i • .^° •%- V'-^-.>^;. • 5 , \.^^ \/ .^'•^-^ .*^ •■> .<^ <> "• ■ J>^ % ■■■■■■ . . ^-. V^ -^ ¥■ .*'"*.. 0^ -. .0 ^^•n#^ .0 ^ .A. ^ J C'9\ ■^ SLAVERY SOUTHERN METHODISM: TWO SERMONS PEEACHED IN THE i:t|oM^t C|Err| iit l^^tomEit, (i^argia. BY THE PASTOE, REV. JOHN H. CALDWELL, A. M., OF THE GEORGIA CONFERENCE. PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR. 1865. ^^^ Ur" 8863 SLAVERY SOUTHERN METHODISM: TWO SERMONS PBEACHED IN THE ^rt|olri^t C^ual] iit l:ri\)mait, ^m^m. REV. JOHN H. CALDWELL, A. M. OF THE GEORGIA CONFERE PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR. 1865. PREFACE The first of the following discourses was delivered on Sunday, the 11th of June. The congregatiou was a very large one. I had proceeded only to the point w^here I stated my conviction, that if the institution of slavery had been right God would not have suf- fered it to be overthrown, when some of the x^eople began to leave the church. I had not passed through all my points of exception to the abuses of the system, when many others left. Others, who stood all this very well, became very indignant as I proceeded to describe the domination of the slave power ; some left the church, while others remained to express by their looks and half-suppressed murmurs, I might say almost hisses, tlieir decided disapprobation of ray course; so before I got through at least a third of the congregation had left, among them some of my best friends and some of the wealthiest and most in- fluential members and supporters of the Church. The sensation exhibited by my audience, so far from intim- IV PREFACE. idating, only seemed to inspire me witli new ardor, BO I won for myself the imen viable reputation of a comparison with Beecher : " Beeclier," it was said, *' could not have surpassed it in fury of denuncia- tion." Long before the sermon was concluded, the following charges were circulating in the streets and throuirh the town acrainst me : That I was an aboli- tionist; that I had declared myself such for five years, but was afraid to own it before ; that the pres- ence of Federal bayonets iu the town now enabled me to declare it with impunity ; that I was a base hypocrite for cloaking such sentiments while I was an avowed friend and defender of the South during the war ; that I had now forsaken my friends and coun- try, and had gone over to the enemy, like a detestable traitor ; that I was at least inconsistent with all my former professions and acts. In the mean time, the congregation of the Baptist church was dismissed, and some of the people, hearing the above-mentioned representations, came to the Methodist church to hear for themselves the astounding doctrine. They came in time only to hear the latter part of the sermon, ^diich, disconnected from the former part, confirmed them in the opinion that all they heard of what had gone before was true. The commotion that succeed- ed during the following week surpassed anything that had ever been witnessed in the town. The peo- ple were maddened, enraged, and some even made PREFACE. V threats of personal violence. A strange frenzy seized the popular mind, and some even attempted to excite the soldiers against me, alleging that 1 had charged them with stealing more property within the last four years than all the negroes put together had ever be- fore stolen in all their lives ! During all this time, however, ray own mind was as calm and serene as a summer evening. I felt no anger, no resentment, but, sinking into the depths of these words, "In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength," I went calmly on in the preparation of the second sermon. I knew in whom I had trusted, and that I had been moved by an irrepressible impulse (some would scoff were I to call it divine influence) to preach the ser- mons. I merely alluded in the second to some of the misrepresentations of the first discourse. I have taken my answer to them out of the sermon, as interrupting the course of consecutive argument, and now embody my reply to the principal objections in the following calm address to my congregation, and to my friends at a distance, who have heard the above-mentioned misrepresentations. 1. As to the charge of being an abolitionist, I will let the sermons answer that objection. They speak for themselves. 2. The charge of " inconsistency " is based on the expression, " long-pent-up convictions," and my dec- laration, mentioned once or twice, that I could not VI PREFACE. formerly preach on this subject as I can now. From ray earliest observation of '' the great evil of slavery " I have had "convictions" that there were many, many things in the institution that were wrong. The Chm'ch to which I belong, and of which I have been a minister for nearly twenty-three years, had the same sort of " convictions," and so declared itself for a jjcriod of seventy-four years. Our delegates to the General Conference of 1844, declared in their "Pro- test " that the " whole Church " had such convictions. Well, why did I not declare them before ? I might ask, why did not the " whole Church," and especially the ministry, declare them before ? The conduct of many in this community is a good and valid answer, if such conduct can excuse the ministers of God for remain- ing silent in the presence of crying sins. You know that the slave poicer^ that held even Congress subject to its will, and could lay its restraining hand upon the Supreme Court of the United States, and, in de- fiance of legislative enactments of Northern States, send an officer and bring back the fugitive slave, would have silenced their voices forever had they pre- sumed to preach against all the abuses of slavery. Even now that slavery i^^dead^ and I ask you to re- view all the moral aspects of the question and if you see the wrong to repent of it, some of you would willingly, perhaps gladly, see me hung by the neck un- til I am dead. Yet some of you say tlic sermon ought PREFACE. VU to have been preached long ago, it can do no good now. Although we could not formerly preach as I have done recently on the abuses of slavery, I did again and again declare myself against them as far as I deemed it safe or prudent to do so. I spoke against the wickedness of our laws on this subject five years ago, at Palmetto camp-meeting in this county ; again in Savannah, in 1861 and 1862 ; and again in the Baptist church in this town last fall. All these ser- mons are written and are now in my possession. 1 was always careful to write down heforehand lohat I had to say on this subject Did I not in my " Fast- Day Sermon," preached from this pulpit over a year ago, a copy of which some of the hearers asked for publication, published at their own expense, and cir- culated among you, declare the innocence of the con- servative sentiment ? Look at the following passages : "Antislavery sentiments no doubt existed at the foundation of the Federal government, but they were comparatively hinocent and harmless; they engender- ed no discord, sought the subversion of no govern- ment, aimed at annulling no man's rights." Again, in the concluding call to repentance, I said : " Let every cruel tyrant who grinds doivn the flesh and Hood of his slave, refusing to allow him what is 'just and egual^ hut binding burdens grievous to be borne, admit that HIS CRIMES ESPECIALLY may have pro- voiced that indignation OMd wrath of God which has Vlll PREFACE. lecn poured out on our guilty land. ! if God has stmtten this imhajpjpy country it is for our sins, and he will not le appeased' witlvout repentance ^ Why did not a third of the congregation rush out of tlie chui'ch when I uttered these words and denounce me as an abolitionist ? Have not otliers in this com- munity had " cmivictions " that were unutterable ? Some of you complain bitterly that I said we fought professedly for liberty, and yet it Avas to perpetuate the chains of slavery. The idea, if not the very lan- guage, was put into my mouth by a prominent gen- tleman in town, a slaveholder, but not a member of the Church. A very large slaveholder in the country said to me, not a month ago, that slavery had occa- sioned the commission of more sin and had sent more souls to ruin than any other single thing in this coun- try. That man was not a member of the Church, yet there are pyrofessed Christians who openly assert that my sermons were instigated ly the devil! I have heard sentiments expressed by persons of all classes, all over this country, against the ruinous tendency of slavery, and some of those very persons ha\'e now turned against me because I have openly preached what they before felt in their own hearts. I have stated my points to ministei*s and others, and none of them have seen fit to controvert one of my positions. The fact is, all have their convictions on this sub- ject. Are they all hypocrites, because they have not PEEFACE. IX proclaimed their honest convictions from the house- tops? Brethren and friends, bear with me, but these sermons have acted as strong drink upon your minds ; thej have intoxicated you with excitement, almost delirium, and some of you have illustrated the aphor- ism in vino Veritas^ for you have in your frenzy ad- mitted that there was too much truth in the sermon. This is a strange concession in view of your conduct. There was too much, far too much truth to suit the times and t\iQ;people. A minister, deeply moved by the condition of his unfortunate countrymen, earnestly desirous of seeing them pm'sue a line of conduct that will contribute to their safety and happiness, consults one of his official brethren as to the propriety of preaching from a cer- tain text and turning attention to a certain channel of thought. It is deemed eminently fitting that he should do so. He goes upon his Imees before God in the closet and beseeches him to aid him in an efibrt to grasp his subject in all its bearings. He enters his study and consults his authorities, arranges and clas- sifies his 'matter. JSTew light beams upon his soul, and he begins his preparation. Study, analysis, classifica- tion, rouse the latent energies of the mind ; it is in a glow of fervid heat, thought awakening thought, emotion kindling emotion. IS'ow both intellect and spirit are in communion with the great invisible 1* X PEEFACE. Spirit, and clothing thouglit in appropriate expression Le throws them upon his page, thoughts that breathe in words that hum. Specific ideas grow out of gen- eric roots, and all the specific and all the radical forms of thought center in a higher unity, and this he finds to be one of tlie grandest truths in the universe, evolved by the light of revelation thrown upon prov- idential teachings in one of the mightiest political, moral, and warlike movements to be met with in hu- man history. His preparation finished, he enters the puljjit with a soul burdened with the awful truths he has to deliver, oblivious for the time of the fact that he has left his hearers far behind him, struggling amid the maze of perplexity and doubt. He has gathered toirether and concentrated into one focus tlie ravs of truth which were already glimmering in many of their liearts, but all these rays combined are too much to glare suddenly upon them. The very efl:\il- gence dazzles but to blind. Hence misconception, exciting surprise, perhaps anger, leads to an oversight of the plainest distinctions made in the sermon, and a misstatement of what was spoken ensues. There have been several allusions in the- sermons and my printed card to my gradually coming to the light, which I will explain more fully. This was not merely a conviction of the evil tendencies of political secession, for of these I spoke and tried to point them out to many of you before the war. You know that