My friend says he has yet to learn that these are practically established facts; “that grasping the sword will emancipate us from prejudice and slavery.” Indeed, he asks: “Will the proposition bear questioning?” I answer, yes, in the most positive sense, because four-fifths of all the emancipations from these evils among men have been brought about by this means. The Israelites were carried away captives seven times by Pharoah, Tiglath-Pilaser, Shalmanezer, Nebuchadnezer, and finally, by Titus. These men forced them to serve as slaves and vassals, not only to themselves, but to their successors in Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, and Persia, over which empires they respectively held dominion. The Israelites groaned and prayed to God, lifting their windows towards the city of the great King three times a day—but never were released in five out of seven cases, till they grasped the sword, and like Samson, cried to God for strength to drive it to the hilt. In one of the other cases of the seven, God himself, by the use of elements more destructive and desolating than the sword, effected the purpose by a national slaughter. My comment on all these Bible transactions may be found in the writings of the Prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and Hosea. A careful study of these inspired writers, and the chronological history of the Jews through all those years of their servitude and degradation, develops the fact that the special direction of God, by the mouth of his prophets, is decidedly at variance with my friend’s peace measures and neutral policy, in a war against the greatest moral, social, and intellectual antagonist to human progress that now curses the civilized world. Turning from sacred history to more recent dates, I am taught by the modern historian that the vassals and slaves of the entire continent of Europe, a few centuries ago, are now its free citizens—made free by the power of their own strength, contending often against fearful odds for the advancement of the cause of human suffrage. The once lowest castes of Hindostan are now the free gentoos of that empire. The slaves that built the pyramids of Egypt are now, it is true, the degraded but free Moslem of that land. The Mexicans that Cortez found in that country, working as slaves of the emperors and priesthood, are now the free population of Mexico. The slaves of England, France, and Spain, in the West Indies, are now the independent Haytians, the citizens of the Dominican Republic, and the British West Indies. Now let me ask by what special interposition of Providence, aside from the general rule of grasping the sword, have these changes been brought about? The answer comes back from the earliest antiquity, that the universal rule for Emancipation, Equality and Enfranchisement, whether it be to the Jewish slaves of antiquity, the Roman slaves, the Grecian helots, the German feudal vassals, the serfs of Russia, the Indian slaves of Mexico and Central America, or the African