Chapter II: Preface (2)

How long, O gracious God! how long,
Shall power lord it over right?
The feeble, trampled by the strong,
Remain in slavery’s gloomy night?
In every region of the earth,
Oppression rules with iron power;
And every man of sterling worth,
Whose soul disdains to cringe or cower
Beneath a haughty tyrant’s nod,
And, supplicating, kiss the rod
That, wielded by oppression’s might,
Smites to the earth his dearest right,--
The right to speak, and think, and feel,
And spread his uttered thoughts abroad,
To labor for the common weal,
Responsible to none but God,--
Is threatened with the dungeon’s gloom,
The felon’s cell, the traitor’s doom,
And treacherous politicians league
With hireling priests, to crush and ban
All who expose their vile intrigue,
And vindicate the rights of man.
How long shall Afric’ raise to thee
Her fettered hand, O Lord! in vain,
And plead in fearful agony
For vengeance for her children slain?
I see the Gambia’s swelling flood,
And Niger’s darkly rolling wave,
Bear on their bosoms, stained with blood,
The bound and lacerated slave;
While numerous tribes spread near and far,
Fierce, devastating, barbarous war,
Earth’s fairest scenes in ruin laid,
To furnish victims for that trade,
Which breeds on earth such deeds of shame,
As fiends might blush to hear or name.
I see where Danube’s waters roll,
And where the Magyar vainly strove,
With valiant arm and faithful soul,
In battle for the land he loved,--
A perjured tyrant’s legions tread
The ground where Freedom’s heroes bled,
And still the voice of those who feel
Their country’s wrongs, with Austrian steel.
I see the “Rugged Russian Bear,”
Lead forth his slavish hordes, to war
Upon the right of every State
Its own affairs to regulate;
To help each despot bind the chain
Upon the people’s rights again,
And crush beneath his ponderous paw
All constitutions, rights, and law.
I see in France,--O burning shame!--
The shadow of a mighty name,
Wielding the power her patriot bands
Had boldly wrenched from kingly hands,
With more despotic pride of sway
Than ever monarch dared display.
The Fisher, too, whose world-wide nets
Are spread to snare the souls of men,
By foreign tyrants’ bayonets
Established on his throne again,
Blesses the swords still reeking red
With the best blood his country bore,
And prays for blessings on the head
Of him who wades through Roman gore.
The same unholy sacrifice
Where’er I turn bursts on mine eyes,
Of princely pomp, and priestly pride,
The people trampled in the dust,
Their dearest, holiest rights denied,
Their hopes destroyed, their spirit crushed:
But when I turn the land to view,
Which claims, par excellence, to be
The refuge of the brave and true,
The strongest bulwark of the free,
The grand asylum for the poor
And trodden down of every land,
Where they may rest in peace, secure,
Nor fear the oppressor’s iron hand,--
Worse scenes of rapine, lust, and shame,
Than e’er disgraced the Russian name,
Worse than the Austrian ever saw,
Are sanctioned here as righteous law.
Here might the Austrian butcher[M] make
Progress in shameful cruelty,
Where women-whippers proudly take
The meed and praise of chivalry.
Here might the cunning Jesuit learn,
Though skilled in subtle sophistry,
And trained to persevere in stern
Unsympathizing cruelty,
And call that good, which, right or wrong,
Will tend to make his order strong:
He here might learn from those who stand
High in the gospel ministry,
The very magnates of the land
In evangelic piety,
That conscience must not only bend
To everything the church decrees,
But it must also condescend,
When drunken politicians please
To place their own inhuman acts
Above the “higher law” of God,
And on the hunted victim’s tracks
Cheer the malignant fiends of blood,
To help the man-thief bind the chain
Upon his Christian brother’s limb,
And bear to slavery’s hell again
The bound and suffering child of Him
Who died upon the cross, to save
Alike, the master and the slave.
While all the oppressed from every land
Are welcomed here with open hand,
And fulsome praises rend the heaven
For those who have the fetters riven
Of European tyranny,
And bravely struck for liberty;
And while from thirty thousand fanes
Mock prayers go up, and hymns are sung,
Three million drag their clanking chains,
“Unwept, unhonored, and unsung;”
Doomed to a state of slavery,
Compared with which the darkest night
Of European tyranny,
Seems brilliant as the noonday light.
While politicians void of shame,
Cry this is law and liberty,
The clergy lend the awful name
And sanction of the Deity,
To help sustain the monstrous wrong,
And crush the weak beneath the strong.
Lord, thou hast said the tyrant’s ear
Shall not be always closed to thee,
But that thou wilt in wrath appear,
And set the trembling captive free.
And even now dark omens rise
To those who either see or hear,
And gather o’er the darkening skies
The threatening signs of fate and fear;
Not like the plagues which Egypt saw,
When rising in an evil hour,
A rebel ’gainst the “higher law,”
And glorying in her mighty power,--
Saw blasting fire, and blighting hail,
Sweep o’er her rich and fertile vale,
And heard on every rising gale
Ascend the bitter mourning wail;
And blighted herd, and blasted plain,
Through all the land the first-born slain,
Her priests and magi made to cower
In witness of a higher power,
And darkness like a sable pall
Shrouding the land in deepest gloom,
Sent sadly through the minds of all,
Forebodings of approaching doom.
What though no real shower of fire
Spreads o’er this land its withering blight,
Denouncing wide Jehovah’s ire
Like that which palsied Egypt’s might;
And though no literal darkness spreads
Upon the land its sable gloom,
And seems to fling around our heads
The awful terrors of the tomb;
Yet to the eye of him who reads
The fate of nations past and gone,
And marks with care the wrongful deeds
By which their power was overthrown,--
Worse plagues than Egypt ever felt
Are seen wide-spreading through the land,
Announcing that the heinous guilt
On which the nation proudly stands,
Has risen to Jehovah’s throne,
And kindled his Almighty ire,
And broadcast through the land has sown
The seeds of a devouring fire;
Blasting with foul pestiferous breath,
The fountain springs of moral life,
And planting deep the seeds of death,
And future germs of deadly strife;
And moral darkness spreads its gloom
Over the land in every part,
And buries in a living tomb
Each generous prompting of the heart.
Vice in its darkest, deadliest stains,
Here walks with brazen front abroad,
And foul corruption proudly reigns
Triumphant in the church of God,
And sinks so low the Christian name,
In foul degrading vice and shame,
That Moslem, Heathen, Atheist, Jew,
And men of every faith and creed,
To their professions far more true,
More liberal both in word and deed,
May well reject with loathing scorn
The doctrines taught by those who sell
Their brethren in the Saviour born,
Down into slavery’s hateful hell;
And with the price of Christian blood
Build temples to the Christian’s God,
And offer up as sacrifice,
And incense to the God of heaven,
The mourning wail, and bitter cries,
Of mothers from their children riven;
Of virgin purity profaned
To sate some brutal ruffian’s lust,
Millions of godlike minds ordained
To grovel ever in the dust,
Shut out by Christian power and might
From every ray of Christian light.
How long, O Lord! shall such vile deeds
Be acted in thy holy name,
And senseless bigots o’er their creeds
Fill the whole world with war and flame?
How long shall ruthless tyrants claim
Thy sanction to their bloody laws,
And throw the mantle of thy name
Around their foul, unhallowed cause?
How long shall all the people bow
As vassals of the favored few,
And shame the pride of manhood’s brow,--
Give what to God alone is due,
Homage, to wealth, and rank, and power,
Vain shadows of a passing hour?
Oh for a pen of living fire,
A tongue of flame, an arm of steel!
To rouse the people’s slumbering ire,
And teach the tyrants’ hearts to feel.
O Lord! in vengeance now appear,
And guide the battles for the right,
The spirits of the fainting cheer,
And nerve the patriot’s arm with might;
Till slavery, banished from the world,
And tyrants from their power hurled,
And all mankind from bondage free,
Exult in glorious liberty!

