Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1848-08-04
How shall Slavery be Abolished ?

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right action on the part of those who are now
engaged in sustaining il. And how shall
this necessary remodelling of public senti-
ment be effected Right feeling can only
be created in others by the efforts of those
who themselves feel right; right action can
only be induced by the efforts Of those who
themselves act right. If you wish TO impress
a truth upon your n~eighbor, you must speak
it to him, aye, and act it in his presence
Those ~so-called reformers who hide their
light under a bushel will never enlighten the
world. If you have the truth, it is yours to
use, not to hoard. You have no more right
to withhold it from your brother, than you
have to deny him wholesome bread when you
see him eating that which will destroy his
life. Reformers have to do, as well as TO be;
and it is a cause for regret that many who
claim the name, are content to be the passive
recipient of principles instead of the active
expounders of them. We wish it were not
so.
Reader, do you claim to be an abolition
list! If you are one, we know that your con-
version to anti-slavery has been a blessed
thing for you. Have you made pecuniary
sacrifice? What Of it! Has your character
been %vilifed, your reputation assailed .
What Of it! This is the deJi: account only ;
is there no per contra? Have not the en-
larged views you take of humanity, your
clearer perceptions of the rights and duties
of man, your better appreciation Of the God
conferred title of nobility which is stamped
upon every human brow, more than compen-
stated you for the sacrifices you have made, or
may be called upon 10 makel There is a
purifying, a sanctifying power in abolition
ism to all who have been truly baptized into
the faith and it is strange that all who have
experienced it are not more DESTROYS to ex-
Tend its blessings to others.
Among those who profess to be opposed TO
slavery, is a numerous class who utterly re-
fuse to do aught for its extinction. "God
will abolish it in his own good time" say
they, sand Gods time is our time, and we
will patiently abide it." There is also among
those known and generally recognized as abb
olitionists, persons who do not say with their
lips they will do nothing to destroy slavery
but who come as near it as possible by their
actions, or rather by their lack of action
Their conversion to abolitionism is the end,
instead of the beginning of their anti-slavery
life they rest from their labors before they
have entered upon them, as though they ex-
pected that God, by some miraculous inter-
position, would break the letters from the
slave, and thus relieve them from their duty
as laborers in his whey ard. This class may
be small, but are there not many who are
more than half converted TO this doctrine of
inglorious inactivity, who have forgotten that
"Rest is not quitting the busy career;
Rest is the fitting of self to its sphere!"
By what means, reader, was your CONVEX
sion wrought! Was the revelation of your
duties accompanied by the thunder and light
nings of Sinai was it visible upon the hea-
vens, as the Cross which Constantine saw
there! or did an angel bear the message to
you! 1t would not be hazardous to affirm
that it came by ordinary means-by the lips
of the living speaker, either in the public
hall or at the Preside circle, or in the charac.
tiers of light enstamped by the mighty press
and sent abroad upon the wings of the wind.
1t is true that these means may only have
awakened inquiry, not convincing, but incit-
ing to investigation which resulted in con-
vehement. So be it. They were not the
less necessary agencies; and it is proper and
indispensable that the means which led to.
your conversion, be employed for the CONVEX
sion of others, and you will admit that this
is at least desirable. So think the active
members of the Western Anti Slavery Socie-
ty, and they ask you to continue the agencies
that resulted in, or aided your conversion,
and which even now you desire to have en-.
ployed for your own benefit, to renew and
strengthen your faith. to furnish you with
additional facts and arguments, or to crafty
your desire to hear truth boldly and eloquent
ly spoken.
We know there are those who are opposed
to sustaining an anti-slavery press in any
other way than by giving them money for
value received, and who object in toto to pay.
ing for the services of an anti-slavery lecturer
but we have never ye theard any valid reason
for their opposition. If they felt that the cir
c%ulation of an agricultural paper, would bene-.
hit each of them $40 a year, they would be
willing to give the half of that, at least, for
its support. Do they refuse to do as much
for an anti-slavery paper because it does not
pat ten dollars in their purse every Year!-