famished or perishing soldier.

After the battle of Cannas, won by Hannibal, the
victor was afraid to come down the walls of Eome.
The Senate called the people to sacrifice spontaneously
their wealth and jewels; the women came first to do
it ! so true it is that patriotism is intuitively developed
by woman in all ages. Woman has a high political
mission to fulfil in America, but it is only as a moral
agent — ^her aim is to develop the child for God and
his country. She implants these in the soul; and
whilst the morals of the country depend upon her, she
may be said to guard the integrity of her countr}^ For
this reason she is endowed with that divine spirit of
love, antagonistical to selfishness. Who, then, so fitted
to teach honor before gain, principle before duty, inter-
est before pleasure, God's work before man's work ?

The Peri, excluded from Paradise, made many
efforts to regain it ; the sight of a dying patriot would
not do ; the kiss of a faithful girl on the lips of her
betrothed, covered over with plague, would not do;
but when she brought the first prayer of a man con-



WOMEN OF AMERICA. 19

verted to cliaritj and brotherly love for Lis oppressed
fellow, the door opened. And only when "woman is
eminent for the faithful joerformance of every holy and
domestic duty, have her brave deeds and her noble
thoughts been properly accepted by the stronger sex ;
and hence in Protestant America and with a Protest-
ant Bible in her hand, has woman successfully, because
Avorthily, plead, and prayed, and toiled for freedom.

We read of the heroine who defended Argos with
her valor, when her countrymen were slain ; of the
friend of Antigone, who bit off her tongue sooner than
betray the fortunes of her country to a political
enemy ; of the women of Holland in their struggle for
independence ; of the brave maid at the siege of Sara-
gossa ; but with what different emotions comes to us
the history of that courageous Christian mother of X
New Jersey, who, relying on her innocence and the
cause wliich endeared her to her husband, was shot in
her window, surrounded by her children, who Avere
sprinkled with her blood! Self-sacrificing, self-post-
poning, she was solicitous only for her country, when
the cruel arm of a fierce Hessian of the British army,
aimed his bayonet at her bosom, and summoned her to
her God!

It is the moral. Christian, rather than maternal love,
to which all great and good men ascribe the influence
of woman — and she only evinces her native dignity,
and occupies her true position, as woman, Avhen she
seeks and propounds man's moral and ultimate good.
The intellect of Avoman must then be cultivated — her



20 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.

first and last refuge is education — it is tkis wMch.
secures respect, confidence, and appreciation, and
united with moral power, slie becomes an arm of
strength to free America. AVhen thus the country is
implanted in the heart of the child, the country is se-
cure. From the youth of America, the character of
American women may be learned — upon them depend
the fortunes of her sons, and upon her sons depends
America. During the long, fierce, and sanguinary
struggle for our liberties, not an instance is recorded
where a mother ever withheld a son from battle —
whilst thousands exist, in every section of the country,
showing how they were incited when they wavered.
And if, as we have seen, women have been once a
faithful auxiliary to the will of America, how much
greater are the incentives which should bring them
forward now !

On America's great baptismal day, the Spirit of
God moved like- a wave over the whole nation; it was
Protestant America, and the Bible was the corner-
stone on which the mighty structure rested ; and when
we inquire Avhat it is that is now shaking America, and
attenlpting to unsettle her basis, and toss her like boys
toss a ball, from her foundation, — the problem is
solved — she bears on her vast bosom the seal of the
Book of Life 1 It is to take from her this halo of light
and of glory, which surrounds her, to mount the sun
and to rob him of his rays, to put Eome's Vicegerent
in the place of America's God ! Arrogant mortal,
thou dust before the moth, let Kome trust in thee, but



WOMEX OF AMERICA. 21

the people of America must trust in the livincc
God!

Nero wished Eome's population were but a single
neck, that he might exterminate it at a blow ; so has
this Popish Hierarchy but one single ami, and that
is, mankind itself.

It has fomented discord, weakened and oppressed
America; it has poisoned her habits, bit at her free-
dom, robbed her of her rights, and undermined her
national character. What was the oppression of the
"stamp act"?— what all the consumption taxes of
England, which aroused America to her indefeasible
rights, and made her a blood-stained child, comparable
to the wound now made upon her heart in seeldng the
destruction of her Bible ? And when her conscience,
her religion, all that survives death and the grave are
perilled, as well as her honor, her freedom, and her
nationality, what less can women do than come now to
reveal its vitality ?

