The Ashland union. [volume] (Ashland, Ashland County, Ohio) 1854-1868, 1864-03-30
LAND COUNTY,, WEDNESDAY MoRNINe MARCH 80 1851

=
ssdo not believe the doctrine ?" Can he salts
| fly his own conscience, and please God by his
silence ssThou shalt not steal" would be
very suitable subject dt tl.is time for the pull
pit, and it would suggest appropriate senti-
ments against all those who have robbed their
lcoantry Gifts wealth, liberty, and virtue-Mr
! BALTzLY would approve of poor people suf.
tering as s1aues, for the crimes of debt and
petty larceny, which their circumstances some
times necessitates them to commit urtil full
restitution is made; bnt, I suppose, that he
| would disapprove of xich n,e,, being made
lsZares, who were ne5 necessitated to Contract
debts, iandto steal thousands of dollars from
the public treasury, and who rob the widow
and the fatherless of their property by confs-.
cation, and then appropriate it to the benefit
of the self styled loyatistsi Has he condemned
kidnapping, or men-stsaling in the State of
! Ohio and has he manifested any sympathy
| for those sufferers and their families Has
he ever by word or look denounced these kind
of men stealing7 How can he be ssilent as
the grave" when citizens are spirited away
from their families in the silent hours of the
night, after denouncing men-stealing as s'the
lowest link of the chain of humaR iniquity."
What is his asseveration worth against the
magnitude of this crime. God says, .When ye
:. spread forth your hands 1 will hide mine eyes
from you; yea, when you make many prayers,
will not hear, syo,,r!! hands are full of blood"
1 lisa l, 15-Those who encourage and support
the prosecution of wars, bringing men into
deadly conflict with their fellow men, give aid
and comfort to the powers of darkness, and as
sumo hostile attitude to Gods moral gov
ernment They are men, whose hands are
fall of Llood who aresdenounced in the scrip
lures; and who have no promise of eternal
life, unless they make restitution, or, ocease
| to do evil, and learn to do well.'' Any at
/ tempt to arrest the frightful sacrifice of hu-
man life in this country, at this time, would
be regarded both by the North and the South,
as agiving aid and comfort to the enemy. p
| But, if every servant of God IN the land had
the moral courage to thunder the anathemas
| of Gods laws against the vioIaters of his laws,
the wicked men of the land would pause in
their career of crime long enough, to awaken
hoiier emotions, and righteous action, for the
good of all coneernsd.-lf ministers were to
do this with an untcrrifed front-uublanched
cheek, and unshamsd brow th9 people would
soon recover their reason, and suffer them
selves to be governed by holior and God like
sentiments, which, sanctifed by divine truth, 4
would soon restore peace and union to our
distracted country. The reverse OF this is ap-
parent. Ministers have suffered themselves
to be sold and bought by corrupt politicians,
the premium each one depends upon their
talents and the extent Of their influence !; and
these are thrown into tho scale of political
schemes to ugment tho capital of demoral-
Rized party, with out which it would soon dis
solve, or break down by its own corrupt weight.
This, then, is the secret of seyil designing
men, who shall become worse and worse, de-
csiving and peing deceived
There is another law of God which throws
some light upon the slavery question, and
which is as applicable to the present time as it
was to the time when 1t was proclaimed from
Sinai amid terrific thunder and lightning.-
God said =" Thou shalt not couet thy aeighbor's
house, nor his scife, nor his n,an-sernant, nor
his .aid-ser0ant, nor his oD, aao,. his ass, nor
anything aohicb thy aeighbor hath Covet--
business is great crime, fer it may be re-
garded as the primary cause of all other
crimes. 1t is Nm inorainate and unlawful de
sire to appropriate to ones self the property of
another, which is expressly forbidden by this
law This law makes manifest the primary
cause of all our trouble in this land. 1t was
the inordinate. desire Of Abolition politicians
to possess the wealth of the South, which, un-
der an administration fayoring their views,
feelings, and grasping propensities, have al
ready commenced parcelling out that which
is occupied by our troops, to needy adventur-
ers. The services of their domestics have been
coveted, to lessen the wages paid to poor white
men in the North, or to secure an equal
amount of work done at less expense The
humane phianthropists ofthe Abolition school,
with expressions of dsinterested friendship
fresh from their lips, now working those
poor, unfortunate negroes to DEATH, who are
deprived of the comfortable subsistence they
enjoyed under the superyision-of of their former
kind masters. The slave that had but one
kind master then, has many hard masters now,
and his new condition of freedom is far, very
far, from being improved. What is it that
these grasring, avaricions politicians do not
want They have appropriated the OK, the
ass, and the house, the corn, tho wheat, and
the cotton, and everything they could lay
their hands upon, and these greedy cormo-
rants follow Immediately in the footsteps of
the soldiers, whom they urge onward, to open
and prepare the way for them, and also to pro-
tect them while satisfying their ayaricious
propensities. Any Christian minister who
can be "silent as the grave while crimes OF
such magnitude are being committed ia the
land, dishonors God and the Christian religion.
What advantage are such men to the cause of
Justice righteousness, truth, love, and mercy
in our land If such state of things is to
prevail in the land, we hid better close the
temples Of religion, the courts of justice and
the halls of Legislation, and letsoeiety be dis
solved and return to natural freedom 1t
could not be much worse than 1t is now, with |
everything loose upon the chances OF reyclu-
ton. I5ss szszE e.tie ais- s-sA q i
Let us look more particularly at this divine |
law, which is binding upon all nations and
peoples. God acknowledges everything emu
merated in this law to be the undisputed prop
ertv of the man whom he has constituted the |
head of the family. The wife and his SER
wants are placed in the same catalogue with |
his other chattles. He acknowledges the re- |
lation between the master and his servants,
(Which in the Hebrew is slaves which proves |
the relation is not sintm. Where there is no
law, there is no SIN, and without the law we
cannot have knowledge of sin. This law |
establishes two facts, viz: that slaves are |
property, and, that the holding of such prop
erty is no sin. It may be sinful to abuse any
species of property, and to deprive it of its
natural and civil rights if it has any, or it is |
sinful to steal that property and to deprive the