TESTIMONY OF THE CHURCHES.
"Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets,
Some to the common pulpits, and cry out,
Liberty, freedom, and enfranchisement!"
In quest of arguments against slavery, we have perused the works of
several eminent Christian writers of different denominations, and we now
proceed to lay before the reader the result of a portion of our labor. As
it is the special object of this chapter to operate on, to correct and
cleanse the consciences of slaveholding professors of religion, we shall
adduce testimony only from the five churches to which they, in their
satanic piety, mostly belong--the Presbyterian, the Episcopal, the
Baptist, the Methodist, and the Roman Catholic--all of which, thank
Heaven, are destined, at no distant day, to become thoroughly
abolitionized. With few exceptions, all the other Christian sects are, as
they should be, avowedly and inflexibly opposed to the inhuman institution
of slavery. The Congregational, the Quaker, the Lutheran, the Dutch and
German Reformed, the Unitarian, and the Universalist, especially, are all
honorable, able, and eloquent defenders of the natural rights of man. We
will begin by introducing a mass of
PRESBYTERIAN TESTIMONY.
The Rev. Albert Barnes, of Philadelphia, one of the most learned
Presbyterian preachers and commentators of the day, says:--
"There is a deep and growing conviction in the minds of the mass of
mankind, that slavery violates the great laws of our nature; that it
is contrary to the dictates of humanity; that it is essentially
unjust, oppressive, and cruel; that it invades the rights of liberty
with which the Author of our being has endowed all human beings; and
that, in all the forms in which it has ever existed, it has been
impossible to guard it from what its friends and advocates would call
'_abuses_ of the system.' It is a violation of the first sentiments
expressed in our Declaration of Independence, and on which our
fathers founded the vindication of their own conduct in an appeal to
arms. It is at war with all that a man claims for himself and for his
own children; and it is opposed to all the struggles of mankind, in
all ages, for freedom. The claims of humanity plead against it. The
struggles for freedom everywhere in our world condemn it. The
instinctive feeling in every man's own bosom in regard to himself is
a condemnation of it. The noblest deeds of valor, and of patriotism
in our own land, and in all lands where men have struggled for
freedom, are a condemnation of the system. All that is noble in man
is opposed to it; all that is base, oppressive, and cruel, pleads for
it.
"The spirit of the New Testament is against slavery, and the
principles of the New Testament, if fairly applied, would abolish it.
In the New Testament no man is commanded to purchase and own a slave;
no man is commended as adding anything to the evidences of his
Christian character, or as performing the appropriate duty of a
Christian, for owning one. No where in the New Testament is the
institution referred to as a good one, or as a desirable one. It is
commonly--indeed, it is almost universally--conceded that the proper
application of the principles of the New Testament would abolish
slavery everywhere, or that, the state of things which will exist
when the Gospel shall be fairly applied to all the relations of life,
slavery will not be found among those relations.
"Let slavery be removed from the church, and let the voice of the
church, with one accord, be lifted up in favor of freedom; let the
church be wholly detached from the institution, and let there be
adopted by all its ministers and members an interpretation of the
Bible--as I believe there may be and ought to be--that shall be in
accordance with the deep-seated principles of our nature in favor of
freedom, and with our own aspirations for liberty, and with the
sentiments of the world in its onward progress in regard to human
rights, and not only would a very material objection against the
Bible be taken away--and one which would be fatal if it were well
founded--but the establishment of a very strong argument _in favor_
of the Bible, as a revelation from God, would be the direct result of
such a position."
Thomas Scott, the celebrated English Presbyterian Commentator, says:--
"To number the persons of men with beasts, sheep, and horses, as the
stock of a farm, or with bales of goods, as the cargo of a ship, is,
no doubt, a most detestable and anti-Christian practice."
From a resolution denunciatory of slavery, unanimously adopted by the
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, in 1818, we make the
following extract:--
"We consider the voluntary enslaving of one part of the human race by
another as a gross violation of the most precious and sacred rights
of human nature, as utterly inconsistent with the law of God, which
requires us to love our neighbor as ourselves, and as totally
irreconcilable with the spirit and principles of the Gospel of
Christ, which enjoins that 'all things whatsoever ye would that men
should do to you, do ye even so to them.' * * * We rejoice that the
church to which we belong commenced, as early as any other in this
country, the good work of endeavoring to put an end to slavery, and
that in the same work many of its members have ever since been, and
now are, among the most active, vigorous, and efficient laborers. * *
* We earnestly exhort them to continue, and, if possible, to
increase, their exertions to effect a total abolition of slavery."
