delight I should have had in having you among the number; you may all
judge of my feeling for these past years, when while preaching from
Sabbath to Sabbath to congregations, I have not been so fortunate as
even to see father, mother, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, nephew,
niece, or cousin in my congregations. While visiting the sick, going to
the house of mourning, and burying the dead, I have been a constant
mourner for you. My sorrow has been that I know you are not in
possession of those hallowed means of grace. I am thankful to you for
those mild and gentle traits of character which you took such care to
enforce upon me in my youthful days. As an evidence that I prize both
you and them, I may say that at the age of thirty-seven, I find them as
valuable as any lessons I have learned, nor am I ashamed to let it be
known to the world, that I am the son of a bond man and a bond woman.

Let me urge upon you the fundamental truths of the Gospel of the Son of
God. Let repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ have
their perfect work in you, I beseech you. Do not be prejudiced against
the gospel because it may be seemingly twisted into a support of
slavery. The gospel rightly understood, taught, received, felt and
practised, is anti-slavery as it is anti-sin. Just so far and so fast as
the true spirit of the gospel obtains in the land, and especially in the
lives of the oppressed, will the spirit of slavery sicken and become
powerless like the serpent with his head pressed beneath the fresh
leaves of the prickly ash of the forest.

There is not a solitary decree of the immaculate God that has been
concerned in the ordination of slavery, nor does any possible
development of his holy will sanctify it.

He has permitted us to be enslaved according to the invention of wicked