Excerpt from The Christian Church's Duty to the Freedmen: A Sermon Preached on Thanksgiving Day, December 7, 1865, in Christ Church, Reading, PaBut see. This whole question comes in another form. It has changed relations, indeed, the ques tion itself is changed. It is no longer a discussion on slavery, which, SO long as it was regulated by general or local law, and entered into the creeds of political parties, was objected to by many as a fire brand thrown from the pulpit. It is not of slaves that we are to speak. It is not to discuss whether slavery be a sin. Those Old political issues are blown away by the hot breath of war. With the violent uprooting Of slavery, all political questions connected with it were torn away also. Its destruc tion is about accomplished. It is numbered with the things that have no life, and its carcass is buried low in the grave Of extinct political issues. With the constitutional amendment for a living fact, it will be madness for party to dig away the earth that covers its grave, or to hope for its political resurrection. I say slavery is dead and buried: we have nothing to do with it. But out Of its death Springs a new life, which is felt, because it jostles the life of the nation. It characterizes four millions Of human beings, who to the Government and to the people stand in a widely different and new relation - as different as freedom is from slavery. They are freedmen. We have to deal with this new life.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.