Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1846-05-01
LETTER FROM PHILADELPHIA.

Correspondence Of the Saturday Pisier.)
Pennsylvania Conference and Secret Sessions
Tile Clergy aud Slavery.
Morris House, Phila., April 18th, 1916.
My Coon FRIEND Il gave you reason to
expect a further report of the proceedings of
the late NJ. +. Conference; but | regret to
say that your readers must be satisfied with
comment, as the conference, following the ex-
ample of their sister conference in your city,
sat with closed doors! Does it not appear
TO you, that this thing of closing doors, is a
preliminary step to closing the ear to the cry
of the enslaved, the heart to the appeals of
humanity and the eye to the dangers of Sla-
very ! The result of the secret deliberations
upon this delicate negro question:" was a
:" Whereas" drawn by a pair of Janus-faced
Resolutions one looking back to John Wes-
ley, the other forward to John Calhoun I; one
looking up to Jesus, the great Liberator, who
came to set his people free, the other looking
down to the World, the great Enslaver-one
looking north, the other south, one staring at
the purity of the Church, the other " squint-
ing awfully" at its unity; one denouncing
slavery, the other blessing the STAKEHOLDER
-"holding with the hare, running with the
hound"
Why is this? Why this departure from
the plain and earnest policy of Jesus and
PAUL. Among the first acts of the ministe-
rial career of Christ was a sermon against
slavery. See Luke 4th, 18th. Will any
minister in this city dare to preach from the
same text? Or if he does will he not recon-
mend that gospel which is "perfect freedom"
to those who know not what freedom is
will he not spiritualize the whole-preach
spiritual 'deliverance TO the captive" and yet
help to rivet the physical chains Paul
could preach righteousness 10 a trembling ru-
Ter; | would like to see who would tremble
now if one of our mincing ministers should
try the same thing. | guess what he would
do. He would prove slavery to be "right-
90 sness ," wine-bibbing to be temperance"
and a "judgment to Gomez" a farce. This
is what | have seen.
But, is slavery a sin The scripture, rea-
son, conscience, the Methodist discipline, by
all of which this conference profess to be
governed, teach that it is. They question
candidates upon this subject, and, | suppose,
receive none who are not orthodoxy into
the ministry. Now, if it be sin in the priest,
why not in the people! Or, is it a subter-
fuge analogous to the doctrine of ~celibacy !
If it be sin, are not these ministers bound to
denounce it, But they dare not; they are
| the slaves Oh tDOullGIH NldllilllOus i HbIt WE'RE
men in that conference whose fathers, bro
Tiers and relatives are out and out slavehold-
ers, and who would lynch an abolitionist as
readily as say their prayers and well did
these fearless SERVANTS of Jesus Christ say in
their preamble " we knew our business too
well''' to interfere with this sin! They may
now take the same ground in relation to gam
bling, horse-racinr, a%varice, fraud and oPPres-
sion of every kind. Indeed, Il must give
them credit for consistency they have taken
it, for | cannot tell when have heard one of
these sins denounced from the pulpit. Veri-
ly they have their reward. There is now Ii
wing on a certain plantation | wot of in the
sunny south, a poor old decrepit slave, and
his labor is to stuff blind turkeys and geese
with their feet nailed to the floor, to feed
and feast the blessed ministers of the gospel.
Oh! | have been behind the curtain, and
while the dear minister and his sweet wife
and children sat in the rich planters warm
parlor, on the holy Sabbath day, discoursing
pleasantly of the powero Of the gospel and The