o established church can show such unsparing fidelity of
the ministry in rebuking the sins of people and of rulers in the name of
the Lord, as that which has been, on the whole, characteristic of the
Christian ministers of the United States.

Among the conflicts of the American church with public wrongs strongly
intrenched in law or social usage, two are of such magnitude and
protracted through so long a period as to demand special
consideration--the conflict with drunkenness and the conflict with
slavery. Some less conspicuous illustrations of the fidelity of the
church in the case of public and popular sins may be more briefly
referred to.

The death of Alexander Hamilton, in July, 1804, in a duel with Aaron
Burr, occasioned a wide and violent outburst of indignation against the
murderer, now a fugitive and outcast, for the dastardly malignity of the
details of his crime, and for the dignity and generosity as well as the
public worth of his victim. This was the sort of explosion of excited
public feeling which often loses itself in the air. It was a different
matter when the churches and ministers of Christ took up the affair in
the light of the law of God, and, dealing not with the circumstances but
with the essence of it, pressed it inexorably on the conscience of the
people. Some of the most memorable words in American literature were
uttered on this occasion, notwithstanding that there were few
congregations in which there were not sore consciences to be irritated
or political anxieties to be set quaking by them. The names of Eliphalet
Nott and John M. Mason were honorably conspicuous in this work. But one
unknown young man of thirty, in a corner of Long Island, uttered words
in his little country meeting-house that pricked the conscience of the
nation. The words of Lyman Beecher on this theme may well be quoted as
being a part of history, for the consequences that followed them.

"Dueling is a great national sin. With the exception of a
small section of the Union, the whole land is defiled with
blood. From the lakes of the North to the plains of Georgia is
heard the voice of lamentation and woe--the cries of the widow
and fatherless. This work of desolation is performed often by
men in office, by the appointed guardians of life and liberty.
On the floor of Congress challenges have been threatened, if
not given, and thus powder and ball have been introduced as
the au