Our National Customs

We have a national custom of robbing a portion ofour popuiation, callcd slaves, and employing the proceeds of the robbery for the distribution of the Bible, and the preaching of the gospel in foreign countries. We shal! mike a few desultory remarles concerning t. 1. Tho custom Í9 jieviliur lo the. United States. Notliingóf the kind is. known to exist in nny heath'cn or Christian country. In heathen counlries. slavery is very conunon: and in Chrisíian lands are many missionary sociclics; but an instancé is not known out ofour country, where a missionary society ia 6upported by the labor of slavcs, extorted by Christian masters, by fraud and violence. The hmor of such an arrangement is all our own. 2. The custom is rviiional. All the Iarge sects. except tho Frcewill Baptists and Quakers, unitc in approving and practicing it. The General Missionary Boards of the Presbyterians, BaPtists, Methodists, and we believe also the Episcopalians and Catholics, concur in sanctioning and perpetuating the robbery in some or uil of these ways: By receiving the contributions of tliose who rob their fellow men: By employing the robbers fo preach the gospel: By making them constituent managers of their missionary Boards: By soliciting tho known fruita of robbery for their treasuries: By refusing to express disapprobation of euch robbery, when the subject has been brought to their notice.The system, as Banctioned by thé national Boards, thus receives the support of the groat majority of professïng Christians in the country. The greatest Doctors of Divinity, both North and South, uphold it. Most of the religious papers do the samo. But tliough it is thus upheld by all the national missionary societies, and is therefore a national cuslom, it is but just to say that the individual dissenticnts against it are numerous in most donominaüons, and fast increasing. Many churches and minor ecclesiastical bodics havo frccly exprcssed tbeir abhorrence of it. 3. A singular combination of eircumstances respecting this cu6tom is, that those who bestow the donations, thus obtained by violence, are Christians - the persons robbed are not unfroquently Christians. members of the same church, and the object of the whole transaction is to convert the heathens to Christianity. 4. Another notable circumstance nttending this custom is, that those who earn the money to buy Bibles for foreign hoathen, and to pay for preaching the Gospel to Pagans, are not permittcd to rcad or rcceicc the Bible themseïoes. This is the general rule: there may be individual exceptions. In most of the States, laws existbidding them the Knowiedge oi..JSüLrs and punisKing by fine and i;v.L7isonment, nny who shall tpr.C lutTii. In some Sta'es it is a penitentiary ofTence to furnish a slavo with a Bible or tract. - Christian masters make and sustain these laws. They make no efforts for their repeal. This may truly be callcd, "the American system." Southern missionary societies send Bi bles and tracts without number into the Mahometan dominions without molcstation: should a Mahometan offer a few leaves of the Koran, or the Bible to slaves, he would find his place in a Southern jaií! Such is Christian liberality in the United States in 1842. 5. To appropriate the earnings of the slave to send the knowledgeof Christianity abroad, without aííowing him a tract or a Bible at home, heathenizes and degrades him. It is doublé cruelty. If any bódy needs all the consolations of religión, tíie slave does. He is cut off from the pursuits ofother men, and has griefs. trials, perplcxities and temptations peculiar to himself. He who has nothing to hope from earth, oüght at least to have the opportunity of securing the happincss of a future State, tt is idle to say that they receive oral nstruction. Of the whol e mass of slaves who belong to Chrislian owners, how many ever receive any religious instruction? A small portion oniy. And hoio much do they receive? What is its nature? Should we be willing to throw away our Bibles, and hang our etemal hopes on what our ministers might teil us? Who has not heard our Northern Protestent clergy declaiming ngainst the Cathoiics for this very thing - taking away the Scriptures from the common pcople, and substituting oral instruction in their stead? Yet these same persons are sometimps ready to apólogize for this very thing tliing when done by Christian slavoholdera! - Shame on such Christians!o. Uut whue religión ís thus disgraccd, nnc tlic robbcry of Christians hy ChrÍ6tianR is thus nationalízod, the amount tliat is nctually paid into the niissionary trcnsnrirs, as the price for doing this. is vcry smal]. The conlrib'itions to the American Board fiom the thirteen slave Statos. for some yenrs past, have been only abont a fifleeñih parí of thn wliole amount received. The rcsult in otlier donominations, is probably similar. Many rcasons exist for thia. Tlie proportion of wliite professors of religión in the slave States is les? than at the North - the standard of Christian pie'y is lower - slave labor is unprofita)le - and rcspcctablc white people do not work nt the South, and earn nothing. while they consume niuch. 7. Those Christians in Michigan who romemer the slave os bound withhim. and are contributors to the national Boards, should think of these hings seriously. Tiiey should remonstrate with he respective Boards, unitedly and earnestly, gainst longcr continuingsuch a connection. Ir a a disgrace to the Christian rollón, and conributes very largcly to uphold the icign of the séavb power in tliis natíon. 8. Tho3c who cannot conscientiously put in their oílerings with the price of blood, should not therefore cense to contribute for the spread of the Gospel through all the earth. Other channcls are now open in variou6 parts of the globe. The Mendi Miewoni the West India Missioii3,and the coadition of the refugces of Canada ha e claims on the sympalhies of Abolitionists. And wc mny ehortly look for the time when the Southern prison Iiougc shall begin lo opon, and the Bibk shall tlicrc bc presented "lo ovory creatme."