Page images
PDF
EPUB

peculiar nature. So extensively has this principle been applied by Missionary Societies, that the philosophy in question is now refuted more by facts than reason ing. They have determined whether the races cast out and spurned by this theory, [the theory of a petty and spurious philo sophy, are our brethren, and, as such, entitled to our fraternal yearnings; they have determined who are men, by deter mining who are capable of that universal and exclusive law to man, the love of God, The Negro, through all his shades; the Hottentot, through all his varieties; the Indians of America and the natives of New Holland, have all, in our own days, been inspired with the love of God, through the Gospel: and again we see, that in Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek, Barbarian nor Scythian, bond nor free, but that Christ is all in all, Thus have missionary operations not only enlarged the sphere of benevolence, but extended the vision of a hoodwinked philosophy." Watson, pp. 4, 5.

Then, as to the degree of honour we are to pay to all men, Mr. Watson observes,

"To honour, as the word signifies, is to estimate the value of any thing, and to proportion our regards to the ascertained value. Apply this rule to man. Estimate his value by his Creator's love, and by his Redeemer's sufferings; by his own capa city of religion, of morals, of intellectual advancement, of pleasure, of pain; by his relation to a life and to a death to come; and you will then feel, that to honour man is to respect him under these views and relations; to be anxious for his welfare; to contemplate him, not only with benevolence, but even with awe and fear, lest a prize so glorious should be lost, lest a being so capable should be wretched for ever." Ibid. pp. 5, 6.

But the particular objects for whom the preacher is commissioned to plead, are African Negroes. Their claim to our regard he thus powerfully enforces :—

[ocr errors]

"In touching this subject, allow me one principle, and I desire no more, in behalf of this class of our fellow-men. Allow me, that if, among the various races of human kind, one is to be found which has been treated with greater harshness by the rest, from its possessing in a less degree the means of resistance; one whose history is drawn with a deeper pencilling of injury and wretchedness; that race, where

ever found, is entitled to the largest share of the compassion of the Christian church, and especially of those Christian nations which, in a period of past darkness and crime, have had the greatest share in inflicting this injustice,and you concede to me the ground of a strong appeal in their favour. That appeal I make for the Negro race, the most unfortunate of the family of man. Abundantly has it multiplied, but only to furnish victims to the fraud and avarice of other nations. From age to age its existence may be traced upon its own sunburnt continent; but ages, which have produced revolutions in favour of other countries, have left Africa still the common plunder of every invader who has had hardihood enough to ob durate his heart against humanity, to drag his lengthened lines of enchained captives through the desert, or to suffocate them in the holds of vessels destined to carry them away into hopeless, foreign, and interminable captivity. It has been calculated, that Africa has been annually robbed of one hundred and fifty thousand of her children. Multiply this number by the ages through which the injury has been protracted, and the amount appals and rends the heart. What an accumulation of misery and wrong! Which of the sands of her deserts has not been steeped in tears, wrung out by the pang of separation from kindred and country! What wind has passed over her plains without catching up the sighs of bleeding or broken hearts! And, in what part of the world have not her children been wasted by labours, and degraded by oppressions!

"To oppression has been added insult: they have been denied to be men; or deemed incorrigibly, because physically, embruted and immoral. The former I shall not stay to answer. Your Missionaries have determined that; they have dived into that mine from which we were

often told no valuable ore or precious stone could be extracted, and they have brought up the gem of an immortal spirit, flashing with the light of intellect, and glowing with the hues of Christian graces. But, if it be somewhat too late to chase the Negro out of the current of our common blood, and to sever his relation to Adam and to God, yet may you all see, in publications written, I say not within a century past, but within twelve months of the hour in which you meet to promote the intellectual and moral improvement i of this injured race, that, at least, the Negro is so degenerate a variety of the human species as to defy all cultivation

of mind and all correction of morals."

Ibid. pp. 6, 7.

