The tri-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1866-1868, 1868-06-02


You'll die of indigestion;
Pm sick of all this popping corn
Why don't you pop the question:
To the COlOred Inha bitants of the South.
ern States of North America, recently
Emancipated from Slavery.
TY OF FRIENDS IN GREAT BRITAIN.
May all blessings, spiritual and temporal, b
multiplied unto yOu from God our Father
and tile Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour
DEAR BRoTHERs AND SIsTERs.-Chil :
dren of the same Almighty Parent who hath
dwell on all the face of the earth-receive,
we beseech you, these few words from us,
your friends across the wide Atlantic.
For more than hundred years we and
our foretathers have sympathzed with you
and your foretathers in your bondage,-have
desired and pleaded for your freedom, and
endeavored to aid in procuring it; and we
now rejoice with humble thankfulness to
God, in your having obtained it.
Barely, if ever, since the Most High
brought his people Israel out of the land of
Egypt and from the House Of Bondage has
so vast multitude been set free from act
ual slavery So suddenly and SO completely
We are glad to believe that many, perhaps
most of you, regard this great blessing as a
gift from God. He who rueth in the king
doms of men and giveth them to whomsoever
He WILL and who bringeth good out of evil,
l. la IL, lE,,l 3
your land so as to produce the blessed fruit
of liberty to the slave. We have rejoiced
to learn that Notwithstanding the sudden
ness of the change in your condition, most
of you are already living as pcaceable citi-
Zens, showing that you know how rightly to
value and wisely to use the precious boom
of freedom.
We have few things to say to you, and
though many of you may know them al
ready, and be well aware of their impor-
lance, we believe you will not despise the
faithful and loving counsel OF your friends
Let the word of brotherly exhortation sink
deep into your hearts as we remind you of
some of the duties which are called for at
your hands, all of them important, and Il
few of them new, or enforced by new mo-
tives, in this your state of freedom.
Your duty to your Heavenly Father is to
show your love and gratitude to Him for the
blessing of liberty, and for all His mercies,
by doing His will as it is set forth in His
own blessed book the Bible, and taught you
by his Holy Spirit.
Your duty to Christ is, accepting Him as
your Redeemer, to believe in, love and obey
Hin, in whom, if you are his sincere disci-
pies, you have a redemption infinitely more
blessed than your redemption from outward
slavery, even redemption, through his blood,
from the guilt and bondage of sin, and
the translation into the liberty of the chill
dren of God.
Your duty to your country and its rulers,
is to obey the laws, to be subject to those in
authority to maintain order, to fulfil your
bargains, to be honest and strictly truthful,
avoiding all deceit in word or deed. to Ia
bour diligently as treemen for your own
support and that of your wives and children
and tor the welfare of that great nation of
which you now more completely form part,
and to show, rs you may be admitted either
at once or by degrees to all the rights and
duties of citizenship, that you are as capa-
bile as the white man Of properly using and
fulfilling them:
.. As witnesses in Courts of Justice, be true
= and careful.
As voters, be honest and wise; never to
be bribed with money, or Warped by inter-
est, by favor or by fear.
And if admitted to office, fill the office,
whatever it may be. not only respectfully in
the sight of men, but faithfully in the sight
Of Him who seeth the heart.
Your duty to yourselves is. with the help
of the Lord, to keep yourselves strictly tenn
perate, pure and chaste, and to avail your
selves of every opportunity of acquiring
that knowledge OF God and of Christ which
Is life eternal, and that useful learning
whereby you will increase your power of
rising in the scale of society, and of being
made blessing to all around you, to an ex
tent which some of you may be hardly able
to suppose possible.
Your duty to your families is to bring
them up in the fear and love Of God, to give
them good education, even if it he at con-
siderable sacrifice to yourselves, and to teach
them the love of their country, and to mind
their high calling as Christians and as Amer
lean citizens.
We know that in your own strength you
cannot fulfil all these duties. You have
need, like ourselves and like all other men,
to watch and pray that you enter not into
temptation; and to you, as well as to us, in
the great love and goodness of our Heavenly
Father, is the Holy Spirit offered, to deliver
from temptation and to lead in the way of
righteousness. Possibly some of you may
have said to yourselves, whilst you were yet
slaves, ooh how easy would it be to do
right and to fulfil our duties, if we were but
free - and it may be that you often find,
even now that you are free, duty still hard,
temptation still strong, and sin still al
hg. Be not discouraged by this expert
give not up the struggle; but let this
hgQur own helplessness, and tend
bring you to the mercy seat
more fervent in prayer, that,
st strengthening you, you may
kch of yourselves you could not
re offer few practical hints to
still reside on or near the
ose who were formerly re-
your owners. Many of you
continued in their employ
d conducting yourselves
nd integrity, have been
. with fairness and with
your employers,-a result
dpubt has largely benefit
Were may be other cases
racter. Those who
unrpstrainp1 now-