126 lawman fmfcgtman —AND— GENESEE EVANGELIST. PHILADELPHIA, AUG. 6, 1883. JOHN W. MEANS, PROCLAMATION OP THE PRESIDENT. A SAT OP TtfAXKSOIYIJfG AITS PRATER, Washington, July 15.—8 y the President of the Uni ted States of America; A PROCLAMATION. It has pleased Almighty God to hearken to the sup plications and prayers of an afflicted people, and to vouchsafe to the Army and Navy of the United States victories on land and on the sea so signal and so effec tive as to fhrnish reasonable grounds for augmented confidence that the union of these States will be sus tained, their Constitution preserved, and peace and prosperity permanently restored. But these victories have been achieved not without sacrifices of life, limb, health and liberty incurred by brave, loyal and patriotic citizens. Domestic afflic tions in every part of the counter follow in the train of these fearful bereavements. It is meet and right to recognize and confess thepresence of the Almighty Father, and the power of His hand equally in these triumphs and these sorrows. Now, therefore, be it known, that I do set apart Thursday, the Sixth day of August next, to be ob served as a day for National Thanksgiving, Praise and Prayer, and I invite the people of the United States to assemble on that occasion in their customary places of worship, and in the forms approved by their own conscience, and render the homage due to the Divine Majesty for the wonderful things he has done in the nation’s behalf, and invoke the influence of His Holy Spirit to subdue the anger which has produced and so long maintained a needless and crnel rebellion; to change the hearts of the insurgents; to guide the counsels of the Government with wisdom adequate to so great a national emergency, and to visit with ten der care and consolation throughout the length and breadth of our land, all those who through the vicis situdes of marches, voyages, battles and sieges, have been brought to suffer in mind, body, or estate; and finally to lead the whole nation, through the paths of repentance and submission to the Divine will, back to the perfect enjoyment of union and fraternal peace. In witness whereof, I have hereunto setmyhatid and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed. Done at the City of Washington, this the 15th day of July, in the. year of Our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, of the Independence of the United States of America the eighty-seventh. [l. s,] Abraham Lincoln. Wm. H Seward, Secretary of State. THE THANKSGIVING OF TO-DAY. Above we give the excellent proclamation of our Chief Magistrate, Mr. Lincoln, calling the people to the delightful work of thanksgiving for recent victories. As an aid to our medita tions, we offer a few thoughts upon the victory which has touched us most nearly, having been achieved upon our own soil, and having cost rivers of Pennsylvania blood. THE VICTORY OP GETTYSBUBG. The more the victory is contemplated, the more Important to our cause and the East does it appear. Some persons are to be found who undervalue It as a victory. It was, indeed,An one sense nothing more than a repulse of Lee’s army from our well-chosen position. It was a repulse which cost us many, many lives. It came very near being a defeat and a terrible disaster to our own arms. But when we learn that the effective force of the Army of the Po tomac was much less than that of Lee’s—ac cording to an account we have just heard from an intelligent army officer in the 12th Corps, scarcely one-half of Lee’s army, and when we contemplate the havoc made in the rebel ranks, their precipitate retreat and abandonment of loyal soil at the earliest possible moment, we justly entitle it a victory, and a truly glorious one. - We almost draw a short breath, as one just escaped from imminent bodily peril, when we think what would have been the consequen ces of defeat to onr army at that point. If that thin line of blue coats stretched along the hills with its reserves all called into action, save a single brigade, had gone down before the tor nado sweep of the assaulting party, three lines deep,.in what plight would Eastern Pennsyl vania, would Philadelphia have been to day! The fall of Vicksburg, even would have been neutralized by the capture of a great Northern city, and the investment of Baltimore and Washington. The profane boast of Gen. Hooker before the battle of Chancellorsville, that he should capture or destroy the rebel army in spite of Provi dence, was followed by disaster, humiliation, and retreat. Gen. Meade in accepting the com mand of the army of the Potomac said, “Let each man determine to do his duty, leaving to an all-controling Providence the decision of the contest.” Gen. Hooker’B army, though supe rior to that of the rebels in numbers, was re pulsed at Chancellorsville; Gen. Meade’s infe rior army at Gettysburg terribly repulsed the rebels. The rebels were doubtless inflated with self-confidence by the ease with which they had penetrated into Pennsylvania; their pride doubtless culminated when on Wednesday they defeated Reynolds and Hancock and drove them out of Gettysburg. They were just in the mood to hurl themselves upon a General, who, by simply