J. M. Whitfield.

LETTER FROM WILSON ARMISTEAD TO THE SECRETARY OF THE SOCIETY.

LEEDS, 7TH MO. 22, 1852.

MY DEAR FRIEND:--

In responding to thy welcome communication, I may say that I rejoice in the cause of the interruption of our correspondence, so far as it concerns thyself; thy time and talents being so increasingly occupied, in union with other of humanity’s advocates, in assisting to overturn the monster iniquity of our age, that crowning crime of Christendom,--_negro slavery!_

Go on in this good work! and may God’s blessing abundantly attend, till the eternal overthrow be effected of a system so fraught with every evil; so abhorrent to the rights of nature, and so contrary to the spirit of the Gospel;--till the galling chain be broken off the necks of America’s three million slaves; till its victims be raised from the profoundest depths of ignorance and woe, to which they are now degraded.

’Tis a marvel to me, that a system like that of negro slavery, which admits of such atrocities, can be tolerated for a single hour! Ought not every one who has a spark of humanity, to say nothing of Christianity, in his bosom,--ought not all the sound part of every community in which slavery exists to rise up _en masse_, and declare that, this abomination shall exist no longer?

Who gave to any man the right to enslave his fellow man? Can any enactment of human legislators so far sanction robbery, as lawfully to make one man the property of another? Has God poured the tide of life through the African’s breast, and animated it with a portion of his own Divine spirit, and at the same time deprived him of all natural affections, that _he_ alone is to be struck off the list of rational beings, and placed on a level with the brute? Is his flesh marble, and his sinews iron, or his immortal spirit of a class condemned, without hope, to penal suffering, that he is called upon to endure incessant toil, and to be subjected to degradation, bodily and mental, such as no other portion of the family of Adam have ever been destined to endure, without the vengeance of Heaven being signally displayed upon the oppressors? Does the African mother feel less love to her offspring than the white woman? or the African husband regard with less tenderness the wife of his bosom? Is his heart dead to the ties of kindred,--his nature so brutalized, that the sacred associations of home and country awaken no emotions in his breast?

History unanswerably demonstrates that the negro does feel, keenly feel, the wrongs inflicted upon him by his unrighteous enslavers, and that his mind, barren as it has been rendered by hard usage, and desolated with misery, is not unwatered by the pure and gentle streams of natural affection. Yet the lordly oppressors remain unmoved by the sad condition of the negro, contemplate with indifference his bodily and mental sufferings, and still dare to postpone to an indefinite period the termination of his oppression and of their own guilt.

But thanks be to God! there _is_ some counteracting influence to this feeling, and that it is on the advance. The night has been long and dark,--already the horizon brightens; the day of freedom dawns.

Go on, then, my friend; I say, go on! in the good cause thou hast espoused. Labor, and faint not. “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might.” My kind regards to Frederick Douglass; may he, and all others also, be strengthened and encouraged to labor in the great work of human freedom; that so, by gradual increase, like the mighty surge, they may become strong enough to overpower and drown the oppressor, and be enabled to devise and execute measures of mercy and justice, which may avert the judgments of the Almighty from their guilty land. For surely some signal display of Divine displeasure must await America, unless she repent, and undo the heavy burdens of her THREE MILLION SLAVES.

