od is punishing this nation for the high crime of slavery. He has the destiny of the nation in His hands. He will punish the South for the sin of slavery, and the North for so long suffering its overreaching and overbearing influences.

All heaven beholds with indignation, human beings, the workmanship of God, reduced to the lowest depths of degradation, and placed on a level with the brute creation by their fellow-men. And professed followers of that dear Saviour whose compassion was ever moved as He witnessed human woe, heartily engage in this enormous and grievous sin, and deal in slaves and souls of men.

Angels have recorded it all. It is written in the book. The tears of the pious bond-men and bond-women, of fathers, mothers and children, brothers and sisters, are all bottled up in heaven. Agony, human agony, is carried from place to place, and bought and sold. God will restrain His anger but a little longer. His anger burns against this nation, and especially against the religious bodies who have sanctioned, and have themselves engaged in this terrible merchandise. Such injustice, such oppression, such sufferings, many professed followers of the meek and lowly Jesus can witness with heartless indifference. And many of them can inflict, with hateful satisfaction, all this indescribable agony themselves, and yet dare to worship God. It is solemn mockery, and Satan exults over it, and reproaches Jesus and His angels with such inconsistency, saying, with hellish triumph, Such are Christ's followers!

These professed Christians read of the sufferings of the martyrs, and tears course down their cheeks. They wonder that men could ever possess hearts so hardened as to practice such inhuman cruelties toward their fellow-men, while at the same time they hold their fellow-men in slavery. And this is not all. They sever the ties of nature, and cruelly oppress from day to day their fellow-men. They can inflict most inhuman tortures with relentless cruelty, which would well compare with the cruelty papists and heathens exercised toward Christ's followers. It will be more tolerable for the heathen and for papists in the day of the execution of God's judgment than for such men.

The cries and sufferings of the oppressed have reached unto heaven, and angels stand amazed at the hard-hearted, untold, agonizing suffering, man in the image of his Maker, causes his fellow-man. The names of such are written in blood, crossed with stripes, and flooded with agonizing, burning tears of suffering. God's anger will not cease until He has caused the land of light to drink the dregs of the cup of His fury.

At the Roosevelt conference, when the brethren and sisters were assembled on the day set apart for humiliation, fasting and prayer, Sabbath, August 3, the Spirit of the Lord rested upon us, and I was taken off in vision, and shown the sin of slavery. Slavery has long been a curse to this nation. The fugitive slave law was calculated to crush out of man every noble, generous feeling of sympathy, that should arise in his heart for the oppressed and suffering slave. It was in direct opposition to the teaching of Christ. God's scourge now is upon the North, that they have so long submitted to the advances of the slave power. The sin of Northern pro-slavery men is great. They have strengthened the South in their sin, and sanctioned the extension of slavery, and acted a prominent part in bringing the nation into its present distressed condition.

I was shown that many realize not the extent of the evil which has come upon us. They have flattered themselves that the national difficulties would soon be settled, and confusion and war end; but all will be convinced that there is more reality in the matter than was anticipated.

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This article first appeared in the August 27, 1861, edition of the Advent Review and Sabbath Herald (now the Adventist Review), just four months after the beginning of the American Civil War. Seventh-day Adventists believe that Ellen G. White exercised the biblical gift of prophecy during more than 70 years of public ministry.