Читать книгу Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands (Vol.1&2). Letters & Travel Sketches from Europe онлайн

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"We will not dwell on the ordinary topics—on the progress of civilization; on the advance of freedom every where; on the rights and requirements of the nineteenth century; but we appeal to you very seriously to reflect, and to ask counsel of God, how far such a state of things is in accordance with his holy word, the inalienable rights of immortal souls, and the pure and merciful spirit of the Christian religion.

"We do not shut our eyes to the difficulties, nay, the dangers, that might beset the immediate abolition of that long-established system; we see and admit the necessity of preparation for so great an event; but in speaking of indispensable preliminaries, we cannot be silent on those laws of your country which, in direct contravention of God's own law, instituted in the time of man's innocency, deny, in effect, to the slave the sanctity of marriage, with all its joys, rights, and obligations; which separate, at the will of the master, the wife from the husband, and the children from the parents. Nor can we be silent on that awful system which, either by statute or by custom, interdicts to any race of men, or any portion of the human family, education in the truths of the gospel, and the ordinances of Christianity.