brothers are slain without cause; he lies buried wherever man, made in his Maker’s image, is entombed in ignorance lest he should learn the rights which his Divine Master gave him!  This is our Holy War, and we must fight it against that great General who will bring to it all the powers with which he fought against the Almighty before he was cast down from heaven.  He has retained many a cunning advocate to recruit for him; he has bribed many a smooth-tongued preacher to be his chaplain; he has engaged the sordid by their avarice, the timid by their fears, the profligate by their love of adventure, and thousands of nobler natures by motives which we can all understand; whose delusion we pity as we ought always to pity the error of those who know not what they do.  Against him or for him we are all called upon to declare ourselves.  There is no neutrality for any single true-born American.  If any seek such a position, the stony finger of Dante’s awful muse points them to their place in the antechamber of the Halls of Despair,—­

         “—­With that ill band

Of angels mixed, who nor rebellious proved,
Nor yet were true to God, but for themselves
Were only.”

“—­Fame of them the world hath none
Nor suffers; mercy and justice scorn them both. 
Speak not of them, but look, and pass them by.”

We must use all the means which God has put into our hands to serve him against the enemies of civilization.  We must make and keep the great river free, whatever it costs us; it is strapping up the forefoot of the wild, untamable rebellion.  We must not be too nice in the choice of our agents.  Non eget Mauri jaculis,—­no African bayonets wanted,—­was well enough while we did not yet know the might of that desperate giant we had to deal with; but Tros, Tyriusve,—­white or black,—­is the safer motto now; for a good soldier, like a good horse, cannot be of a bad color.  The iron-skins, as well as the iron-clads, have already done us noble service, and many a mother will clasp the returning boy, many a wife will welcome back the war-worn husband, whose smile would never again have gladdened his home, but that, cold in the shallow trench of the battle-field, lies the half-buried form of the unchained bondsman whose dusky bosom sheathes the bullet which would else have claimed that darling as his country’s sacrifice.

We shall have success if we truly will success, not otherwise.  It may be long in coming,—­Heaven only knows through what trials and humblings we may have to pass before the full strength of the nation is duly arrayed and led to victory.  We must be patient, as our fathers were patient; even in our worst calamities, we must remember that defeat itself may be a gain where it costs our enemy more in relation to his strength than it costs ourselves.  But if, in the inscrutable providence of the Almighty, this generation is disappointed in its lofty aspirations for the race, if we have not virtue enough to ennoble our whole people, and make it a nation of sovereigns, we shall at least hold in undying honor those who vindicated the insulted majesty of the Republic, and struck at her assailants so long as a drum-beat summoned them to the field of duty.