PREFACE. XI I did not believe in tlie policy, but tbongbt it a rash- ness and madness unparalleled. But when secession did take place, you knoAV that I stood by and defend- ed my country while there was a fragment of hope on which to stand. I did not take this ground on the question of slavery, but, in spite of it, contended alone for the abstract right of independence. But when all was lost, our claim utterly denied, our whole country surrendered to the conqueror, I felt that it was the duty of every good citizen, and especial- ly of every Christian, to submit to the United States authorities, and to acquiesce cheerfully in the terms which they offered us. But my convictions of the evils of slavery were of long standing. They were greatly strengthened when our General Conference struck out of the Discipline everything relating to slavery. That act caused me to feel a sadness which was equaled only by that which I felt when the first gun announced to me the secession of Georgia. I felt an ominous foreboding of future ill. I was opposed to that act of expunging, and because I could not be heard here in Georgia to any good effect, I gave vent to my overcharged heart in writing to the West- ern Christian Advocate, at Cincinnati. My articles were noticed by some of the Southern Advocates, and " A Yoice from the Far South," my 7iom de jplume^ was represented to his Christian brethren in no enviable light. I came to the conclusion to leave Xll PREFACE. the CliurcL, whicli had now committed itself tiilly to the proslaverj cause, and go to some Conference in the Methodist Episcopal Cliurch ; I preferred the Bal- timore. I accordingly wrote to that great and good man, Dr. Abel Stevens, author of the " History of Methodism," with a view to effect the desired trans- fer. That good man advised me to await the open- ings of Providence, just as if he had a jprophetio foresight of these times. I should have gone to Bal- timore at the close of my second year in Savannah, if it had not been for the war. More than two years ago I came to the conclusion that we would never secure our independence unless we modified the whole system of slavery. From that time I became a warm advocate of gradual emancipa- tion, as ^v'ithout something of this kind we could never secure foreign recognition or aid. I argued this policy with many of you, and I never heard one of you object to it. Finally, I came to the full light of all my present convictions, when the issues of war disclosed this incontestable fact, that^ slavery is dead, and that " light " is this Providential teaching: God has destroyed slavery because of the moral evils in- herent in the system which Ave would not remove. This is a truth which the whole civilized world will accept. In conclusion, let me beseech you, my country- men, to beware of those who by their obstinacy en- PREFACE. XIU courage a spirit among jou which can only entail upon you further misfortune. Beware of those who tell you that slavery is not dead, that they will have it still. Brethren, slavery is dead ; it never more will live in the land of the free and the home of the hrave! Imitate the example of that illustrious chieftain, who, after fighting for his country as long as there was hope, now ashs for executive pardon. Beware of the spirit and example of those who would persuade you to live under a government of physical force, rather than a reconstructed civil government, based on a sur- render of your long-cherished principles. For your own good, for the good of your posterity, accept the situation as it is, and you may live to see a happy day and a happy country. SERMON FIRST. PREACHED JUNE 11, 1865. SUBJECT: ABUSES OF SLAVERY. Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal ; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven. Col. iv. 1. The very mention of this subject awakeus witliin lis unpleasant memories of the past, reminds ns of all that is painful in our present situation, and suggests apprehensions of tlie future. Our minds run back to those peaceful days, when we fancied we were a free people ; when sheltered beneath the segis of that Con- stitution which our ancestors fought, suifered and toiled to secure for us; when, united in fraternal sympathy witli all who were secured by the same blood-bought rights, we were a great constellation of free communities, which, like those of the heavens, revolved around the Federal compact as a common center ; when we looked upon our social system as combining all the elements of beauty, strength and prosperity. But what is onr present condition ? Is 16 ABUSES OF SLAVERY. there one among us who fails to grasp the import of events which may be justly ranked among the most important in the annals of Christendom ? or one whose pride forbids him to contemplate the stern reality that we, with all our pride of chivalry, are a conquered people ? Can we calmly consider the naked fact that now stares us in the face, that our destiny is no longer in our own keeping; that our future allotments, be they painful or otherwise, are such as should be granted, not such as we may choose ? As for om* future, how^ many hearts are now throbbing with in- tense anxiety ; how many entertain apprehensions the most gloomy, and view our situation as extremely dis- heartening, if not desperate ! My own heart is in profound sympathy with my suffering countrymen. They are my people ; their country is my country ; their God is my God ; where they live, I wish to live ; wliere they die, I wish to die ; where they are buried, there let me be buried also. When the}' suffer, I suf- fer with them ; when they weep, let me mingle my tears with theirs ; when they rejoice, let me also re- joice in their happiness. With such feelings, then, excuse me if I venture to-day to say some things which you have not been accustomed to hear from the pulpit. My heart is full of this subject ; it is bursting to give vent to long pent-up convictions. Facts which stand before us stern as the decrees of fate, impel me to it. This text presents one of those human relations which necessarily implies another. The relation of master and servant is, strictly speaking, a correlation, for each implies the existence of the other, and neither ABUSES OF SLAVEBY. 17 could exist witliont the other. To each branch of the correlation there are affixed specific duties and obliga- tions. The master is commanded to ffive to his ser- vant that which is just mid equal, and is reminded of his responsibility to his own Master, who is in heaven. The servant is commanded to obey in all things his earthly master, and is also reminded of his responsibil- ity to the same great heavenly Master. He is there- fore required to obey, not with eye-service, as men- pleasers do, but in singleness of heart, fearing God ; performing service heartily as unto the Lord, and not unto man. ITow you see that these relations and the obligations annexed to them are mutual / they stand over the one against the other ; and they are so knit together, that the one must correspond in all respects to the other. The rectitude of the relation itself therefore depends, in the very nature of things, ui)on the due performance of the corresponding obligation I invite your attention to The Eelation and Obligation of a Master. This relation may be viewed now both retrospec- tively and prospectively ; both as to what it has been among us, and what it must hereafter be ; the first with special reference to the present condition of our country, the second as regards its future welfare. The relation as it has existed among us was deter- mined by the proprietary right, the right of property in man, and constituted that social state which is technicallij called slavery, or involuntary servitude. TTiis differs from the state of servitude in most coun- 18 ABUSES OF SLAVERY. tries, where the servile relation depends not upon the proprietary right, but is supposed to be fixed by the voluntary choice of tlie servant himself. Tlie one is called a dave^ while the otlier is denominated a free- man. While the slave may suffer many legal disabil- ities which cannot be imposed upon the freeman, the latter may, and often does, suffer many discomforts which never fall to the lot of the slave : still the world, by common consent, calls one a slave and the other a freeman. From what source do we derive that relation which involves the proprietary right, the legal right of property in man ? There are many who question the existence of such right of propei-ty, but assert that slavery begins in the perpetration of a wrong, that it carries the wrong character along with the relation itself, that the wrong is coexistent and coextensive with that relation, and that no legal enactment can ever cause that to be right which was once in itself wrong. This idea is fundamental with that class who espouse the side of «5c>?2^/t??w5??i. On the other hand there are those who contend that the relation is right in itself., that it has its sanction from God, that the institution as it has existed among us, both in jprin- cijyle and p?'a dice, is jure divino, that it is a divine ■ institution, and benehcial to society. This is the view adopted hj proslavery men. There is an irreconcilable difference between these two opinions. It is not to be wondered that each side, waxing fiercer and more relentless in advocating its principles, should foment those dissensions, influence those passions, and engender those deadly animosities ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 19 whicli have culminated in a war of four years dura- tion, tlie most bloody, vindictive and destructive of modern times, and which has at hast terminated in the total destruction of the institution of slavery. But is there not a middle ground between these two extremes ? There certainly is, and that ground is this : the relation of master is estahlished in the Bible. Abraham was a master, -and held servants who were born in liis house and bought w^ith liis money. The Israelites were masters, and were ex- pressly allowed to buy servants of one another, and also of the stranger. Some of the early Christians were masters, and Paul returned a fugitive servant to his master. These, with many other instances, show, that the relation itself does not necessarily in- volve a moral evil, but rather that it was sanctitied and permitted of God. But to this relation there is annexed a corresponding duty, a moral alligation. The neglect or performance of that obligation deter- mines the moral character of slaver3\ The relation itself is right, because God does not condemn but expressly allows it. This obligation is designed to regulate the xuhole lyractice of slavery. When, there- fore, the practice is regulated by this obligation, the institution is right ; when otherwise, it is* wrong. It is \hQ jpractice^ therefore, and this only, which gives to the institution of slavery in this country a moral character. Now the slaveholder falls into this error : he sup- poses that the institution is right, both in principle and practice, because the relation is right. All our books written in defence of slavery fall into this mis- chievous error. 