American slave will lead you to care for your own poor, and those in
adverse circumstances in your own land, I would ask, Is it possible,
then, that admonition and reproof given in a Christian spirit, and by a
Christian heart, can fail to produce a right influence on a Christian
spirit and a Christian heart? I think the thing is utterly impossible;
and that if such admonitions as are contained in the resolution,
conceived in such a spirit, and so kindly expressed--if they are not
received in a Christian spirit, it is because the Christian spirit has
unhappily fled. I can answer for myself, at least, and many of my
brethren, that it will be so; and, so far from desiring you to withhold
your expressions on account of any bad feeling that they might excite, I
wish you to reiterate them, and reiterate them in the same spirit in
which they are given in this resolution; for I believe that these
expressions of impatience and petulance represent the feelings of very
few. Who is it that always speaks first? The angry man, and it comes out
at once; but the wise man keeps it in till afterwards; and it will not
be long before you will find, that whatever you say in a Christian
spirit will be responded to on the other side of the water. Now, I
believe our churches have neglected their duty on this subject, and are
still neglecting it. Many do not seem to know what their duty is. Yet I
believe them to be good, conscientious men, and men who will do their
duty when they know what it is. Take, for example, the American Board of
Foreign Missions. There are not better men, or more conscientious men,
on the face of the earth, or men more sincerely desirous of doing their
duty; yet, in some things, I believe they are mistaken. I think it would
be better to throw over the very few churches connected with the Board
which are slaveholding, than to endeavor to sustain them, and to have
all this pressure of responsibility still upon them. But yet they are
pursuing the course which they conscientiously think to be right.
Christian admonition will not be lost upon them.[H] I will say the same