Christian Mission and Poverty

Chapter 7: Abolition and Liberation

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much labor; while others in several kingdoms are busied in fetching men to help labor from distant parts of the world, to spend the remainder of their lives in the uncomfortable condition of slaves, and that self is at the bottom of these proceedings—amidst all this confusion, and these scenes of sorrow and distress, can we remember the Prince of Peace, remember that we are his disciples, and remember that example of humility and plainness which he set for us, without feeling an earnest desire to be disentangled from everything connected with selfish customs in food, in raiment, in houses, and all things else; that being of Christ[’s] family and walking as he walked, we may stand in that uprightness wherein man was first made, and have no fellowship with those inventions which men in the fallen wisdom have sought out. In the selfish spirit stands idolatry. Did our blessed Redeemer enable his family to endure great reproaches, and suffer cruel torments even unto death, for their testimony against the idolatry of those times; and can we behold the prevalence of idolatry though under a different appearance, without being jealous over ourselves lest we unwarily join in it? Those faithful martyrs refused to cast incense into the fire, though by doing it they might have escaped a cruel death. Casting sweet-scented matter into the fire to make a comfortable smell—this considered separate from all circumstances—would appear to be of small consequence; but as they would thereby have signified their approbation of idolatry, it was necessarily refused by the faithful. Nor can we in any degree depart from pure universal righteousness and publicly continue in that which is not agreeable to the Truth, without strengthening the hands of the unrighteous and doing that which in the nature of the thing is like offering incense to an idol . . .