Are not the signs of the times calculated to remind us forcibly of this language of Isaiah, “Behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity; the earth also shall disclose her blood, and no more cover her slain.” Do we not hear already

“----the wheels of an avenging God,
Groan heavily along the distant road?”

Assuredly, he comes to judge the earth. “Who shall abide the day of his coming; who shall stand when he appeareth?”

Thy Friend, very truly,

Wilson Armistead

IMPROMPTU STANZAS,

SUGGESTED BY THE WORKING OF THE FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT, AS ILLUSTRATED IN THE CASE OF REV. DOCTOR PENNINGTON.

BY THE WORK-SHOP BARD.

Bring out the handcuffs, clank the rusted gyves;
Rain down your curses on the doomed race;
Hang out a terror that shall haunt their lives,
In every place.

Unloose the bloodhounds from oppression’s den;
Arm every brigand in the name of law,
And triple shield of pulpit, press, and pen,
Around them draw.

Ho! politicians, orators, divines!
Ho! cotton-mongers of the North and South!
Strike now for slavery, or our Union’s shrines
Are gone forsooth!

Down from their glory into chaos hurled,
Your thirty States in shivered fragments go,
Like the seared leaves by autumn tempests whirled
To depths below.

Closed be each ear, let every tongue be dumb;
Nor one sad pitying tear o’er man be shed,
Though fainting at your threshold he should come,
And ask for bread.

Though woman, fleeing from the cruel grip
Of foul oppression, scarred and stained with blood,
Where from the severed veins the driver’s whip
Hath drank its flood.

Though helpless childhood ask--O pitying Heaven!--
The merest crumb which falls upon the floor,
Tho’ faint and famished, bread must not be given,
Bolt fast the door.

And must it be, thou just and holy God!
That in our midst thy peeled and stricken poor
Shall kneel and plead amid their tears and blood,
For evermore?

Shall those whom thou hast sent baptized from heaven,
To preach the Gospel the wide world around,
To teach the erring they may be forgiven,
Be seized and bound?

Placed on the auction-block, with chattels sold,
Driven like beasts of burden day by day,
The flock be scattered from the shepherd’s fold,
The spoiler’s prey?

How long--thy people cry--O Lord, how long!
Shall not thine arm “shake down the bolted fire!”
Can deeds like these of God-defying wrongs,
Escape His ire?

Must judgments,--such as swept with fearful tread
O’er Egypt when she made thy people slaves,
Where thy hand strewed with their unburied dead
The Red Sea waves?

Must fire and hail from heaven upon us fall,
Our first-born perish ’neath the Avenger’s brand,
And sevenfold darkness, like a funeral pall
O’erspread the land?

We kneel before thy footstool, gracious God,
Spare thou our nation, in thy mercy spare;
We perish quickly ’neath thy lifted rod
And arm made bare.

J. M. Eells.
WEST TROY, MARCH, 1851.

JOHN MURRAY (OF GLASGOW).

About a year ago, the newspapers announced the death of Mr. John Murray, for many years the secretary of the Glasgow Emancipation Society, and I would do violence to truth and humanity whose servant and soldier he was, should I neglect to pen a few recollections of that most earnest and efficient man.

He was related to the ancient and honorable family of the Oswalds of Sheildhall, and received that excellent educational and religious training which is given to the children of the middle and higher classes in Scotland. At the age of twenty-two or three, in consequence of an attack of pulmonary hemorrhage, he sailed for the West Indies and found employment at his trade, house-building, in St. Kitts. Very soon, however, he found other matters to engage, and almost engross his attention and labors; in conjunction with an uncle of George Stephen of London, and a Dr. Hamilton, resident in St. Kitts, he did manly and successful fight in behalf of the wronged and bleeding slave.

After a residence in that island of some years, during which he obtained a thorough knowledge of the workings of slavery, he returned to Glasgow, poor in pocket, but rich in abolitionism. Soon after his return, he was united in marriage to Miss Anna ----, a lady whose perfect harmony in sentiment, softened by feminine delicacy, made a happy anti-slavery home for the zealous and ardent abolitionism of John Murray. It was a union of hearts attached in early youth, and which had remained “leal” during a long separation.

Shortly after marriage, he commenced business as a _spirit-dealer_, then and now a most reputable calling in the opinion of the good citizens of Glasgow. Temperate himself, his calling gradually became unpleasant to him. At first he refused to sell spirits to any person partly inebriated; then he reasoned himself into a total abandonment of the death-dealing traffic. With no other business prospect before him, prevented by his long difficulty from working at his trade, with a young wife and child dependent on him, he suddenly locked up his spirit-cellar and never more sold rum!

In 1828 or 1829, through the influence of his kinsman, James Oswald, Esq., of Sheildhall, Mr. Murray was appointed surveyor on a part of the Forth and Clyde canal, an office requiring much labor for little pay. His prospects of promotion depended on Mr. Oswald and other members of the Kirk of Scotland. Mr. Murray was a full member of the Tron Church, Glasgow, when, according to law, a minister was appointed there regardless of the choice, and contrary to the wishes of the great majority of its members. In consequence of this appointment, and again unmindful of personal advancement, John Murray shook the dust from his sandals and quit at once and forever the Tron Church and the Kirk of Scotland.

