The North Star (Rochester)/1848/01/14/An Extract
AN EXTRACT.
There is a heresy—a most death-dealing heresy—prevalent among both white and colored people in this land, in regard to the abolition of slavery. It may be best expressed in the language of its own choice, to wit: "Slavery will be abolished just when the Lord shall will its abolition." That white persons, especially pro-slavery ministers, and hypocritical Lectors of Divinity, should use this miserable cant, does not excite my surprise as much as my indignation; but that colored persons should be gulled and lulled into a state of indifference about their rights on such a plea, fills me with unmingled mortification. It is a delusion and a snare, to think that Almighty God will undertake for ourselves. His work is done; ours alone remains to be done.
God's work, is as complete in the moral and intellectual elements of creation as it is in the physical works of creation, and we give as much right to expect that he will make the corn to grow and give us an abundant harvest, without effort on our part, as to expect that we shall be a free and happy people, without effort on our part. If there be one thing in our people which I abominate more than another, it is their everlasting praying for blessings which they are unwilling to labor for. Remember, when a slave, I used to pray that the Lord would give me freedom. I prayed thus three years, and was as far from freedom in that way the third year as the first; and I might have prayed in slavery till this time, had I not "prayed with my heels." Our works must be consistent with our prayers, otherwise they are an abomination before God. We shall redeem the slave at the South, and obtain equal rights at the North, just so soon as we have faithfully used these means which God and Nature have placed within our reach, and not before. The days of miracles have passed. Truth, Love and Justice are the instruments of salvation, and "he only is free whom the Truth makes free." The Almighty will not make the ignorant intelligent, the degraded respectable, the drunken sober, nor the indolent industrious. In these respects man is to work out his own salvation, and God will bless him in the effort.