A Committee of the Synod of Kentucky, in an address to the Presbyterians
of that State, says:--
"That our negroes will be worse off, if emancipated, is, we feel, but
a specious pretext for lulling our own pangs of conscience, and
answering the argument of the philanthropist. None of us believe that
God has so created a whole race that it is better for them to remain
in perpetual bondage."
EPISCOPAL TESTIMONY.
BISHOP HORSLEY says:--
"Slavery is injustice, which no consideration of policy can
extenuate."
BISHOP BUTLER says:--
"Despicable as the negroes may appear in our eyes, they are the
creatures of God, and of the race of mankind, for whom Christ died,
and it is inexcusable to keep them in ignorance of the end for which
they were made, and of the means whereby they may become partakers of
the general redemption."
BISHOP PORTEUS says:--
"The Bible classes men-stealers or slave-traders among the murderers
of fathers and mothers, and the most profane criminals on earth."
John Jay, Esq., of the City of New-York--a most exemplary Episcopalian--in
a pamphlet entitled, "Thoughts on the Duty of the Episcopal Church, in
Relation to Slavery," says:--
"Alas! for the expectation that she would conform to the spirit of
her ancient mother! She has not merely remained a mute and careless
spectator of this great conflict of truth and justice with hypocrisy
and cruelty, but her very priests and deacons may be seen ministering
at the altar of slavery, offering their talents and influence at its
unholy shrine, and openly repeating the awful blasphemy, that the
precepts of our Saviour sanction the system of American slavery. Her
Northern clergy, with rare exceptions, whatever they may feel on the
subject, rebuke it neither in public nor in private, and her
periodicals, far from advancing the progress of abolition, at times
oppose our societies, impliedly defending slavery, as not
incompatible with Christianity, and occasionally withholding
information useful to the cause of freedom."
A writer in a late number of "The Anti-Slavery Church man," published in
Geneva, Wisconsin, speaking of a certain portion of the New Testament,
says:--
"This passage of Paul places necessary work in the hands of Gospel
ministers. If they preach the whole Gospel, they must preach what
this passage enjoins--and if they do this, they must preach against
American slavery. Its being connected with politics does not shield
them. Political connections cannot place sin under protection. They
cannot throw around it guards that the public teachers of morals may
not pass. Sin is a violation of God's law--and God's law must be
proclaimed and enforced at all hazards. This is the business of the
messenger of God, and if anything stands in its way, it is his right,
rather it is his solemn commission, to go forward--straightway to
overpass the lines that would shut him out, and utter his warnings.
Many sins there are, that, in like manner, might be shielded.
Fashion, and rank, and business, are doing their part to keep much
sin in respectability, and excuse it from the attacks of God's
ministers. But what are these, that they should seal a minister's
lips--what more are the wishes of politicians?"
For further testimony from this branch of the Christian system, if
desired, we refer the reader to the Rev. Dudley A. Tyng, the Rev. Evan M.
Johnson, and the Rev. J. McNamara,--all Broad Church Episcopalians, whose
magic eloquence and irresistible arguments bid fair, at an early day, to
win over to the paths of progressive freedom, truth, justice and humanity,
the greater number of their High and Low Church brethren.
BAPTIST TESTIMONY.
Concerning a certain text, the Rev. Mr. Brisbane, once a slaveholding
Baptist in South Carolina, says:--
"Paul was speaking of the law as having been made for men-stealers.
Where is the record of that law? It is in Exodus xxi. 16, and in
these words: 'He that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be
found in his possession, he shall surely be put to death.' Here it
will be perceived that it was a crime to sell the man, for which the
seller must suffer death. But it was no less a crime to hold him as a
slave, for this also was punishable with death. A man may be
kidnapped out of slavery into freedom. There was no law against that.
And why? Because kidnapping a slave and placing him in a condition of
freedom, was only to restore him to his lost rights. But if the man
who takes him becomes a slaveholder, or a slave seller, then he is a
criminal, liable to the penalty of death, because he robs the man of
liberty. Perhaps some will say this law was only applicable to the
first holder of the slave, that is, the original kidnapper, but not
to his successors who might have purchased or inherited him. But what
is kidnapping? Suppose I propose to a neighbor to give him a certain
sum of money if he will steal a white child in Carolina and deliver
him to me. He steals him; I pay him the money upon his delivering the
child to me. Is it not my act as fully as his? Am I not also the
thief? But does it alter the case whether I agree before hand or not,
to pay him for the child? He steals him, and then sells him to me.
