Читать книгу Choice Specimens of American Literature, and Literary Reader - Benj. N. Martin - Страница 48

If there be a single measure which can overrule objection, subdue opposition, and command exertion, this is the measure. That all our voices, all our affections, all our hands, should be joined in the grand design of promoting "peace on earth and good will toward man"—that they should resist the advance of misery—should carry the light of instruction into the dominions of ignorance, and the balm of joy to the soul of anguish; and all this by diffusing the oracles of God—addresses to the understanding an argument which cannot be encountered; and to the heart an appeal which its holiest emotions rise up to second. …

People of the United States; Have you ever been invited to an enterprise of such grandeur and glory? Do you not value the Holy Scriptures? Value them as containing your sweetest hope; your most thrilling joy? Can you submit to the thought that you should be torpid in your endeavors to disperse them, while the rest of Christendom is awake and alert? Shall you hang back in heartless indifference, when princes come down from their thrones, to bless the cottage of the poor with the gospel of peace; and imperial sovereigns are gathering their fairest honors from spreading abroad the oracles of the Lord your God. Is it possible that you should not see, in this state of human things, a mighty motion of Divine providence? The most heavenly charity treads close upon the march of conflict and blood! The world is at peace! Scarce has the soldier time to unbind his helmet, and to wipe away the sweat from his brow, ere the voice of mercy succeeds to the clarion of battle, and calls the nations from enmity to love! Crowned heads bow to the head which is to wear "many crowns," and, for the first time since the promulgation of Christianity, appear to act in unison for the recognition of its gracious principles, as being fraught alike with happiness to man, and honor to God.

What has created so strange, so beneficent an alteration. This is no doubt the doing of the Lord, and it is marvelous in our eyes. But what instrument has he thought fit chiefly to use. That which contributes in all latitudes and climes to make Christians feel their unity, to rebuke the spirit of strife, and to open upon them the day of brotherly concord—the Bible!—the Bible!—through Bible Societies!

[Footnote 6: A Presbyterian clergyman of great distinction, long settled in New York; rarely surpassed in controversial acuteness, and in religious eloquence.]

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