Cleveland morning leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1854-1865, 1859-07-12

GAANAiNl HNil AAf AN"''
EDlroR LnkprR:-1he Obehin sabbath
School, some four hundred Of vaom recently
visited their Superintendent 10 NE Cleveland
jail showed yesterday that they Seconed him
TO his old work again with most hearty good
will At the hour OF nine in the norning-our
Sabbath School hour-foe hundredqad 6fty sir
members were present to greet Tim, and we
can truly say that ON no former OCCASION, dur
ing our long connection with tbs splendid
school, has such unbounded joy prevailed; and
l do not doubt the reception was really more
grand, and, to a right minded man, more pre-
cious, than ever greeted king or mIeror on his
return from successful conquest.
After attending sufficiently to the ether mat
ters of the school, Mr.. Fitch, the superinten-
dent, visited the Infant Department, consisting
OF seventy-fve members, and was listened TO
most altcntively by these little creatures who
eheered him with alternate smiles and teers,
during the whole Of his fifteen minutes talk
The hour for the address u the whole school
having arrived, the hall and door.ways of the
chapel were crowded with young people, com
posing, altogether blooming audience Of
scarcely less than six hundred and fifty youths
and children
Mr. Fitch said: 81 have arrested the other
exercises Of the school this morning at an
earlier moment than usual, because, after long
debate with myself, / find | cannot fUrego the
pleasure Of speaking to these dear children at
greater length than / commonly allow myself.
am, for many reasons, filled with delight while
looking in your bright faces once again,
God, my dear children, has gained a great
victory over the enemies of all righteousness.
You cannot, all of you, understand how great
this victory is nor do suppose any OF US will be
able fully to understand it till eternity gives us
light A vast band of robbers have been routed
and put to flight. Ifthey had not been so routed
doubt not we should soon have heard the
shrieks Of some Of these precious little girls
while murdefous robbers were tearing them
away from us and dragging them to a fate worse
than death ] say robbers, but | said the same
10 one OF the wicked officers Of that corrupt
Court the last time / saw him. After assuring
him that did not address him for the purpose
of being Offensive, and after having heard him
say with infinite "pomp and circumstance, al
never performed any service for the Govern
ment with clearer conscience;" l remarked
Every likely, many conscience before yours
has been scared as with hot iron,' and it is
not at all strange that such should assert their
strict conscientiousness. But, sir, the Fugi-
tive Slave Act is from he'll There is not a
whit OF difference between you and a highway
robber, and you cannot show it, excepting in
this that one kind of robbery is egalized and
another is unlegalized. You hold that when
drunken Congress, by midnight caucusng and
nj al "a mai pf an
act, be it ever so iniquitous and subversiye Of
all truth, hencetorth Almighty God, who
made the heavens and the earth, has no busi-
ness to open his mouth. lie has henceiorth no
business to utter and require obedience to his
righteous laws because a drunken Congress
has forbidden it,
Whatever force there may be in this blasphe-
NY you are entitled to, but aside from this, l
defy you TO show how the executors o! the Flu
gitve Slave Act differ from highway robbers ex-
cepting that the one steals the money which be-
longs to another, and the other steals the body
and the soul lChieh belongs TO God Yes, sir, all
of you who engage in this work, strike hands
with robbers." Truth has routed them
But this victory was not obtained by man
alone; .sit was eminently the work OF God
And l was sure of victory, and should have
remained sure, If every other evidence had
tO''>1 sAa ,ghen learned that clouds If prager
were ascending from this svS.eel from, this great
church of fourteen hundred members, and from
the greater church of God at large. 1t was a
conflict direct between the powers of he'll and
the truth of that God who has promised to
'make the wrath of man to praise Him ;" and
expected he would do it mainly by turning
the counsels of the wicked into foollshness. -
How often during these political trials, did
those raging prosecutors make manifest that
they were running their cause by being led of
God TO make fools of themselves as has ever
been the case with the defenders of American
Slavery They are too blind to see that "the
potsherd Of the earth may strive with the pots.
herd of the earth; but woe to him that strveth
with his maker"
l will not omit to mention the influence that
was exerted by you, my dear children, when
you recently visited your friends in that dread
ful prison Ten thousand dollars would not
pay for the good that was done by that visit
1t was an argument which those cruel men
could not meet. DepTayity and wckedness had
not made them quite devils yet, aud therefore
they knew when they considered the testimony
of these hundreds of innocent and guileless
children that t spoke the truth And do not
doubt that when, in the light of this testimony,
they accused us of crime, their iUnermost hearts
said to them--you lie.
The history Of our world has its " dark
ages, and every life has its dark seasons so
we also had our dark days in Jail They were
not when we found the Court determined to
put US in a false position by their record, nor
yet when the Supreme Court of our State, IN
Ui0iati0a of their Olcn CONNECTIONS, too, verify
believe, deserted us No, our dark days were
not then | slept well that night, for | had
learned that "cursed is he that putteth his trust
in man" But our dark days commenced when
wiser and better men than we--men high as to
station and pure as to character, said, you are
in the hands of robbers, you must yield. they
said-"Go, drape yourselves with Grape, and
present yourselves at the bar of the Court to
offer bail, in mourning that justice hath fallen
ia the Streets" They said you have stemmed
the flood already hey ond your depth, and in
short time there will be no return. Then you
must swim 10 the opposite, and far distant
shore or drown. The task is too great for you
the contest is unequal Return now. At
this time, days lCere dark indeed. Every hour
drew lines OF agony on our faces not that the
sacrifice was SO great, but that better men than
We regarded it gratuitous, if not indeed even
harmful We didn't believe that.
"Ho thus far had lol US to put us to shame"
But reason required that we review our ground
with care. It was indeed a painful revew
but the conflict was not long Oar minds were
soou entirely settled and then we calmly
looked at the prospect Of long summer in
crowded Jail. We knew our duty, and we
choerfully determined to do it, even at the ex-
pense of life if necessary We finally decided
to return no more to the shore from whence we
came but to make the voyage or perish by the
way and we comforted ourselves with the
thought that if we reached the distant, happy
shore, we should look back upon our enemy
in the sea, and could sing with |
the " ransomed of the Lord b" " the horse and |
the rider hath he drowned in the deep" But |
if we persisted, we believed that we, like Samp |
son, should slay more of the enemies of the /