He is found by his parents in my hands. Will it avail me to say I
purchased him and paid my money for him? Will it not be asked, Do you
not know that a white person is not merchantable? And shall I not
have to pay the damage for detaining that child in my service as a
slave? Assuredly, not only in the eyes of the law, but in the
judgment of the whole community, I would be regarded a criminal. So
when one man steals another and offers him for sale, no one, in view
of the Divine law, can buy him, for the reason that the Divine law
forbids that man shall in the first place be made a merchantable
article. The inquiry must be, if I buy, I buy in violation of the
Divine law, and it will not do for me to plead that I bought him. I
have him in possession, and that is enough, God condemns me for it as
a man-stealer. My having him in possession is evidence against me,
and the Mosaic law says, if he be found in my hands, I must die. Now,
when Paul said the law was made for men-stealers, was it not also
saying the law was made for slaveholders? I am not intending to apply
this term in harsh spirit. But I am bound, as I fear God to speak
what I am satisfied is the true meaning of the apostle."
In his "Elements of Moral Science," the Rev. Francis Wayland, D.D., one of
the most erudite and distinguished Baptists now living, says:--
"Domestic slavery proceeds upon the principle that the master has a
right to control the actions, physical and intellectual, of the
slave, for his own, that is, the master's individual benefit; and, of
course, that the happiness of the master, when it comes in
competition with the happiness of the slave, extinguishes in the
latter the right to pursue it. It supposes, at best, that the
relation between master and slave, is not that which exists between
man and man, but is a modification, at least, of that which exists
between man and the brutes.
"Now, this manifestly supposes that the two classes of beings are
created with dissimilar rights: that the master posseses rights which
have never been conceded by the slave; and that the slave has no
rights at all over the means of happiness which God has given him,
whenever these means of happiness can be rendered available to the
service of his master. It supposes that the Creator intended one
human being to govern the physical, intellectual and moral actions of
as many other human beings as by purchase he can bring within his
physical power; and that one human being may thus acquire a right to
sacrifice the happiness of any number of other human beings, for the
purpose of promoting his own. Slavery thus violates the personal
liberty of man as a physical, intellectual, and moral being.
"It purports to give to the master a right to control the physical
labor of the slave, not for the sake of the happiness of the slave,
but for the sake of the happiness of the master. It subjects the
amount of labor, and the kind of labor, and the remuneration for
labor, entirely to the will of the one party, to the entire exclusion
of the will of the other party.
"But if this right in the master over the slave be conceded there are
of course conceded all other rights necessary to insure its
possession. Hence, inasmuch as the slave can be held in this
condition only while he remains in the lowest state of mental
imbecility, it supposes the master to have the right to control his
intellectual development, just as far as may be necessary to secure
entire subjection. Thus, it supposes the slave to have no right to
use his intellect for the production of his own happiness; but, only
to use it in such manner as may conduce to his master's profit.
And, moreover, inasmuch as the acquisition of the knowledge of his
duty to God could not be freely made without the acquisition of other
knowledge, which might, if universally diffused, endanger the control
of the master, slavery supposes the master to have the right to
determine how much knowledge of his duty a slave shall obtain, the
manner in which he shall obtain it, and the manner in which he shall
discharge that duty after he shall have obtained a knowledge of it.
It thus subjects the duty of man to God entirely to the will of man;
and this for the sake of pecuniary profit. It renders the eternal
happiness of the one party subservient to the temporal happiness of
the other. And this principle is commonly carried into effect in
slaveholding countries.
If argument were necessary to show that such a system as this must be
at variance with the ordinance of God, it might be easily drawn from
the effects which it produces both upon _morals_ and _national
wealth_.
Its effects must be disastrous upon the _morals_ of both parties. By
presenting objects on whom passion may be satiated without resistance
and without redress, it cultivates in the master, pride, anger,
cruelty, selfishness and licentiousness. By accustoming the slave to
subject his moral principles to the will of another, it tends to
abolish in him all moral distinction; and thus fosters in him lying,
deceit, hypocrisy, dishonesty, and a willingness to yield himself up
to minister to the appetites of his master.
The effects of slavery on _national wealth_, may be easily seen from
the following considerations:--
Instead of imposing upon all the necessity of labor, it restricts the
number of laborers, that is of producers, within the smallest
possible limit, by rendering labor disgraceful.
