Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1859-08-27

ment their minister because never in hymn, or
prayer, sermon has be disturbed their equanm.
ity by reference to the poor that cry, the needy
and them that have no helper and when attend
ants upon prayer meetings arc shocked, MS If a
political topic had been broached because suppli-
cation is made that Gods law may triumph over
wickedness framed into law by man.
The curse of our land is a grievous ore, found.
ed in self-interest and confirmed by centuries of
existence and liberation. 1t has come TO be re-
garded as an established element in our civliza-
tion-gloried in by its advocates and indorsed by
its opponents. It can never be removed until the
heart of the people shall be stirred to its very
depth with sense of the sin and the Disgrace
until it shall become q matter of earnest and
ious thought in the family, the school and the
church. If the mercy Of powerful delverance
from this great wrong remain to US, it must come
through such channel. ..
There are many evidences that the present in
terest in the of freedom must be vitalized by
a higher morality-by the spirit of Christianity it.
self, before any satisfactory result or substantial
progress can be anticipated. ... ..........
l.. The AUaeism mo other name expresses it)
which prevails on the question Of The supremacy Of
Gods law over human enactments, indicates a
blindness scarcely removed from nfatuation. III
madness be the inevitable precursor of destruc-
ton, then have We not to apprehend that
Gods mercy is already Withdrawn from the peo-
pie ? The extent to which delusion prevails on
this subject is startling. Not merely the unscru-
pulous politician who is willing to secure his ends
by any means-not merely The interested official
whose pay depends upon his servility, but men
long honored for their wisdom and their virtues,
men looked up to as judges in the land, do not
hesitate to urge the obligation to obey wicked
enactment as long as legislatures and courts
choose to call it law. They gloss the precept of
Gods word, 1--WE ought to obey God rather than
men," with the limitation, unless men choose to
put the expression of this wil into the form of
law" and, what perhaps is stll moro alarming,
the mass of the people seem bewidered on the
subject and hesitate which to choose, Jehovah or
Baal. We would fan hope that much of this de-
lusion is an ignorance which does not betoken
wickedness but if there lie point where the
distinction fails between ignorance and sin, 1t must
be hero. ~-a 'l trt. ,..--5 ai 10y
There seems to be perversion Of the best SEN
timeuts ofa law.abiding people. Injustcegis
perpetrated and Allotted and excused upon xbe
ground that the laws must be respected and main
tanned. Marshas and bsiliHs arrest the fugitive
from oppression. and apologize for the loathspne
work upon the ground that they are executing the
law commissioners aud judges remand the vic
tim to his oppresso- and call themselves the minis
ters of law jures, impanelled safeguard of
personal liberty and the rights of man., adjndge
him criminal whose heart has been moved with
sympathy for the bleeding bondman, because the
law and their oath require it the people indig-
nant perhaps, but submissive, open their prisons
to their God-fearing neighbor because he must
suffer the penalty of the law and last of all the
Habeas Corpus, the time-hoaored guardian Of the
right. looks unmoved upon the wrong, because
such, from the days of the fathers, has been the
order of the Courts. The giant outrage at every
step blasphemes the sacred names Of Justice and
Order and Law. When will men learn that law
has soul as we'll as body, and cease to cherish
and reverence the printed form whom the spirit
has indignantly departed Tyranny can devise no
machinery so subservient to Its own ends as this
idoatry of the forms of law. 1t is perhaps the
only sentiment which it can rally to its support in
an intelligent and well-ordered people. There is
unspeakable danger as we'll as wickedness in thus
perverting and abusing the wholesome instincts of
men. For time it may serve the purposes OF
tyranny, in the end it will occasion terrible re-
coil, crushing the very framework OF law and gov
ernment. Human nature cannot safely and per-
manenty be thus cheated and wronged.
Another form of this deluson is the impression
that Judges, and executive officers and magistrates
are only part of the machinery of government,
with no individual responsibility for their official
acts-that they make good their official oath,
which recognizes God as over all, when they have
subjected their consciences to human enactments
and trampled under foot the law of God, upon the
plea of sustaining the laws of men. The great
patent fact is denied that God holds all his moral
creatures subjects Of his government to the extent
of their entire activity, and accounts as treason
against himself this pretended allegiance to human
requirements. There is no such dispensation
from individual responsibility for official acts.
The abdication of individual manhood to become
the instruments of government is not permitted
to any of Gods creatures. The deeds they do as
EXECUTORS of infamous enactments must come back
with damning guilt upon their individual souls
"when he maketh nquisiton for blood he will re-
member them" grsj tf .at. ssir .e. ..a -
For this infatuation there is one remedy, sure
and safe--an appeal from mans appointments to
Gods supreme law. Men have consoiences and
they will not fail to recognize the validity of such
an appeal when clearly and fearlessly made The
christians of the land owe il to God and to their
country, to rally at once to these foundations
which are threatened with removal. Religious
teachers and ministers OF Gods word, the consti-
tuted exponents of his counsels, may, if they will,
bring back the people to sound reason, and dis
place this idoary Of forms with reverence for God
and wholesome regard for human law. Thus only
oan tyranny be supplanted and o government, or
dained Of God, be established. 4"l' '''' .''''
q Tho prevalent tendency TO overlook the claims
Of the oppressed taemsslrss-ths injustice and Wick
edness of slavery, aud to limit public concern tc
questions Of interest to the dominant race--tht
right and requirements Of free labor, is an indics