January 4, 1861 (Friday)

       National Day of Fasting, Humiliation, and Prayer

"(1) It is well that everyone of us make this day the beginning of a solemn review of his own life and the tendencies of his own character and conduct;  (2)  we should take solemn account of our social laxity and ease and our duty as American citizens;  (3)  the growth of corrupt passion;  (4)  the intense eagerness to amass wealth, the gradual corruption of moral sense and avarice;  (5) not only our individual sins, but our national sins, especially the sin of our nation in relation to slavery;  and, (6)  we who dwell at the North are not without responsibility for this sin of slavery.  What is our part....

Because the South loved money, they have augmented the evil; and because the North loved money, which befits industry and commerce, she has refused to insist upon her moral convictions and has yielded to every demand of Slavery.  You and I are guilty of this sin...they kept it for the love of money, and we have done the same.

In another way, too, we are participators.  It is for us that the slave works.  We clothe ourselves in cotton, which he tills.  Our social cup is sweetened by his toil.  Our looms and factories are largely built upon the slave.  We live upon his toil.  I confess that I see no way to escape a part of the responsibility for Slavery.  All the wrongs, the crimes of some, the abuse of others, the neglects, miseries, the ignorance's, separations, scourging -- these cannot be rolled up onto a cloud to overhang the South alone.  Every one of us have something to confess.  This whole nation is guilty.

I am ashamed that the very pulpit has been so prostituted to teach heathen notions, and if it has, how can the public mind be expected to do differently?  When one professing to be ordained of God stands forth and teaches a religion which sanctions and sanctifies the barbarities of Slavery, then blessed be infidels!  When the Bible can be made to teach that man may rightfully be bought and sold; that marriage is an impossibility; that a man is to be forbidden to read, to learn, or do anything but exist, and use the spade and the hoe, then I declare I will do by the Bible what Christ did by the Temple.  If I can, I will drive out the profaners of its sacredness; if not, I will let it go to the desolating armies of its enemies.  That minister who preaches Slavery out of the Bible is the father of all infidels!

Are we so timid, or so besotted with peace, that we will bear nothing, suffer nothing for the right?  There may be trouble, there may be blood, there may be dreadful and fearful times before the better day -- but of that we cannot speak.  One thing we can do.  Love more!  --  Love God!  --  love our fellowmen --love our dear fatherland -- remember the principles of the Fathers --  act upon them and adhere to them -- yield not one whit of principles -- bear all  -- receive all -- but stand firm in the right now, just as our Fathers did then.  Let us be firm...have unshaken faith in the divine principle of Liberty."  (Henry Ward Beecher's Discourse:  The North's Responsibility, New York Times)