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FROM THE SAVANNAH HERALD. 
ADDRESS TO THE YOUND MEN OF SAVANNAH IN COUNCIL, 
BY THE
Rev. Geo. G. Smith, at Trinity Church.

AN ELOQUENT AND PATRIOTIC APPEAL.

Trinity church was filled to overflowing last evening, on the occasion of an address by the Rev. George G. Smith, of the Georgia Conference, upon the "duty of the young men of Georgia in the present hour." The simple announcement of the proposed lecture in the HERALD of Tuesday evening, was sufficient to assemble a large audience, comprising great numbers of the young men of Savannah, with a fair proportion of the soldiers and officers of the post. 

Mr. Smith has served as Chaplain in the Southern Army, and from the effects of a wound received while attending to his duties as Chaplain, was unable to stand, and consequently, addressed the audience while sitting. 

The meeting was opened with prayer by Rev. Mr. Wynn. Mr. Smith was introduced to the audience, and delivered the address of which we present the following synopsis: 
The eloquent and stirring address  of Mr. Smith was listened to throughout with the closest attention, and appeared to create a profound impression: 

Mr. Smith said-

Th only apology, my young countrymen, I have to offer to you for occupying my present novel position, is the intense affection I have for you, and the deep anxiety of my heart for your future interest. My subject already announced is "your duty in the present hour."
The hour is a great one, it is pregnant with great results, it calls for new duties; let us know them and meet them.

You will remember four years ago a convention was called in Georgia, composed of her ablest and best children, Cobb was there, Toombs was there, Stephens was there, Hill was there, Johnson was there. Men occupying different stand points, entertaining different views, but all actuated by the same lofty motives, and aiming at the same end  The result of this convention was that the State of Georgia decided to resume her sovereignty, and enter into another Confederacy. The result was war. You were called by her command to the field, and you responded right gallantly. The tide of war oscillated, now victory, now defeat. Great qualities were developed on both sides  The war has ended, and in our defeat. What shall we do now?

The United States Government proposes, as a price we are to pay for citizenship, that we subscribe to an oath. This oath requires-1st. That we promise to obey the Constitution of the United States and the Union thereunder; 2d. That we emancipate our slaves. 

The alternative is presented of subscribing to this oath. or leaving the land, of subscribing to this oath or shutting ourselves out of the pale of citizenship. Shall we accept the alternative? Unhesitatingly I answer. No

We cannot forsake the feeble, the maimed, the aged, the defenceless. The noblest heroism is that which leads a man to sacrifice himself; and whatever might be my personal feelings, I could not forsake these. 

Again, your interest will be secured by subscribing. In all the world you will find no sphere in which you can act to such advantage as here. What! forsake the homes your fathers won from the forest and foe, the graves of your loved, because of a feeling of pride? No, never.

That you will take this oath without mental reservation, I need not say. The man who, from the sanctity of an editorial chamber, makes an insinuation to the contrary, is as base as he is cowardly, and the charge is as false as it is degrading. If you subscribe to this oath, it will be in all good conscience. Your fault was never time-serving treachery.

There are those who would have you bow servilely at the feet of the conqueror, denounce President Davis a traitor, call imprecations upon the grey head of our dear old leader, R. E. Lee—and with your own hand brand yourselves with infamy—but gentlemen they are not the gallant members of the army which conquered us, not the Government, but ignoble souls who can understand no principle of nobility or magnanimity. As a distinguished Brigadier General of the United States said to me today, we are not required to think, but to act. Let us take the oath, heartily keep it, and set to work bravely to 
re-organize out State.

Your duty of courtesy to the soldiers among us is apparent. They show every disposition to be kind, let us meet them—our hopes against future aggression is in them.

Be magnanimous enough to recognize the pure motives which led them into this contest.

Remember he who insults the strong, presuming upon his forbearance, is as cowardly as he who treats with insult the weakness of the fallen.

Remember your duty to the maimed and suffering of your old comrades, to their widows and orphans. Obeying the same call which called you in to the field, they have not been so fortunate. They have fallen or returned wounded and maimed. The Government of the United States will not provide for theirs or them—your own State cannot; it remains for individuals to do the work. We must be true to this call. To visit the fatherless and the widow is everywhere the dictate of Christianity—to visit such widows and such orphans, is to you the dictate of simple humanity. I am a poor man, by the result of this revolution—a beggared man—but never have I been, never will I be so poor, that my log cabin will not furnish a shelter, my table a crust for one of these.

Your duty to the freedmen deserves mention. They were born under our own roof, they were our playmates in infancy, they have been our friends in manhood. They nursed us in sickness, and when we went to the army they remained and they were humble and true and stood by us in trial. By the fiat of the U.S. President they are free.  They did not seek, ask for it, or demand it. If under the insane excitement of this new transition, influenced by the counsels of vulgar minds, they act extravagantly, forgive them, nor let the ties of affection which bound them to you, be broken.

When labor and capital come in conflict, as it will, a strong temptation will be presented to wrong and oppress them. There will be danger of re-enacting the scene of Manchester and Glasgow, of the Coal Mines of England and great manufacturing establishments everywhere. Resist the temptations, be kind, be just, be true.

