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"Who would credit it that in these years of revival and benevolent effort in this Christian republic, there are over two millions of human beings in the condition of heathen, and in some respects in a worse condition. From long continued and close observation, we believe that their moral and religious condition is such that they may be justly considered the heathen of this Christian country, and will bear comparison with heathens in any country in the world. The negroes are destitute of the gospel, and ever will be under the present state of things."
In a number of the Charleston Observer (in 1834,) a correspondent remarked: " Let us establish missionaries among our own negroes, who, in view of religious knowledge, are as debasingly ignorant as any one on the coast of Africa; for I hazard the assertion that throughout the bounds of our Synod, there are at least one hundred thousand slaves, speaking the same language as ourselves, who never heard of the plan of salvation by a Redeemer."
The Editor, Rev. Benjamin Gildersleeve, who has resided at least ten years at the South, so far from contradicting this broad assertion, adds, "We fully concur with what our correspondent has said, respecting the benighted heathen among ourselves."
As Southerners, can we deny these things? As Christians, can ye ask the blessing of the Redeemer of men on the system of American slavery? Can we carry it to the footstool of a God whose "compassions fail not," and pray for holy help to rivet the chains of interminable bondage on two millions of our fellow men, the accredited representatives of Jesus Christ? If we cannot ask in faith that the blessing of God may rest on this work of cruelty to the bodies, and destruction of the souls of men, we may be assured that his controversy is against it. Try it, my brethren, when you are kneeling around the family altar with the wife of your bosom, with the children of your love, when you are supplicating Him who hath made of one blood all nations, to sanctify these precious souls and prepare them for an inheritance with Jesus—then pray, if you can that God will grant you power to degrade to the level of brutes your colored brethren. Try it, when your little ones are twining their arms around your necks, and lisping the first fond accents of affection in your ears; when the petition arises from the fulness of a parent's heart for a blessing on your children. At such a moment, look in upon your slave. He too is a father, and we know that he is susceptible of all the tender sensibilities of a father's love. He folds his cherished infant in his arms, he feels its life pulse throb against his own, and he rejoices that he is a parent; but soon the withering thought rushes to his mind—I am a slave, and tomorrow my master may tear my darling from my arms. Contemplate this scene, while your cheeks are yet warm with the kisses of your children, and then try if you can mingle with a parent's prayer and a parent's blessing, the petition that God may enable you and your posterity to perpetuate a system which to the slave denies—
" To live together, or together die.
By felon hands at one relentless stroke
See the fond links of feeling nature broke;
The fibres twisting roused a parent's heart,
Torn from their graep and bleeding as they part,"
