dering to them that which is just and equal.
If the laws which regulate slavery were made by a despotic
sovereign, over whose movements the masters could have no
control, this mode of proceeding might be called just and
equal; but, as they are made and kept in operation by these
Christian masters, these ministers and Church members, in
common with those who are not so, they are every one of them
refusing to the slave that which is just and equal, so long as
they do not seek the repeal of these laws; and if they
cannot get them repealed, it is their duty to take the slave
out from under them, since they are constructed with such
fatal ingenuity as utterly to nullify all that the master tries
to do for their elevation and permanent benefit.
No man would wish to leave his own family of children as
slaves under the kindest master that ever breathed; and what
he would not wish to have done to his own children, he ought
not to do to other people's children.
But it will be said that it is not becoming for the Christian
Church to enter into political matters. Again, we ask, what is
the Christian Church? Is it not an association of republican
citizens, each one of whom has his rights and duties as a legal
voter?
Now, suppose a law were passed which depreciated the value
of cotton or sugar three cents in the pound; would these men
consider the fact that they are Church members as any reason
why they should not agitate for the repeal of such law? Cer-
tainly not. Such a law would be brittle as the spider's web;
it would be swept away before it was well made. Every law
to which the majority of the community does not assent is, in
this country, immediately torn down.
Why, then, does this monstrous system stand from age to
age? Because the community CONSENT TO IT. They re-enact these unjust laws every day, by their silent permission of them.
The kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ is not of this world,
say the South Carolina Presbyteries; therefore the Church has
no right to interfere with any civil institution; but yet all the
clergy of Charleston could attend in a body to give sanction
to the proceedings of the great Vigilance Committee. They
could not properly exert the least influence against slavery,
because it is a civil institution; but they could give the whole
weight of their influence in favour of it.
Is it not making the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ
quite as much of this world, to patronise the oppressor as to
patronise the slave?
CHAPTER IX.
IS THE SYSTEM OF RELIGION WHICH IS TAUGHT THE SLAVE
THE GOSPEL?
The ladies of England, in their letter to the ladies of America,
spoke in particular of the denial of the gospel to the slave. This
has been indignantly resented in this country, and it has been
claimed that the slaves do have the gospel communicated to
them very extensively.
Whoever reads Mr. Charles C. Jones's book on the religious
instruction of the negroes will have no doubt of the following
facts:--
1. That from year to year, since the introduction of the
negroes into this country, various pious and benevolent indi-
viduals have made efforts for their spiritual welfare.
2. That these efforts have increased, from year to year.
3. That the most extensive and important one came into being
about the time that Mr. Jones's book was written, in the year
1842, and extended to some degree through the United States.
The fairest development of it was probably in the State of
Georgia, the sphere of Mr. Jones's immediate labour, where the
most gratifying results were witnessed, and much very amiable
and commendable Christian feeling elicited on the part of masters.
4. From time to time, there have been prepared, for the use
of the slave, catechisms, hymns, short sermons, &c. &c., designed
to be read to them by their masters, or taught them orally.
5. It will appear to anyone who reads Mr. Jones's book that,
though written by a man who believed the system of slavery
sanctioned by God, it manifests a spirit of sincere and earnest
benevolence, and of devotedness to the cause he has undertaken,
which cannot be too highly appreciated.
It is a very painful and unpleasant task to express any qualifi-
cation or dissent with regard to efforts which have been undertaken
in a good spirit, and which have produced, in many respects,
good results; but, in the reading of Mr. Jones's book, in the
study of his catechism, and of various other catechisms and
sermons which give an idea of the religious instruction of the
slaves, the writer has often been painfully impressed with the
idea that however imbued and mingled with good, it is not the
true and pure Gospel system which is given to the slave. As far
as the writer has been able to trace out what is communicated to
him, it amounts in substance to this; that his master's authority
over him, and property in him, to the full extent of the enactment
of slave-law, is recognised and sustained by the tremendous
authority of God himself. He is told that his master is God's
overseer; that he owes him a blind, unconditional, unlimited
submission; that he must not allow himself to grumble, or fret,
or murmur, at anything in his conduct; and, in case he does so,
that his murmuring is not against his master, but against God.
