preaching doctrines that tend to infidelity? And pray where
does this other doctrine tend? As sure as there is a God in
heaven is the certainty that, if the Bible really did defend slavery,
fifty years hence would see every honourable and high-minded
man an infidel.
Has, then, the past influence of Congregationalism been ac-
cording to the nature of the exigency and the weight of the
subject? But the late convention of Congregationalists at
Albany, including ministers both from New England and the
Western States, did take a stronger and more decided ground.
Here is their resolution:--
Resolved, That, in the opinion of this convention, it is the tendency of the
Gospel, wherever it is preached in its purity, to correct all social evils, and to
destroy sin in all its forms; and that it is the duty of Missionary Societies to grant
aid to Churches in slaveholding States in the support of such ministers only as
shall so preach the Gospel, and inculcate the principles and application of Gospel
discipline, that, with the blessing of God, it shall have its full effect in awakening
and enlightening the moral sense in regard to slavery, and in bringing to pass the
speedy abolition of that stupendous wrong; and that wherever a minister is not
permitted so to preach, he should, in accordance with the directions of Christ,
“depart out of that city.”
This resolution is a matter of hope and gratulation in many
respects. It was passed in a very large convention--the largest
ever assembled in this country, fully representing the Congrega-
tionalism of the United States--and the occasion of its meeting
was considered, in some sort, as marking a new era in the pro-
gress of this denomination.
The resolution was passed unanimously. It is decided in its
expression, and looks to practical action, which is what is
wanted. It says it will support no ministers in slave States
whose preaching does not tend to destroy slavery; and that, if
they are not allowed to preach freely on the subject, they must
depart.
That the ground thus taken will be efficiently sustained may
be inferred from the fact that the Home Missionary Society,
which is the organ of this body, as well as of the New-School
Presbyterian Church, has uniformly taken decided ground upon
this subject in their instructions to missionaries sent into slave
States. These instructions are ably set forth in their report of
March, 1853. When application was made to them, in 1850,
from a slave State, for missionaries who would let slavery alone,
they replied to them, in the most decided language, that it could
not be done; that, on the contrary, they must understand that
one grand object in sending missionaries to slave States is, as
far as possible, to redeem society from all forms of sin; and
that, “if utter silence respecting slavery is to be maintained,
one of the greatest inducements to send or retain missionaries in
the slave States is taken away.”
The Society furthermore instructed their missionaries, if they
could not be heard on this subject in one city or village, to go
to another; and they express their conviction that their mission-
aries have made progress in awakening the consciences of the
people. They say that they do not suffer the subject to sleep;
that they do not let it alone because it is a delicate subject, but
they discharge their consciences, whether their message be well
received, or whether, as in some instances, it subjects them to
opposition, opprobrium, and personal danger; and that where
their endeavours to do this have not been tolerated, they have,
in repeated cases, at great sacrifice, resigned their position, and
departed to other fields. In their report of this year they also
quote letters from ministers in slaveholding States, by which it
appears that they have actually secured, in the face of much
opposition, the right publicly to preach and propagate their sen-
One of these missionaries says, speaking of slavery, “We are
determined to remove this great difficulty in our way, or die in
the attempt. As Christians and as freemen, we will suffer this
libel on our religion and institutions to exist no longer.”
This is noble ground.
And while we are recording the protesting power, let us not
forget the Scotch seceders and covenanters, who, with a perti-
nacity and decision worthy of the children of the old covenant,
have kept themselves clear from the sin of slavery, and have uni-
formly protested against it. Let us remember, also, that the
Quakers did pursue a course which actually freed all their body
from the sin of slaveholding; thus showing to all other denomi-
nations that what has been done once can be done again. Also,
in all denominations, individual ministers and Christians, in
hours that have tried men's souls, have stood up to bear their
testimony. Albert Barnes, in Philadelphia, standing in the
midst of a great, rich Church, on the borders of a slave State,
and with all those temptations to complicity which have silenced
so many, has stood up, in calm fidelity, and declared the whole
counsel of God upon this subject. Nay, more; he recorded his
solemn protest that “no influences out of the Church could sustain
slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in it;” and in the last
session of the General Assembly, which met at Washington,
disregarding all suggestions of policy, he boldly held the Presby-
terian Church up to the strength of her past declarations, and
declared it her duty to attempt the entire abolition of slavery
throughout the world. So, in darkest hour, Dr. Channing bore
a noble testimony in Boston, for which his name shall ever live.
