The Dungeon

“Behold! the tears of the oppressed!”

WHEN composing himself for a contented life, a shriek of anguish reached the monarch’s ear and startled his repose. It was a cry from the victims of tyranny and oppression, and as he listened it grew more articulate, and it filled him at once with sympathy for others, and solicitude for himself. “I saw the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there. I considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter.” How is it possible for a prince to” eat and drink, and enjoy the fruit of his labour,” whilst the wail of evicted peasants and houseless orphans is louder than all the music of his orchestra? For a moment lie felt relief in recalling the future judgment. “I said in mine heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked.” But what care they for the judgment? What fear of God is before their eyes? So brutish are they that they neither look forward nor look up; but are content with their daily raven. Yes, beasts, I half believe you. Your grossness almost converts me to your own materialism. I wish that God would manifest you to yourselves, and show you how brutish you are living, and how brute-like you will die. Yes, tyrants and oppressors, you have power at present; but you will fall like the beasts that perish. You and they will all go to one place, — will all resolve into promiscuous clay; for “all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.” And as for your very soul, so unfeeling, so undevout as you have been, what is there to mark your spirit more aspiring, more empyrean, than the downward and dissolving spirit of the beast? No; there are sharks in the ocean, and wolves in the forest, and eagles in the air; and there are tyrants on thrones, and there are tormentors in many a cottage. It is painful to know the misery they are daily inflicting, and, perhaps, I myself may yet become their prey. But they must not spoil this transient life-luxury; they shall not fill me with vain compassion or fantastic fears. After all, there is nothing better than to “rejoice in one’s own works,” and be, as long as he can, oblivious of surrounding misery, — regulating his own movements and rejoicing in his own resources. “For that is his present portion; and who can reveal the future 1” Said I so? Ah! vain resolution and unavailing vow! That cry of tortured innocence is in my ear again. I hear the groans of the victim, and I see the tears of the oppressed. And my heart grows sick, and I wish that I were dead, or rather that I had never been bora into a world where all proceeds so sadly.

Very ghastly is the picture which our world presents when we look at it as the scene of injustice and cruelty; and very painful is the view it gives us of our arbitrary and oppressive human nature. Could we only see what God is daily seeing, and hear what God is daily hearing, we would be apt to join with Solomon in praising the dead who are already dead, and who are past our pain or danger. For, even now, in this noon of the nineteenth century, which, in the ear Eternal, is the loudest of earth’s voices? — which is the loudest in the ear of History? Is it the psalm of thanksgiving? Is it the harvest hymn of ripe fruition and cheerful prospects? Is it the newr song of redeemed and regenerate adoration? What is the speech which day utters unto day, — the watchword which one terrestrial night passes on to another? Alas! it is lamentation and mourning. It is the music of breaking hearts; it is the noise of the oppressor’s millstone, whose grinding never waxes low. It is the sighing of the prisoner whom the despot has doomed; the groaning of the victim whom lucre has enslaved, or whom superstition means to immolate. That heavy plunge far out on the moon-lit Bosphorus is the close of one household tragedy; in that sudden shriek and weltering fall on the Venetian pavement ends another. These cries of horror announce the funeral of some Ashanti prince, and the wholesale slaughter which soaks his tomb; whilst from Austrian dungeons and Ural mines, the groans of patriots confess the power of tyrants. And even if the modern surface were silent, History cannot be deaf to the voices underneath. For, wheresoever she sets her foot, there is a stifled sob, — that cry which nothing can deaden or keep down, — the quenchless cry of blood, — blood like Abel’s, blood like Stephen’s, blood like the Saviour’s own; and as if the turf were all one altar, and every pore a several tongue, she hears the slain of centuries invoking heaven’s pity, — Bethlehem’s innocents, Roman martyrs, Bartholomew victims j and the ground begins to quake as the muffled chorus waxes louder: “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” *

There are few deeds of kindness which are not sufficiently notorious, — few acts of munificence or mercy which the world’s right hand has not hinted to its left. But when History begins her sterner survey, — when from Popedoms and dynasties, and Republics even, she lifts the gilt and purple canopy, — what sights of paltry vengeance or ingenious cruelty offend the reluctant gaze! What secrets of the prison-house do Bastiles and Inquisitions, * Rev. vi. 9 — 12.

