Truly yours,
Joseph Mazzini.
47 Devonshire Street,
Queen Square.
II
A Prayer to God for the Planters, by an Exile.
[The original is in French. It has probably not been published before. It was sent in 1846 to Mr William Shaen in response to a request for a paper on the abolition of slavery. It was to have appeared in Lady Blessington's Keepsake, presumably in a translation, but was not published in it. In sending it Mazzini writes: "To write one or two pages on abolitionism is just the same to me as to prove that the sun gives light and warmth; or to prove an axiom. So that I was during one full hour at a loss what to write, till my soul melted away in prayer.">[
God of pity, God of peace and love, forgive, oh forgive the planters. Their sin is great; but thy mercy is infinite. As of old thou didst make refreshing waters gush from the desert rock for the multitude of thy servants, so now make the living spring of charity gush out in the desert of their souls. Let the angel of repentance descend and settle on their dying pillow. And between them and thy justice, at their last hour,—for them and for their country, which they dishonour,—may the prayer rise up of all who suffer for thy holy cause, for thy holy truth, for the freedom of the peoples and of the Soul of man.
Their sin is great. They have sinned, they are sinning still against thee and against Humanity, which is the interpreter of thy law on earth. The Spirit of Evil, which tempted Jesus, thy son so dear to Genius and to Love, by offering him, when he began his divine career, the riches and the thrones of earth, has also tempted them, men bereft of Genius and of Love, by taking the semblance of the idol, which is self-interest. They have yielded. They are the bondsmen of the senses, and have forsworn knowledge and feeling. They have set the slave in the place of man, the fetish of the sugar-cane in the place of thy holy image. But thou, didst thou not hear thy son, so dear to Genius and to Love, when he prayed for those who slew him? Forgive them, Father, forgive the planters too.
Thou hast placed, as symbol of the eye of thy Providence, one sun in heaven for the earth. Thou hast interwoven in one mighty harmony, of which human Music, Religion's eldest child, is but a faint and stammering echo, the worlds, those finite rays of thy infinite Thought, that move around us, like the scattered letters of a heavenly alphabet, which we shall know one day. In this fair physical Universe, which is the garment of the Idea, thou hast everywhere taught Unity, and the bright light of thy teaching shines upon their souls; but they have veiled the eyes of their souls, they have broken in pieces that which is so fair, and on the wreck of thy Unity they have built a warring Dualism: two natures, two laws, two ways of life. Have pity, Lord, forgive, oh forgive the planters.
In History, which is thy life, manifesting itself progressively in time and space, thou hast set in their sight another fount of truth, whence in great waves flows the great thought of Unity, which is thy whole Law. Thou madest all mankind spring from one Adam; at the teaching of thy providence, more clearly seen from day to day, thou hast led man, collective, social man, from slavery to serfdom, from serfdom to wage-earning; and that nought may be wanting to make the progression clear, thou makest now the nations to desire impatiently that to wage-earning association may succeed. And over these three stages, which are the image of thy triune working, hovers the holy voice of Golgotha, All ye are brothers, for ye are all one in God. And they have stopped their ears to the holy voice of Golgotha, they have shut their eyes to the evolution of Thought in History: they have said: we are not brothers, we are masters and slaves. They have kept one page alone of the Great Book, the page that tells of Cain and Abel, of Violence and Right; and they have said to themselves: there are then two races of men, the race that is accursed, and the race that is privileged, and of this last race are we; they know not that the sign of thy curse is on their own forehead, since it is by Violence alone that they make slaves of men. Have pity, Lord, forgive, oh forgive the planters.