Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1858-07-10

y, IL
sh only on topics about which all Esangehca
Christians are agreed. and must, therefore, avoit
everything in which the question Of politics il
involved. But what are the facts about matter
other than Slavery2 Tracts have been issuct
and circulated in which Dancing is condemne,
as sinful are all Evangelical Christians agree
about this On the Temperance question
against Catholicism have these topics never en-
tered into our politics The simple ruth is tina
Slavery is the only subject about which the pul
fishing Committee have felt Constitutional scru
pies. Till this question arose, they were like me-
in perfect health suspecting that they ha
any constitution at all but now, like hypochou
driacs, they feel it in every pore, at the cas
breath from the eastward.
IF strict construction Of the words call Evan
gelical Christians" be insisted on, we are Mt
loss to see where the Committee could draw tht
dividing line between what might be offensive anC
what allowable. The Society Publish tracts il
which the study Of the Scriptures is enforced anC
their denial to the laity by Romansts assailed.--
But throughout the South, no book could be dis
tributed among the servile population more incen
diary than the Bible, If they could only read it
Will not our Southern brethren take alarm The
Society is reduced to the dilemma of either deny
ing that the African has q soul to be saved or OF
cOnsenting to the terrible mockery of assuring
him that the way of life is to be found only by
searching book which he is forbidden to open
If we carry out this doctrine Of strict construc
tiCn to its legitimate results we shall find that il
involves a logical absur1ty. What is the number
of men whose outraged sensibilites may claim
the suppression of tract Is the taboo of n
thousand valid Of hundred OF ten? Or
are tracts to be distributed only to those who will
find their doctrine agreeable, and are the Society,"
eolporteurs to be instructed that Tempe
essay is the proper thing Tor establishment in
tidel, ard sermon on the Atonement for dis
t!lhng deacon? If the aim of the Society be only
to convert men from sins they have no mind to and
to convince them of errors to which they have no
temptation, they might rs we'll be spending their
money 70 persuade schoo!mastsrs thEt two and two
make four, mathematicians that there cannot be
two obtuse angles in n triangle. If this be their
notion of the way in which the gospel is to be
preached, we do not wonder that they have found
1t necessary to print tract upon the impropriety
of sleeping in church.
But the Society are concluded by their own &C.
ton for in 1857 they unanimously adopted the
following resolution THAT those moral duties
which grow out of the existence of slavery, as
we'll as those moral evils and vices which it is
known to promote, and which are condemned in
Scripture, and so much deplored by Evangelical
Christians, undoubtedly do fall within the prov
nce of this Society, and can and ought to be dis
cussed in a fraternal and Christian spirit" The
Society clearly that it was impossible to draw
a Mason and Dixoa's line in the world Of ethics,
to divide Duty by parallel Of latitude. The on
ly line which Christ drew is that which parts the
sheep from the goats, that great horizon-line OF
the moral nature of man which is the boundary
between light and darkness The Society, by
yielding las they have done in 1851 to what are
pleasantly called the objections" of the South fob
ections of so forcible a nature that we are told
the colporteurs were "forced to fee'j, virtually
exclude the black man, if born to the southward
Of certain arbitrary line, from the operation of
Gods providence, and thereby do as great wrong
TO the Creator as the Episcopal Church did to the
,rtist when they published AIRY Scheffer's Chrisus
COnSotator with the figure of the slave left out
The Society is not asked to disseminate anti.
slavery doctrines, bat simply 10 be even-handed
between master and slave, and, since they have
recommended Sambo and Toney to be obedient
% Mr.. Legree. to remind him in turn that he
llso has duties toward the bodies and souls of his
DOndmen. But we are told that the time has not
yet arrived that at present the ears of our South
srn brethren are closed against ell appeals, that
jod in his good time will turn their hearts, and
hat then and not till them will lie the fitting occa
.ion to do something in the premises, But if the
Society is to wsit this eoluen opportunity with
such exemplary patience in one case, why not in
Ill? If it is to decline any attempt converting
he sinner till after God has converted him, viii!
here BE any special necessity for tract society at
Ill Will 1t NOT be little presumptuous, as well
is superAuous, to undertake the doing over again
IF what lie has already done? We tear that the
studies Of Blackstone, upon which the gentlemen
who argue thus have entered in order to fit them
e!yes for the legal and constitutional argument cf
he question, have confused their minds, and that
hey are misled by some ianciod analogy between
tract and an action of trover, and conceive that
he one, like the other, cannot be employed till
ttet actual conversion has taken place.
The resolutions reported by the Special Commit,
ee at the annual meeting of 1857, drawn up with
,reat caution and with sincere desire to make
whole the breach in the Society, have had the usu-
i fate of all attempts to reconcile incompatible.
les by compromise. They express confidence in
he Publishing Committee, and at the same time
npiedly condemn them by recommending them
o do precisely what they had all scrupulously
voided doing. The result was just what might
ave been expected. Both parties among the Nor,
hern members Of the Society, those who approved |
Io former action of the Publishing Committee
nd those who approved the new policy recommen.
ed in the resolutions, those who favored silence |
nd those who favored speech on the subject of
avery, claimed the victory, while the Southern
rethren as usual refused to be satisfied with any
ling short Of unconditional submission. The
ord compromise, as far slavery is concerned,
as always been Of fatal augury. The concessions
the South have been like the''With all my world
goods thee endow' of bankrupt bridegroom
ho thereby generously bestows all his debts upon
ir wife; and a small return for his magnanmi
consents to accept all her personal and a life
state in all her real property. The South is viii.
ng that the Tract Society should expend its mo-
ey to convince the slave shat he has soul to be
wed so far he is obedient to his master, but
ot 20 persuade the master that he has soul to
ndergo very different process 80 far as he is
nmerciful to his slave.
We Americans are very fond of this glue of
,mpromise. Like so many quack cements, it is
lvertised to make the mended part of the vessel
ronger than those which have never been broken
lt, like them, it will hot stand hot water-and
the question of slavery is sure to plunge all who
oproach it, even with the best intentions, int
at fatal element the patched.up brotherhood,
hich but yesterday was warranted to Le better |
IAN new, falls once more into heap of incoher- t
It fragments. The last trial of the virtues of the
atent Redintegrator by the Special Committee of '
lie Tract Society has ended like the rest, and e
all attempts to buy peace at too dear a rate t
ust end Peace is excellent thing. but prin- C
pie and pluck are better and the man who sac II
fees them to gain it finds at last that he has I
ouched under the Caudine yoke to purchase only a
liberation that leaves him at war :
th his own selfrespect and tho nvincible forces '
bis higher nature. i