January 18, 1861 (Friday)

Call to Intelligent Christian Patriotism

"We would salute you, brethren in the spirit of the apostolic formula, 'Grace, Mercy, and Peace.'  As fellow-heirs of a kingdom that 'endureth forever,' we have common interests and relations superior to all political bonds, furnishing the basis of fraternal internal intercourse even in seasons of greatest civil commotion.  Faith in God would seem to be the only alternative in a crisis which reveals the impotence and short-sightedness of man.  It is with a profound conviction of the imminence of national perils, and with a deep sense of the solemnity and delicacy of this humble attempt to avert them, that we venture a few suggestions to our dear brethren, touching some of the immediate causes of our danger, and the probable consequences to great moral and religious interests of the threatened disruption of our civil ties. 

A dispassionate view of public affairs...a system of gross and persistent misrepresentation has had much to do with leading the nation to the verge of revolution.  The South has been slandered at the North, and the North has been grossly misrepresented at the South.  The extreme sentiments...and passionate utterance of inconsiderable bodies, political or ecclesiastical, have been heralded through the land as the deliberate expression of opinion of great parties, denominations or sections of the country; whereas they merely represented the extravagance of their authors, and should have been consigned to the oblivion they merited.

In our judgment, dear brethren, the time has come for a more calm, discriminating investigation of the causes of impending perils, and for many, Christian effort, under God, to avert them.  Intelligent Christian patriotism...lives and glows in millions of hearts all over the land, and in them all--it is loyal to the Constitution, the Union, and the Bible.

Besides the interests common to all citizens, we have a vital stake in the perpetuation of our Federal Union on other and higher grounds.  The honor and prosperity of Protestant Christianity are involved in the issue.  A failure in our great experiment of self-government, besides affording sad proof of recreancy [abject cowardness] on the part of American Christians, would be interpreted in all lands as evidence of the powerlessness of the only system of religion that claims to furnish an adequate basis for self-governing institutions. 

Unswerving fealty to the Constitution, justly-interpreted, and a prompt return to its spirit and requirements, wherever there may have been divergence from either, would seem to be the first duty of citizens and legislators.

Thus will the more immediate causes of alienated feeling be suppressed, and the healing touch of time, the seasonable exertions of patriotic men, the peace-inspiring influence of religion, the spirit of fervent prayer, and the favoring providence and grace of the Triune God, will cement anew the bonds that untie the North and the South, the East and the West, in one thrice blessed American brotherhood.

To this end, dear brethren, and for the sake of those spiritual gifts so inspiratively needed by our American Zion, let us unceasingly implore the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the rulers and people of these United States."  (An Appeal for Peace:  A Circular Letter to the Clergy and Laity of Christian Churches in the Southern States of the Union, New York Times article, January 18, 1861)