Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1854-04-29
CAN'T CONSENT.

The Now School Presbytery of Winchester, Va,
has addressed circular to Northern Presbyterians
deprecating the action Of the last General Assembly
in calling for statistics of slavery within the bounds
Of the Presbyterian Church, and asking to bo le z
alone in the enjoyment of that patriarchal and
seriptural institution.
The Franklin, O., Presbytery reply that they are
not behind their Winchester brethren in their love
for peace and concord among brethren, and that
not oven by implication are they to be justly charged
With being dsturbers Of the peace of the church
because they rebuke the crime Of slavery. That
that is responsibility resting not on the preachers
Of truth, but on the wrong doers whom the truth
condemns. That slavery is crime of such mag
nitude that ministers of religion cannot fail to re-
buke it, especially they do not fail to condemn
the peccadillos and dishonestes of common life.
But we will give the language of the Presbytery,
and most gratefully, too on the slaves behalf
Thcy say;
"Wc believe slavery to be an evil Of magnitude
hardly exampled in the record of social wrongs
It's characteristics need not be enumerated. They
arc too fully and painfully, yea, cxperimcntaly
known, by millions in this land to require recital
Thoy are numerous and ponderous as to crush
the into an ignorant, degraded chattel with
out the ability to read the Bible and often without
the privilege Of other means Of grace Slavery
infuses bitterness into life, and too often spreads
the pail Of death eternal over the next. Can min
listers Of a religion OF mercy forswear all rcbuke of
such wrong? With what grace shall wo rebuke
the dshonesties, and the petty peccadillOs of
mon life, il we will not condemn this gigantic
summary of moral dereliction. With what pro-
priety can we endeavor, by the use Of money and
other means, to remove the heathenism Of distant
shores, it we will make effort, not even that of
gentle remonstrance with our ecclesiastical breth-
rem, to remove the worse heathensm, by our own
doorsf But we must not demonstrate, because
forsooth, to our brethren, who, having the might,
do actually hold numbers under the blight Of un-
conditional subugaton, peace is dear. Peace is
also dear to the potentates whose thrones rest on
PROSTATE millions. And they may have it by light
ening their expressions and giving back to the
growing exactions Of the unkened masses their
century-vested rights.
Can they have it2 Ought they to have it at
smaller costG So with the masters of the South,
desiring peace, let them pay the price of it. Let
them, loosing the bond, and breaking the yoke a.
sunder allow the oppressed go free and the breath
Of peace will fall from above and float to them from
every point around. But declining these impera-
tive conditions, its blessings ever reach them
Is God spiriing into life and supernatural activity
throughout the world, influences which will not
dawn until tyranny is doomed? And will slavery
be able to secree itself amid christian steoples and
freemen's doors, from the general reckoning? Is
by, beholdng with complacent Indifference not
only the perpctuation, but the extension to soil un-
polluted, all the revolving rigors Of that worst spe-
cies of the genus, American Slavery. Is it we'll to
bind ourselves beforehand that happen what may
we will observe significant silence-will not so
much as respectfully inquire, through our General
Assembly how many slaves are held in our churches
or the circumstances under which their depriva-
tion of liberty is protracted. Shall we do this, too
because our brethren love peace? All but is
there not another party to whom peace is equally
,dearp A party who desire peaceably to read the
Bible without let or hindrance-peace in the pur-
suits of freely elected callingspeace in the use of
appointed means of making this our calling and
election sure-peaceably to sit beneath their own
vine and fig tree-peaco whose sacred mgis shall
guard their family circles from the pOluting ntru-
sions of adulterous feet. Peace assuring husband
and wife. parent and child that they may live to-
Eether, without the orturing liability of being sold
" any moment. into perpetual exile from each
other. Thoy want, in word, their peace of lib
erty, the peace Of indemnity from all scrvile op-
preston and all the instruments of torture by |
which its merciless behests enforced.
If this peace is denied them, and the means of
crushed and despondent victims continues to roll
over this land, and politicians subOrned by love of
peace or party maintain apologetc silence shall
ministers of religion do the same? viii their
master permit it? Shall crushed humanity find
no ndvocatesf Can we he silent? Every principle |
Of our religion as every impulse Of our nature
oonspire to pronounce the emphatic response, nay.
Therefore
Resolped, That we are in favor of pursuing
throughout our whole church, firm. wise, consti- +
tutonal and Scriptural course, until American Sla-
very shall be cxtrpated from our beloved land.
THAsKs to the Editors of the Portage County
psmocrat, for the back Nos Of their rarer !