20 ABUSES OF SLAVERY. On tlie other hand, the ^dtra abolitionist arraiirns the reh\tion itself, and tries it by the practice ; and because he finds things in the practice that are wrong, he condemns the relation itself as a moral evil per se, as a sin. But we take the ground that if the prac- tice is riojht, if the oblio-ation is faithfullv discharired, the institution is right ; if otlierwise, it is wrong. Judged by this severe test, I fear our institution as we liav^e held it in practice, is wrong. Is it too late to pass this judgment on it 7101c , seeing it has been effectually destroyed ? There are many grave reasons why we should even now pause and solemnly con- teinplate that institution, especially as there are many anions^ us whose minds are in doubt as to its real na- ture. Those who have been in the habit of vindicating the whole system of slavery, as held and practiced among us, on the mere ground of the scriptural recti- tude of the master's relation, are now in danger of fallino' into one of two danc^erous errors. The first is Infidelity. Already some are fallen into it. IS^ot many months ago, a gentleman of high standing and intelligence remarked to me^ " If we fail in this war, I shall then believe that slavery is wrong." I told liim that I had taken the same ground at the com- mencement of the war, and only waited its issues to be fuUij convinced of the moral character of the institution. " But," said he, " {/ our slavery is wrong, our Bihh is also wrongs I told him I would draw no sucli conclusion, but rather that slavery had been Avrong in practice, and that wo had misinter- preted and misapplied the teachings of the Bible. ABUSES OF SLAVERY. V 21 The other error is to suppose that Divine Provi- dence has had no participation in the war and its results. Others again complain of the Justice of God in this matter. " Why," thej ask, " if the institution is right, has God suffered it to be overthrown ? Why, after we have prayed so often and so earnestly, have we been doomed to so terrible a failure ? " Now, in view of this state of the public mind, I come forth to- day to vindicate the word of Truih^ and to justify the ways of God with men. I hold that if our practice had been conformed to the law of God, he would not have suffered the insti- tution to be overthrown. First, Was our institution right in its origin % Was it conformable io justice and equity f It originated in the African slave trade. Mark we have nothing to do with any other system of slavery that ever existed on the earth, except the one that has existed among us. The moral sense of the South long since condemned the African slave trade. All attempts on the part of individuals to revive it, either by smuggling or seeking a repeal of the prohi- bition, were met with the sternest opposition by the moral and religious convictions of our people. This system was wrong, then, in its origin. But it does not follow, as some contend, that the wrong thus begun, must, under all circumstances, continue. The sin of the wicked importer of a slave does not attach to the innocent inheritor of the off- spring of that slave. The master's relation being recognized in the word of God, and then sanctioned 22 ABUSES OF SLAVERY. by civil law, it thencefortli becomes one of tlie rela- tions of civil society, and therefore as innocent in it- self as any other relation. The present generation of slaveholders are innocent as regards the origin and es- tablishment of the institution of slavery in this country. If they are guilty, it is because of the malpractice. Had the abolitionist from the beginning, and all the way along, forborne to attack the relation, and only struck at what was immoral in the practice ; had the slaveliolder held the civil right and all the enactments relating thereto in subordination to the higher authority' of the law of God, tliey had both met upon the common ground of a scriptural institu- tion. There had been no contention, no secession, no war, and the negro, gradually elevated by moral and mental improvement, would in time have been fitted for the enjoyment of freedom ; and thus the institu- tion, which originated in the darkest crimes that ever blackened the history of our fallen world, would have been overruled by Providence for the greatest good of both masters and slaves. As it is, an overruling Providence has had a gracious design in jjcrmitting the African to be brought to this continent, that he might be educated, Christianized, and fitted for a higher sphere of life. This providential design has been in part realized, and might have been more completely, had we performed our whole duty, and having been thus realized, God speaks to us in the thunder tones of a four years' war, saying, " The negro shall he free I " Will any one doubt that this is the decree of Heaven ? Then he must either come to the conclu- ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 23 sion that there is no God, or that this world is governed independently of him, that he concerns himself not with the affairs of mortals. But as Christians we can neither deny the existence or providence of God, therefore we should accept the results of the civil war as his decree, and in meek submission own that he is just. Secondly, Let us now examine our practice, and see whether it is conformed to the requirements of the Bible. 1. We have denied to the slave education and mental improvement. Do we find that practice sanctioned in the Bible? "We know that it is not. Some of us have felt this for many years ; we have spoken of it cautiously and prudently ; we have at different times and in divers ways sought to remedy the evil, and failed. The negro is a man ; he has mind, a soul, a moral faculty within him ; and if it is right that these should be developed and improved in the free man, why not also in the slave, since they are both alike accountable to the same God ? I am sure we cannot justify this practice from the Bible. Is it either just or equitable to use the means we have acquired from the labor of our slaves to educate our children and leave our servants in total ignorance, and keep laws to prohibit them from learning ? Our excuse for keeping them in ignorance has been the intermeddling of abolitionists, to prevent the negroes from reading their publications, which we have usual- ly styled " incendiary," which term we have been in the habit of applying to every form of argument, however mild, that was intended to show us what 24 ABUSES OF SLAVERY. was immoral in our institution. But if another com- mit a wrong, it does not justify us in committing further wronf^. It furnishes no excuse for shuttinsj out tlie light from and Vuidhuj the chains harda* upon our servants, wlio were themselves innocent. The plea of necessity does not justify an act so cruel and unjust. In this respect our institution, we must admit, has been icrong. 2. Our slaves sustain to one another the relations of husbands and wives, of parents and children, of brothers and sisters. In practice we have dissolved these relations, severed these natural ties, and cruelly sundered these bonds of kindred and afiection. Was this giving what was just and equal ? Can we find a trace of such an institution in the Bible ? If not, our institution has been wrong. I have read all the leading standard works written in the South in de- fence of slavery, and none of them has ever proved to my mind that in this particular our institution had an element of rectitude. This feature of the system, more than any other, held us up as a spectacle of re- proach to the Christian nations of the earth. Can we wonder that they united to crush us ? Many of us felt this ; we felt it deeply ; who has not felt it when he looked upon the heart-rending scenes of a slave mart ? The moral sense of many of our people was shocked, but it was silenced by a power wliicli they could not resist. 1 could have stood in the very shadow of St. Peter's and attacked Romanism, or in the streets of Constantinople and attacked Mohammedanism, with as much personal security as I could have stood here five years ago and ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 25 talked as I do now. So much for our boasted free- dom of speech ! In 1832 Bishop Hedding was in Augusta, Georgia, and witnessed one of those revolting scenes so com- mon in our Southern cities, a slave auction, in whicli he saw a weeping mother separated forever fi'om her children, two little creatures, who were hanging to her side and sobbing as if their hearts would break. The good man dropped a tear of compassion, and at the same time made a remark about its " making his blood boil." The next day he was waited on by one of the preachers and notified that his remark had occasioned some excitement, and he was admonished to be pru- dent. Thus the deepest emotions of the human heart may be stirred, but dare not utter themselves in words. Such has been the character of the institu- tion among us. Do we find that feature of it in the Bible ? 3. In practice we ignored the existence of one of the great precepts of Christianity, that concern- ing the marriage covenant. According to our laws and the practical application of them, the Christian precepts concerning marriage, adultery, and divorce, have no sort of reference to the negro. Is this that Scriptural institution which we have defended as ex- isting by divine right, as constituting the normal condition of society, as restoring the patriarchal system, as beautifying and adorning the social state, and contributing so much to the prosperity and happi- ness of mankind? If so, point us to a trace of our practice in the Bible. We have sought in a quiet way (because we conld not in any other) to have this 2 ABUSES OF SLAVERY. feature changed, but failed. Over a year ago, resolu- tions were offered before the Georgia Annual Con- ference, by one of its members, bearing upon this subject. The resolutions were laid on the table, and discussion forbidden as inexpedient and untimely. A mighty power had overawed the ministry, and shut them up against the utterance of their profoundest convictions of truth and right. 4. We passed laws to operate more severely upon the slaves than upon ourselves. Was this just and equal ? If so, show it in the Bible ! 5. In practice we have made a difference between the freeman and the slave in exacting the penalties of law. If a wrong was committed by a slave upon a white man, he Mas severely punished ; bnt when the white man committed a wrong upon a shive he nearly always escaped punishment. Many instances have come under my own personal knowledge, and doubtless many have under yours. AVe have laws which required masters to feed, clothe, and work properly ; to punish them for cruelty, for maiming or kiUino- a slave ; vet these laws have seldom been en- forced, and rarely has any penalty been .inflicted. Was this just and equal I 6. We have been accustomed to judge the charac- ter of our slaves more severely than we judge our own. We have too often regarded and treated them as thieves, and punislied them for petty delinquencies, while in many instances our own evil practices have furnished them an example or an excuse for goiug astray. Formerly, when anything was stolen in any neighborhood the first suspicions fell on the negroes, ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 27 and yet during tlie past four years more property has been stolen by white men than all the negroes put to- gether had ever before stolen in all their lives. Why should we have one standard to judge the negroes and another to judge ourselves by? Is this just or equal ? I have noticed the tendency in many minds to elevate the standard of morality for negroes and depress it for themselves. I have noticed some pro- fessors of religion, who were by no means remark- able for consistency of character, or j^mictual in the performance of religious duties, who were loud in their denunciation of trifling derelictions from the path of duty among negroes, and who boldly asserted that they had no confidence in negro religion, that all their pretensions to piety were hypocritical and deceitful. Such persons are more apt to pronounce their judgment upon negro piety than any other class. The best Christians I have