Rebellion
339
They would not endure the trial of their faith. What they thought to be
faith was only fanatical presumption.
Those who would be best prepared to sacrifice even life, if required,
rather than place themselves in a position where they could not obey
God, would have the least to say. They would make no boast. They
would feel deeply and meditate much, and their earnest prayers would
go up to heaven for wisdom to act and grace to endure. Those who
feel that in the fear of God they cannot conscientiously engage in this
war will be very quiet, and when interrogated will simply state what
they are obliged to say in order to answer the inquirer, and then let it
be understood that they have no sympathy with the Rebellion.
[358]
There are a few in the ranks of Sabbathkeepers who sympathize
with the slaveholder. When they embraced the truth, they did not
leave behind them all the errors they should have left. They need a
more thorough draft from the cleansing fountain of truth. Some have
brought along with them their old political prejudices, which are not
in harmony with the principles of the truth. They maintain that the
slave is the property of the master, and should not be taken from him.
They rank these slaves as cattle and say that it is wronging the owner
just as much to deprive him of his slaves as to take away his cattle.
I was shown that it mattered not how much the master had paid for
human flesh and the souls of men; God gives him no title to human
souls, and he has no right to hold them as his property. Christ died for
the whole human family, whether white or black. God has made man
a free moral agent, whether white or black. The institution of slavery
does away with this and permits man to exercise over his fellow man
a power which God has never granted him, and which belongs alone
to God. The slave master has dared assume the responsibility of God
over his slave, and accordingly he will be accountable for the sins,
ignorance, and vice of the slave. He will be called to an account for
the power which he exercises over the slave. The colored race are
God’s property. Their Maker alone is their master, and those who
have dared chain down the body and the soul of the slave, to keep him
in degradation like the brutes, will have their retribution. The wrath
of God has slumbered, but it will awake and be poured out without
mixture of mercy.
Some have been so indiscreet as to talk out their pro-slavery
principles—principles which are not heaven-born, but proceed from