About the same time the Glasgow Emancipation Society was formed or re-organized, on the doctrine of immediate emancipation so splendidly announced by a secession minister of Edinburgh. The secretaries of this association were John Murray the surveyor, and William Smead, of the Gallowgate, grocer; the last a Friend. These two were the head and front, the thinking and the locomotive power of this well known association which did notable fight, if not the principal labor, in effecting emancipation in the British West Indies, and in assaulting American slavery.

And, twenty odd years ago, it was no trifling matter to do anti-slavery work in Glasgow, the very names of whose stateliest streets proclaimed that they were built by money wrung out of the blood and sweat of the negroes of Jamaica, St. Vincents, etc. The whole of the retired wealth, nearly all the active business influence, the weight of the Established Church, the rank and fashion of Glasgow, and though last not least, the keen wit of the poet Motherwell,[N] and the great statistical learning and industry of M’Queen were arrayed on the side of the slave-holder. Sugar and cotton and rum were lords of the ascendant! Yet the poor surveyor and the humble grocer fought on; nor did they fight alone; the silvery voice and keen acumen of Ralph Wardlaw, the earnest and powerful Hugh Heugh, the inexorable logic and burning sarcasm of swarthy Wully Anderson, and the princely munificence of James Johnston, combined to awaken the people to the enormity of slavery. And the Voluntary Church movement, and the fight for the Reform Bill aroused a varied eloquence in the orators who plead for, and a kindling enthusiasm in the people who were struggling on the liberal side of all these questions; for the people, battling for their own rights, had heart room to hear the prayer for the rights of others more deeply oppressed. Thus ever will liberty be expansive and expanding in the direction of human brotherhood.

Then KNIBB came along with his fiery eloquence, which swept over and warmed the hearts of the people with indignation at the dishonor done religion in the martyrdom of the missionary Smith; and then the grand scene in the British emancipation drama, the overthrow of Bostwick by George Thompson, and the monster petitions and the reluctant assent of the ministry and the passage of the bill.

Those were stirring times in Glasgow, and it did one’s heart good to see John Murray in their midst. The arrangements for nearly all those movements originated with, and were carried out by him; he never made a speech of one minute long, yet he most effectively arranged all the speaking, drew up all the resolutions and reports and addresses; and most of the movements in England, the pressure upon the ministry, and the advocacy in Parliament were the result of his wide and laborious correspondence. He used more than one ream of paper for manuscripts upon the great cause which he seemed born to carry out successfully. In addition to his other correspondence, nearly every issue of two of the Glasgow tri-weekly papers contained able articles from his pen in reply to the elaborate defence of slavery carried on in the Glasgow Courier by Mr. M’Queen. And yet this man, doing this mighty work, was so entirely unobtrusive, so quiet in his labors, that few beyond the committee knew him other than the silent secretary of the Glasgow Emancipation Society. And I shall not soon forget the perfect consternation with which he heard a vote of thanks tendered him by resolution at an annual meeting of the society.

In 1835 or 1836, Mr. Murray was promoted to the office of collector at Bowling Bay, for the company he had so long and faithfully served. And many an anti-slavery wayfarer can testify to the warm welcome and genial hospitality of the snug little stone building so beautifully packed on the Clyde entrance of the Forth and Clyde canal. A charming family, consisting of a devoted wife, two most promising boys, and a retiring, sweet tempered girl, made happy the declining years of this great friend of the slave, and earnest pioneer in many reforms. Freedom for Ireland, the Peace Question, Radical Reform, a Free Church, and Total Abstinence, were questions to all of which Mr. Murray devoted his pen and his purse. His soul received and advocated whatever looked towards human progress.

In person, Mr. Murray was tall and gaunt, and would strongly remind one of Henry Clay. About a mile from Bowling Bay, within the enclosure that surrounds the Relief Church, in a sweet quiet spot, the green turf now covers what remains of the once active frame of John Murray; and as, with moistened cheek, I fling this pebble upon his cairn, I cannot help thinking how much more has been done for the cause of human progress by this faithful servant to his own convictions of the truth, than by the nation-wept sage of Ashland.

James M’Cune Smith
NEW YORK, SEPT. 25, 1852.

POWER OF AMERICAN EXAMPLE.

At the last anniversary of the American Home Missionary Society, Rev. John P. Gulliver made an eloquent address on the duty of bringing the American people under the full influence of Christian principle, in an argument drawn from the bearings of our national example on the people of other lands. _Christianity_, he said, _alone can make the nations free_. We fully believe in this sentiment. In answer to the question, _How is Christianity to effect this result?_--Mr. Gulliver’s answer was: AMERICA IS TO BE THE AGENT.

Other nations, he thought, might do much in working out this great result; but the chief hopes of the friends of freedom, he suggested, are centered upon this country. The world needs _an example_; and he pointed to what the example of this nation has already done, imperfect as it is. “It is doing, at this moment, more to change the political condition of man than all the armies and navies,--than all the diplomacy and king-craft of the world.” If it be so, if, as the speaker declared, “the battle of the world’s freedom is to be fought on our own soil,” it would be interesting to look at the obstacles in the way. The United States must present a very different example from that exhibited the last twenty-five years, and now exhibited, before this country will be the agent of Christianity in evangelizing the world. Think of three millions of our countrymen in chains! Think of the large numbers held by ministers of the gospel and members of churches! Think of the countenance given to slave-holders by our ecclesiastical assemblies, by Northern preachers, by Christian lawyers, merchants, and mechanics! Think of the platforms, adopted by the two leading political parties of the country, composed partly of religious men! Think of the dumbness of those that minister at the altar, in view of the great national iniquity, and then consider the effects of _such an example_ upon other nations, Christian and Heathen!

