Page:The African Slave Trade (Clark).djvu/88

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CHAPTER VI.

EVIDENCES OF THE REVIVAL OF THE SLAVE TRADE IN THE UNITED STATES.

Isaiah I. 4. Ah, Sinful Nation, A People Laden With Iniquity, A Seed Of Evil-doers, Children That Are Corrupters: They Have Forsaken The Lord, They Have Provoked The Holy One Of Israel Unto Anger, They Are Gone Away Backward.

St. James v. 1. Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.

4. Behold, the hire of the laborers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.

5. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.

6. Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.

Ecclesiastes viii. 11. Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.

E'en now, e'en now, on yonder western shores,
Weeps pale Despair, and writhing Anguish roars;
E'en now in Afric's groves, with hideous yell,
Fierce Slavery stalks and slips the dogs of hell;
From vale to vale the gathering cries rebound.
And sable nations tremble at the sound.

Who right the injured, and reward the brave.
Stretch your strong arm, for ye have power to save.
Throned in the vaulted heart, his dread resort,
Inexorable Conscience holds his court;
With still small voice the plots of guilt alarms,
Bares his masked brow, his lifted hand disarms;
But, wrapped in night, with terrors all his own,
He speaks in thunders when the deed is done.
Hear him, ye Senates: hear this truth sublime,
He who allows oppression shares the crime.

Erasmus Darwin.