Книга - Slavery and the Constitution

Slavery and the Constitution
William Bowditch






Slavery and the Constitution





NOTE




Page 45 was struck off before I became aware that "Master Auld" now shelters Douglass's grandmother under his own roof. We are glad of the fact, and respect Master Auld for his change. But the case of Douglass's grandmother is by no means a solitary instance of cruel treatment. I might easily adduce others equally cruel, though not told with nearly so much feeling.

    W. I. B.




CHAPTER I.

"SLAVERY AGREEABLE TO GOD'S PROVIDENCE"!




"Thus did Jehovah stereotype his approbation of domestic slavery"! —Rev. President Shannon, of Bacon College, Ky.

"Here we see God dealing in slaves; giving them to his own favorite child [Abraham], a man of superlative worth, and as a reward for his eminent goodness." —Rev. Theodore Clapp, of New Orleans.


Nearly three millions of men, women, and children are held in slavery in the Southern States, not by the ignorant and brutal alone, but by enlightened Christian bishops, ministers, and church members of all denominations; whilst men and women of cultivated minds, refined manners, and delicate tastes, indignantly deny that slaveholding is wrong.

The Right Rev. George W. Freeman, Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Arkansas and Texas, whilst a minister at Raleigh, N.C. Nov. 27, 1836, preached two discourses on the character of slavery and the duties of masters. In these ("A Reproof of the American Church, by the Bishop of Oxford; with an Introduction, by an American Churchman;" New York, 1846, p. 6) he declared "that no man, nor set of men in our day, unless they can produce a new revelation from Heaven, are entitled to pronounce slavery wrong;" and that "slavery, as it exists at the presentday, is agreeable to the order of Divine Providence." The Right Rev. Levi S. Ives, Bishop of the diocese, was present; and, though a northern man, has in writing published that he listened to them "with most unfeigned pleasure"! (Ib. p. 7.) They were afterwards published with the bishop's note of approbation, under the title, "The Rights and Duties of Slaveholders." They were also printed in South Carolina, and distributed gratuitously as a tract by the Society for the Advancement of Christianity, – a society composed of clergymen and laymen, with Bishop Bowen at their head. (Ib. pp. 7, 8.) Rev. Theodore Clapp,[A] (#litres_trial_promo) the Unitarian minister of New Orleans, says ("Slavery, a Sermon delivered in the First Congregational Church in New Orleans, April 15, 1838," p. 11), "The same God who gave Abraham sunshine, air, rain, earth, flocks, herds, silver, and gold, blessed him with a donative of slaves." Ib. p. 33: "To succeed, then, in putting down every thing like servitude, you must annihilate the word of God." Bishop Hedding, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, says ("The Church as it is," p. 50), "The right to hold a slave is founded on this rule, 'Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so unto them.'" The funds of churches and theological institutions are not unfrequently invested in slaves. Sometimes these slaves are hired out at auction, and from their earnings the salaries of the clergymen and professors are paid! At other times, they are sold in order to change the investment! Thus, in the "Charleston Courier," Feb. 12, 1835, there is advertised for sale, by Thomas N. Gadsden, "a prime gang of ten negroes, accustomed to the culture of cotton and provisions belonging to the Independent Church in Christ Church parish"! ("The Church as it is," p. 72.) No incredible story, therefore, was told by the fugitive slave, who gave as his reason for not receiving the Lord's Supper, "I could not bear to go forward, and receive the communion from vessels which were the purchase of my brother's blood." In the memorial of the Presbytery of Georgia to the Presbyteries of the Southern States in 1844, on the religious instruction of the negroes, it is stated that slaves are "connected with our churches; nay, more, they are owned by our church members and by our ministers." – "What is it," asks the Rev. Dr. Albert Barnes (Sermon in Philadelphia in 1846, "The Church as it is," p. 81), "that lends the most efficient sanction to slavery in the United States? What is it that does most to keep the public conscience at ease on the subject? What is it that renders abortive all measures to remove the evil?.. It is the fact that the system is countenanced by good men; that bishops and priests and deacons, that ministers and elders, that Sunday-school teachers and exhorters, that pious matrons and heiresses, are the holders of slaves; and that the ecclesiastical bodies of the land address no language of rebuke or entreaty to their consciences." More evidence to the same point might be adduced, if thought necessary.

This open vindication of the rightfulness of slaveholding is by no means confined to persons residing at the South. In the year 1847, the Rev. Geo. W. Blagden, of Boston, who delivered the last Dudleian Lecture in Harvard University, defended slavery from the Bible, in the pulpit of Old South Church, that second cradle of Liberty! Only last winter (1848), a gentleman of this State, of high legal attainments, at present connected with the Law School in Harvard University, in conversation hesitated not to declare to us his opinion, "that it was not desirable that slavery should cease"! And Dr. Taylor, of Yale College, at the head of the theological department, instructs his pupils, candidates for the ministry, that, "if Jesus Christ were now on earth, he would, under certain circumstances, become a slaveholder"! ("The Church as it is," p. 95.)

Open defenders of slavery are therefore found among the foremost of the leaders in Church and State. And how few of the opponents of the system have a deep, ineradicable conviction, that slaveholding is wrong under all circumstances! Our object is to create and deepen this conviction.

To prove our position, we shall not rely upon the physical condition of the slaves. Notwithstanding the fact is otherwise, we are willing to suppose that every slave is comfortably housed, and has sufficient food and clothing. These may give

"Ease to the body some, none to the mind
From restless thoughts."

Even if in a comfortable house, the slave is homeless! No joys cluster around his hearthstone! He has no wife to share his sorrows, or to partake his joys; for neither law nor public opinion sanctions the marriage of slaves! The very children whom the slave presses to his heart are not regarded, either by law or public sentiment, as his dear children, but only as part of the stock of the plantation! Mother and children may be, and are, sold at auction, and separated from him and from each other for ever! And yet the heart of the slave-mother yearns for her children as much as the heart of the white mother.

By giving me a spiritual nature capable of improvement, God has made it my duty to strive to improve myself, – has declared that I have a natural right to improve myself, and that any wanton or unnecessary infringement of this right is a wrong. No man has the right to prevent me, or the meanest slave, from earnestly seeking after wisdom; to prevent me, or the meanest slave, from becoming pure in heart; or to deaden my affections, or those of the humblest slave that walks. In keeping a slave ignorant or impure, or in blunting his affections, even though he is well fed, clothed, and housed, violence is offered to his nature; his God-given rights are infringed; a wrong is done!

Slaveholding is wrong under all circumstances, because it either darkens the minds, brutalizes the souls, and deadens the affections of the slaves, or, without any necessity, renders such spiritual death not merely possible, but almost inevitable. If it is wrong to murder the body, how much more wrong is it to murder the soul! Slaveholding is murder of the soul!




CHAPTER II.