Dr. Hawes is stated to have said at the last annual meeting of the A. B. C. F. M., that Dr. John H. Rice said, in his hearing, more than twenty years ago: “I do not believe the Lord will suffer the existing type or character of the Christian world to be impressed on the heathen.” We also heard the remark, and believe that Dr. Rice, in alluding to the state of religion in this country, said, “it was so far short of what Christianity required, that sanguine as many were that the United States was speedily to be the agent of the world’s conversion, he did not believe, for one, that God would suffer the Christianity of this country, as it then was, to be impressed upon the heathen world.” If the character of our religion was thus twenty years ago, what is it now? As a religious people we have been boastful. We have acted as if we thought God could not convert the world without the instrumentality of this country. It is far more probable that the converted heathen will send missionaries to the United States to teach us the first rudiments of Christianity, than that this country, at the present low ebb of religion, will be the agent of converting heathen nations to God.

Dr. Hawes believed “that if the piety of the church were corrected and raised to the standard of Paul, God would soon give to the Son the heathen for his inheritance.” No doubt of it. Such piety would do away with chattel slavery, with caste, with slavery platforms, with ungodly rulers, with Indian oppression, with divorcing Christianity from the ballot-box, with heathenism at home. Let us pray for such piety; and that hundreds of such men as RICE and HAWES may lift up their voices like a trumpet, and put forth corresponding action, until the nation shall be regenerated and become fit to enlighten, and, through the grace of God, save a dying world.

“THE GOSPEL AS A REMEDY FOR SLAVERY.”

In one of the leading Congregational papers, a writer, W. C. J., has commenced a series of communications under the above heading. It is well to discuss the subject. The writer says, “There are, it is true, many among our three millions of slaves who are acquainted with the rudiments of religious truth, and are leading lives of sincere piety.” Dr. Nelson, a native of a slave State, stated, as the result of experience for many years, that he had never known more than three or four slaves who he had reason to believe were truly and intelligently pious. The Synod of South Carolina and Georgia published to the world, some years since, that the great mass of slaves were heathen, as much so as the heathen of any portion of the globe. What authority W. C. J. has for saying there are, among the three millions of American slaves, “many” who are “leading lives of sincere piety,” I do not know. It is probably the mere conjecture of an ardent mind. He qualifies the expression by asking, “What is the type of the religion that too generally appears among the slaves?” And then replies to his own question, “It is sickly and weak, like a plant growing in a cellar, or a cave; a compound of sincere piety with much of superstition and fanaticism.” What sort of piety is that?

A sagacious observer has remarked, that there never can be, in our day, intelligent piety where men are not possessed of property, especially where they are mere serfs or slaves. How many American slaves have the piety of “Uncle Tom,” we are unable to say. Probably very few. And it must fill the heart of every one who loves the souls of men, with anguish to contemplate the spiritual destitution of the slaves in this country; kept in bondage by the religious and political apathy or acts of professing Christians, of different denominations, in their individual or associated capacity. But to the question: _Is the gospel a remedy for slavery?_ We answer, unhesitatingly, not such a gospel as is preached to them; for while it does very little to enlighten either slave or master, it enjoins upon the former passive obedience, and inculcates upon the latter the right and duty of holding their fellow men in bondage. Nor have we much hesitation in avowing it as our belief, that the gospel, as generally preached in the free States, is quite inadequate to put an end to slavery. It does not reach the conscience of the tens of thousands who are, in various ways, connected with slave-holding by relationship, business correspondence, or political or ecclesiastical ties. As proof of this, we need only contemplate the action of the Northern divisions of the political and religious national parties. Slavery is countenanced, strengthened, increased, extended by their connivance or direct agency. The truth is, Christianity, as promulgated by the great mass of the preachers and professors at this day even in the free States, is not a remedy for slavery. It is a lamentable truth, one that might justly occasion in the heart of every true Christian the lamentation of the prophet Jeremiah: “Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep, day and night, for the slain of the daughters of my people!” And it is in view of this truth, that the friends of a pure and full gospel have great encouragement to persevere in their work of faith and love. The missionaries connected with the American Missionary Association, at home and abroad, inculcate, fearlessly and persistently, a gospel of freedom, and make no more apology or allowance for slave-holding than for any other sin or crime. Such missionaries should be sustained, their numbers augmented, and prayer ascend for them continually.

Lewis Tappan

LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE SOCIETY.

DEAR MADAM:--

Your request to transmit my name, with a short article, for insertion in your contemplated publication, is before me. I have neither time nor words in which to express my unalterable abhorrence of slavery, with all the odious apologies and blasphemous claims of Divine sanction for it, that have been attempted. I regard all attempts, by legislation or otherwise, to give the abominable system “aid and comfort” as involving treason against the government of God, and as insulting the consciences and common sense of men.

Yours truly,

C. G. Finney
OBERLIN, 24 SEPT., 1852.

THE SLAVE’S PRAYER.

The _first effort_ of my early life in narrative writing, was in behalf of those who, in even darker days than these, were preëminently those who, on earth, “had no helper.”

From this tale is selected these few lines--a song introduced into the story--not because it has any poetic merit, but because to me and perhaps to others, it seems interesting from the above circumstance.

Catharine E. Beecher.

