ontinuation of this peace for any length of time. No, your
statesmen cannot keep the peace of nations; and the folly of our boasting
about the peace-working power of our commercial relations has already be
seen. We cannot give peace to the world. Who can tell how soon the
calamity of war may afflict this country? Not I trust on its shores; but
what is this land that it has any right to expect a perpetual immunity
from the horrors of war in her midst? Do not say these things will pass
away. Do not say these things are remote. They may quickly overtake us,
and we should be careful that we do not provoke our God to hasten any of
his judgments or to aggravate present ones. If you are delivered from
calamity--if this great national calamity, for such it is, has not
touched you, or at least not so touched you as to inconvenience you at
all, remember to give sympathy to those that are suffering from it; and
let thankfulness for your present mercies manifest itself in that godly
amendment of life which shall prove your best contribution to the future
safety and the prosperity of the nation. If we neglect this we place
ourselves in opposition to God's government, and are in danger, by our
opposition, of being told to prepare to meet God in conflict. Individual
sinners do so who refuse repentance; nations do so that will not submit
to God. You that are living without God, pray what prospect have you,
what prospect of victory? The potsherd of the earth may strive with the
potsherd, but woe to the man that strives with his Maker. The God whom
you are called upon to meet is the "God that formeth the mountains, that
createth the wind, that declareth unto man what is his thought, that
maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth upon the high places of the
earth, the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name."

Let the ungodliness of this land increase--and it will increase if we
neglect the manifestation of godliness in opposition to it--and what
then? There will be the culmination of national sin, and there will be
the enactments of Parliament against the law of God, as on a former
memorable occasion in France; let it come to that, and let a crisis
arise; and though your statesmen should be the most sagacious, and have
all the ability which has ever distinguished the foremost men of the
Government of this land; let your Parliament be intelligent and
patriotic; let your sons be as brave on flood or field as their fathers;
let you