A scene of indescribable excitement and confusion followed, during which the black was carried out, and, more dead than alive, laid upon the ground. When quiet was somewhat restored, Preston made a short and feeling prayer, and then, after giving out a hymn, he dismissed the congregation with the usual benediction.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] 'Scrape' is the turpentine gathered from the face of the pine. On old trees, the yearly incision is made high above the boxes, and the sap, in flowing down, passes over and adheres to the previously scarified surface. It is thus exposed to the sun, which evaporates the more volatile and valuable portion, and leaves only the hard, which, when manufactured, is mostly rosin. 'Scrape' turpentine is only about half as valuable as 'dip.'
[2] "Virgin" Turpentine is twice as valuable as "Dip."
THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE REBELLION.
II.
The sturdy oak which is not prostrated by the storm that assails it is made thereby to take deeper hold, and to draw the sustenance for a larger growth from the torn and loosened soil into which it has opportunity to thrust new roots and tendrils. Reinvigorated by the resisted violence, its branches shoot upward to the skies and extend themselves laterally with majestic breadth. It gradually gains strength and becomes so firmly rooted in its place that it bids defiance to the repeated tempests vainly striving to overthrow it, and stands for centuries, sublime in its unconquerable might and proud endurance. Our noble Union, fiercely assailed in its early maturity, before its strength has been fully developed, now bends before the hurricane of civil war, swaying to and fro with fearful and threatening movements at every paroxysm of the tremendous blast. We look on with intense agony of suspense, to see whether it will stand the terrible ordeal, and outlive the unexampled convulsion of social elements in which its strength and endurance have been so sorely tested. Instinctively we know that if it survive the present momentous crisis, successfully resisting the attack of the enemy which assails it so furiously, its foundations will be immensely strengthened, and its power of resistance in future dangers will be indefinitely augmented. Prolonged and permanent existence, with assured security and repose, will be the best and most indisputable result of its triumph. Though shaken and torn by the deadly assault, and to a certain extent deprived of its usual resources, in the very effort of resistance it will have put forth new connections, which returning peace will multiply and strengthen. The immense demand on its energy and enterprise will have aroused all its slumbering capacities and stimulated them to the highest point of exertion. Under the necessity of self-preservation, the nation will have been fully awakened to a sense of its gigantic power, which, when employed in the benign pursuits of peace, will be sufficient speedily to restore its prosperity to even more than former splendor. The resources of our broad domain are so unbounded, and the courage and persistence of our people so indomitable, that even the sacrifices and losses of so great a war will make no serious impression on the destined career of this youthful and growing nation. So long as the vigor and elasticity of the popular force is not absolutely overpowered and suppressed, the reaction will only be so much the stronger for all the mighty pressure which has been placed upon it. Returning strength, so invigorated and redoubled by repose, will enable the people to bear the burden patiently, and within a comparatively brief period to throw it off entirely; and then they will bound forward with renewed energy in that race of unexampled progress which has been sadly interrupted, but not by any means wholly arrested.
