These remarks have been forced upon us by observation. Frequently
have we lamented its application, and grieved that its holy mission
were made to serve the vilest purposes in a land of liberty, of
Christian love. Religion a means of degrading the masses-a
subservient agent! It is so, nevertheless; and men use it whose only
desire it is to make it serve a property interest-the interest of
making men, women, and children, more valuable in the market. God
ordained it for a higher purpose,--man applies it for his benefit in
the man-market. Hence, where the means for exercising the mind upon
the right is forbidden-where ignorance becomes the necessary part of
the maintenance of a system, and religion is applied to that end, it
becomes farcical; and while it must combine all the imperfections of
the performer, necessarily tends to confine the ignorance of those
it seeks to degrade, within the narrowest boundary. There are
different ways of destroying the rights of different classes; and as
many different ways, after they are destroyed, of wiping out the
knowledge of their ever having had rights. But, we regret to say,
that most resorted to by the South, in the face of civilisation, is
the Holy Scriptures, which are made the medium of blotting out all
knowledge of the rights a people once possessed. The wrong-doer thus
fears the result of natural laws; if they be allowed to produce
results through the cultivation of a slave's mind, such may prove
fatal to his immediate interests. And to maintain a system which is
based on force, the southern minister of the gospel is doubly
culpable in the sight of heaven; for while he stimulates ignorance
by degrading the man, he mystifies the Word of God, that he may
remain for ever and ever degraded.
What a deplorable process of stealing-nay, gently taking away the
knowledge which an all-wise Providence has given to man as his
inheritance; how it reduces his natural immunities to sensual
misery! And, too, it forbids all legitimate influences that could
possibly give the menial a link to elevation, to the formation of a
society of his own. We would fain shrink from such a system of
debasing mankind-even more, from the hideous crimes of those who
would make Scripture the means to such an end. And yet, the Church
defender of slavery-the Christian little one-his neck-cloth as white
as the crimes he defends are black-must distinguish his arguments;
and that the world may not suspect his devotion, his honesty, his
serious intention, he points us to the many blessings of the
plantation-service.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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