American Scenes, and Christian Slavery: A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United StatesDavies, Ebenezer
History
American Scenes, and Christian Slavery: A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States
Davies, Ebenezer
Slavery -- United States; United States -- Description and travel
It was Saturday morning; and with my professional habits, I naturally
thought of the many divines in that very city, who were at that moment
shut up in their studies, preparing their discourses for the morrow. I
wished I had them all before me. I could have given every one of them a
text to preach upon. I would have said, "Gentlemen, see there! and
blush for your fellow-citizens. See there! and never again talk of
American liberty. See there! and lift up your voices like so many
trumpets against this enormity. See there! and in the face of
persecution, poverty, imprisonment, and (if needs be) even death
itself, bear your faithful testimony, and cease not until this foul
stain be wiped away from your national escutcheon. Dr. S----, to-morrow
morning let this be your text,--'Where is Abel, thy brother?' Dr.
II----, let your discourse be founded on Exod. xxi. 16: 'And he that
stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he
shall surely be put to death.' You, the Rev. Mr. C----, let your gay
and wealthy congregation be edified with a solemn and impressive sermon
on Is. lviii. 6: 'Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the
bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the
oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?' And you, the Rev. Mr.
H----, let your hearers have a full and faithful exposition of that law
which is 'fulfilled in one word, even in this, Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself.'"
In the afternoon of the same day, as I walked along one of the
principal streets, I saw a flag issue from a fine large public building
to invite "ladies and gentlemen" to see "the magnificent picture of the
departure of the Israelites from Egypt,"--the canvas containing 2,000
square feet, and 2,000,000 of figures! How significant! It would have
been still more so, if the number of "figures" had been 3,000,000
instead of 2,000,000. What an "abolition" picture! It must have been
worse than "Jacob and his Sons," which was expunged from a catalogue of
the American Sunday-School Union, because, in reprehending the sale of
Joseph to the merchants, it reflected upon the _internal_ slave-trade!
Surely such exhibitions will affect the safety of the "peculiar
institution!"
LETTER IV.
A Sabbath in New Orleans--The First Presbyterian Church--Expectoration
--A Negro Pew--The Sermon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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