If peace had continued, and especially if no civil war had occurred to desolate our country, the labors of the population would have been directed chiefly to the increase of wealth, and to the improvement which always accompanies material prosperity. It would be a monstrous error to say that the interruption of these occupations has not been a calamity of the most serious character. Yet is it not altogether unmixed with good. Indeed, it is by no means certain that, in the circumstances which gave rise to the war, there was not an actual necessity, of a moral nature, which made it on the whole advantageous to arouse the nation to this gigantic strife, and thus to exchange its ordinary struggle for wealth into a combat for a momentous principle. Is it questionable whether, in every case, the establishment of such a principle is not the most important of all objects, and whether every other pursuit and occupation ought not to be made secondary to it? In the sacrifices and sufferings which a nation undergoes for the sake of asserting an important moral or political truth, there is always a wholesome virtue that in some measure redeems the brutality and violence which are the inseparable accompaniments of all wars, and which peculiarly characterize the history of civil wars, in every age and country. It is not merely the elevated and unselfish sentiment of patriotism, as known in former ages, and expressed in the noble sentiment, dulce et decorum est pro patria mori, which, engenders lofty impulses and nourishes the rugged virtues of the soldier in the heart; but the still higher sentiment of love for humanity and universal freedom—a sentiment wholly unknown in what are called the heroic ages—sanctifies the labors, the wounds, and the glorious death of the martyrs who struggle and fall in such a contest. Men have often fought and willingly died in the cause of their country, regardless of the merits of the controversy between the opposing parties. There is a certain manliness and devotion to others in this species of patriotism, which commands respect and admiration; and this feeling of approbation rises still higher when the cause of the nation is undeniably just, and the self-sacrificing patriot is giving his life for the purchase of liberty to his country. But the highest and noblest of all exhibitions is that in which the sacrifice is made for the good of the race—for principles in which all men are alike interested, and in which the martyr can claim no peculiar advantage to himself or to his own branch of the human family. The nation which accepts war for such a cause, and wages it with all her means and energies, exhibits a moral grandeur which, in spite of misfortune, has a saving power, capable of overcoming and compensating all calamities, of whatever nature and extent. That nation cannot be overthrown—not unless the laws of the Most High himself can be subverted, and the right be made permanently to succumb to the wrong. Let it be understood, however, that this assertion is made only with reference to wars which are essentially defensive; for no nation has the right to propagate even the best and noblest principles by the power of the sword. In our case, it is true, other motives concur in moving the nation to this tremendous struggle. Not merely the rights and interests of an inferior, degraded, and suffering race appeal to our humanity; but the unity and greatness of our country, its influence abroad, and its success and prosperity at home, are all involved. It is one of many instances in which the best and highest impulses of our nature are reënforced by the dictates of the noblest and most elevated of human interests—the interests of a nation, of a continent, yea, of the world itself; for our gates are still open to the ingress of our brothers from abroad, and our immense and fertile domain, as well as our priceless institutions, are freely offered to their participation.
But, aside from the principles involved in the war, there are results of an interesting character springing from it, which are well worthy the attention of the statesman and the patriot. Two very opposite effects are produced on the minds of the men engaged in such a contest as this, or, indeed, in any contest of arms whatever, when it assumes the proportions of a regular war. The volunteering of our young men of all classes, in numbers so immense, is an extraordinary phenomenon. These soldiers by choice, many of them educated and intelligent, and impelled by deliberate considerations of principle, willingly undergo the hard labor of military training, of marches and campaigns, and the still more trying inactivity of life in camps and fortresses, in new and unfriendly regions and climates. They fearlessly face death in every ghastly form, on the battle field, by exposure in all seasons, by physical exhaustion, and by the most dreadful contagious diseases. They devote themselves unreservedly to the great cause, and in doing so exhibit the noblest spirit of self-sacrifice, and that on the grandest scale presented in history. Fortitude and courage, contempt of the most appalling dangers, disregard of suffering and privation, wounds, mutilation, and lingering death—these are the habits of soul which our citizen soldiers cultivate, and which tend to strengthen and harden the character, and to give it great moral force. The great qualities thus nurtured in the bosom of the multitudes destined soon to return to peaceful life will assuredly make a powerful impression on the whole society, which must be thoroughly pervaded with the manly virtues thence destined to be infused into it. Every man who has been conspicuous for his soldierly conduct and for the faithful performance of duty will be an object of general respect, though he may have passed unscathed through the fiery ordeal; while every maimed and wounded citizen will be regarded as bearing on his person, in his honorable scars and deficient limbs, the decorations which exalt and ennoble him in the eyes of his countrymen. Many a chivalrous deed will be recounted with pride and satisfaction, and handed down to immortality by the pen of history and poetry, and by the pencil and chisel of art. Even the undistinguished services of those who have fought in the war for the Union, and who have passed unchallenged through the fiery ordeal, will be cherished by their children, and transmitted to their remoter posterity with patriotic pride and pardonable self-satisfaction. Thus the glory of noble deeds in this memorable war will everywhere shed its lustre on the national character, and will tend to stimulate the loftiest virtues in the present and succeeding generations.