Days of Fasting by Joseph Clarke

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Mar 28, 1865

Days of Fasting.

By Joseph Clarke

We have met according to appointment in the Review, for four successive days, for the purpose therein mentioned, and tried to keep those days by prayer and fasting to the Lord. It seemed meet and proper to comply with the suggestions of those of experience and authority in the church, not only as a matter of obedience, but of propriety.

Truly there is a cause for fasting and mourning! Long ago a few ships came over the waters and discovered this land, this Western Continent. Then came, in a few years, other ships, and their cabins contained the exile and refugee, fleeing hither to these wilds for religious liberty. Vainly did the tyrants of the old world strive with each other, to possess these lands. God overthrew all their crafty counsels, and gave the exile and refugee the birth-right of liberty in this fair and vast domain. See, said he, here I convey to you a nationality and honorable acknowledgments of this nationality by all the powers that be. I convey to you this vast domain, fertile and fair, stretching from ocean to ocean, and from the lakes to the southern shores of North America.

Take this birth-right of liberty, furnish a home to the oppressed, and observe the golden rule, to do unto others as you would have them do to you.

We will, said the delighted people, and we now ordain that all are born free, and equal; and only give us the time, and slavery in a few years shall only be known in history. These were the conditions of American liberty.

In a few instances the contract was fulfilled; namely, in those States where the climate forbade slavery to prosper; but in the milder regions of America it was found very profitable.

Cotton, and sugar, and tobacco, and Indian corn, and rice, and wheat, and lemons, and oranges, and many delicate fruits, were the products of slave labor. Cities, and towns, and villages, and hamlets, arose by the same agency; and railroads were laid along the southern thoroughfares; and the sweat of the negro watered the cane fields. You might see him in the clearings, in the factory, in the stable; every where, the man of color was the man of all work. And when God, by his agents, remonstrated with this people, then contempt was poured upon those agents, and some were mobbed, and their printing-presses were destroyed. Others were tarred and feathered. Others were pelted with filthy missiles. Others were imprisoned. Others were banished, and their property stolen.

Then arose mighty Statesmen, descendants of the exiles who fled here for liberty, and they ordained that the northern men who had no slaves, should do obeisance to southern men who had slaves, and should do them reverence, and should arrest every slave who in his search for freedom should pass through the northern provinces, where the descendants of the exiles lived. And the descendants of the exiles being prudent, thrifty men, said, Amen, in a whisper, and bound themselves with an oath to return those men, who fled from southern oppression. But most of them did it for peace' sake, and softly to each other they said, we can not keep this oath; for it is a hard oath to keep; and they still vowed to keep it when with southern men, to please them, and thus they became a nation of perjurers, for peace' sake. Then they added new domain to southern slave States; domain not given to this nation for this purpose; and the northern men knew it, and they groaned inwardly; and as they groaned they thought it was virtuous to groan; but not so; it was their double-mindedness which caused them to baffle themselves, and that groan was the groan of a troubled conscience, for three great sins, yea, for four; oppression, perjury, double-dealing, and breach of contract. And now we as a nation, are feeling the consequences.

Now hundreds of thousands are mowed down in battle, and more fall in the pestilence and exposure of the camp, and who laments? Do not the widow and the orphan often deck themselves gaily in the earnings of the poor soldier, whose bones bleach beneath southern suns? Do they not proudly move along all our thoroughfares? Are not our cities and towns frequented by more than a usual number of persons of doubtful character, whose husbands, perchance have fallen, or may yet fall in battle?

Verily our country has fallen. Shall we fast for her? But there is the bondman! How would he rejoice if he knew of these four days of fast! Long has he looked for sympathy, now he sees the Lord at work with an army among the oppressors, and a praying church not far away. Soon will he lift his hands (perchance as white as his master's) to Heaven, in ecstasy and say in a loud voice, "The horse and his rider hath he cast into the sea!" Gloriously hath the Lord triumphed; and now we know God did not smile upon those northern statesmen, who ordained that the slave should not flee through their territory, but verily he has brought them down here against their own will, to fetch us out of our prisons.

Well may we fast and pray, as we view the wrath of God which burns against this wicked oppressive people, who were forgiven many sins, and set at liberty; but who take the African a captive, and oblige him to pay what he never owed, and cast him into prison.

And now hourly and daily will the prayer arise to Heaven, O Lord free the bondman, that he may shake off the chains which have bound him, and may listen to the glorious news of the coming of the Just One, the great Emancipator, who will break the bonds of the oppressed, and will open the prison-house.

Stay the oppression of blood, and hold back the engines of war, when thy noble purposes of justice and benevolence and chastisement are accomplished! Soon, soon may it be. Already many of our fellows lie in the cold embrace of death, and suffering, and woes too awful to have a name, exist in this cruel war, and shall it long exist? God forbid.

Soon shall those who sigh and cry for the abominations

of the land, receive the mark from the man clothed in linen, with the writer's ink horn by his side, and it will then be reported "I have done as thou hast commanded."

Jos. CLARKE.