ever known have had the most con- fidence in the piety of our colored Christians, and the sorriest professors I have ever known, those less scru- pulous than others as regards their relative obligations, have been the most censorious upon the moral and religious character of the negroes, and have done the least for their spiritual improvement. There have ever been a laro-e number of slaveholders in this class. I never, knew many of them to do much for the establishment of negro missions, but have fre- quently found them opposed to all such enterprises. Some of them have been bold enough to declare their belief that a negro has no soul, that he was made for no other purpose but to work for a white man, just as a horse or a mule. They settle large plantations in 28 ABUSES OF SLAVERY. the lower part of the state, and in the great river valleys, and stock them with negroes just as they did with nmles and cattle. They give themselves no more concern about the moral and intellectual im- provement of their slaves than about educating a horse and teaching him the principles of religion. They enter into a nice calculation of how many mules and negroes it will take on a given number of acres to produce a given number of bales of cotton ; how many dollars that cotton will sell for, and what amount must be deducted from the sum for the loss of a given number of slaves, v:ho must fall victims to the malignant fevers of the localitg ! Thus they count their gains at the expense of human suffering and human life I The life of a negro belonging to such a man is one long, dark night of toil, unillumined by a single ray of hope! I solemnly declare that I have seen many such masters, and many such slaves. Is it not astonishing that we have suffered such outrages against humanity to exist so long among us ? Is it any wonder that the curse of God has blasted an institution which has been so greatly abused, and at one dread stroke destroyed, it forever ? Look at that curse which Heaven has sent upon us for abusing and perverting an institution which a wise and Avhole- some leirislation midit have brono'ht in harmonv with -the law of God, but which an unjust and inequitable leirislation has abused until it retains nut an element of rectitude according to the word of God. Look at that curse, I say ; behold it in ruined commerce and blighted farms, in the smoulderhig ruins of cities and the desolation of once smiling and fertile plains, in the ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 29 prostration of every industrial energy and the collapse of every material interest, in the gaunt famine that stalks through the land, and the poverty and ruin that have come upon us. If Babylon and Nineveh and Carthage, if Tyre and Sidon and Jerusalem, were cursed of God, so surely has our own unfortunate country been visited by the stroke of his vengeance, and all because we would not give that which was just and equal unto our servants. .. :-; How strangely inconsistent have we been ! "We fought professedly for liberty ; and yet it was to per- petuate the chains of slavery. We professed the principles of our revolutionary fathers, and vainly appealed to them as a precedent for our own inde- pendence ; yet their very first maxim condemned our practice. We professed to hate monarchy and detest tyranny ; yet we boasted a king to whose potent sway all kings and potentates of the earth should bow ! Is it any wonder that, attempting to reverse principles so grand, ours should be reversed upon our own heads? That if we, \hQfree^ invoked the genius of liberty io forge chains wherewith to hind others^ that very genius should in tm-n release the captive only to bind his manacles upon our own limbs ? How proud and self-sufficient have we been ! We boasted our might, our proiuess, our talent. We could circumvent in diplomacy, defeat regardless of numerical strength, and affected to despise our foes ! Is it any wonder that we have been reduced to the necessity of bowing the knee to the power that has subdued ns, and begging for a small favor as a mere gratuity ? The naked alternative is now presented to 30 ABUSES OF SLAVERY. every man to stoop or go into poverty or exile. He that is too stiff to bow now has nothing before him but the life of a pauper. Is it any wonder that in the mighty conflict of antagonistic principles, pride, haughtiness and self-sufficiency should be cast down into the very dust, and that from this humble attitude we should be compelled to look up to the rock from whence we were hewn, even that great rock, the Federal Union, and leg to be lifted up again; and to that greater Eock on high, and pray to have our consciences purged from the stains of injustice and fraud and violence and oppression ? Is it any wonder that we who have grown rich from the toil of those whom we have ground down by a life of hardship, granting but a poor return of coarse fare and scanty raiment, should in return be made so poor that no7ie can he found to do vs reverence f How ignorant, infatuated and stupid have we been ! We shut out the light of knowledge from the mind of our servant and placed a drawn sword at the door of his mind, forbidding any wholesome truth to enter there. We would not ourselves come to the light that our deeds might be made manifest. We shut our ears against the remonstrances of the civil- ized world, and to all their appeals to conscience, to charity, to justice, to equity, bade them in eftect go about their own business. Is it any wonder that in our blindness we stumbled on, till now our chosen leaders are either seeking their safety in flight, or are bound in chains, while no voice of compassion, no word of sympathy, comes to us from the civilized world ? How self-righteous have we been ! We in eflect ABUSES OF SLAVEKY. 31 said to others, " Stand ye tliere ! We are liolier than ye ! " We fasted and prayed, yet justified ourselves belbre God. We reproached our enemies for fighting against the God of heaven, and we defended our institution as one existing by Divine right. We made long prayers, preached war sermons, counted omens by the score which bespoke our ultimate success, and thus we hastened blindly to our ruin. Instead of re- penting before higb heaven that we had done a great wrong to our fellow man ; instead of rectifying that wrong, we refused to amend our laws and do justice and equity. Is it any wonder that we should be stripped of our charge, and that God should say to us now, "' Give account of thy stewardship, for thou may- est be no longer steward ? " But why have we shut out the light from our eyes and walked so long in darkness ? Why have we so long refused to do justice and equity, and been per- mitted to hear no voice of warning in our midst against a monstrous iniquity which has shocked the moral sense of the world ? I am aware that these are words which once came on the wings of the wind from other climes ; but they waked no echo here. "We made light of them, and pointed in triumph to the Bible as justifying slavery, and to the institution as of Divine right in spite of its abuses. But the ques- tion returns, why? It was because of a power so strong, so great, so determined in its purpose, that it required two millions of armed men to crush it. That power consisted of about four himdred thousand j[)eT- sons. They w^ere scattered over a vast territory, yet were as compact as an army of veterans. They 32 ABUSES OF SLAVERY. were not armed witli bristling bayonets, but with all the power that wealth, talent, social iiilluence and political organization could combine. They stood in their principles and measures from Maryland and Missouri to the Rio Grande, shoulder to slioulder, knit together as with the sinews of leviathan. They dif- fered essentially in many particulars, but they had the unity of a single person in the one grand aim that distinguished them from all other persons, that was to hold about four millions of human beings in ^er- petiial slavery. This was the power, the four hun- dred thousand slaveholders. This was the slave pow- er, the mightiest power for near a century that existed on this continent. Let us look at the miglity sway which it held by the civil power and its political in- fluence during all this time. 1. This w^as the power that crushed out the anti- slavery sentiment of the South. For a long time after the revolutionary war, this sentiment was an active element in society. I can remember well in my boy- hood to have heard it uttered frequently here in Georgia. But this mighty power, through the press and the schools, and the rival political parties, and penal legislation, and the terrors of persecution, at last issued its mandates ; bade men hold their tongues, and utter no blasphemy against the immaculate purity of that august power. Two missionaries in the Che- rokee nation, more than thirty years ago, were incar- cerated in the Georgia penitentiary for disobeying this imperious decree. This event is one of the recol- lections of my childhood. AEUSES OF SLAVERY. 33 2. This power crushed out the antislavery senti- ment of the Church. The Methodist Episcopal Church was antislavery in sentiment up to the time the Church was divided. For many years after the separation the rules on the subject of slavery were retained in the discipline of the southern Church. They were not expunged until - 1858, only seven years ago. The first rule, the one prohibiting the buying or selling of men, women, and children, with an intention to enslave them, was in- serted among the General Rules at the General Con- ference of 1784, at which the Methodist Episcopal Church was organized. This rule was explained by Bishops Coke and Asbury to apply to the purchase or sale of any slave here in America, or for any purchase but to set the slave at liberty. The same General Conference adopted rules prohibiting all slavcholdiug in the Church, except where the laws of the state pro- hibited the emancipation of slaves. The language of the rules was objected to in Yirginia and in the states further south, as calculated to embarrass the opera- tions of the ministry in preaching the Gospel to the blacks. They were afterward abandoned and others adopted in their place, still censuring the practice of slaveholding, but allowing the retention of the slave- holder in the church. This was a mere concession to the slave power, not a surrender of the principle. Several modifications were made subsequentK', all concessions to the slave power, but never for one mo- ment was the principle abandoned. The Church al- ways asserted in the most direct and positive terms the antislavery doctrine. The abolition party in the 2* 34 ABUSES OF SLAVERY. Cliurch, at the General Conferences of 1836 andlSiO, made desperate efforts to rend the Cliurcli, but the conservative antislavery element triumphed, and pre- served its miitj till 184:4:. Then came the crash, the rent, the fatal schism which was hailed in South Carolina as ''Hhe first dissolution of the {jyolitical) uniony Kow mark, the Church was not divided by the antislavery sentiment, for it had always been anti- slavery ; it w^as not divided by aholitionis?n, for the abolitionists had been defeated, and the leading agi- tators had withdrawn from the Church ; it was divided ])j the slave jpoicer. It happened in this way : The Church had always forbidden, not by any wa-itten rule, but by a tacit understanding kno\vn to all the minis- try and especially the bishops— jf/^d ejAscojpacy to have any connection with slavery. The General Confer- ence had always refused to elect a slaveholding bishop, and this was know^n throughout the Church as the standing and immovable sentiment. But one of the bishops, wdiom w^e have always loved, and still love, with the knowledge of this fact T^ept distinctly hefore his mind, voluntarily connected himself with slavery. This was the cause of the separation, and it caused it because the slave power demanded it, and could be appeased in no other w^ay. From that moment the northern branch receded toward abolitionism, and the southern toward proslaveryism, until the one adopted a rule to exclude all slaveholders from the church, and the other expunged from the discipline every rule relating to slavery. Thus was the anti- slavery sentiment crushed out of the Church. ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 35 3. This power brought the moral obligation, im- posed by the law of God, into subordination to the legal right, established by the civil law. Hence no marriage rite, no education, no emancipation from bondage, could be allowed to the negro ; hence slave marts and slave auctions, with all the horrors attend- ant on the separation of families and kindred ; hence all discussion by the press, by the pulpit, in legislative hall or elsewhere, in which the right of the master to oppress his slave might be the topic, was disallowed, and penal statutes were made forbidding it. Having crushed out the antislavery sentiment from among the people and from the Church, this power subsidized everything within its reach to up- hold it. The press, the politicians, the teachers, the ministers of religion, were all but so many tools in its hnnd. The Church and ministry were secularized, and all jDreferment in Church or state was confined to those who in one way or another preached the gospel oi proslavery ! 4. This power has ruled with absolute and des- potic sway. It held the bodies of four millions of slaves in bondage, and at the same time n>aintained supremacy over the Tiiinds and consciences and speech of ei<2:ht millions of whites. I used often to wonder why none of our bishops, none of our distinguished divines, ever preached on the moral obligations of masters, while they often explained and enforced those of servants. The reason is plain : they were overawedhj the slave power. It had uttered its man- dates and prescribed the metes and bounds of discus- sion. It had said, in effect, " Thus far, but no farther 36 ABUSES OF SLAVEKY. you may go in criticising tlie conduct of masters. You may speak of the relation ; call it a divine rights establish it in sermon, essay, and book, to be of God's own appointment, and well pleasing in his sight. You may preach to the slave and tell him his Avhole duty to his master, that he is to obey in all things, not with eye-service, as menpleasers, but doing the master's will Avith a good heart, for this is required of him by his Master who is in heaven. But as to the practice of the master, as to his moral oldigation, touch it lightly. You may say something about ' things that are just and equal,' but they must be un- derstood to mean in some places a half pound of meat per day, a peck of corn per week, a hat, blanket, pair of shoes, and three suits of clothing for a year ; in other localities, as in lower Carolina and Georgia, you may mention all these except the meat. This must be about the range of your suggestions to masters ; go beyond it, and you must be reminded that you are uttering sentiments disloyal to the slave power. As for education and marriage, separation of families and kindred, auction sales and negro marts, negro raisers and negro traders, cruel treatment and hard fare, they are not to be mentioned. These are matters pertain- ing to the civil law, and, being under that, you must obey the powers that be, for thev are ordained of God." Could the most absolute despotism on earth go l)eyond this, in chaining down the human mind and conscience and speech ? You may go to London, and in Westminster or Hyde Park criticize the behavior of the British sovereign ; you may go to St. Peters- ABUSES OF SLAVERY, 37 burgli and speak about the Czar himself, but you could not stand on a foot of southern soil and de- nounce our practice of slavery as immoral, without personal danger. Yet we say that we have heen fight- ing for Uherty^ that w^e have free speech and a free press ! We have had no such thing. We have been enslaved ourselves ! Our minds, our speech, our con- sciences, our press, our pulpit, all were in abject dependence upon the slave power. I could to-day, perhaps, with the military power of the Federal gov- ernment established over me, and twenty thousand bayonets in the state to enforce its authority, openly pronounce that government a tyranny without in- curring the danger of personal violence ; but I could not, when I stood here, five years ago, have denounced our practice of slavery as tyrannical. I should have been forced to leave the state, if an infuriated mob had permitted me to escape. Have we not been enslaved^ my brethren and countrymen ? But we are now free ! The same blow which struck ofi* the manacles from the black man has liberated the mind and conscience of the white man. See to what extent the domination of four hun- dred thousand persons may reach. The slave power had asserted its authority over the bodies of four millions of blacks, over the minds and speech and consciences of eight millions of whites, and attempted the bold task of extending its imperial domination over thirty millions of people ! It was a controlling power in Congress for eighty years. It haughtily de- clared that it wielded a power that could make half 38 ABUSES OF SLAVERY. the tlirones in Europe espouse its cause. It first de- manded and then repealed the 3kIissouri Compromise. It attempted to cross the line and plant slavery upon the soil of Kansas. It had demanded as a constitu- tional right to go upon any of the public territory of the nation. It had sent the United States Marshal into the heart of Xew England to arrest and bring back the fugitive. It demanded, in the Charleston Convention, that the same silence which it had al- ready imposed upon the South should now be im- posed upon the North ; and failing in this, forgetting that the Federal Constitution was its only security against the concentrated vengeance of Christendom, it madly rushed into that secession policy and that rash scheme of independence and empire which wrought its entire overthrow. Surely it has illus- trated the truth of the proverb : being often reproved and hardening its neck, it is suddenly destroyed and that without remedy ! God called, but it refused, he stretched forth his hand, but it regarded him not ; but set at naught all his counsel and would none of his reproof. Xow he laughs at its calamity, and mocks when its fear cometh. 5. This power has impoverished our soil. "What made these old red hills, these sterile old fields? Slavery! Unmindful of the welfare of generations unborn, instead of improving the lands, and increas- ing their productive capacity, the slave power wrench(;d from the soil the last dollar it could yield, to Jjuy another ncgro^ to open another Jield^ to maho more cotton^ to huy still another negro! Xow these old fields remain the only monument of its former ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 39 greatness, the sad memorial of its greed for gold ! Will we wonder if tlie lauds which we have so great- ly abused should now be wrested from us, to pay the very cost of subduing that power wherein we trusted ? Oi that power we had made an idol. We set it uj), not only above the thrones of the kings and princes of this world, but above tlie very throne of God, to make laws wherewith to bind the consciences of men. 6. This is the power that made the war. Slavery made secession and secession made the war. It sent your husbands, brothers and sons to the battle, and their bones lie bleaching upon a thousand gory fields, fj'om Gettysburgh to the plains of Arizona ! But that power is fallen. It fell before the mightiest array of military power that ever shook the earth. All nations sent their quotas of troops, and all the North and part of the South marshalled their mighty hosts. The right arm of its strength was cut off by the emancipation proclamation, and the negro him- self grasped the musket and fought for freedom. But so great was this power that it fell at last, more by its own succession of blunders than by the might of its adversary. The w^ar, as a sagacious statesmanship might have foreseen, has proved its ruin ; and by its death you are bereaved, as a desolate widow stripped of her dowry, and your children as orphans crying for a piece of bread ! Is it not so f This power is dead^ and from the grave which its own suicidal hand hath dug it never more can rise. It fell before the majesty of that awful truth, which it had the sophistry to pronounce a lie : all men are 40 ABUSES OF SLAVERY. created equal; it fell before the grandest power be- neath the sun, tlie majestic power of the Federal Union. A new power is inaugurated in the South, the power of Freedom. Kever again will you hear the clank of that chain which binds the human fomi in slavery. I^ever more will you see a husband ruth- lessly torn fi'om the wife he loves, nor the mother from her weeping children, l^ever more will you read the statute that forbids your fellow man to study letters and gain knowledge. Kever more will you behold the human form upon the auctioneer's stand offered to the highest bidder as if it were a piece of merchandise, while the lynx-eyed speculator looks on and bids, as he mentally calculates his profits in a distant mart. Kever more will you see a slave-mart, with locks and bars and cells, frowning, like a very prison, upon the street where freemen tread ! A new era has dawned upon the South, an era of light and knowledge, dispelling the shades of a long night of darkness. New light flows in upon our minds ; new ideas are afloat in our midst ; a new i»e,gijnie takes the place of the old; and society, up- turned in its foundations by war, revolution, social and moral disorder, will settle down at last upon a new basis. Servitude will henceforth be voluntary, and the slaveholder, no longer a master in the former sense, will make his contract and pay the hireling his wages. This will be ''just and equal;" and while the relation continues without the j^rojprietary right, the same moral obligations will rest upon both ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 41 masters and servants. Let us, my brethren and coun- trymen, discliarge that obligation, and, in course of time, the change may be beneficial alike to master and servant. Let us learn something from past ex- perience, and the happy effects of this change will shortly become visible. The waste j)laces will be re- paired, ruined cities rebuilt, civil government, com- merce, agriculture and trade re-established, and we shall start out rejuvenated upon a new path of enter- prise and prosperity. Then let us aim for a brighter and nobler destiny. Let us divest ourselves of all the old prejudices and animosities. Let us now shake hands with our late foes beneath the ample folds of that victorious flag which symbolizes the grandest power under the canopy of heaven. Let us not stand back because they have slain our kindred, lest they draw back because we have slain theirs. Your only safety is in fraternal union. You will be short- ly called upon to meet in a public assembly to peti- tion the authorities to re-establish the civil govern- ment of the state. Let me advise you all to meet promptly, and publicly pledge your future loyalty and devotion to the Union. If any man finds himself excluded from the provisions of amnesty, and affects stubbornness now, it will only show that he is bent ujDon his own ruin. The naked alternative is pre- sented of begging the