The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1856-08-27

Hy anQ the very urss business OF the
church was to place the truth of the gos-
pei before the master and the slave,
teaching to each one his duty. An ear
ly effort was made through our English
bretheren (who were entirely ignorant
of our condition as a people, to make
non-slayeholdiDg test of membership
in the Methodist Episcopal church this
being found impracticable, it it was
sooD abandoned, and for more than sixty
years the church has gone on doing her
mission and blessing the country. Her
history cannot be written; it ia monu-
mental. She went forth as the pioneer
of civilization, and has marked out the
way for succeeding progress in the NOR
al and social organization Of eommuni-
ties; her preachers were booksellers,
schoolmssters, peace makers, temperance
teachers, who carried with them all the
moral elements of Christian reforma-
tion. Whiskey was then sold in every
town, and drank in every hamlet in the
west and south. But the moral infu-
cnce of these men dissipated it wherev-
er it went, just as the MONDAY sun melis
away the snow fakes of an April morn.
Slavery then existed, and that, too, in
its most loathsome, cruel and revolving
form.
The slave trade was kept up until the
heather was not then bound by the same
laws of affection that now unite master
and slave together. But, in the face of
thi. state of things, the Methodist itin-
Grant ministry went to work, preached
the Gospel of Christ to both master and
slave, and through it's influences trans
formed plantations into religious neigh
borhoods, of which the master was the
acknowledged patriarehal head. Whilst
Jesse Lee, Virginian. was suffering in
dignities in the north, in his efforts to
plant Methodism in the New England
States, the southern states opeued their
houses and received the Methodist
preachers as bretheren and made them
a part of their families.
Our church in a manner without
parallel ia the history of Christianity
since the days Of the Apostles. She
threg her shadow upon each passing
wave as it hurried down the stream OF
time. Eternity only can sam up the
victories achieved by the church, the
triumphs awarded to this form of the
Christian religion in the eighteenth and
ninteenth centuries.
Bat restless men are not satisfied
Politicians have excited the whole land,
until the country is famed into livid
consuming flame and in response to
the demands of political speculators our
church law must be defaced, our church
policy must be changed, the standard of
our church morality must be determined
for their benefit.
Who are these politicians who are
holding the rod over the head of the
Methodist Episcopal church, and pro-
pose laying the vineyard of the Lord un-
der tribute for the support of their con-
tests? What have they done for Meth
odism that she should be subsidized for
their particular interests? 1t is because
Unitarianism, which hath reasoned Je-
sus Christ out of the TEN le of Christi
anity, makes this demand Is she afraid
lest Methoaism should commit an Of
fence against Christ by continuing to
teach Jesus to both master and slave
Is this the reason?
By what right do Unitarian associa-
tions demand change in our church
rules for the aggraudizement of her
politicians Is it because UBiversalist
conventions are fearful that tue members
of the Methodist Episcopal church will
incur the vengeance of eternal fire, that
they seud forth their mandate ordering
a change in our church law. and outlaw
ing our existing form Of Christianity
Why, one Of the principal arguments for
this change in our church regulations is
that the "pu6lic opinion" the "outsicle
pressure," the "ocople demand It,"
What public opinion? Perhaps the in
terest of some political party may de-
mand it. What has that to do with
Methodism? The outside pressure"
Political eormorants that may mean
what right have they to expect to reap
a political harvest from our christiani-
ty? Is it that they enter our household,
devour the children s bread, aud cast out
the family. "The people demand it,"
What people? The Methodist people ?
That is not rrue; tue Metho odist people
have never been consulted or questioned
concerning this charge. It is a willy
attempt, by political demagogues, to pros
titute the Methodist Episcopal church
for political purposes purposes, aud then
to abandon her to the contempt and in
suit of the whole Christian world, and it
is for her to accept or Indignantly reject
the degrading proposition. She ought
10 spurn these overtures for many rea-
sons. The first great reason is, they are
wrong and corrupt. I shall give but
one other, that one is purely practicle
reason, and is inseparably connected
with her mission, which contemplates
nothing less than the conversion of the
whole world, Jew and Geutile, ="
&c bond and Free" "by none other name
than the name of Jesus Christ" What
do these reformers say of slavery p
That it is the sum of all villainies,"
the greatest of all earthly wrongs; that
Shareholders of all men are the greatest
sinners; that the slaves are the most
unhappy, the most degraded of all liv-
ing human beings, and more than all
others need the Gospel of Christ. AS
ministers of God, how ought they to
seek a remedy for the evil 2 By Civ
ing to the slave holder the Gospel of
Christ, and the consultations of the gos-
pei to the slave, or by hedging up the
path of the minister, 80 that he may not
be able to reach the masters heart. and
impel him to discharge his duty to his
slave, as prescribed by the word Of God,
and then to cut off from the slave his
only hope of elevation in the present life
and Immortality in the world to come.
Gan any minister who appreciates the