Page:A memoir of Granville Sharp.djvu/49

Rh the two, turn up his colored nose at the other, because he is colored too: or if, as is sometimes the case, the nose of scorn alone is colored, and the sufferer is evidently white, then, the conviction of one drop of African blood mingling with the European streams in his veins, or the fearful fact, that the mother to whom God gave him, was a slave!! sanctions his degradation, and the colored nose curls higher still, distended with magnanimous superiority! So, worse than barbarian, can civilization be! So, deeper in the guilt of caste, can men called christians, plunge themselves, than even the Hindoos do! How glorious is the fact, that we have another standard. "Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name," that His word stands sure forever; that we read in a record against which earth and hell united, cannot prevail, "that, he who loveth God, should love his brother also;" 1 John iv. 21; and again, "he that loveth not his brother abideth in death;" 1 John, iii. 14. What! a christian, and a despiser of his brother, because he does not come up to the petty standard of national prejudice and pride. What—a christian, and a keeper back, by force or fraud, of the laborers wages!! A christian, and an oppressor. A christian, and exercising oppression!! A christian, and yet robbing the poor, because he is poor; robbing him of his liberty, his time, his labor, his safety, his right to the Bible and to the unfettered preaching of the cross of Christ!! to the cultivation of his own mind, and the freedom of his own choice!!

Must not such christianity be, indeed, the "loudest laugh of hell." What can strengthen infidelity so much, as calling such a thing, christianity! What upright mind could exist, which would not forever prefer infidelity to such christianity! What could satan desire more, for the perdition of this world, than that the world should be filled with such christians. Men to men, "as wolves, for rapine—as the fox, for wiles—pursuing and pursued, each others prey," each seeking every opportunity, and grasping every excuse to lord it over his brother. Oh, how different was the life of Him, who went about doing good—"who came not to be ministered unto, but to minister"—