SONG OF PRAISE.

Though man neglects my sighing,
And mocks the bitter tear,
Yet does not God my crying
With kindest pity hear?

And when with fierce heat panting
His hand can be my shade,
And when with weakness fainting
Support my aching head.

And when I felt my cares
For those his love can save,
Will he not hear the prayers
Of the poor negro slave?

Yes, for the poor and needy
He promises to save,
And who is poor and needy
Like the poor negro slave!

THE STRUGGLE.

Ours is a noble cause; nobler even than that of our fathers, inasmuch as it is more exalted to struggle for the freedom of _others_, than for our _own_. The love of right, which is the animating impulse of our movement, is higher even than the love of freedom. But right, freedom, and humanity, all concur in demanding the abolition of slavery.

Charles Sumner
BOSTON, OCT. 16, 1852.

WORK AND WAIT.

MY FRIEND:--

I have found no moment till the present that I could devote to a compliance with your request, and I am now probably too late. However, let me hastily proffer a few suggestions to opponents of slavery, which I trust may not be found unprofitable. I would say, then:

1. Do not choose to separate and isolate yourselves from the general movement of humanity, save as you may be constrained to oppose certain eddies of that movement. Had WILBERFORCE, CLARKSON, and their associate pioneers in the cause of British abolition, seen fit to cut themselves loose from all preëxisting sects and parties, and for a special anti-slavery church and party, I think the triumph of their cause would have been still unattained.

2. Do not refuse to do a little good because you would much prefer to do a greater which is now unattainable. The earth revolves in her vast orbit gradually; and he who has done whatever good he can, need not reproach himself for his inability to do more.

3. Be foremost in every good work that the community around you _will_ appreciate,--not _because_ they will appreciate it, but because their appreciation and sympathy will enable you to do good in other spheres, and do it more effectually.

4. Be preëminent in your consideration and regard for the rights and wrongs of labor in your own circle, even the rudest and humblest. An abolitionist who hires his linen made up at the lowest market rate, and pays his wash-woman in proportion, will do little good to the anti-slavery or any other philanthrophic cause. The man of liberal culture and generous heart who unostentatiously tries to elevate the most depressed to his own level, is doing a good work against slavery, however unconsciously.

5. Have faith, with a divine patience; man is privileged to labor for a good cause, but the glory of its success must redound to his Maker. Next to a great defeat, the most fatal event for slavery would be a great triumph. Doubtless, the bolts are now forging in some celestial armory destined to strike the shackles from the limbs of the bondman, and cleanse the land from the foulest and blackest iniquity ever organized and legalized in the christian world. The shout of deliverance may come when it is least expected,--nay, the very means employed to render its coming impossible, will probably secure and hasten it. For that and every other needed reform, let the humane and hopeful strive, not despairing in the densest midnight, and realizing that the darkest hour is often that preceding the dawn. Let them, squandering no opportunity, and sacrificing no principle,

“Learn to labor, and to wait.”

Horace Greeley

THE GREAT EMANCIPATION.

Beautiful and happy will this world be, when slavery and every other form of oppression shall have ceased. But this change can be produced only by the religion of Jesus Christ. Reliance on any other power to overthrow slavery, or restore to order and happiness this sin-crazed and sin-ruined world, will be vain.

Gerrit Smith
PETERBORO’, SEPT. 22, 1852.

ODE

Sung at the celebration of the First Anniversary of the kidnapping,
at Boston, of Thomas Sims, a fugitive slave:--the kidnapping done
under the forms of law, and by its officers, 12 June 1851. The deed
_celebrated_ at the Melodeon, Boston, 12 June 1852.

BY REV. JOHN PIERPONT.

Souls of the patriot dead,
On Bunker’s height who bled!
The pile, that stands
On your long-buried bones,--
Those monumental stones,--
Should not suppress the groans,
This day demands.

For Freedom there ye stood;
There gave the earth your blood;
There found your graves;
That men of every clime,
Faith, color, tongue, and time,
Might, through your death sublime,
Never be slaves.

Over your bed, so low,
Heard ye not, long ago,
A voice of power[O]
Proclaim to earth and sea,
That, where ye sleep, should be
A home for Liberty,
Till Time’s last hour?

Hear ye the chains of slaves,
Now clanking round your graves?
Hear ye the sound
Of that same voice, that calls
From out our Senate halls,[P]
“Hunt down those fleeing thralls,
With horse and hound!”

That voice your sons hath swayed!
’Tis heard, and is obeyed!
This gloomy day
Tells you of ermine stained,
Of Justice’ name profaned,
Of a poor bondman, chained
And borne away!

Over Virginia’s Springs,
Her eagles spread their wings,
Her Blue Ridge towers:--
That voice,[Q]--once heard with awe,--
Now asks,--“Who ever saw,
Up there, a higher law
Than this of ours?”

Must _we_ obey that voice?
When God, or man’s the choice,
Must we postpone
HIM, who from Sinai spoke?
Must we wear slavery’s yoke?
Bear of her lash the stroke,
And prop her throne?

Lashed with her hounds, must we
Run down the poor, who flee
From Slavery’s hell?
Great God! when we _do_ this,
Exclude us from thy bliss;
At us let angels hiss,
From heaven that fell!

Jn. Pierpont

PASSAGES IN THE LIFE OF A SLAVE WOMAN.

BY ANNIE PARKER.

