Rev. Dr. Tyng.
In the Episcopal Church of the North, there was always a notorious exception to the moderation and wisdom which, in the days of the old Union, marked its counsels, in the person of one Stephen H. Tyng, Doctor in Divinity, and special champion of the general spiritual welfare of mankind. Dr. Tyng was never content with the state of vital piety in the Church of modern times, but set up a higher standard of evangelical godliness than any which had entered into the imaginations of Christendom since the days of the apostles.--He has been put forward at all the annual, monthly and weekly meetings of American Bible, Tract, Missionary, and other religious and benevolent associations, as the mover of resolutions, the speaker of speeches, the exponent of the genuine doctrines and spirit of the popular religion of New York. If Satan was supposed to have one enemy in New York whom he held in more terror than any other, it was believed to be Stephen H. Tyng. The great wonder was that Satan did not spring some trap upon Tyng, to get him out of the way; that he did not assail him in bodily shape, as he did Martin Luther; that he permitted Tyng to "hold, occupy and possess" his once recognized headquarters, the city of New York, without any attempt to eject him from that strong position. An attentive perusal of the following extract from a report of a Bible Society Meeting, published in a New York paper, will show that the Devil knows very well what he is about:‘ "Suppose Rhode Island should want to go. We could afford to keep that State for a clambed, but we could never allow any other flag to wave over it than the Stars and Stripes. [Cheers.] So we could afford to keep Louisiana for alligators, but no other flag but ours should wave over it. [Cheers.] It the blood of thousands upon thousands were needed to seal the issue, with bowed heads we could only say, Thy will, O God, be done.
"George Douglas, Esq., who gave $1000 to the Society, said he believed Providence had appointed Gen. Scott to be the leader of our forces in this second war for liberty, as He had Gen. Washington in the first.
"Dr. S. A. Tyng next addressed the meeting. Never were a people brought together to maintain dearer rights or more important interests than these involved in the present contest. He could not take a pirate's hand, who were going out to secure a prize of twenty dollars a head for every man he murdered, and put a Bible in his hands, as a sanction for his course. What kind of a Union would that be, where the chains of the slave should sound from one end of the land to the other, and the infernal boast be realized that a man should count the roll of his slaves on Bunker Hill? This was not a war of sections; it was not a civil war. He would dignity it by no such name. There were hundreds and thousands in the Southern land praying for the power which should give them help. In Virginia, the scene of eighteen years of his ministry, there were tens of thousands, he believed, who were anxiously waiting for that which is called the army of the North to deliver them from the tyranny that had been usurped over them. He would not descend to call it civil warfare. He would not meet pirates upon the deck and call it warfare. He would hang them as quick as he would shoot a mad dog. [Cheers,]
"There was one road to peace, and that was absolute and entire subjugation. [Cheers.] He did not mean the subjugation of the South, but of the riotous mob which there had control of affairs. The sword of justice was the only pen that could write the final treaty. Referring to the troops that had been raised, the speaker asked, whoever saw such an army as had been gathered in our land? He would not except the rare birds of Billy Wilson's Regiment. He might venture to say of them that their salvation might lie in the very consecration they have made of themselves to their country. [Cheers] Twenty-three thousand Bibles had been given to the troops who go to fight for their country; did anybody believe there were five hundred copies in the army of renegades who are meeting them in the contest? It would scald and singe their polluted hands. We had every cause to be proud of our army. They are worthy of the Bible. How their names will glisten in glory! One of the noblest results he looked for was a land without a slave upon it. [Cheers.] A nation in which no more shall God's image be sold upon the block by the auctioneer. Said a gentleman, ‘"The Bible authorizes human slavery; you must acknowledge that slavery is a Divine institution."’ The old minister to whom the remark was addressed, gathered himself up and replied ‘"Yes, sir, in the same sense in which hell is."’ [Cheers.]
"After the singing of the doxology, the meeting dispersed." ’ The man who made the above speech lived eighteen years in Virginia, and therefore knows the utter falsehood of every word he utters. Others may and do err from ignorance. Multitudes in the North and in Europe have never had an opportunity to know the actual state of things in the South. This man knows it well. He knows that the Bible is in every house, and in almost every hand in Virginia. He knows that slavery is not the thing he represents. As willfully and deliberately as vindictively, he ejects the venom of his reptile nature upon that Virginia whose hospitable bosom warmed him into life. His exultation over Billy Wilson's regiment, organized with the avowed purpose of rapine and plunder, is enough of itself to demonstrate the man's total depravity. If his well known humility does not prevent him from aspiring to minister to the spiritual welfare of such saints, why does he not come to Virginia as Chaplain of that Regiment?
