No place is exempt. The quiet prayer meeting,
and the stormy halls of national debate, share its presence
alike. It is a common intruder, and of course has the name of
being ungentlemanly. Brethren who had long sung, in the most
affectionate fervor, and with the greatest sense of security,
_Together let us sweetly live--together let us die,_
have been suddenly and violently separated by it, and ranged in
hostile attitude toward each other. The Methodist, one of the
most powerful religious organizations of this country, has been
rent asunder, and its strongest bolts of denominational
brotherhood started at a single surge. It has changed the tone
of the northern pulpit, and modified that of the press. A
celebrated divine, who, four years ago, was for flinging his own
mother, or brother, into the remorseless jaws of the monster
slavery, lest he should swallow up the Union, now recognizes
anti-slavery as a characteristic of future civilization. Signs
and wonders follow this movement; and the fact just stated is one
of them.
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