iety of this sentiment
was not exactly suited to the meridian of Massachusetts, he says his
friend undoubtedly meant "a fantastical notion of religion." Of course,
he regards the religious prejudice against hunting and enslaving men as
springing from a fantastic notion of religion. Yet, with a strange
fatuity, he confesses that "the teaching of Christ and his Apostles is a
sure guide to duty in _politics_, as in any other concern of life,"
utterly oblivious of the fact, that the "higher law," which he
ridicules, was proclaimed in that very teaching. Christ taught, "Fear
not them [magistrates] who kill the body, but are not able to kill the
soul, but rather fear HIM who is able to destroy both soul and body in
hell." What taught the Apostles? "We must obey God, rather than man."
Such teaching it was, that gave birth to "the noble army of martyrs,"
and this very teaching will induce multitudes of Christians at the
present day to hazard fines and imprisonment rather than obey the wicked
injunctions of your law. It was this same teaching which, on the
publication of your law, induced numerous ministers of Jesus Christ, and
various ecclesiastical assemblies, to denounce it as wicked, and
obedience to it as rebellion against God. This expression of religious
sentiment alarmed both our politicians and our merchants. How could the
one expect Southern votes, or the other Southern trade, if the religious
people at the North refused to catch slaves? Hence arose a mighty outcry
against the blending of religion with politics, and most fearful were
the anathemas against the parsons who desecrated the pulpit by preaching
politics, that is, preaching that people ought to obey God rather than
the Fugitive Slave Act. Such men were, in the language of one of the New
York commercial journals, "clerical preachers of rebellion," and their
congregations were exhorted to "leave them to naked walls." But the
leaven was at work, and an antidote was greatly wanted. Supply of course
follows demand, and forthwith there was a sudden advent of cotton
clergyman, preaching against rebellion, and cunningly confounding a
conscientious, passive disobedience with forcible resistance. Their
sermons, in which virtually

"The image of God was accounted as base,
And the image of Caesar set up in its place,"

were received with mighty applause by the very men who had been striving
to save the pulpit from all contaminating contact with politics, and the