“The news of this startling event went through the country like a flame of fire. There had been some expectation of violence, but the actual shock came like a clap of thunder. The people of the towns poured into the streets, and the country folk flocked to the villages to gather the tidings and to comment on the coming conflict. Gray-haired men talked gravely of the deed that was done, and prophesied of its consequences. Public opinion, both in the North and the South, was rapidly consolidated. Three days after the fall of Fort Sumter, President Lincoln issued a call for seventy-five thousand volunteers to serve three months in the overthrow of the secession movement. On the 19th of April, when the first regiments of Massachusetts volunteers were passing through Baltimore on their way to Washington, they were fired upon by the citizens and three men killed.” The sounds of preparation for war were heard in every direction. No less spirit was being manifested throughout the Methodist Episcopal Church. And yet, notwithstanding the fact that the Baltimore Annual Conference withdrew by resolution from the Methodist Episcopal Church, because the Church stood up for the poor slave, not a single compromise at that time was made by the Church with slavery. To get some idea of the condition of affairs at the time, or directly thereafter, when Bishop Levi Scott stood up in the face of the whole world and let his light so shine that men might see his good works and those of the Church he represented, when he declined to ordain the Rev. Mr. Hedrick in the presence of the Baltimore Conference, we quote the language of a man whom every colored man and most good white men love to honor—Gilbert Haven, D.D.—who says in his description of the “First War Sunday:” “That Sabbath-day’s journey ought to be chronicled. We marched through saintly Boston in the gray twilight to the tune of ‘Yankee Doodle.’ All along the route cannons and bells, bands and flags and waving handkerchiefs, soldiers and crowds upon crowds, gave us a hearty hail and farewell. At Hartford we were told the women were all at home driving their sewing-machines, and the men busy making cartridges for their troops. All the town left their churches and gathered around the depot, where they had had preaching and singing while waiting for us. They had also provided refreshments enough for five thousand persons, and plied us with sweetmeats and benedictions. The force of the fever could go no farther.”