And if the women of America have soul or eye,
now or never they must be the pillar of support in the
gTcat moral and political revolution, which designs the
overthrow of Popish oppression in ProtestantAmerica !
— and Avith a bosom thrilling with the necessities of the
moment, a heart filled with the purity of the feeling —
a mind balanced on the convictions of the great prin-
ciples of the Protestant Bible — in God's name, we
say, come ! every nail and every tack has a place in
the great structure of human liberty !

Unprepared because unsuspecting, the expulsion of



22 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.

the Bible from our institutions of education has been
demanded by intolerant Eome, and yielded by free
America. Popish prelates have come with their scis-
sors in their hands and lopped out before our eyes, the
thoughts and the arguments of American freedom —
every truth precious to liberty, which its founders
sought to carve in the mountains and hills, and on the
plains of America, have been maimed and murdered
before the youth of America! Let woman reassure
America that she shall not be the nursery for Papal
Rome — that the will of God, and not priestcraft and
jugglery, shall govern the mind of America. That
the ground on which w^e stand is not slippery ground ;
that the soil which has drank the spirit, and been en-
riched by the blood of its heroes and martyrs, that has
been fashioned and moulded by iron implements, the
plough, the hoe, and the spade, cannot be blotted out
by the mere draft of a Papal pencil.

Our Saviour himself drove out from the halls of the
temple those who trod it for desecration, and shall not
woman be inspired with resistance, when His foes are
already in its vestibule ?

It is the political feature of the Church of Rome,
its aim to unsettle the principles of our liberties, and
hence to destroy them, that has agitated America
from centre to extreme. The graves of our fathers
have been slandered, an unfathomable abyss has been
sought to be created between the living and the dead ;
but though concealed in their cofiins and charnel-
houses, they speak to us to-day, and in their thoughts,



WOMEN OF AMERICA. 23

their deeds, and tlieir blood, tliey disclaim the asper-
sion that any system, religions or political, should be
tolerated, that strikes at the foundation of free
America.

An assaidt on Protestantism is an assaidt upon our
liberties; when the Bible, our foundation stone, is
struck, how can the building stand? It was the
beam, the spindle, the shuttle, which warped and wove
oui^ freedom. The descendants of Luther and Calvin,
the Puritans and Penn, came to America, to have a
Church without a Pope, and they made a government
without a throne.

Like the temple of Solomon, reared without sound
of hammer, has been the long and silent preparation for
Liberty's overthrow in Protestant America. Sweet-
meats, cheese, bread, butter, roast beef, and plum pud-
ding, have all been set at the base of our political
temple, to tempt the taste of Jesuitical rats, who bite, and
gnaw, and grow fat in undermining it : every beam,
every joint, every stone, and every slab, has its laborer,'
that riveted and morticed a Popish edifice of despotism
and death may rise upon the ruins of free America and
her Protestant Bible. To hasten this vast work, Lifi-
delity, Socialism, and Jesuitism have made equality and
fraternity ; every influence, foreign and domestic, has
been addressed, every treasury has been taxed. The
church, the school, the confessional, the political
caucus, and the American ballot-box. It has made
for us Legislators, Governors, and Presidents. It has
elevated to positions of trust, honor, and power, Jesu-



24 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.

itical emissaries. It lias founded colleges and con-
vents in all the States. The cabinet, the supreme
bench, chaplains in our j^ublic service, foreign missions
and embassies, offices of honor and emolument in the
revenue and postal service of the country, — all ! all !
have been affected by this pestilential influence.

As the captive lion beats against his cage, does the
soul of woman now beat against the sworn foes of God
and her country. America without her Bible, her
Sabbath School, without God, and without woman, to
cherish and uphold these, would not be America.
She will never consent to grant to Rome's Yicegerent
the disposal of America's blood, and America's hu-
manity. She feels it a transaction between Heaven
and Hell, between the blessed and the damned ; and
only thus can be contemplated America's fall.

