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states of the Union we see men, but yesterday burst from the shackles
of slavery, who, by a self-educating force, which cannot be too
much admired, have risen to highly respectable stations in society.
Pennington, among clergymen, Douglas and Ward, among editors, are well
known instances.

If this persecuted race, with every discouragement and disadvantage,
have done thus much, how much more they might do if the Christian church
would act towards them in the spirit of her Lord!

This is an age of the world when nations are trembling and convulsed.
A mighty influence is abroad, surging and heaving the world, as with an
earthquake. And is America safe? Every nation that carries in its bosom
great and unredressed injustice has in it the elements of this last
convulsion.

For what is this mighty influence thus rousing in all nations and
languages those groanings that cannot be uttered, for man's freedom and
equality?

O, Church of Christ, read the signs of the times! Is not this power the
spirit of Him whose kingdom is yet to come, and whose will to be done on
earth as it is in heaven?

But who may abide the day of his appearing? "for that day shall burn
as an oven: and he shall appear as a swift witness against those that
oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow and the fatherless, and
that _turn aside the stranger in his right_: and he shall break in
pieces the oppressor."

Are not these dread words for a nation bearing in her bosom so mighty
an injustice? Christians! every time that you pray that the kingdom
of Christ may come, can you forget that prophecy associates, in dread
fellowship, the _day of vengeance_ with the year of his redeemed?

A day of grace is yet held out to us. Both North and South have been
guilty before God; and the _Christian church_ has a heavy account to
answer. Not by combining together, to protect injustice and cruelty,
and making a common capital of sin, is this Union to be saved,--but
by repentance, justice and mercy; for, not surer is the eternal law by
which the millstone sinks in the ocean, than that stronger law, by which
injustice and cruelty shall bring on nations the wrath of Almighty God!

End of Project Gutenberg's Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe

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