Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1848-06-02

- ~ hoAiOhd CHdVeClGT, tildt we meet III IN
It's Influences at every turn; that like the skel-
e'on IN the ieasts of the Egyptian, there is
no religious, no rejoicing anniversary to which
slavery In the present state of the country is
not and ought not 10 be gnest. You will re-
member the complaint of the clergymeu who
went to London 10 form what they were plea
sed to term tue Evangelical Alliance,'' and
who thought they had got four thousand
miles away from the plague-spot of their
country. but to their dismay and discontinue
it was tlared ia their faces at the very mo-
ment they wished to unite tho Christianity
OF the world in a set OF distractions, causing
them 10 cry out in very shame and distress,
ais there no place free from this abonina-
toni" Well, now the duty of the abolition
ist is to see to it that there be no place where
the conscience of the American nation can
exist, into which the preacher of an awaken
ed responsibility on the subject Of slavery is
not introduced.
Well again, you must not expect that re-
form is a matter of peace. 1t never was and
it never will be. The greatest, The only per-
feet !eformer that ever appeared on earth, said
he came not 10 send peace but a sword
Reform is always aggressive. 1t cannot be
otherwise. The moment ii sinks aud lulls
Itself into quiet, 1t ceases to be reform. And
yet whenever there arises a call for a great
and national reform, there always starts up a
variety of characters, and the natural, inevi-
table consequence is collision, and it cannot
be otherwise. You will find that in all his
tory, you will find that in every state of So
cIety, the moment there is a call for Teforma-
ton, there will appear men of great charity,
men who are like the Hindoo fanatic. Their
religion consists in putting out their eyes;
their charity thinks 10 cover a multitude Of
sins by sealing up their eyelids instead Of
getting rid OF the obstruction TO ii clear and
searching vision. These arc the moderate
men, these are the men TO whom Luther al
luded when he described Erasmus, his con-
temporary. "Men who strive TO walk upon
eggs without breaking them" They are the
men who think that moderation is the secret
OF success, when on the contrary there never
was a reform carried by moderate means or
moderate measures, and especially when the
evil sought TO be eradlcated had spread its
roots through the whole structure of society.
The whole progress OF Christianity exhib-
its a series Of great moral battle-fields. |,
was not by moderate means that its princi-
pies have been promulgated. Luther and
Fox were not moderate men; Lamartine is
not a moderate man. lie is IA bold, out-spo.
ken man. 1t has not been by the soft spo.
ken language that the masses of Europe have
reached painfully, and step by step, that ele,
Walton where now the swarthy brow of laboI
begins for the first time to be cheered and
warmed by the %beniGnant rays OF God sun,
light. These moderate reformers constitute
a class against which there must be directed
not the attacks, but almost the suspicion OF
men that fear to grapple with the great ma.
tlonal sin. Then there is another class ofre-
formers who always come up when a Te.or-
nation is proposed; who are like tho men in
our State Legislatures, always ready to vote
for "a bill, but are sure to saddle it with an
amendment which will secure It's defeat
These were the colonizationists of our early
enterprise. Men whose tears always flowed
at the thought Of the black man being SO far
off from his native soil, whose health could
only be secured, while the breeze of his ma
tive hills famed his cheek. These arc the
men who claim to be aboliiionists, and vote
for Henry Clay, thinking they can no where
place their heads SO safely as in the lions
mouth. These are the men who under the
plea of regard for our principles, betTay them.
| make these rem irks to show that nothing
strange has happened to us, because it is the
fate of every reform to find these classes of
individuals, more dangerous from their prox-
unity. Their disguise, therefore, must DO
exposed, they must be commended with. The
aboli,ionist, therefore, is Obliged to be an ag-
g~ressive man, not only on the institutions
and evils Of society, but on those who pro-
pose plans for relieving them. This is his
vocation. to see that the energies of the great
national conscience are not wasted. 1t is his
duty TO see as far as God has given him abil-
ity, that the current is not shifted from its
proper channel. He becomes, therefore, ne
cessarily, an aggressive man, a fighter, a SEN
tinel. His means are small, the evil is great;
his time is short; ruin looms in the distance;
he must meet it, and meet it with such ma
terials as he has at hand. Again, all these
considerations receive more importance from
the fact that the institution in the midst OF
which he stands, is SO overwhelming, SO
strong, so mighty, and from the extremely
erroneous views that prevail on all sides OF
him concerning it. For instance: On this
day there are gathered together in various
Chapels those who call themselves the rep
resentatives of the religious sentiment Of the
nation, those who presume to represent the
Christianity of man. And there is an activi-
ty OH their part. They can remember the
Hindoo, translate the bible in all the tongues
OF the globe, flood all the Sandwich Islands
with enlightenment, Christianity and civil
cation. They have gathered together every
village from Maine to Georgia 10 interest in
the ends of the earth all those who sit be-
meath their illustrations. But the Bible to
the man who speaks the tongue their mother
taught, the Bible to the oppressed on the
banks of the Potomac, the rights of man to
the thousands of Alabama and Arkansas, they
have no voice, no ear for their complaints
They are silent beneath the idea that their
position discharges them from all response
bility in the matter. The idolatry of the
people on the other side Of the globe-the
Pope Of Rome, who is blessed with all the
aid which wealth and science can afford, that
is their care, and over that they watch with
individual responsibility; but the wrongs and
miseIies of three million slaves in the South