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Wendell Phillips, Theodore C. Pease, Speeches, Lectures and Letters of Wendell Phillips: Volume 1, chapter 14 (search)
or proclaim that it is wrong to sell a man at auction, and not have him show himself as he is. Put a hound in the presence of a deer, and he springs at his throat if he is a true bloodhound. Put a Christian in the presence of a sin, and he will spring at its throat if he is a true Christian. Into an acid we may throw white matter, but unless it is chalk, it will not produce agitation. So if in a world of sinners you were to put American Christianity, it would be calm as oil. But put one Christian, like John Brown of Osawatomie, and he makes the whole crystallize into right and wrong, and marshal themselves on one side or the other. God makes him the text, and all he asks of our comparatively cowardly lips is to preach the sermon, and say to the American people that, whether that old man succeeded in a worldly sense or not, he stood a representative of law, of government, of right, of justice, of religion, and they were a mob of murderers who gathered about him, and sought to wreak
Wendell Phillips, Theodore C. Pease, Speeches, Lectures and Letters of Wendell Phillips: Volume 1, chapter 16 (search)
s perfumes; Leave to the sordid race of Tyre Their dyeing-vats and looms; Leave to the sons of Carthage The rudder and the oar; Leave to the Greek his marble nymphs, And scrolls of wordy lore ;-- but for us, the children of a purer civilization, the pioneers of a Christian future, it is for us to found a Capitol whose corner-stone is Justice, and whose top-stone is Liberty; within the sacred precincts of whose Holy of Holies dwelleth One who is no respecter of persons, but hath made of one blood all nations of the earth to serve him. Crowding to the shelter of its stately arches, I see old and young, learned and ignorant, rich and poor, native and foreign, Pagan, Christian, and Jew, black and white, in one glad, harmonious, triumphant procession! Blest and thrice blest the Roman Who sees Rome's brightest day; Who sees that long victorious pomp Wind down the sacred way, And through the bellowing Forum, And round the suppliant's Grove. Up to the everlasting gates Of Capitolian Jove!
Wendell Phillips, Theodore C. Pease, Speeches, Lectures and Letters of Wendell Phillips: Volume 2, Capital punishment (1855） (search)
this right, they give it to you in a Hebrew verse of the Old Testament, which, they say, not only confers the right, but actually enjoins it as an obligation, blood for blood! They claim that this question lies entirely outside of the province of usual legislation. That is a very suspicious claim, to begin with. You are asked to give your support to a law which avowedly transcends your Constitution, on the ground that it belongs to the theory of Christianity. But who says this is a Christian government? It recognizes the Jew, the Mohammedan, or anybody else, as a voter and entitled to an equality of right. I do not say, gentlemen, that the spirit of Christianity does not permeate its laws; I simply say, this government does not recognize Christianity as an essential characteristic of its component parts. You come now to the Bible. You come now to this verse of the Old Testament; and upon this verse hangs the whole theory of government, the whole theory of this legislatio
Wendell Phillips, Theodore C. Pease, Speeches, Lectures and Letters of Wendell Phillips: Volume 2, The Purtian principle and John Brown (1859). (search)
ed in submission to law. They tore off the semblance of law; they revealed despotism. John Brown has done the same for us to-day. The slave system has lost its fascination. It had a certain picturesque charm for some. It called itself chivalry, and a State. One assault has broken the charm,--it is despotism! Look how barbarous it is! Take a single instance. A young girl throws herself upon the bosom of a Northern boy who himself had shown mercy, and endeavors to save him from the Christian rifles of Virginia. They tore her off, and the pitiless bullet found its way to the brave, young heart. She stands upon the streets of that very town, and dares not avow the motive — glorious, humane instinct — that led her to throw herself on the bosom of the hapless boy! She bows to the despotism of her brutal State, and makes excuses for her humanity! That is the Christian Virginia of 1859. In 1608 an Indian girl flung herself before her father's tomahawk on the bosom of an English
Lydia Maria Child, Letters of Lydia Maria Child (ed. John Greenleaf Whittier, Wendell Phillips, Harriet Winslow Sewall), To Hon. George W. Julian. (search)
To Hon. George W. Julian. April 8, 1865. We must not forget that all great revolutions and reformations would look mean and meagre if examined in detail as they occurred at the time. We talk of Constantine as the Christian Emperor; but it is more than doubtful whether he ever adopted, or even understood, the first principles of Christianity. The converts to the new religion had become so numerous that they were an element of power; and if he did not avail himself of their influence, rivals would. If their church could prop up his throne, he was very willing it should become the religion of the state. If we examine into the Protestant reformation we shall find that the sincere and earnest men engaged in it bore no greater proportion to the time-serving and self-seeking than do the thorough anti-slavery men to the politicians of our own time. And then what base agents helped on that great work I Who would have supposed that Henry the Eighth could have been turned to any good