So, in Illinois, E. P. Lovejoy and Edward Beecher, with their
associates, formed the Illinois Anti-Slavery Society, amid mobs
and at the hazard of their lives; and, a few hours after, Lovejoy
was shot down in attempting to defend the twice-destroyed anti-
slavery press. In the Old-School Presbyterian Church, William
and Robert Breckenridge, President Young, and others, have
preached in favour of emancipation in Kentucky. Le Roy Sun-
derland, in the Methodist Church, kept up his newspaper under
ban of his superiors, and with a bribe on his life of fifty thousand
dollars. Torrey, meekly patient, died in a prison, saying, “If I
am a guilty man I am a very guilty one: for I have helped four
hundred slaves to freedom, who but for me would have died
slaves.” Dr. Nelson was expelled by mobs from Missouri for
the courageous declaration of the truth on slave soil. All these
were in the ministry. Nor are these all. Jesus Christ has not
wholly deserted us yet. There have been those who have learned
how joyful it is to suffer shame and brave death in a good
cause.
Also there have been private Christians who have counted
nothing too dear for this sacred cause. Witness Richard Dil-
&nbs
p; lingham, and John Garret, and a host of others, who took joy-
fully the spoiling of their goods.
But yet, notwithstanding this, the awful truth remains, that
the whole of what has been done by the Church has not, as yet,
perceptibly abated the evil. The great system is stronger than
ever. It is confessedly the dominant power of the nation.
The whole power of the government, and the whole power of
the wealth, and the whole power of the fashion, and the practical
organic workings of the large bodies of the Church, are all gone
one way. The Church is familiarly quoted as being on the side
of slavery. Statesmen on both sides of the question have laid
that down as a settled fact. Infidels point to it with triumph;
and America, too, is beholding another class of infidels--a class
that could have grown up only under such an influence. Men
whose whole life is one study and practice of benevolence are
now ranked as infidels, because the position of Church organisa-
tions misrepresents Christianity, and they separate themselves
from the Church. We would offer no excuse for any infidels
who take for their religion mere anti-slavery zeal, and, under
this guise, gratify a malignant hatred of real Christianity. But
such defences of slavery from the Bible as some of the American
clergy have made, are exactly fitted to make infidels of all
honourable and high-minded men. The infidels of olden times
were not much to be dreaded, but such infidels as these are not
to be despised. Woe to the Church when the moral standard of
the infidel is higher than the standard of the professed Christian!
for the only armour that ever proved invincible to infidelity is
the armour of righteousness.
Let us see how the Church organisations work now, prac-
tically. What do Bruin and Hill, Pulliam and Davis, Bolton,
Dickins, and Co., and Matthews, Branton, and Co., depend upon
to keep their slave-factories and slave-barracoons full, and their
business brisk? Is it to be supposed that they are not men like
ourselves? Do they not sometimes tremble at the awful work-
ings of fear and despair and agony which they witness when
they are tearing asunder living hearts in the depths of those fear-
ful slave-prisons? What, then, keeps down the consciences of
these traders? It is the public sentiment of the community
where they live; and that public sentiment is made by ministers
and Church members. The trader sees plainly enough a logical
sequence between the declarations of the Church and the practice
of his trade. He sees plainly enough that, if slavery is sanc-
tioned by God, and it is right to set it up in a new territory, it
is right to take the means to do this; and, as slaves do not grow
on bushes in Texas, it is necessary that there should be traders
to gather up coffles, and carry them out there; and, as they
cannot always take whole families, it is necessary that they
should part them; and, as slaves will not go by moral suasion,
it is necessary that they should be forced; and, as gentle force
will not do, they must whip and torture. Hence come gags,
thumb-screws, cowhides, blood--all necessary measures of
carrying out what Christians say God sanctions.
So goes the argument one way. Let us now trace it back the
other. The South Carolina and Mississippi Presbyteries main-
tain opinions which, in their legitimate results, endorse the slave-
trader. The Old-School General Assembly maintains fellowship
with these Presbyteries without discipline or protest. The New-
School Assembly signifies its willingness to re-unite with the Old,
while, at the same time, it declares the system of slavery an abo-
mination, a gross violation of its most sacred rights, and so on.
Well, now the chain is as complete as need be. All parts are in;
everyone standing in his place, and saying just what is required,
and no more. The trader does the repulsive work, the Southern
Church defends him, the Northern Church defends the South.
