Redemption
REDEMPTION
is a word which has gladdened many ears when there was no heavenly sound in its blessed chime. Apart from any theological use of it, the word is a very sweet one, and has been melodious to many hearts. In those days when piracy was carried on continually along the coast of Africa, when our fellow Christian subjects were caught by sea robbers, and carried away captive, you can well understand how the burdened soul of the manacled slave, chained to the oar of his galley, was gladdened by the hope that possibly there would be redemption. His cruel master, who had forced him into his possession, would not willingly emancipate him; but a rumor came that in some distant nation they had raised a sum of money to purchase the freedom of slaves—that some wealthy merchant had dedicated of his substance to buy back his fellow countrymen; that the king, himself, upon his throne had promised to give a liberal redemption that the captives among the Moors might return to their homes. Truly I can suppose the hours would run happily along, and the dreariness of their toil would be relieved when once that word, “redemption,” had sounded in their ears! So with our fellow subjects, and our fellow men who once were slaves in our West India settlements, we can well conceive that to their lips the word, redemption, must have been a very pleasing song. It must have been well nigh as sweet to them as the marriage peals to a youthful bridegroom, when they knew that the noble British nation would count down the twenty millions of their redemption money—that on a certain morning their fetters would be snapped asunder, so that they would no more go out to the plantations to sweat in the sun, driven by the whip—but they could call themselves their own, and none should be their masters to possess their flesh, and have property of their souls. You can conceive when the sun of that happy morn arose—when emancipation was proclaimed from sea to sea, and the whole land was at liberty—how joyful must their new-found freedom have appeared! O there are many sonnets in that one word, “redemption!”Now, you who have sold for nothing your glorious heritage; you who have been carried bond slaves into Satan’s dominion; you who have worn the fetters of guilt, and groaned under them; you who have smarted beneath the lash of the law of God; what the news of redemption has been to slaves and captives,that will it be to you tonight! It will cheer your souls, gladden your spirits, and more especially so when that rich adjective is coupled with it—“plenteous redemption.”