The voice of freedom. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1839-1848, 1839-06-29


through his outraged poor. And tribulation and
anguish and despair, will seize on every soul Of
man. who had neglected or despised them. But
whom, within the limits OF our country are We
to regard especially as the representatives of oul
final Judge? Every feature of the Saviour's pic
ture finds its appropriate original in enslaved
4 countrymen.
/. They are the LEAST of his brethren.
2. They are subject to thirst and hunger I'M
able to command cup of water or crumb Of
bread.
8. They are exposed to wasting sickness,
without the ability to procure nurse or employ
a physician.
A. They are emphatically in prison, restrain
ed by chains, goaded with whips, tasled, and I'M
der keepers. Not wretch groans in any cell OF
the prisons of our country, who is exposed to a
confinement so rigorous and Misunderstanding as the
law allows theirs to be continually and permanent
ly.
5. And then they are emphaticaly, and pecu-
liarly and exclusively, Observation-Disclosures in
the land which gave them birth. Whom else do
we constrain to remain aliens in the midst of our
free institutional The WEIGH, the Swiss, the
Irish +? The Jews even? Alas it is the negro
only, who may not strike his roots into our soil.
Every where we have conspired to treat him as
sranger-every where he is forced to feel him
self stranger. In the stage and steamboat, in
the parlor and at our tables, in the scenes of bust
ness and in the scenes of amusement-even in the
church Of God and at the communion table, he is
regarded as stranger. The intelligent and re-
ligious are generally disguised and horror-struck
at the thought of his becoming identified with the
citizens of our repubc-so much sothat thousa nds
of them have entered into conspiracy to send
him off ovbof sight to find home on foreign
shore And justify themselves by openly alleg-
ing, that single drop of his blood, in the veins
of any human creature, must make him hateful to
his fellow citizens That nothing but Punishment
from our coasts can redeem him from the scorn
and contempt to which his stranger blood has
reduced him among his own mothers children
Who then, in this land of milk and honey,
is hungry and athirst,' but the man from whom
the law takes away the last crumb of bread and
the smallest drop of water?
Who naked, but the man whom the law strips
of the last rag of clothing?
Who SICK but the man whom the law deprives
Of the power of procuring medicine or sending for
physician?
Who in prison. but the man who, all his life,
is under the control of merciless masters and cru
ell keepers? ....
Who stranger but the man who is scornful.
ly denied the cheapest courtesies of life-who is
treated as an alien in his native country?
There is one point in this awful description
which deserves particular attention. Those who
are doomed to the left hand of the Judge, are not
charged with infiicting positire injuries on their
helpless, needy and oppressed brother. Theirs
was what is often called Negative character. What
they had done is not described in the indictment.
Their neglect of duty, what they had NOT done,
was the ground of their everlasting punishment
The representative of their Judge, they had seen
hungered and they gave him no meat thirsty
and they gave him no drink, stranger and they
took him not in, naked and they clothed him not,
sick and in prison and they visited him not In
asmuch as they did NOT yield to the claims of suf
fering humanty-did NOT exert themselves to
bless the meanest of the human family, they were
driven away in their wickedness. But what if
the Indictment had run thus: | was a hungered
and we snatched away the crust that might have
saved me from starvation was thirsty and We
dashed to the ground the cup of cold water,
which might have moistened my parched lips; !
was stranger and we drove me from the hovel
which might have sheltered me from the piercing
wind | was sick and We scourged me to my task J;
in prison, and you sold me for my jal-fees-to
what depths of hell must not those who were
convicted under such charges be consigned And
what is the history of American slavery but one
long indictment, describing under ever-varying
forms and hues just such injuries!
Nor should it be forgotten, that those who in
Cured the displeasure of the Judge, took far other
views than he, of their own past history. The
charges which he brought against them, they heard
with great surprise. They were sure that they
had never thus turned away from his necessities.
Indeed, when had they seen him thus subject to
poverty insult and oppression? Never: And
as to thatpoor frlendess creature whom they left
unpitied and unhelped in the hands of the oppres-
sor, and whom their Judge now presented as his
own representative, they never once supposed that
he had any claims on their compassion and assist
ance. Had they known that he was destined toI
so prominent place at the final Judgment, they
would have treated him as human being, in de-
spite of any social, pecuniary, or political consid-
erations. But neither their megatire 0irtue nor
their voluntary ignorance could shield them from
the penal fire which them selfshness had kindled.
-
From tho Christian Reflector,
@, Adams Second Letter,
This letter is strictly and strikingly Adamso-
MAN, 1t is like a widely extended lake, most oil