Fremont journal. [volume] (Fremont, Sandusky County [Ohio]) 1853-1866, 1860-05-04


CheeVer on Strikes aud Slavery.
The Rev. Geo. B. Cbeever preached last
evening, April 22d, before crowded house
on 'Northern Strikes and Southern Sla.
very; Gods Bill for Unpaid Wages" from
the text
MASTERS GIVE UNTO YOUR SERVANTS THAT WHICH Is
yusr AND BouAL."-Col. iv. 1.
This text he said was the great abolition
text. To be compelled to work for another
without wages was the first step to slavery
after the assassination of the right to bo
free. Labor then became base. Those
who lived only by stealing got so far above
work as to call laborers the mud-sills of So
ciety. Adam and Eve and the Apostles
were such nud-sills. Paul said: "These
hands have miDistered to my necessities" !"
In the Jewish nation the career Of honor
was open to all; men left the plow for the
kingship. Among them labor was noble
ness and slavery the highest crime. The
name for the laborer was derived from a
in Eden. When we read of servants in
the New Testament it meant freemen and
not slaves. A Christian man could not be
a slave, and was forbidden of God to lay
the burdens of slavery upon any other
In the theological instructions of Paul the
reprobation Of the crime of man-stealing
was set down as the obligation Of the Cos
pei, by the side Of murder. No man could
be a Christian and stakeholder He
might as well attempt to be Christian and
an idolater or a Christian and murderer.
Deny it who dare; disprove it who cam
Those who oppress the bireling in the
North aid in keeping down the slave of the
South. Those who, with incomes Of $780,
900 year, drive their laborers night and
day, compelling them to labor into the
hours of the Sabbath, or so that it must be
spent in sleep or in the relaxation of SEN
sual indulgence; those who spend more in
a single election in the interest of the South
than their whole clerk hire, keep the fetters
on the slave in the South. This process it
was which macerated the masses until they
were the fit fuel of war or tyranny. The
furnaces of Satan in society we're fed by
those who so thrust down the laborer--
Obey God in breaking down the wall of
such caste between capital and labor
What contrast between Gods declaration:
"He that stealeth man and selleth him,
or il he be found in his hand, he shall sure
Iy be put to death" and the declaration of
a so-called minister of God the other day,
that the holding and even the selling of a
inan might be not only unsinful but just
From the stealing of mans wages we as
cended to the stealing Of the man. DR..
Cheever quoted the passages cursing all
who defraud the laborer of his hire. On
all money made by Withholding the hire of
the laborer, God reckoned up the interest,
and would present the bill. DR.. Cheever
followed out all systems of extortion in
vogue among us, from pawnbroking to the
owning of tenant-houses; but none of these,
he said, could compare in enormity Of guilt
with slavehoIding. And yet we were told
that slavery was a proper virtue for Chris
tian Church. Extortion must be denounc-
ed, but the greater sin of slsveholding need
not be. In addition to this, the stakeholder
was fornicator and an adulterer, and the
profits of the system were in great degree
dependent upon systematic adultery. The
main argument urged against the reopen
ing Of the African slave-trade was that it
would interfere with this adulterous slave
breeding carried on in Christian States.--
The churches which took Shareholders to
their bosoms, and called il fanaticism and
bigotry 10 exclude them, were very barlots.
What would Paul have said TO the minister
who declared that he had bought and sold
slaves and would do it againi He would
have said what he did to Elymas the Soreer-
-er. Now, as to the amount of Gods bill.
The Egyptians sued the Jews, says an old
legend, for the vessels which they carried
away with them into the wilderness. The
jews admitted the claim, but put in coun-
ter claim of a penny a day for 2l0 years
labor Of 100000 men, amounting to 45,
800,000,OO0 denarii The Egyptians
dropped the subject. But look at the sum
stolen from the laborers Of the South--a
dollar day fora million laborers was $500,
100000 a year; ,200,OOo,000 every
Presidential campaign; enough every six
years to buy the whole mass out Of slavery
at the highest price ever claimed for them.
But by slave law the slave being once sto-
len all his work and wages belong to the
robber, and so by slave law all accumula-
tons from extra work belong to the master.
According TO slave law no crime could be
committed against a slave, only against his
master. And every church that fellow
SHIPPED the criminal became responsible for
the crime. Nothing could be more sinful
than shis except the blasphemy Of those
who excused H. Dr.. Oheever quoted from
Chas. O'Conors Union-saving speech at
the Academy, extracts in which be termed |
slavery benign and just Our law, theol-
ogy, and social life. be went on TO say,
we're becoming poisoned more and more. =
How should this terror be stayed Moth
ing but the word Of God could be Of any
avail. Such fraud aud robbery As we had
pToieeied By law must cat into and corrupt
kho heart of The patton. The sin must