Futurity Hath Secrets of Horror to Hide (A Certain Prophecy)

Last updated on: February 10, 2021 at 11:19 pm by John Mark N. Reynolds

Futurity Hath Secrets of Horror to Hide (A Certain Prophecy) 2021-02-10T23:19:41-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

God knows, but we cannot know, for a certainty, the future except in some general sense. We can be certain that a just God, who is also merciful, will delay the chastisement of a nation, giving her time to repent, until time is up. We can be certain that tyrants with gulags, even one as powerful as the Communist Party in China is today, will fall. Justice will come, but meanwhile money and power will buy false prophets to proclaim that they have seen the future and that it works.

Jim Crow seems eternal until brave men, not accounted for by the powerful, come out of the people and sweep away the rotten tyrannical laws. Legal abortion in America will continue until one day it ends, because “nameless people” will give themselves a name. The unborn will be born again.

We know that if one stands with justice, then all will be well in God’s eyes. We may not see victory, but victory will come, because God is in the High Heaven. If not, then humankind would long ago destroyed humanity! Our continued existence is the best argument for a merciful God. When injustice, say usury in education, is widespread, then there will be many who will shuffle papers, mutter about the problem, hope that the issue lasts their time. Someone died in 1861 before the evil system of race based slavery was swept away.

Those who died “on time” were not blessed, because after death is the judgment. There is, of course, mercy for us all, if we are truly sorry for the wrongs we have done, but if so we cannot ignore systematic problems. We cannot pretend that the system is not rigged against having children, raising them well, or with two parents. We hope nobody will notice and that the homeless, those we do not give names, will shuffle off and stay out of our way.

This cannot be.

However imperfectly a man like Theodore Roosevelt understood that injustice cannot last and began, ever so tentatively, to change the system and give the worker a name. Otherwise the result will be ugly revolution, because humans cannot be dehumanized forever. We will rise up and claim our heritage as image bearers of God. In America the act of marginalizing the Black man and woman, debased, debauched, and damned the slavers and those who sided with them. The punishment fit the crime and the Southern defender of slavery became the greatest losers of American history. Read the literature from before the Civil War and these tyrants could see the doom coming. They ignored the doom: Haiti’s independence reminded them. They dehumanized millions: one Frederick Douglass or Harriet Tubman refute the lie.

When will the end of a systematic injustice come? No man can say, but every man can be sure that the Almighty will get the job done. The elite will allow wasted effort on foolish things, Ivy League children nattering on intellectual fads, but not reveal the rot in the system. The unnamed, those they wish were not born or those they wish would keep doing their work submissively, will claim their birthright.

This is as sure as the morning.

The Nameless People

By Vagante

Frederick Douglass’ Paper, June 1, 1855

Smitten and branded and manacled,

A homeless and nameless nation,

Unstoried, despised by the centuries,

Crouched in dull adoration

Beside our temples and palaces,

And stoopeth its neck to our tread.

Stolid, untutored and languageless,

It utters no love, no anger,

But grindeth in hopeless apathy,

Or drowseth in brutish languor,

’Mid harvests and treasures, whose lordliness

It claimeth less than the dead.

Aliens and foemen by heritage,

We bar them afar from our slumber;

We clog them with statutes of jealousy,

We muse if they gather in number;

Beside us, yet stricken with banishment!

Among us, yet foreign in soul!

The patriot seeketh no sympathy

In them for his country’s glory:

The statesmen hopes in their brutishness,

When he ponders our coming story;

We smother the anthems of liberty

Which over their cabins might roll.

A shadow behind our prosperity,

A menacing spectre, though humble;

A mute, mysterious prophecy,

Their multitudes murmur and mumble

A spell o’er our nation’s futurity,

Which dies ere it reaches our ken.

What shall the ending be?—Bitterness?

Shall these helot millions ever

Stand humbly aside from humanity?—

No shattering exodus sever Their bonds?—

No fatal necessity Destroy them, or blazon them men?

Shall this Samson, sightless with ignorance,

And dungeoned in servile terror,

Ne’er bow in our temple of selfishness

Against its columns of error,

And make it a hideous sepulchre,

Entombing his shame and our might?

What wind shall quicken the skeletons,

And flesh them for lust and slaughters?

Guard well, O lordly posterity!

Thy treasures, thy delicate daughters!

Keep arms within grasping! Set sentinels!

The spoiler may come in the night.

No! we will wander, like Israel,

Through waters yawning, but holden;

No wheels shall fall from our chariots;

We will bribe Jehovah with golden Fanes.

No MENES shall desecrate

The beautiful walls of our pride.

O! soothe us with flattering oracles;

Cast horoscopes starry with splendor;

Muffle the footsteps of Destiny;

Brand the prophet of God and offender;

Let us hasten to die:

Futurity Hath secrets of horror to hide.*

————–

*Voices Beyond Bondage . NewSouth Books. Kindle Edition. I am reading Black literature from before the Civil War to prepare for class at The College.

Culture

On Books

Spiritual Reflections

Previous Post

February 9, 2021

Maybe the Villains?

Next Post

February 11, 2021 Be Active. . . Christians Let This Work Be Thine

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Apologetics Art Culture Education On Books On Education Philosophy Politics Pop Culture Spiritual Reflections Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 July 2025 June 2025 September 2024 July 2024 June 2024 December 2023 June 2023 September 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

To which country was Joseph taken as a slave?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Midian Egypt Canaan Babylon

Books by This Author John Mark Reynolds

See All Titles »