favor of being included in those provisions, or choosing the path to poverty, perhaps to exile. The favor is oflered, j^rovided you v^k it. It is no time to manifest pride, it will do you no good. You are fallen, and lie helpless as a wilted leaf at the feet of the only man on earth that can do 4:2 ABUSES OF SLAVERY. you any good. There is but one man that can help you, that man is President Johnson. He extends his hand ; take hold of it speedily, the sooner the better. That blow is now impending, (the Tax Act) which, if not suspended, will sweep from your path every hope of the future. Beware lest, by taking counsel of your pride, }ou provoke that last fatal stroke, and like the power you evoked to carry out your wild dream of independence, you fall to rise no more. As for pride, cast it down ; there remains no alterna- j;ive but humiliation or starvation, and he who counsels otherwise is the greatest enemy of your haj^piness. I have thus preached to you, my countrymen and brethren, because I would reconcile you to events that are inevitable ; because I would awaken within you a desire to look more seriously into those prin- ciples wherein you have been educated, and which, as you see, have produced so much mischief to yourselves and your country ; and because I would now have you fairly start in the path that will ensure your exemption from still greater misfor- tunes. As I have spoken freely this morning to you who lately sustained the relation of masters, I will speak this afternoon to those who sustained to you the re- lation of slaves. I shall tell them what they already know, that they are free^ as a necessary result of the war ; they are free^ but that they must remain in their present state until by a formal legislative act they shall be pronounced legally free. I shall endeavor to show them how they must act in future, ABUSES OF SLAVERY. 43 SO that their freedom may be to them a blessing and not a curse. I will also give you notice now, that on next Sab- bath I will continue this subject, in order to show how the power that has so long enthralled our minds and consciences has affected the Church of God. SERMON SECOND. PREACHED JUNE 18, 1865. SUBJECT: THE SLAVERY CONFLICT AND ITS EFFECT UPON THE CHURCH. SERMON SECOND. PEEACHED JUISTE 18, 1865. SUBJECT: THE SLAVERY CONFLICT AND ITS EFFECT UPON THE CHURCH. God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea ; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof. Solah. There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High. God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early. The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved; he uttered his voice, the earth melted. The Lord of hosts is with us ; the . God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah. Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth. He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth ; he break- eth the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder: he burnetii the chariot in the fire. Be still, and know that I am God ; I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is ■with us ; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah. — Psalm xlvi. The bold figures in tins psalm were j)robably sug- gested to the mind of its author by the wars and pop- ular commotions of tlie times of Eli, Samuel, Saul, and David. These commotions are compared to the 48 THE SLAVERY COXFLICT AND shock of ail earthquake, the swelling of mighty waters, the mountains trembling to their bases and leaping into the sea, and the sea itself lashing its storm-beaten waves against the mountain sides. The metaphors are strong and grand, but not more so than become the awfnl sublimity of the subject. The reality of such terrific scenes could scarcely excite emotions more dreadful than the tramp of invading armies, the clangor of deadly weapons, the shouts of embattled hosts rushing to the conflict, and the shrieks and groans of war's wretched victims. From such scenes the Psalmist turns his eye to a spectacle of such serene beauty and loveliness, that we cannot wonder at his ascribing so great a change to God, who was his refuge and strength. From the lofty elevation of Mount Zion he could look out and survey 'Hhe mountains round about Jerusalem," and the '^ city of the great king," seated, like a queen, upon an opposing eminence, with two beautiful valleys embracing it in their arms. Down each of these smiling vales a gentle brook descended, till, near the base of " Zion's hill," they united, and rolled their confluent waters along the enchanting plain. Was ever landscape so lovely! Those gentle brooks united symbolized that spiritual river whose gentle flow waters " the city of our God." How striking the contrast between the two pictures ! One is the roaring sea, the moving earth, the trembling mountains, representing the wars, agitations, and strifes of the world ; the other a beautiful river, fed by tributary streams, descending through a charming vale, the picture of serene repose. This picture is ITS EFFECT UPON THE CHUECH. 49 intended to represent the calm quiet, tlie holy con- fidence and joy of tlie Church of God after and amid scenes of danger and battle and political revolution. What produced so great a change? The provi- dence of God. The Psalmist invites us to contemplate this great truth : " Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth. He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth ; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder ; he burneth the chariot in the lire. Be still, and know that I am God ; I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. The Lord of hosts is with us ; the God of Jacob is our refuge." In all wars and other commotions the hand of God, though not visible, is the all-directing, all-con- trolling power. He is in every war, in every cam- paign, in every battle, in every great political and social change, and directs every movement for the accomplishment of his own grand purposes. If war i-esults in the subjugation of a people, or the annihil- ation of an institution of society, we must accept such result as Heaven's decree, and although we can- not trace the connection between the divine agency and the mere instruments employed by him, nor ap- prove all the principles and measures of those instru- ments, yet in the end some good will be apparent, and God's name will be exalted ; so his people may feel assured in all their sufi*erings and sorrows that he is their Refuge, and Strength. It is this calm confidence in God, this immovable faith in his provi- dence, that brings about that consciousness of security and repose so happily expressed by the Psalmist : 2 60 THE SLAVERY CONFLICT AND "There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High. God is in the midst ot' her; she shall not be moved ; God shall help her and that right early." This joyful and happy state of Zion succeeds to those scenes of contention and strife alluded to in the first part of the psalm, and which are represented, in the latter part, as coming to an end by means of victory achieved under the direction and control of divine providence. The Church of God in this country has been for many years in the midst of commotions and agitations growing out of the nature and practice of a social institution, and I come forth to-day to analyze the jprincijpUs involved in the dispute, to exhibit them in some of the chief joints of their antagonism^ and to show the effect of the conflict xijpon the Church of God, Before proceeding further, let me state that many years ago I provided myself with books on both sides of the slavery question. These works, including journals of General Conferences, comprise about 4,000 pages of printed matter. I have read them, studied them, analyzed their arguments pro and con^ and I think am prepared to state, define, expound, and elucidate them. I am not surprised that persons who have never studied much, nor marked the diflerence between one class of principles and another, should misapprehend some points in my first sermon, and, in a moment of excitement, misstate them to others. It will be seen, however, from what I have said, that my views are ITS EFFECT UPON THE CHURCH. 51 not the result of sudden feeling or impnlse, but of study aud reflection. Now I wish you to understand at the outset, that, for every fact I state, I can point yon to the page and paragrapli where it may be seen. First, let ns analyze and define Principles. They consist of three classes denominated respect- ively. Abolitionism, PEOSLAVERYisii, and Anti- SLAVEEYISM or CONSERVATISM. 1. Abolitionists are divided into two classes, iiltra and moderate 'j but they have a common principle, and differ only as to their measures. Their principle is this : ' It is sin, a high imme/rality ^ for any man^ under any circumstances^ to sustain the Telation of master to a slave; that no human being has^ under any circumstances, a right to hold property in another hxiinan being!''' The principle, expressed in the fewest words, is, ''^All slaveholding is sm.^^ This being their principle, they are for the immediate abolition of slavery, regardless of consequences ; hence the name " abolitionist," one who subverts, destroys, or a?i?iuls. With them the relation of a master to a slave is sin, sin in itself j and is it not strange that a people who ought to be familiar with the principles involved in a controversy of sncli long standing, involving, as it does, the moral character of an institution which they have defended as innocent and right, should charac- terize as an abolition sermon, one in which the mas- ter's relation was defended from tlie word of God ? While abolitionists all agree in principle, they disagree as to their measures. In the Church they go 52 ' THE SLAVERY CONFLICT AND for the iminecllate exclusion of all slaveholders, say- ing, they " can neither countenance nor fellowship the slaveholder." As a political party I described them in a "Fast-Day Sermon" which I preached from this pulpit over a year ago. That sermon Avas printed and circulated among you. I here reaffirm every sentiment concerning abolitionism, and would reaffirm every sentiment of patriotism expressed in it, if I could do so without arraying myself against the pow- ers that be, and committing a crime. The principles of ultra abolitionism culminated in their blackest infamy in the " Jolm Brown raid." I abhor both the principles and the measures. 2. The Proslavery principle is, that slavery is a righteous institution, and, as such, it ought to be per- petuated ; hence tlie name 2^'>'osluv€ry, for slavery, that is, for its jy^^U^^^tual continuance as it is. Pro- slavery men held that the institution as it has existed among us is of divine appointment^ and beneficial to society. Therefore they regard all the laws to keep the slave in ignorance, to keep him in perj^etual bond- age, without the possibility of emancipation, and all such as are designed to hold him as a mere chattel, as inght i\ud p?'o_pe)\ These are the chief antagonistic elements which w^ere at work in American society for many years, and which at last produced a severance of ecclesiasti- tical and political bonds, and led to the crash of arms and to the ruin of our section. 3. Antislaveryism is more difficult to define, be- cause it embraces a great many classes who come be- tween the two extremes. In general, an antislayery ITS EFFECT UPON THE CHUKCIT. 