This week’s Georgia Baptist Christian Index reprints an extract from a sermon preached on August 21, 1863, a Confederate fast day, by Sylvanus Landrum, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Savannah. The sermon reiterates the right of the Southern states to secede and their righteousness in so doing in order to preserve the “security,…
On this last night of the year, free black Baptist congregations throughout the United States and Union-controlled areas of the South observe the January 1 anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation with a “watchnight” service of celebration and prayer for God-granted freedom. There is certainly much to celebrate. Tens of thousands of blacks have been emancipated…
One year after Thomas Nast’s first illustration of Santa Claus appears in Harpers Weekly, Christmas, a day that is not yet universally celebrated in America, is haltingly acknowledged throughout the North and South. In Washington, D.C., U.S. President Abraham Lincoln works today as usual, believing that taxpayers expect such of him. Lincoln’s activities today include…