Slavery.
By G.W.S.Ware
April,29,1939.
Slavery: The state of entire subjugation to the will of another.
No one knows when human slavery began. Spiritual slavery began when Satan made legions
of his fellow angels his slaves. Satan, before he became a demon by sin, was a chief over
a number of his fellow angels, to do the will of God. Any thing they did while good
angels, is unrecorded history, hid from human knowledge. Any one can conjecture, that all
the good works he ever did, turned to evil, when he became a devil; or any can suppose
that no good deed can change, and can be found somewhere in eternity.
When I was a boy I saw Negro slaves, and was personally acquainted with some of them,
all of whom are now dead, as far as I know. As I remember they were more happy, than their
descendants are to day; but this is no proof that slavery was right, for it was not.
If sin had not entered this world, slavery would be impossible in it. There are no
slaves in Heaven, and Hell has no other kind. No human being or angel can take on sin, and
not become its slave.
This Month, 74 years ago I saw Negro slavery go out of existence, in the United States
of America. Not many men, no boys or middle age men can say this now. Seventy four years
have put a layer of earth over all of them, save a lone relic, here and there.
Last Sunday, in the first Baptist Church of Winder, Georgia, at three P.M., the United
Daughters of the Confederacy, held a memorial service. In that crowded house, at the
chancel, in a chair of honor, sat a lone man of black color. He sat like a statue, with
legs crossed, hands folded in lap, with head bowed. For awhile, I wondered if it was a
statue of an ex-slave. I watched him, and finally he raised a hand to his face; which made
me glad to see one more ex-slave, of that faraway day when I was a boy. It was joy to
shake the hand of this 96 years old ex-slave.
