There are in this class of people activity, zeal4, unflinching conscientiousness5, clear intellectual discriminations between truth and error, and great logical and doctrinal correctness; but there is a want of that spirit of love, without which, in the eye of Christ, the most perfect character is as deficient7 as a wax flower—wanting in life and perfume.
Yet this blessed principle is not dead in their hearts, but only sleepeth; and so great is the real and genuine goodness, that, when the true magnet of divine love is applied8, they always answer to its touch.
So when the gentle Eva, who is an impersonation in childish form of the love of Christ, solves at once, by a blessed instinct, the problem which Ophelia has long been unable to solve by dint9 of utmost hammering and vehement10 effort, she at once, with a good and honest heart, perceives and acknowledges her mistake, and is willing to learn even of a little child.
Miss Ophelia, again, represents one great sin, of which, unconsciously, American Christians11 have allowed themselves to be guilty. Unconsciously it must be, for nowhere is conscience so predominant as among this class, and nowhere is there a more honest strife13 to bring every thought into captivity14 to the obedience15 of Christ.
One of the first and most declared objects of the gospel has been to break down all 31those irrational16 barriers and prejudices which separate the human brotherhood17 into diverse and contending clans18. Paul says, “In Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian19, Scythian, bond nor free.” The Jews at that time were separated from the Gentiles by an insuperable wall of prejudice. They could not eat and drink together, nor pray together. But the apostles most earnestly labored to show them the sin of this prejudice. St. Paul says to the Ephesians, speaking of this former division, “He is our peace, who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us.”
It is very easy to see that although slavery has been abolished in the New England States, it has left behind it the most baneful20 feature of the system—that which makes American worse than Roman slavery—the prejudice of caste and color. In the New England States the negro has been treated as belonging to an inferior race of beings;—forced to sit apart by himself in the place of worship; his children excluded from the schools; himself excluded from the railroad-car and the omnibus, and the peculiarities21 of his race made the subject of bitter contempt and ridicule22.
This course of conduct has been justified23 by saying that they are a degraded race. But how came they degraded? Take any class of men, and shut them from the means of education, deprive them of hope and self-respect, close to them all avenues of honorable ambition, and you will make just such a race of them as the negroes have been among us.
So singular and so melancholy24 is the dominion25 of prejudice over the human mind, that professors of Christianity in our New England States have often, with very serious self-denial to themselves, sent the gospel to heathen as dark-complexioned as the Africans, when in their very neighborhood were persons of dark complexion27, who, on that account, were forbidden to send their children to the schools, and discouraged from entering the churches. The effect of this has been directly to degrade and depress the race, and then this very degradation28 and depression has been pleaded as the reason for continuing this course.
Not long since the writer called upon a benevolent29 lady, and during the course of the call the conversation turned upon the incidents of a fire which had occurred the night before in the neighborhood. A deserted30 house had been burned to the ground. The lady said it was supposed it had been set on fire. “What could be any one’s motive31 for setting it on fire?” said the writer.
“Well,” replied the lady, “it was supposed that a colored family was about to move into it, and it was thought that the neighborhood wouldn’t consent to that. So it was supposed that was the reason.”
This was said with an air of innocence32 and much unconcern.
The writer inquired, “Was it a family of bad character?”
“No, not particularly, that I know of,” said the lady; “but then they are negroes, you know.”
Now, this lady is a very pious33 lady. She probably would deny herself to send the gospel to the heathen, and if she had ever thought of considering this family a heathen family, would have felt the deepest interest in their welfare; because on the subject of duty to the heathen she had been frequently instructed from the pulpit, and had all her religious and conscientious6 sensibilities awake. Probably she had never listened from the pulpit to a sermon which should exhibit the great truth, that “in Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free.”
Supposing our Lord was now on earth, as he was once, what course is it probable that he would pursue with regard to this unchristian prejudice of color?
There was a class of men in those days as much despised by the Jews as the negroes are by us; and it was a complaint made of Christ that he was a friend of publicans and sinners. And if Christ should enter, on some communion season, into a place of worship, and see the colored man sitting afar off by himself, would it not be just in his spirit to go there and sit with him, rather than to take the seats of his richer and more prosperous brethren?
It is, however, but just to our Northern Christians to say that this sin has been committed ignorantly and in unbelief, and that within a few years signs of a much better spirit have begun to manifest themselves. In some places, recently, the doors of school-houses have been thrown open to the children, and many a good Miss Ophelia has opened her eyes in astonishment34 to find that, while she has been devouring35 the Missionary36 Herald37, and going without butter on her bread and sugar in her tea to send the gospel to the Sandwich Islands, there is a very thriving colony of heathen in her 32own neighborhood at home; and, true to her own good and honest heart, she has resolved, not to give up her prayers and efforts for the heathen abroad, but to add thereunto labors38 for the heathen at home.
