The Nineteenth Century is generally believed tobe an enlightened one. Great discoveries have beenmade in the fields of science. Countries which werealmost unknown a century ago are now competingin art and wealth with the mother countries. Civilizationhas made a decided step forward; but insome countries, civilization has made, in one respect,no progress; on the contrary, it has made astep backward.

There is an institution, which is called by manycivilized men a ‘lawful one,’ but which is in realityan institution of ancient barbarity. It is the institutionof slavery! If we take for truth, that civilizationand Christianity go hand in hand, we areastonished to see a civilized and Christian peopleviolating the laws of civilization and of Christianity,by adhering to and nursing said institution of barbarity.Christianity and barbarity will always opposeeach other, and if a nation is trying to make amixture of both, civilization as well as Christianitywill suffer extensively.

[4]The motive of my present writing is not a politicalone. I have been plainly trying to answer thequestion, ‘Can slavery and Christianity go hand inhand together?’ by giving a faithful picture ofwhat I have seen with my own eyes, while residingin some of the slave States for more than ten years.If the glorious redemption through the crucifiedNazarene shall be of equal blessing to every Christian,how can a white Christian treat a Christian ofcolor like a beast? How can the former have aright to sell his black or yellow brother or sister atpublic auction for money or approved paper?

I have no personal ill feeling against the owners ofslaves in the slave States of this Union, but to theirinstitution of slavery, and particularly to theirslave-auctions and to their slave-markets, I am adecided enemy. As a man and a Christian, I amobliged to protest solemnly against an institutionwhich is a burning shame to Christianity, which is abacksliding from civilization to barbarism, a destroyerof family-life, a crime against virtue, and a blasphemyto the cross of the Redeemer!

J. T. K.

They were born as sla