San Angelos, and London Towers disclose, as the daylight of inquiry breaks in, and the earthen floor gives up its slain, and the stone wall gives out its skeletons! There are depths of the ocean to which the plummet of the mariner, and the dredge of the naturalist, and the exploring foot of the diver, have never travelled down; but even there, as she takes her telescope, History sees the bones thick strewn of the hapless men whom the buccaneer, and the pirate, and the flying slaver, have flung quick into the deep: and there are dim recesses of old story from which no gleams of humanity or tenderness beam forth; but even thence, by the light of Egyptian brick-kilns, and Druid bale-fires, and Assyrian conflagrations, we are reminded that the anguish of his fellow has always been the amusement of the warrior and the solace of the priest. So that, morally regarded, and taking in the continuous survey of all places and all time, green may be the colour of the globe, but red is the livery of man. Babel may have split the dialects of earth into a thousand tongues; but amidst them all, the old vernacular of anguish still survives. And in the music of the spheres its Maker may have given to our world its proper note; but it is a minor tune which is ever sung by its inhabitants, by neighbour nations, and by the several classes of society, evermore to one another, crying, Woe, woe, woe.

Such oppressions Solomon beheld, and more especially judicial oppressions, — cruelty in the cloak of law (iii. 16) — and from the contemplation his mind sought refuge in the Supreme Tribunal. “I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked.” And though, in the agitated state of his spirit, the recollection did not long abide, the fact is true and the consolation lasting.

The Lord has a bottle, and into that bottle He puts his people’s tears, and the tears of all who are oppressed. When Joseph wept at Dothau, and the Jews at Babylon, it was not the sand of the desert nor the stream of Euphrates which intercepted the tear; but God’s bottle. When the poor man works hard, and, coming for his wages, gets only rough words or coarse ridicule; when, from the hapless negro, his wife and children are torn by some vindictive master, and sold into a distant State; when, in her new mourning, the bewildered mother goes to claim the scanty provision for her babes, and finds that a cunning quirk has left her not only a widow, but a pauper, — man may mock the misery, but God regards the crime. And whether it be the scalding tear of the Southern slave, or that which freezes in the Siberian exile’s eye, God’s bottle has received them all; and when the measure is full, the tears of the oppressed burst in vials of vengeance on the oppressor’s head.

So true is this that, whenever it foretels retribution, poetry becomes prophetic: —” Ye horrid towers, the abode of broken hearts;

Ye dungeons, and ye cages of despair,

That monarchs have supplied from age to age

With music, such as suits their ears, —

The sighs and groans of miserable men!

There ’s not an English heart that would not leap

To hear that ye were fallen.”

So sang the bard of Olney in the hey-day of the Bourbons; and a few years later the heart of England did leap, for the Bastile was fallen. And two centuries have passed since, like a Hebrew seer, our Milton prayed: —

“Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter’d saints, whose bones

Lie scatter’d on the Alpine mountains cold.” And there is not a succeeding age which has not seen an instalment of the vengeance; and our own is witnessing that fulfilment which “the triple tyrant” most abhors, — the resurrection of their ashes in Roman Protestants and Italian friends of freedom.

This is a great principle, and not to be lost sight of — the weakness of oppression, the terrible strength of the oppressed. I do not allude to the elasticity of the human heart, though that is very great, and is apt, sooner or later, to heave off despotisms and every sort of incubus. I do not so much allude to that — for elastic though it is, it sometimes has been crushed. But I allude to that all-inspecting and all-adjusting Power which controls the affairs of men. And though Solomon felt so perturbed by the prosperous cruelty he witnessed; though he “beheld the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; for on the side of their oppressors there was power;” — had he bent his eye a little longer in the direction where it eventually rested, he would have found a Comforter for the oppressed, and would have seen the impotence of the oppressor. For “God shall judge the righteous and the wicked” (iii. 17), or as the close of the book more amply declares it, “God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil.” And with two worlds in which to outwork the retribution, and with a whole eternity to overtake the arrears of time, Oh! how tyrants should fear for God’s judgments; and that match which themselves have kindled, and which is slowly creeping round to explode their own subjacent mine, in what floods of repentance, if wise, would they drench it! Had they been wise enough to remember that “on the side of the oppressed” there is always infinite “Power,” Pharaoh would have dreaded the Hebrew infants more than the Hebrew soldiery, and Herod would have been more frightened for the babes of Bethlehem than for the legions of Rome. To David the most dreadful of foes would have been the murdered Uriah, and to Ahab the hosts of Syria, compared with the corpse of Naboth, need have given no uneasiness. More than all the might of Britain had Napoleon cause to dread the blood of D’Enghien, and, beyond all foreign enemies, should modern nations tremble, for their slaves: FOR ON THE

SIDE OF THE OPPRESSED IS OMNIPOTENCE, AND THE MOST DEATHLESS OF FOES IS A VICTIM!

