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762   DOUGLASS MONTHLY.   DECEMBER, 1862
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Will not the good people respond to a united and earnest appeal from us?  Can we——can they——by any other means, so certainly or so speedily assure these vital objects?  We can succeed only by concert.

It is not, can any of us imagine better, but can we do better?  Object whatsoever is possible, still the question recurs, can we do better?  The dogmas od the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.  The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion.  As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.  We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shave save our country.

Fellow citizens, we cannot escape histor y. We of this Congress will be remembered in spite of ourselves.  No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us.

Th  fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.  We say we are for the Union.  The world knows we do know how to save the Union.  We hold the power, and bear the responsibility.  In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free, honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve.  We shall nobly save or meanly lose the last, best hope of the earth  Other means may succeed.  This could not fail.  The way is plain——peaceful, generous, just——a way which, if followed, the world will ever applaud, and God must ever bless.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
WASHINGTON, Dec. 1, 1862.
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THEODORE D. WELD.
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It gives us more pleasure than we can find words to express to announce that Theodore D. Weld is to deliver a discourse before the Twenty-Eight Congressional Society, at Music Hall, on Sunday forenoon next, taking for his subject——"The Conspirators——their false Issues and Lying Pretences."  We have no doubt it will be a masterly effort worthy of the most intelligent and largest audience that can be compressed within the walls of that spacious building.  Let none who can be present lose the opportunity.  Mr. Weld has so long been withdrawn from public observation as a speaker,——a period of more than twenty-six years,——that almost a new generation has come upon the stage since he delighted and electrified those whom his rare powers of speech once brought together.  At the very commencement of the Anti-Slavery cause his great moral, religious and humane nature ardently espoused it, and his massive intellect elucidated it with irresistible effect in all its bearings, legal, ethical, politico-economical, &., &c.  It was never our privilege to hear him when he was in the lecturing field; but those who were more fortunate always concurred in pronouncing him as exhibiting extraordinary powers of persuasion, of argument, of illustration, of eloquence, and carrying every thing before him.  Of course, the disuse of his voice for so long a period, and the lapse of more than a quarter of a century, must necessarily affect his spontaneity of utterance and action, until he shall once more 'get used to the harness;' but we are quite sure that, should he devote himself to lecturing the ensuing winter, as we earnestly hope he will, he will excite a wide interest, and do a great work in the cause of Freedom and Progress.

Mr. Weld was a student in Lane Seminary, Cincinnati, in 1834.  About the first of February of that year, it was resolved by the students, as a body, that they would investigate the merits of the Abolition and Colonization movements; and, accordingly, they devoted nine evenings to the discussion of the following question——'Ought the people of the slaveholding States to abolish slavery immediately?'——and nine more to the discussion of the question——'Are the doctrines, tendencies and measures of the American Colonization Society, and the influence of its principal supporters, such as render it worthy of the patronage of the Christian public?'——making, in all, forty-five hours of solid debate.  Eleven of the students have been born and brought up in the Slave States, seven of whom were sons of slaveholders.  At the close of the discussion of the first question, the vote of the students was nearly unanimous in the affirmative——no one recording a negative vote.  The vote upon the second question was decided in the negative, with only one dissenting voice.  The kindest feelings prevailed throughout.——
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There was no crimination, no denunciation, no impeachment of motives.  In these discussions, Mr. Weld's was the great master mind, shedding light and inducing conviction in a truly wonderful manner.  There had been previously organized in the Seminary a Colonization Society, which was followed by the organization of an Anti-Slavery Society.  This result gave great alarm to the Faculty and Trustees of the institution, and they quickly adopted a rule requiring the two Societies to be abolished forthwith, (as they could not consistently suppress one, and leave the other,) and 'providing for discouraging and discountenancing, by all suitable means, such discussions and conduct among the students as are calculated to divert their attention from their studies, (!) excite party animosities, (!) stir up evil passions among themselves or in community, (!) or involve themselves with the political concerns of the country (!)——also providing, as in other cases, for the dismissal of any student neglecting to comply with these regulations' (!)  And this was done in a selfish and cowardly subserviency to the then all-pervading pro-slavery sentiment of the country, and with the fallacious expectation of thereby increasing the patronage and the popularity of the Seminary.  The Cincinnati Journal exultingly announced——

"Parents and guardians may now send their sons and wards to Lane Seminary, with a perfect confidence that the proper business of a theological school will occupy their minds; and that the discussion and decision of abstract (!) questions will not turn them aside from the path of duty (!!)——There may be room enough in the wide world for abolitionism and perfectionism, and many other isms; but a school to prepare the pious(!) youth for preaching the gospel has no place for these.  And be it remembered, that nine out of ten of our students of divinity are rather too young and immature in judgement (!) to be trusted with the high task of revolutionizing public sentiment, and deciding on the wants of the age (!)  It will do them more real benefit to study the principles of Christian humility, (!) and to know what constitutes the meekness of the gospel of the Lord Jesus more thoroughly (!)  The heralds of the Cross for this great valley must be strong men in the gospel of God our Savior, and must be willing to know nothing in the prosecution of their lobors but Christ and him crucified."