“The slaves at Oak Grove did not mourn for poor Elsie when she died,” said aunt Phillis, continuing her narrative. “She was never a favorite, and from the time her beauty attracted the notice of the young master, and he began to pet her, she grew prouder and prouder, and treated the other slaves as if she were their mistress, rather than their equal. They hated her for her influence over the master, and she knew it, and that made matters worse between them.

“When she died in giving birth to her second child, her little boy and I were the only ones who felt any sorrow. The master had grown tired of her, though he had once been very fond of her. Besides, he was at this time making arrangements for his marriage with a beautiful Northern lady, so that whatever he might have felt, nobody knew anything about it.

“Elsie was my younger sister. I loved her dearly, and had been almost as proud as she was of her remarkable beauty. Her little boy was very fond of his mother, and she doated upon him. He mourned and mourned for her, after her death, till I almost thought he would die too. He was a beautiful boy, and at that time looked very much like his father, which was probably the reason why the master sold him, before he brought his bride to Oak Grove.

“It was very hard for me to part with poor Elsie’s little boy. But the master chose to sell him, and my tears availed nothing. Zilpha, Elsie’s infant, was given me to take care of when her mother died, and with that I was obliged to be content.

“Marion Lee, the young mistress, was very beautiful, but as different from poor Elsie as light from darkness. She had deep blue eyes, with long silken lashes, and a profusion of soft brown hair. She always made me think of a half-blown rosebud, she was so delicate and fair. She proved a kind and gentle mistress. All the slaves loved her, as well they might, for she did everything in her power to make them comfortable and happy.

“When she came to Oak Grove, she chose me to be her waiting-maid. Zilpha and I occupied a large pleasant room next to her dressing-room.

“She made a great pet of Zilpha. No one ever told her that she was her husband’s child. No one would have dared to tell her, even if she had not been too much beloved, for any one to be willing to grieve her, as the knowledge of this fact must have done.

“In due time she, too, had a little girl, beautiful like herself. Zilpha was delighted with the baby. She never wearied of kissing its tiny hands, and talking to it in her sweet coaxing tones. Mrs. Lee said Zilpha should be Ida’s little maid. The children, accordingly, grew up together, and when they were old enough to be taught from books, everything that Ida learned, Zilpha learned also.

“When Zilpha was seventeen, she was more beautiful than her mother had ever been, and she was as gentle and loving as Elsie had been passionate and proud. There was a beautiful, pleading look in her large dark eyes, when she lifted the long lashes so that you could see into their clear depths. She was graceful as a young fawn, and playful as a kitten, and she had read and studied so many books, that _I_ thought she knew almost as much as the master himself.

“Mr. Minturn lived at Lilybank, the estate joining Oak Grove. He was an old friend of Mr. Lee, and the families were very intimate. About this time a relative of Mrs. Minturn died at the far South, and left her a large number of slaves. I don’t know how they were _all_ disposed of, but one of the number, a very handsome young man, named Jerry, was brought to Lilybank, and became Mr. Minturn’s coachman. He was considered a great prize, for he had a large muscular frame, and was capable of enduring a great amount of bodily fatigue. He was, also, for a slave, very intelligent, and from being at first merely the coachman, he soon became the confidential servant of his master.

“Owing to the intimacy between the heads of the two families, the young people of both were much together. Ida often spent whole days at Lilybank, and as Zilpha always accompanied her, she had ample opportunity to become acquainted with the new man Jerry.

“It so happened that I, being more closely confined by my duties at home, had never seen Jerry, when in the summer following his coming to Lilybank, Mrs. Lee went to visit her friends at the North, and took me with her. Ida and Zilpha remained at home. We were gone three months. A few days after our return, Zilpha told me that she was soon to be married to Jerry. The poor child was very happy. She had evidently given him her whole heart. We talked long that day, for I wanted to know how it had been brought about, and she told me all, with the simplicity and artlessness of a child. They had felt great anxiety lest their masters should oppose the marriage. But that fear was removed. Mr. Lee had himself proposed it, and Mr. Minturn gladly consented. I rejoiced to see my darling so happy, and felt truly thankful to God that the warm love of her heart had not been blighted.

“That same evening Jerry came to see Zilpha. She called me immediately, for I had never seen him, and she wished us to meet. The moment I looked upon his face, I knew he was my poor Elsie’s son. I grew sick and faint, and thought I should have fallen.

“Zilpha made me sit down, and brought me a glass of water, wondering all the time, poor thing, what had made me ill so suddenly. I soon recovered sufficiently to remember that I must not betray the cause of my agitation. I did not speak much, but watched Jerry’s face as closely as I could, without arresting their attention. Every moment strengthened the conviction that my suspicion was correct. There was the same proud look that Elsie had, the same flashing eye, and slightly curled lip, and when he carelessly brushed back the hair from his forehead, I saw a scar upon it, which I knew was caused by a fall but a little while before his mother died. O God! I thought, what will become of my darling child!

“I soon left the room, on the pretence that my mistress wanted me, but really that I might shut myself into my own room and think. I did not close my eyes that night, and when the morning dawned, I was as far as ever from knowing what I ought to do. At last I resolved to see the master as early as I could, and tell him all.

“After breakfast I went to the library to fetch a book for my mistress, and found the master there. He was reading, but looked up as I entered, and said kindly, ‘What do you wish for, Phillis?’ I named the book my mistress wanted. He told me where it was. I took it from the shelf, and stood with it in my hand. The opportunity which I desired had come, but I trembled from head to foot, and had no power to speak. I don’t know how I ever found words to tell him that Jerry was his own child. I tried, afterwards, to remember what I said, but I could not recall a word. He turned deadly pale, and sat for some minutes silent. At length in a low, husky voice, he said, ‘You will not be likely to speak of this, and it is well, for it must not be known. I shall satisfy myself if what you have told me is true. If I find that it is, I shall know what to do. You may go.’

