Winchester Daily Bulletin

The fast day was appropriately observed by our citizens. There was Divine Service held at the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Rev. M.H. Bone delivered a discourse applicable to the occasion, the portion has in regard to the cause given in another column of today's paper. The church was thronged with the fair and beautiful of Winchester, with a good portion of the male population. We were glad to observe many of our gray and chivalric soldiers in attendance among the number Col. Palmer, looking much improved in health and spirits. The day passed off pleasantly, and we doubt not the Divinity recognized and smiled upon the religious ceremonies, the people and the Confederacy.

Friday, the 27th.

This day was appropriately observed in our town, as was the case, no doubt, all over the South where the enemy do not hold possession. The business houses, we believe, were all closed, and the church bells called the citizens to the respective places of worship. It seemed to us like Sabbath.

We attended the C. P. church and heard a very impressive discourse by the Rev. Dr. Bone, who founded his remarks upon Psalms, 27th chapter, 13th verse-I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.

Before applying his text, the preacher read the beautiful and christian-like Proclamation of the President, and commented upon the good fortune of a people who had a God-fearing man at the helm of affairs-a man who, while he could attend to the many and arduous duties of the State, did not forget to invoke the assistance of the Almighty, and ascribe to Him all praise. Then, by way of showing where the sin of this war rested, he alluded to the growth of a fanatical party in the North, which, by the aid of immigrants reared under despots and wholly unacquainted with the form of our Government had warred upon the social institutions of the South, commenced with petitions for the suppression of the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and then for the abolition of slavery itself in that district thus interfering with the domestic institutions of a people-whose representatives about their duties had no right to assume control of their affairs. Then came the question of slavery in the territories, and men in high places, and men ambitious of riding into power upon any issue that would secure such power, caught at the idea that no more slave territory should be added to the Union. An 'irrepressible conflict' was preached, and it was said that it didn't behoove any slave labor could not exist under the same Government. Finally this fanatical party succeeded in elevating a man to the Chief Magistracy upon a platform which proclaimed the ruin of the social status of the South-the man who had sanctioned the theory that the States could not remain half slave and half free. After a long train of absurdities to the Constitution, culminating in the election of Lincoln as the chief of a code of outrages, which threatened the ruin of Southern States chose to pass secession ordinances to protect their reserved rights, and withdrew from the federal compact, but in doing so did all they could to avert bloodshed. They sent commissioners to Washington, but our commissioners were treated with contempt, and the olive branch of peace withered beneath the threats of coercion.

Passing over some more elaborate statements of the preacher in which he portrayed the perfidy of Lincoln in trying to reinforce Fort Sumter after having promised that it should be evacuated and given up to its rightful and natural owners-South Carolina-we come to the call of Mr. Lincoln for 75,000 troops with which to crush the rebellion in three months. Our ports were blockaded, and the South shut out from the world. The North had men, munitions of war, a vast navy, and free intercourse with Europe. The North could encircle us with foes on every side, by land and by sea. Many had gloomy forebodings lest we should soon perish. The odds were against us, and we should have fainted, but the goodness of the Lord was displayed in the battle of Manassas. That battle had made us vainglorious, and we forgot to ascribe to God the praise due Him. He has afflicted us with some reverses, but with all the boasted superiority of the enemy in numbers, in munitions of war, &c., he has not gained any important victory. True, Dr. Bone, there were dark clouds lowering about us, and we had croakers in our midst, but none has starved to death, and if our cause is just we would prevail. He believed our cause right. The North called us rebels, but it was a slander. We had never rebelled against the Constitution.

We have no space to give anything like a full report of the Dr.'s remarks. We were much affected by his pathetic allusion to the sufferings of our country, and a most earnest heartfelt prayer did he offer up before taking his text. His text was well applied, and his vindication of our cause perfectly satisfactory. His injunctions were all made in a christian spirit, and with a view to the glory of God. Panoplied around with trust in the Almighty, and tried by being justified in this war, Dr. Bone doubted not our final success.