These men overlooked the fact that they were setting in motion a power that was destined to pass from their control, and make them as a people of whom it was written: "I will even give them unto the hand of their enemies, and into the hand of them that seek their life; and their dead bodies shall be as meat unto the fowls of the heaven, and to the beasts of the earth." They desired to heed no note of warning regarding the future so that the ends of the present were accomplished; and under their guidance, lust and rapine and murder stalked abroad, and the land seemed to be wholly given up to the machinations of the evil one and the unbridled license of his chosen servants. Nowhere upon the dial plate of the nineteenth century did the index finger of the hand of God point with such unerring and terrible certainty. It seemed as if the Lord had spoken once more as he spake in the days of the Prophet Isaiah: "What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it? Wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? And now go to. I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; and break down the walls thereof, and it shall be trodden down. And I will lay it waste; it shall not be pruned nor digged; but there shall come up briers and thorns * * * for the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant; and he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry." Good men bowed their heads in anguish. They had lifted their eyes to the far North, from whence should come their help, and they had looked in vain. The body corporate was too fatally diseased to cure itself Rottenness and corruption hung upon its borders, and were slowly sapping the foundations of its life. Its energies were prostrated, its internal recuperative power destroyed. Help must come from without; and the earnest prayers of the devoted and doomed went up to the throne of God in heartfelt supplication, that wisdom might dwell in the hearts of the counsellors to whom the destinies of the nation had been confided; but it seemed as if the heavens were as adamant that could not be pierced, and that no answer would be vouchsafed to the sincere appeal." Such was the situation at the close of President Johnson's term of office, and the elevation of General Grant to the presidential chair. It remained to be seen whether the incoming administration would turn the deaf ear to the suffering and disorganized South as its predecessor had done, or whether, under the guidance of its new Executive head, order should be brought out of chaos, the crooked paths made straight, and the prophecy fulfilled: "Behold, I will redeem them with an outstretched arm."