My Life As An Abolitionist E-Book

John Gregg Fee

• Herausgeber: Jazzybee Verlag
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 209

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Berea College, Kentucky, had sprung from the labors of John Gregg Fee who, in the midst of turmoil and mob violence, had preached abolition in Kentucky in the years preceding the Civil war and in 1858-59 had established the school to assist in educating young people to a new view regarding slavery. The school was closed during the war but was reopened in 1865, admitting Negro as well as white students, of both sexes. This is the autobiography of John G. Fee.

Leseprobe

My Life As An Abolitionist

John Gregg Fee

Contents:

My Life As An Abolitionist

Introduction.

Preface.

Chapter I.

Chapter II.

Chapter III.

Chapter IV.

Chapter V.

Chapter VI.

Chapter VII.

Chapter VIII.

The Association Of Ministers And Churches.

The Christian Missionary Association Of Kentucky.

An Address, By John G. Fee.

My Life As An Abolitionist, J. G. Fee

Jazzybee Verlag Jürgen Beck

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ISBN: 9783849643911

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My Life As An Abolitionist

Introduction.

 IN consenting to write an introduction to the Autobiography of one whom I have long known and honored, I desire to say that the nineteenth century has not been more remarkable for its discoveries in science, art, and all forms of material progress, than it has for the moral heroism of many men and women whose courage, faith, patience and self-sacrifice have done so much to promote justice and humanity, and for the advancement of the Redeemer's kingdom. Among these Christian patriots there is one whose long life of consecration to the good of his fellow men ought to be not only an example but an inspiration to the youth of our land. John G. Fee, of Berea, Ky., was born and raised under the influences of slavery and was surrounded by those powerfully conservative forces that held many good men to the defense of oppression.

Perhaps no other institution ever did so much to pervert all sense of justice and to deaden all feelings of compassion as that which declares that under a republican government men might hold their unoffending fellow men in bondage.

"Chain them, and task them, and exact their sweat, With stripes that Mercy with a bleeding heart Weeps when she sees inflicted on a beast."

Nay, more, it held that this right of property in man carried with it the right to set at naught the family relation and doom men to the perpetual ignorance of God and his word.

 The youth of our land can have little conception of the absolute control that half a century ago the system of slavery had on the minds and consciences of the nation. Nothing but a sublime faith in God enabled the men and women of that day to cheerfully accept reproach, ostracism and ridicule as inevitable consequences of the defense of the poor and needy whose special claim was that they were at once the feeblest and most despised of the children of men. Nor has this been the sole, possibly not the greatest, of the moral conflicts that have demanded and developed a true, moral heroism. The spirit of caste, the outgrowth of slavery, was and is not less exacting and iniquitous. To regard a fellow man simply in his relation to his Maker, and to accord to him just that appreciation that his intelligence and moral worthiness demand, to do this without regard to sect or color, is still held in large sections of our country to be a crime against society which will not be tolerated when there is power to suppress it. So, too, the moral protest against oathbound secret societies, - the uncompromising hostility to the liquor traffic and to any form of legislative approval of it, and above all, the opposition to divisions in the church of Christ as seen in the sects and denominations, demand a moral heroism which needs to be not less steadfast and self-sacrificing than that which wrested from slavery its scepter of power.

Because Mr. Fee was in all these points most uncompromising and true, and because of his indomitable perseverance amidst abounding obstacles, he has achieved a large measure of success, and won the appreciation of even his sometime enemies. But Bro. Fee is now advanced in life. His labor, though still efficient and valuable, cannot in the nature of things much longer continue. His reward is in his works that will follow him. In the language of the poet reformer, John G. Whittier, as applied to another, we may say, "Thanks for the good man's beautiful example."

 "His faith and works, like streams that intermingle,  In the same channel ran;  The crystal clearness of an eye kept single  Shamed all the frauds of man.  The very gentlest of all human natures  He joined to courage strong,  And love outstretching unto all God's creatures  With sturdy hate of wrong."

H. H. HINMAN.

Preface.

Some six years since a friend requested that I prepare articles for the Berea Evangelist, on the topic, "Berea: its History and its Work." I did so. The articles appeared in the Berea Evangelist during the years 1885-6. Since that time friends have urged that I prepare a sketch of my leadings and labors up to my coming to Berea, and embody the whole in a volume. To do so will now be labor and care; yet in this way I may be able to do continued good, - utter truth when my tongue shall be silent. I may be able in an emphatic way to say to the reader, Trust God - trust him for success, for support, for life. If in this way you will trust God, he by his word, by his Spirit and by his providence, will lead you into the highest usefulness of which, in your day and generation, you are capable. Often trials will come, friends fail, and the heavens above appear as brass and the earth beneath as iron, yet if you will hold on with Jacob, or stand still with Moses, you will see the face of God; the Red Sea of difficulties will open before you, and you will walk through dry shod. The future journey may indeed be a barren, stony wilderness, yet the manna will be fresh every morning and the shekinah of God will go before you and lead you across the Jordan, where you will eat the "new corn" in the land of promise. To this my own consciousness bears testimony; were I to say less I would not be faithful.

