James A. Thome

“ Freemen are exasperated; good people are aroused; the moral sense of the nation is shocked and tried to the utmost. The sentiments of patriotism, devotion to the Union, and respect for federal law, are lowered in the public mind. Faith in free institutions, and hope of their perpetuity are seriously shaken. Sectional animosities are rife. The republic is no longer a unit, for the hearts of the people are sundered. Issues the most radical divide us: freedom and slavery! ”

“ Will you not make the bondman’s wrongs your own? Christian parents! Will you not mingle with your thanksgivings that your children were born free, importunate supplications that the curse of slavery may be removed from every family in the land? Young converts! Ye who, in answer to prayer, have been liberated from the bonds of sin, will you not plead with God to deliver the oppressed, and to abolish slavery? ”

“ Who are these victims of slavery? Who are they that we should pray for them? We answer:
They are men. They belong to the human family. They are of one blood with ourselves. They have the same rights with us, the same interests, the same desires, the same wants, the same love of liberty, the same sense of right and wrong, the same deathless spirits. ”

“ Are there Christian households, and Christian sanctuaries in this land, where the oppressed have not been habitually remembered in prayer? Are there disciples who have not sympathized with the sighing bondmen? Are there “women professing godliness” who have been deaf to the wail of slave mothers sundered from their babes? Let these things be no longer, lest the cry of the down-trodden millions call down swift retributions. May the spirit of grace and of supplications be poured out upon Zion, until liberty shall be proclaimed throughout all this land, unto all the inhabitants thereof. ”

“ This great mountain of slavery is the providential provocative in our day of the prayer of faith which removes mountains. The aspects of it which most dishearten man do most arouse against it the spirit of prayer. “Is any thing too hard for God?” Is slavery too great for the Almighty? We must either pray against this national sin, or limit the Holy One to minor evils. ”

“ When it shall have prevailed against slavery, and wrought out the deliverance of them that are in bonds, then will be seen, as now is not, the irresistible power of prayer. We rejoice in the assurance that prayer will overcome slavery. We have no fear of the alternative. We are glad to have this decisive test applied. Let it be seen in this crisis what the prayer of faith can endure, and what it can do. It has other trials to overcome, other triumphs to win. ”

“ The facts are that slavery robs a man of his humanity. He is made a thing, a chattel, merchandise. The African has no right on earth but to do the will, and promote the comfort of the Caucasian. He can not choose his residence, his employer, his work. He can not receive wages or the fruits of his industry. He can not defend his wife against insult. He can not protect his children from violence. He can not live with his family if it does not suit the interests of another man. He can not educate his children. He can not choose an employment for them. He can not hope for anything but slavery. ”

“ The Christianity it tolerates within its borders is not that which declares the whole counsel of God; which cries aloud and spares not, and shows the people their sins. The religion of America, fraught with salvation for the nations of the Old World, has been shorn of much of its power by the encroachments of Southern slavery. Can any Christian doubt that a system so hostile to the gospel is abhorred of God? And now, at this moment, the issue is forced upon us, whether slavery shall exclude the gospel, or be excluded by it. In this crisis our only help is in God. ”

“ Emancipation gained by prayer will avert emancipation wrought by violence.
Slavery done away in righteousness, oppression in its other forms will be meliorated and will gradually disappear. The apprentice, the clerk, the sailor, the soldier, the pupil, the child, the laborer, the hired girl, the wife, will be more secure from the abuses of power, when the spirit of oppression, driven from its stronghold, is shorn of its strength. The abolition of slavery in this country will go far to drive the spirit of oppression out of Christendom, and to liberate the nations of Europe. ”

“ When he takes it in hand, and speaks the word, there may indeed be a deadly struggle, and the fell spirit, ere he departs, may rend the nation and fling it on the verge of dissolution; but he who is strong to deliver is also mighty to save. We need not fear the issue. Do not some really dread abolition more than slavery? The remedy is worse than the disease, they think. But should Christians distrust the cure which their Redeemer would effect? Here, perhaps, faith is most tried,—to commit this work of abolishing slavery to the Lord, and to have him cut short the work in righteousness. ”