He is taught that it is God's will that he should have nothing
but labour and poverty in this world; and that, if he frets and
grumbles at this, he will get nothing by it in this life, and be sent
to hell for ever in the next. Most vivid descriptions of hell,
with its torments, its worms ever feeding and never dying, are
held up before him; and he is told that this eternity of torture
will be the result of insubordination here. It is no wonder that
a slaveholder once said to Dr. Brisbane, of Cincinnati, that religion
had been worth more to him, on his plantation, than a waggon-
load of cowskins.
Furthermore, the slave is taught that to endeavour to evade
his master by running away, or to shelter or harbour a slave who
has run away, are sins which will expose him to the wrath of
that omniscient Being whose eyes are in every place.
As the slave is a moveable and merchantable being, liable, as
Mr. Jones calmly remarks, to “all the vicissitudes of property,”
this system of instruction, one would think, would be in some-
thing of a dilemma, when it comes to inculcate the Christian
duties of the family state.
When Mr. Jones takes a survey of the field, previous to com-
mencing his system of operations, he tells us, what we suppose
every rational person must have foreseen, that he finds among
the negroes an utter demoralisation upon this subject; that
polygamy is commonly practised, and that the marriage-covenant
has become a mere temporary union of interest, profit, or plea-
sure, formed without reflection, and diss
olved without the slightest
idea of guilt.
That this state of things is the necessary and legitimate result
of the system of laws which these Christian men have made and
are still keeping up over their slaves, any sensible person will per-
ceive; and anyone would think it an indispensable step to any
system of religious instruction here, that the negro should be
placed in a situation where he can form a legal marriage, and
can adhere to it after it is formed.
But Mr. Jones and his coadjutors commenced by declaring
that it was not their intention to interfere, in the slightest degree,
with the legal position of the slave.
We should have thought, then, that it would not have been
possible, if these masters intended to keep their slaves in the
condition of chattels personal, liable to a constant disruption of
family ties--that they could have the heart to teach them the
strict morality of the gospel, with regard to the marriage relation.
But so it is, however. If we examine Mr. Jones's catechism,
we shall find that the slave is made to repeat orally that one
man can be the husband of but one woman; and if during
her lifetime he marries another, God will punish him for ever
in hell.
Suppose a conscientious woman, instructed in Mr. Jones's
catechism, by the death of her master is thrown into the market
for the division of the estate, like many cases we may read of
in the Georgia papers every week. She is torn from her hus-
band and children, and sold at the other end of the Union,
never to meet them again, and the new master commands her
to take another husband; what, now, is this woman to do?
If she takes the husband, according to her catechism she com-
mits adultery, and exposes herself to everlasting fire; if she
does not take him, she disobeys her master, who, she has been
taught, is God's overseer; and she is exposed to everlasting
fire on that account, and certainly she is exposed to horrible
fortures here.
Now, we ask if the teaching that has involved this poor
soul in such a labyrinth of horrors can be called the gospel.
Is it the gospel--is it glad tidings in any sense of the
words?
In the same manner, this catechism goes on to instruct
parents to bring up their children in the nurture and admoni-
tion of the Lord, that they should guide, counsel, restrain and
govern them.
Again these teachers tell them that they should search the
Scriptures most earnestly, diligently, and continually, at the
same time declaring that it is not their intention to interfere
with the laws which forbid their being taught to read. Search-
ing the Scriptures, slaves are told, means coming to people
who are willing to read to them. Yes; but if there be no one
willing to do this, what then? Anyone whom this catechism has
thus instructed is sold off to a plantation on Red River, like
that where Northrop lived; no Bible goes with him; his Chris-
tian instructors, in their care not to interfere with his civil con-
dition, have deprived him of the power of reading; and in this
land of darkness his oral instruction is but as a faded dream.
Let any of us ask for what sum we would be deprived of all
power of ever reading the Bible for ourselves, and made entirely
dependent on the reading of others--especially if we were liable
to fall into such hands as slaves are--and then let us determine
whether a system of religious instruction, which begins by de-
claring that it has no intention to interfere with this cruel legal
deprivation, is the gospel!
The poor slave, darkened, blinded, perplexed on every hand
by the influences which the legal system has spread under his feet,
is furthermore strictly instructed in a perfect system of morality.
