THE Nineteenth Century is generally believed to be an enlightened one. Great discoveries have been made in the fields of science. Countries which were almost unknown a century ago are now competing in art and wealth with the mother countries. Civilization has made a decided step forward; but in some countries, civilization has made, in one respect, no progress; on the contrary, it has made a step backward.
There is an institution, which is called by many civilized men a ‘lawful one,’ but which is in reality an institution of ancient barbarity. It is the institution of slavery! If we take for truth, that civilization and Christianity go hand in hand, we are astonished to see a civilized and Christian people violating the laws of civilization and of Christianity, by adhering to and nursing said institution of barbarity. Christianity and barbarity will always oppose each other, and if a nation is trying to make a mixture of both, civilization as well as Christianity will suffer extensively.
The motive of my present writing is not a political one. I have been plainly trying to answer the question, ‘Can slavery and Christianity go hand in hand together?’ by giving a faithful picture of what I have seen with my own eyes, while residing in some of the slave States for more than ten years. If the glorious redemption through the crucified Nazarene shall be of equal blessing to every Christian, how can a white Christian treat a Christian of color like a beast? How can the former have a right to sell his black or yellow brother or sister at public auction for money or approved paper?
I have no personal ill feeling against the owners of slaves in the slave States of this Union, but to their institution of slavery, and particularly to their slave-auctions and to their slave-markets, I am a decided enemy. As a man and a Christian, I am obliged to protest solemnly against an institution which is a burning shame to Christianity, which is a backsliding from civilization to barbarism, a destroyer of family-life, a crime against virtue, and a blasphemy to the cross of the Redeemer!
J. T. K.