Co-operate with every effort made to advance them. With schools, with churches. Unlike those of another section we are not willing to cast them off but let us stand by them and labor with them. I assert fearlessly here, that young as I am, I have done more for the salvation of the soul of the negro and for his moral elevation than Henry Ward Beecher ever dared to do, and am to-day prepared for greater sacrifices and labors for his welfare than are those shriekers, who call me slave-driver—so have you, so will you. But, gentlemen, an effort will be made to give them the right of suffrage. Demagogues and fanatics will second it. We must resist it. The right of suffrage, like Sinbad's old man of the sea, is easy to get on and hard to get rid of. We refuse it to them as we refuse it to minors, as the Californian does the Chinaman, the western man to the Indian, and all to Foreigners until they have been here five years. I am glad to see that President Johnson has had the courage to resist this movement. Let him be firm, and forgetting the past, we will stand by him and support him in every just measure. When they shall be elevated sufficiently for this right, we will yield it and not till then. We are aware, gentlemen, that we can control this power. We are aware that with it, we can injure those who clamor for it. But we would not for party or personal purposes, open such a flood gate of corruption, offer such a premium for rascality. Let those, who, for party aims, clamor for it, remember there is such a thing as digging a pit for another, and falling themselves into it.

The duty, young gentlemen, which you owe to yourselves is one to which I call your special attention.

During the progress of this war you became weaned from the vices of the city, the billiard room, the gaming saloon, the drinking saloon and the brothel. You find yourself bereft by this revolution of fortune and with nothing left but your character—see that it is kept untarnished. Avoid vices, cultivate a high christian virtue. Let a noble principle of honor, a generous benevolence, a christian devotion be yours. Remember,

"That, 'tis only noble to be good—
Kind hearts are more than coronel,
And simple faith than Norman blood."

A nation's strength is not in its bayonets, nor the calibre of its guns, but in the virtue of its people.  Oh, I pray you never sink to the degrading avarice, that counts no sacrifice of nobility, as dear, which make a return in money.

Cultivate I beseech you, your native mind. The intellect of the South is equal to any other intellect, but heretofore we have consented to let others labor that we might enter into the fruit of the labors. This must be so no longer. We must not only enjoy the delights of literature, but must share its toils. Let us bid adieu to ease and say to labor, thou art my brother and let us reach that position of intellectual excellence to which we are entitled. You must be our statesman, and ministers, our architects, and lawyers, fit yourselves for the work before you.

Again I would urge you to appreciate as you should the nobility of labor. It has been charged against us by those who know as much of the South as they do of the Hottentots, that the labor is scorned among us. Not so gentlemen; no where has the true and accomplished man stood more upon his own merits. We must go to work. We have lost all but our honor. Off with your coat then, wield the blacksmith's hammer, stand beside the machinist's lathe, plunge into the forests with the surveyors chain, stand behind the handles of the plow, work anywhere, everywhere—do anything but fawn and cringe and defraud. Remember that the truest nobility is the nobility of labor, but while you have the hand of a peasant, remember you have the heart of a prince. In this labor willingly will our noble country-women stand by you.  They have excited our highest admiration, as during these four terrible years, they have watched and waited, toiled and wept, but never did they appear so lovely as now.

My admiration for you, my young countrywomen, was never so great as now, when bereft of all, you so willingly, so unmurmuringly go through the menial labors of the kitchen and the wash room. I am sure you will not kiss the cheek less fondly because it is tanned, nor clasp the hand less warmly because it is rough—nor will you in the eyes of those who are your defenders lose a glean of your transcendent loveliness, because of your toils. The diadem of industry which you wear shines brighter than that of diamonds on Eugenie's regal brow.

The rank is but the guinea's stamp—
The man's a man for a' that.

Impoverished as we are, we are not disgraced. Rise up then and say—

"Turn fortune, turn thy wheel; thyself and it we neither love not hate,
Our hoard is little, but our heart's are great;
For man is man, and master of his fate."

The future, my young countrywomen, opens bright before us, if we are true to ourselves. The old men who see now the labor of lives swept away are broken spirited and energless. We must show them that their sons are not unworthy of them, and we will repair the fortunes which they lose.

Our State is boundless in her resources. I have stood upon the mountain peaks which bound her northern border.  I have stood in the rich plains through which the Chattahoochee flows on the West, besides the broad Savannah on the East, and in the Italy of the State in the South, I make my home, and as I call up what I know of her I feel a throb of most exultant hope.

Her mountains conceal in their swelling bosoms rich treasures of coal and iron, and copper. Her very river sands are gold. Her splendid quarries of marble invite the mallet and saw. Her rich plains, on which cotton, corn, wheat, rye, barley, oats, sugar cane and tobacco, grow so luxuriantly, are still here. Here the apple, the peach, the cherry, the pear, the orange, the banana, the olive, the melon, all grow at our bidding. Her forests are filled with treasures of timber, and when her pines are bidden, they yield to our call rich stores of turpentine and rosin. Grand rivers permeate her, railroads course over her, and all she asks of her sons is industry and virtue. Shall we forsake her for any land?  No. no! Come to her aid true hearted sons of her soil, and she will richly reward you.

The church, the schoolroom, the college, will all flourish again, and, an independent, virtuous, religious race, we will rise to a height of glory we have not dreamed of.

To your work, then, to your work. Let no whining tones of despair be heard, but let the air ring with shouts of cheering hope, as we enter upon our mission. Shattered and broken as I am, I may not live to see that day, but it will come if we are true.

On, then, to the field of glory that awaits, and may God attend you.

[[stamp]] THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE UNITED STATES [[/stamp]]