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THE COUNTRYMAN.
Iy J. A. TURNER. “INDEPENDENT in EVERYTHING—NEUTRAL IN NOTHING' ’— $5 for three Months.
TOL. XX.. TURNWOLD (NEAR EATONTON) GA., TUESDAY, MARCH 14, 1865. NO. 11.
fiov. Brown’s Message.
Nothing that we bare seen, read, or heard of,
since the war commenced, baa caused us more
despondency, than the late message of Gov.
Brew*. We have seen city after city, town
after town, military post after military post,
pass from our hands into those of the enemy :
we have seen our “ true and trusted band,’’
crushed dawn upon many a crimsoned field,
by overwhelming, and superior numbers; we
have seen the smoke of burning houses, and
Villages, rise to the blue sky of our southern
clime: we have beard the blood of our brothers
•ry to heaven, for vengeance: we have seen
our women insulted, and the little children of
the south, shrinking, and cowering, before the
gaae of a brutal foe : we have seen our tnaid-
aae tremble in the presence of w hat was worse
than death : wa have seen our best men, and
women, scattered like partridges among the
mountains, or wandering, as exiles, in foreign
lands : we have seen our homes, and our altars
desecratsd, and the hostile tread of a slimy foe
polluting our hearth-stones : we have seen the
vandals enter ths temples of the living God, as
his thunders slept for a season, that they might
gather accumulated stores of the wrath of Om
nipotence : ws have seen our fair fields made
dceelate,and waste, like the waste places which
Israel treads no more : we have had Lincoln’s
venal cohorts to enter our own home, the castle
of a free man, and have been a fugitive, to save
our life, not for the take of that life itself, but
for the take of our God, our country,our wife,
and our children : and yet, under none of these
difficulties, have we ever yielded to despair.
We believed that these light afflictions, were
but for a moment, and that they wou’.d work
out, it not for us, for others, a far more exceed
ing, end eternal weight of glory i and God
knows, if man doea not, we have never yet put
our happiness before that of other people.
In the midst of all these trials and afflictions,
we have believed that our day—the day of our
people—was not far oft. We have suffered
many things, in our humble way—the way of
a peasant, though not of a prince—for our peo
ple. We have andeavored to stand between
our people, and our enemies. We have envied
—no not envied—but we have emulated the
glory of Albion, for our own loved south. We
have desired to write her name upon the his
toric page, by the side of that of Greece, and
Borne, and of other nations that showed their
sens were demi-gods, if not full divinities : and
never before have we felt that the “ abomina
tion of desolation ” had settled upon our cause.
We felt that with a united people, we could
surmount every difficulty • we felt that if there
was no mutiny with the crew—that if the cap
tain did his duty, and the pilot’s nerves remain
ed steady, and unshaken, and the passengers
kept their faith in God—the storm might
howl, and the wind might blow—the tim
bers might creak, and the good old ship rock,
like a feather, oa the billows—it did not mat
ter, so there was ne mutiny aboard. All that
wa asked was unity of purpoae, with officers,
pilot, crew, and passengers, to bring our good
old ship into port.
But since we have witnessed the attempt of
Gov. Brown to pinion the arms of the captain :
since we have seen him trying to fetter the
hands of the commanding officer : since we see
him trying to rule in hell, rather than serve in
heaven*, since we see him possessed of a devil,
rather than being under the direction of Al
mighty God : when we see him go to the pilot,
and, as the pilot tries to regulate the rudder,
thrust bis hands aside, and shout to the pirate
craft that is grappling with our shaken ship,
that all is not well upon that ship, then we be
gin to feel despair—then gloom overshadows
our deck—then we believe there is a Jonas
aboard, and that our good vessel will never
(< walk the waters like & thing of life,” until the
moving cause that raises the winds—that swells
the waves— that rocks theship— is thrown over
board.
Gov. Brown stands between us and indepen
dence. Let us decide whether we will have
Gov. Brown, or liberty.
