Robertson, D. F. National Destiny and Our Country: A Discourse. New York: E. French, 1851. [7709]
Printed white wrappers, light soil to front, 5 3/4 x 8 3/4 inches, 48 clean and unmarked pp., back of wrapper partially loose. Very good. Pamphlet.
"The following Discourse was first delivered in Rev. Dr. Spring's Church, and, subsequently, in the Broadway Tabernacle, and in the R. D. [Reformed Dutch] Church on Lafayette Place." A sermon on Isaiah 64:6, "We all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away."
Rev. Robertson uses the nation of Israel in the Bible as an example for the United States, comparing their prosperity, popular vices, and fading away with the possibility that the same could happen to the United States. He says the vices and errors creeping into the United States include the efforts for some "monstrous union" of Church and State; contagion from the "dissolute communities of Roman Catholic Europe;" the gradual suppression of Bible education in our public schools; Sabbath [Sunday] desecration, including Sunday Papers; the clergy have fallen from the apostolic Canon Laws of the church, which were proven methods of promoting the faith - "we smile at the miserable crudity that all written creeds are to be set aside"; the institution slavery; the irreligious character of civil authorities, including the "late disgraceful and sanguinary war with Mexico'; that the Constitution of the United States does not expressly recognize Jesus Christ; lack of worship in the home; &c.