“ Slavery is to test the strength of prayer, the faith of Christians. Which shall prevail? Is the Slave Power too strong for prayer, or have the saints such faith and argument touching this thing, that they may ask what they will, and it shall be done? It is a first principle of evangelical faith, that, “all things are possible to them that believe.” If this principle is yielded, the foundations of prayer are removed. If any thing is impossible, nothing is possible; faith that fears is dead, and prayer that quails is powerless. ”

“ The negro in his chains appealingly interrogates us,—“Am I not a man and a brother?” What can the Christian do but own the relationship? Is he indeed a man—a brother? Then does not to him the golden rule apply—“Do unto others as ye would they should do unto you?” Can we exclude them from our prayers?
They are innocent men. By no hideous crime against humanity have they forfeited their place in the brotherhood. For no violation of law have they been consigned to bondage. Against them, rather, has all law been violated, and every dictate of humanity outraged. ”

“ The purity, the peace, and the prosperity of Zion are so implicated, that to pray for the abolition of slavery is to pray for these. The power of revivals, the success of home and foreign missions, the operations of tract and Bible societies would be increased immeasurably by the overthrow of slavery, and by the augmented strength this victory would practically give to prayer. The available energies of the American Zion would be multiplied many fold. The Bible would be vindicated, Christianity would have the trophies of the triumph, and God would gain great glory. ”

“ There can be no reconciliation and no respite in this fraternal strife. Nothing can end it but the removal of slavery. Only this can avert the evils that now threaten the republic. Emancipation or ruin is the alternative which the tide of events is forcing on us. ”

“ The master is wholly irresponsible. The slave plantation is a petty, absolute despotism. From thousands of fields the blood of the oppressed crieth to God for vengeance. Millions of groaning, sighing wretches are appealing to Heaven for mercy. ”

“ The power of prayer, then, is God’s own power, exerted by the Spirit and the Son through the supplications of the righteous, and therefore it availeth much. Nothing can withstand it, because nothing can withstand God. The elements of nature yield to its control; the institutions of men, founded in sin, fall before its cry.
If slavery were beyond the power of prayer, it would be not because of its strength, but because it is right in the sight of God. ”

“ We had better consider the perils of prolonging chattel slavery in this land of liberty. “Oppression maketh the wise man mad.” Only the brutish man will long endure brutal treatment himself, or tolerate its infliction upon another. If despotism [Pg 13] breeds disaffections, slavery begets insurrections, as light enters the house of bondage. And the light is advancing—fearfully. Appalling dangers are just ahead. The mixed race is rapidly increasing. The hottest blood of the South flows in the veins of slaves, who are often scarcely distinguishable in complexion from their oppressors. ”

“ Then there is the oppressor—the man in whom slaveholding is a sin per se. He holds his brother as property. He denies to man, for selfish ends, the rights and prerogatives of manhood. He denies that the possession of life, liberty and happiness, or the unobstructed pursuit of them, is the right of every man unconvicted of crime.—But not to rest in general statements, let us place side by side some facts, and some passages of the word of God. ”

“ The oppressed are to be regarded as having wants while in their bondage which God only can supply; but it must be borne in mind that the their great want is freedom. Let this be sought instantly, importunately. Beware of praying for them as slaves, as if their condition were unchangeable; this were a grievous insult to God and to humanity. Pray for the oppressed—that they may go free. Pray for the oppressors—that they may break every yoke. Pray for the missionary and the colporter—that they “may open their mouths boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel ”

“ They must believe only, not mixing fear with faith, nor trying with trusting; that trying which first scans the magnitude of a sin, estimates its power, and counts the cost of assailing it. The faith that prevails in prayer has its sphere above the calculations of difficulty and danger, where sense fails, and strength staggers. It is just as easy for believing prayer to take hold of great things as of small. ”