JOHN G. FEE

Berea, Ky., 1891.

Chapter I.

Parentage. - Conversion. - College Life. - At the Theological Seminary. - Deep Conviction and Consecration. - Field of Labor. - Burden of Spirit. - Sealing of the Holy Spirit. - Wife Chosen. - Betrothal. - Search for the Field of Labor. - Marriage. - Called to the Church in Lewis County. - Anti-Slavery Sermon. - Cast out of a Boarding-place.

I WAS born in Bracken County, Kentucky, Sept. 9, 1816.

My father, John Fee, was the son of John Fee, senior. He was of Scotch and English descent. His wife, formerly Elizabeth Bradford, was of Scotch-Irish descent. My father was an industrious, thrifty farmer. Unfortunately he inherited from his father's estate a bondman - a lad bound until he should be 25 years of age.

My father came to the conclusion that if he would have sufficient and permanent labor he must have slave labor. He purchased and reared slaves until he was the owner of some thirteen. This was a great sin in him individually, and to the family a detriment, as all moral wrongs are.

My father was observant, and by his reading kept himself familiar with passing events. He saw that the effects of slavery were bad; that it was a hindrance to social and national prosperity; and consequently invested his money in lands in free States and early deeded portions of these lands to each of his children. He did not see the end from the beginning, - what was to be the after-use of some of these lands.

My mother was industrious and economical; a modest, tender-hearted woman, and a fond mother. I was her first born. She loved me very much, and I loved her in return.

Her mother, Sarah Gregg, was a Quakeress from Pennsylvania. Her eldest son, Aaron Gregg, my wife's grandfather, was an industrious free laborer, an ardent lover of liberty, and very outspoken in his denunciations of slavery. This opposition to slavery and his love of liberty passed to his children and children's children, almost without exception.

In my boyhood I thought nothing about the inherent sinfulness of slavery. I saw it as a prevalent institution in the family life of my relations on my father's side of the house. These were kind to me, and occupied what were considered good social positions. I was often scolded for being so much with the slaves, and threatened with punishment when I would intercede for them. Slavery, like every other evil institution, bore evil fruits, blunted the finest sensibilities and hardened the tenderest hearts.

By false teaching, unreflective youth can be led to look upon moral monstrosities as harmless; as even heaven-approved institutions. Vivid now is the impression made on my youthful mind on seeing a Presbyterian preacher, who was a guest in my grandfather's house, rise before an immense audience and select for his text, "Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren." Of course the drift of the discourse was after the plea of the slaveocracy - "God decreed that the children of Ham should be slaves to the children of Shem and Japheth; that Abraham held slaves, and Moses sanctioned such."

All this was intensified by seeing a much venerated neighbor, and slaveholder, who had represented the people in the State Legislature, mount his horse, then uncovering his gray hairs, cry out in a loud voice, "The greatest sermon between heaven and earth." The providence and truth of God led me, in after years, to a very different conclusion.

In the year 1830, when I was fourteen years old, Joseph Corlis, an earnest Christian man, took a subscription school near to my father's house, and insisted with great earnestness that he be allowed to board in my father's family. There was a providence in this. Under his prayers and faithful labors, I was deeply convicted of sin and gave myself to God. My desire was to connect myself with the M. E. church. My father opposed, saying I was too young. He was not himself a Christian. Some two years after this he was awakened, joined the Presbyterian church near to his home, and requested that I go with him. I desired a home with God's people, and gladly embraced the opportunity. After the lapse of some two years I was impressed that it was my duty to prepare for the Gospel ministry. I soon entered as a student in Augusta College, then located in Augusta, Bracken Co., Ky., my native county. I prosecuted my studies there for about two and a-half years, then went to Miami University, at Oxford, Ohio, and there finished my course of classical study save the review of the last term of study; and finding I could do this at Augusta College, and enter Lane Theological Seminary at the beginning of the term of study there, I returned to Augusta College and took my diploma there. I entered Lane Seminary in the year 1842. Here I met in class one of my former classmates, John Milton Campbell, a former student at Oxford, Ohio. He was a man of marked piety and great goodness of heart. Years previously he had consecrated himself to the work of missions and chose West Africa as his field. Another member of the same class was James C. White, formerly of Boston, Massachusetts, late pastor of the Presbyterian church on Poplar St., Cincinnati. These brethren became deeply interested in me as a native of Kentucky and in view of my relation to the slave system, my father being a slaveholder. They pressed upon my conscience the text, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thy self," and as a practical manifestation of this, "Do unto men as ye would they should do unto you." I saw that the duty enjoined was fundamental in the religion

