Other nations, he thought, might do much in working out this great result; but the chief hopes of the friends of freedom, he suggested, are centered upon this country. The world needs an example; and he pointed to what the example of this nation has already done, imperfect as it is. “It is doing, at this moment, more to change the political condition of man than all the armies and navies,—than all the diplomacy and king-craft of the world.” If it be so, if, as the speaker declared, “the battle of the world’s freedom is to be fought on our own soil,” it would be interesting to look at the obstacles in the way. The United States must present a very different example from that exhibited the last twenty-five years, and now exhibited, before this country will be the agent of Christianity in evangelizing the world. Think of three millions of our countrymen in chains! Think of the large numbers held by ministers of the gospel and members of churches! Think of the countenance given to slave-holders by our ecclesiastical assemblies, by Northern preachers, by Christian lawyers, merchants, and mechanics! Think of the platforms, adopted by the two leading political parties of the country, composed partly of religious men! Think of the dumbness of those that minister at the altar, in view of the great national iniquity, and then consider the effects of such an example upon other nations, Christian and Heathen!
Dr. Hawes is stated to have said at the last annual meeting of the A. B. C. F. M., that Dr. John H. Rice said, in his hearing, more than twenty years ago: “I do not believe the Lord will suffer the existing type or character of the Christian world to be impressed on the heathen.” We also heard the remark, and believe that Dr. Rice, in alluding to the state of religion in this country, said, “it was so far short of what Christianity required, that sanguine as many were that the United States was speedily to be the agent of the world’s conversion, he did not believe, for one, that God would suffer the Christianity of this country, as it then was, to be impressed upon the heathen world.” If the character of our religion was thus twenty years ago, what is it now? As a religious people we have been boastful. We have acted as if we thought God could not convert the world without the instrumentality of this country. It is far more probable that the converted heathen will send missionaries to the United States to teach us the first rudiments of Christianity, than that this country, at the present low ebb of religion, will be the agent of converting heathen nations to God.
Dr. Hawes believed “that if the piety of the church were corrected and raised to the standard of Paul, God would soon give to the Son the heathen for his inheritance.” No doubt of it. Such piety would do away with chattel slavery, with caste, with slavery platforms, with ungodly rulers, with Indian oppression, with divorcing Christianity from the ballot-box, with heathenism at home. Let us pray for such piety; and that hundreds of such men as Rice and Hawes may lift up their voices like a trumpet, and put forth corresponding action, until the nation shall be regenerated and become fit to enlighten, and, through the grace of God, save a dying world.
“THE GOSPEL AS A REMEDY FOR SLAVERY.”
In one of the leading Congregational papers, a writer, W. C. J., has commenced a series of communications under the above heading. It is well to discuss the subject. The writer says, “There are, it is true, many among our three millions of slaves who are acquainted with the rudiments of religious truth, and are leading lives of sincere piety.” Dr. Nelson, a native of a slave State, stated, as the result of experience for many years, that he had never known more than three or four slaves who he had reason to believe were truly and intelligently pious. The Synod of South Carolina and Georgia published to the world, some years since, that the great mass of slaves were heathen, as much so as the heathen of any portion of the globe. What authority W. C. J. has for saying there are, among the three millions of American slaves, “many” who are “leading lives of sincere piety,” I do not know. It is probably the mere conjecture of an ardent mind. He qualifies the expression by asking, “What is the type of the religion that too generally appears among the slaves?” And then replies to his own question, “It is sickly and weak, like a plant growing in a cellar, or a cave; a compound of sincere piety with much of superstition and fanaticism.” What sort of piety is that?
A sagacious observer has remarked, that there never can be, in our day, intelligent piety where men are not possessed of property, especially where they are mere serfs or slaves. How many American slaves have the piety of “Uncle Tom,” we are unable to say. Probably very few. And it must fill the heart of every one who loves the souls of men, with anguish to contemplate the spiritual destitution of the slaves in this country; kept in bondage by the religious and political apathy or acts of professing Christians, of different denominations, in their individual or associated capacity. But to the question: Is the gospel a remedy for slavery? We answer, unhesitatingly, not such a gospel as is preached to them; for while it does very little to enlighten either slave or master, it enjoins upon the former passive obedience, and inculcates upon the latter the right and duty of holding their fellow men in bondage. Nor have we much hesitation in avowing it as our belief, that the gospel, as generally preached in the free States, is quite inadequate to put an end to slavery. It does not reach the conscience of the tens of thousands who are, in various ways, connected with slave-holding by relationship, business correspondence, or political or ecclesiastical ties. As proof of this, we need only contemplate the action of the Northern divisions of the political and religious national parties. Slavery is countenanced, strengthened, increased, extended by their connivance or direct agency. The truth is, Christianity, as promulgated by the great mass of the preachers and professors at this day even in the free States, is not a remedy for slavery. It is a lamentable truth, one that might justly occasion in the heart of every true Christian the lamentation of the prophet Jeremiah: “Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep, day and night, for the slain of the daughters of my people!” And it is in view of this truth, that the friends of a pure and full gospel have great encouragement to persevere in their work of faith and love. The missionaries connected with the American Missionary Association, at home and abroad, inculcate, fearlessly and persistently, a gospel of freedom, and make no more apology or allowance for slave-holding than for any other sin or crime. Such missionaries should be sustained, their numbers augmented, and prayer ascend for them continually.