We have seen that the signal of our nationality was
the signal of Rome's irrevocable decree to crush us in
our might ; and commencing with the honied expres-
sions of the tongue and a sardonic smile upon her face,
she has received largely and enjoyed long our national
confidence and hospitality. We remembered that it was
not the least of America's glory that her Roman
Cathohc sons fought, and suffered, and perilled for her
liberty ; and we did not thus perceive the Jesuitism
which now absolutely controls the Church of Rome in
the United States, never had anything in common Avith
our institutions, the Declaration of our Independence,
or our Republican government. There is an eternal
hostility between the principles of Washington and.



WOMEN OF AMEEICA. 25

the principles of Popery ; between the spirit of Eoniish.
priests and prelates, and that of the fathers of our
Eepublic, who owned allegiance only to God, and need-
no intercessor bnt His well-beloved Son. There were
no surpliced traitors, no perfidious j)relates in that
great Convention which formed the eternal code of
our liberties, and wrote our everlasting principles;
but God-fearing, God-depending, God-trusting men,
of robust and manly life. It was no vulnerable, con-
ceited popinjay — but the spirit which had drawn light-
ning from the skies — who arose in that assembly, and
to solve doubt, and difficulty, and danger, said "let us
pray!" They knelt; the collected wisdom of America,
before the God who had given them Independence —
that He might guide them to a Constitution wiso and
holy enough to save it,

And now, women of America, let the pulsations of
one heart arouse you to that Almighty echo of public
opinion which has moved the hills and mountains of
America — and risen now, with her thundering trum-
pet, may it send out her warning notes until this for-
eign aggression, this Papal Despotism, this Jericho of
human oppression, falls before Protestant America.
Eaise high with womanly hands the blazmg torch of
truth — ^plesf^ that the oppressed may be consoled by
the Word of God— plead that the great principles of
the American party, founded on the eternal laws of
God's immutable truth, shall stand until time shall be
no more.

The American woman lives for others, for her coun-

2



26 THE GKEAT AMERICAN BATTLE.

try, for tlie world ; the champion of right against ex-
pediency, is the spirit by which her highest triumphs
have been won. The son looks for the wife after the
model of his mother, so that the women of America
now may be said to control the destinies of ages yet
unborn ! "How do you manage to rear your family,
with your infidel husband ?" said a distinguished min-
ister of our country. "I never oppose the father's
authority by the mother's, but always with that of God."

What honor can woman expect when she ceases to
honor her country ? what hope can woman have, when
she has ceased to cherish her Bible? Then, without
saintly or prophetic pretension, let her take her eye
instead of a telescope, and, from knot to knot, from
flower to seed, from seed to kernel, realize T)'uih as her
first and last mission in free America ; let her second
the wish and the heart of man in all his holy work ;
with the creed of Milton's Eve, let her feel, " God is
thy law, thou mine !"

When the excitement of the " Stamp Act " was in-
flaming all sections of the Colonies, the daughter of
Dr. Franklin wrote her father thus: "The subject is
* Stamp Act,' and nothing else ; the Dutch talk of
'Stamp tack^^ the negroes of the 'â– tamp;'' in short,
everybody has something to say." O, cannot the in-
troduction of Home's intolerant Popery so affect us,
that news-boys, market-women, cooks, butlers, and
dairy-maids, hotels, boulevards, and public squares
may feel it a real and tangible evil, and not a skip-
ping ghost? The patriot women of '76 drank tea



WOMEN OF AMERICA. 27

no longer than the taxes were imposed; they de-
nounced it as a bitter, baneful weed. Can't American
women feel their soul's -errand strong enough to lead
others into the ghastly insight of Papal tj^ranny?
"Liberty, property, and no stamp," may now give
place to " Liberty^ the Bihle^ and no Poj^eryP "^ AYhere
is the blood of those noble spirits, who, amidst unpar-
alleled siijSering and toil, taught their sons to honor
God, their countrj^, and their manhood? Where are
the descendants of that Christian woman who oj^ene-d
her purse to Gen. Greene, after the battle of Cov^-pens,
and surrendered the produce of her toil to her suffer-
ing country ? Where those of that southern daughter,
who came at the soldier's call, and with 230wder in her
apron freighted afresh their ammunition, and when
sought, Avas found upon her knees at prayer ? Where
those of that matron, who, after giving her garments
for cartridges, stood at the guns when husband and
brothers had fallen ? Where is the spirit of Pocahontas,
who saved Virginia by her heavenly heroism ? Where
that noble woman, who, under an inspiration of conju-
gal and patriotic devotion, rode through an unsettled
country at night, and entered the camp in time to
dress the wounds of her dying husband, Avhose fate she
had surmised ?

