19 unfold to him the interpretation of the Scriptures which he was reading. The eunuch was enlightened, converted, and baptized, and returned to his home to carry the knowledge of the Gospel of Christ to his fellow-descendants of Ham ; and perhaps then the first seeds were sown of the Church in Abyssinia which exists to this day. The apostles did not find it necessary to establish a slave trade with Africa, or to bring the body of the wretched Africans under the slave lash in order to convert their souls. May we not justly fear that we are now, as a nation, suffering the penalty of our complicity in this great wickedness and sin ? God has said : “ And he that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death” (Exod. xxi. 16) ; and Jeremiah (xxii. 13) writes: “Woe unto him............... that useth his neighbor’s service without wages.” God does visit the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate him, i. e. of those who do not abandon the sins of their fathers ; and the children of this generation share in the iniquities of their fathers by adding to the grievances of those whom their fathers wronged. We are told that Virginia and other Southern states commenced a movement to liberate their slaves, but that it was abandoned in consequence of the interference of Northern fanatics. May we not read in this refusal to grant liberty to the oppressed the real cause of the desolation which has spread over the state which was foremost in that iniquity ? The prophet Jeremiah presents us with a similar case, which drew on it the threatened vengeance of Heaven : “ And ye were now turned, and had done right in my sight, in proclaiming liberty every man to his neighbor : and ye had made a covenant before me in the house which is called by my name ; but ye turned and polluted my name, and caused every man his servant, and every man his handmaid, whom he had set at liberty at their pleasure, to return, and brought them into subjection, to be unto you for servants and for handmaids. Therefore thus saith the Lord, Ye have not hearkened unto me, in proclaiming liberty every one to his brother, and every man to his neighbor : Behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord,
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