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...

This famous sermon by the most popular American preacher during the Civil War, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, was delivered in 1861 to the two Civil War Regiments of the “Brooklyn Fourteenth . ” Many of them members of Rev. Beecher's Plymouth Church , located in the Brooklyn Heights neighborhood of New York City. The Church on that day contributed $3,000 to aid in the equipment of this Regiment. “Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth.” – Psalms 1x. 4. FROM the earliest periods nations seem to have gone forth to war under some banner. Sometimes it has been merely the pennant of a leader, and was only a rallying signal. So, doubtless, the habit began of carrying banners, to direct men in the confusion of conflict, that the leader might gather his followers around him when he himself was liable to be lost out of their sight. And thus in our day every nation has its peculiar flag. There is no civilized nation without its banner. A tho...

Preached by Rev. Henry Ward Beecher at Plymouth Church  Brooklyn, NY - January 4, 1863 From the most famous American preacher throughout the time of our great Civil American War, we bring you this lost sermon that will place you in the hearts and minds of those suffering Americans. Those who were shedding blood with their own countrymen in the name of eliminating oppression from the land of the free. The following are the words of the famous abolitionist, minister Rev. Henry Ward Beecher preached in Brooklyn, NY on January 4th, 1863. What is Babylon? The term Babylon, borrowed from a real city, is employed often figuratively. And without straining a point at all, it may be said that it is the kingdom of despotism, the kingdom of oppression, on earth, that is meant by the term Babylon. It is more specific than the term kingdom of darkness; for it seems to refer to a speciality of despotism. The violation of the eternal principles of justice for the injury and destruction...