Jesus.  The man who robs me of my earnings at the end of each week meets me as a class-leader on Sunday morning, to show me the way of life, and the path of salvation.  He who sells my sister, for purposes of prostitution, stands forth as the pious advocate of purity.  He who proclaims it a religious duty to read the Bible denies me the right of learning to read the name of the God who made me.  He who is the religious advocate of marriage robs whole millions of its sacred influence, and leaves them to the ravages of wholesale pollution.  The warm defender of the sacredness of the family relation is the same that scatters whole families,—­sundering husbands and wives, parents and children, sisters and brothers,—­leaving the hut vacant, and the hearth desolate.  We see the thief preaching against theft, and the adulterer against adultery.  We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the POOR HEATHEN!  ALL FOR THE GLORY OF GOD AND THE GOOD OF SOULS!  The slave auctioneer’s bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master.  Revivals of religion and revivals in the slave-trade go hand in hand together.  The slave prison and the church stand near each other.  The clanking of fetters and the rattling of chains in the prison, and the pious psalm and solemn prayer in the church, may be heard at the same time.  The dealers in the bodies and souls of men erect their stand in the presence of the pulpit, and they mutually help each other.  The dealer gives his blood-stained gold to support the pulpit, and the pulpit, in return, covers his infernal business with the garb of Christianity.  Here we have religion and robbery the allies of each other—­devils dressed in angels’ robes, and hell presenting the semblance of paradise.

     “Just God! and these are they,
     Who minister at thine altar, God of right! 
     Men who their hands, with prayer and blessing, lay
     On Israel’s ark of light.

     “What! preach, and kidnap men? 
     Give thanks, and rob thy own afflicted poor? 
     Talk of thy glorious liberty, and then
     Bolt hard the captive’s door?

     “What! servants of thy own
     Merciful Son, who came to seek and save
     The homeless and the outcast, fettering down
     The tasked and plundered slave!

     “Pilate and Herod friends! 
     Chief priests and rulers, as of old, combine! 
     Just God and holy! is that church which lends
     Strength to the spoiler thine?”