The Freedom Ring

African American Soldiers - Civil War - 1864 Preached by the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, March 9th, 1862, at the time of the Emancipation Message from President Lincoln Slavery vs. Liberty It has entered also the temple of God; and we have the record of the evil influences exerted by slavery upon the morals and the beliefs of the people. It has drugged the priests at the altar. It has put false fire thereon, and in the lurid light of that fire it has read God's word backward, making the charter of liberty for the world to be the charter of despotism. The apostasy of the Southern churches is one of the most extraordinary that ever took place. Never was the foul virus and bitterness of slavery shown before as it has been in the prostration of the churches of the South, and the utter apostasy of the ministers of the Gospel belonging to them. So manifest are they, that though all the statistics have been gathered by men appointed by pro-slavery administrations, and strained and doctored b...

President Abraham Lincoln gesturing as he delivers the Gettysburg Address Preached by the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, March 9th, 1862, at the time of the Emancipation Message from President Lincoln “Go through, go through the gates; prepare ye the way of the people; cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones; lift up a standard for the people. Behold, the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the world, Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh; behold, his reward is with him, and his work before him. And they shall call them, The holy people, the redeemed of the Lord: and thou shalt be called, Sought out, A city not forsaken."   - Isaiah lXII. 10, 11, 12. Message from President Lincoln  GREAT reformations in morals can never stop with individuals. Just as corruption of the citizen soon infects the institutions and the laws of the land, similarly the reformation of the citizen reforms laws and usages. It is this sort of reformation that the prophet cele...