Facts for the Times

PROTESTANT CHURCHES RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SIN OF AMERICAN SLAVERY

A work lately published in Battle Creek, Mich., contains the following: FT 23.4

“Protestants also are slave-holders. It appears from the late census report that ‘660,563 slaves are owned in this country (United States) by ministers of the gospel and members of the different Protestant churches; viz., 217,563 Methodists, 77,000 Presbyterians, 125,000 Baptists, 87,000 Episcopalians, 101,000 Campbellites, and 53,000 other denominations.’ If the church of the North does not hold slaves, she fellowships those of the South who do. It is true that in one of the churches above named, (the M. E. Church,) an attempt was made to free the northern branch from slavery, but as admitted by one of their ministers not long since, there are still many slave-holders in the northern branch of that church.” FT 23.5

The celebrated ALBERT BARNES, whose Notes are used extensively in Sunday Schools, says: FT 24.1

“Let the time come, when in all the mighty denominations, it can be announced that the evil is ceased with them forever, with no mealy words, with no effort to throw the shield of religion over it, and the work is done. There is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in it.” FT 24.2

Again, he says: FT 24.3

“The churches are the bulwark of American Slavery.” FT 24.4

PATRICK HENRY, in a letter dated Jan. 18th, 1773, says: FT 24.5

“Is it not a little surprising that the professors of christianity, whose chief excellence consists in softening the human heart, in cherishing and improving its finest feelings, should encourage a practice so totally repugnant to the first impressions of right and wrong? What adds to the wonder, is, that this abominable practice has been introduced in the most enlightened ages. Times that seem to have pretensions to boast of high improvements in the arts and sciences, and refined morality, have brought into general use, and guarded by many laws, a species of violence and tyranny which our more rude and barbarous, but more honest ancestors detested.” FT 24.6

John Fay, Esq., of the City of New York—a most exemplary Episcopalian—in a pamphlet entitled, “Thoughts on the Duty of the Episcopal Church, in Relation to Slavery,” says: FT 25.1

“Alas! for the expectation that she would conform to the spirit of her ancient mother! She has not merely remained a mute and careless spectator of this great conflict of truth and justice with hypocrisy and cruelty, but her very priests and deacons may be seen ministering at the altar of slavery, offering their talents and influence at its unholy shrine, and openly repeating the awful blasphemy, that the precepts of our Saviour sanction the system of American slavery. Her Northern clergy, with rare exceptions, whatever they may feel on the subject, rebuke it neither in public nor in private, and her periodicals, far from advancing the progress of abolition, at times oppose our societies, impliedly defending slavery, as not incompatible with Christianity, and occasionally withholding information useful to the cause of freedom.” FT 25.2

Mr. Joseph P. Thompson, pastor of the Broadway Tabernacle church, New York, speaking of the pro-slavery principles of professed Christians in that city says: FT 25.3

“I know what I say, when I affirm that there were men of standing in the churches, who, in private conversation, thus placed their wordly interests above the admitted claims of humanity and of the law of Christ. Christian men did say, ‘We abhor slavery as much as you; but we must not agitate the subject, for we should then lose our Southern trade.” FT 25.4

James Smylie, Presbyterian clergyman of Mississippi, says: FT 26.1

“If slavery be a sin, and advertising and apprehending slaves, with a view to restore them to their masters, is a direct violation of the divine law, and if the buying, selling, or holding a slave, for the sake of gain, is a heinous sin and scandal, then, verily, three-fourths of all the Episcopalians, Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians, in eleven States of the Union, are of the devil. They ‘hold,’ if they do not buy and sell slaves, and, with few exceptions, they hesitate not ‘to apprehend and restore’ runaway slaves when in their power.” FT 26.2

Mr. WILLIAM WINANS, of Mississippi, in the Methodist Episcopal General Conference, in 1836, said: FT 26.3

“Yes, sir, Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, should be slaveholders:—yes, he repeated it boldly—there should be members, and deacons, and ELDERS, and BISHOPS, too, who are slaveholders.” FT 26.4

Dr. W. B. JOHNSON, of South Carolina, President of the Baptist General Convention, in 1843, said: FT 26.5

“When in any country, slavery has become a part of its settled policy, the inhabitants, even Christians, may hold slaves without crime.” FT 26.6

J. C. POSTELL, in a sermon delivered in July, 1836, at Orangeburgh, S. C., remarked: FT 26.7

“So far from slavery’s being a moral evil, it is a merciful visitation. And why does it now exist amidst all the power of legislation in the State and Church, and the clamour of abolitionists: ‘It is the Lord’s (Devil’s) doings, and marvelous in our eyes.’” FT 26.8