Lydia Maria Child, Letters of Lydia Maria Child (ed. John Greenleaf Whittier, Wendell Phillips, Harriet Winslow Sewall), Appendix. (search)
— that negative and aggressive element to which Emerson has, of late, so strongly objected. She was penetrated with a deep religious fervor; as devotional, as profound and tender a sentiment as the ignorant devotee. It has been my lot to find more bigotry and narrowness among free religionists than among their opponents. But Mrs. Child in her many-sidedness did not merely bear with other creeds; she heartily sympathized with all forms of religious belief, pagan, classic, oriental, and Christian. All she asked was that they should be real. That condition present, she saw lovingly their merits and gave to each the fullest credit for its honesty of purpose. Her Progress of Religious Ideas was no mere intellectual effort. It was the natural utterance of a deep, kindly, and respectful sympathy with each. There was no foolish tenderness, no weak sentimentality about her. She held every one, as she did herself, strictly to the sternest responsibility. Still there was the most lo
Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Cheerful Yesterdays, chapter 6 (search)
re of reformatory action opened for me in an invitation to take charge of the Worcester Free Church, the first of several such organizations that sprang up about that time under the influence of Theodore Parker's Boston society, which was their prototype. These organizations were all more or less of the Jerusalem wildcat description — this being the phrase by which a Lynn shoemaker described one of them — with no church membership or communion service, not calling themselves specifically Christian, but resembling the ethical societies of the present day, with a shade more of specifically religious aspect. Worcester was at that time a seething centre of all the reforms, and I found myself almost in fashion, at least with the unfashionable; my evening congregations were the largest in the city, and the men and women who surrounded me — now almost all passed away — were leaders in public movements in that growing community. Before my transfer, however, I went up to Boston on my firs
Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 1, Chapter 5: Bennington and the Journal of the Times—1828-29. (search)
le bodies the propriety of adopting some measures for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia. Your petitioners deem it unnecessary to attempt to maintain, by elaborate arguments, that the existence of slavery is highly detrimental to the happiness, peace and prosperity of that nation in whose bosom and under whose auspices it is nourished; and especially, that it is inconsistent with the spirit of our government and laws. All this is readily admitted by every patriot and Christian. But the time has come when the sincerity of our professions should be evinced not by words merely. The toleration of slavery in the District of Columbia, it is conceived, can be justified on no tenable grounds. On the contrary, so long as it continues, just so long will it be a reproach to our national character. This District is the property of the nation; its internal government, therefore, is a matter that concerns every individual. We are ashamed, when we know that the manacled
Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 1, Chapter 10: Prudence Crandall.—1833. (search)
e black-list. Judson was in July made a local agent of the Windham Co. Colonization Society, and orator for the next meeting. Like him, Harris lived on a corner opposite Miss Crandall's school. Be it so, said Squire Judson, in an address Lib. 3.107, 43, 54. to the Colonization Society signed by the civil authority and selectmen under date of March 22, 1833. We appeal to the American Colonization Society, to which our statement is addressed—we appeal to every philanthropist, to every Christian—we appeal to the enlightened citizens of our native State and the friends of our country; and in making that appeal we assure them all that they may rely upon the facts here stated, and we ask them to apply to these facts those wholesome principles which we believe are universally cherished in New England, and the issue we will abide. He declared that the school was to become an auxiliary in the work of immediate abolition, with the Liberator for its mouthpiece; that Miss Crandall had de
Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879; the story of his life told by his children: volume 1, Chapter 12: American Anti-slavery Society.—1833. (search)
aw him attached to his country by the dearest ties, but loathing her follies and abhorring her crimes. He has put the anti-slavery movement forward a quarter of a century. A fellow-passenger with Mr. Garrison from Europe—a clergyman of much intelligence—on arriving in this country heard that he was called a fanatic and a madman. What, said he, do you call such a man a fanatic? Do you deem such a man insane? For six weeks have I been with him, and a more discreet, humble and faithful Christian I never saw. Sir, we should throw the shield of our protection and esteem around Mr. Garrison. His life is exposed at this moment. At the door of this saloon, a young man from the South said to-day that if he had opportunity, he would dip his hand in his heart's blood. A demoniac son of a slaveholder, at the entrance of the Adelphi Hall, threatened to wash his hands in Garrison's blood. A bystander, of the abolitionists, said: I will bare my breast to receive any indignity you ma
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