(For the Young.)
A GENTLEMAN, passing through a slave market in the Southern States some years ago, was attracted by the tears of a poor girl, who with a group of other slaves was about to be put up to auction, as cattle are in other lands. Happily the wicked law which authorized slavery in those States has been annulled; not because the people, who called themselves Christians, repented of this great national crime, but because God, in his good providence, caused it to be put down by the strong hand of power, when it had reached a height of enormity which had long shocked the feelings of humanity. Think, dear young reader, how terrible the sin of that law must have been in the sight of God, which justified a man even in selling his own poor children! And if you wonder that any people could have been so wicked and so cruel, how will you wonder when you are told that they (professing Christians) tried to make it out that the Bible, the pure and blessed book of God, authorized their wicked deeds! You will say it is indeed true, that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked.” How blind must these men have been not to have seen that when Paul sent back Onesimus to his master, he told that master to receive him not now as a, servant (or slave), but above a servant, a brother beloved. Could he sell or beat a brother beloved? Could he dare to treat any longer as a slave one in whom Christ dwelt? If he could have been guilty of such a crime, what would have been the consequence to himself from the chastening hand of him who hath said, “Why persecutest thou ME?” No, the precious Bible did not authorize the Southern planters’ sin, but it did bring about the deliverance of the poor helpless captives. If you know anything of history, you will know that slavery was almost universal until the Gospel of the grace of God was preached, and the word of God—the Bible—was circulated and spread abroad into all lands. This precious book is meant to set forth Christ, and to bring men to him; but even where they in their blindness reject his gospel, and thus come short of the blessing they might have had, it has nevertheless an influence wherever it comes, an influence even over those unhappy men called infidels, an influence which it exercises in spite of themselves, so that they get as it were educated up into views of things and principles which but for the Bible they would never have had. They may vainly think that this is owing to what they vaguely call “the march of intellect,” and so forth; but history tells you plainly that that “march” was always backward till the precious Bible was spread about the world. So then it was the Bible and nothing else that taught men to abhor the cruel law of slavery in the Southern States of America.
But to return to our narrative. The group of slaves stood in a row beside the auctioneer, and one by one were sold to the highest bidder. Most of them had probably got so accustomed to be sold from hand to hand, that they did not seem to care about it; perhaps they felt that their lot could not well be worse, let who would buy them; and so in dull despair they passed on in their hopeless captivity. But with the poor slave girl it was not so. Every blow of the hammer on the auctioneer’s rostrum made her shake and her tears to burst forth afresh. The gentleman noticed this, and his kind heart bled for her.
On inquiry he found that she had been brought up by a kind master; and now about to be sold into the hands of strangers, she trembled to think of the cruelty to which she might be subjected. There was but one way of deliverance, and that was to buy her and set her free. This the kind-hearted stranger hesitated not to do; and although he thought a little when he heard the high price demanded, yet, moved by compassion for her misery, he paid it down.
But no joy came to the poor slave’s face when he told her she was free. She had been born a slave, and knew not what freedom meant. Her tears fell fast on the signed parchment, which her deliverer brought to prove it to her. She only looked at him with fear.
At last he got ready to go his way; and as he told her what she must do when he was gone, it began to dawn on her what freedom was. With the first breath, she said— “I will follow him, — I will follow him; I will serve him all my days;” and to every reason against it, she only cried, “He redeemed me! He redeemed me! He redeemed me!”
When, in after years, strangers visited that master’s house, they could not but notice the loving, constant service of the glad-hearted girl. And when they-asked her why she was so eager, with unbidden service, night and day, she had but one answer, and she loved to give it. With glowing features and tearful eyes, she would tell the short tale of her hopeless captivity and sudden deliverance in its darkest hour; and then, pointing in the direction of her master’s room, she would close with “He redeemed me!”
Dear young reader, do you know what it is to be redeemed, not with silver and gold, “but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot”? If you do, let not the example of the poor slave-girl be lost upon you. Her master paid a heavy price for her deliverance; your Lord gave himself. Her kind deliverer had no doubt to exercise some self-denial afterward, to make up for the loss he had incurred for her sake but who shall tell what your REDEEMER endured when on the cross he bowed in anguish, and cried, “My God, my God, why past thou forsaken me?”
And if she could never forget what she owed to him who had saved her from a life-long misery, nor cease to serve him with gladness, can you who have been saved from never-ending woe, forget the love that brought you out of all the ruin you were in, and gave you everlasting life? No, let his “preciousness” attract you continually; let the remembrance
“Of what he suffered for our sake,
To save our souls, to make us meet
Of all his glory to partake,”
be constantly before your eyes. Let your glad devotedness to his service be such as shall glorify him: and when any ask you the reason of your love to his name, tell them “HE REDEEMED ME,” and has since taught me to love him for the preciousness I see in Himself.