Ko screen can hide the light — ^no snuffers can bring
us to the darkness which has too long misled America ;
and the quadrupedal idea that salvation and intelli-
gence are at war, must be exposed. It is to suppress
and exterroinate the thought, that the government of



28 THE GKEAT AMEEICAN BATTLE.

Eome, and not tlie Constitution of the United States,
governs America — it is to fling back in their faces all
this painting, whooping, and tattooing, to unpack their
varnished and encrusted subtlety, to heal the erysipelas
which is spreading its contagion over the nation, that
the true influences of Gospel Liberty are now sought
to be diffused.

We want no Joans of Arc to make America vascu-
lar and alive ; but when Popes, Cardinals, and Bishops
have rendered her risky and ticklish, we want faithful
and true women, who neither shriek nor protest, but
pray ; women who neither mount nor sink ; who are
neither heroines nor fools ; but American women, who
can stand in their shoes, and take the plain topic of
the Bible, and discourse and diffuse it to the depths of
the people.

Our gratitude must bo shown in acting out farther
and farther what our ancestors began. They did not
design that their ^^'ork should be regarded as an abso-
lute thing — like the world's creation, which was per-
fected when it was finished — but spreading their Pro-
testant Bible and their American Constitution of gov-
ernment on the wings of the American Eagle, they
left us to burst its pinions, and soar towards the Sun.




iEa-wediT-J.CBTias®



c^^-^i.^^, ^ 5^-€^^-2^i<^



or KEN'rucjn'



CHAPTER n.

THE MISSION OF THE AMERICAN PRESS.



" A song for our banner !" the watchword recall,
"Which gave the Eepublic her station ;

" United we stand, divided we fall !
It made and preserves us a nation !"



The sun of liberty liacl gone down in the old world,
w^lien its star went up in tlie new ; and America be-
came emphatically the city of right, resting on the
vast bosom of God, peopled by those who fled hither
to be bound to the Lamb and the Dove, and hence the
Heavenly blessing which fell upon it. America, also,
became the city of protection, which summons all God's
children, without distinction of sect or creed, to come
unto her and renew their strength, their hope, and their
vitality. But whilst she invites such, she permits no ad-
vance, and hurls back from her threshold all who
denounce her cherished principles and reject her living
truth.

It is soul liberty, then, which has made America
free ; this endangered, all is endangered — ^this saved,
America can never die ! And now, when her foes are
in league to kill her in her very heart, shall the people

(29)



80 THE GREAT AMERICAIT BATTLE.

of G-od-fearing, liberty-loving America be voiceless ?
Sball her Press, wliicli is to America what the rainbow
was to Noah, the harbinger of life, of light, and of
hope, suddenly collapse?

More than eighty-three years since Franklin laid the
foundation of this mighty American edifice, and al-
most mthout competition gave life and force to tatter-
ed manuscripts, and hedged around liberty a pres-
tige, which was ballad, epic, lecture, and library, as
well as newspaper. And from that little structure
has grown the great Colossus of America, filled with
inexhaustible sap, and undulating and flowing through
the heart and in all the arteries and blood-vessels of
the nation.

And now, w^hen America is groaning and suffocat-
ing ; when the bloody code of Home's Inquisition is
seeking to trample down her noble Constitution ;
w^hen the Cross of Jesus Christ, her national ensign, is
being supplanted by the nuncio of a Papal despot, let
the shrill trump of the American press summon Ameri-
ca to judgment! Let America's action now centre
around the mighty power of her press, and its great
wheel will roll on and crush by its hard friction, all
the influences which have combined, and conspired
America's destruction ! It is a holy mission now of
of the youngest of the nxitions, to raise her voice above
all her elders, and through her press, the chosen instru-
ment of the Almighty, remind America why she de-
served freedom ; how it was won, and how it must be
preserved.