DIRECT MENTAL INSTRUCTION OF SLAVES




"It is universally the fact throughout the Slaveholding States, that either custom or law prohibits them [i. e. the slaves] the acquisition of letters." —Report made to Synod of South Carolina and Georgia in 1833.


At a recent annual meeting of the American Colonization Society, the Rev. Joel Parker, D.D. of Philadelphia, a member of the Presbyterian Church, speaking of the instruction of the colored race, is reported to have used the following language: – "There seems to me, in connection with this subject, a beautiful illustration of what Hall calls 'a fetch in Divine Providence.' God had a design in bringing these people to this country in the way he did. We cannot probably comprehend the whole of it; but this we can see, he has secured the education of those who, to all human appearance, would not and could not have been educated in any other way. There are now in this country more than three hundred thousand Africans who can read and write, who could not have done it if it had not been for the slave-trade. There are many in this country and in Liberia who are capable of preaching the gospel, editing papers, and performing all the duties of civil life, who must have remained in total darkness but for this trade. How came this people by all this knowledge? Did anybody go to Africa and teach them? No! It has been done by slavery… And now we send them back to Africa, with a preparation for doing a great work there, which we never could have imparted to them in any other way… In this view of the subject, we may perceive at least one good which slavery has done to Africa; and the question may with propriety be asked, whether it has not done for Africa more good than harm."

If we may believe this spiritual teacher, the Being who made of one blood all the nations of men, the common Father of us all, himself designed the scheme by which millions of men, women, and children were torn from their homes and friends, and all they held dear, and brought to this country, through all the horrors of the middle passage, where a terrible death relieved on an average at least one fifth of the victims from a scarcely less terrible life, – for this end in part, that, after two centuries of wrongs, not even a tithe of their descendants might be returned to the land of their fathers, to teach the Africans the religion of their oppressors! A truly touching example of God's loving-kindness and tender mercy to all his children!

That many slaves have been instructed to the extent stated by Dr. Parker is true; but they have been educated, not in consequence, but in spite, of slavery. So hostile to mental culture is slavery, that but a slight examination is needed to satisfy us that it is neither profitable nor safe to educate a slave beyond a certain point. Without some education, a slave would be worse than valueless. Far the larger number of them, as field slaves, are simply taught to use the hoe, and other instruments of agriculture. Others are brought up as carpenters, masons, blacksmiths, house-servants, &c. Frederick Douglass earned a dollar and a half a day at caulking; whilst William Craft, as a cabinet-maker and occasional waiter at an hotel, supported himself, and paid his owner twenty dollars a month for the right to use his own muscles. We occasionally meet with such advertisements as the following, cut from the "New Orleans Picayune," of Oct. 18, 1846: —



"Credit Sale of Valuable Negro Mechanics, &c. – By Beard, Calhoun, and Co. auctioneers, will be sold at auction, on Tuesday the 20th October, at twelve o'clock, at Banks's Arcade, the following valuable slaves: – Ezekiel, 25 years, a superior carpenter, fully guarantied; Jacob, 25 years, a superior carpenterand wheelwright, fully guarantied; Dick, 35 years, a superior carpenter and wheelwright, fully guarantied; Charles, 28 years, engineer and rough carpenter; Charles, 22 years, field hand, fully guarantied, excepting slightly ruptured; Sancho, 26 years, good house carpenter, fully guarantied; Maria, mulattress, 28 years, first-rate washer and ironer, fully guarantied; Maria, negress, 13, child's nurse, fully guarantied.

"Terms: Twelve months' credit for notes drawn and endorsed to the satisfaction of the vendor, with mortgage on the property, bearing interest eight per cent per annum, from date of sale until paid. Slaves not to be delivered until the notes are approved of. The servants can be seen on the morning of sale. Act of sale before D. I. Ricardo, notary public, at the expense of the purchaser."


In the same paper, Alexander Daggett advertises "for sale a negro man, a first-rate blacksmith." In the "Richmond Whig" of Jan. 25, 1848, Benjamin Davis advertises for sale a negro man "who is a first-rate carpenter by trade; also a rough blacksmith." In the "Charleston (S.C.) Mercury," Thomas W. Mordecai, broker and auctioneer, under date Sept. 1, 1847, advertises at private sale —



"An uncommonly prime and likely black man, about 22.

A prime woman, a superior washer, and good cook and farm hand.

A very prime axeman and field hand.

A superior man-cook."


It is not, however, necessary to teach a slave-mechanic or field hand, or even "a prime woman," to read or write, in order to make him or her a profitable investment. If we suppose William Craft's value as a slave to have been two thousand dollars, his master received from his investment only twelve per cent clear profit! Yet William could neither read nor write. He was a valuable working machine. To have him educated farther, to have taught him to read or write, would have lessened his market value. To teach a slave these things is to teach him his rights, and to make him keenly feel his wrongs. Mrs. Hugh Auld taught Frederick Douglass his letters before slavery had hardened her naturally kind heart. She gave him the inch, as he says, and no precaution could prevent his taking the ell. He taught himself to read and write, and thus describes the effect produced by reading a book called "The Columbian Orator." This book contains one or more of Sheridan's speeches, and a dialogue between a master and his slave, wherein the slave is made to refute all the arguments usually brought forward in support of slavery.



"The more I read," he says ("Narrative," p. 40), "the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land reduced us to slavery. I loathed them as being the meanest as well as the most wicked of men. As I read and contemplated the subject, behold! that very discontentment which Master Hugh had predicted would follow my learning to read had already come, to torment and sting my soul to unutterable anguish. As I writhed under it, I could at times feel that learning to read had been a curse, rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out. In moments of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity. I have often wished myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own, – any thing, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! It was this everlasting thinking of my condition that tormented me. There was no getting rid of it."


As a necessary result of his learning to read, Douglass loathed slavery, and detested his enslavers. If he had never read, his eyes would never have been fully opened to the extent of his wrongs; and what is true of him is true of all other slaves. Any slave who can read Sheridan's denunciations of slavery must, like Douglass, loathe his condition, and detest his oppressors.

But a slave who loathes his condition, and detests his oppressors, will be refractory and disobedient. A late writer in the "Charleston Mercury" admits this when he remarks ("William Jay's Letter to Bishop Ives," 1848, p. 12): —



"It has been the policy of this State not to admit the teaching to the slaves, either of reading or writing. We all know why this is so. It needed no great scope of argument to satisfy those who framed our laws, that the expansion of intellect, the hundred influences which education generates, would be very inconsistent with habits of obedience, which was the corner-stone of the institution."


