We
have heard of other steamers, iron-clad, designed to furnish to a
slavery-defending Confederacy their only lack,--a navy for the high
seas. We have heard that the British Evangelical Alliance refuses to
express sympathy with the liberating party, when requested to do so by
the French Evangelical Alliance. We find in English religious
newspapers all those sad degrees in the downward-sliding scale of
defending and apologizing for slaveholders and slave-holding, with
which we have so many years contended in our own country. We find the
President's Proclamation of Emancipation spoken of in those papers
only as an incitement to servile insurrection. Nay, more,--we find in
your papers, from thoughtful men, the admission of the rapid decline
of anti-slavery sentiments in England.
This very day the writer of this has been present at a solemn
religious festival in the national capital, given at the home of a
portion of those fugitive slaves who have fled to our lines for
protection,--who, under the shadow of our flag, find sympathy and
succor. The national day of thanksgiving was there kept by over a
thousand redeemed slaves, and for whom Christian charity had spread an
ample repast. Our sisters, we wish _you_ could have witnessed the
scene. We wish you could have heard the prayer of a blind old negro,
called among his fellows John the Baptist, when in touching broken
English he poured forth his thanksgivings.
Pages:
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431