Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1851-09-27
eThe Religious Element y


1 has resigned his appointment as Missionary, and
devotes his time to tho Reclamation Of Ine-
briates in the home. When this enterprise gets
fairly established on firm basis, Mr. Pease in
tends to open, wherever il is possible, Industrial
homes in every ward in the city, so that the
| poor shall at least have a fair opportunity 10
work, His plan is to employ every inmate in
some congcnial business until they have
strength and good habits sufficiently developed
| for their own government. Out Of about 500
| who have thus been cared for, but a very few
/ have slipped back into former bad habits, and
this is to be attributed primarily to the religious
element in the reformation
We see nothing in this account, to warrant
the writer in attributing the stability of those
reformed victims of false and cruel state of
society to religion. Their religion may have
had an inAucnce-for the Rev. L. NJ, Pcase,
judging from this paragraph, has religion quite
out Of the common track. One that resigns a
mission for preaching dogmas, for one Of mercy
and good works.
The secret Of his success is more evidently
found in their changed circumstance, than in
their opinions They were provided with "in-
duSfriaI homes, and opportunity to ,cork at con-
genial business" Industrial homes and conge-
NAL labor, with fair recomponce, is the great
means of lortifying virtue and reclaiming from
vice, That is the sccret-Popular religion has
not learned it yet-and perhaps it never will,
for it is hopelessly obtuse. But the sinners and
infdels will learn it. They have already found
that many of those dead in frespasses and sins,
may be warmed into moral life, and the better
feelings of humanity developed, by regarding
their human wants and sympathics.
1t is not religioE--or diyinity-that these
outcasts want, but Immunity. They are human
beings, with human wants and love predomi-
mainland above all others the love of life. 10
sustain this, they will sacrifice religion, charac-
ter and even liberty itself. Hence we find the
tenants of 5rothels, and the victims of slavery,
willing to endure life, at the expense of charac-
ter and conscience, suffering themselves to be
dcbascd, and rot by inches, rather than relin-
quish life cursed though it is, by apparently in
sufFerable ills. Hope of homc-of society-of
rcmuncrating labor, mans glorious birth-right
these sustain them.
The error seems to us to have been not the
neglect Of the religious elements but attrbuting
to it an undue amount of influence. We would
have all the elements assume their proper pro-
portion of importance and influence in society,
and in individuals; but to attribute to one every
thing good, is to deceive ourselves and pervert
society. 1t is to peipetuate all the evils under
which society groans to refer it for its sole reme
dy, to the religious element or the preaching of
the Gospel. What brutal mockcry ofhuman guilt
and wretchedness, to go to the brothels of the
Five Points and enforce repentance upon their
inmates, by tho horrors of orthodox theology,
while they are shut up to starvation, infamy
and despair, with no means of procurnga crust
for their gnawing hunger, or bare plank upon
which to stretch their limbs, except that which
is offered to tempt them to a repetition Of their
guilt and unhappincss. There must be some
thing besides this which men call religion, to
effect the regeneration Of society.
Our nation has hcen eminently characterized
| by this element. 1t seemed to absorb the whole
being of our ancestors. To embody itself as
means and end, in all their institutions. They
transmitted it to their posterity. The Hugur.
nots of South Carolina-the Catholics of Mary
land--the Quakcrs of Pennsylyania-and the
Purtans of New England were all distinguish
cd for it. 1t has pervadcd society in all its
movements. Not only is it to be found at the
fire side and in the Churches, but it is at home
under the gallows--on the battle field and the
slave plantation. In the name and by authori-
ty of the religious element, has been sanct6ed
| the implacable hatred, the bloody massacres and
cruel determinations of our aboriginese. BY
its authority, was introduced, cherished and
transmitted to us of the present generation, Ne
gro slavery. And to-day the hundred thou
sand spires that point to Heaven,arc consocrated
to this cruel wrong The army of priests that
fatten upon the toll of the nation, and their
thoroughly drilled host of votarcs, who sustain
them, all active in the name and by the authori-
ty of the religious element; arc engaged as their
great business in sustaining and perpetuating
slavery. No. This perversion and idolatry of
one element of human character can never bless
or save the race.
The efforts that are giving freedom, homes,
labor-phisical and intellectually its ap-
proprate rewards. These are producing the
Improvements among men, ard securing their
permanent influence, With these things secur-
ed, neither the religious, social or any other ec-
mont that enters into mans organization will
be neglected. All will be cultivated more per-
fectly, and developed more harmoniously.
We most heartily applaud, therefore, the
goodsen of the gentleman. spoken of in the
extract above, who resigned his mission of theo-
logical preaching, and devoted himself to the
establishment of homes, and the procuring of
congenial employment for the unfortunate. We
wish his example might be extensively initiated.
THE STAR OF HOPE is sET.--The Boston Bee