The Rights Of All

Relieve the oppressed. Isaiah 1. 17.

If the duty of mutual admonition be a duty which every member of the household of God on earth is bound, on proper occasions, to fulfil, it must certainly be one which presses with peculiar weight on those who are set as watchmen in Israel, under an especial commission to show the people of the Lord their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins. It must be at the peril of their own souls, that persons invested with this high trust, ever suffer sin upon their neighbour unreproved, even though the sin so passed over, should be one merely of thoughtlessness, ignorance, or inadvertence; and therefore differing widely from the greater sins of wilfulness and presumption. The people of the Lord are to be a holy people; holy in heart and holy in act: unblameable, and unreproveable in his sight.

These weighty considerations, my brethren, if I were influenced by any other, would of themselves suffice to impel me to address you at this time on this subject of a duty to which, in one particular instance,—and an instance of the very first importance we have most of us been too long wholly inattentive. But there is also another consideration, independent of those I have now adverted to, which would strongly incline me to offer the same subject to your serious attention; and that is, the possibility, at least, that some service, however slender, may thereby be rendered to the victims of as grievous an oppression as this world of sin and suffering ever witnessed; an oppression too, which the inhabitants of this land, whether they know it or not, are lending themselves to uphold; while, by little more than the simple declaration of their will, it might certainly, and speedily, be removed for ever.

They who know this must be without excuse before God, if they fail to do all that in them lies, whether that all be little or much, to assert the injured rights of humanity and justice: and they who know it not, have need to be put in immediate possession of the truth, both for their own sakes, and for the sake of the unhappy beings whom their better information may then dispose them not merely to commiserate, but, as far as they are able, to succour and relieve.

The two objects of inquiry, then, to which I would earnestly beg your attention, are these:

First. Is it a demonstrable fact that there does exist under the sufferance, and the direct encouragement, of the people of this country, any such flagrant case of oppression as that which has now been referred to?—And, Secondly, If it appear to be an incontrovertible fact, that such a case of oppression does exist, then, what is the line of conduct which, under present circumstances, it becomes our duty to pursue