of Jesus Christ, and that unless I embraced the principle and lived it in honest practice, I would lose my soul. I saw also that as an honest man I ought to be willing to wear the name which would be a fair exponent of the principle I espoused. This was the name Abolitionist, odious then to the vast majority of people North, and especially South. For a time I struggled between odium on the one hand, and manifest duty on the other. I saw that to embrace the principle and wear the name was to cut myself off from relatives and former friends, and apparently from all prospects of usefulness in the world. I had in the grove near the seminary a place to which I went every day for prayer, between the hours of eleven and twelve. I saw that to have light and peace from God, I must make the consecration. I said, "Lord, if needs be, make me an Abolitionist." The surrender was complete. I arose from my knees with the consciousness that I had died to the world and accepted Christ in all the fullness of his character as I then understood Him. Self must be surrendered. The test, the point of surrender, may be one thing to one man, a different thing to another man; but it must be made, - all given to Christ.

In this consecration - this death to the world - I also made up my mind to accept all that should follow. Imperfect as has been my life, I do not remember that in all my after difficulties I had to consider anew the questions of sacrifice of property, of comfort, of social position, of apparent failure, of personal safety, or of giving up life itself. The latter I regarded as even probable. This, with the rest, had been embodied in my former consecration. I felt that "my life was hid with Christ in God."

Soon after the submission and consecration referred to, the question arose, Where ought I to expend my future efforts, and manifest forth this love to God and man? I had invitations to go with class-mates into the State of Indiana, into communities thrifty and prosperous, with multiplied schools and growing churches. This was enticing to young aspirations, even to those who intended to do good. I was also considering seriously the duty of going with J. M. Campbell, my classmate, to Western Africa; and was in correspondence with the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions in reference to my going as a missionary abroad.

Whilst these fields of labor were being considered, there came irresistibly the consideration of another field: that part of the home field which lay in the South, and especially in Kentucky, my native State. Then came before me my relation to the slave. I had shared in the fruits of his unrequited toil; he was blind and dumb, and there was no one to plead for him.

"Love thy neighbor as thyself" rang in my ears. I also considered the condition of the slave-owner. I knew he was willingly deceived by the false teachings of the popular ministry. I knew also that the great part of the non-slave-owners, who were by their votes and action the actual slaveholders, did not see their crime; that they despised the slave because of his condition, and that these non-slave-owners were violently opposed to any doctrine or practice that might treat the slave as a "neighbor," a brother, and make him equal before the law. I knew also that the great body of the people were practically without the fundamental principle of the Gospel, love to God and love to man; that, as in the days of Martin Luther, though the doctrine of justification by faith was plainly written in the Bible, yet the great body of people did not then see it; so now the great doctrine of loving God supremely and our neighbor as ourselves, "on which hang all the law and the prophets," though clearly written in the Bible, was not seen in its practical application by the great mass of the people. Such was my relation to this people, and theirs to God and the world, that I felt I must return and preach to them the gospel of impartial love.

In my bedroom on bended knee, and looking through my window across the Ohio river, over into my native State, I entered into a solemn covenant with God to return and there preach this gospel of love without which all else was "as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal."

I had kept up correspondence with my father, and told him my convictions and purposes. He was greatly incensed, and wrote, saying, "Bundle up your books and come home; I have spent the last dollar I mean to spend on you in a free State."

At the end of my second year of theological study I returned to my home, intending to do what I could for my father's conversion and that of the family. I spent ten months with my father and the community around. I felt during this time a great burden of spirit in view of the condition of society and the work which lay before me. I spent at one time, alone, in an open field on my father's farm, a whole night in prayer. On two other occasions, in prayer, alone, in a distant part of the farm, I had to my soul two of the fullest revelations of the glory of God in my life's history. These were not my first conversion, nor second conversion, nor sanctification. Conversion is committal to Christ, soul, body, and spirit. Of this I had been conscious previous to these after sealings of the Spirit.

Sanctification is none the less by faith than justification, but it is continuous. There may arise to-day a new duty, a new apprehension of a habit un-Christ like, but not seen before. With this new apprehension comes the necessity of a new committal to Christ, with full assurance of sustaining grace.

There was another incident, a providence of good to me in these months of stay and labor. During a series of religious meetings held in the church house where I had previously made my own public profession of Christ, I saw the conversion of the one to whom I gave my best affections, and the one I then decided to make, if possible, the sharer of my future joys and sorrows. I had known her from her childhood, and her mother before her; yet with all her attractions and merits in my eyes, I had no thought of choosing her previous to her conversion, as the partner of my life. I knew no one could be happy with me, nor a help-mate in the life I had resolved to live, unless she was converted, and thus one in spirit and purpose with myself.