It takes from the laborers the natural stimulus to labor, namely, the
desire in the individual of improving his condition; and substitutes,
in the place of it, that motive which is the least operative and the
least constant, namely, the fear of punishment without the
consciousness of moral delinquency.
It removes, as far as possible, from both parties, the disposition
and the motives to frugality. Neither the master learns frugality
from the necessity of labor, nor the slave from the benefits which it
confers. And here, while the one party wastes from ignorance of the
laws of acquisition, and the other because he can have no motive to
economy, capital must accumulate but slowly, if indeed it accumulate
at all.
No country, not of great fertility, can long sustain a large slave
population. Soils of more than ordinary fertility can not sustain it
long, after the richness of the soil has been exhausted. Hence,
slavery in this country is acknowledged to have impoverished many of
our most valuable districts; and, hence, it is continually migrating
from the older settlements, to those new and untilled regions, where
the accumulated manure of centuries of vegetation has formed a soil,
whose productiveness may, for a while, sustain a system at variance
with the laws of nature. Many of our free and of our slaveholding
States were peopled at about the same time. The slaveholding States
had every advantage, both in soil and climate, over their neighbors.
And yet the accumulation of capital has been greatly in favor of the
latter. If any one doubts whether this difference be owing to the use
of slave labor, let him ask himself what would have been the
condition of the slaveholding States, at this moment, if they had
been inhabited, from the beginning, by an industrious yeomanry; each
one holding his own land, and each one tilling it with the labor of
his own hands.
The moral precepts of the Bible are diametrically opposed to slavery.
They are, Thou shalt love thy _neighbor_ as _thyself_, and _all
things whatsoever_ ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even
so unto them.
The application of these precepts is universal. Our neighbor is
_every one whom we may benefit_. The obligation respects _all things
whatsoever_. The precept, then, manifestly, extends to _men, as men,
or men in every condition_; and if to all things whatsoever,
certainly to a thing so important as the right to personal liberty.
Again. By this precept, it is made our duty to cherish as tender and
delicate a respect for the right which the meanest individual
posseses over the means of happiness bestowed upon him by God, as we
cherish for our own right over our own means of happiness, or as we
desire any other individual to cherish for it. Now, were this precept
obeyed, it is manifest that slavery could not in fact exist for a
single instant. The principle of the precept is absolutely subversive
of the principle of slavery. That of the one is the entire equality
of right; that of the other, the entire absorption of the rights of
one in the rights of the other.
If any one doubts respecting the bearing of the Scripture precept
upon this case, a few plain questions may throw additional light upon
the subject. For instance,--
"Do the precepts and the spirit of the Gospel allow me to derive my
support from a system which extorts labor from my fellow-men, without
allowing them any voice in the equivalent which they shall receive;
and which can only be sustained by keeping them in a state of mental
degradation, and by shutting them out, in a great degree, from the
means of salvation?
"Would the master be willing that another person should subject him
to slavery, for the same reasons, and on the same grounds, that he
holds his slave in bondage?
"Would the Gospel allow us, if it were in our power, to reduce our
fellow-citizens of our own color to slavery? If the gospel be
diametrically opposed to the _principle_ of slavery, it must be
opposed to the _practice_ of slavery; and therefore, were the
principles of the gospel fully adopted, slavery could not exist.
"The very course which the gospel takes on this subject, seems to
have been the only one that could have been taken, in order to effect
the universal abolition of slavery. The gospel was designed, not for
one race, or for one time, but for all races, and for all times. It
looked not at the abolition of this form of evil for that age alone,
but for its universal abolition. Hence, the important object of its
Author was, to gain it a lodgment in every part of the known world;
so that, by its universal diffusion among all classes of society, it
might quietly and peacefully modify and subdue the evil passions of
men; and thus, without violence, work a revolution in the whole mass
of mankind.
"If the system be wrong, as we have endeavored to show, if it be at
variance with our duty both to God and to man, it must be abandoned.
If it be asked when, I ask again, when shall a man begin to cease
doing wrong? Is not the answer, _immediately_? If a man is injuring
_us_, do we ever doubt as to the time when _he_ ought to cease? There
is then no doubt in respect to the time when we ought to cease
inflicting injury upon others."
Abraham Booth, an eminent theological writer of the Baptist persuasion,
says:--
"I have not a stronger conviction of scarcely anything, than that
slaveholding (except when the slave has forfeited his liberty by
crimes against society) is wicked and inconsistent with Christian
character. To me it is evident, that whoever would purchase an
innocent black man to make him a slave, would with equal readiness
purchase a white one for the same purpose could he do it with equal
impunity, and no more disgrace."
