Anti-Slavery Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform, Complete

THE CHRISTIAN SLAVE.

In a publication of L. F. Tasistro—Random Shots and Southern Breezes— is a description of a slave auction at New Orleans, at which the auctioneer recommended the woman on the stand as "A GOOD CHRISTIAN!" It was not uncommon to see advertisements of slaves for sale, in which they were described as pious or as members of the church. In one advertisement a slave was noted as "a Baptist preacher."

     A CHRISTIAN! going, gone!
     Who bids for God's own image? for his grace,
     Which that poor victim of the market-place
     Hath in her suffering won?

     My God! can such things be?
     Hast Thou not said that whatsoe'er is done
     Unto Thy weakest and Thy humblest one
     Is even done to Thee?

     In that sad victim, then,
     Child of Thy pitying love, I see Thee stand;
     Once more the jest-word of a mocking band,
     Bound, sold, and scourged again!

     A Christian up for sale!
     Wet with her blood your whips, o'ertask her frame,
     Make her life loathsome with your wrong and shame,
     Her patience shall not fail!

     A heathen hand might deal
     Back on your heads the gathered wrong of years:
     But her low, broken prayer and nightly tears,
     Ye neither heed nor feel.

     Con well thy lesson o'er,
     Thou prudent teacher, tell the toiling slave
     No dangerous tale of Him who came to save
     The outcast and the poor.

     But wisely shut the ray
     Of God's free Gospel from her simple heart,
     And to her darkened mind alone impart
     One stern command, Obey! (3)

     So shalt thou deftly raise
     The market price of human flesh; and while
     On thee, their pampered guest, the planters smile,
     Thy church shall praise.

     Grave, reverend men shall tell
     From Northern pulpits how thy work was blest,
     While in that vile South Sodom first and best,
     Thy poor disciples sell.

     Oh, shame! the Moslem thrall,
     Who, 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 altar stand,
     Lifting in prayer to Thee, the bloody hand
     And haughty brow of wrong?

     1843