The Caucasian. (Clinton, N.C.) 188?-1913, 1896-02-06

bEsotuAt0u ES80 OCEU 1GE0M ptt&0GS
mainly BY the chusches,- vishoa
whose aid 'the enterprise would hsv
been . failure let the church kno,
this" he continued, and realize he
strength. She should not nov abandol
hsy owH grand CREATION"
And after the Emancipation Proofs
ton In 1863. all the leading religion
bodies in the South jointly issued n
address to Christians throughout th
world, still standing on the side of hu
man slavery, wherein they said: 9Th
recent Proclamation of the Presiden
OF the United States, seeking the eman
cipasion OF the slaves Of the south,
In our judgment occasion OF soiemi
protest on the part Of the people O
Cod"
Yet says one Of my devout and learn
ed critics 1.-THE Protestant church Ia
ever been on the side Of human free
DOM II 50, then verify it has beel
on the "off" side.
In further illustration Of the attitud
OF the church toward domestic slavery
l recall the fact that Wendell Phillip
whose humane spirit may find admir-
ers even in the South, now that self
interest no longer blinds all eyes to tn
sin OF slavery, once exclaimed ut ~
anniversary meeting Of the American
Anti-Slavery Society: 1.-The church
The church. II all the churches OIL
this continent had been sunk into tn,
earth forty years ago, the cause Of free
dom would have been further for
ward" In spite, however, of tn,
church's pious and persistent uphold
ing, domestic slavery passed away. l
the sentiment Of the Southern churcl
has ever changed upon this question
| know OF no expression to that effec
by conference or convention; and
through twenty-five years of Obseryan
life, do not remember even to have
heard prayer in any church thanking
God for the Liberation Of four million
slaves.
Nevertheless, to such facts and prin.
ciples as / have adduced, the church
cOmplacently replies in words like
these from Canon Farrar: LET not
such notes of distress blind us to what
is still splendid reality. The abolition
OF slavery among Christian nations
womanhOOd hOnOred and elevated
childhood surrounded with an aureOlt
Of tenderness and embraced in the
arms Of mercy; education extended
marriage sanctitied; the bonds of serf.
dom broken; hospitals built; the eter.
nal and inalienable rights of man
everywhere asserted; pity for the
prisoners; the gospel preached to the
poor; these are some Of the Gestd
Christi, some of the triumphs of Chris
tianity."
These are, indeed, in so far as they
are achieved, things done of Christ
triumphs OF Christianity; but tri.
umphs Orer the church, not triumphs
of the church. Slavery was abolished
and the bonds of serfdOm broken de-
spite the opposition of the church. The
eternal and inalienable rights of man
were everywhere asserted in the face
of the church. The extension of edu-
cation is still hampered by the bitter
ness of creed and fear of investig cation
characteristic of other days. 1t cannot
claim to have sanctified marriage,
when early in this century Englishmen
sold their wives into servi-
tude, and the number of divorces
within thirty years in the Northern
states has more than doubled in pro-
portion to marriage or population.
Slaves could contract no marriage and
we're herded like cattle; incontinence
was encouraged for sake of gain; and
The lack of chastity among their de-
pendants is the logical heritage of
'hurch-fostered bondage. Childhood
s not surrounded with tenderness or
in the arms of mercy, so long
Is children are dwarfed and crushed
n factories, and babes cling to milk
ess breasts in land of overprOduc-
ion, and while in portions of our great
titles the death rate of children under
i've years of age reaches, "largely from
heer starvation" the startling figures
# 70 per cent. The church cannot
'oast to have hOnored and elevated wo-
manhood while it silences, even in
torth Carolina, the tongue of women
I intelligence, eloquence and intense
'iety; and sees, without effort to re-
love, the existence of economic con-
ltiOns that make Of women the slaves
+ "sweat-shops" and force thousands
o choose between starvation and lives
t shame. Ask the women of crowded
enements what honor the church be-
lows upon them. Tennyson's lines
re still true:
There among the gloomy alleys Pro-
gress halts our palsied feet,
'rlme and hunger cast our maidens by
the thousand on the street;
here the master scrimps the haggard
). seamstress of her daily bread,
here single sOrdid attic holds the
living and the dead;
here the smould'ring fire of fever
creeps across the rotted floor,
md the crowded couch of incest, in
the warrens of the poor"
And what of hospitals built? These
re Christly things, indeed, born of |
le spirit OF Christ, but born not of the
hurch. Past the middle of the 18th
entury, the clergy believed the insane |
be possessed of the devil" ONLY |
We generations ago the church ap-
rOved the persecution, drowning. and
lrning of the insane as "fire-brands
hell, moved and instigated by the
evil" 'They found demoniacs for
Re !aller and the stake" says Prof.
halle, "whcre we find patients for the
octor and the asylum" Not until
"a was the first law enacted in Chris
an England that showed one touch
pity for the insane; and not until
u cOul0 Plnel, and then in anarchic
rance, become the pioneer in the hu-
ane treatment of insanity as a dis
lse. TO the civilization arising ont
church-hindered inquiry and asser-
on OF humanity, to science, whose
'oWth like that of democracy ia a
after only of the past century, church.
oppressed with cruel persistence
ust we ascribe the fact that palatiai |
ylums have displaced "the earrets
ables and dungeons where tortured
sanity once Writhed in filth and
aims" 1t is hardly honest for the
urch to claim the credit of what she
rtured to defeat.
And as to pity for the prisoners
nat prison-refOrm was wrought hv :
e church? For centuries. even IN
1gland, cruelty to prisoners went I
thout protest from the church. and
ty for them was unknown until in
last century, Wesley tired of the
'hargy, Journalism, and virtual mis-.
thropy of the church. Was II not +
nittield's preaching to the neglected /
l!lers in the field with such Intense q