I need not say that I have had nothing to do with getting this matter up.
It is a voluntary appeal by the Protestant clergy of France to their
brethren.
His Excellency William H. Seward, Secretary of
State.
[Translation.]
The Protestant Pastors of France of every
denomination to the Pastors and Ministers of all Evangelical
Denominations in Great Britain.
Paris,
February 12, 1863.
Brothers honored and beloved in the Lord:
It is the glory of England to have given to the world the example of
abolishing, first, the slave trade, and then slavery. It is her
glory not to have intermitted during sixty years the prosecution of
the work of the universal extinction of the traffic and of slavery,
at the cost, it is said, of fifty millions of pounds sterling; and
it is, after God, to the religious men—to the Clarksons, the
Wilberforces, the Buxtons—it is to the missionary societies, that
England owes this glory. Will not the sons and successors of those
great Christians complete their work, in urging their country to
declare aloud for the holy cause of emancipation of the slaves in
the terrible strife which, at this moment, rends the United States
of America?
The civilized world has contemplated nothing more revolting than a
confederation, in great part Protestant, organizing itself, and
claiming independence, with the openly avowed intention of
maintaining and propagating slavery; and laying as the corner-stone
of its constitution the system of slavery actually in existence in
the southern States, and which may be defined to be the right to
treat men as cattle, and give impunity to adultery and homicide. Let
us lay aside all considerations of policy. Is there a Christian who
does not shudder when he hears the chief of this confederation reply
to a decree of emancipation by a sort of menace of extermination?
The triumph of such a cause would throw back for a century that of
Christian civilization and of humanity; would cause angels in heaven
to weep, and would rejoice the demons in hell; throughout the world,
probably, raise the hopes of the favorers of slavery and the trade,
quite ready to come forth at the first signal in Asia, in Africa,
and even in our refined cities of Europe; would give a sad blow to
the work of evangelical missions; and what a terrible responsibility
would it impose on the church which should remain mute whilst
witnessing the accomplishment of this triumph! There is a pacific
means of hastening the close of the war and of bringing it to
conform with the wishes of all friends of humanity; is it not that
the Christians of Europe should give to the cause of emancipation of
the slaves a striking testimonial that may leave only to those who
are fighting to maintain the power to oppress them no hope to find
these Christians ever offering to them the hand. Pastors, ministers
of all evangelical denominations of England, of Scotland, of
Ireland, it is in this we have need of your concurrence, of your
example, of your influence. Place yourselves at our head, and stir
up altogether a great and peaceful demonstration of sympathy for the
black race, so long enchained and abased by Christian nations.
Discourage thus the partisans of slavery, fortify and strengthen
those who would abolish it, whilst preparing them to accept our
counsels. It is in free England that such manifestations may be
powerful. What may we not hope, if throughout Great Britain the
voice of all the ministers of the Crucified, and in France our voice
echoing theirs, should pray and petition that soon there may not be
in the United States a single black man who is not free, a single
black not upon equality with the white.
May God so will it, and may he bless both Great Britain and the
United States, through Christ the great Liberator.
The Protestant Pastors of France of Every
Denomination.
