" The Society saw clearly
that it was impossible to draw a Mason and Dixon's line in the world of
ethics, to divide Duty by a parallel of latitude. The only line which
Christ drew is that which parts the sheep from the goats, that great
horizon-line of the moral nature of man which is the boundary between
light and darkness. The Society, by yielding (as they have done in 1858)
to what are pleasantly called the "objections" of the South, (objections
of so forcible a nature that we are told the colporteurs were "forced to
flee,") virtually exclude the black man, if born to the southward of a
certain arbitrary line, from the operation of God's providence, and
thereby do as great a wrong to the Creator as the Episcopal Church did to
the artist when they published Ary Scheffer's _Christus Consolator_ with
the figure of the slave left out.
The Society is not asked to disseminate antislavery doctrines, but simply
to be even-handed between master and slave, and, since they have
recommended Sambo and Toney to be obedient to Mr. Legree, to remind him in
turn that he also has duties toward the bodies and souls of his bondmen.
But we are told that the time has not yet arrived, that at present the
ears of our Southern brethren are closed against all appeals, that God in
his good time will turn their hearts, and that then, and not till then,
will be the fitting occasion to do something in the premises.
Pages:
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330