fender of the sacredness of the family
relation is the same that scatters whole families,--sundering husbands
and wives, parents and children, sisters and brothers,--leaving the
hut vacant, and the hearth desolate. We see the thief preaching against
theft, and the adulterer against adultery. We have men sold to build
churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase
Bibles for the POOR HEATHEN! ALL FOR THE GLORY OF GOD AND THE GOOD OF
SOULS! The slave auctioneer's bell and the church-going bell chime in
with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are
drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master. Revivals of
religion and revivals in the slave-trade go hand in hand together.
The slave prison and the church stand near each other. The clanking of
fetters and the rattling of chains in the prison, and the pious psalm
and solemn prayer in the church, may be heard at the same time. The
dealers in the bodies and souls of men erect their stand in the presence
of the pulpit, and they mutually help each other. The dealer gives his
blood-stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, in return,
covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity. Here we have
religion and robbery the allies of each other--devils dressed in angels'
robes, and hell presenting the semblance of paradise.

"Just God! and these are they,
Who minister at thine altar, God of right!
Men who their hands, with prayer and blessing, lay
On Israel's ark of light.

"What! preach, and kidnap men?
Give thanks, and rob thy own afflicted poor?
Talk of thy glorious liberty, and then
Bolt hard the captive's door?

"What! servants of thy own
Merciful Son, who came to seek and save
The homeless and the outcast, fettering down
The tasked and plundered slave!

"Pilate and Herod friends!
Chief priests and rulers, as of old, combine!
Just God and holy! is that church which lends
Strength to the spoiler thine?"

The Christianity of America is a Christianity, of whose votaries it may
be as truly said, as it was of the ancient scribes and Pharisees, "They
bind heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's
shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their
fingers. All their works they do for to be seen of men.--They love the
uppermost rooms at feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, . . .
.