My friends, the Gospel is the law of liberty. Such an antagonist is it to all that is unfair and arbitrary and oppressive, that it is only where there is a reign of darkness that there can be a reign of despotism. Even as it is, every Christian is a free man. His loyalty to God is liberty. It is freedom from tyrannical lusts and task-master passions. It is the bond of iniquity broken. It is emancipation from the thraldom of Satan. And if there were two countries, one of which the Son of God had made free, * and the other of which had freed itself; in one of which Christians were ruled by an absolute but God-fearing Dictator, and in the other of which the slaves of Satan ruled themselves, — we know very well where we should find the greater freedom. But still, the tendency of the Gospel is to do away the pride and imperiousness and unfairness which are here called” oppression •” and if there were any land where these two truths were practically realized, “God is Light,” and “God is Love,” — that land would be a land of liberty.

Still, liberty, or exemption from man’s oppression, is a priceless blessing. And it may be worth while to ask, What can Christians do for its culture and diffusion?

And, first of all, yourselves be free. Seek free- * John viii. 32, 36.

dom from fierce passions and dark prejudices. If you are led captive by the devil at his will, you are sure to become an oppressor. In the greed of gain you will be apt to defraud the hireling of his wages; and that is oppression. In the fury of affronted pride, you will be apt to wreak disproportionate wrath on the offender; and that also is oppression. In the narrowness of sectarianism you will be ready to punish men for their convictions; and such persecution is oppression. He who governs his family by fear is an oppressor. He who tries to accomplish by force what can be effected by reason, is an oppressor. And if he would only look, such a man might see the tears of those whom he oppresses. He might see the tears of the broken-hearted supplicant who with case unheard and with a rude rebuff, has been driven from his door. He might see the tears of the conscientious labourer who has been deprived of bread and bereft the maintenance for his family by refusing Sunday work. He might see the tears of his dependant who, for attendance on some interdicted place of worship or for adherence to a sect proscribed, has received his warning. And though a tear be a little mirror, did he but behold it for one calm moment, it might reveal the oppressor to himself, and save a multitude of sorrows.

Beware of confounding liberty with licence. One of the greatest blessings in a state, or in a Christian Church, is good government; but from mistaken notions of independence, it is the delight of some to “speak evil of dignities.” They carp and cavil at every law, and they set at defiance every regulation of the powers that be, and one would almost fancy that in their esteem rulers were ordained as a target for public rancor, or a safety-valve for national spleen. On the other hand, an enlightened Christian and patriot will always remember that a constitutional Government, — a Government where himself and the rulers have given mutual guarantees, — is too great a mercy to be lightly imperilled: and he will also remember that where obedience is order, anarchy is pretty sure to end in oppression. It was a noble sentiment, not only for a soldier but for a subject, “I like to be at my post, doing my duty; indifferent whether one set or another govern, provided they govern well.”* And, like the hero who originally uttered it, the man who is thus magnanimous in obeying is likely to be mighty in command.

And, finally, cultivate a humane and gentle spirit. Every master, every parent, every public functionary, must, from time to time, pronounce decisions or give commands which cross some one’s wishes or derange some one’s plans. But it will go far to propitiate compliance when it is seen that it is not in recklessness, but for good reason j or, perhaps, from a regretted necessity that the unwelcome order is given: for where there is tenderness, there never can be tyranny. On the other hand, wherever

* “Life of General Sir John Moore,” vol. ii. p. 14.

there is thoughtlessness there will be tyranny; and wherever there is a hard or cruel nature, it only needs that power be added in order to make a Nero. Here it is that the mollifying religion of Jesus comes in as the great promoter of freedom and the great opponent of oppression. By infusing a benevolent spirit into the bosom of the Christian, it makes him the natural guardian of weakness and the natural friend of innocence. And whether it be the savage sportsman who gloats over the tears and dying shudders of the harmless forestranger, or who, shooting the parent-bird on her way to the eyrie, leaves the callow nestlings to pine away with slow hunger; — or the kidnapper who carries off the struggling boy from his mother’s arms, or stows away in separate ships bound for far-sundered shores, the young chieftain and his bride; — or the Moslem conqueror who hews his way from land to land through fields of quivering slain; — or the

“Cowl’d demons of the inquisitorial cell, The worse than common fiends from heaven that fell, The baser, ranker sprung, Autochthones of hell:” — *

Whichever be the form of oppression which nightmares our sympathies, or the form of cruelty which lacerates our feelings, we foresee an end of it in the final triumph of the cross. We foresee an end of it when the Saviour asserts his rightful supremacy, and subdues all things under Him. “For the * Coleridge.

earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God:” and till then, in every groan of the creature we must recognise a pledge and a prayer that the Son of God will be manifest once more, and that the disciples of Jesus will yet be numerous enough to secure a reign of peace and justice in this sin-cursed world. And as we listen to these inarticulate groans of the burdened creation, we, who are nature’s interpreters and the world’s intercessors, must translate them into the petition, “Thy kingdom come: Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”

October 6, 1850.