“What is the errand of this day? Why are we observing a sad Sabbath? a day of humiliation? a day of supplication? It is for the strangest reason the world ever heard. It is because the spirit of liberty has so increased and strengthened among us that the government is in danger of being overthrown! There never before was such an occasion for fasting, humiliation, and prayer! Other nations have gone through revolutions for their liberties; we are on the eve of a revolution to put down liberty! Other people have thrown off their governments because too oppressive; ours is to be destroyed, if at all, because it is too full of liberty, too full of freedom. There never was such an event before in history.... Meanwhile we have had no one to stand up for order. Those who should have spoken in decisive authority have been—_afraid_! Severer words have been used; it is enough for me to say only that in a time when God, and providence, and patriotism, and humanity demanded courage, they had no response but fear. The heart has almost ceased to beat, and this government is like to die for want of pulsations at the centre. While the most humiliating fear paralyzes one part of the government, the most wicked treachery is found in other parts of it.” So closes in shame and fear the second era of the great conflict. “Buchanan’s Fast” marks the lowest point of degradation the government of the United States ever reached—a point of abject fear of the consequences of its own sins, of feeble persistence in them, and of cowardice in applying the remedy for its trouble. Instead of abandoning its policy of falsehood and injustice, and making a manly use of the means still at hand to avert the threatening dangers, it held to its course, declared that it could do nothing more under the Constitution than to advise and remonstrate with treason, and made a frantic appeal to the Christians of the land to plead with Jehovah to save it from the inevitable consequences of its folly and wickedness. It was a failure. The Call of the President to his kind of Fast awakened little response from the people. Another Proclamation was ringing in their ears. It was that of the old prophet uttered centuries before. “Is not this the Fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?” This Fast of the Lord was rapidly approaching, and for it the people were getting ready. CHAPTER XVI.