choosing his position and hold it, was enabled to inflict upon the rebelion one of the most damaging defeats of the war. Dis appointed, discomfited, mortified, the proud hosts, the picked men of the Southern army were compelled to withdraw with .all rapidity from the advances of the modest and reverent, and may we not say, therefore, victorious Gen. Meade,,who thus closes his Fourth of July or der: “It is right and proper that we should on suitable occasions return our grateful thanks to the Almighty Dispenser of Events, that in the goodness of His providence He has thought fit to give victory to the cause of the just.” BRIEF ANALYSIS Of the contents of a recent number of u weekly Journal in New York, commonly regarded as Religious: Ist page—Poetry—“The Mississippi a co lumn and three quarters on the discovery of the river, its history during the rebellion, and its recent opening. “The Evil Spirits of the Bible” by Horace Greeley; arguing against a personal devil, demoniacal possession and eternal punishment. “ Concerning an Editor in-Chief” Mr. Beecher in England. “Suffer ings of the Negroes in the Riot. ” “ Washing ton Correspondence. ” 4th page—Editorials: “The Northern Re bellion,” “Defeat in Victory,” “The Allevia tions of the Draft,” “Progress and Patriotism in the Army,” “Cheating the Mob.” No refer ence whatever to Mr. Greeley's infidelity on the Ist page. Pages 5 and 7—Advertisements. Half a page additional advertisements elsewhere.— Page 8 secular and commercial intelligence. Page 2—Sermon, S columns. Book Notices, a column. News of Western , Churches and Colleges, a column; Religious Intelligence, half a column. Page 3.—Relig. Intelligence continued; a column and a half. Secular news, a column. Two columns of Price Current and Advertise ments. . • Editor. Page 6.—“ Scriptural Novelettsa column, a good religious article. “ Story of Captain Cook,” in the regular Book-of-Travels style, entirely secular. A column of religions and moral selections, including the President’s Thanksgiving Proclamation, thus unaccount ably stuck away into a corner. Out of 48 columns, of a “Religious ” weekly, we have therefore, including the sermon, barely 8 columns that can be called religious, while an important part of the remainder is not merely secular, but positively Anti-Scriptural, without a word of disclaimer or explanation from the editor. Can Christian men continue to receive this paper into their families as an exponent of the religion they wish to have in culcated upon them on the Sabbath ? RESIGNATION OF PRESIDENT LORD. Rev. Dr. Lord ha# resigned the presidency of Dartmouth College. His successor has not been named. The above dispatch comprises all we know of a fact which, however, we had anticipated. We should be sorry to know that the trustees of any New England College believed its future prosperity* possible under the presidency of a man who withholds his full support from the authorities of the land in this hour of trial, and who is so likely to poison the minds of students by his example and teachings. Now that there is a prospect of the speedy suppression of the rebellion by force of arms, and that the secret friends of the South among i Rev. Dr. Hitchcock, the well known geologist us are renouncing their hopes of its triumph in j o f Amherst College, has published, in the cur the field, we are called upon to make the very j rentnumberof the Bibliotheca- Sacra, an article of concessions to defeated traitors which we re- ! the first importance on one of the leading topics fused them in their most arrogant and defiant • 0 f dispute in our day. It is entitled “The Law attitudes. The New York Herald prophesies lof Nature’s constancy subordinate to the Higher that we shall give the rebels in making peace ( Law 0 f Change,” and it is aimed at that growing all that they demanded of ns in making war., v tendency among scientific men, not restrained by And its Orleans correspondent, under date \ Christian faith, to regard nature as an indepeu of July ITth, says: t dent perfect whole, a Cosmos, uniform, constant I feel satisfied that peace could be declared in the present state of affairs, in twenty-four hours after an armistice, if the rights of the Southern people, under the Constitution of the United States, would be acknowledged and re spected by those of the North. * * * We can find here any amount of old Union sentiment, but none that desires reconstruction on any other footing save and except the Con stitution of the United States without alteration or amendment. All this is plain. The “Union sentiment” here spoken of is "conditional,” just as it was before the war broke out. It means, we are for Union and peace if you will allow the Dred Scott Decision to pass for law, if you will give us slavery in the territories, turn over Western Virginia to the sway of Richmond and abandon the proclamation of freedom. In answer to this kind of argument, which will become very fashionable with those who are in need of a semi-loyal mask to conceal thehvtreasonous sympathies, allow us to give a few reasons for standing by the proclamation of January Ist, 1863: 1. Common honesty and consistency demand it. The national repute for fairness, nobleness and Christianity would be ruined by a different course. 