AMERICAN SUNDAY SCHOOLS AND AMERICAN SLAVERY THE ALLIES OF EACH OTHER.

Messrs Editors:ーThe friends and patrons of our Sunday Schools, are not unfrequently shocked, by the anti-slavery lecturer who classes "The American Sunday School Union" with the other pro-slavery institutions, with which our land abounds, under the name of benevolent, philanthropic, and religious; forgetting that as a great whole, the same men who control the political destinies of the nation, and give us slaveholding presidents, and slaveholding cabinets, and slaveholding warsーare the very same men, who control not only the ecclesiastical and commercial relations of the North and the South, but give character to those institutions which have been looked upon as indispensable to the welfare of the rising generation.

They seem to forget, that, a man who is false in one relation of life, is untrustworthy in every other; and while they admit, that the vilest slaveholders, and the most barbarous slavedrivers have emanated from Northern Sunday Schools, they insist that those are but exceptions to the general rule.

The American Sunday School Union is slaveholding in its character and influence, as I propose to show to the entire satisfaction of every honest mind.ー

First. The children who attend those schools, are as a general thing, not taught that slavery is a sin, and those passages of Scripture which bear upon the subject, are so construed and wrested from their true meaning, as may be seen by reference to the Union question-books, as not to condemn the perpetrator of this horrible crime, or if they are in some instances, taught to regard slavery as sinful, they are at the same time, taught both by precept and example, that slaveholders are not sinners, but good christian brethren to be fellowshipped by ministerーsuperintendentーSunday-school teacher and scholar; hence the crime is transformed into an evil, which if they in after life choose to endure, they may without losing their christian character and reputation.

Secondly. The books published by the Union, and which compose the sunday-school libraries to a great extent, embracing several thousand volumes, are with a single exception, entirely acceptable to slaveholders, as containing nothing which condemns their trading in the bodies and souls of men.

When the Charleston Mercury called attention to the alarming fact, that one of the society's publications contained an obnoxious passage, what was the result? The Committee of publication of the American Sunday School Union, dropped "the objectionable book from their catalogue," and instructed one of their Vice Presidents residing in Charleston, to receive from the Depository in that city, any copies remaining unsold, and to return the same. Of these facts, we are officially informed by the Board of Managers of the South Carolina Sunday School Union, who took up the matter and brought it before the Parent Society. The following, is an extract from the preamble, and the resolution adopted on the occasion:ー

"Thus the Parent Society has given the most substantial evidence of its disposition to circulate and publish no work that is exceptionable in its character and spirit to the American public. (American means slaveholding.) Therefore,ーResolved, that the confidence of this Board in the American Sunday School Union is undiminished; and the recent action of their Committee of publication, is sufficient pledge, that nothing will at any time hereafter, be issued from the press under their control calculated to awaken sectarian feeling or sectional jealousy." (In plain English, calculated to disturb the consciences of men stealers or bring into disrepute women whippers.)

B. LANNEAU, President.

Wm. B. HERRIOT, Rec. Secretary.

The obnoxious passage alluded to, is to be found in a book entitled "Jacob and his Sons, or the Second Part of a Conversation between Mary and her Mother;" published about twenty years ago, and is as follows:ー

"What is a slave, Mother? asked Mary. is it a servant?"

"Yes, replied her mother; slaves are servants, for they work for their masters, and wait on them; but they are not hired servants but are bought and sold, like beasts, and have nothing but what their masters choose to give them. They are obliged to work very hard; and sometimes their masters use them cruelly, beat them, and starve them, and kill them; for they have nobody to help them. Sometimes they are chained together, and driven about like beasts."

The book containing this passage, The Committee of Publication of the Sunday School Union, make haste to expunge and expel the moment their attention is called to the subject.

Thirdly. We shall ascertain by diligent inquiry, that slaveholders in form and fact are actually and literally in festing Northern Sunday Schools with their pestiferous breath and pestilential presence.

I am credibly informed, that the Superintendant of the Sunday School in Troy, connected with the Unitarian Church, is not only an actual slaveholder, but that he openly and boldly, impiously and blasphemously, defends slavery as a "God ordained institution, and that if Christ were now on earth and a resident at the South, he would undoubtedly be a slaveholder." I am also credibly informed, that these facts have come to the knowledge of the minister and members of that church, and the patrons of the school, and that only one member (and she a poor widow) had sufficient civilization to remove her child from the school. The evidences of fitness for the station, which this young man gives, consists I believe, in the fact that his mother pays fifty dollars a year to support the church, and he himself has made a present of some books to the Sunday School.

It is known to some of your readers, that the Rev. John Pierpont, is the Pastor of that church, and to many of them, that he has been formerly considered friendly to emancipation.

I give publicity to these reports (which have become in some localities, a matter of public notoriety) so that if true, well merited infamy may rest upon that school and church, and if in any particular untrue or exaggerated, that the anti-slavery public may be set right. If Mr. Pierpont is not a subscriber to the North Star, will you please to forward him the number containing this letter, if you should see fit to publish it.

Jan. 29, 1848. H. K. Y.