The

slaveholders into full fellowship. The preachers and members of our Protestant denominations alone, own over six hundred thousand slaves. The Methodists, Baptists, and Presbyterians, all have divided on the slavery question, but both divisions tolerate slaveholding. The Methodist Church North, if I am not mistaken, reports between eighty and ninety thousand members in the South, all in full communion with slavery. Even our tract, and missionary, and Sunday-school associations, those mighty agencies for the diffusion of Christian truth, are under slaveholding espionage. The scissors of the peculiar institution must be applied to their publications, which must be so carved and mangled as not to send forth even an intimation that freedom is a blessing, or slavery a curse. The meek and lamb-like clergy and churches of the North submit to this cold-blooded priestly havoc in uncomplaining silence, lest the ire of the slaveholder should be kindled, and the harmony of the Church be endangered. In all the late publications of the American Tract Society, I am informed that not a syllable can be found against slavery. Such sins as Sabbath-breaking, dancing, fine dressing, etc., are abundantly noticed and condemned, but not even a whisper must go forth against the "sum of all villainies." great denominations of the North are thus made to uphold American slavery, and, like our great political organizations, necessarily involve their supporters in the guilt of slaveholding. What then is to be done? Slavery, we see, is thus shamefully espoused by our churches. According to the high authority already quoted, it could not exist a single hour if it were not supported by our religious bodies. It is one of their chief bonds of union; and all that is necessary, he tells us, is that each Christian man, and every Christian church, shall free themselves from all connection with the evil, and this foul national blot shall be wiped out, this "flame from hell" be extinguished. Here, my friends, is the plain and straight path of duty, whoever may blink it; and if our walking therein shall lead to the rending of ecclesiastical bodies, let us remember that righteousness, not peace, should be our primary aim; that "first pure, then peaceable," is the divine order of Christian progress. And yet, we are sometimes solemnly warned against the sundering of outward bonds, as a calamity to the Church! Does the Church consist of an external organization, however many it may enlist under a common name? Do we know so little of Protestantism as to make the Church identical with any known ecclesiastical body? Is the Church rent in twain when a religious denomination is divided? On the contrary, I hold, that we should

welcome divisions, where they proceed from an honest and faithful endeavor to apply Christianity to all known sins. The unity of the Church demands the breaking up of outward organizations, when they espouse and persist in upholding a great wrong. Who believes that Christianity would be blotted out if every overshadowing hierarchy in the land were broken into fragments? The cause of true religion, instead of being mortally wounded, might even be advanced. The free spirit of Congregationalism, strengthened by the shock, might stand up stronger than ever as a breakwater against ecclesiastical tyranny in future; for centralization is not less an evil in religious than in civil matters. The great body of the people, freed from priestly rule, and strong in their religious yearnings, would gather together in smaller flocks under their chosen shepherds, and thus a free Church, armed with every available instrumentality for good, would be found laboring in the cause of Christ, and boldly smiting every form of sin. It becomes us, as Republicans, in my humble judgment, to repudiate the hierarchical idea of a Church, and to inaugurate the Democratic and Christian idea; to forego our love of great ecclesiastical bodies, revolving round a central point of dogma, in the endeavor to unite men of different creeds on the broad platform of practical righteousness, making that the measure of Christian character, the test of Christian fellowship.

A great centralized religious power is unfavorable to free individual thought and action. It is apt to invoke the power of numbers, rather than the spirit of truth, and to mistake denominational sway for the spread of Christianity. It becomes self-seeking, sacrificing even justice and humanity to the desire to gather multitudes under the banner of its creed. It has been well said that "Protestantism can be true to itself, and to its mission in civilizing the world, only when it can say, in sincerity and truth, that it cares less for the creed of Luther, or Calvin, or Fox, or Wesley, than for Christ's distinguishing and everlasting law of righteousness and love."

On this principle, Mr. President, we take our stand, and we should carry it rigidly into practice, whatever the consequences may be to the religious denominations of the country, North or South. If divisions take place, we must say, emphatically, that we are maintaining the unity of the Church, whilst they alone are schismatics who elevate dogma above life, and substitute an outward worldly establishment for the true Church of Christ.

Divisions, I doubt not, will come. The claims of active philan

thropy, if disowned by the teachers and professors of religion, will nevertheless be heard; and they will not heed the prudent counsels of our timid and conservative doctors and ecclesiastics who would forsake father and mother to save their priestly power. To their tyrannical domination we must stand uncompromisingly opposed. They will never gird on the sword of Reform till the victory is won. Our reliance, indeed, must be on Christianity as a divine message to man. It is the light and hope of the world, the inspirer of every good work, the only power "given among men whereby we must be saved." The Church, I fully believe, is to redeem the race. But as in ancient days, so now, the work of reform must begin outside of existing systems, beyond the shadow of our ruling church judicatories, among the great body of the people. We must not commence with the chief priests and rulers, who are always ready to crucify Reform, but like Fox and Wesley take our stand in the midst of the multitude, who have no other interest than to find and embrace the truth.

If we make our appeal to them, and wisely and faithfully labor, we shall triumph. The ruling powers in Church and State, like Pilate and Herod, may combine against us, but we shall be sustained. The strong blast of the world may oppose us, but we shall be wafted onwards by "the trade-winds of heaven." "One strong I find here below, the just thing, the true thing." And a great consolation to Abolitionists it is, that, few in numbers, hated of the world, and branded as fanatics, incendiaries, and madmen, they yet have a perfect assurance, a faith running over with fullness, that an Almighty arm will crown with ultimate success their humble and sincere strivings for freedom and humanity.

THE STATE OF POLITICAL PARTIES THE

SIGNS OF THE TIMES.

DELIVERED AT THE FREE SOIL STATE CONVENTION, INDIANAPOLIS. MAY 25, 1853.

[When this speech was delivered the cause of freedom seemed to have reached its darkest days. General Pierce, elected by an overwhelming majority on the Baltimore Finality Platform, had been inaugurated in March previous, and his administration defiantly launched in the interest of the South. The champions of slavery everywhere regarded their cause as finally triumphant, and this was the general feeling of men of all parties who looked only to the surface of events. The directly opposite view of the situation, however, which is here presented and so variously illustrated, has been fully justified by time.]

MR. PRESIDENT, There are many persons who believe that the anti-slavery movement of this country has perished and passed away. They think it has spent its force, lived out its time, and finally been gathered to its place among the defunct humbugs of the world. And whilst they rejoice that the fierce lion of abolitionism has been tamed into subjection, they welcome to their loving embrace the meek lamb of slavery, and thank God that the millennial day of peace, so long and so devoutly prayed for by hunker politicians and doctors of divinity, has at last been ushered in.

Well, my friends, this view of our cause is certainly full of consolation to those who entertain it, and would be full of sorrow to us did we believe it to be true. Let us, during a brief hour, consider it. Let us cast our eye backward over the past and forward into the future, and determine if we may, our present drifting. And allow me to say in the outset, that our judgment in this matter must greatly depend upon the stand-point from which we view it. A genuine, whole-hearted anti-slavery man always believes his cause to be onward. He no more doubts its progress and its triumph than he doubts his own existence, or that of his Maker. He has faith in rectitude, and in the government of the world by a Providence. He believes that justice is omnipotent, and that oppression and crime must perish, because they are opposed to the beneficent ordainments of the universe. He is not blinded or disheartened by the irregular ebb and flow of political currents, or by facts which drift about upon their surface, but he penetrates beneath

it to those great moral tides which underlie, and heave onward, the politics, the religion, and the whole frame-work of society. Abolitionists have often been branded as infidels; but I am acquainted with no body of men since the introduction of Christianity into the earth, who have evinced so strong, so steadfast, and so vital a faith in the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man. But how different the case of the hardened and unbelieving doughface. He has lost the capacity to discern the truth. His light has been so long hid under the bushel of his party that he can scarcely distinguish it from darkness. He calls evil good, and good evil. His intellect is surfeited with sophistry, and his conscience drugged with compromises. Expediency is the law of his life. Right, with him, is an unmeaning abstraction. He has no faith in the omnipotence of truth. He hath said in his heart there is no God;" or if he believes in a God, he is not a God of justice, of mercy, of universal love, who is no respecter of persons, but a Being who in his main attributes is less a God than a devil. To him Christianity is a riddle, whatever his professions may be; for he brands as fanatics and infidels those who would reduce its first and plainest teachings to practice, and would crucify the Saviour should He come upon the earth in bodily form. Is such a man fit to judge our movement? Of course he believes it to be constantly declining. No chord of his heart vibrates in harmony with it, no aspiration of his soul after goodness awakens within him a faith in its triumphs. He cannot believe. His mind is so hopelessly fastened in the meshes of error, and so twisted and braided with evil that no ray of moral light can penetrate its dark labyrinths.

We must, then, in prosecuting the inquiry before us, rely upon our own judgment, and prefer our own point of vision. We may err in many particulars; we certainly set up no claim to infallibility; but we believe there is no class of persons outside of our ranks whose minds are freer from blinding influences, and from every weight that can encumber the honest action of the judgment.

In regard to the political phases of our cause two facts are frequently referred to in proof of its rapid decline. The first is, the small vote for Hale last year as compared with the vote for Van Buren four years previous; the second is, the overwhelming majority by which General Pierce was elected to the Presidency. Let us briefly examine these supposed crumbs of pro-slavery comfort, and see what there is in them.. In the year 1848, in the State of New York alone, about one hundred thousand men voted the Free Democratic ticket for President, who before that time never had