Colonization and Christianity: A popular history of the treatment of the natives by the; Europeans in all their coloniesHowitt, William
History
Colonization and Christianity: A popular history of the treatment of the natives by the; Europeans in all their colonies
Howitt, William
Indians, Treatment of; Indigenous peoples
It is worth while here to give a slight specimen or two of this
extraordinary discourse. His text was, the offer of Satan:—“All
these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship
me.”—“Things,” said he, “are estimated at what they cost. What then
did the world cost our Saviour, and what did a soul cost him? The
world cost him a word—He spoke, and it was made. A soul cost Him his
life, and his blood. But if the world cost only a word of God, and a
soul cost the blood of God, a soul is worth more than all the world.
This Christ thought, and this the devil confessed. Yet you know how
cheaply we value our souls? you know at what rate we sell them? We
wonder that Judas should have sold his Master and his soul for thirty
pieces of silver; but how many are there who offer their own to the
devil for less than fifteen! Christians! I am not now telling you
that you ought not to sell your souls, for I know that you must sell
them;—I only entreat that you will sell them by weight. Weigh well
what a soul is worth, and what it cost, and then sell it and welcome!
But in what scales is it to be weighed? You think I shall say, In those
of St. Michael the archangel, in which souls are weighed. I do not
require so much. Weigh them in the devil’s own balance, and I shall be
satisfied! Take the devil’s balance in one hand, put the whole world
in one scale and a soul in the other, and you will find that your soul
weighs more than the world.—‘All this will I give thee, if thou wilt
fall down and worship me.’... But at what a different price now does
the devil purchase souls from that which he formerly offered for them?
I mean in this country. The devil has not a fair in the world where
they go cheaper! In the Gospel he offers all the kingdoms of the world
to purchase a single soul;—he does not require so large a price to
purchase all that are in Maranham. It is not necessary to offer worlds;
it is not necessary to offer kingdoms, nor cities, nor towns, nor
villages;—it is enough for the devil to point at a plantation, and a
couple of Tapuyas, and down goes the man upon his knees to worship him!
Oh what a market! A negro for a soul, and the soul the blacker of the
two! The negro shall be your slave for the few days you have to live,
and your soul shall be my slave through all eternity—as long as God is
God! This is the bargain which the devil makes with you.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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