Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 6.djvu/292

Rh over the building, now used for military barracks. Over eight hundred men are gathered under arms at Lawrence. As yet, no act of violence has been perpetrated by those on our side; no blood of retaliation stains oar hands. We stand, and are ready to act, purely in the defence of our homes and lives. I am enrolled in the cavalry, though I have not yet appeared in the ranks ; but, should there be an attack, I shall he there. I have had some hesitation about the propriety of this course; but some one has said, "In questions of duty, the first thought is generally the right one." On that principle, I find strong justification. I could feel no self-respect until I had my services. "Day before yesterday, we received the timely reinforcement of a twelve pounder howitzer, with ammunition therefor, including grape and canister, with forty bomb-shells. It was sent from New York (made at Chicopee). By a deed of successful daring and cunning, it was brought through the country invested by the enemy, a distance of fifty miles, from Kansas City, by an unfrequented route, boxed up as merchandise. "Sunday Morning, Dec. 9.—The governor has pledged himself to do all he can to make peace; and we are told that the invaders are beginning to retreat; but we know not what to believe. Our men are to be kept under arms for twenty-four hours longer, at least. No religious meetings for the last three weeks. No work done, of course. Some of the logs to be sawed for our church were pressed into service to build a fort, of which we have no less than five, and of no mean dimensions or strength. For a time, it seemed probable that the foundation-stones for the church would be wet by the blood of the martyrs for liberty. They were piled up on the ground, and, with the earth thrown out of the excavation, made quite a fort on the hillside just outside of the line of intrenchments." That is the report of a Unitarian missionary. You know what the Trinitarians have done: the conduct of that valiant man, Henry Ward Beecher,—the most powerful and popular minister in the United States,—and his "Plymouth Church," and other "religious bodies" at New Haven and elsewhere, need not be spoken of.

One effect of this warlike spirit is curious; "pious" newspapers are very much troubled at the talk of rifles, pistols, and cannon. In 1847, they rated me roundly for preaching against the Mexican war,—a war for plundering a feeble nation, that we might blacken her soil with Slavery: it was "desecrating the Sabbath." They liked the Sims brigade, the Burns division; they did homage to the cannon which men-stealers loaded in Boston, therewith to shoot the friends of humanity on the graves of Hancock and Adams! Now, the mean men and the base men are brought over to "peace principles:" a rifle is "not of the Lord;" a cannon is "a carnal weapon;" a sword is "of the devil." All the South thinks gunpowder is "unchris-