Meaning by this wretched cant that they should leave the millions in bondage to welter in their blood, and be willing to stulify mind and conscience in regard to their terrible condition.  How 'young and immature in judgement' were the students, referred to by the Journal, may be seen from the fact that, of the eighteen who participated in the discussion, the average age was nearly twenty-six!  Replying at the time to a similar canting strain in the Western Monthly Magazine, Mr. Weld said:——

"In solemn earnest, I ask, why should not theological students investigate and discuss the sin of slavery?  Shall those who are soon to be ambassadors for Christ!——commissioned to cry aloud——to show to the people their transgressions——shall they refuse to think, and feel, and speak, when that accursed thing 'exalts itself above all that is called God'——and wags its impious head, and shakes its blood-red hands at heaven?  Why, I ask, should not students examine into the subject of slavery?  Is it not the business of theological seminaries to educate the heart, as well as the head?  to mellow the sympathies, and deepen the emotions, as well as to provide the means of knowledge?  If not, then give Lucifer a professorship.  He is a prodigy of intellect, and an encyclopedia of learning.  Whom does it behoove to keep his heart in contact with the woes and guilt of a perishing world, if not a student who is preparing for the ministry?  What fitter employment for such a one, than gathering facts, and analyzing principles, and tracing the practical relations of the prominent sins, and evils, and all-whelming sorrows of his own age; especially when all these heave up their mountain masses full upon his own vision, and at his own door; and still more especially, when these accumulated wrongs and woes have been for ages unheeded?  Is anything better adapted to quicken sympathy and enlarge benevolence, than deep pondering of the miseries and the wrongs of oppressed humanity, and thorough discussion of the best means for alleviation and redress?
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It is false, both in fact and philosophy, that anything is lost to the student, by engaging in such exercises.  Instead of his progress being retarded in the appropriate studies of a theological course, (which should certainly be his main business,) it will be accelerated.  Whenever intellect moves in the sublimity of power, the heart generates its momentum.  It is when the deep tides of emotion swell out from full fountains, that intellect is buoyed upward, and borne onward in majesty and might.  A subject so deeply freighted with human interest as that of slavery cannot be investigated and discussed intelligently, and thoroughly without amplifying and expanding the intellect, and increasing the power of action upon all subjects.  Let all our institutions engage in discussiog subjects of great practical moment, such as slavery, temperance, and moral reform; let them address themselves to the effort, let it be preserved in through an entire course, and they will introduce a new era in mind——the era of disposable power and practical accomplishment.  But, besides the general impulse given to thought and emotion, by contact with subjects of vast practical moment, a large amount of definite knowledge upon such subjects must be acquired.  The mind should have a household familiarity with all their principles and bearings——the interests affected, the wide reflections to right and wrong and the ultimate effect upon human joy and wo.  This applies with ten fold force to theological students.  He who would preach in the nineteenth century, must know the nineteenth century.  No matter how deeply read in the history of the past, if not versed in the records of his own day, he is not fit to preach the gospel.  If he would bless the Church now, he must know her now; where she is, and what her moral latitude——must scrutinize her condition——inspect her symptoms——ascertain the mode of previous treatment, and compare it with the prescriptions contained in God's book of directions, where the case is described.  He must inquire diligently how obstructions are to be removed, the circulation quickened, the solids braced, the humors thrown off, and the sources of vitality replenished.  Is a man prepared rightly to divide the word of truth, giving to each his portion in due season,' who is ignorant of prevailing sins and evils, the moral movements of the day, the spirit of the age, the causes of existing inefficiency, and the nature, position, and relative power of those counteracting causes which defeat instrumentality, both human and divine, and roll the world away from the millennium?  It is an axiom with universal mind, that discussion, discussion free as air, is the grand desideratum for eliciting truth.  If our theological seminaries pursue any other course, they will fall behind the age.  This kind of training is as important a part of the preparation for the ministry, as an acquaintance with the principles of interpretation, or a knowledge of didactic theology.  In short, our theological seminaries will only mock the exigencies of the age and the expectations of the Church, unless they hold their students in contact with these exigencies, that when they have finished their preparation, and are thrown into the midst of them, they may know where they are, and feel at home."

Again, he replied, with equal cogency and force, on another point——

"With reference to the promulgation of anti-slavery sentiments, your tone and air are quite extraordinary.  You advertise your readers that it will meet the decided and prompt rebuke of publ c sentiment,' and finally you resort to menace, and proclaim that 'the indignation of the community will put it down.'  This is precisely the inflammatory language, word for word, which was used by certain demagogue prints in the city of New York, last October.——Such invocations of public indignation were the drag nets, with which they swept the sewers for materials, to mob down the meeting, which organized the city anti-slavery society.  'The indignation of the community will put it down.'  What!  Has it come to this?  Is free inquiry to be paralyzed by the terror of pains and penalties?  Is it to be driven in from its excursions, and made to cower under the menace of public indignation?  Is investigation to be proscribed, and hunted down, and catechised into subserviency; by the spontoon of a drill master?  Is research to be hoodwinked, and debate struck dumb, and scrutiny embargoed and freedom of speech measured by the gag-law' and vision darkened, and sympathy made contraband, and vigilance drugged into slumber, and conscience death-struck in the act of resurrection, and moral combination against damning wrong to be forestalled by invocations of popular
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