p. 61 | Our Country by J. Clarke

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jul 21, 1863

Our Country.

By J. Clarke

We soon become hardened by direct contact with evil; especially if we in any sense, directly, or indirectly, countenance wrong doing.

For about two centuries, the part of the North American Continent now named the United States, has been rapidly changing, from a wilderness, to a populous commonwealth, teeming with life and activity.

During this time, unexampled prosperity has attended this flourishing growing country. Agriculture, mechanics, with the arts and sciences, have equally rivaled each other; and education has been made as common, almost, as the free air of heaven.

Universal toleration of all creeds and opinions, has given widest scope for discussion, and men have become accustomed not only to know and claim this prerogative, but often it has been perverted to an unbounded extent, until treason has been propagated in the halls of legislation.

Side by side with the tree of Liberty, has grown up another plant of a totally different character; and for as many centuries as the tree of Liberty has extended itself, tending upward to the clouds, while its roots penetrated as far into the earth, for so many centuries has the Upas tree of slavery flourished in a more genian soil and clime.

This deadly tree has had a fertile soil and the most favorable climate the temperate zone affords; and cunning men have watered its roots, and fostered its growth while the tree of Liberty, has grown up amid rocks and sands, in sterile soil, in a land of ice and snow.

Two trees, of such gigantic proportions, and of such opposite qualities, flourishing side by side, have astonished the sages of other lands.

But figures are tame, realities need no coloring, all are familiar with the sad history. Our country has like Jonah's gourd grown up in a day, and to all appearance its fall will be as sudden, and as the gourd withered before the sun, so will liberty wither in a day when pride has filled her cup.

But saddest of all is the influence of evil principles upon the public mind; the influence of such a monstrous system as American slavery upon the morals of our countrymen, is baneful indeed.

The youth is taught from infancy to despise the colored race, and even now, while the hand of Jehovah is put forth in wrath for the scourging of this proud oppressive nation, while almost every train of cars brings home more or less of coffined corpses, from the scene of conflict, even now, as thousands of our men are falling in battle, and by disease, we may daily witness on all our great thoroughfares, the proudest bearing toward, and contempt for, the colored race; scorn, and indignity, are heaped upon them; often, too, is this manifested toward men of worth and character, merely because of their color.

Oh, pride, to what lengths hast thou attained! and how few can plead innocent of complicity with the gigantic sin of slavery. Who has felt for the slave as for a brother in bonds, as bound with him? Who has persistently protested against these evils?

Slavery and its attendant evils, have eaten out the vital power of the nation, it has sown discord and anarchy, and confusion. This ridiculous prejudice against men of color, all proceeds from this system.

The most enlightened virtuous men, if black, are shut out of society, and from the ballot box; yet they must pay their taxes, while their children even in these free States, are often deprived of schooling; but reflection will fill out the picture. Alas! the evil is past cure.

J. CLARKE.