Everyone does as much for slavery as would be at all expedient,
considering the latitude they live in. This is the practical result
of the thing.
The melancholy part of the matter is, that while a large body
of New-School men, and many Old-School, are decided anti-
slavery men, this denominational position carries their influence
on the other side. As goes the General Assembly, so goes their
influence. The following affecting letter on this subject was
written by that eminently pious man, Dr. Nelson, whose work on
Infidelity is one of the most efficient popular appeals that has
ever appeared:--
I have resided in North Carolina more than forty years, and been intimately
acquainted with the system, and I can scarcely even think of its operations with-
out shedding tears. It causes me excessive grief to think of my own poor slaves,
for whom I have for years been trying to find a free home. It strikes me with
equal astonishment and horror to hear Northern people make light of slavery.
Had they seen and known as much of it as I, they could not thus treat it, unless
callous to the deepest woes and degradations of humanity, and dead both to the
religion and philanthropy of the Gospel. But many of them are doing just what
the hardest-hearted tyrants of the South most desire. Those tyrants would not,
on any account, have them advocate or even apologise for slavery in an unqualified
manner. This would be bad policy with the North. I wonder that Gerritt Smith
should understand slavery so much better than most of the Northern people. How
true was his remark on a certain occasion, namely, that the South are laughing in
their sleeves to think what dupes they make of most of the people at the North in
regard to the real character of slavery! Well did Mr. Smith remark that the
system, carried out on its fundamental principle, would as soon enslave any labour-
ing white man as the African. But, if it were not for the support of the North,
the fabric of blood would fall at once; and of all the efforts of public bodies at
the North to sustain slavery, the Connecticut General Association has made the
best one. I have never seen anything so well constructed in that line as their
resolutions of June, 1836. The South certainly could not have asked anything
more effectual; but, of all Northern periodicals, the New York Observer must
have the preference as an efficient support of slavery. I am not sure but it does
more than all things combined to keep the dreadful system alive; it is just the
succour demanded by the South. Its abuse of the abolitionists is music in
Southern ears, which operates as a charm; but nothing is equal to its harping
upon the “religious privileges and instruction” of the slaves of the South, and
nothing could be so false and injurious (to the cause of freedom and religion) as
the impression it gives on that subject. I say what I know when I speak in
relation to this matter. I have been intimately acquainted with the religious
opportunities of slaves--in the constant habit of hearing the sermons which ar
e
preached to them, and I solemnly affirm that, during the forty years of my resi-
dence and observation in this line, I never heard a single one of these sermons
but what was taken up with the obligations and duties of slaves to their masters;
indeed, I never heard a sermon to slaves but what made obedience to masters by
the slaves the fundamental and supreme law of religion. Any candid and intelli-
gent man can decide whether such preaching is not, as to religious purposes, worse
than none at all.
Again: it is wonderful how the credulity of the North is subjected to imposition
in regard to the kind treatment of slaves. For myself, I can clear up the apparent
contradictions found in writers who have resided at or visited the South. The
“majority of slaveholders,” say some, “treat their slaves with kindness.” Now,
this may be true in certain States and districts, setting aside all questions of treat-
ment except such as refer to the body. And yet, while the “majority of slave-
holders” in a certain section may be kind, the majority of slaves in that section
will be treated with cruelty. This is the truth in many such cases; that while
there may be thirty men who may have but one slave a-piece, and that a house-
servant--a single man in their neighbourhood may have a hundred slaves, all field-
hands, half-fed, worked excessively, and whipped most cruelly. this is what I
have often seen. To give a case, to show the awful influence of slavery upon the
master, I will mention a Presbyterian elder, who was esteemed one of the best men
in the region--a very kind master. I was called to his death-bed to write his
will. He had what was considered a favourite house-servant, a female. After all
other things were disposed of, the elder paused, as if in doubt what to do with
“Sue.” I entertained pleasing expectations of hearing the word “liberty” fall
from his lips; but who can tell my surprise when I heard the master exclaim,
“What shall be done with Sue? I am afraid she will never be under a master
severe enough for her.” Shall I say that both the dying elder and his “Sue” were
members of the same Church--the latter statedly receiving the emblems of a
Saviour's dying love from the former?
All this temporising and concession has been excused on the
plea of brotherly love. What a plea for us Northern freemen!