"And yet, will it be believed, that this contemned race can, as to intellect and genius, exhibit a brighter ancestry than our own? that they are the offshoots, wild and untrained, it is true, but still the offshoots of a stem which was once proudly luxuriant in the fruits of learning and taste, whilst that from which the Goths, their calumniators, have sprung, remained hard, and knotted, and barren? For is Africa without her heraldry of science and of fame?. The only probable account which can be given of the Negro tribes is, that, as Africa was peopled, through Egypt, by three of the descend ants of Ham, they are the offspring of Cush, Misraim, and Put. They found Egypt a morass, and converted it into the most fertile country of the world; they reared its pyramids, invented its hieroglyhics, gave letters to Greece and Rome, and, through them, to us. The everlasting architecture of Africa still exists, the wonder of the world, though in ruins Her mighty kingdoms have yet their record in history. She has poured forth her heroes on the field, given bishops to the church, and martyrs to the fires; and, for Negro physiognomy, as though that could shut out the light of intellect, go to your national museum, contemplate the features of the colossal head of Memnon, and the statues of the divinities on which

the ancient Africans impressed their own forms, and there see, in close resemblance to the Negro feature, the mould of those countenances which once beheld, as the creations of their own immortal genius, the noblest and most stupendous monuments of human skill, and taste, and grandeur. In imperishable porphyry and granite is the unfounded and pitiful slander publicly, and before all the world, refuted. There we see the Negro under cultivation; if he now presents a different aspect, cultivation is wanting: that solves the whole case; for, even now, when education has been expended upon the pure and undoubted Negro, it has never been bestowed in vain. Modern times have witnessed, in the persons of African Negroes, generals, physicians, philosophers, linguists, poets, mathematicians, and merchants, all eminent in their attainments, energetic in enterprise, and honourable in character; and even the mission schools in the West Indies exhibit a quickness of intellect and a thirst for learning to which the schools of this country do not always afford a parallel." Ibid. pp. 7, 8.

pro

Had he

Mr. Watson then proceeds to combat the opinion, that the Negroes are the objects of the prophetic malediction which Noah nounced upon Canaan. been less successful than we think him to have been in this part of the discussion, we should not have been a single iota the less strenuous in our reprobation of slavery. Were we assured that the Negroes were actually suffering under that curse, we should not feel that our duties towards them were at all affected by that circumstance, or that we were the less bound to seek their temporal freedom, and their spiritual and eternal wellbeing.

An entire head of Mr. Watson's very able sermon is devoted to the consideration of the civil condition of the 800,000 Negroes held in bondage in our colonies. He considers that condition only as it is connected with missions, and, in this relation he regards it as illustrating four important points:-1st, The patient and submissive character of the Negroes; which has entitled them to our good will, and given them a claim upon our exertions for their improvement and welfare. 2d, Our criminality in neglecting to instruct them. 3d, The' beneficial tendency of the Christian instruction of the Negroes, which has already triumphed over the obstacles, presented by a state of bondage, to their social improvement. And, 4th, The bearing which the infusion of Christian principles must have on the character and manner of the termination of this opprobrious system.

Under the second of these heads we meet with the following striking remarks:

"When we look at Christianity, as planted in the midst of the Paganism of the West Indies, again, I say, we may blush for its dishonoured name and its withered honours; honours never so tarnished in any hands as our own, and those of a few other Protestant colonial powers. Look at Christianity and look at Pagan

"It connects itself with no violent revolutions, no ensanguined instruments, no violations of order, no storms of passion, no sweeps of vengeance. It is the Gospel of peace. It teaches men to sustain injury with patience until they are relieved by legal means, and to trust rather in that disposing of men's hearts which belongs to God than in an arm of flesh. It does not influence one class of society only; but it advances, wherever it is in progress, with a growing potency upon all." Ibid. p. 17.

ism, as they co-exist in the West Indies: of society;" and though "Christian are they (with a few exceptions, modern instruction must diffuse principles in date and limited in extent) in conflict? and feelings inconsistent with this Has Paganism any fears of attack? has kind of servitude; yet there is noChristianity any ardour of conquest? Age after age passed away, and they still re- thing alarming in this view of the posed together in dull and slumbering tendency of the Gospel." harmony. The form of Christianity was there, but it was destitute of life; the heart was without feeling, and the hand without activity. The Pagan felt that he had no share in the care and compassion of the Christian, and the Christian resigned the Pagan to his ignorance and spiritual dangers ;-as a matter of course, he was to remain untaught, unpitied, and unsaved. There was Christianity, with her whole apparatus of instruction and salvation, and hope and joy; but not for the Negro her temples rose, but to him they were not the house of prayer: the holy font of baptism was there, but not that he might wash away his sins, calling upon the name of the Lord: the broken sacramental bread was there, but not that he might eat and live for ever: the ministers of Christ were there, but the Negroes were considered no part of their charge, nor, from their limited number, could they be to any great extent. What excuse, then, is there, what palliation, for ages of criminal neglect by the nation at large? for this chill and heartless Christianity? Ibid. p. 13.

