The weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 186?-1869, 1868-06-03
To the Colored Inhabitants of the South
ern States of North America, recently
Emancipated from Slavery.

| THE CHRISTIAN sALUTATToN OF THE soCIE-
| TY OF FRIENDS IN GREAT BRITAIN.
Nay all blessings, spiritual anA temporal, be
multiplied unto you from God our Father,
and the Lord Jesus Christ, our SariOur.
| DEAR BROTHERS AND SIsTERs.-Chil-
dren of the same Almighty Parent who hath
made of one blood all nations of men to
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 forefathers have sympathized 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 tlankfulness 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
gift from God. He who ruleth in the king
| doms of men and giveth them to whomsoever
He will, and who bringeth good out of evil,
| has overruled the dreadful evil of war in
| 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
4! 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 we'll 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
| 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
piles, you have 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 he honest and strictly truthful,
avoiding all deceit in word or deed. to la
bour diligently as treemen for your own
support and that of your wives and children
and for the welfare of that great nation of
which you now more completely form part,
and to show, as 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, he 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
I 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
tnat 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-
i! 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 be ut 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,
and temptation still strong, and sin still al
Turing. Bcnot discouraged by this expert
ence, give not up the struggle; but let this
feeling of your own helplessness, and tend
ency to evil, bring you to the mercy seat,
and make you more fervent in prayer, that,
through Christ strengthening you, you may
do that which of yourselves you could not
do
Wewould here offer a few practical hints to
such of you as still reside on or near the
plantations of those who were formerly re-
garded by law as your owners. Many of you
have, We believe. continued in their employ
as free laborers, and conducting yourselves
with diligence and integrity, have been
treated in return with fairness and with
confidence by your employers result
which we cannot doubt has largely benefit
ted both parties. There may be other cases
of a very different character. Those who
have heretofore exercised unrestrained pow
er may have been treated unjustly and OPP
pressively. Even under such circumstances
it is far better and far wiser to suffer wrong.
and take it patiently, than to render evil for
evil. We do not say that you are to give
up the independence and the rights secured
to you by law but in maintaining or assert
ing them, let it ever be with meckness and
gentleness. You may often 10y this conduct
so soften the hearts of others as to bring
about change in their behaviour toward
you, and may thus experience the ful6lmen1