Testimonies for the Church Vol 1 - Lansing SDA Church

North and the South 249I saw that these national fasts were an insult to Jehovah. He acceptsof no such fasts. The recording angel writes in regard to them: “Yefast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness.”I was shown how our leading men have treated the poor slaves whohave come to them for protection. Angels have recorded it. Insteadof breaking their yoke and letting the oppressed go free, these menhave made the yoke more galling for them than when in the serviceof their tyrannical masters. Love of liberty leads the poor slaves toleave their masters and risk their lives to obtain liberty. They wouldnever venture to leave their masters and expose themselves to thedifficulties and horrors attending their recapture if they had not asstrong a love for liberty as any of us. The escaped slaves have endureduntold hardships and dangers to obtain their freedom, and as their lasthope, with the love of liberty burning in their breasts, they apply toour Government for protection; but their confidence has been treatedwith the utmost contempt. Many of them have been cruelly treatedbecause they committed so great a crime as to dare to make an effortto obtain their freedom. Great men, professing to have human hearts,have seen the slaves almost naked and starving, and have abused them,and sent them back to their cruel masters and hopeless bondage, tosuffer inhuman cruelty for daring to seek their liberty. Some of thiswretched class they thrust into unwholesome dungeons, to live or die,they cared not which. They have deprived them of the liberty and freeair which heaven has never denied them, and then left them to sufferfor food and clothing. In view of all this, a national fast is proclaimed!Oh, what an insult to Jehovah! The Lord saith by the mouth of Isaiah:“Yet they seek Me daily, and delight to know My ways, as a nationthat did righteousness, and forsook not the ordinance of their God.” [258]The escaped slaves have been told by their masters that the Northernmen wanted to get possession of them that they might cruellymisuse them; that the abolitionists would treat them worse than theyhad been treated while in slavery. All manner of horrible stories havebeen repeated in their ears to make them detest the North, and yet theyhave had a confused idea that some hearts in the North felt for theirgrievances and would yet make an effort to help them. This has beenthe only star which has shed its glimmering light upon their distressedand gloomy bondage. The manner in which the poor slaves have beentreated has led them to believe that their masters have told them the