Such a slave will also try to escape at every fair opportunity; and, being able to write passes or forge free papers, the chances for successful escape are very much increased. The owner's hold upon him becomes daily more and more precarious, and consequently the slave's value as property daily diminishes. So true is this, that in Louisiana a buyer may legally refuse to take a slave, if he has only "absented himself from his master's house twice for several days, or once for more than a month." The "Civil Code" (Art. 2496, 2505) declares that the "vice of character," as it is called, which is proved by either of these Acts, renders the slave absolutely useless, or renders his use so inconvenient or imperfect that it must be supposed no one would buy a slave who was known to have this vice.

Every particle of instruction given to a slave beyond what is consistent with his remaining a passive and obedient, working machine, is so much money taken from the master's pocket. Nobody wants to invest his money in a slave who is refractory or disobedient, or who runs away at every opportunity, – unless, indeed, he buys the stock, in consequence, at very much under par! The value of Douglass as a slave decreased just as fast as his manhood increased; and Capt. Price now candidly avows, that he hesitated some time before he invested seven hundred dollars in William W. Brown; for William was a noted runaway! The love of money impels the slaveholders to keep their slaves in ignorance.

Not only this, but an educated slave, who loathes his condition and hates his oppressors, is an unsafe member of a household or a community. His means for taking a fearful vengeance are ample, and what consideration shall stay his hands? None but an educated slave can plan or head an insurrection. Such are the ones who always do take active part in rebellions. The house-servants constitute everywhere the most educated class. None are more dreaded than they, for this reason in part, and partly because of their living under the same roof with their masters. In a pamphlet published in Charleston, S. C. in 1822, p. 14, by Gen. Thomas Pinckney, speaking of house-servants, he remarks: —



"They are the most dangerous. Their intimate acquaintance with all the circumstances relating to the interior of the dwellings, the confidence reposed in them, and the information they unavoidably obtain from hearing the conversation and observing the habitual transactions of their owners, afford them the most ample means for treacherous bloodshed and devastation. The success, therefore, of servile conspiracies mainly depends on this class for taking off, by midnight murder, their unsuspecting owners; and the late trials, by exhibiting so large a portion of this description among the ringleaders of the conspiracy, afford a melancholy proof of their promptitude to become actors in such scenes." —William Jay's Letter, &c. p. 9.


The love of life itself, the desire for the safety of their wives and children, impels the slaveholders to keep their slaves in ignorance.

Two of the strongest motives which can be brought to bear upon man, the love of money and the love of life, are therefore constantly urging the slaveholder to darken the minds of his slaves. If the former of these motives leads to the commission of so much wrong everywhere, what will not both motives together accomplish to the injury of the slave? But the slaveholders have not been willing to trust wholly to these motives, strong though they are. In many of the States, it is a penal offence to teach a slave to read or write; and, where laws of this kind do not exist, custom, as universal, powerful, and remorseless as the law, accomplishes the same wrong. The following are some of these laws: —

The "Revised Statutes" of North Carolina, chap. 34, sec. 74 ("Revision of Stat." 1830, chap. 6, § 1), provide that



"Any free person who shall hereafter teach, or attempt to teach, any slave within this State to read or write, the use of figures excepted, or shall give or sell to such slave or slaves any books or pamphlets, shall be liable to indictment in any court of record in this State having jurisdiction thereof; and, upon conviction, shall, at the discretion of the court, if a white man or woman, be fined not less than one hundred dollars, nor more than two hundred dollars, or imprisoned; and, if a free person of color, shall be fined, imprisoned, or whipped, at the discretion of the court, not exceeding thirty-nine lashes, nor less than twenty lashes."


Chap. 111, sec. 27 (Statute, 1830, chap. 6, § 2), provides that, —



"If any slave shall teach, or attempt to teach, any other slave to read or write, the use of figures excepted, he or she may be carried before any justice of the peace, and, on conviction thereof, shall be sentenced to receive thirty-nine lashes on his or her bare back."


In South Carolina, the "Negro Act" (1740, § 45; "2 Brev. Dig." 243), provides that —



"All and every person and persons whatsoever who shall hereafter teach, or cause any slave or slaves to be taught to write, or shall use or employ any slave as a scribe in any manner of writing whatsoever, hereafter taught to write; every such person and persons shall, for every such offence, forfeit the sum of one hundred pounds current money."


In Alabama (Statute, 1832, chap. 8, § 10; "Clay's Digest," p. 543, § 24), —



"Any person or persons who shall attempt to teach any free person of color, or slave, to spell, read, or write, shall, upon conviction thereof by indictment, be fined in a sum not less than two hundred and fifty dollars, nor more than five hundred dollars."


In Georgia ("Penal Code approved Dec. 23, 1833," 13th div., sec. 18; "Prince's Digest," p. 658; "William A. Hotchkiss's Codification," 1845, p. 772), —



"If any person shall teach any slave, negro, or free person of color, to read or write either written or printed characters, or shall procure, suffer, or permit a slave, negro, or person of color, to transact business for him in writing, such person so offending shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and, on conviction, shall be punished by fine, or imprisonment in the common jail of the county, or both, at the discretion of the court."


In Mississippi ("Howard & Hutchinson's Laws," p. 673),



"No slave or free person of color can be employed in the setting of types in any printing office."


In Missouri, the "Revised Statutes" (chap. 8, sec. 10, p. 117) provide that, —



"When an apprentice is a negro or mulatto, it shall not be the duty of the master to cause such colored apprentice to be taught to read or write, or a knowledge of arithmetic; but he shall be allowed, at the expiration of his term of service, a sum of money in lieu of education, to be assessed by the county court."


The Act of 1847 (approved Feb. 16, § 1) reads, —



"No person shall keep or teach any school for the instruction of negroes or mulattoes in reading or writing in this State."


Other similar laws might be produced; but these suffice to exhibit, in a clear light, the opportunities presented for the mental instruction of slaves! In some States, it is unlawful to teach even a FREE colored person to read or write!

That these laws have been almost universally respected and obeyed, there is no room to doubt. No one has given more attention to this subject than the Rev. Chas. C. Jones, of Savannah, Ga. In 1842 he published, at Savannah, a work, containing the result of his researches, entitled "The Religious Instruction of the Negroes in the United States." In this work, p. 115, he says, "The statutes of our respective Slave States forbid all knowledge of letters to the negroes; and, where the statutes do not, custom does. It is impossible to form an estimate of the number of negroes that read. My belief is, that the proportion would be expressed by AN ALMOST INCONCEIVABLE FRACTION. The greatest number of readers is found in and about towns and cities, and among the FREE negro population some two or three generations removed from servitude." – As a confirmation of this testimony of Mr. Jones, we know no greater proof that the degraded class in any community is almost wholly uneducated, than that a large portion of the privileged class is so. The law of compensation is divine. We cannot degrade or brutalize our fellow-men, without degrading or brutalizing ourselves. Now, we find that, in the Slave States, almost one tenth of the free white population over twenty years of age are unable to read and write! To some persons this may seem a small proportion; but, in the Free States, with all our ignorance, there are less than one in one hundred and fifty! and Horace Mann, the best authority on this subject, says that "at least four fifths of these are foreigners, who ought not to be included in the computation." In Connecticut, out of 163,843 free persons over twenty years of age, there are only 526 who are unable to read and write; while, in the model Slave State of South Carolina, out of only 111,663 free white persons over twenty years of age, there are 20,615 who cannot read and write! "In South Carolina," says Theodore Parker, "out of each 626 free whites more than twenty years of age, there are more than 58 wholly unable to read or write; out of that number of such persons in Connecticut, not quite two"! More than the sixth part of the adult freemen of South Carolina are unable to read the vote they deposit in the ballot-box! And Gov. Clarke, of Kentucky, declared in his message to the legislature in 1837, that one third of the adult population of that State were unable to write their names! While such is the state of the freemen, it is impossible that any considerable number of the slaves should become educated. With these facts before us, it is impossible not to admit the correctness of Mr. Jones's conclusion. Only an "almost inconceivable fraction" of three millions of slaves can read or write! These are taught by their owners, or with their connivance; and of them we shall speak hereafter. But, taken as a mass, the slaves are truly described by a writer in the "Marysville (Tennessee) Intelligencer" as being "degraded, stupid savages." We may add, not naturally degraded and stupid, but made and kept so in open violation of their rights as human beings, for the sake of gain!




CHAPTER III.

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS CONDITION OF THE SLAVES




"Their depravity, their spiritual ignorance and destitution, are amazingly and awfully great." —Rev. C. C. Jones's Catechism; preface, p. 4.


"When the charge of the intellectual and moral degradation of the slaves is preferred against us," says Mr. Jones[B] (#litres_trial_promo) ("Religious Instruction," p. 107), "we are inclined to put the best face on affairs, knowing that this is the darkest feature and the most vulnerable point."

"Their notions of the Supreme Being (ib. p. 125); of the character and offices of Christ and of the Holy Ghost; of a future state; and of what constitutes holiness of life, are indefinite and confused. Some brought up in a Christian land, and in the vicinity of the house of God, have heard of Jesus Christ; but who he is, and what he has done for a ruined world, they cannot tell. The Mohammedan Africans remaining of the old stock of importations, although accustomed to hear the gospel preached, have been known to accommodate Christianity to Mohammedanism. 'God,' say they, 'is Allah, and Jesus Christ is Mohammed: the religion is the same; but different countries have different names.'"

"True religion they are inclined to place in profession, in forms and ordinances, and in excited states of feeling; and true conversion, in dreams, visions, trances, voices, – all bearing a perfect or striking resemblance to some form or type which has been handed down for generations, or which has been originated in the wild fancy of some religious teacher among them." Page 126: "Sometimes principles of conduct are adopted by church members at so much variance with the gospel that the 'grace of God is turned into lasciviousness.' For example, that which would be an abominable sin, committed by a church member with a worldly person, becomes no sin at all if committed with another church member. The brethren must 'bear one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.'… To know the extent of their ignorance, even where they have been accustomed to the sound of the gospel in white churches, a man should make investigation for himself: the result will frequently surprise and fill him with grief. They scarcely feel shame for their ignorance on the subject of religion, although they may have had abundant opportunity of becoming wiser. Ignorance they seem to feel is their lot; and that feeling is intimately associated with another, every way congenial to the natural man, namely, a feeling of irresponsibility: ignorance is a cloak and excuse for crime." Page 127: "He who carries the gospel to them encounters depravity, intrenched in ignorance, both real and pretended. He beholds the Scripture fulfilled, 'Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their hearts,' Eph. iv. 17-19. He discovers deism (!), scepticism (!!), universalism (!!!)… 'They are wise to do evil; but to do good they have no knowledge.'"

"Intimately connected with their ignorance is their superstition. They believe in second sight, in apparitions, charms, witchcraft, and in a kind of irresistible Satanic influence. The superstitions brought from Africa have not been wholly laid aside (p. 128). Ignorance and superstition render them easy dupes to their teachers, doctors, prophets, conjurers; to artful, designing men. When fairly committed to such leaders, they may be brought to the commission of almost any crime. Facts in their history prove this. On certain occasions, they have been made to believe, that, while they carried about their persons some charm with which they had been furnished, they were invulnerable.[C] (#litres_trial_promo) They have, on certain other occasions, been made to believe that they were under a protection that rendered them invincible… They have been known to be so perfectly and fearfully under the influence of some leader or conjurer or minister, that they have not dared to disobey him in the least particular; nor to disclose their own intended or perpetrated crimes, in view of inevitable death itself; notwithstanding all other influences brought to bear upon them."

"The discipline of colored members is involved, tedious, vexatious, and disgusting" (p. 131). "Excommunications and suspensions are of perpetual occurrence, for crimes shocking in character, and of themselves sufficient to show the general state of morals; such, for example, as adultery, fornication, theft, lying, drunkenness, quarrelling, and fighting. The first three are their most common vices." Page 135: "They are, proverbially, thieves. They bear this character in Africa; they have borne it in all countries whither they have been carried; it has been the character of slaves in all ages, whatever their nation or color. They steal from each other, from their masters, from anybody… Their veracity is nominal." Page 136: "The number, the variety, and ingenuity of falsehoods that can be told by them in a few brief moments, is most astonishing… Servants, however, who will neither steal nor lie, may be found, and in no inconsiderable numbers."

Other similar extracts, and touching other vices, might be given; but these seem amply sufficient to justify the general conclusion to which Mr. Jones arrives, p. 153, that "they are, intellectually and morally, a degraded people, the most so of any in the United States; and while, from their universal (?) profession of the Christian system, and their attendance upon its ordinances of worship, and the absence of all fixed forms of idolatry, they cannot strictly be termed heathen, yet may they with propriety be termed the heathen of our land." In a sermon preached by him in Georgia, and published at Savannah in 1831, he calls them "a nation of heathen in our very midst" ("Jay's Letter," p. 11). Abundant confirmation of this conclusion exists. The Hon. Chas. C. Pinckney, in his "Address before the Agricultural Society of South Carolina" (Charleston, 1829, second edit. pp. 10-12; Jones's "Relig. Inst." p. 141), says, "There needs no stronger illustration of the doctrine of human depravity than the state of morals on plantations in general." "Who would credit it," asks the Committee of the Synod of South Carolina and Georgia in 1833, "that, in these years of revival and benevolent effort, in this Christian republic, there are over two millions of human beings in the condition of heathen, and in some respects in a worse condition? From long-continued and close observation, we believe that their moral and religious condition is such that they may justly be considered the heathen of this Christian country." The Executive Committee of the Kentucky Union for the Moral and Religious Improvement of the Colored Race, in their "Circular to the Ministers of the Gospel in Kentucky," 1834 (Jones's "Relig. Inst." p. 143), say, "We desire not to represent that condition worse than it is. Doubtless, the light that shines around them, more or less illuminates their minds, and moralizes their characters. We hope and believe, that some of them, though poor in this world's goods, will be found rich in spiritual possessions in the day when the King of Zion shall make up his jewels. We know that many of them are included in the visible church, and frequently exhibit great zeal; but it is to be feared, that it is often a zeal without knowledge; and of the majority it must be confessed, that the light shineth in darkness, and the darkness comprehendeth it not. After making all reasonable allowances, our colored population can be considered, at the most, but semi-heathen."

