Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1847-10-29


the magnifcerce Of the scheme! These
parties are professcdly instituted for tho de-
Tense Of the rights of mantle leaders in
them respectively appeal TO the people for
support upon the ground that they are neces-
sary for the protection Of life, liberty, person,
and property the representatives Of each
party promising TO unfold a theory of govern
ment and enforce a practical adoption Of it
that shall abundantly secure these rights to
all. Have they done what they promised !
Is the homogeneous mass Of doctrines which
they have pitched together as party crceds to
be used for party purposes, the realization Of
their PROMISES Have not the people a right
to expect something better at their hands =
Are they TO receive their lahored defense Of
Bank or An'i-Bank doctrines. Of Free Trade
or Tariff policy, and learned disqnisitions up
on other paltry questions, as substitutes for
that glorious doctrine Of mans equality
which underlies all true governments q?
The people may be willing to receive such
trash, il would be useless to deny that they
are, but the fact that they have been so long
and So successfully imposed upon, that the
sound Of the base metal seems to them as
clear as the ring of the true coin, does not
render the fraud less obvious to those who
are but lockers on. We charge it home up
on the leaders of the Wing and Democratic
parties, that they obtain money and power by
false pretences, that they are palming of up
on the world a counterfeit Democracy, which
is not only worthless TO those who receive it,
but which iniuriously affects the circulation
and estimated value Of the genuine, and that
they are perpetrating a thousand-fold greater
injury upon the community than common
swindlers who expiate their errors within a
PRISONS walls. We speak the words Of truth
and soberncss, and sooner or later the people
will find it to be so.
Yet political swindling, bad as its inhu-
ence is, is not such a curse TO the nation as are
the acts of those who cover up their fraud un-
der the garb ofrcligion, who steal the livery Of
heaven for the devils service. The American
Church, with its vast machinery, is used by
those who control its movements, who give
form and expression TO its doctrines, to swindle
the people not only out of their money, but
ont of their faith in God, out Of heir love and
reverence for humanity. 1t claims to be the
agency by which Christ's plan for the re-
demption of the human family is to be made
known to all, and by which the world is f.
nally to be converted. II its own d%eclarl-
tons are TO be taken as evidence of the fact,
ii is a city set upon a hill whose light cannot
be hid. Its pretensIons are heaven-high /;
but does the religion it teaches breathe peace
on earth and good will to man, or are its gar
ments rolled in blood to be admitted in proof
against it,
The man whose neighbor passes off upon
him a spurious coin in exchange for a good
one, receives but comparatively little injury.
True, his money is gone, but his honesty re-
mains, his power to distinguish between
right and wrong is not lesseneL thereby, and
the correct principles which have been the
rule of his life are unchanged. Not so how
ever with the man on whom is imposed a
spurious religion, who has been induced to
| place his faith upon the erroneous doctrines
of a corrupt church. He is a loser in morals
as well as in money, in principles as well as
in property. And this is the condition to
which a large portion Of the American people
have been brought by that Evangelical swim
der, the church. Instead Of preaching that
practical righteousness which Jesus enforced
by his precePt and example, its thirty thou
sand Reverend Pedlars bring forward some
old musty, theological opinions which smell
strongly of the ~cloister, discuss them most
learnedIy, and strive, by eloquent ihumpings
of pulpit cushions accompanied by formal,
l~ieartless prayer, and soulless psalm-sineing,
to make the people believe they are doing it
all for the glory of God and the good of
souls. Or what is far worse, they attempt
to palm OF as christianity, those bloody and
oppressive doctrines which have made earth
a hell, teaching that Jehovah approves of
war. that he ordained slavery, and that neck
breaking is in accordance with his will. In
geniously organized as is this system Of
fraud, extensive and popular as are its swim
ding operations, and respectable as its agents
are considered, the character of its design
and the result of its ldtors are moi improved
thereby. 1t remains 10 be a cheat, a cheat
which the people will discover when they
learn that pure religion and undefled before
God, consists in visiting the widow and the
la'herless in their a%fliction, and keeping one
self unspotted from the world the very OPP
posite of the requirements insisted on by the
impure and defled religion of the American
Church.
There too is the A. B. C. F. NJ, for this
we believe is the initial title of the Society
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