A RELIGION OF HUMANITY!

FREDERICK DOUGLASS:—Your paper of the
10th inst. is at hand. I can not forbear expressing
to you the pleasure afforded by the
perusal of your editorials of that date, and the
few weeks previous. Every friend of humanity
must heartily respond to your strong expressions
of abhorrence for that piety, that
Sectarianism, that Christianity, or the Spiritualism
which fails to recognize those in bonds
as bound with them. I like your test question
—slavery. None can be better. Let all religious
systems stand or fall by it.

As a believer in the of spirit intercourse,
I regard your criticisms upon the short
comings of too many Spiritualists, as faithful
and, I am sorry to say, .

I had hoped that while Christianity has
utterly failed to redeem the politics of our
country—has proved itself powerless to preserve
even the church free from contamination
with that monster iniquity—a true spiritualistic
form of belief might thoroughly "purify
the whole man." In so far as it fails to do so,
it comes short of meriting our confidence and
support. Shame upon any religious creed or
system that to-day refuses to occupy a bold
and unqualified position against human slavery!
Shame upon any class of religionists
who deny the paramount importance of the
anti-slavery reform!

Can it be that the Waterloo Friends of
Progress were true to every other interest,
but false to that of the slave? Can it be
that even those who were once zealous in
the cause of freedom, have, through their advocacy

of Spiritualism, lost their ardor and
heart in it?

I trust the objectors of whom you speak,
were Still, my own observation
has been that not only in spiritual conventions,
but by spiritual presses, the interests of
humanity are ignored, and a spirit like that
animating the Tract Society, is cherished for
the sake of peace and quiet, passing by the
"sum of all villainies" without a word of
hearty censure.

But, friend Douglass, while many of the
technically termed Spiritualist papers and assemblies
are thus recreant to the claims of
humanity, it cannot be denied that a portion
of the spiritual writers and thinkers are the
farthest possible removed from this sin of neglect.

The so-called movement among
nominal Spiritualists and reformers is infidel
to a slaveholding Christianity, and eminently
true to universal humanity. Owing no allegiance
either to the American church, the
American government, or the American social
tyrant, Mrs. Grundy, they openly and defiantly
stake their "reputation and honor" upon
their faithful adherence to the work of redressing
the wrongs of the oppressed, and
rescuing mankind from the sin of oppression.

Mere Spiritualism, implying only a belief in
spirit intercourse, may prevail in the church,
and out of it—within the Democratic party,
and outside of it—at the South, and at the
North, on the Fejee Islands, and on this continent,
and not essentially modify the
faith of the theologian, the practice of the
politician, the inhumanity of the slaveholder,
or the habits of the barbarian. At the same
time, what is true of Christianity is true also
of this—the is to a more rational
and humane theory and practice. Lamentably
slow and feeble is this tendency, I own. With
the true harmonial philosopher, slavery stands

identified with every other positive sin. And
while his philosophy inculcates a charity towards
the ignorant oppressor, it never justifies
a sleepy, time-serving, timid concerning
the sin itself. This distinction between Spiritualism
and the harmonial philosophy is too
little understood, and ignorance of it may
have misled you to feel in your heart that the
slave was not safe with these "spiritual philosophers."

Permit me to express the hope that you
will continue to be as faithful in exposing the
recreancy of all professed religionists, who forget
that.

"Serves best the Father, he who most serves man,
And he who wrongs Humanity, wrongs Heaven."

Yours,

C. M. P.