In view of these statements, we cannot but be forced to the conclusion, that the slaves, as a body, are in an extremely degraded moral and religious condition. That they are naturally thus, even Mr. Jones denies ("Relig. Instruction," p. 124). He says, "As to moral and religious character, the negroes are naturally what other men are." That they are so much more degraded than others must, then, be owing to their education or their social condition. The inference, therefore, is unavoidable that they have been thus degraded by others. The wrong rests upon those who have denied them the means of education, and who have kept them in slavery, – upon those who have thus degraded their minds and souls, in order that their bodies might remain in slavery! In violation of the slave's dearest rights, all the highest, noblest, and purest instincts of his nature have been destroyed, in order to advance the pecuniary interests of the man "who gains his fortune from the blood of souls"! Are those slaves who enjoy moral and religious instruction any better off?




CHAPTER IV.

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS TEACHERS OF THE SLAVES




"Q. When you hear the minister preach, are you not to listen to him as the minister of God; God's messenger to your soul? A. Yes." —Jones's Catechism, p. 140.


"By the providence and word of God," says Mr. Jones ("Religious Instruction," pp. 165, 166), "are we under obligations to impart the gospel to our servants… We cannot disregard this obligation … without forfeiting our humanity, our gratitude, our consistency, and our claim to the spirit of Christianity itself. Our humanity… The Lord Jesus has furnished us with the most beautiful and striking illustrations of this virtue: – 'What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep; and, if it fall into a pit, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out?' 'Doth not each one of you loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering? And ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, be loosed from this bond?'… Apply the reasoning: 'How much, then, is a man better than a sheep or an ox?' When our servants are sick and diseased, we do not suffer them to want: we physic and nurse them (?). But are not their souls more precious than their bodies? Much more, then, should we lift our servants from the pit of ignorance, moral pollution and death, into which they have fallen. Much more should we strive to loose them (bound for so many years!) from the bonds of sin and Satan, and lead away their famishing souls to the water of life."

"Our gratitude. They nurse us in infancy, contribute to our pleasures and pastimes in youth, and furnish us with the means of education. They constitute our wealth, and yield us all the comforts and conveniences of life. They may, in a degree, adopt towards us the language of Jacob to Laban, 'Thus I was: in the day the drought consumed me, and the frost by night, and my sleep departed from mine eyes.' They watch around our languishing beds in sickness, share in our misfortunes, weep over us when we die, prepare us for the burial, and carry us to the house appointed for all the living. The obligations, the sacrifice, and service are not to be all on one side, in the relation of master and servant. If we have been made partakers of their carnal things, our duty is also to minister unto them in spiritual things,[D] (#litres_trial_promo) Rom. xv. 27. 1 Cor. ix. 11. And shall we consider it a great thing to fulfil this duty? The kindest and the most grateful return which we can make them is to put them in possession of the richest gift of God to men, the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."

How far has the existence or utterance of such sentiments as these resulted in securing to the slaves a sound moral and religious instruction? What kind of teachers and what kind of instruction are thought to be consistent with proper feelings of gratitude and humanity on the part of masters? We have just seen the deep moral degradation of the very great majority of the slaves. Still "there are at the present time," says Mr. Jones (p. 100), "tens of thousands connected by a credible profession to the church of Christ, and the gospel is reaching them to a greater extent and in greater purity and power than ever before."

By whom is the gospel thus preached to them in purity and power? Who is it that "ministers unto them in spiritual things," and "leads away their famishing souls to the water of life"?

"Those who would keep the Bible from their fellow-creatures are the enemies of God and man. The Bible belongs of right to every man. It is the property of the world." Thus speaks the Protestant defender of slavery, Charles C. Jones ("Catechism," p. 80). But to prevent a slave from reading the Bible is not by any means to keep the Bible from him! In what a Catholic spirit he thus exhorts the slaves! ("Catechism," p. 79) "What benefit will this precious book be to us, unless we diligently study it, and embrace opportunities of receiving instruction from it, such as are afforded us in the house of God, in the sabbath-school, and in the Bible-class? 'Search the Scriptures' is the Redeemer's command."[E] (#litres_trial_promo) "We cannot," he says ("Religions Instruction," p. 167), "cry out against the Papists for withholding the Scriptures from the common people, and keeping them in ignorance of the way of life; for our inconsistency is as great as theirs, if we withhold the Bible from our servants, and keep them in ignorance of its saving truths, which we certainly do while we will not provide ways and means of having it read and explained to them"! So readily, at the bidding of slavery, will Protestants surrender the most distinctive feature of Protestantism!

It is obvious, that, if any religious instruction is to be imparted to slaves, it must be given them by others. But it is in the power of the owner to forbid all such instruction. "The whole arrangement of the religious instruction of the negroes, as to teachers, times, places, matter and manner, is in our own power," says Mr. Jones (ib. p. 98).

The Presbytery of Georgia, in the memorial before alluded to, says —



"The law of the land makes and can make no provision for their religious instruction. That instruction is committed to owners, as the instruction of children is to parents; and they can give or withhold it at pleasure. We owners and ministers are 'the almoners of divine mercy to them,' and, if we do not open the door of salvation, they may grope their way into a miserable eternity; for they have no power of any kind to originate and establish and carry forward church organizations and associations for their own benefit. They are entirely dependent upon us for the gospel of salvation."


"We may," says Mr. Jones ("Religious Instruction," p. 158), "according to the power lodged in our hands, forbid religious meetings and religious instruction on our own plantations; we may forbid our servants going to church at all, or only to such churches as we may select for them; we may literally shut up the kingdom of heaven against men, and suffer not them that are entering to go in!"

Wherever an owner is willing to permit such instruction, it must still be carried on wholly by oral communications. "This immense mass of immortal beings," says Mr. Jones, "is thrown for religious instruction upon oral communications entirely" (ib. p. 157). That any oral instruction of the adult or aged slaves is worth but little he evidently admits, because he says (ib. p. 229), "If a people are to be instructed orally, let the instruction be communicated to them in early life;" and "the great hope of permanently benefiting the negroes is laid in sabbath-schools, in which children and youth may be trained up in the knowledge of the Lord." Our minds are so constituted, that, unless our powers of memory have been strengthened by constant or frequent use in youth, we cannot in after-life either receive or retain much benefit from oral instruction. And if this is true of the freeman, how much more is it true of the slave! Consequently, the only method of instructing the slaves, which law or custom or both do not forbid, is the very last, – the poorest method for their real good which can be devised!