2. Faithfulness to the slaves demands it. They were grievously and shamefully mocked by that proclamation if we do not abide by it. More than three millions of fellow-creatures would be made the foot-ball of political sub ernes by such shameful vacillation. Made freemen once, they would be wickedly remanded to sla vey. Political necessity will never justify such wholesale kidnapping. The whole nation would be guilty of a deeper complicity with slaveholding than ever. Besides, the negro has earned the right to his freedom. Such fighting as has been done by the negro regiments, the whole course of the war has n6t witnessed. They have astonished and shamed many white regiments who have fought by their side. 3. Whatever punishment was intended to be visited upon incorrigible rebels by the procla mation, will be remitted. Kentucky, Tennes see, parts of Virginia and Louisiana, were ex empted from the operation of the measure. But how absurd to have made such a distinction in those localities on the ground of their subjection to the national authorities, if places which held oat to the last are equally exempt from its pro visions. On this supposition, the more stubborn any state or city in its rebellion, the more valu able lives spent in attempting its reduction, the more secure it becomes from punishment. Charleston or Richmond coming back to the Union on this plan, before they had been re duced by military operations, would be as well off in regard to slave property as Louisville, which never rebelled, or New Orleans, which cost us less than a hundred lives. The eman cipation measure, as a punitive arrangement, in all fairness demands to be enforced. 4. There can be no permanent peace with slavery. It must be rooted out—not pruned or it will forever spring up in bitterness. Give it a lodgment, show it tolerance and favor, and it will thrive with all the rankness of a foul weed, and will quickly wrap its poisonous branches again around the columns of our poli tical structure. It .will fill our legislative halls with its noxious exhalations. Bullies and du ellists, in connection with the imported mob of the North, will again dictate our home and fo reign policy, and the crack of the slavemaster’s whip will again be heard in the debates of Con gress and In the decisions of our courts. And what vvill be the end, but that the long-patient North, refusing some more arrogant demapd than usual, will again have to take up arms to save the very life of the nation ? Nay, let us at least after such a tremendous war-experience learn wisdom. Let us trample out every em ber before we admit the lire to be extin guished. 5. We have our feet upon the neck of sla very, as perhaps never civilized or Christian people had upon any great public evil. We can crush it; we know we can.. Wliat a great, what an unparalleled opportunity! Use it and all posterity will applaud us, let it slip and we shall curse ourselves 1 6. The sympathies of all people—not monar STAND BY THE PROCLAMATION. Ilmnifiitt gftf jslfglfuatt attfl diiMpliist clues nor aristocracies, nor hierarchies, but peo ples, are unalterably with us on our present platform. How great an influence that procla mation has exerted in forming and holding pub lic opinion in our favor, and in deterring jea lous classes, who now-a-days respect public opinion, from interference, will never he told. President Lincoln and the loyal North, by vir tue of that proclamation, are now regarded all Over the world as friends of the working man. The abolition of slavery in America is felt as elevating the working classes everywhere. It opens a most important part of the world here tofore'inaccessible, to thief competition. It de feats a most formidable movement on t the part of the rebels to injure and degrade the working man. Hence the profound interest and sympathy of the Trades Unions of London; hence the calm patience of the starving operatives of Lanca shire, who heroically endure a present personal evil for the good it promises to their hence the enthusiastic sympathy of the intelli gent people of France; hence the heariy ad vances of more than four thousand of the Eng lish clergy, and of seven hundred and fifty of the French. Gan we afford to trifle with these feelings? -to break the hearts of our only.true friends abroad with disappointment, indigna tion and shame ? to renounce the glorious lea dership so enthusiastically accorded ns in the cause of oppressed humanity all over the world ? to break the last restraint which has held back the haters of freedom from interfering in our troubles? to have our policy on the most mo mentous subject justly denounced as slippery, unprincipled, bound by the narrowest, most short-sighted views of present need ? Let us stick to the proclamation; let us pray to-day that the President may have grace to keep it to the letter. NATURE’S UNIFORMITY NOT UNINTER* RUPTED. j and unalterable in its movements, possessing in itself the sources of its own existences and de } vdopments. The sentence which Dr. H.'quotes | from Professor Powell of England, expresses the views of this class of thinkers : “ The enlarged [ critical inductive