Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1845-12-25
nti-SIaver
Religion and Slavery

We have before us "A condensed Anti-SlaYery
Bible Argument, by a citizen Of Virginia. a
pamphlet of 90 pages, New York, 1945. We
are ever panied when VIZ see or hear Religion
and Slavery mentioned in connection. Here
we confess we lose all charity which w can at
times feel towards the greatest criminals and the
worst of crimes. We imagine that no one looks
upon the lion and the snake with the same fee
lings, although death may be threatened by both.
Go to the field of battle, and see the brains scat
tered from the crushed scull, or the great gush
of the hearts blood and the greatest work of
God has been marred This sight is horrid g
nough. But go to the gloomy chamber of the
victim of secret poison See the wasted form
the dnguished eye-the dread Of friend and foe
food-and the instructive keen sense Of fatal
poison-now when all that God had intended
for support in the trying hour are turned into
the biterest curse-look there, misery and mad
ness struggling for supremacy-and cold, GER
tain death, the sole arbiter and giver of rest
Tell US now, the u~ntaught impulse of the heart
of man, is not this worse than death in the bat
tic field ? Go sec the cat o nine buried in 6S
flesh Of the unprotected slaye-see his ashy
%shriveled form-his rags-his foul and comfort
Less hut-tear him from his home-blot OUT
from his eye the loved images of his wife, chill
dren and (riends-and who are the men who do
this thing7 Every citizen who by his vote al
lows the viIest wretch to do the deed with inn
punity! But the citizen was born to it-loVe
of wealth, pleasure and pride have usurped tho
place Of u~nbought conscience many p%aliatiVes
come to his help-and if conscience awakes,
heaven help us-there is a great and merciful
and omnipotent God, who can purify the most
deep stained soul, and upon repentance, make
the tortured spirit happy once more!
But when and how shall we class that man
who knocks from under our tottering and weary
feet this last scafolding of hope, and make God
himself the worst of tyrants-the falsest Of
lriends-the most unjust of fancied existencesf
The man who attempts to justify slavery from
the Bible is tina: man! If he wins US to Us
opinions, he makes us an infdel-we lose our
belief in the existence of a Colour idea Of
the immortality Of the soul-all distinction be-
tween right and wrong-we sink from the man
into the beast-we would not scruple to murder
our mother for a meal of victuals-or to scatter
the desecrated remains of a dear sister, or father,
or wife, to manure our cucumber vines We
thank God that instinct is stronger than reason
ing, and conscience more powerful than argu-
ment. We do most sincerely believe, and we
deliberately weigh what we say, that all the
books and papers which have been written to
prove slavery a divine institution, have never
convinced a single man or woman that it was
right-nO not one We have not read the ar
gument above referred to-life is too short for a
man to read a long discourse to prove that a man
may not murder his father, or sell his country
for gold, or enslave his fellow man If4hen-
we will not and cannot read the argument of onr
able friend, "A Virglnian,' in defence of the right,
what shall re say of the God defying defender
of the wrong7 We promised to give the : Ala
bama Preacher and his class a round, when we
got cool we now postpone it forever; for until
this miserable and dying being of ours becomes
yet more deserving of all the ills that flesh is heir
to, we never can associate in our mind Religion
and Slavery without the most unqualified loath-
ing and hot Indignation &C NJ. ClGy'S True
American.