North and the South
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I saw that these national fasts were an insult to Jehovah. He accepts
of no such fasts. The recording angel writes in regard to them: “Ye
fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness.”
I was shown how our leading men have treated the poor slaves who
have come to them for protection. Angels have recorded it. Instead
of breaking their yoke and letting the oppressed go free, these men
have made the yoke more galling for them than when in the service
of their tyrannical masters. Love of liberty leads the poor slaves to
leave their masters and risk their lives to obtain liberty. They would
never venture to leave their masters and expose themselves to the
difficulties and horrors attending their recapture if they had not as
strong a love for liberty as any of us. The escaped slaves have endured
untold hardships and dangers to obtain their freedom, and as their last
hope, with the love of liberty burning in their breasts, they apply to
our Government for protection; but their confidence has been treated
with the utmost contempt. Many of them have been cruelly treated
because they committed so great a crime as to dare to make an effort
to obtain their freedom. Great men, professing to have human hearts,
have seen the slaves almost naked and starving, and have abused them,
and sent them back to their cruel masters and hopeless bondage, to
suffer inhuman cruelty for daring to seek their liberty. Some of this
wretched class they thrust into unwholesome dungeons, to live or die,
they cared not which. They have deprived them of the liberty and free
air which heaven has never denied them, and then left them to suffer
for food and clothing. In view of all this, a national fast is proclaimed!
Oh, what an insult to Jehovah! The Lord saith by the mouth of Isaiah:
“Yet they seek Me daily, and delight to know My ways, as a nation
that did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God.”
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The escaped slaves have been told by their masters that the North-
ern men wanted to get possession of them that they might cruelly
misuse them; that the abolitionists would treat them worse than they
had been treated while in slavery. All manner of horrible stories have
been repeated in their ears to make them detest the North, and yet they
have had a confused idea that some hearts in the North felt for their
grievances and would yet make an effort to help them. This has been
the only star which has shed its glimmering light upon their distressed
and gloomy bondage. The manner in which the poor slaves have been
treated has led them to believe that their masters have told them the