53 man is one wlio declares against shiA'ery, as the name imports. lie may declare himself against slavery becanse he may, like the abolitionist, believe it to be a sin in itself ^ but he proposes no measures that are harsh, unjust, or inexpedient for its extirpation. This makes a wide difference between him and the aboli- tionist. To this class the earliest Methodist preachers in America, with Bisliops Coke and Asbnry, belonged. Those great and good men made the Methodist Epis- copal Clmrcli antislavery at the very heginning. Orher antislavery men approach nearer to the proslavery side. They hold that slavery is not of necessity a moral evil in itself; but justify the rela- tion of master from the word of God, just as I have done, and only declare against what is immoral in the practice. ]^ow this class included the main body of the Methodist ministry in the South at the time of separation. Dr. Capers wrote an article which was published in the religious papers about that time, refuting a charge made in some of the northern papers, that the southern Church was proslavery. The charge was made repeatedly for a year or two after the division, and as often refuted., and the title disclaimed. Well then, if the Church was not pro- slavery., what was it ? It was not an abolition Church; then it must have been antislavery^ and so it cZm. and idtrct-])vo^\2i\eYj\^m. jointly conc;eiyed, and in widely different localities, gave birth to the idea of a» political disunion. But the motives were as widely different as the localities and principles from which they sprung. The one wished to destroy the political Uiiion that he might destroy slavery, the other that he might preserve and perpet- uate it. See how diverse principles and agencies may unite in a common idea ! Strange to say, the kindred idea of ecclesiastical se- cession originated in the same localities, and seems in its very inception to be connected with the same agen- cies. This is a fact worthy of deep attention. 3* 58 THE SLAVERY C0:N'FLICT AND Tliere never was a time when tlic Metliodist Epis- copal Churcli would have elected a slaveholder to the Episcopal office. Never! All its liistory from the begimiiiig, all its enactments on the subject of slavery, all the sentiments of the great mass of the ministry and membership, were so foreign to such an idea, that it was never even deemed necessary to have a written rule forbidding such a thing. It was a well under- stood and generally admitted fact that this was the 'prevailing sense of the major portion of the Church. The suggestion of '' proscription " and "injustice," based, in certain localities, and by a few individuals here and tliere throughout the South, on this long- standing and acknowledged custom, was itself most mi Just 3.11(1 prejposteroiis ; for out of the nine native American ministers who had been elevated to the episcopal dignity, six of them were from slavehold- ing states, and not one of them a slaveholder. The historical evidence bearing on the point that it was the settled determination of the Churcli never to have a slaveholding bishop, is complete and full. "Well, with this long-established usage before their eyes, the delegates of the South Carolina Conference to the General Conference of 1832, earnestly desired that Dr. Capers might be elected a bishop. But he was a slaveholder^ and this was an insuperable impediment. The thing could not he done ! The South Carolina preachers muttered their complaints about proscrip- tion and injustice, but Dr. Capers did not participate in their prejudices, for he afterwards declared that he *' should doubt the heart of any southern man who would be willing to go to the Korth in the office of a ITS EFFECT UPON THE CHURCH. 69 bishop, he owning slaves." But this complaint of the South Carolina preachers grew up in the course of four years to embody the idea of ecclesiastical seces- sion, xinless the old usage were abandoned^ and a slaveholder admitted to the office of a 'bisliojp. This idea was urged vehemently by Dr. Smith, of Yir- ginia, in a circular which he published in 1836. The General Conference of 1840 passed, however, and no slaveholder was elected, and no attempt Avas made to divide the Church. Indeed, the Church had now be- come so settled in the great conservative sentiment that its most devoted friends began to congratulate themselves at the prospect of a long-continued scene of prosperity and harmony, that the disturbing in- fluences arising from the antagonism of the two ex- tremes of abolitionism and proslaveryism were now hushed for a long time, if not forever. Little did they dream that in four years the storm would burst over their heads from a quarter least expected, and rend forever the long-cherished unity of their belov- ed Methodism ! The Southern '^ Advocates," in the latter part of 1843, began again to agitate the subject of having a slaveholding bishop, or, if. this should be denied them by the majority, attempting to establish a separate organization for the South. The discussion continued for some months, and then suddenly ceased. From January till May, 1844, the papers maintained a mys- terious silence on the subject of slaveholding bishops. "What could be the matter? Why, Bishop Andrew had married, and become, by his own voluntary choice, connected with slavery ! Thus the subject became a 60 THE SLAVERY CO^'FLICT AND test question before the General Conference for the iirst time in its history. Kow tliey had to deal with it as a fact in connection with the pre-existent senti- ment known and admitted as such throughout the connection. Dr. Smith, in his circular, had admitted it ; Dr. Capers had admitted it ; the very argument of the Southern papers admitted it ; all admitted it as the prevailing sense of the Church. And to change that deep-rooted conviction was now the determination of a portion of the Church in the South, or dissolve its connection with the Methodist Episcopal Church. Here the idea of ecclesiastical secession, originating in South Carolina, propped up and rendered clamorous by the dominant slave power, liad assumed a formi- dable and practical aspect. Kow, I think that there was a certain connection between this idea of ecclesiastical separation, or seces- sion, (for such it was as an ultimatum^ and Mr. Cal- houn. I cannot trace it so as to be certain of the fact, but the inference rests upon strong circumstan- tial o;round.-^. It is known that the three leadino; states- men of that day, Clay, Webster, and Calhoun, were consulted as to the efiect upon the stability of the Union, which a division of the Methodist Episcopal Church would have. They all agreed that it was a step directly toward a dissolution of the great Amer- ican Union. Clay and Webster, on this account, de- plored any such division, but Calhoun both approved and encouraged it, knowing that it tended directly to the accomplishment of his own scheme. It is certain that Dr. Capers consulted him on this point, and it is equally certain that he lent the sanction of his name ITS EFFECT UPON THE CHURCH. 61 and great influence to it. In a letter which he is sup- posed to have Avritten upon this subject to a distin- guished divine of the Sonth Carolina Conference, he connects the idea with political secession, and says : "A dissolution of the Union will throw the South, with Texas affiliated, into a new republic, with Great Britain to guarantee its independence." His reasons for this guarantee of independence by Great Britain were the old " King Cotton " arguments, about which we heard so much for some years before the Avar. Thus it seems tliat there are good grounds to infer that the idea of a division of the Church was con- nected in its very inception with Mr. Calhoun and his idea of political secession. "When the Church was divided the event was hailed by the Governor of South Carolina ''as the first dissolution of the JJnion^'' so confident were all the ultra-proslavery politicians tliat it had this inevitable tendency. So these kindred ideas had a common origin both as to agency and locality in the South. I will now show you how they had a common origin in another quarter. In 1834:, two years after the first murmur against the old usage was uttered in the Church among us, several leading Methodist divines of Kew England became abolitionists, and agitated the subject in popular assemblies, at camp- meetings, and in annual conferences. They read and extensively circulated the "Liberator." The result was, that a majority of the New England preachers became abolitionists, and their doctrine was made the test in the election of delegates to the General Conference of 1836. They were opposed by Bishops 62 THE SLAVEKY CONFLICT AND Hedding and Emory, and Drs. Fisk and Abel Stevens. All the remonstrances of those good men did them no good. They rushed madly on, determined, as they said, to " split the great Methodist prop to slavery," by which they meant the Church. The commotion between those abolition preachers with Garrison and his paper shows the general disorganizing tendency of their views. Thus in Kew^ England and in South Carolina these principles and agencies began about the same time with that " irrepressible conflict " which was to terminate in the present condition of slavery. jS'ow what kept the belligerent extremes so long asimder? It was the old conservative element at the North, with such men as Hedding, Emory, Fisk, Stevens, and others at its head. They, in effect, said to their Southern brethren, " Let us alone, we will tight this battle for you. Nothing that you can say or do will satisfy our misguided brethren, who have been carried ofl:' by the ultra-abolition mania. They consider you as sold to the slave power, and the apol- ogists of all its abominations." They did fight that battle, and for doing so were reproached as " pro- slavery men." But the disaffected party was over- thrown at the General Conference, and, unable to accomplish their purposes, the principal agitators withdrew from the Church. Thus tranquillity was restored to our Zion. What brought the antagonistic parties in collision again ? That fatal and ever-to-be-lamented act of our venerable and beloved Bishop Andrew, his voIu)ita?y connection with slaver^/. Pre\iously to this he had become a slaveholder by bequest and inheritance with- ITS EFFECT TPOX THE CHURCH. 