ADDRESS. Christian Brethren : The signs of the times plainly indicate that a change, in reference to slavery, must speedily take place in our republic. Loud lamentations over the evil of human bondage have been resounded, until the voice of wailing and anguish makes no more impression than the mock sorrows of an Irish wake. Promises of amendment and gradual emancipation have been repeated until the most credulous infatuation can no longer be deceived by their emptiness and vanity. During this period, the sin of slavery has incalculably been multiplied, and the groans of the tortured, and the barbarity of their task-masters, have been infinitely extended. The most melancholy portion of all this wickedness and misery, is, that it has been clothed with a mask, and honored by a christian name. It is indubitable, that the present existence of slavery, in the United States, máy chiefly be imputed to the professed disciples of Jesus, the Prince of philanthropists, one part of whose divine mission it was, to "preach deliverance to the captives." Although all the denominations of christians, with one or two exceptions, are culpable in this respect, in a higher or less degree; and although the censure is almost generally applicable, yet our church is peculiarly condemnable. With the exception of the Episcopal Methodists, and the Friends, with some of the minor divisions of the christian family, whose influence is comparatively unimportant, I know not any one of the large compacted churches, which has formally recorded in their standards of faith and discipline, an indignant denunciation of slavery, except the Presby terian church. |