1854 J. H. THORNWELL. Judgements, A Call to Repentance. Yellow Fever Outbreak in Charlestown.

From the vantage of the 21st century, this seems an odd one indeed. Following a severe outbreak of Yellow Fever arriving and spreading from the port of Charlestown, local pro-slavery Presbyterian divine, James Henley Thornwell, preached a sermon urging self-reflection, repentance, and fresh commitment to God, who had surely sent the plague as a corrective judgement.

It seems strange that Thornwell would not once mention slavery, even slave in its worst forms, as a potential cause. He had condemned cruelty to slaves at other times, but for some reason, it isn't on the radar of this sermon. Perhaps tying slavery go God's judgment he felt made too much hay for the abolitionists to work with.

Rare. 

Thornwell, J. H. Judgments, A Call to Repentance. A Sermon Preached by Appointment of the Legislature in the Hall of House of Representatives. By J. H. Thornwell, D. D. President of South Carolina College. Saturday, Dec. 9, 1854. Columbia, S. C. R. W. Gibbes & Co., State Printers. 1854. 24pp.

A very good copy, bound in wraps, generally solid, with generally bright pages, light foxing, and lightly handled pages as shown.