At a meeting of the General Committee of the Baptists of Virginia, in
1789, the following resolution was offered by Eld. John Leland, and
adopted:--
"_Resolved_, That slavery is a violent deprivation of the rights of
nature, and inconsistent with republican government, and therefore we
recommend it to our brethren to make use of every measure to
extirpate this horrid evil from the land; and pray Almighty God that
our honorable legislature may have it in their power to proclaim the
great jubilee, consistent with the principles of good policy."
METHODIST TESTIMONY.
John Wesley, the celebrated founder of Methodism, says:--
"Men buyers are exactly on a level with men stealers."
Again, he says:--
"American Slavery is the vilest that ever saw the sun; it constitutes
the sum of all villanies."
The learned Dr. Adam Clarke, author of a voluminous commentary on the
Scriptures, says:--
"Slave-dealers, whether those who carry on the traffic in human flesh
and blood; or those who steal a person in order to sell him into
bondage; or those who buy such stolen men or women, no matter of what
color, or what country; or the nations who legalize or connive at
such traffic; all these are men-stealers, and God classes them with
the most flagitious of mortals."
One of the rules laid down in the Methodist Discipline as amended in 1784,
was as follows:--
"Every member of our Society who has slaves in his possession, shall,
within twelve months after notice given to him by the assistant,
legally execute and record an instrument, whereby he emancipates and
sets free every slave in his possession."
Another rule was in these words:--
"No person holding slaves shall in future be admitted into Society,
or to the Lord's Supper, till he previously complies with these rules
concerning slavery."
The answer to the question--"What shall be done with those who buy or sell
slaves, or give them away"--is couched in the following language:--
"They are immediately to be expelled, unless they buy them on purpose
to free them."
In 1785, the voice of this church was heard as follows:--
"We do hold in the deepest abhorrence the practice of slavery, and
shall not cease to seek its destruction, by all wise and prudent
means."
In 1797, the Discipline contained the following wholesome paragraph:--
"The preachers and other members of our Society are requested to
consider the subject of negro slavery, with deep attention, and that
they impart to the General Conference, through the medium of the
Yearly Conferences, or otherwise, any important thoughts on the
subject, that the Conference may have full light, in order to take
further steps towards eradicating this enormous evil from that part
of the Church of God with which they are connected. The Annual
Conferences are directed to draw up addresses for the gradual
emancipation of the slaves, to the legislatures of those States in
which no general laws have been passed for that purpose. These
addresses shall urge, in the most respectful but pointed manner, the
necessity of a law for the gradual emancipation of slaves. Proper
committees shall be appointed by the Annual Conferences, out of the
most respectable of our friends, for conducting the business; and
presiding elders, elders, deacons, and traveling preachers, shall
procure as many proper signatures as possible to the addresses, and
give all the assistance in their power, in every respect, to aid the
committees, and to forward the blessed undertaking. Let this be
continued from year to year, till the desired end be accomplished."
CATHOLIC TESTIMONY.
It has been only about twenty years since Pope Gregory XVI. immortalized
himself by issuing the famous Bull against slavery, from which the
following is an extract:--
"Placed as we are on the Supreme seat of the apostles, and acting,
though by no merits of our own, as the vicegerent of Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, who, through his great mercy, condescended to make
himself man, and to die for the redemption of the world, we regard as
a duty devolving on our pastoral functions, that we endeavor to turn
aside our faithful flocks entirely from the inhuman traffic in
negroes, or any other human beings whatever. * * * In progress of
time, as the clouds of heathen superstition became gradually
dispersed, circumstances reached that point, that during several
centuries there were no slaves allowed amongst the great majority of
the Christian nations; but with grief we are compelled to add, that
there afterwards arose, even among the faithful, a race of men, who,
basely blinded by the appetite and desire of sordid lucre, did not
hesitate to reduce, in remote regions of the earth, Indians, negroes,
and other wretched beings, to the misery of slavery; or, finding the
trade established and augmented, to assist the shameful crime of
others. Nor did many of the most glorious of the Roman Pontiffs omit
severely to reprove their conduct, as injurious to their souls'
health, and disgraceful to the Christian name. Among these may be
especially quoted the bull of Paul III., which bears the date of the
29th of May, 1537 addressed to the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo,
and another still more comprehensive, by Urban VIII., dated the 22d
of April, 1636, to the collector Jurius of the Apostolic chamber in
Portugal, most severely castigating by name those who presumed to
subject either East or West Indians to slavery, to sell, buy,
exchange, or give them away, to separate them from their wives and
children, despoil them of their goods and property, to bring or
transmit them to other places, or by any means to deprive them of
liberty, or retain them in slavery; also most severely castigating
those who should presume or dare to afford council, aid, favor or
assistance, under any pretext, or borrowed color, to those doing the
aforesaid; or should preach or teach that it is lawful, or should
otherwise presume or dare to co-operate, by any possible means, with
the aforesaid. * * * Wherefore, we, desiring to divert this disgrace
from the whole confines of Christianity, having summoned several of
our venerable brothers, their Eminences the Cardinals, of the H. R.
