Step by Step; Or, Tidy's Way to Freedom

MY DEAR CHILDREN,-All of you who read this little book have doubtless heard more or less of slavery. You know it is the system by which a portion of our people hold their fellow-creatures as property, and doom them to perpetual servitude. It is a hateful and accursed institution, which God can not look upon but with abhorrence, and which no one of his children should for a moment tolerate. It is opposed to every thing Christian and humane, and full of all meanness and cruelty.

It treats a fellow-being, only because his skin is not so fair as our own, as though he were a dumb animal or a piece of furniture. It allows him no expression of choice about any thing, and no liberty of action. It recognizes and employs all the instincts of the lower, but ignores and tramples down all the faculties of his higher, nature. Can there be a greater wrong?

It is said by some, in extenuation of this wrong, that the slaves are well fed and clothed, and are kindly, even affectionately, looked after. This is true, in some cases,-with the house-servants, particularly,-but, as a general thing, their food and clothing are coarse and insufficient. But supposing it was otherwise; supposing they were provided for with as much liberality as are the working classes at the North, what is that when put into the balance with all the ills they suffer? What comfort is it, when a wife is torn from her husband, or a mother from her children, to know that each is to have enough to eat? None at all. The most generous provision for the body can not satisfy the longings of the heart, or compensate for its bereavements.

They suffer, also, a constant dread and fear of change, which is not the least of their torturing troubles. A kind owner may be taken away by death, and the new one be harsh and cruel; or necessity may compel him to sell his slaves, and thus they may be thrown into most unhappy situations. So they live with a heavy cloud of sorrow always before them, which their eyes can not look through or beyond. There is no hope-no EARTHLY hope-for this poor, oppressed race.

Their minds, too, are starved. No education, not even the least, is allowed. It is a criminal offense in some of the States to teach a slave to read. Now, if they could be made to exist without any consciousness of intellectual capacity, it would not be so bad. But this is impossible. They think and reason and wonder about things which they see and hear; and, in many cases, feel an eager desire to be instructed. This desire can not be gratified, because it would unfit them for their servile condition; therefore all teaching is rigidly denied them. The treasures of knowledge are bolted and barred to their approach, and they are kept in the utmost darkness and ignorance. Oh, to starve the mind!-Is it not far worse than to starve the body?

There is yet another process of famishing to which the slaves are subjected. They are not, as a general thing, taught by their masters about God, the salvation of Jesus Christ or the way to heaven. The SOUL is starved. To be sure, they pick up, here and there, a few crumbs of religious truth, and make the most of their scanty supply. Many of them truly love the Lord; and his unseen presence and joyful anticipations of heaven make them submissive to their hardships, and cheerful and faithful in their duties. But they can not thank their masters for what religious light and knowledge they get.

And who are these that hold their fellow-creatures in such cruel bondage, starving body, mind, and soul with such indifference and inhumanity? We blush to tell you. Many of them are of the number of those who profess to love the Lord their God with all the heart, and their neighbor as themselves. Can it be possible that God's own children can participate in such a wickedness; can buy and sell, beat and kill, their fellow-creatures? Can those who have humbly repented of sin, and by faith accepted of the salvation of Jesus Christ, turn from his holy cross to abuse others who are redeemed by the same precious blood, and are heirs to the same glorious immortality? CAN such be Christians?

And, children, you probably all understand that slavery is the sole cause of the sad war which is now ravaging our beloved country; and Christian people are praying, not only that the war may cease, but that the sin which has caused it may cease also. We believe that God is overruling all things to bring about this happy result, and before this little story shall meet your eyes, there may be no more slaves within our borders. Still we shall not have written it in vain, if it help you to realize, more clearly than you have done, the sufferings and degradation to which this unfortunate class have been subjected, and to labor with zeal in the work which will then devolve upon us of educating and elevating them.

My story is not one of UNUSUAL interest. Thousands and ten of thousands equally affecting might be told, and many far more romantic and thrilling. What a day will that be, when the recorded history of every slave-life shall be read before an assembled universe! What a long catalogue of martyrs and heroes will then be revealed! What complicated tales of wrongs and woes! What crowns and palms of victory will then be awarded! What treasures of wrath heaped up against the day of wrath will then be poured in fiery indignation upon deserving heads! Truly, then, will come to pass the saying of the Lord Jesus, "The first shall be last and the last first."

Then, too, will appear most gloriously the loving kindness and tender mercy of God, who loves to stoop to the poor and humble, and to care for those who are friendless and alone. It seems as if our Heavenly Father took special delight in revealing the truths of salvation to this untutored people, in a mysterious way leading them into gospel light and liberty; so that though men take pains to keep them in ignorance, multitudes of them give evidence of piety, and find consolation for their miseries in the sweet love of God.

It is the dealings of God in guiding one of these to a knowledge of himself, that I wish to relate to you in the following chapters.