study of the natural world 5 cannot but tend powerfully to evince the incon i ceivableness of- imag hied 'interruptions of natural | order or supposed suspensions of the laws of | and of that vast series of dependent | causation which constitutes the legitimate field j for the investigations of science, whose constancy ! is the sole warrant for its generalizations, while it forms the substantial basis for the grand con clusions of natural theology.” According to these philosophers, there is no possible place for miracles, natural theology itself being based upon principles which render them inadmissible. Directly in the teeth of these assertions, Dr. Hitchcock proceeds to evolve the indications presented in nature of a law leading to change and to catastrophes, from which only supernatu ral and miraculous power can bring deliverance. “ The law of miracles,” he defines as “ a force : occasionally manifesting itself to counteract, i'n : tensify, or diminish the power of natural law.— This law also” he says, “ is invariable; that is, in the same circumstance©, the same miracle will 3 occur. But in its action, it contravenes natural law. Moreover, though a law, we cannot under stand its nature.’* , Among the forces of nature tending to inter fere with its uniformity and to bring ruin upon the existing order of things, is the subtle resisting medium believed to be diffused through space, and already observed to be acting upon certain j of the periodical comets, shortening: their time of ] revolution and threatening to land them finally 1 upon the sun. Admitting the existence of such hi medium, aud the ultimate ruin of the solar, if J not of the whole sidereal, system is unavoidable, f unless a supernatural interference takes place.- * We have evidence that the earth and the great f bodies of the Cosmos have passed and are passing through a series of chemical changes. From various degrees of fluidity, perhaps even from a , gaseous condition, some have become solid, some are still undergoing transformation. Is the solid state the last? The continual working of these chemical changes may lead to the overthrow of the whole system on which these uubelieving philosophers raise their structure of uniformity. But the grand examples of a law of change, which overrides this pretended uniformity, are found in the revelations made by geology in the domain of organic life. Each of the great ge ological formations has been characterized by peculiar groups of animals and plants, found neither in the rocks below nor above. Dr. Hiteheock is satisfied that the earlier geological formations are separated from each other by de structive catastrophes, which ..almost entirely swept away the orders of existence inhabiting the earth’s surface at the time. The old faunas (groups of animals) and floras (groups of plants) suddenly disappeared, and those which succeed ed must have been new. The alluvial period docs not present proofs of such extensive up heavals and dislocations; the surface has been kept comparatively quiet ever since the Creta ceous period. Hence, various groups as it were run into each other during the different divi sions of this epoch. But this is not true of the earlier periods. At the close of these forma tions, the uniformity of nature’s operations was suddenly and universally interrupted ; and the commencement of each of these new eras whs marked by the ‘ introduction of new orders of beings and new species. Even without those great cosmieal interruptions, the introduction of entirely new orders and species cannot be traced to the uniform operation of natural law. There is a chasm* between man for instance, and • all other orders of beiDgs on earth,.which no natural law could overpass. But the best geologists do not doubt that these great interruptions took place, and they recognize the consequent distinct “life periods” as they are called, which have succeeded ouch other on the surface of the globe. Says Agassiz: “ One result stands now unquestioned: the existence during each great geological era of an assemblage of animals and plants differing essentially for each* period. — And by period, I mean those minor subdivisions in the successive,, sets of beds of rocks which j constitute the stratified erupt of our globe, the number of which is daily increasing, as our in vestigations become more extensive and more precise.” It is agreed by those whom Dr. Hitchcock regards as the best uthorities on the subject, that the' systems of plants and animals on our globe have be en obliter ted and by others of distinct origiij as often as twenty jive times. / We pause here in our presentation of tbe views of the very able author, n The bearing of his views upon certain fashionable doctrines of sci entific unbelievers and opponents of Scripture truth is manifest. If the liniformity of nature’s laws has been broken in upon as often as twenty five times in tbe history qf the earth, that uni formity,must cease to be icoepted as an unalter able dogma. The fortrea that always frowned at the entrance of the argument on miracles is dismantled and razed. M the position for which such high scientific anthOTity is quoted by our author against Sir Cha|jes I