He must not even covet anything that is his master's; he must
not murmur or be discontented; he must consider his master's
interests as his own, and be ready to sacrifice himself to them;
and this he must do, as he is told, not only to the good and
gentle, but also to the froward. He must forgive all injuries,
and do exactly right under all perplexities; thus is the obliga-
tion on his part expounded to him, while his master's reciprocal
obligations mean only to give him good houses, clothes, food,
&c. &c., leaving every master to determine for himself what is
good in relation to these matters.
No wonder, when such a system of utter injustice is justified
to the negro by all the awful sanctions of religion, that now and
then a strong soul rises up against it. We have known under a
black skin shrewd minds, unconquerable spirits, whose indignant
sense of justice no such representations could blind.
That Mr. Jones has met such is evident; for speaking of the
trials of a missionary among them, he says (p. 127):
He discovers Deism, Scepticism, Universalism. As already stated, the various
perversions of the gospel, and all the strong objections against the truth of God
--objections which he may perhaps have considered peculiar only to the cultivated
minds, the ripe scholarship, and profound intelligence of critics and philosophers!
--extremes here meet on the natural and common ground of a darkened understand-
ing and a hardened heart.
Again, in the Tenth Annual Report of the “Association for the
Religious Instruction of the Negroes in Liberty County, Georgia,”
he says:
Allow me to relate a fact which occurred in the spring of this year, illustrative
of the character and knowledge of the negroes at this time. I was preaching to
a large congregation on the Epistle to Philemon; and when I insisted upon fidelity
and obedience as Christian virtues in servants, and upon the authority of Paul con-
demned the practice of running away, one half of my audience deliberately walked
off with themselves, and those that remained looked anything but satisfied either
with the preacher or his doctrine. After dismission, there was no small stir among
them; some solemnly declared that there was no such epistle in the Bible; others,
“that it was not the Gospel;” others, “that I preached to please masters;” others,
“that they did not care if they never heard me preach again.”
--Pp. 24, 25. Lundy Lane, an intelligent fugitive, who has published his
Memoirs, says that on one occasion they (the slaves) were greatly
delighted with a certain preacher, until he told them that God
had ordained and created them expressly to make slaves of. He
says that after that they all left him, and went away, because
they thought with the Jews, “This is a hard saying; who can
bear it?”
In these remarks on the perversion of the gospel as presented
to the slave, we do not mean to imply that much that is excellent
and valuable is not taught him. We mean simply to assert that,
in so far as the system taught justifies the slave-system, so far
necessarily it vitiates the fundamental ideas of justice and
morality; and so far as the obligations of the g
ospel are incul-
cated on the slave in their purity, they bring him necessarily in
conflict with the authority of the system. As we have said
before, it is an attempt to harmonise light with darkness, and
Christ with Belial. Nor is such an attempt to be justified and
tolerated because undertaken in the most amiable spirit by
amiable men. Our admiration of some of the labourers who
have conducted the system is very great; so also is our admira-
tion of many of the Jesuit missionaries who have spread the
Roman Catholic religion among our aboriginal tribes. Devotion
and disinterestedness could be carried no further than some of
both these classes of men have carried them.
But while our respect for these good men must not seduce
us as Protestants into an admiration of the system which they
taught, so our esteem for our Southern brethren must not lead
us to admit that a system which fully justifies the worst kind of
spiritual and temporal despotism can properly represent the
gospel of him who came to preach deliverance to the captives.
To prove that we have not misrepresented the style of in-
struction, we will give some extracts from various sermons and
discourses.
In the first place, to show how explicitly religious teachers
disclaim any intention of interfering in the legal relation (see Mr.
Jones's work, p. 157):--
By law or custom they are excluded from the advantages of education, and by
consequence from the reading of the word of God; and this immense mass of
immortal beings is thrown for religious instruction upon oral communications
entirely. And upon whom? Upon their owners. And their owners, especially
of late years, claim to be the exclusive guardians of their religious instruction,
and the almoners of divine mercy towards them, thus assuming the entire respon-
sibility of their entire Christianisation!
All approaches to them from abroad are rigidly guarded against, and no ministers
are allowed to break to them the bread of life, except such as have commended
themselves to the affection and confidence of their owners. I do not condemn
this course of self-preservation on the part of our citizens, I merely mention it to
show their entire dependence upon ourselves.