Church, to our council, and, having maturely deliberated on the whole
matter, pursuing the footsteps of our predecessors, admonished by our
apostolical authority, and urgently invoke in the Lord, all
Christians, of whatever condition, that none henceforth dare to
subject to slavery, unjustly persecute, or despoil of their goods,
Indians, negroes, or other classes of men, or be accessories to
others, or furnish them aid or assistance in so doing; and on no
account henceforth to exercise that inhuman traffic by which negroes
are reduced to slavery, as if they were not men, but automata or
chattels, and are sold in defiance of all the laws of justice and
humanity, and devoted to severe and intolerable labors. We further
reprobate, by our apostolical authority, all the above-described
offences as utterly unworthy of the Christian name; and by the same
authority we rigidly prohibit and interdict all and every individual,
whether ecclesiastical or laical, from presuming to defend that
commerce in negro slaves under pretence or borrowed color, or to
teach or publish in any manner, publicly or privately, things
contrary to the admonitions which we have given in these letters.
"And, finally, that these, our letters, may be rendered more apparent
to all, and that no person may allege any ignorance thereof, we
decree and order that it shall be published according to custom, and
copies thereof be properly affixed to the gates of St. Peter and of
the Apostolic Chancel, every and in like manner to the General Court
of Mount Citatorio, and in the field of the Campus Florae and also
through the city, by one of our heralds, according to aforesaid
custom.
"Given at Rome, at the Palace of Santa Maria Major, under the seal of
the fisherman, on the 3d day of December, 1837, and in the ninth year
of our pontificate.
"Countersigned by Cardinal A. Lambruschini."
We have already quoted the language of Pope Leo X., who says:--
"Not only does the Christian religion, but nature herself cry out
against the State of slavery."
The Abbe Raynal says:--
"He who supports slavery is the enemy of the human race. He divides
it into two societies of legal assassins, the oppressors and the
oppressed. I shall not be afraid to cite to the tribunal of reason
and justice those governments which tolerate this cruelty, or which
even are not ashamed to make it the basis of their power."
From the proceedings of a Massachusetts Anti-slavery Convention in 1855,
we make the following extract:--
"Henry Kemp, a Roman Catholic, came forward to defend the Romish
Church in reply to Mr. Foster. He claimed that the Catholic Church is
thoroughly anti-slavery--as thoroughly as even his friend Foster."
Thus manfully do men of pure hearts and noble minds, whether in Church or
State, and without regard to sect or party, lift up their voices against
the wicked and pernicious institution of human slavery. Thus they speak,
and thus they are obliged to speak, if they speak at all; it is only the
voice of Nature, Justice, Truth, and Love, that issues from them. The
divine principle in man prompts him to speak and strike for Freedom; the
diabolical principle within him prompts him to speak and strike for
slavery.
From those churches which are now--as all churches ought to be, and will
be, ere the world becomes Christianized--thoroughly imbued with the
principles of freedom, we do not, as already intimated, deem it
particularly necessary to bring forward new arguments in opposition to
slavery. If, however, the reader would be pleased to hear from the
churches to which we chiefly allude--and, by the bye, he might hear from
them with much profit to himself--we respectfully refer him to Henry Ward
Beecher, George B. Cheever, Joseph P. Thompson, Theodore Parker, E. H.
Chapin, and H. W. Bellows, of the North, and to M. D. Conway, John G. Fee,
James S. Davis, Daniel Wilson, and W. E. Lincoln, of the South. All these
reverend gentlemen, ministers of different denominations, feel it their
duty to preach against slavery, and, to their honor be it said, they do
preach against it with unabated zeal and success. Our earnest prayer is,
that Heaven may enable them, their cotemporaries and successors, to preach
against it with such energy and effect, as will cause it to disappear
forever from the soil of our Republic.