33

Under the fourth head he remarks,

refers to the effects already próAnother of the preacher's heads duced among the slaves by Christian culture,-1st, By the communication of Christian knowledge. The mind of the slave is previously a mere blank, as to any recognition of God, or any knowledge of the Saviour;

"But, in the minds of thousands of these slaves, this broad and utter blank has, by missionary care, been filled up with that 'excellent knowledge of Christ,' which brings with it all those spirit-stirring, controlling, and cheering truths to which I have just adverted. At "In the present circumstances of the least ten thousand of their children in our world, nothing human can be more cermission schools, and under the instruction tain than that slavery must terminate of missionaries, catch, with the first openthroughout the British empire. No thinking of their understandings, the rays which ing and observant man, who looks abroad upon society, and notices the current of opinion, both as to its strength and direc tion, can doubt of this; at least, I have met with no one who doubts it; and, if the probability of the case be so strong, nothing can be less wise than to refuse to look forward to this approaching, and, whenever it arrives, this important result." Ibid. p. 15.

After considering the possible termination of slavery by the operation of bad principles and passions, issuing in violence and blood, he adverts to the more desirable mode of terminating it, by means of the influence of Christianity. For, though "Christianity, largely and efficiently, diffused, cannot consist with this state

break from this vast scene of religious intelligence; whilst numerous societies and congregations of adults throughout the islands listen to them from the pulpit, meditate on them at their labour, talk of them in the hut, sing them in hymns, and, in admonitory advices, commend them to their children. The light has not fully dissipated the darkness; but that day has broke which never more shall close."

[blocks in formation]

fact, but his quickened industry? What has enabled the Committee of this Society to say, that, for forty years, no slave in your societies has been either a conspirator, a rebel, or insubordinate, but the influence of the precepts of obedience enjoined by the Gospel which they have been taught? What has created so many excellent friends of missions among the planters of the colonies generally, and most in number where your missions have been longest established, and are consequently best known, but the obvious moral improve ment of their people? What are the answers we have been enabled to give to the calumnies with which we have been

assailed? Not hypothetic reasonings from abstract principles; not idle declamations; not promises for the future to atone for the failures of the past; but facts detailed in the annual Reports of the Society, confirmed by the frequent and ample testimony, not of missionaries only, but of persons of the greatest observation and influence in the colonies, of the salutary and important effects of religious care upon the temper, the happiness, and the conduct of the slaves." Ibid. p. 20.

A third effect has been the introduction and establishment of Christian worship among this heathen and long-neglected people; a fourth, the improvement of their domestic habits; and a fifth, the support and comfort derived from religion in trouble, sickness, and death:

"What a contrast in death has been

created among the cable population of these colonies by Christianity! The harsh sounds of Pagan grief and carousal have, in ten thousand instances, given place to the solemn hymn of praise which celebrates the entrance of another redeemed spirit into the mansions of light; the storm of passionate grief, to the calm resignation of piety; and the sad pressure of despair, to the lightened feeling of a hallowed hope. The Negro burial-grounds have, during the last forty years, presented spectacles once unknown-funeral trains, preceded by the Christian pastor, consigning to the mansions of the dead those who, when living, had been taught from his lips how to die, and pronouncing, with a confidence delightfully cheering to his future labours, Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord!'" 24, 25.

Ibid. PP.

The concluding head is occupied in exhibiting the circumstances

which tend to encourage our zeal and perseverance in communicating Christian instruction to the slaves in our colonies:

:

1st, The public recognition, by Parliament and the Government of the country, of the connexion be tween Christian instruction and the amelioration of their civil condition.

2d, The increasing number of friends to the religious instruction of the slaves in the colonies themselves.

3d, The improvement which has taken place in the character of many White and Free people in the colo nies,

4th, The evident blessing of God upon the work.