If we approve ourself strong enough in what
we say, we shall soon be made the victim of
violent, and malignant personal attacks, in or
der to weaken our influence, with regard to
what we say about Gov. Brown. Rut why
should this be so? Three times out of the four,
that Gov. Brown has been a candidate, have we
voted for him, and only failed to vote for him
when Judge Nisbet was his opponent, through
motives ol personal consideration, with which
the public have no concern. Under the same
circumstances, we would vote for Gov. Brown,
EVXBY TIME, ng-ain : but. only because we be-,
lieved him true to the south. That was the
turning point with us. But now we know not
what to believe. We are astonished, surprised,
dumb-foundered. Has Gov. Brown gone over,
horse, foot, and dragoons, to the enemy? We
fear he has. Benedict Arnold, in the treason
that distanced Judas Iscariot so far, that the
latter small traitor will never be heard of upou
the race-path of treason again—particularly
when R. D. Arnold, of Savannah, is ridden up
on the turf, to allow the elder Arnold a breath
ing spell—Benedict Arnold pretended, to the
last, that what he did, he did for his country’s
good. He was no traitor—not he ! He did all
he could for his poor bleeding country. The
government of that country had ruined it, and
he was going to save it.
And what now of Gov. Brown? We con
tend that whatever may be his motives, in the
sight of High Heaven—and God will judge him
at the last 1 — he has stricken bis country a
heavier blow than Benedict Arnold ever did his.
His message is worth to ths yankees more
than all their .victories, from Bowling Green to
Savannah. A bouse divided against itself can
not stand. And if we are to accept Gov.
Brown’s act, as the act of God, aimed at the
Southern Confederacy, then we may consider
ourselves a vessel made unto dishonor. But
thank God, orthodox religion givea us an
other solution to the difficulty. That teaches
us that the devil has much to do With the con*
duct of men, and the only consolation we have^
in the matter, is, that Brown’s message is the
work of the devil, and the bible teaches us that
the devil, and bis works, shall be destroyed. In
this is our hope. Brown, the devil, Sherman,
Lincoln, Seward, and their works must faill
Bobuel.
In our last issue, we made allusion to that
part of the speech, in Augusta, of Gen. Toombs,
in which he prays, like the Athenian of old,
that he may say nothing that will injure the
cause of bis country, and referred to the fact
that this bad long been an element of the gen
eral’s speeches.
We once remarked to Gen. Toombs, at the
Superior Court, in Hancock, how prone writers
and speakers are to fall into stereotyped phrases*
sentences, and modes of expression, and refer
red him to the iact that A. H. Stephens hardly
ever made a speech, that he did not lug McDuff
into it, in the couplet—
* Then lay on McDuff,
And damned be he who first cries hold, enough J’
The reason of this is, that Mr. Stephens is al
ways ready tor a fight, morally, or physically,
and hence he is, in the causfe'df truth, always
disposed to damn at McDuff, or anyone else
that comes in conflict with him.
But Mr. Stephens is no more certain to con-
scribe McDuff into his service, than Gen
Toombs is to impress that old Athenian, who
prayed to the gods that he might say nothing
in his speech that would injure the cause of hie
country: and the reason of Bobuel’s importu
nate prayer, in this connection, is, that he
knows his failing. We can but admire Bob’s
continuing in well-doing, and the faith which
causes him to continue a prayer whieh has nev
er yet been answered.
We'once heard, or beard of, the Rev. N. Q-
Foster’s telling an anecdote, after this wise:
A certain man, in a certain village of Georgia,
when he preached his first sermon, took the
text, ‘And Peter’s wife’s mother lay sick of a
fever.’
After preaching this sermon, he went out
west, and staid forty years, and, after the ex
piration of that period, returned to the village
where he delivered his first sermon, and
chanced to take for his text, again,the same old
passage—‘ And Peter’s wife’s mother lay sick
of a fever.*
It happened that in our minister’s audience
(the last time) a quaint, odd genius, who had
heard the preacher's first sermon, forty years
before, was present at his last, and in a stage
whisper he electrified the congregation assem
bled to hear about the sickness of Peter’s wife’s
mother, by saying, * I wonder if that damned
old woman ain’t dead yet.’
So when we read Bobuel’s speechss about the
prayer of the Grecian,^we are always tempted
to ‘wonder if that damned old Athenian ain’t
dead yet.’
“ Pride ia never a good counsellor."
, F py. a flower never
, so I h.w JtoW2S7rl 1,0 its
"”* kt if h. mX u« «:! r re ? ,..,
—eaning; at lease it would bare req