Our safety and hope in this matter is this: that there are multitudes in all our churches who do most truly and sincerely love Christ above all things, and who, just so soon as a little reflection shall have made them sensible of their duty in this respect, will most earnestly perform it.
It is true that, if they do so, they may be called Abolitionists; but the true Miss Ophelia is not afraid of a hard name in a good cause, and has rather learned to consider “the reproach of Christ a greater treasure than the riches of Egypt.”
That there is much already for Christians to do in enlightening the moral sense of the community on this subject, will appear if we consider that even so well-educated and gentlemanly a man as Frederick Douglass was recently obliged to pass the night on the deck of a steamer, when in delicate health, because this senseless prejudice deprived him of a place in the cabin; and that that very laborious39 and useful minister, Dr. Pennington, of New York, has, during the last season, been often obliged seriously to endanger his health, by walking to his pastoral labors, over his very extended parish, under a burning sun, because he could not be allowed the common privilege of the omnibus, which conveys every class of white men, from the most refined to the lowest and most disgusting.
Let us consider now the number of professors of the religion of Christ in New York, and consider also that, by the very fact of their profession, they consider Dr. Pennington the brother of their Lord, and a member with them of the body of Christ.
Now, these Christians are influential40, rich and powerful; they can control public sentiment on any subject that they think of any particular importance, and they profess26, by their religion, that “if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it.”
It is a serious question, whether such a marked indignity41 offered to Christ and his ministry42, in the person of a colored brother, without any remonstrance43 on their part, will not lead to a general feeling that all that the Bible says about the union of Christians is a mere44 hollow sound, and means nothing.
Those who are anxious to do something directly to improve the condition of the slave, can do it in no way so directly as by elevating the condition of the free colored people around them, and taking every pains to give them equal rights and privileges.
This unchristian prejudice has doubtless stood in the way of the emancipation45 of hundreds of slaves. The slave-holder, feeling and acknowledging the evils of slavery, has come to the North, and seen evidences of this unkindly and unchristian state of feeling towards the slave, and has thus reflected within himself:
“If I keep my slave at the South, he is, it is true, under the dominion of a very severe law; but then he enjoys the advantage of my friendship and assistance, and derives46, through his connection with me and my family, some kind of a position in the community. As my servant he is allowed a seat in the car and a place at the table. But if I emancipate47 and send him North, he will encounter substantially all the disadvantages of slavery, with no master to protect him.”
This mode of reasoning has proved an apology to many a man for keeping his slaves in a position which he confesses to be a bad one; and it will be at once perceived that, should the position of the negro be conspicuously48 reversed in our northern states, the effect upon the emancipation of the slave would be very great. They, then, who keep up this prejudice, may be said to be, in a certain sense, slave-holders.
It is not meant by this that all distinctions of society should be broken over, and that people should be obliged to choose their intimate associates from a class unfitted by education and habits to sympathize with them.
The negro should not be lifted out of his sphere of life because he is a negro, but he should be treated with Christian12 courtesy in his sphere. In the railroad car, in the omnibus and steamboat, all ranks and degrees of white persons move with unquestioned freedom side by side; and Christianity requires that the negro have the same privilege.
That the dirtiest and most uneducated foreigner or American, with breath redolent of whiskey and clothes foul49 and disordered, should have an unquestioned right to take a seat next to any person in a railroad car or steamboat, and that the respectable, decent and gentlemanly negro should be excluded simply because he is a negro, cannot be considered otherwise than as an irrational and unchristian thing: and any Christian who allows such things done in his presence without remonstrance, and the use of his Christian influence, will certainly be made deeply sensible of his error when he comes at last to direct and personal interview with his Lord.
There is no hope for this matter, if the love of Christ is not strong enough, and if it cannot be said, with regard to the two races, “He is our peace who hath made both one, and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us.”
The time is coming rapidly when the upper classes in society must learn that their education, wealth and refinement50, are not their own; that they have no right to use them for their own selfish benefit; but that they should hold them rather, as Fenelon expresses it, as “a ministry,” a stewardship52, which they hold in trust for the benefit of their poorer brethren.
In some of the very highest circles in England and America we begin to see illustrious examples of the commencement of such a condition of things.
One of the merchant princes of Boston, whose funeral has lately been celebrated53 in our city, afforded in his life a beautiful example of this truth. His wealth was the wealth of thousands. He was the steward51 of the widow and the orphan54. His funds were a savings55 bank, wherein were laid up the resources of the poor; and the mourners at his funeral were the scholars of the schools which he had founded, the officers of literary institutions which his munificence56 had endowed, the widows and orphans57 whom he had counselled and supported, and the men, in all ranks and conditions of life, who had been made by his benevolence58 to feel that his wealth was their wealth. May God raise up many men in Boston to enter into the spirit and labors of Amos Lawrence!
This is the true socialism, which comes from the spirit of Christ, and, without breaking down existing orders of society, by love makes the property and possessions of the higher class the property of the lower.