On that day of her conversion and espousal to Christ (for I heard her experience and consecration) I decided to seek with her future oneness. I had before me a governing purpose, and to this all my plans conformed. Marriage to me was not a mere impulse nor a mere business transaction. I believed then, as now, that in order to true and wise marriage there is some one in the world in whom there is, first, that peculiar combination of qualities which form the basis of peculiar and exclusive affection; and then there must be that purpose of soul and habit of life that fit for future harmony and usefulness. This I found in her: that affection, sympathy, courage, cheer, activity, frugality and endurance, which few could have combined, and which greatly sustained me in the dark and trying hours that attended most of our pathway. This much is due to truth and may be suggestive to others.

By this time it became apparent that my work in trying to convert my father to sentiments of justice and liberty was ended. He had supplied himself, from every possible source, with pro-slavery books and pamphlets, and became violent in his opposition to all efforts for the freedom of the slave. He still hoped to efface my convictions and lure me from my purpose. He offered to pay all bills if I would go to Princeton, New Jersey, and spend a year in the Theological Seminary in that place. This offer I declined. I said, I will not by any act of mine bid God-speed to an institution in which the teaching and practice is subversive of the fundamental principles of the Gospel, - love to God supreme, and to our neighbors as ourselves.

I was offered the pastorate of two churches in the county (Bracken), with abundant support, but on the condition that I would "go along and preach the Gospel and let the subject of slavery alone." I replied, "The Gospel is the good news of salvation from sin, all sin, the sin of slave-holding as well as all other sins; and I will not sell my convictions in reference to that which I regard as an iniquity, nor my liberty to utter these convictions for a mess of pottage."

I saw that my work in that region was ended. But my covenant was upon me to preach the gospel of love in Kentucky. I needed therefore to look for another field.

Ecclesiastically I was connected with the New School Presbyterian "church" or sect. The ministerial brethren of that body at that time, in Kentucky, were relatively few. Several of these brethren earnestly solicited my co-operation. I told them my convictions in reference to the sinfulness of human slavery; of its utter subversion of the great fundamental principles of the Gospel. Some replied, "Yes, slavery is a bad thing; so was polygamy; but God tolerated it, and sent his prophets to preach principles that ultimately supplanted it. So," they said, "we must deal with slavery." I replied, Principles can be effective only as they are seen and applied.

I was fettered with the notion that if I would purify the church, or sect, I must stay in it and there apply the principles, hold up the truth.Soon, however, an "eye-opener"came. I was invited to attend a meeting of the presbytery within the bounds of which I was then living. This was near to Cynthiana, Harrison Co., Ky. I went. I saw there, as elsewhere, the blight of slavery on every thing around me; the degradation of the slave, the idleness of the youth, the pride of the people, the spirit and manner of the ministers themselves. Sabbath came; and the hour to commune, to eat at the Lord's table, came. With this came to my mind the text, "If any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one not to eat." I said, If the slaveholder be not an extortioner, then no man under heaven is. I left the church house, and went out into an adjoining woodland and sat down on a log and wept as I thought of my condition, - that of holding ecclesiastical connection with men with whom I could not eat at the Lord's table. The pastorate of that church was offered to me. I saw in the eldership and leading members determined opposition to the freedom of the slave. I saw there was not to me, in that place, an open door, and returned to my home.

After a few days I took my horse and started on an exploring tour through the interior of the State. Then, like most other ministers, I was working in the narrow groove of sect, and that a small one in Kentucky. Going from place to place, I traveled on horseback between three and four hundred miles. I heard, in my journeying, of a small church in the city of Louisville, Kentucky, then without a pastor. I visited the church and found the membership small - twenty-one in number. In this church there was to me one hopeful feature, and that was that there was but one slave-owner in the membership, and she the widow of a former preacher, who was represented as having been an anti-slavery man. I said, This people will probably hear the truth spoken in love. I agreed to come and labor with them for a season. I then returned to my home in Bracken County.

Soon a letter from the church followed me, saying, "If you will be useful among us, you must separate yourself from that abolition presbytery at Cincinnati." By that presbytery I had been licensed to preach the Gospel, and my connection, ecclesiastically, was yet with that body. I replied, If my usefulness with you depends upon my separating from godly men, then with you I cannot be useful.

Again I was apparently without a field of labor; but my purpose was unchanged, and my willing covenant to preach the gospel of love in my native State was yet upon me, but in what place to preach I knew not. With me it was then true that I must go forward, "not knowing whither I went."

As previously suggested, my life's future was merged with that of another, and hers with mine: She had decided to go where I should go, and if I roamed in keeping my covenant, I should not roam alone. Accordingly with her consent, Matilda Hamilton and I were married September 26, 1844.