A Missionary of the Baptist board writes: FT 27.1

“MERGUI, Oct. 27, 1846. FT 27.2

Messrs. Editors:—Will you, or some of your valuable correspondents, tell me how to meet the following objection, which I have to meet wherever I go among the wild Karens! ‘If we become disciples, when you get a large number of us, you intend to entice us away and make slaves of us in your own country.’ This objection is often urged with as much seriousness and confidence, as though they were actually acquainted with the system of American slavery. Did these ignorant, but slave-hating heathens, but know the slaveholding character of the American churches—would they not say to our faces, ‘Go back, thou hypocrite—Go back, and teach the heathen of your own country, and give them the Bible, before you come here to impose upon us.’ Sometime since, I noticed in a public paper the following remark, as coming from Bro. Kincaid: ‘If the heathen were aware of the slaveholding character of our churches, by whom the missionaries are sent out, the usefulness of the missionaries would be at an end. FT 27.3

D. S. BRAYTON.” FT 27.4

Robert J. Breckenridge, of Baltimore, one of the greatest ministers in the Presbyterian church, says: FT 27.5

“Its (slavery’s) political aspect, we grant, is bad enough, and fairly belies our high sounding professions of republicanism, but its evils, in a moral point of view, may truly be termed LEGION. The church has cherished it in her bosom, and sustained it by her example, until it has reared its head so high in the sanctuary as almost to Bid defiance to her authority. This is evidently one of the worst signs of the times. But if we must wait for the civil authorities to take the lead in opposing this sin, what is it but an acknowledgment that politics are purer than religion.” FT 27.6

John Angell James, an English Divine, whose praise is in all the American churches, says: FT 28.1

“Men do not see the sin of slavery and war, however clearly they perceive, and willingly acknowledge, their evils. And why do they not see it? Because their spiritual vision is weakened by the feebleness of their piety. The sense of the spiritual eye is in the heart; and if that be dull and obtuse, moral truth is not, and cannot be, clearly discerned.” FT 28.2

The celebrated Dr. BARNES, on Temperance Reform, says: FT 28.3

“The work was arduous and long. The church stood in the way of the progress of the cause, and still stands in the way. Mortifying and sad as it is, I hesitate not to say that, taking the country at large, in my judgment there is not so serious an obstacle to the entire success of the temperance reformation, as the habits and opinions of ministers and members of the CHURCHES.” FT 28.4

The Mercer Luminary contains a letter which was read at a late general assembly, from which we take the following: FT 28.5

“What shocked me more than anything else was, the church engaged in this jobbing of slaves. The college church which I attended, and which was attended by all the students of Hamden Sydney Sydney College and Union Theological Seminary, held slaves enough to pay their pastor, Mr. Stanton, one thousand dollars a year.” FT 28.6

A Minister’s letter to the Presbyterian congregations of West Hanover Presbytery, has the following: FT 29.1

“Now, dear Christian brethren, I humbly express it as my earnest wish, that you quit yourselves like men. If there be any stray goat of a minister among you, tainted with the blood-hound principles of abolitionism, let him be ferreted out, silenced, excommunicated, and left to the public to dispose of him in other respects. FT 29.2

Your affectionate brother in the Lord, FT 29.3

Robert N. Anderson.” FT 29.4

Bishop Mede, in a book of sermons for masters and slaves, thus addresses the latter: FT 29.5

“Almighty God has been pleased to make you slaves here, and to give you nothing but labor and poverty in this world, which you are obliged to submit to, as it is his will that it should be so. If, therefore, you would be God’s freemen in heaven, you must strive to be good and serve him here on earth. Your bodies, you know, are not your own; they are at the disposal of those you belong to,etc.” FT 29.6

Rev. Dr. DEWEY (Unitarian) says: FT 29.7

“It is a duty to return fugitives, and that he would return his own brother or child into slavery, rather than that the Union between the free and slave States should be dissolved.” FT 29.8

And Dr. TAYLOR, of Yale College, at the head of the Theological department, said: FT 30.1

“If Jesus Christ were now on earth, he would, under certain circumstances, become a slaveholder.” FT 30.2

Says Gardner Spring, D. D., an old and very prominent man in the O. S. Pres., of New York: FT 30.3

“If by one prayer I could free every slave in the world, I would not dare to offer it.” FT 30.4

The awful condition of the Protestant churches in their connection with American slavery, will be manifest by the following testimony from the Bible, and from good and learned men: FT 30.5