“My friends, you kin find in the Skripter suthin applicable to every occasion, and this parable fits the present time like a ready-made coat. The South is the Prodigal Son. We went out from our father’s house on a expedition wich heznt proved altogether a success. We spent our share uv the estate, and a little more. We run through with our means, and hev cum down to rags, and dirt, and filth, and hunger. We are, and hev bin some time, a chawin husks. We run out after them twin harlots, Slavery and State Rights, and they’ve cleaned us out. Our pockets are empty. No more doth the pleasant half-dollar jingle in sweet unison agin its fellows. Our wallets is barren uv postal currency, and the grocery-keepers mourn, and refuse to be comforted, becoz we are not. We hev got to the husk stage uv our woe, and wood be tendin hogs, ef the armies, wich past through these countries, hed left us any. We hev kum back. In rags and dirt we hev wended our way to Washington, and ask to be taken back. Now, why don’t our father, the Government, fulfil the Skripter? Why don’t it see us afar off, and run out to meet us? Why don’t it put onto us a purple robe? Where’s the ring for our finger, and the shoes for our feet? and where’s the fatted calf he ought to kill? My brethren, them Ablishnists is worse than infiddles—while they preach the gospel they won’t practise it. For my part, I—”
At this point a sargent, belongin to that infernal Burow, who wuz in the awdience, with enough uv soldiers to make opposin uv him unpleasant, sed he hed bin a sort uv an exhorter in his day, and desired to say a word in explanation uv that parable, ez applicable to the present time; and, sez he, “ef I am interrupted, remember I b’long to the church military, wich is, just now, the church triumphant.” And cockin his musket he proceeded, very much uninterrupted.
“The prodigal son,” sez he, “wuz received by the old man with considerable doins, but, my worthy friends, he went out decently. He didn’t, ez soon ez he withdrawed from the house, turn around and make war onto the old gentleman—he didn’t burn his house and barns, tear up his garden, burn his fences, and knock down the balance uv the children. Not any. He went away peaceably, a misguided good-for-nothin, but yet a peaceable good-for-nothin. Secondly, he come back uv his own akkord. The old man didn’t go after him, and fight for four years, at a cost uv half his substance, to subdue him and bring him back, but when he hed run through his pile, and squandered his share uv the estate, and got hungry, he came back like a whipped dog.
“My friends, let me draw a small parallel between these cases.
“The Prodigal Son went out,—so did the South,—thus farly the cases is alike.
“The Prodigal didn’t steal nothin. The Confederacy took everything it cood lay its hands on.
“The Prodigal spent only what wuz his to spend. The Confederacy spent not only all it stole, but all it cood borrer, when it knowd its promises to pay wuzent worth the mizable paper they wuz printed onto.
“The Prodigal, when he did come, come ez penitent ez the consciousness that he hed made a fool uv hisself cood make him. The Confederacy wuz whipped back, but it still swears hefty oaths that it wuz right all the time.
“The Prodigal didn’t demand veal pot-pies, and purple robes, and sich, but begged to be a servant unto the more sensible brethren wich stayed. The South comes back demandin office, uv wich the fatted calf, and rings, and purple robes is typical, and considerably more share in the government than it had before it kicked over the traces, and went out like the lost tribes uv Israel.
“Spozn the Bible prodigal hed stopped his parient, and remarked to him thus: ‘I am willin to come back, on conditions. Yoo must pay my debts—yoo must give me an ekal share uv the farm with the other boys—yoo must treat me in all respecks just ez ef I hadn’t gone out, and—this is essential—yoo must take with me all the sharpers who ruined me, all the gamblers and thieves with whom I fell in while I wuz away, and make them head men on the place; and above all, I hev with me the two harlots wich wuz the prime cause of my ruin, and they must hev eleven of the best rooms in the house, and must be treated ez your daughters. To avoid displeasin the others, I’ll dress em in different clothes, but here they must stay. Otherwise, I’ll go out agin.’