As for myself and husband, we have
for the last seventeen years lived on the border of a slave State, and
we have never shrunk from the fugitives, and we have helped them with
all we had to give. I have received the children of liberated slaves
into a family school, and taught them with my own children, and it has
been the influence that we found in the church and by the altar that
has made us do all this. Gather up all the sermons that have been
published on this offensive and unchristian Fugitive Slave Law, and
you will find that those against it are numerically more than those in
its favor, and yet some of the strongest opponents have not published
their sermons. Out of thirteen ministers who meet with my husband
weekly for discussion of moral subjects, only three are found who will
acknowledge or obey this law in any shape.
After all, my brother, the strength and hope of your oppressed race
does lie in the church--in hearts united to Him of whom it is said,
"He shall spare the souls of the needy, and precious shall their blood
be in his sight." Everything is against you, but Jesus Christ is for
you, and He has not forgotten his church, misguided and erring though
it be. I have looked all the field over with despairing eyes; I see no
hope but in Him. This movement must and will become a purely religious
one. The light will spread in churches, the tone of feeling will rise,
Christians North and South will give up all connection with, and take
up their testimony against, slavery, and thus the work will be done.
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