“I took the book to my mistress, and was sent by her to find Zilpha. She was in the garden with Ida, and when I called her, she came bounding towards me with such a bright, happy face, that I could scarcely restrain my tears. Zilpha was a beautiful reader. She often read aloud to her mistress, by the hour together. I liked to take my sewing and sit with them at such times, but that day I was glad to shut myself up alone in my room.

“The next day the master sent for me to the library. ‘It is true, Phillis,’ he said to me, ‘Jerry is without doubt poor Elsie’s child.’ If an arrow had pierced my heart at that moment, I could not have felt worse, for though I had thought I was sure it was so, all the while a hope was lingering in my heart that I was mistaken. I did not speak, and the master seeing how I trembled, kindly told me to sit down, and went on; ‘I did not see Jerry myself, he said, Mr. Minturn made all necessary inquiries for me. Jerry remembers his mother, and describes her in a way that admits of no mistake. He remembers, too, that a gentleman used sometimes to visit his mother, who took a great deal of notice of him, and would let him sit upon his lap and play with his watch seals. His mother used to be very happy when this gentleman came, and when he went away she would almost smother the little boy with kisses, and talk to him of his papa. I offered to buy Jerry, but Mr. Minturn would not part with him. If he would have consented, I might easily have disposed of the whole matter.’

“A horrible fear took possession of me at these words. Would he _dare_ to sell my darling Zilpha? The thought almost maddened me. Scarce knowing what I did, I threw myself on my knees before him, and begged him not to think a second time of selling his own flesh and blood. He angrily bade me rise, and not meddle with that in which I had no concern. That he had a right, which he should exercise, to do what he would with his own. He had thought it proper, he said, to tell me what I had just heard, but charged me never again to name the subject to any living being, and not to let any one suspect from my appearance that anything unusual had occurred. With this he dismissed me.

“What I suffered during that dreadful week, is known only to God. I could neither eat nor sleep. It seemed to me I should lose my reason.

“Jerry came once to Oak Grove, but I would not see him. Zilpha I avoided as much as possible. I could not bear to look upon her innocent happiness, knowing as I did that it would soon be changed into unspeakable misery.

“The first three days the master was away from home. On Thursday he returned. When I chanced to meet him, he looked uneasy; and if he came to his wife’s room and found me with her, he would make some excuse for sending me away.

“Saturday was a beautiful bright October day, and Ida proposed to Zilpha that they should take their books and spend the forenoon in the woods. They went off in high spirits. I thought I had never seen my Zilpha look so lovely. Love and happiness had added a softer grace to her whole being. I followed them to the door, and she kissed me twice before leaving me; then looking back, when she had gone a little way, and seeing me still standing there, she threw a kiss to me with her little hand, and looked so bright and joyous, that my aching heart felt a new pang of sorrow. What was it whispered to me then that I should never see her again?

“I went back to my work, and presently the master came and asked for Ida. He wished her to ride with him. I told him where she was, and he went in search of her. Zilpha did not come back with them. ‘We told her to stay if she wished,’ Ida said. But my heart misgave me. I should at once have gone in search of her, but Mrs. Lee wanted me, and I could not go.

“I cannot bear, even now, to recall the events of that day. My worst fears were realized. During my master’s absence, he had sold my darling to a Southern trader, who only waited a favorable opportunity to take her away without the knowledge of the family. He had been that morning with Mr. Lee, and was in the house when Mr. Lee returned with Ida from the woods.

“I don’t know how the master ever satisfied his wife and Ida about Zilpha’s disappearance. There was a report that she had run away. But I don’t think they believed it. Certainly _I_ never did.

“I almost forgot my own sorrow when I saw how poor Jerry felt when he knew what had happened. Of course he did not know what I did. He _never_ knew why Zilpha was sent away, but he knew she was sold, and that there was little reason to hope he should ever see her again. He went about his work as usual, but there was a look in his eye which made one tremble.

“Before many days he was missing, and though his master searched the country, and took every possible means to find him, he could discover no trace of the fugitive. I felt satisfied he had followed the North Star, but I said nothing, and was glad the poor fellow had gone from what would constantly remind him of Zilpha.

“During the following winter, Mrs. Lee had a dangerous illness. I watched over her night and day, and when she recovered, my master was so grateful for what I had done, that he gave me my freedom, and money enough to bring me to the North.

“Of Zilpha’s fate I have been able to learn nothing. I can only leave her with God, who though his vengeance is long delayed, hears and treasures up every sigh and tear of his poor slave-children.

“I saw, a few days since, a man who knows Jerry. He is living not many miles from me, and I shall try to see him before I die. But I shall never tell him the whole extent of the wrongs he suffered in slavery.”

Annie Parker.

STORY TELLING.

BY ANNIE PARKER.

The winter wind blew cold, and the snow was falling fast,
But within the cheerful parlor none listened to the blast;
The fire was blazing brightly, and soft lamps their radiance shed
On rare and costly pictures, and many a fair young head.

The father in the easy chair, to his youngest nestling dove,
Whispered a wondrous fairy tale, such as all children love;
Brothers and sisters gathered round, and the eye might clearly trace
A happiness too deep for words, on the mother’s lovely face.