“ There is not vital energy enough; there is not power of numbers and influence enough out of the church to sustain slavery. Let every religious denomination in the land detach itself from all connection with slavery, without saying a word against others; let the time come when, in all the mighty denominations of Christians, it can be announced that the evil has ceased with them for ever ”

“ Who can say how provoking this has been to the Hearer of prayer, and how often it may have rendered the petitions of his saints an abomination unto him? Had not the Holy Spirit, with more than human forbearance, borne with the manners of the people, and laid the unwelcome burden on their hearts, and inwrought fervent desires, impelling many to pray earnestly for the oppressed, there might by this time have been little more than the form of prayer in the American Zion. Yes, prayer for the oppressed has done much to preserve the vitality of prayer in the churches! ”

“ There is another class who have been taught from infancy by their parents, teachers, and pastors, that slavery is a divine institution; they see no wrong in it, and consider all the evils as incidental, and not as legitimate consequences of the system. They are the most powerful upholders of it, because they believe it to be right, and are conscious of no other than kind sentiments towards their slaves. To such men and their sentiments the oppressor triumphantly appeals as an evidence that slaveholding [Pg 23] is not injurious to character, nor repulsive to the feelings of good men. ”

“ In the school, the family, the nation, the church, certain evils admit only of indirect treatment, but others call for decisive, positive measures. Slavery in a Christian republic preëminently demands direct action, aimed at its speedy extermination. It may long resist such action, but no other is pertinent to its nature. When, after the Revival of 1830-33, the attention of the people of God, especially of the young converts, was turned to this subject, they proclaimed the truth—Chattel Slavery is a sin, and immediate emancipation is the duty of the slaveholder. ”

“ Political measures have been tried,—tried in good faith and with the utmost energy. But the Slave Power, versed in the intrigues of politics, has gained victory after victory, and grown stronger by this species of opposition. Providential events have signally fought against slavery. The successive acts of European powers have swept chattel slavery from their colonies. Cuba and Brazil, with our own country, alone retain it. ”

“ If a man of skeptical views, like Jefferson, could tremble for his country in remembering that heaven is just, what must he feel who fully believes that God is ruler among the nations, and that he hates oppression! ”

“ Let prayer be now made without ceasing by the church, for the liberation of all enslaved saints, and enlargement shall surely come. The living God waits to be importuned by the church for its own members. He waits to hear the cry of distress from Zion, suffering with her suffering children.
The unconverted slaves are hopeful subjects of renewing grace compared with the same number of any class of men. No persons on earth are more susceptible to gospel influences than the negroes. ”

“ In the New Testament no man is commanded to purchase and own a slave; no man is commended as adding any thing to the evidences of his Christian character, or as performing the appropriate duty of a Christian, for owning one. ”

“ Those who suffer wrong from the more powerful. They are to be found in all conditions of society, in the bosom even of the family and the church. All relationships which involve authority are liable to be abused to the infliction of injustice and outrage.
Who are THE OPPRESSED, distinctively? The enslaved. These differ from all other victims of abused power in this essential point, that, by the law, they are regarded not as men, but things, the property of men. Denied humanity, they are denied all human rights, and excluded from all human relations. ”

“ The revolting scenes of the inter-State slave trade, the abominations of slave breeding, the barbarities of the cotton field and rice swamps, the ferocities of the slave hunt with blood-hounds in the South, and with more savage men in the free States, the imprisonments and lynchings of Northern men found in the slave States and suspected of holding abolition sentiments, the many collisions between slavery and freedom, which have in some instances proceeded to bloodshed and death, have caused much irritation and deep indignation throughout the country. ”

“ Slavery is the foe of Christianity, the enemy of souls, and it must be hateful to the God of love, who would have all men come to Christ. It is opposed to the gospel and to every evangelical work, to the tract, the Bible, the missionary enterprise. It disregards the spiritual interests of enslaved saints, and of souls perishing in their sins under its yoke. It [Pg 6] is a ruling power in this Christian country, to the scandal of religion. It rises above other forms of sin, as the chief perverter of the right ways of the Lord. ”