Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1848-07-21
COMMUNICATIONS.


DEAR FRIENDS:
suppose friend Walker has told you of
our movements up TO our leaving him at New
Lyme. 1t falls upon me &c 60 on with the
account TO the present time. We left New
Lyme on the 2Sth ult., expecting 10 spend
the afternoon and evening at Austinburgh. but
on reaching that place we found the "Insti-
tute" there holding its yearly exhibition in
the house we were 10 have occupied and be-
cause of that Encouragement Of the house,
as we'll as that the people generally wished
to be at the exhibition, no appointment had
been made for US. So we went on TO Gene
va, and, as soon as we arrived, had arrange
ments made for a meeting there in the even
ing. Short as the notice was, a large school
house was filed with a most attentive audi
ence. We were told before going in, that
since friend Wright was there a few weeks
ago, one or two Of the clergy of the place had
been preaching against him as "a hereto or
inhdel, because of what he had said about
the prevailing religion of the country. AS
this had produced some excitement on the
subject, we dwelt al length, in our remarks,
on the relation of christianity to that religion
which sanctions slavery, and on the authori-
ty Of any book, claiming TO be sacred, which
teaches the rightfulness of slaveholdlng. We
took the ground distinctly, that no such reli-
rion and no such book can be Of Divine ORR
gin or authority that there are self-evident
truths which no religion and no Bible can
overthrow; that one of these is the "self'
evident truth that all men are endowed by
their Creator with an ~inalienable right to life,
liberty and the pursuit Of happiness" thai
this truth Is written by Gods finger on the
human soul, and if as pro-slavery theologian'
affirm, the Bible contradicts this truth, tn,
Bible must be so far false. That the Bible
cannot be above the laws which God writes
on the soul of man, but must be tried by tina
law, and be received or rejected, as it agree
or not with that; that to deny this is virtu
ally to reject all moral obligation, since it i
only by an appeal 10 that law, that lnwar
sense of right, that our duty to obey any me
raj law can be proved. We showed this t
be the ground taken in effect by all the cham
pions Of the Bible, for in arguing as the
do, in its behalf, that it teaches a pure me
rality, and gives worthy notions Of God an
religious duty, and in urging, against olhe
books called sacred by different nations, thu
their religion is sensual, their morals impure
and their Gods unholy and abominable, the
assume that man has within himself the pow
er 10 Judge what is true and right and wo
thy Of the Divine character. Else how coul
he tell whether the one book or the other ha
internal evidence Of its divine authorit,
We urged the absurdily of first requiring I
TO believe the Bible to be of God because i
doctrine is pure and its morals excellent, an
then using that same Bible to justify ii
grossest iniquiiies, the foulest impurity, ar
the rankest oppression. We contended tn
they are the worst enemies Of the Bible wi
try thus to enlist it on the side Of the create
wrong; that they are the real infdels wi
charge Christianity with sanctioning such
system as American slavery, and that tn
are the genuine A.theists-or worse-who I
present God as-in the words of a New @
leans clergyman-"trafcking in slaves" al
approving the practice of holding man as pr
perry. While, therefore, we believe III
Christianity and the Bible give no sanctit