63 out Ill's own choice, but no account was taken of this. If the fact was known at the North, as it must have been among some of the conservative brethren, it only shows \X\Q forhearance of the Church, and its ^\•illing- ness to exculpate the bishop of an intention to infringe in the least the established usage, and does not show any disposition to relinquish the principle, or yield it even to the most urgent demands of the proslavery party. But when his voluntary choice to infringe that principle was made known, when it had become apparent to all that he had assumed the res])onsibiliiy of making it a practical test question in the General Conference, his act became insvfferaljle. His defense, which was continued for many days in the General Conference, rested chiefly upon the dubious import of two words in the second paragraph of the section on slaver}^, the words '' traveling preacher." The whole plea was that " traveling preacher " included the bishop as well as the inferior grades of the ministry, and therefore this was the law coverino; his case, and hence any act of censure was extra-judicial. But the whole language of the Discipline, the usus loquendi of the whole Church, were against this construction ; suffi- ciently so, at least, to make it extremely doubtful without a precedent authoritative construction, and by no means as authoritatively binding as the ante- cedent ^rac^^^'c^ of the Church. Thirteen annual con- ferences all at once assumed that the section on slavery was a " compromise," a " treaty," a " compact" between the conferences in the slaveholding and the non-slaveholding states, while twenty conferences, embracing near two thirds of the Church, held that it 64 THE SLAVERY CONFLICT AND was a mere concession to the slave jpoirer ibr tlie sake of tlie peace and welfare of the Church in tlie South, for tlie unrestricted exercise of ministerial functions among masters and slaves. And hecause the minority had become incensed against the majority forcx]jress- ing their " sense " of the conduct of Bishop Andrew in the mildest form in which words could express that judgment, they determined to withdraw and form a separate organization. Thus was the Church divided. Our people generally do not read history. They catch it up from their politicians, newspapers, and ministers in detached fragments, and can seldom trace the connection of events. When they do read it, it is rarely v\^ith a philosophic e} e, looking into first prin- ciples and cause?, tracing events from antecedent to sequence like the successive links of a chain, through a long series which terminate in some great para- mount fact. Behold here, my brethren and country- men, some of those remote causes which stand indis- solubly connected with all the astounding events of the past four years. You have here some of the links of that hitherto invisible chain of facts which stand connected with every ruined city and every devastated section and every broken heart and every mutilated form in this land of wretchedness and woe ! Brethren, I have shown you a history that you never knew be- fore. Your politicians hid it from your view when they addressed you from the " stump," and only let you see enough to inflame your hatred toward the Korth, and all for their own ambitious purposes. Your secular press would not show you this history, ITS EFFECT UPON THE CHURCH. 65 because for the most part it was the mere tool of fac- tion ; your religious press could not. because it must advocate only such doctrines and detail such facts as may suit tlie tastes and contribute to the ends of that power which had enslaved it ; your ministers did not tell you this history, because many of them were ip-no- rant of it themselves, and those who knew it ivould not tell you. O that our politicians had been wise and disinterested patriots ! O that our Church and party organs had taught the people wisdom, stemming the tide of unpopularity, biding their time for truth to assert and maintain her authority ! O that our ministry had taught us like faithful watchman upon the walls of Zion ! Tlien had not our feet ruu into forbidden paths, and our war-scarred country would to-day be free and happy, w^th no signs of ravage and desolation around us ! But what, O my heart-stricken countrym.en, is the great paramount fact which this long and desperate conflict has disclosed? Is it not this, we have sinned^ and God has smitten us f O hide not the appalling truth from your view. God has spoken in the thunder-shock of battle and told us that we have sinned. By the triumpli of our foes he has cast both the horse and his rider into a dead sleep; he has broke the bow and cut the spear in sunder ; he has burnt the chariot in the fire, and caused war to cease through all this land. And no^^^' he saj^s to us, "Be still, and know that I am God ! " He would luive us feel and acknowledge that his hand is in our hu- miliation, that he hath laid our glory in the dust, and all to make us confess that we have sinned. He shows us to-day by the light of his marvelous providence (j6 the slavery CO^^FLICT AND that we have sinned, and by tlie light of history what onr Church and ministry have done to bring all this ruin u2:)on ns. Thirdly, let us mark the efiect which this contest has had upon our Church. The following may be regarded as the principal constituent elements of a prosperous Church : 1. A sound and liealthy religious literature. 2. A devoted ministry, preaching the pure Gospel of Christ. 3. A well-instructed and pious membership, walk- ijig in all the cominandments and ordinances of the Lord Ijlaineless. 4. The wholesome and salutary education of the young. By these rules let us try : 1. Our Literature. Tlie Methodist Book Concern of IS'ew York grew ui) from a small insic^niiicant be2:inninrosper ; but whoso confessetli and forsaketh them shall have mercy." O, let us repent and God will heal onr broken hearts. Kow that he, by liis amazing proYidence, has brought ns to the verge of poverty and ruin, let us repent. If we will but humble ourselves under his mighty hand and repent, wliat a happy change shall we behold! "We shall be a poorer, but a humbler and hai)pier people. It is the broken and contrite heart that God will heal and bless ; it is the humble mind in which he will set up his abode. Living to labor and satisfy the wants of nature, not to grow rich and revel in luxury, we shall learn the secret of true happiness, sweet contentment. God will be our light and salva- tion, and the jieace that passeth imderstanding will take the place of carking care. Angry passions will be hushed up, all nmrmuring thoughts and vain be dispelled from the mind, and grace, rich grace, will secretly reign in our hearts through righteousness unto eternal life. God's desecrated and forsaken tem- ples will be rebuilt and reopened ; thrift and industry will soon reappear, and the land, so long desolated and trodden down, will smile under the hand of skill- ful tillage, while the scliools and colleges, so long shut up, will be crowded again with studious youth. A pure and blessed Gospel will be proclaimed in our midst, the feet of the stricken and afilicted ones shall again walk in the way to Zion's hill, and the weary, heavv-laden, woe-bcgone spirit find rest in the sanc- tuary of God. Then shall we realize the picture of the psalm, "There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the ITS EFFECT UPON THE CHUECH. 77 tabernacles of the Most High. God is in the midst of her ; she shall not be moved ; God shall help her, and that right early." Oh, that blessed river of sal- vation shall flow through onr sanctuary again ; its heavenly streams, long obstrncted by ignorance and folly and sin, shall ponr their living waters through our hearts and cleanse all our fl.lth away. Out of our inmost souls shall flow that living water in the sanc- tuary, in the Sunday school, in the family circle, and bring servants and children and neighbors all under its hallowed influence. Then shall the revival begin that will extend from heart to heart, from family to family, from church to church, all over this heaven- smitten land, and we shall forget the ill fortune of the present in the dawn of a new day of happiness for us and our children. And shall these two sermons con- tribute anything to a result so glorious ? If so, I send them forth on this divine mission. Go, ye little fledg- lings of my disenthralled heart, and bear the message of out-spoken truth to my weeping countrymen. Bear these words that kill and make alive, till every minis- ter and member of the Church, feeling their burning power, shall rise to a new and holier life. Bear them, ye winds, to distant climes, and let the world know that free speech has at last attacked the dragon of iniquity in the stronghold of its power, even in the hearts of my own people, where it had long entrench- ed itself in the very guise of innocence ! Go, O ye seedlings of precious truth, and let the world know that we, the people of the South, conquer even in our fall ; that we now subdue all human pride and angry passions, and rise to live and live forever ! O, tell 78 THE SLAVKRY CONFLICT AND it out to all mankind, that we are a regenerated nation, and liencelbrth will join the universal Chnrcli of the Eedeemer in the grand march to tlie millennial day ! Almighty and most merciful God, thou art the Father of S2)irits, and we are thy oflspriug. Thou rulest over all in heaven above and on the earth be- neath. Thy 2:)rovidential care is over all thy crea- tures, and thou teachest by thy word and providence that thou art watchful over them through all the e-s-ents of their lives, and art with thy people amid all the afflictions which befall them in this world. May "we bow in meek submission at thy feet, and, with our hearts stilled into awful reverence before thy divine majesty, acknowledge that thou alone art God. Help us to praise thee, that thou art exalted in all the earth, and that thou art the refuge and strength of all who jDut their trust in thee. Thou, O great and mighty Creator, hast made of one blood all na- tions of men to dwell on all tlie face of the eartli ; and though it hath pleased thee to ordain various ranks and conditions of men in society, and to establish various relations among them, appointing some to command and others to obey, yet, O just and holy God, thou hast taught us tliat with thee there is no respect of persons. Thy la\v binds us to love all our fellow-men, regardless of their social condition, as ourselves, and to do unto all men as we would have them do imto us. But, O Lord God most holv, we do ITS EFFECT UPON THE CHURCH. 79 most truly and Immbly confess before thee, tliat \^e have sinned against thy most pure and just law of love, in that we have made merchandise of tlie souls and bodies of our fellow-men; we have made lavv:: which did most cruelly oppress them ; we virtually set at naught thy marriage covenant among them, and did too often put asunder those whom thou didst join together; we shut out the light of knowledge from their minds ; we have failed too frequently to comply with thy most righteous command to give unto them the thmgs that are just and equal ; and we have committed many acts of violence and injury ao-ainst them. o And now we beseech thee, O holy and everlasting Father, to forgive these our grievous sins and trans- gressions, which have provoked thy most just wrath and indio^nation against us. "We beseech thee to re- move from our eyes the vail of ignorance, and that we may see light in thy light. Thou hast sent upon us the scourge of war, and we have suffered the spoil- ing of our goods ; our land is overrun and devoured ; it is so desolate that all who pass by her do mock at her. Thy churches have been forsaken, destroyed, and desecrated. The remembrance of these our sins and transgressions is most grievous unto us, and we do repent, and are most heartily sorry for the same. And we do beseech thee, O mighty God, holy and ever- lasting Father, to mitigate the stroke of thy righteous indignation wherewith thou hast stricken us as a people who stand condemned and guilty in thy sight. Grant that all thy penitent people may this day be- lieve in thy most dearly beloved Son, Jesus Christ 80 THE SLAVERY CONFLICT. our Saviour, that tlirougli liis most precious blood tlicy may find forgiveness of sins, and be cleansed from all unrigliteonsness. Then, O Father, may the ri.er tliat maketh glad the city of our God flow through our sanctuaries again ; may its life-giving streams flow freely through all our hearts and to all our suffering countrymen, cleansing and purifying the hearts of all. May thy priests be clothed with the robes of holiness ; may Zion awake to put on her beautiful garments, and arise from the dust because her Light is come and the glory of the Lord is risen upon her. Grant this, we beseech thee, O most mer- ciful Father, for the sake of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. And to thy name, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, be all the praise for ever and ever. Amen. 114 81 -f *^, A^ "- i'^V .O' \ % ''^^' -"^o •^^0^ ^•1°* / -o •■> if- -^ O ° " * •» '*^ o-- "*> > V' ^^•^^ 4 o^ ^j- :mM\ %.^' ^ y^^ -ov* *<^ • •^, ^■-i.%^- .*'\ ,;0 V' *-.. .^5. .^^ ■ * K^ '^AV '^..J « >■> < " 4 *^ -» V*^ 0-0 's^-^^m^ J *^^ '.—-.• ,r 'i '■„?.^, .^•• .-i