Mourn
Her banished peace, her laurels torn;
Her sons, for valour long renowned,
Lie slaughtered on their native ground.
Her hospitable roofs no more
Invite the stranger to the door;
In smoky ruins sunk they lie,
The monuments of cruelty.
This text is part of:
Table of Contents:
[7]
earth.
Under a mysterious Providence, millions of the coloured race have been saved from the foulest paganism; millions mentally and morally elevated far above those of their native land, and multitudes saved in Christ forever.
Is it God's purpose to break up this system?
Who can believe that it was His will to do it by war and bloodshed?
Or that turning this people loose without preparation, a rapid demoralization, idleness, poverty and vice should doom so many of them to misery, or send them so rapidly to the grave?
In this transition state, must the earth remain uncultivated, and its fruits so lessened as to reduce all to comparative poverty, and threaten such numbers with actual starvation?
Must a war of races come?
Must a spirit of bitter hatred burn on between the sections of our unhappy country?
Why not one of peace and forgiveness instead?
Why not the healing balm of love?
Why not the spirit of Christ, pervading all hearts, and binding up all wounds?
God of love, hasten the day!
We are verily in need of His gracious assistance.
We have cried to Him through many a gloomy day. The days are dark and dreary still.
The old South has passed away; her music is all dead; her harp hung where no mortal hand can sweep its chords again, and the very winds of Heaven can bring from it naught save a few wailing notes, sad enough to break every human heart.
Scanned printed text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.