There are colored preachers at the South, "and some of them," says Mr. Jones, "are able to read" (ib. p. 175). The following anecdote, illustrative of their capacity to impart knowledge, is told by Charles Lyell. When in Louisville, Ky. he attended a Methodist Church. "The preacher was a full black, spoke good English, and quoted Scripture well." "It appeared," says Prof. Lyell, "from his explanation of 'Whose superscription is this?' that he supposed the piece of money to be a dollar note, to which Cæsar had put his signature."

Some, probably most of them, are slaves. We have now before us the advertisement of a runaway slave who claimed to be a Methodist preacher! The Alabama Baptist Association bought one of its missionaries, named Cæsar, in 1828, and owned him till the time of his death! He lived to be 76 years old. A writer in the "Georgia Christian Index" begins an obituary notice of him thus, "A good colored man has fallen in Israel;" and ends by saying, "The writer can truly say that his labors have been much blest." Mr. Jones gives the names of several other slave preachers. Still, however, they are discountenanced.

The "Revised Statutes" of North Carolina (chap. 111, sec. 34; "Revision of Statute," 1831, chap. 4, sec. 1) provide that —



"It shall not be lawful, under any pretence, for any slave or free person of color to preach or exhort in public, or in any manner to officiate as a preacher or teacher in any prayer-meeting or other association for worship where slaves of different families are collected together; and if any free person of color shall be thereof duly convicted, on indictment, before any court having jurisdiction thereof, he shall for each offence receive not exceeding thirty-nine lashes on his bare back; and when any slave shall be guilty of a violation of this section, he shall, on conviction before a single magistrate, receive not exceeding thirty-nine lashes on his bare back."


In Alabama (Stat. 1832, chap. 8, sec. 24; "Clay's Digest," 545, sec. 35), —



"If any slave or free person of color shall preach to, exhort, or harangue any slave or slaves or free persons of color, unless in the presence of five respectable (!) slaveholders, any such slave or free person of color so offending shall, on conviction before any justice of the peace, receive, by order of said justice of the peace, thirty-nine lashes for the first offence, and fifty lashes for every offence thereafter; and any person may arrest any such slave or free person of color, and take him before a justice of the peace for trial, – Provided that the negroes so haranguing or preaching shall be licensed thereto by some regular body of professing Christians immediately in the neighborhood, and to whose society or church such negro shall properly belong."


In Georgia, the Act approved Dec. 23, 1833, sec. 5 ("Prince's Digest," 808; "Hotchkiss's Codification," 840, 841), provides that —



"No person of color, whether free or slave, shall be allowed to preach to, exhort, or join in any religious exercise with, any persons of color, either free or slave, there being more than seven persons of color present," &c.


In Mississippi, the law declares (How. and Hutch. 178) that —



"It shall not be lawful for any slave, free negro or mulatto to exercise the functions of a minister of the gospel under the penalty of thirty-nine lashes, – Provided that it shall be lawful for any master or owner to permit his slave to preach upon his own premises, but not to permit any other slaves but his own to assemble there on such occasion."


In Missouri, the Act approved Feb. 16, 1847, sec. 2, provides that —



"No meeting or assemblage of negroes or mulattoes for the purpose of religious worship or preaching shall be held or permitted, where the services are performed or conducted by negroes or mulattoes, unless some sheriff, constable, marshal, police officer, or justice of the peace shall be present during all the time of such meeting or assemblage, in order to prevent all seditious speeches and disorderly and unlawful conduct of every kind."


"Negro preachers are discouraged," says Mr. Jones ("Religious Instruction," p. 157), "if not suppressed, on the ground of incompetency, and liability to abuse their office and influence to the injury of the morals of the people, and the infringement of the laws and peace of the country. I would not go all the lengths of many on this point; for, from my own observation, negro preachers may be employed and confided in, and so regulated as to do their own color great good, and community no harm." Ib. p. 274: "The appointment of colored preachers and watchmen by the white churches, and under their particular supervision, in many districts of country, has been attended with happy effects; and such auxiliaries, properly managed, may be of great advantage." Doubtless, when thus "properly managed," they are of great advantage! "I shall never forget," says Mr. Jones (ib. p. 215), "the remark of a venerable colored preacher, made with reference to the Southampton tragedy" (i. e. Nat. Turner's insurrection in Southampton, Va. in 1832). "With his eyes filled with tears, and his whole manner indicating the deepest emotion, said he, 'Sir, it is the gospel that we, ignorant and wicked people, need.(!) If you will give us the gospel, it will do more for the obedience of servants and the peace of community than all your guards and guns and bayonets.' This same Christian minister, on receiving a packet of inflammatory pamphlets through the post-office, and discovering their character and intention, immediately called upon the mayor of the city, and delivered them into his hands. Who can estimate the value in community of one such man acting under the influence of the gospel of peace?"

Not only are negro preachers thus discountenanced, unless they are the abject tools of the slaveholders, but only a certain class of white teachers are allowed. The following extract is taken from the "Georgia Christian Index: " —



"Preachers for the Slaves. – We think the instruction of the blacks in the South should be committed wholly to white men; and they should be Southern men, in whom the masters have confidence. If the preacher is himself a slaveholder, as are Mr. Jones and Mr. Law, they will command the greater confidence, and have access to the larger number of plantations."


"The field of labor among the negroes in the South," says Mr. Jones ("Religious Instruction," p. 196), "is one, in many respects, of no ordinary difficulty; and it is the dictate as well of benevolence as of prudence to inquire into the character and qualifications of those who enter it. They should be Southern men; men entitled to that appellation; either those who have been born and reared in the South, or those who have identified themselves with the South, and are familiarly acquainted with the structure of society; in a word, men having their interests in the South. Such men would possess the confidence of the community; for they would not act, in their official connection with the negroes, in such a manner as to breed disturbances, which would inevitably jeopard their own lives, and tend to the utter prostration of their families and interests." Ib. p. 235: "The missionaries should be Southern men, or men … identified in views, feelings, and interests with the South, and who possess the confidence of society." We should (ib. p. 197) "know who their teachers are, and what and when and where they are taught."

The object of these laws and precautions evidently is wholly to exclude, as religious teachers of the slaves, all persons except slaveholders, or those who are fully identified with or subject to them. Only slaveholders and their tools can be "God's messengers" to the souls of the slaves! The moral and religious teaching of the slaves is exclusively vested in that class of men whose interest it is to uphold and strengthen slavery! A slaveholder must have the strongest inducement to make his teaching of such a quality as directly to increase the market value of his hearers; and yet the slaves are receiving from the hallowed lips of their owners the gospel of love and human brotherhood in greater purity and power than ever before!