with slave property stand chargeable with "The majority of persons connected of slaves would not now be degraded and criminal neglect, or the great proportion still more criminally hostile and perseimmoral Pagans. Not a few have been cuting. They have paced round their enclosures of darkness and vice, intent upon nothing so much as to scowl away the messengers of light and mercy, by whatever name they might be called, and to seal up the wretched people under their has been the spirit of individuals in power in ignorance and barbarism. This some islands, and the spirit of the community in others, as Barbadoes and Demerara. But, still, in the colonies col

lectively religion has had its advocates, and slave instruction its fostering friends; and for a few past years the number has been increasing. Pious and benevolent proprietors, at home and abroad, have felt their responsibility to God, and have distinguished themselves by a generous flow of feeling to man; and to them the greater honour is due from us, because they, too, have had to bear the reproach of fanaticism, and have had to dare to be singular. By West Indian liberality have many of our numerous mission chapels been erected, repaired, and enlarged; our expenses relieved, and our missionaries in part supported; and, under patronage of the most respectable kind, they have often been protected from the malice of their assailants, and cheered and encouraged in their labours. In the midst even of the late agitations, the Society has received a their labours than at any former period; greater number of invitations to extend and but that its funds will not yet permit

[ocr errors]

such an exertion, thirty additional missionaries might be sent out this instant, with assurance of acceptance and openings for full and promising labour. This is surely a motive for unabated and even quickened activity. It is only in two or three of those colonies that men calling themselves Christians stand guard before every avenue of the kingdom of darkness, alarmed at the approach of every foot which is shod with the preparation of the Gospel;' painfully and pitifully anxious that Satan should keep his goods in peace,' and placing all their hope of safety and prosperity in the perpetual exclusion of their slaves from the light and hopes of the Gospel. All this alarm at peaceful men and the peaceful Gospel which they preach would be even ridiculous, did it not operate to obstruct a work of so much necessity and mercy. Better thoughts, we trust, will ere long prevail among this class of misinformed or prejudiced persons. For the colonies generally, they are largely open to your work of charity; in almost every place there are some who will give a cheering welcome to your missionaries, and in every place the Negroes themselves are prepared to listen to the heavenly message: for, let what else be said of them, this cannot be alleged, that they turn away their ears from instruction. Plant your missionaries where you will, they will not fail to surround themselves with crowds of attentive Negro hearers." Ibid. pp. 27, 28.

"There was a time when the scene presented by West Indian society was almost unmitigated; when it was an almost unvaried mass of human suffering, on the one hand, and dissipation and immorality on the other: when little was seen but the harsh lord and despairing slave; gloomy servitude and a proud and vexatious tyranny: when almost every youth who was sent from the parent country to take up his residence there, however generous in his nature, however fortified by his education, plunged into an atmosphere thick with the moral infection, and lost, by a rapid process, his humanity, his principles, and his morals. Here was the reaction and the curse of slavery: it had its revenge in the corruption and moral death which spread around it. Men in possession of Christian truth refused to apply the corrective to Paganism, and Paganism turned its transforming power upon them-the white man became black; and the slaves over whom he ruled only served to exasperate his temper, and to give vigour to his passions: they provoked his pride,

irritated his anger, plunged him in sensuality, obdurated his heart, and fixed upon the Christian name the degrading marks of a Heathen character. But better and brighter scenes have now, for many years past, been displaying themselves, partly by the influence of the rising spirit of religion in the parent country extending itself to the colonies, and partly by the direct operations of piety and zeal in the colonies themselves. The benevolent planter, the religious manager, are not unfrequently seen. Many persons resident in towns, of respectable rank in society, have, for some years, given, and are still giving, the influence of their station and the activity of their endeavours to do good. The moral character of the free coloured people, all of whom are intelligent, many of them well educated, and possessed of property, has, in many of the islands, presented a visible and cheering improvement, in spite of the demoralizing effect naturally resulting from that most unchristian and impolitic prejudice indulged by the whites generally against them on account of their colour, and their being considered as a degraded class. A very large number of the females of this class, especially, are rising into character under the influence of religion. The concubinage to which formerly they were doomed, almost without exception, to white men, or to men of their own colour, has in many instances, on the older mission stations, given place to honourable marriages: the character of this class of females has been rescued from its former degradation: character having been given to them, esteem has followed, and, instead of the coloured women being as formerly, and as a matter of course, the objects of seduction, in those islands where the missions have been longest established there are many who, for piety and delicacy of mind and conduct, are not exceeded in any part of the world. From the matrimonial connexions which have been thus formed, founded on mutual esteem, families are now training up in the fear of God, and under the influence of religious example and education; and it is among those eminently exemplary and excellent females of colour, which your missions may place among their most interesting trophies, that we now find teachers for our schools, patronesses and visitors of benevolent societies, instructors and guardians of the virtue of female youth, and active and talented agents for many other offices of pious charity." Ibid. pp. 28, 29.

"We need no laborious and critical in

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »