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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