This sketch, though hastily written, and meagre in detail as it must necessarily be, will show, at least, by the quotations of poetry introduced, that God hath not given to one race alone, all intellectual and moral greatness.
TO THE FRIENDS OF NEGRO EMANCIPATION.
The following powerful Appeal, reprinted from the “Uncle Tom’s Cabin Almanack,” will not, it is hoped, be deemed an inappropriate termination of this most interesting Volume:
Many of the interpreters of prophecy consider that England is one of “the ten horns” of the beast, or Roman power, referred to by the Apostle John. It is also allowed that, in the highly figurative and varied language of Scripture, the monster of the Apocalypse is the same as the image of Daniel, whose feet were partly strong and partly fragile. In a being that has to stand, walk, fight, and run, very much depends upon the lower members. The physical man of Louis XVIII. was very kingly as far as his hips, but his extremities were feeble, and it was a poor affair when he attempted to walk. Now this is the very spirit of Daniel’s description of the Roman power. It had no good legs and feet to stand upon, for they were part of iron and part of clay, partly strong and partly fragile. As a limb of old Rome, we are at present in this very predicament. Thank God, we have a great deal of “iron” among us, both metallic, mental, and moral; but we have an enormous quantity of the old Pagan “clay,” and hence our strength and our weakness.
Passing over a host of subjects which might illustrate what we have just stated, we now refer only to the slavery question. Here we are strong, and we are also feeble. The twenty millions we paid for the emancipation of our slaves in the West Indies was one of the most generous acts of the nation, especially if we consider the burden of taxation under which we were then groaning. Such a sacrifice at the shrine of cupidity, for the noble and glorious object of bursting the yoke of the captive, exhibited no small degree of moral principle and power. But some beheld in this munificent price the “clay” blended with the “iron.” Not a few of the anti-slavery labourers were growing tired of the agitation. The task had been an arduous one—had demanded considerable toil and incurred much odium. The philanthropists were stigmatised as “the saints,” as “canting hypocrites,” and by other terms equally expressive of the ire and malignity of their opponents; and while there were numbers among us who were willing to suffer any kind of martyrdom in this good cause, there was a still greater multitude who had been galvanised, rather than vitally quickened into activity, and longed, from the inert characters of their hearts and benevolence, to relapse again into their wonted apathy. The money therefore was paid down quite as much to release these worried philanthropists from travail, as to meet any supposed equitable claim of the slave-holder; and no sooner was the contract of emancipation sealed than these soldiers of humanity threw off their armour, and retired from the fray; and hence, though slavery has been abolished in our colonies, it has been allowed to vegetate and grow in the United States and elsewhere.
Now all this showed that we were not sound at heart. Because the negroes perishing under the iron sceptre of the American Republican were just as much “our bone and our flesh” as the victims of West Indian bondage. It is true we had more control over the condition of the one than the other, because the one was our fellow-subject, and the other was not; but still this very fact, instead of being a reason for inactivity, ought to have furnished a motive for more energetic operations. Even the brutish horse puts forth extra strength when the burden increases, or when a hill is to be climbed; and we need scarcely add that generally among beasts and men the greater the foe the more vigorous the effort to overcome him; but, strange to say, in the anti-slavery cause, we reversed this common mode of proceeding, and, because the enemy was powerful, our exertions to vanquish him became proportionably feeble! We know that many will ask what could we have done? But then the very question betrays the state of their hearts. True philanthropy is never at a loss for expedients to accomplish her benevolent purpose, and therefore never retires because there is a lion or a mountain in the way. Its faith can stop the mouth of the one, or slay him altogether, and remove the other into the midst of the sea. Before we close this paper, we shall, perhaps, show that if we had not been weary in well doing, we might have brought an immense amount of influence against American slavery, which, long before this, would have produced the most happy results.
There was one circumstance which especially contributed to paralyse our efforts for the emancipation of American slaves. Just about the time that we liberated our brethren in the British colonies, we heard a great deal about revivals of religion in the United States, and we were told that the Spirit from on high was poured out on transatlantic churches and congregations in almost Pentecostal abundance; and what was more astonishing, the slave-holders were said to be remarkably favoured with these supposed tokens of Divine favour. The writer remembers that in those days, when he was about to offer some remarks at an anti-slavery meeting, he was called aside by a minister of religion, and especially reminded of the great piety of many of the slave-owners, and therefore exhorted to be very tender in his animadversions! He was allowed to be as severe as he pleased on the poor ignorant, blind, dead, unconverted traffickers in human flesh! but the enlightened, pious, spiritual holders of slaves were, forsooth, to be treated with the utmost lenity!! Our Saviour’s rule was thus to be reversed; for he who knew his Lord’s will and did things worthy of stripes, was to be beaten with few stripes! but he who knew not his Lord’s will, was to be beaten with many stripes!!
That the people of England should have allowed themselves to be duped in this manner, is almost equal to an eighth wonder of the world. Why, there is as great probability that the Holy Spirit will be poured out upon Satan as upon men and women who for “paltry pelf” hold their brethren in bondage. Had such a phenomenon taken place, the very first fruit would have been the breaking “of every yoke.” Strange that people who read the New Testament should have supposed that the Holy Ghost could have been granted to the worst of tyrants without destroying their tyranny and rendering them abolitionists. A real Christian man never “confers with flesh and blood.” Poverty, dungeons, racks, losses, and tortures of every kind, are cheerfully endured in the cause of humanity, justice, liberty, and religion, and therefore a slave-holder endued with the special influences of the Holy Spirit would instantly have braved penury and death rather than have continued to retain in bondage his poor brethren and sisters.
The sum and substance of all true religion is love to God and love to man, and when the Spirit is poured out on any individual or body of individuals, he sheds abroad the love of God in the heart; and this invariably exhibits itself in benevolence of life. The apostle John is plain even to what some would call bluntness on this matter. “If a man say ‘I love God,’ and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God, loves his brother also.” Now the negro is both “neighbour” and “brother” to his master, and unless his owner loves him as he loves himself, he has no real religion, and not one particle of evidence that the Spirit has been poured out upon him, or that the love of God has been shed abroad in his heart by the Holy Ghost. It was therefore the height of absurdity to talk of a revival of religion in the heart of any one so long as he held his brother in bondage; because he does not love him as he loves himself, and consequently is a stranger to the love of God and to vital Christianity. Love to our brother, prompting us to give him equal rights and blessings with ourselves, whatever may be his colour or country, is a perfect window to the soul, and renders the heart transparent. On the contrary, the plain language of John, which we have just quoted, assures us that every individual who professes to love God while he does not love his brother, is “a liar.” And it must be remembered that the love of which John speaks is not that sickly sort of charity which will bestow a few pence or privileges on a brother while we rob him of liberty and his natural rights, but it is that “perfect love” which loves every human being as we love ourselves, and will make any sacrifice for the purpose of developing this love.