Men are always seeking to begin their reforms with the outward and physical. Christ begins his reforms in the heart. Men would break up all ranks of society, and throw all property into a common stock; but Christ would inspire the higher class with that Divine Spirit by which all the wealth and means and advantages of their position are used for the good of the lower.
We see, also, in the highest aristocracy of England, instances of the same tendency.
Among her oldest nobility there begin to arise lecturers to mechanics and patrons of ragged59 schools; and it is said that even on the throne of England is a woman who weekly instructs her class of Sunday-school scholars from the children in the vicinity of her country residence.
In this way, and not by an outward and physical division of property, shall all things be had in common. And when the white race shall regard their superiority over the colored one only as a talent intrusted for the advantage of their weaker brother, then will the prejudice of caste melt away in the light of Christianity.
点击
收听单词发音
收听单词发音 |
1
labor
|
|
| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
liars
|
|
| 说谎者( liar的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
labored
|
|
| adj.吃力的，谨慎的v.努力争取(for)( labor的过去式和过去分词 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
zeal
|
|
| n.热心，热情，热忱 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
conscientiousness
|
|
| 责任心 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
conscientious
|
|
| adj.审慎正直的，认真的，本着良心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
deficient
|
|
| adj.不足的，不充份的，有缺陷的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
applied
|
|
| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
dint
|
|
| n.由于，靠；凹坑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
vehement
|
|
| adj.感情强烈的；热烈的；(人)有强烈感情的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
Christians
|
|
| n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
Christian
|
|
| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
strife
|
|
| n.争吵，冲突，倾轧，竞争 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
captivity
|
|
| n.囚禁；被俘；束缚 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
obedience
|
|
| n.服从，顺从 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
irrational
|
|
| adj.无理性的，失去理性的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
brotherhood
|
|
| n.兄弟般的关系，手中情谊 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
clans
|
|
| 宗族( clan的名词复数 )； 氏族； 庞大的家族； 宗派 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
barbarian
|
|
| n.野蛮人；adj.野蛮(人)的；未开化的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
baneful
|
|
| adj.有害的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
peculiarities
|
|
| n. 特质, 特性, 怪癖, 古怪 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
ridicule
|
|
| v.讥讽，挖苦；n.嘲弄 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
justified
|
|
| a.正当的，有理的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
melancholy
|
|
| n.忧郁，愁思；adj.令人感伤（沮丧）的，忧郁的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
dominion
|
|
| n.统治，管辖，支配权；领土，版图 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
profess
|
|
| v.声称，冒称，以...为业，正式接受入教，表明信仰 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
complexion
|
|
| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
degradation
|
|
| n.降级；低落；退化；陵削；降解；衰变 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
benevolent
|
|
| adj.仁慈的，乐善好施的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
deserted
|
|
| adj.荒芜的，荒废的，无人的，被遗弃的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
motive
|
|
| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
innocence
|
|
| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
pious
|
|
| adj.虔诚的；道貌岸然的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
astonishment
|
|
| n.惊奇，惊异 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
devouring
|
|
| 吞没( devour的现在分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
missionary
|
|
| adj.教会的，传教(士)的；n.传教士 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
herald
|
|
| vt.预示...的来临，预告，宣布，欢迎 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
labors
|
|
| v.努力争取(for)( labor的第三人称单数 )；苦干；详细分析；（指引擎）缓慢而困难地运转 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
laborious
|
|
| adj.吃力的，努力的，不流畅 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
influential
|
|
| adj.有影响的，有权势的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
indignity
|
|
| n.侮辱，伤害尊严，轻蔑 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
42
ministry
|
|
| n.(政府的)部；牧师 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
43
remonstrance
|
|
| n抗议，抱怨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
44
mere
|
|
| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
45
emancipation
|
|
| n.（从束缚、支配下）解放 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
46
derives
|
|
| v.得到( derive的第三人称单数 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
47
emancipate
|
|
| v.解放，解除 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
48
conspicuously
|
|
| ad.明显地，惹人注目地 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
49
foul
|
|
| adj.污秽的；邪恶的；v.弄脏；妨害；犯规；n.犯规 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
50
refinement
|
|
| n.文雅；高尚；精美；精制；精炼 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
51
steward
|
|
| n.乘务员，服务员；看管人；膳食管理员 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
52
stewardship
|
|
| n. n. 管理工作；管事人的职位及职责 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
53
celebrated
|
|
| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
54
orphan
|
|
| n.孤儿；adj.无父母的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
55
savings
|
|
| n.存款，储蓄 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
56
munificence
|
|
| n.宽宏大量，慷慨给与 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
57
orphans
|
|
| 孤儿( orphan的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
58
benevolence
|
|
| n.慈悲，捐助 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
59
ragged
|
|
| adj.衣衫褴褛的，粗糙的，刺耳的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |