mountain and glen, Through cane-brake and forest, -the hunting of men? Right merrily hunting the black man, whose sin Is the curl of his hair and the hue of his skin! Woe, now, to the hunted who turns him at bay! Will our hunters be turned from their purpose and prey? Will their hearts fail within them? their nerves tremble, when The lords of our land to this hunting All roughly they ride to the hunting of have gone, men? [In the report of the celebrated proslavery meeting in Charlestown, S. C., on the 4th of the 9th month, 1835, published in the Courier of that city, it is stated: "The CLERGY of all denominations attended in a body, LENDING THEIR SANCTION TO THE PROCEEDINGS, and adding by their presence to the impressive character of the scene!"] JUST God! - and these are they Who minister at thine altar, God of Right! Men who their hands with prayer and blessing lay On Israel's Ark of light! 49 What! preach and kidnap men? Give thanks, and rob thy own af flicted poor? Talk of thy glorious liberty, and then Bolt hard the captive's door? What! servants of thy own Merciful Son, who came to seek and save The homeless and the outcast, ing down fetter The tasked and plundered slave ! Pilate and Herod, friends! Chief priests and rulers, as of old, combine! Just God and holy is that church, which lends Strength to the spoiler, thine? Paid hypocrites, who turn Judgment aside, and rob the Holy Book those high words of truth which Of And, search and burn In warning and rebuke; Feed fat, ye locusts, feed! in your tasselled pulpits, thank the Lord That, from the toiling bondman's utter need, Ye pile your own full board. How long, O Lord! how long Shall such a priesthood barter truth away, And in thy name, for robbery and wrong At thy own altars pray? Is not thy hand stretched forth Visibly in the heavens, to awe and smite? Shall not the living God of all the earth, Their To And heaven above, do right? Woe, then, to all who grind brethren of a common Father down! all who plunder from the immortal mind Its bright and glorious crown! Woe to the priesthood! woe To those whose hire is with the price of blood, Perverting, darkening, changing, as they go, The searching truths of God! Con well thy lesson o'er, Thy poor disciples sell. O, shame! the Moslem thrall, with his master, to the Prophet kneels, While turning to the sacred Kebla feels His fetters break and fall. Cheers for the turbaned Bey Of robber-peopled Tunis! he hath torn The dark slave-dungeons open, and hath borne Their inmates into day : But our poor slave in vain Turns to the Christian shrine his aching eyes, Its rites will only swell his market price, And rivet on his chain. God of all right! how long Shall priestly robbers at thine altarstand, Lifting in prayer to thee, the bloody hand And haughty brow of wrong? O, from the fields of cane, From the low rice-swamp, from the trader's cell, From the black slave-ship's foul and loathsome hell, And coffle's weary chain, Hoarse, horrible, and strong, Rises to Heaven that agonizing cry, Thou prudent teacher, - tell the toiling Filling the arches of the hollow sky, slave HOW LONG, O GOD, HOW LONG? LINES, WRITTEN ON READING Comes the sorrowful wail of the broken THE MESSAGE Wherever the shackles of tyranny bind, OF GOVERNOR RITNER, SYLVANIA, 1836. OF PENN ing; mind; Who, haters of fraud, give to labor its due; Wherever from kindred, torn rudely Whose fathers, of old, sang in concert apart, with thine, |