PAINFUL FACTS | AdventAI

Publishing Committee · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 17, 1860

PAINFUL FACTS.

We quote the following from a private letter, written by a man whose name would be as good authority as any single name in the Methodist Episcopal Church.

"Within about twelve months past a member of the M. E. Church on Sadlersville circuit, Easton District, in the upper part of Maryland, sold a mother and her three children to a southern trader for $1,650, and the transaction received no notice from the Church."

"Another member on the circuit, an ex-member of congress, sold a woman to a trader; when the latter came after his property, the poor woman shut herself up in the house and cut her throat and died, to escape her coming fate! This woman had a husband, and belonged to the same church as her master. He was unmolested! These facts show the construction practically put upon our discipline less than one hundred miles south of Philadelphia."

Comment is unnecessary. Why cannot such men be dealt with? Because the rule is, "buying and selling men, women and children, with an intention to enslave them," and these men say they had no such intention—the negroes were already enslaved. And because we wish to change the rule and stand right before God and the world, we are fanatics.—Zion's Herald.