Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1844-09-06

christian brother! Truly the church has "taken
wrong positions on this great question"
Again ask: when and where have the political
parties perpetrated an act by direct legislation,
that will compare with this? And yet, while the
cutting rebuke is dealt out to the political parties,
that they "iTetrievabfy sold 10 Sfa0ery''
this church, claiming to be the "piIlar ana ground
of the TRUTH has only done as "aImost every
other department of society" has done. And what
IS that? Why, nothing, only as we SAID, " taken
wrong positions upon this great question" Think
not, my dear sir, that mean to be invidious in
these remarks upon the action of your church,
have before said that they have all We'd with
each other in manifestations of fealty to the slave
power in the church, as the political parties have
to the slave power in the State. would place
them all: church parties and political parties on
level in this respect, with this single exception,
viz, "our enterprise is emphatcalIy moral ref
ormation, and can be really promoted only by|
moral aud Christian measures. Hence, as is the
proportion Of the " moral and christian" influence
of the church greater than the "mora and chris
tan" influence of the wing and democratic par
ties''-such is the precise proportion of the guilt
and responsibility of the church more than that of
the whg and democratic parties. And to say that
these political organizations WELD mIghtIer
moral and christian" influence than does the
church, is reproach infinitely greater even than
to charge her, as Mr. Blrnoy has, with being the
&c bulwark of American slavery" But when l.
hear any thing like an apology for the church, for
,I,,J III
of poor Eli and his two sons Hophne and Phine-
has, You know that this Eli was priest of the
Lord, and very good man: but his sons, whom
he indicted into the priests office, made them
selves very vile And the good old man, probably
wishing I" not to destroy, but to reform" his two
SONS, addressed them in the following very Softly
manner: "NNhy do ye such things? for hear of
your. evil dealings by all this people. Nay, my
sons for it is no good report that hear: we make
the LORDS people to transgress." And for this
want of faithfuIness on the part of Eli, God said
of him to his prophet Samuel, d" Behold, will do
a thing in Israel at which both the ears of every
one that hcareth it shall Jingle. In that day
will perform against Eli all things which | have
spoken concerning his house: when begin, will
also make an end" 0, Sir, q speak not as Il
prophet, but as one who believes that God is juSt,)
there is storm gathering which will, ere long,
break upon what you call can institution of God"
which will make both the ears of every one that
heareth the report thereof to tingle. Disguise it
as we may, our sin will find US out. The voice of
our brothers blood cries to heaven from the
rround Yea and Cod * leIna ndinU IF the chuvch
with voice " sterner and louder" " J}'here is
thy brolher?" Yes, again and again, and yet a.
gain, has he Numbered in the ears of his church.
as he did in the ears of Egypt's naughty tyrants,
" let my people go that they may serve me" And
surely he will make himself to be beard & obeyed
nothing to be left undone which can lawfully be
done for the liberation of my brethren in bonds,
whom wish to remember as 'bound with them"
But my heart sckens within Inc to hear an init
nation that a moral enterprise so great, so grand,
so glorious as the emancipation of the slaves in
our guilty land being effected without the church.
| do not mean that the church should monopolize
this great work and the glory of its achievement
to herself; but do mean that the church should
be the pioneer in this and every other moral enter
prise in the world. And when she ceases to be so
she ceases to he the light of the world-the salt
of the earth"
Yours, for the overthrow Of Slavery
throughout the World.
JOAB SEELY.
Montpelier, god Feb 1914