Pictures of Slavery in Church and State by John Dixon Long

Author:John Dixon Long [Long, John Dixon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Slavery, Ethnic Studies, African American Studies
ISBN: 9788026883302
Google: 9ItODwAAQBAJ
Publisher: e-artnow
Published: 2018-02-10T05:51:15+00:00

SLAVERY AND REVIVALS.

By a revival of religion I mean a more than ordinarily gracious outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon an individual, or church. A revival is to the moral and religious world what an earthquake is to the natural or physical world. During its continuance, churches are revived, many worldly persons become thoughtful about eternal realities, and others are truly converted to Christ. I have been honored by the blessed Redeemer in conducting several of these revivals both among white and colored persons. Young converts, warm in their first love, never defend slavery. They feel that they want to elevate all classes of men. It is the old professors, that have succeeded in hardening their hearts, who are in favor of slavery. My observations lead me to conclude that not more than one out of five persons, who profess to be converted in the slave States continues to adorn his profession with good works. Many remain in the church only a few months, or at most but one or two years. If slaveholders, they generally feel some scruples about holding their slaves in bondage. If they refuse, like Pharaoh, to let God's people go, their hearts become hardened, and they finally settle down as mere professors of religion, or leave the church altogether. They will backslide, if young men, unless they engage in some industrial occupation; and one of the hardest lessons in the world for men to learn who have been brought up to no business, is to acquire the habit of labor. Many of our revivals ought not to be published till twelve months after date. In fact, some of our most prudent and thoughtful preachers have been so disgusted with flaming revival notices in the "Christian Advocate and Journal," as to get on the other extreme, and write no accounts whatever. Many of the reported converts are campaigners, professing religion at nearly every camp-meeting and protracted meeting in their vicinity. Preachers who insist on a strict moral life, on dealing justly in business transactions, and being truthful in our words, self-denying in our lives, and liberal according to the ability given us, are greatly undervalued among us. The pastor who tries to get up Sunday-schools and Bible-classes, and to inspire a taste for sound literature, is frequently considered a "dry stick." But he who cares little for these things, but can shout aloud and ejaculate "Glory!" as unctuously as the politician his "Hurrah!" — he who beats the Bible and stamps lustily in the pulpit, is supposed by many to be full of the Holy Ghost. I have always found it easier to get up a "shout" than a Bible-class. I am not opposing "shouting," as the result of the Holy Spirit's influence on the heart. But it does not always indicate genuine feeling. A brother who was shouting and jumping with apparent earnestness, was approached and asked by another brother if he was happy. "Oh, no!" he replied. "Why, then, do you jump and shout so?" He answered that he did it "to get happy.

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