Slavery and the Constitution. Bowditch William Ingersoll

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ published "A Catechism to be taught orally to those who cannot read;" New York, 1848. In the preface, he says it was the result of a winter's visit to a large Southern plantation, and was adapted by him, "in a course of actual experiment, to the capacity of colored children, from four to twelve years of age." There are twenty lessons in this little book. He teaches, among other things, about the fall, original sin, the atonement, the trinity, and the sacraments. Elsewhere ("Spirit of Missions," Nov. 1842) he has expressed the conviction, that, if the planters of North Carolina would adopt it, and see to its faithful inculcation, the next generation of blacks in that State, "at a very small expense, would sufficiently understand the truth as it is in Jesus, without knowing a letter of the alphabet."

      Dr. Jones's Catechism is really, what it professes to be, a "Catechism of Scripture doctrine, as well as practice," and contains a very much more elaborate exposition than Bishop Ives's book. Altogether, it must be a much more serviceable book to "owners and ministers."

      We shall therefore chiefly content ourselves with showing what the slaves are taught it is their duty to do, and to refrain from doing, and what motives to duty are urged upon them.

      "As ministers or missionaries to the negroes," says Mr. Jones ("Rel. Inst." p. 270), "in the discharge of our official duty, and in our intercourse with the negroes, we should have nothing to do with their civil condition. We are appointed of God to preach 'the unsearchable riches of Christ' to our perishing fellow-men. We are to meditate upon the duties and responsibilities of our office, and to give ourselves wholly to it." Ib. pp. 193, 194: "We separate entirely their religious and their civil condition, and contend that the one may be attended to without interfering with the other. Our principle is that laid down by the holy and just one, 'Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's, and unto God the things that are God's.' And Christ and his apostles are our example. Did they deem it proper and consistent with the good order of society to preach the gospel to servants? They did. In discharge of this duty, did they interfere with their civil condition? They did not. They expressed no opinion whatever on the subject, if we except that which appears in one of the Epistles to the Corinthian Church (1st Epist. chap. vii. ver. 19-23). There the Apostle Paul considers a state of freedom preferable to one of servitude, and advises slaves, if they can lawfully obtain their freedom, to do it; but not otherwise. He does not treat the question as one of very great moment, in comparison to the benefits of the gospel. 'Art thou called being a servant, care not for it; but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather; for he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman,' &c. May we not follow in the footsteps of our Saviour and his apostles, and that with perfect safety too? Yea, and without proceeding as far as did the Apostle Paul?(!) We maintain that in judicious religious instruction there will be no necessary interference with their civil condition. The religious teacher must step out of his way for the purpose." The Presbytery of Georgia declares in its memorial, that, if the church will undertake the religious instruction of the slaves, —

      "The minds of ministers and members will be drawn off from abstract questions of a civil and a political nature, with which, as Christians engaged in evangelizing the world, we have little to do; and they will be presented with a way whereby they may practically gratify all their benevolent sympathies for the negroes, in the best manner possible. Our attention, as a church, will be turned to the great question before us, and indeed before all other denominations, and which should take precedence of all other questions touching the negroes, Shall this people be saved or lost?"

      "The New Testament," says the Rev. Theodore Clapp (Sermon, pp. 25, 26, and these are his present sentiments), "decides in the plainest terms that Christians are bound to acquiesce in and support those laws and regulations concerning slavery which are enacted by the respective civil governments under which they live. The legislature must determine who shall be kept in bondage, and what shall be their condition and privileges. The pulpit must not interfere in this important and delicate matter… Let him (the clergyman) at all times preach unconditional submission to civil laws and institutions."

      At the outset, therefore, the religious teachers of the slaves disclaim all desire or intention to interfere with the condition of servitude. Their appropriate and only work, they say, is the saving of souls![F] That their brother's soul is brutalized and deadened, in consequence of slavery, is to them no reason why they should interfere with slavery; for slavery is a civil condition, which God, in his mysterious providence, has allowed to exist! But, though it is thus improper to "interfere" with the civil condition of the slaves, that religious teacher (as we shall shortly see) does not "step out of his way," but merely does his duty, who preaches to them that submission to their civil condition, and faithful service for their masters, is demanded of them by God! They cannot interfere to injure the institution of slavery; but very materially to strengthen it falls within their legitimate province! To condemn slavery would be to condemn the providence of God; but in strengthening slavery, they are preaching "the unsearchable riches of Christ" to their perishing fellow-men!

      The Right Rev. William Meade, Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church for the diocese of Virginia, who has also devoted a great deal of attention to the religious instruction of slaves, a few years since collected and published a volume of sermons and tracts, designed to aid the almoners of Divine Mercy in their work of salvation. The grand motive to duty is thus presented to the slaves, pp. 94, 95 ("Slavery and the Slaveholder's Religion as opposed to Christianity, by Samuel Brooke," p. 29, &c.): —

      "Besides, when people die, we know but of two places they have to go to, and that is heaven or hell; so that whoever misses the one must go to the other. Now, heaven is a place of great happiness, which God hath prepared for all that are good; where they shall enjoy rest from their labors, and a blessedness which shall never have an end. And hell is a place of great torment and misery, where all wicked people will be shut up with the devil and other evil spirits, and be punished for ever because they will not serve God. If, therefore, we would have our souls saved by Christ; if we would escape hell and obtain heaven, we must set about doing what he requires of us, that is, to serve God. Your own poor circumstances in this life ought to put you particularly upon this, and taking care of your souls; for you cannot have the pleasures and enjoyments of this life like rich free people, who have estates and money to lay out as they think fit. If others will run the hazard of their souls, they have a chance of getting wealth and power, of heaping up riches, and enjoying all the ease, luxury, and pleasure their hearts should long after. But you can have none of these things; so that, if you sell your souls for the sake of what poor matters you can get in this world, you have made a very foolish bargain indeed. Almighty God hath been pleased to make you slaves here, and to give you nothing but labor and poverty in this world, which you are obliged to submit to, as it is his will that it should be so. And think within yourselves what a terrible thing it would be, after all your labors and sufferings in this life, to be turned into hell in the next life; and, after wearing out your bodies in service here, to go into a far worse slavery when this is over, and your poor souls be delivered over into the possession of the devil, to become his slaves for ever in hell, without any hope of ever getting free from it. If, therefore, you would be God's freemen in heaven, you must strive to be good and serve him here on earth. Your bodies, you know, are not your own: they are at the disposal of those you belong to; but your precious souls are still your own, which nothing can take from you, if it be not your own fault. Consider well, then, that, if you lose your souls by leading idle, wicked lives here, you have got nothing by it in this world, and you have lost your all in the next. For your idleness and wickedness is generally found it, and your bodies suffer for it here; and, what is far worse, if you do not repent and amend, your unhappy souls will suffer for it hereafter."

      The Rev. Alexander Glennie, Rector of All-Saints Parish, Waccamaw, S.C. has for several years been in the habit of preaching expressly for slaves. In 1844, he published in Charleston a selection of these sermons, under the title of "Sermons preached on Plantations to Congregations of Negroes." This book[G] contains twenty-six sermons; and in twenty-two of them there is either a more or less СКАЧАТЬ