CHAPTER V.

DIRECT RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION OF SLAVES




"Hath He not brought you out of a land of darkness and ignorance, where your forefathers knew nothing of him, to a country where you may come to the knowledge of the only true God, and learn a sure way to heaven?" —Right Rev. Bishop Meade's Instruction to Slaves.

"The religious instruction of your people will promote your own interests for time and eternity." —Rev. C. C. Jones's Teaching to Slaveholders ("Rel. Inst." p. 275).


We might safely presume, that religions owners would instruct their slaves in such doctrines as they deemed essential to the salvation of their own souls, and that such instruction would not materially vary from that given elsewhere on the same points. But abundant proof exists. The Right Rev. Levi S. Ives has 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] (#litres_trial_promo) 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] (#litres_trial_promo) contains twenty-six sermons; and in twenty-two of them there is either a more or less extended account or a reference to eternal misery in hell as a motive to duty. He thus describes the day of judgment (Serm. 15, Matt. xxv. 31, p. 90): —



"When all people shall be gathered before him, 'he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats; and he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.' That, my brethren, will be an awful time, when this separation shall be going on; when the holy angels, at the command of the great Judge, shall be gathering together all the obedient followers of Christ, and be setting them on the right hand side of the judgment-seat, and shall place all the remainder on the left. Remember that each of you must be present; remember that the great Judge can make no mistake; and that you shall be placed on one side or on the other, according as in this world you have believed in and obeyed him or not. How full of joy and thanksgiving will you be, if you shall find yourselves placed on the right hand! but how full of misery and despair, if the left shall be appointed as your portion!"…

"But what shall he say to the wicked on the left hand? To them he shall say, 'Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.' He will tell them to depart: they did not while here seek him by repentance and faith; they did not obey him; and he will drive them from him. He will call them cursed."

Page 42 (Sermon 7, Rom. vi. 28): "The death, which is the wages of sin, is this everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels. It is a fire which shall last for ever; and the devil and his angels, and all people who will not love and serve God, shall there be punished for ever. The Bible says, 'The smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever:' the fire is not quenched; it never goes out: 'their worm dieth not:' their punishment is spoken of as a worm, always feeding upon them, but never consuming them: it never can stop."


Mr. Jones orally catechizes[H] (#litres_trial_promo) the slaves in the same manner: —



Page 83: "Q. Are there two places only spoken of in the Bible to which the souls of men go after death? – A. Only two.

Q. Which are they? – A. Heaven and hell.

Pp. 91, 92: Q. After the Judgment is over, into what place do the righteous go? – A. Into heaven.

Q. What kind of a place is heaven? – A. A most glorious and happy place.



· · · · · ·



Q. Shall the righteous in heaven have any more hunger or thirst, or nakedness or heat or cold? Shall they any more have sin or sorrow, or crying or pain or death? – A. No.

Q. Repeat, 'And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.' – A. 'And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying; neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away.'

Q. Will heaven be their everlasting home? – A. Yes.

Q. And shall the righteous grow in knowledge and holiness and happiness for ever and ever? – A. Yes.

Q. To what place should we wish and strive to go, more than to all other places? – A. Heaven.

Pp. 93, 94: Q. Into what place are the wicked to be cast? – A. Into hell.

Q. Repeat, 'The wicked shall be turned.' – A. 'The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.'

Q. What kind of a place is hell? – A. A place of dreadful torments.

Q. What does it burn with? – A. Everlasting fire.

Q. Who are cast into hell besides wicked men? – A. The devil and his angels.

Q. What will the torments of hell make the wicked do? – A. Weep and wail, and gnash their teeth.

Q. What did the rich man beg for when he was tormented in the flame? – A. A drop of water to cool his tongue.

Q. Will the wicked have any good thing in hell? the least comfort? the least relief from torment? – A. No.

Q. Will they ever come out of hell? – A. No: never.

Q. Can any go from heaven to hell, or from hell to heaven? – A. No.

Q. What is fixed between heaven and hell? – A. A great gulf.

Q. What is the punishment of the wicked in hell called? – A. Everlasting punishment.

Q. Will this punishment make them better? – A. No.

Q. Repeat, 'It is a fearful thing.' – A. 'It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.'

Q. What is God said to be to the wicked? – A. A consuming fire.

Q. What place should we strive to escape from above all others? – A. Hell."


The slaves are taught that they must do what God requires of them, if they would escape never-ending torments in hell. How strict an account of their stewardship does God require at their hands! He, they are taught, has made them slaves, and has given them nothing but labor and poverty for their lot in this life. Will he require much, where he has given little? Bishop Meade continues (Brooke's "Slavery," pp. 30, 31, 32): —



"Having thus shown you the chief duties you owe to your great Master in heaven, I now come to lay before you the duties you owe to your masters and mistresses here upon earth; and for this you have one general rule that you ought always to carry in your minds, and that is, to do all service for them as if you did it for God himself. Poor creatures! you little consider, when you are idle and neglectful of your masters' business, when you steal and waste and hurt any of their substance, when you are saucy and impudent, when you are telling them lies and deceiving them; or when you prove stubborn and sullen, and will not do the work you are set about without stripes and vexation; you do not consider, I say, that what faults you are guilty of towards your masters and mistresses are faults done against God himself, who hath set your masters and mistresses over you in his own stead, and expects that you will do for them just as you would do for him. And, pray, do not think that I want to deceive you, when I tell you that your masters and mistresses are God's overseers; and that, if you are faulty towards them, God himself will punish you severely for it in the next world, unless you repent of it, and strive to make amends by your faithfulness and diligence for the time to come; for God himself hath declared the same.

"Now, from this general rule, – namely, that you are to do all service for your masters and mistresses as if you did it for God himself, – there arise several other rules of duty towards your masters and mistresses, which I shall endeavor to lay out in order before you.

"And, in the first place, you are to be obedient and subject to your masters in all things… And Christian ministers are commanded to 'exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them well in all things, not answering them again, or gain-saying.' You see how strictly God requires this of you, that whatever your masters and mistresses order you to do, you must set about it immediately, and faithfully perform it, without any disputing or grumbling, and take care to please them well in all things. And for your encouragement he tells you, that he will reward you for it in heaven; because, while you are honestly and faithfully doing your master's business here, you are serving your Lord and Master in heaven. You see also that you are not to take any exceptions to the behavior of your masters and mistresses, and that you are to be subject and obedient, not only to such as are good and gentle and mild towards you, but also to such as may be froward, peevish, and hard. For you are not at liberty to choose your own masters; but into whatever hands God hath been pleased to put you, you must do your duty, and God will reward you for it.

