Holmes County farmer. [volume] (Millersburg, Ohio) 1857-1926, 1863-05-21


stitutional legislation, or the insensible
influence Of providential or moral causes,
that could be reckoned or be compelled
beforehand. So it stood--an integral
part of the best social edifce that had
ever been reared by man, and contribu-
ting in its own constituted order, to an
unexampled prosperity. So it stood
an occasion, indeed, Of many wrongs and
sufferings such as are incident to earth,
but also Of invaluable and otherwise i'm.
possible benefits to degraded people,
thereby brought nearer to the usages Of
civilized life, and in as great proportion
as our own citizens, into fellowship with
the Church of God.
So it stood, till generation arose that
comprehended none Of these living reali-
ties. that honored net the God of the
Fathers. and for his everlasting word
Of natural and revealed religion, substi-
tuted "higer law" Among them were
born the Aboltionists, who arc now, Of.
fcially, supreme over the land. They
were, at first, small class of speculate
enthusiasts, intoxicated by the specula-
tive pantheism of France and Germany,
which HAD covertly breathed its spirit in
to the "glittering generation" of the
Declaration of Independence, and by
that instrument insensibly infected the
public mind. They were men Of the mark
or figure, inflated visionalies, mistaking
their own fancies for another gospel,
which is not another, destitute Of all
practical concern for Churh or State, and
affecting only supposable or possible,
and underlined and undefinable interests
of humanity in general. But they were
ambitious, insinuating. resolved and reck-
less. Intent upon an imaginary univer-
sal restitution, before Gods appointed
time, by sweeping processes of what
they called reform without discrimination
of time, place, age, sex, race, capacity or
condition and passionately heated at evils
attending the ordained relations OF social
life-evils growing not out of the rela-
tions themselves, but the bad passions Of
our common nature-the very passions
by which they were unconsciously in
hamed-they affected to restore society
by first destroying it, and thenceforward,
not by the renewal of individual minds
according to Christianity, but by political
reformations and reconstructions, accor-
ding to their own speculative conceits.-
They aspired to millennium not Of grace
but of nature; not spiritual by the power
of the Holy Ghost, but platonic, accor-
ding to the impulses and sentiments of
the natural mind. They put feeling in
the place of conscience. They submit
ted man God for the Goldman; imag
mary human rights for revealed human
duties; and the happiness of the creature
for the glory of the Creator-a happi-
ness consisting not in a spiritual likeness
to God as the Scriptures has described,
but in the multiplying agreeable sensa-
tions, according to the baptised paganism
of sophisticated schoolmen. They refer
red the irregularities of society, to re-
straints unnaturally laid by the family,
the State, the Church, for which they
substituted more refined free love, q
self determining will, and liberty to
enjoy whatever God and nature had put
into their hands. Such, at least, was
the spirit aud genius Of the idolatry which
at length, embodied itself in the Aboli-
tionism of the North, developing itself
however, variously, according to the diff
ferent temperaments, tastes, mental hab-
its or the associations, accidental peculi-
arities of the individuals who fell in its
snare.
Great errors do not obtain currency
and become effect, but as they are are per-
mitted to have reference to respectable
authority. Unhappy for the country,
Abolitionists acquired that advantage
For it was an allusion that glared. at the
same time, upon the benevolent seekers
and the infatuated dreamers of a COM
mon salvation, and captivated for time,
some whom it could not absolutely Sc
duce or hopelessly destroy. 1t was SO as
when. under a similar temptation in the
mother country, some such men as
Edmund burke and Robert Hall were
borne on the deceitful current of false
opinions, till the roar of the tum5ling
cataract awoke them, and they were hard
ly saved by springing into the eddies, or
clinging to the rocks. Forgetful of the
lessons of history and revelation, they
were allow to believe that wisdom which
boasted such great things of superior
light, and heavenly charity, could be af-
ter all, shallow and delusive They SYM
pathized, generously or benevolently,
with afflicted humanity.-and the pain
ted dream of universal emancipation
which played before their excited fancies,
seemed realization of what belong on
ly to an age in the dark, unrevealed fu-
turity of providence, to which we have
yet to pass amid scenes more terrible
than any of the anteccdent revolutions
through which Jesus Christ has been ad-
vancing in His throne OF judgement and
glory. So here-few like Adams and
Charming, to say nothing Of distinguish
ed living men. by we know not what Sc
cret political or philosophic bias, what
vein Of morbid sentiment, what blurred
ethical or theological vision, by words
whose meaning they did not measure, by
reasonings inconsistent with some of their
acknowledged principles, and unworthy
of their intellect and their fame, gave en- :
couragement, if not patronage, to the
dangerous idolatry.
Abolition became an institution organ
ic and vital-body and soul-a working
power. representative of new type OF
moral and social wisdom, improved,
comprehensive, philosophical, and des-