the power to destroy their op

pressors. But because they lacked wisdom, self-restraint, or patriotism to frame permanent republican institutions, all their victories were barren, and they escaped the oppressions of one tyrant only to fall under those of another. Cromwell had the genius of combat. He fought bravely and well against the oppressions of a corrupt court and a prostituted nobility. But he lacked either the wisdom or the self-sacrificing patriotism to establish instituted liberty in place of the despotism which he had overthrown. And the reign of Charles I. was followed by the equally disgraceful reigns of Charles II. and James. The European Reformation and the American Revolution afford upon the other hand striking illustrations of the value of construction, as well as destruction, in all revolutionary periods. Luther was characteristically the destructionist of the Reformation. He wielded a battle-axe that clave assunder the doctrines and oppressions of the Church of Rome. He did a noble soldier's work. All honor to him for it. Yet we cannot fail to notice that Germany, his battle-field, is today the hot-house of infidelity, whence England and America import most of their stock. He was followed by Calvin, the patriot constructionist of the Reformation, who reformed a system of Christian truth to take the place of the fabulous su perstitions which his predecessor had so nobly combated, and organized a church where Luther had destroyed one,-and the insignificant republic of Geneva, his humble home, has been ever since the world's nursery of freedom in Church and State; whence the trees of Calvin's planting have been transplanted to the congenial soil of America, though somewhat improved with occasional new graftings. The American Revolution might have ended as did the French, as have many others, in anarchy and a deeper despotism, had not God given us wise statesmen, able to unite the discordant colonies in a strong, central, and free government.

Let us learn then a lesson from the experience of the past. To fight, to die even, for liberty, is not enough. When the enemies of the Republic have been conquered in battle, the preparation for the nation's work has been done; that is all. It then remains to enter upon the territory emancipated by

the sword, and there establish in a permanent form the living institutions of freedom. We have not only to conquer the South, we have also to convert it. We have not only to occupy it by bayonets and bullets, but also by ideas and institutions. We have not only to destroy slavery,-we must also organize freedom. If we fail in our second task, success in the first will be of little use. The political problems involved in the delicate and difficult work of reconstruction are already engaging the attention of our wisest statesmen, as well they may. But, as we hope to show, there are religious problems connected with this subject which demand the attention of the church and ministry. To these we desire briefly to advert;rather to provoke attention to the problem than to offer any satisfactory solution of it.

Two conditions are absolutely essential to the perpetuity of republican institutions: popular intelligence and popular morality. In other words, before any people are competent to govern themselves successfully, they must possess intelligence and sound morals. Hence two institutions are essential to their preservation: common schools and Christian churches. Free institutions without general intelligence can exist only in name. There is no despotism so cruel and remorseless as that of an unreasoning mob. Men who do not know how to govern themselves cannot know how to govern a great country. The ignorance of the masses, and the consequent power of the few, alone made this rebellion possible. The power has been taken from the few. It remains to give knowledge to the masses. But knowledge alone is not enough. For, while intelligence tends to make men free, it does not suffice to constitute a free State. And it is not enough to emancipate individuals from iniquitous thraldom. That liberty may be permanent, it must be organic. Heads, legs, arms, trunks, gathered in an indiscriminate pile from the battle-field, cannot make a single man. They must be united by sinews and ligaments, inspired with life, and governed by one dominant head. So a mass of individuals, however free, gathered together, do not constitute a free Republic. Individualism is the characteristic of simple barbarism, not of republícan civilization. They

must be bound together by ties of interest and affection, inspired with one common national life, and possessed of one central government. How to harmonize individual liberty with the cohesion necessary to secure the preservation of the State, is the problem of republicanism. It is a problem which can never be solved without the aid of the Christian religion. For, to solve it, to constitute a free State, three conditions are necessary:

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I. Its citizens must love liberty for themselves. are both wise and strong in that love they will ceived by the wiles of the cunning or overpowered by the violence of the strong. Education tends to give this love. For he who is conscious of his manhood makes but a sorry slave. But religious education most develops it, since he who is conscious of divine freedom does not willingly submit to human bondage.

II. But they must not only know how to be free; they must know how to submit. A body of men united only in their determination to be free, and recklessly refusing obedience to all just and reasonable rules, constitutes, not an admirable Republic, but a hideous and terrible mob. Reasonable subordination is essential to the preservation of organized liberty.

III. They must cherish liberty, not only for themselves, but for others. "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," the motto of the French Republic, was right;-and fraternity is as essential to free institutions as liberty and equality. A State in which every man claims freedom for himself, but contemptuously denies it to his neighbor, is in perpetual discord, and always ripe for civil war, as the history of the South American Republics too well attests. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself, is the organic law of republicanism. Liberty, law, love, these are the three watchwords of organic freedom.

Thus to constitute a permanently free State, men must be taught not only their rights, but also their duties and their obligations. Submission must be inculcated, conscience must be educated, a generous love must be inspired. To establish liberty it is not enough to strike in sunder with the sword the chains which bind men. They must be bound together not,

indeed, with handcuffs, as in a chain-gang, but with bands more enduring, because wrought of God,-bands of duty and affection. Thus the gospel is needed to prepare the way for true freedom. In truth, the principles of religion underlie republicanism. Religion teaches man that he is a son of God, and thus makes him unwilling to be a slave of man. She educates him to yield a willing submission to the sovereign power of God, and so renders it more easy for him to obey the reasonable requirements of his earthly superiors. And she inspires him with a universal affection for the human race, and so makes it possible for him to administer government in peace and amity with his fellows.

This is no fine-spun theorizing. History attests its verity. Existing heathenism does not produce a single instance of free government. The downfall of the Greek and Roman Republics demonstrates the instability of such as are not founded upon Christian principles. Not until the gospel was proclaimed, and the art of printing made its general diffusion among the people possible, was the way opened for the permanent establishment of free governments. And then freedom in the church preceded and made permanent freedom in the State. Men fought for religious liberty first, for civil liberty afterwards. First came the battles of conscience, afterwards the battles of States. The Reformation came before the civil war in the Netherlands, and the Revolution in England, and America. Protestantism prepared the way for republicanism. If we mean, then, that our victories in the South shall permanently establish the safety of the Republic, we must follow them with other labors. Where we have destroyed slavery, we must organize liberty. Where we have destroyed the nation's enemies, we must establish these national supports,-free schools and free churches. The South now possesses neither of these.

In the colonial days the English government addressed certain questions to the American colonies, respecting their condition. In answer to one of these, the Governor of Connecticut replied that one-fourth of her income was expended in the maintenance of public schools. The Governor of Virginia replied: "I thank God that there are no free schools nor print

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