Antislavery movements -- United States; Slavery -- United States
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
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