"2. You are not to be eye-servants. Now, eye-servants are such as will work hard, and seem mighty diligent, while they think anybody is taking notice of them; but, when their masters' and mistresses' backs are turned, they are idle, and neglect their business. I am afraid there are a great many such eye-servants among you, and that you do not consider how great a sin it is to be so, and how severely God will punish you for it. You may easily deceive your owners, and make them have an opinion of you that you do not deserve, and get the praise of men by it; but remember that you cannot deceive Almighty God, who sees your wickedness and deceit, and will punish you accordingly. For the rule is, that you must obey your masters in all things, and do the work they set you about with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as unto Christ; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart; with good-will doing service as to the Lord, and not as to men. If, then, you would but say within yourselves, 'My master hath set me about this work, and his back is turned, so that I may loiter and idle if I please, for he does not see me; but there is my great Master in heaven, whose overseer my other master is,[I] (#litres_trial_promo) and his eyes are always upon me and taking notice of me, and I cannot get anywhere out of his sight, nor be idle without his knowing it; and what will become of me, if I lose his good-will and make him angry with me?' – if, I say, you would once get the way of thinking and saying thus upon all occasions, you then would do what God commands you, and serve your masters with singleness of heart, that is, with honesty and sincerity, and do the work you are set about with fear and trembling, not for fear of your masters and mistresses upon earth, for you may easily cheat them, and make them believe you are doing their business when you do not, but with fear and trembling, lest God your heavenly Master, whom you cannot deceive, should call you to account, and punish you in the next world for your deceitfulness and eye-service in this.

"3. You are to be faithful and honest to your masters and mistresses, not purloining or wasting their goods or substance, but showing all good fidelity in all things… Do not your masters, under God, provide for you? And how shall they be able to do this, to feed and to clothe you, unless you take honest care of every thing that belongs to them? Remember that God requires this of you; and, if you are not afraid of suffering for it here, you cannot escape the vengeance of Almighty God, who will judge between you and your masters, and make you pay severely in the next world for all the injustice you do them here. And though you could manage so cunningly as to escape the eyes and hands of man, yet think what a dreadful thing it is to fall into the hands of the living God, who is able to cast both soul and body into hell!

"4. You are to serve your masters with cheerfulness, reverence, and humility. You are to do your masters' service with good-will, doing it as the will of God from the heart, without any sauciness or answering again. How many of you do things quite otherwise, and, instead of going about your work with a good will and a good heart, dispute and grumble, give saucy answers, and behave in a surly manner! There is something so becoming and engaging in a modest, cheerful, good-natured behavior, that a little work done in that manner seems better done and gives far more satisfaction than a great deal more that must be done with fretting, vexation, and the lash always held over you. It also gains the good-will and love of those you belong to, and makes your own life pass with more ease and pleasure. Besides, you are to consider that this grumbling and ill-will does not affect your masters and mistresses only. They have ways and means in their hands of forcing you to do your work, whether you are willing or not. But your murmuring and grumbling is against God, who hath placed you in that service, who will punish you severely in the next world for despising his commands."


If the slave who wastes his master's goods and substance will not be able to escape the vengeance of Almighty God, what will become of the master who impoverishes and darkens the mind of his brother-man? Who commits the greater injustice, – the man who robs another of his mind, or the man who robs another of his money?

Mr. Glennie is equally explicit in his teaching. His fourth Sermon is on the text, Eph. vi. 7, "With good-will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men," pp. 21, 22: —



"In this part of the word of God, servants are taught with what mind they ought to do their service. They are told to do what is required of them 'with good-will;' and to do it, 'as to the Lord, and not to men.'

"What a blessed book the Bible is, my brethren! It speaks comfort to all people in every station of life; it shows how every one must live here so as to please our heavenly Father. He, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort, has in his word forgotten none of the children of men. All may learn from that holy book how their souls may be saved through the merits of the death of Christ. And, in addition to this, every one, in whatever condition he may be, will find in that holy book what his peculiar duties are. Thus, ministers are taught in the Bible how they ought to preach the gospel, and how they ought to live, so as to glorify their Saviour Jesus Christ. The rich are taught in the Bible how they must do good with their riches; and the poor, how they must be contented with the portion that God has given them; and both rich and poor are taught how to lay up treasure in heaven. Parents are told in the Bible how they must bring up their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord; and children, how they must obey their parents. Masters are taught in the Bible how they must rule their servants, and servants how they must obey their masters. Truly, this holy word of God is a blessed gift indeed; and how greatly blessed shall we all be, if we diligently seek the help of the Holy Spirit, that we may be 'doers of the word, and not hearers only'! I will now read to you the whole of this passage out of God's holy word, which is written especially for your instruction: – 'Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto Christ; not with eye-service as men-pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart: with good-will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to men; knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free.' This passage from the Bible shows to you what God requires from you as servants; and there are many other passages which teach the same things. You should try and remember these parts of the Bible, that you may be able 'to do your duty in that state of life unto which it has pleased God to call you.' For, although a bad servant may not wish to know what God requires of him, yet a Christian servant will desire to know this, and to do his will in every thing."


How easy it must be for those who cannot read to learn from the holy book what God requires of them! Mr. Glennie assures his hearers, that not one of them will be able to say, in the day of judgment, "I had no way of hearing and learning about my God and Saviour"! (p. 137). May they not all listen to such words of comfort as fall from his lips? And how full of comfort to their souls must that book be which tells them that God intended to make them slaves, and that they must be faithful and obedient to their oppressors, if they wish to avoid endless punishment in hell!



Pp. 22, 23: "Our heavenly Father commands that you, who are servants, should 'be obedient to your masters according to the flesh;' that is, to your earthly master, the master that you serve here while in the body. Here is a very plain command: 'Servants, be obedient;' be obedient to your masters. A bad servant will not try and obey this command. A worldly-minded servant, who is not living in the fear of God, will neglect this command. But you, who call yourselves children of God, will do his will, and be obedient to your earthly master. You can every day give proof that you wish to serve God, by your ready, your cheerful obedience.

"You are here directed to be obedient to your master 'with fear and trembling;' that is, you ought to feel as anxious to discharge your duty faithfully as to feel afraid of giving offence by any conduct that looks like disobedience; for, by disobedience, you not only offend your earthly master, but you sin against God; and of this every Christian servant will be afraid. A bad servant will be afraid only of the punishment which he will receive, if his disobedience should be found out. But a Christian servant must look up always to his heavenly Master. Therefore, if you love God, whose children you were made at your baptism, you will do every day all that you have to do, with fear and trembling; that is, in the fear of God; knowing that he would be angry with you, if you neglected your duty. If you love the Lord Jesus Christ, who shed his blood for you, you will do your daily work with fear and trembling, lest, by any act of disobedience, you bring reproach on him whose name you bear. If you desire that the Holy Spirit should abide in your hearts, you will not willingly be disobedient, being afraid that this Comforter and Sanctifier would forsake you, if you paid so little attention to the plain word of God."






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