The North Star (Rochester)/1848/01/14/Denunciation
DENUNCIATION.
Although an Abolitionist, in the strictest sense of the word, yet, I do not believe in, nor recognize, "wholesale denunciation," as calculated to advance the righteous cause or ameliorate the wretched condition of suffering and oppressed humanity.
It seems too much akin to the fierce, north wind of icy winter, congealing with its chilling breath, the exhausted sympathies of earth's vexed and wearied traveler; forcing him, in his extremity, to wrap his fur-embossed habiliments more closely about him, and rush on with a reckless determination to stem the fitful winds and currents that oppose his onward, and, to him, justifiable course. Too well does it compare with the destructive winds that sweep o'er Sahara's arid bosom, rearing its sand-clouds of indignation, and burying in its direful course every oasis of sympathy in the breast of humanity.
But forbearance sometimes, it is said, ceases to be a virtue; yet a resort to denunciation, which is but the pretext for a resort to force in very many instances, is a greater evil. Ofttimes, as the tale of wrong and outrage committed against helpless innocence is iterated in my hearing, a spirit of indignation, ere I am aware, arises, and I am led to exclaim:
And thrust it deep into the guilty heart
Of him who dares his fellow thus outrage,
'Twould do him justice. The impious wretch
That lives beneath the vertic rays of light,
And having eyes, sees not his brother's right
To life and liberty, and happiness;
And him deprives of these by brutal force,
Than this, severer punishment deserves.
And he that aids or wilfully abets,
By priestly cant or lying tongue, this vile
And God-provoking sin of slavery,
Deserves perdition's deepest, darkest plunge."
But this, I am reminded, is but "casting out Satan by the prince of devils;" and the rising whirlwind of indignation, which the fostering of such a spirit conjures up in the mind, is checked and subdued by the words of Him, whose melting accents fell upon the ear of man as dews
"Upon the leaflets of the Tree of Life,"
and who only resorted to denunciation when the destiny of Jerusalem and her children was irrevocably sealed, and their destruction inevitable.
How much more effectual and how omnipotent is truth clad in its swasive attire, let Luther, Melancthon and others—Wesley and coadjutors—Wilberforce, Hawkins and associates, attest. It is to the stolid minds of men what the south wind and "the sun from Capricorn to Cancer wheeling back" is to the thick-ribbed, icy mountains of the polar regions. It subdues and brings to its supernal influence implicit subjection; warns man of his weakness and insufficiency; begets the most kindly feeling, even towards enemies, and counsels to dependence on the arm that moves the universe, and, instead of denunciation, when there is a prospect of reform, it prompts, the humble petition:
May pierce the error-shrouded minds of men,
As barbed spears the hearts of them who fall
A sacrifice in war's unholy strife:
That man no more oppress, nor brutalize,
Nor wrong his fellow man; but feel his woe,
And low estate, and haste to his relief,
And pour into his wounds, that long have bled,
The healing oil of mutual sympathy;
And aid, and love, that each from other needs,
And all demand, as Nature's God ordains."
Seneca Falls, January 2 1848.