DAVIS INCLINES TOO MUCH TO FASTING AND
PRAYER TO SUIT SOME OF HIS SUBJECTS.
From the Richmond Examiner, May 10.
The President proclaimed last Friday to be a day of official prayer and religious ceremony and it was so observed. The Departments were closed and the necessary work of this trying period was brought to a stand still for twenty-four hours. Never has any one year seen so many of these affairs. It is hoped that the latest is the last. The country has had quite enough of them. Religion is the sentiment of individuals, not a matter of military order or formal injunction, and though it is well that a government should pay proper respect to the religious ceremony, that has been done and over done by the Confederacy. In truth these devotional proclamations of Mr. Davis have lost all good effect from their repetition, are regarded by the people as either cant or evidence of mental weakness, and have become the topic of unpleasant reflection with intelligent men. Piety is estimable; but energy, common sense, impartial justice, courage, and industry are the qualities very useful to rulers and to nations. It is to the diligent employment of the faculties that God has given us that we obtain His blessing, and not by vain and affected supplications. When we find the President standing in a corner rolling his beads and relying on a miracle to save the country instead of mounting his horse and putting forth every power of the Government to defeat the enemy, the effect is depressing in the extreme. When the ship springs a leak the efficient captain does not order all hands to prayers, but to the pumps. The same newspapers that are burdened with the evacuation of Norfolk, announce that President Davis has just been “confirmed” in the Episcopal Church. – Perhaps the authority of an eminent devine in that Church may have weight with him. His name was Muhlenburg; and one Sunday in 1774 he closed his last sermon with the words, that there was “a time for all things; a time to fight, and that time had come.” Having pronounced a benediction, he deliberately pulled off his gown and appeared before his astonished congregation in complete uniform. Then descending the pulpit, he ordered the drums at the church door to beat for recruits. His regiment was the first organized for the Continental service; and both his example and his doctrine, “There is a time for all things,” may be well recommended for the consideration of all considerate persons.
MORE “HAND WRINGTIN ON THE WALL,”
From the Richmond Examiner, May 19.
The citizens of Richmond had their patriotism shocked again yesterday morning by the treasonable writings appearing on the walls and public places of the city. We are not of those who see in those devices the evidence of the existence in our midst of a feeling in sympathy with the sentiments therein set forth; but rather look upon it as the malicious work of some lawless characters, who should be arrested by the police and made to pay for their mischievous doings under the laws, by the imposition of a fine for the defacement of public property.
There may be a traitorous design in it, but we do not believe it. Still the thing may work evil by augmenting in weak minds the excitement which present events naturally excite in all minds. For this reason, citizens would be justified in visiting upon any one found so meanly engaged summary punishment, sudden and severe on the spot. Let midnight “Chalkers” lookout whoever they be, whether secret foe in our midst or mischief makers at large. There is vengeance sleeping for such, and it may fall when not looked for.
– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, May 31, 1862, p. 2
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