MISSION OF THE AMERICAN PRESS. 81

Never jet has tlie press entered into a searcliing ex-
amination of this great phenomenon, wliich works in
cloisters, in convents, by puppets, by subtlety, by sophis-
try, by cunning ; Avhich hates living and thinking, de-
scends downward, presses heavily, is oblique, pene-
trates skilfully, enters into detail, inquires, pries, and
seeks to govern the very soul of America. Each day
brings her cause for greater distrust ; with each con-
fessional a rampart of America's liberty falls. It is
filling houses, enriching coffers, and leaving her great
soul empty. It is shutting up and locking the door on
the intellect and the enersfies of America, and bring-
ing man to the animal scale, leaves him in doubt
whether he is a fungus or mollusca. America needs
her press, to unlock men's mouths and open men's
hearts, and enlighten men's eyes ; to arouse America
to her young elasticity, and her great energy. May it
come now, and form an alliance with the people, for
the people's regeneration. For seventy-nine years, by
its activity and faithfulness it has sustained liberty in
all its struggles and triumphs, above all other interests.
Shall it yield the past ? Shall it become quiet, as the
Popish influence becomes noisy ? Shall its voice be
stifled, as the ear and the eye of America becomes
more familiar with her danger ? Popery fears but the
light of the Press ; at its sight it hangs its head, rolls
heavily, falls into mud. Changes which have con-
stantly advanced Popery in America have been looked
upon by the Press too long as frivolous ; while it
soared, the Press was silent, until it has advanced upon



82 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.

America with, a vast significance, and assumed a visi-
ble equality. With their men machines, this Romish
Hierarchy is essentially absorbing and threatening to
swallow up America; and springing its shuttle of
death across her shores, it pants to be able to water its
steed in her great Mississippi.

Its fly frame with an hundred spindles comes back,
as it is thrown off, and conforms itself to the circum-
stances of America. It uses whitewash, varnish, and
paint, to hold out a seeming light, whilst it is plunging
into the thoughts, the dreams, nay, the very illusions
of -America. It brings into her nothing but death,
and cultivates flowers, but to hide us from a sight of
God's love. But while Jesuitism plies steam by day
and by night, the Press, too, plies its thousands of
arms, and is the true instrument, and the real strength
of America.

Shall it allow America to be sunk and lowered by
Popish machinery longer ? Shall it look on, unmoved,
w^hen the citizens of free America are becoming the
low servants of the giants of tyranny? This is the
result of its radical corruption. With political waves
it comes and goes. Our Saviour suffered devils to
enter swine. Let the Press meet the animal as it was
met, with Balaam on its back. It is the power, after
all, which has the heart of America Avithin its strong
grasp, and not to allow a thousand blades of grass to
take the place of one, should it longer see shackled the
mind of America ; the power and the scandal must be
taken from America's great name. When once the



MISSION OF THE AMERICAN PRESS. 83

Press, racked and toothed, whirls arouud triumphantly,
the whole world will marvel, inert masses will vibrate,
oceans cease to roar, and blatant multitudes will be
lulled to whisper! America's regeneration is done.
The woe to America is being done by collective means,
under individual influence ; the Press must cypher this
out, and show it a vital thing — show, by its grand re-
view, the real condition of America, with a Eomish
Hierarchy planted in her soil, avowing its principles
and aims antagonistic to American liberty, and brand-
ing her whole Protestant population as heretic. The
thought and activity of America are equally influenced
by her Press ; and to effect the divorce of America
from Papal Eome, no power is half so potent. It
must take the bandages from the eyes of America, and
show that the cat, which emits sparks at night, when
touched, is the measure of intelligence Eome confers by
her system. And though it speeds where it lists, in
the beaten paths of the old world, it cannot step on the
Father's throne in free America. Let the Press be the
Daniel or Joseph to solve the problem for America
now; before our heroic blood is trampled into dust,
the graves of our fathers despoiled, and a void made
in the glorious humanity of America the world can
never fill.

Popish prelates, puffed up with self-importance,
vanity, and aristocratic longings, despise the infantile
of America, and glory in precocious manhood. With
glittering pageant, they shrink back and deny



2*



84 THE GREAT AMERICAN BATTLE.

relationship with the people. It is, indeed, a great in-
ventor, without life or heart.

Should America be struck from the roll, as the only
free nation the world has ever known, the Press wouM
furnish the bayonets and the ammunition. It is this
which can influence America to her impulsive will.
It is the judgment-seat of public opinion, and its moral
support is all America wants in her great contest for
truth and freedom, but begun. Popery has made it-
self sovereign of every Papal country on the face of
the earth, and what should it do, by its own policy,
but sap, if it can, American freedom, and American