Frederick Douglass, the Orator - Monroe County Library System

Central Library of Rochester and Monroe County · Historic Monographs Collection
LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS. 229
saw it made to sanction and defend the enslavement
and bondage of a brother, with its horrible
consequences. It was then that he advanced
beyond his country and its church, to where
Christ to him was larger than creed, and his
Christianity transcended his churchianity. And
from this point Mr. Douglass never retrograded;
but he never ceased to reverence the God of
humanity as he saw God.
In this terrific soul conflict Mr. Douglass told
me that for a time he blundered into bewilderment,
but God sent him deliverance. Last fall,
at the office of his son Lewis, he explained this
conflict to me in a conversation on religion.
The crisis was reached when the Fugitive Slave
Bill became a law. The National Domain
became the enslavers' hunting ground, and any
citizen liable to be made a slave catcher. He
was then editor of the North Star at Rochester,
N. Y
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, coming to the
city, called upon Mr. Douglass and inquired,
" Mr. Douglass, how are you ? "
" I am all broken up. Done with your church,
your Christianity, and your hypocrisy. You
have given your country over to slavery and to
slave catchers, and your church sanctions it as
authorized by the Bible." Mr. Douglass said:
" Mr. Beecher sat down upon the head of a keg,