Buffalo, March 29, 1849.

Messrs. Editors:—In perusing your paper of the 23d inst., I find, over the signature of "M. R. D.," (one of the editors,) an article headed "Domestic Economy," which, in my opinion, will admit of some correction, and with all due deference to the writer, I may be allowed to examine the validity of his reasonings.

And allow me first to remark, that while I gratefully appreciate the zeal and ardor which have ever characterized the efforts of this able champion of liberty, and while I hail his labors as ominous of much good, and the harbinger of better days, I still, in justice to that divine command which he has seen fit to choose as the basis of his argument, must and ever shall, under my present convictions, differ materially with him.

The divine command in question is this:—"Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven and its righteousness, and all things shall be added"

The writer, in de-canting upon this passage, says, or would infer, that the Christian Church had fallen into a great great error in believing and promulgating the doctrine that this injunction had reference to the daily avocations of men, but would have us believe that it was given merely as a command to those whom he had called to be his immediate disciples in the days of his incarnation—such as Andrew, Peter, and James, whom he describes as fishermen, supplying the various markets in that region of country; hence, we are to believe that the only persons invited to an interest in the Kingdom of Heaven are those few favored fishermen.

The presumption is just as strong in this light, as in the light which our friend would have you view the passage under consideration. But he asserts, as a reason why this command was exclusively to the fishermen "that they were engaged in their business [illegible], earning for themselves a livelihood." Hence, this command was made as an indictment through the agency of which they might be brought into fields of more useful employments.

Now that this kind of reasoning was perculiarly adapted to them, may be true; but that it is not [...] applicable to us, we cannot admit, for we [...] now clinging more [...] more strongly, to the customs and maxims of the world, and [...] their business voca[...] days of the [...] more [...] prone for evil, in [...] before known.

We had the [...], the [...], and the [...] to neglect to seek the salvation of [...] And it is as reasonable for us to [...] Christ, when he commissioned his disciples to preach the gospel, had reference to only those whom he was then addressing, and that when they were to die, the preaching of the gospel was to cease, just as much so as it is reasonable to suppose that in addressing this language, he had reference only to the fishermen, and we must admit, if we believe Divine revelation, however much it may be at variance with our feelings, that this injunction is alike applicable to all, for God is no respecter of persons, and he desires not to enjoin duties upon one that he will not also require of another.

But there are many points in the argument which I wonder at. Referring to our having embraced this faith, he says that we "labor under a most eggregious and shameful error;" and he accounts for it as being the result of oppression, evidently endeavoring to impress upon our minds that this doctrine of seeking the Kingdom of Heaven is nothing more than a wild imagination, brought into being through ignorance, and fostered by the hand of slavery. Our friend M. R. D. must certainly be in an error (if I understand him) in this matter. If his argument is tenable, (as he undoubtedly has the ability,) I hope that he will define and simplify his position, and I stand ready to be corrected.

Yours for Justice,

George Weir, Jr.Weir, George, Jr.

The son of a minister of Buffalo’s Vine Street African Methodist Episcopal Church, George Weir, Jr., was a minister and abolitionist in Buffalo. Arthur O. White, “The Black Movement against Jim Crow Education in Buffalo, New York, 1800-1900,” , 30:383 (Winter 1969).