The power of prayer, then, is God’s own power, exerted by the Spirit and the Son through the supplications of the righteous, and therefore it availeth much. Nothing can withstand it, because nothing can withstand God. The elements of nature yield to its control; the institutions of men, founded in sin, fall before its cry. If slavery were beyond the power of prayer, it would be not because of its strength, but because it is right in the sight of God. And if it be right, the Spirit will not move the righteous to pray for its abolition. If God be for it, who can be against it? Let us then inquire whether this be a proper subject of prayer?—whether a system of bondage which degrades man into a beast of burden and of traffic is pleasing or hateful to God? That it exists, and has endured for ages, is no evidence that it enjoys his favor. Sin exists, and has prevailed from the beginning. Romanism flourishes, and has had the ascendency in Christendom for fifteen centuries. Idolatry reigns, and the kingdom of Satan looks down from its ancient seats scornfully on the kingdom of Christ. Among the most dreadful exhibitions of God’s wrath and vengeance have been those in which he has, with a high hand and an outstretched arm, delivered the oppressed, and destroyed their oppressors. Slavery is the foe of Christianity, the enemy of souls, and it must be hateful to the God of love, who would have all men come to Christ. It is opposed to the gospel and to every evangelical work, to the tract, the Bible, the missionary enterprise. It disregards the spiritual interests of enslaved saints, and of souls perishing in their sins under its yoke. It is a ruling power in this Christian country, to the scandal of religion. It rises above other forms of sin, as the chief perverter of the right ways of the Lord. It hinders the spread of vital godliness through this land, walling about the dominions of its chattels and excluding the preacher of the cross. The Christianity it tolerates within its borders is not that which declares the whole counsel of God; which cries aloud and spares not, and shows the people their sins. The religion of America, fraught with salvation for the nations of the Old World, has been shorn of much of its power by the encroachments of Southern slavery. Can any Christian doubt that a system so hostile to the gospel is abhorred of God? And now, at this moment, the issue is forced upon us, whether slavery shall exclude the gospel, or be excluded by it. In this crisis our only help is in God. We must be persuaded that he will defend his gospel, and humble the slave power.