 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information, or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Written by Frederick Douglass Appendix I find, since reading over the foregoing narrative, that I have, in several instances, spoken in such a tone and manner, respecting religion, as may possibly lead those unacquainted with my religious views, to suppose me an opponent of all religion. To remove the liability of such misapprehension, I deem it proper to append the following brief explanation. What I have said respecting and against religion, I meant strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper for, between the Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference. So wide that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ. I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land. Indeed, I can see no reason but the most deceitful one for calling the religion of this land Christianity. I look upon it as the climax of all misnomers, the boldest of all frauds, and the grossest of all libels. Never was there a clear case of stealing the library of the court of heaven to serve the devil in. I am filled with unutterable loathing when I contemplate the religious pomp and show, together with the horrible inconsistencies which everywhere surround me. We have men-stealers for ministers, women-whippers for missionaries, and cradle-plunders for church members. The man who wields a blood-clotted cowskin during the week fills the pulpit on Sunday and claims to be a minister of the meek and lowly 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 earth 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 auctioners' bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heartbroken 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 bloodstained 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, preaching kidnap men, give thanks and rob thy own afflicted poor? Talk of thy glorious liberty, and then bolt hard the captured store? What, servants of thy own, merciful son who came to seek and save, the homelessness and the outcasts, fettering down the tasked and plundered slave? Pilot 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? The Christianity of America is a Christianity of whose votaries it may be truly said, as it was of the ancient scribes and Pharisees. They bind heavy burdens and grievous to be born, and lay them on men's shoulders, but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers. All their works they do for to be seen of men. They love the uppermost rooms, feasts and the chief seats in the synagogues, and to be called of men rabbi rabbi. But woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men, for ye neither go in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Ye devour widows, houses, and for a pretense make long prayers, therefore ye shall receive the greater damnation. Ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him two-four more, the child of hell, than yourselves. Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye pay tithe of ment and ends and cumin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone. Ye blind guides would strain at a net and swallow a camel. Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. Woe unto you scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. Dark and tolerable as is this picture, I hold it to be strictly true of the overwhelming mass of professed Christians in America. They strain at a net and swallow a camel. Could anything be more true of our churches? They would be shocked at the proposition of fellowshiping a sheepstealer, and at the same time they hugged to their communion a man-stealer, and brand me with being an infidel, if I find fault with them for it. They attend with farisacual strictness to the outward forms of religion, and at the same time neglect the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith. They are always ready to sacrifice, but seldom to show mercy. They are they who represented as professing to love God, whom they have not seen, whilst they hate their brother, whom they have seen. They love the heathen on the other side of the globe. They can pray for him, pay money to have the Bible put into his hand, and missionaries to instruct him, while they despise and totally neglect the heathen at their own doors. Such is, very briefly, my view of the religion of this land, and to avoid any misunderstanding growing out of the use of general terms, I mean by the religion of this land, that which is revealed in the words, deeds, and actions of those bodies north and south, calling themselves Christian churches, and yet in union with slaveholders. It is against religion, as presented by these bodies, that I have felt it my duty to testify. I conclude these remarks by copying the following portrait of the religion of the south, which is, by communion and fellowship, the religion of the north, which I soberly affirm is true to the life, and without caricature or slightest exaggeration. It is said to have been drawn, several years before the present anti-slavery agitation began, by a northern Methodist preacher, who, while residing at the south, had an opportunity to see slave-holding morals, manners, and piety with his own eyes. Shall I not visit for these things, saith the Lord? Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this? A parody. Come, saints and sinners, hear me tell, how pious priests whip Jack and Nell, and women buy and children sell, and preach all sinners down to hell, and sing of heavenly union. They'll bleed and baw, Donna like goats, gorge down black sheep, and strain at moats, array their backs in fine black coats, then seize their negroes by their throats, and choke for Hamiltonly union. They'll church you if you sip a dram, and damn you if you steal a lamb. Yet rob old Tony, doll and Sam, of human rights and bread and ham, kidnappers heavenly union. They'll loudly talk of Christ's reward, and bind his image with a cord, and scold and swing the lash apart, and sell their brother in the Lord to handcuffed heavenly union. They'll read and sing a sacred song, and make a prayer both loud and long, and teach the right and do the wrong, hailing the brother, sister throng, with words of heavenly union. We wonder how such saints can sing, or praise the Lord upon the wing, who roar, who scold, and whip, and sting, and to their slaves, and mammon cling, in guilty conscience union. They'll raise tobacco corn and rye, and drive and thieve and cheat and lie, and lay up treasures in the sky by making switch and cow skin fly in hope of heavenly union. They'll crack old Tony on the skull, and preach and roar like Boschian bull, or braying ass of mischiefs full, and seize old Jacob by the wool, and pull for heavenly union. A roaring, ranting, sleek man-thief, who lived on mutton veal and beef, yet never would afford relief to needy, sable sons of grief, was big with heavenly union. Love not the world, the preacher said, and winked his eye, and shook his head. He seized on Tom, and Dick, and Ned, cut short their meat, and clothes, and bread, yet still loved heavenly union. Another preacher, whining, spoke of one whose heart for sinners broke. He tied old Nanny to an oak, and drew the blood at every stroke, and prayed for heavenly union. To others, oped their iron jaws, and waved their children's stealing paws. There sat their children in Gugaz by stinting negroes, backs, and maws. They kept up heavenly union. All good from Jack another takes, and entertains their flirts and rakes, who dress as sleek as glossy snakes, and cram their mouths with sweetened cakes, and this goes down for union. Sincerely and earnestly hoping that this little book may do something toward throwing light on the American slave system, and hastening the glad day of deliverance to the millions of my brethren and bonds, faithfully relying upon the power of truth, love, and justice for success in my humble efforts, and solemnly pledging myself anew to the sacred cause I subscribe myself. Frederick Douglass. Lynn, Massachusetts. April 28th, 1845. The End. End of Appendix. And End of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. By Frederick Douglass. This recording by Jeanette Ferguson on June 16th, 2007.