LETTER VII.
THE CROWNING EVIL OF SLAVERY.—PRECIOUSNESS OF THE BIBLE.—OUR CHART AND COMPASS ON LIFE'S VOYAGE INDISPENSABLE.—ORAL INSTRUCTIONS INSUFFICIENT.—DANGERS.—SHIPWRECK ALMOST INEVITABLE.—WITHHELD FROM THE SLAVE.—SHUTS MULTITUDES OUT OF HEAVEN.—AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY.—TESTIMONY OF GENERAL ASSEMBLY.—OF SYNOD OF KENTUCKY.—OF DR. BRECKENRIDGE.
My Dear Brother,—There is one feature of slavery, fourthly, which gives me more pain by far than any other, and I may say more than all others put together, and that is, it imperils the immortal souls of millions of our fellow-beings by keeping from them the Word of God.
Next to the Saviour, and the Holy Spirit, the most precious gift God has bestowed on man is the Bible. This volume contains our only perfect rule of life, and is our only guide to heaven. It teaches us our character and our destiny; it alone raises the curtain between time and eternity, and dissipates the darkness that otherwise would forever enshroud the grave; it reveals to us another state of being, in which we shall be happy or miserable, ages without end. On this Book alone do we depend for our knowledge of the way of salvation by Christ. It is here we read the story of the manger and the cross, and the wonderful plan of redemption through atoning blood. What could we do without the Bible? It is of infinitely greater value than houses and lands, silver and gold, and every earthly good beside. To take from us the Bible, would be like blotting out the sun in the heavens, and enveloping the universe in the gloom and darkness of eternal night. Take from me riches, honors, pleasures, comforts, and even liberty itself; and give me instead thereof poverty, disgrace, pains, affliction, hunger, cold, nakedness, and a dungeon; tear me from my friends, bind me with chains, scourge me with the lash, brand my flesh with hot irons, deprive me of every source of earthly good, and inflict upon me every kind of bodily and mental anguish which the utmost refinement of cruelty can invent;—but give me my Bible—leave me this precious treasure, which is the gift of my heavenly Father, to teach me his will and guide me to himself. Torture and destroy my body, if you will, but O! give me facilities for saving my soul. Turn me not adrift on life's troubled ocean to seek alone a far distant shore, exposed continually to storms, breakers, hidden reefs, whirlpools, and shoals, with nothing but a few verbal instructions to direct my way. If I am to make this fearful voyage, (and make it I must,) take not from me my chart and compass. Your verbal directions I shall be likely to forget when I most need them. The polestar, which you tell me may be my guide, is often for a long time concealed by impenetrable clouds. There are fearful maelstroms, near the verge of whose deceptive and destructive circles my course lies, and ere I am aware of it I shall have passed the fatal line, from which no voyager returns. Between me and my desired haven there is a "hell-gate," where are sunken rocks and conflicting currents, and amid all these complicated dangers my frail bark will make shipwreck, without my chart and compass. Deprived of these, I cannot keep my reckoning, I cannot shape my course, I cannot find my haven.
I need not tell you, my dear brother, that it is a part of the slaveholding policy to take from thousands and millions of immortal beings in our nominally Christian land, this precious chart and compass,—the Bible, the only safe guide to heaven. I have often heard you speak of it, and deplore it. Those severe laws which forbid teaching the slave to read, do virtually take from him the Bible,—his directory to the New Jerusalem. You may, indeed, give him oral instruction, and in many instances, no doubt, they are blessed to his conversion; but how utterly inadequate are they to his spiritual wants, how imperfect are they at best, and in how many thousands of cases are even these entirely wanting. Every enlightened and intelligent Christian knows, from his own experience, how hard it is to enter the "strait gate," and to keep in the "narrow way," and how needful to him are all the helps within his reach, and then he is but "scarcely saved." What hope is there, then, for the poor slave, who is deprived, not only of most of the ordinary and extraordinary means of grace which we enjoy, but is forbidden the printed Word of God? Is not a fearful responsibility incurred by those who, for any reason, stand between God and his children, and intercept those messages of grace and mercy which are contained in the Holy Scriptures?
That noble institution, the American Bible Society, is multiplying copies of the sacred Word by thousands and hundreds of thousands, and scattering them over the land and the world; it hesitates not to thrust them into the hands of the followers of the false prophet,—the deluded followers of the man of sin,—the disciples of Confucius and Zoroaster,—the worshippers of Juggernaut and Vishnoo, and the degraded inhabitants of the South Seas and Caffraria;—it benevolently resolves to put a copy of the Bible into the dwelling of every white family in these United States; but it is obliged by law to pass by the cabin of the slave, and leave more than three millions of immortal beings to find the road to heaven the best way they can.
My brother, I cannot think of these things without the deepest grief, and I know that you fully sympathize with me; but it is some consolation to believe that the great mass of evangelical Christians take the same views of the wrongs inflicted upon the slave that we do, for it is to the Christian sentiment of this country that we must look for the removal of them.
Our brethren of the Presbyterian church have borne their testimony most fully and pointedly against the evils of slavery which we have been considering. You doubtless recollect the action of the General Assembly on this subject in 1818. A committee was appointed, to whom was referred certain resolutions on the subject of selling a slave,—a member of the church,—and which was directed to prepare a report to be adopted by the Assembly, expressing their opinion in general on the subject of slavery. The report of this committee was unanimously adopted, and ordered to be published. It is, in part, as follows:—
"The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, having taken into consideration the subject of slavery, think proper to make known their sentiments upon it to the churches.
"We consider the voluntary enslaving of the one part of the human race by another, as a gross violation of the most precious and sacred rights of human nature; as utterly inconsistent with the law of God, which requires us to love our neighbors as ourselves; and as totally irreconcilable with the spirit and principles of the gospel of Christ, which enjoins that all things 'whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them.' Slavery creates a paradox in the moral system; it exhibits rational, accountable, and immortal beings in such circumstances as scarcely to leave them the power of moral action. It exhibits them as dependent on the will of others, whether they shall receive religious instruction; whether they shall know and worship the true God; whether they shall enjoy the ordinances of the gospel; whether they shall perform the duties and cherish the endearments of husbands and wives, parents and children, neighbors and friends; whether they shall preserve their chastity and purity, or regard the dictates of justice and humanity.