The GOSPEL TRUTH
LETTER OF

CHARLES G. FINNEY

1852

To the President of the Rochester Ladies' Antislavery Society

24 September 1852

 

[The following letter was published in Autographs for Freedom (Boston: John P. Jewett and Company; Cleveland, Ohio: Jewett Proctor and Worthington; London: Low and Company, 1853), page 74. The book is a collection of antislavery statements by well-known reformers compiled by the Rochester Ladies' Antislavery Society with a preface by the Secretary, Julia Griffiths. ]

 

LETTER TO THE PRESIDENT OF THE SOCIETY.

 

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DEAR MADAM:--

Your request to transmit my name, with a short article, for insertion in your contemplated publication, is before me. I have neither time nor words in which to express my unalterable abhorrence of slavery, with all the odious apologies and blasphemous claims of Divine sanction for it, that have been attempted. I regard all attempts, by legislation or otherwise, to give the abominable system "aid and comfort" as involving treason against the government of God, and as insulting the consciences and common sense of men.

Yours truly,

 

C. G. Finney

 

OBERLIN, 24 SEPT., 1852

 

Most of Finney's letter was copied out by John Campbell, in his review of the book in The Christian Witness (London), Vol. 10 (May 1853), p. 230, preceded by the words:

 

We see our worthy friend, Charles Finney, has complied with the request that was tendered him, in words worthy of his spirit. We think we hear him and see him, as with manly port, flashing eye, and half-infuriated look, he uttered the following words:

I have neither time nor words ... etc

Footnotes:

Finney's letter was partly republished, with minor alterations, in Wilson Armistead, A Cloud of Witnesses Against Slavery and Oppression (London: William Tweedie, 1853), page 106.

This letter is not in the Finney Papers.

Finney may have written unutterable here in the original letter.

The signature is a reproduction of Finney's handwriting.