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• 1 media/Thumb 188.png 2025-07-31T11:29:27-04:00 Cardinal Lavigerie's Letter to the King of Holland 9 Reprinted: Cardinal Lavigerie's letters to the King and Queen of Holland, calling for their support in the Ant-Slavery campaign plain 2025-08-08T17:20:36-04:00 Following the anti-slavery congress in Paris, Cardinal Lavigerie sent two letters, one to the Queen of the Netherlands and the other to the King, urging them not to hinder the work of the Brussels conference by refusing to allow their government to join. We have extracted the following passages from these two documents.
  
  To Her Majesty the Queen of the Netherlands:
  
  Paris, 27 rue Cassette, 22 September 1890,
  
  Madam,
  
  It is to Your Majesty that I come to ask you to kindly deliver to the king, through the pure hands of his daughter, the petition that I take the liberty of addressing to him, begging him to hasten, by an act of his sovereign power, the salvation of an entire continent doomed to torment and death.
  
  It is mainly women and children who are the victims of the evils of slavery. I dare to ask Your Majesty to be their advocate with your august husband. I ask him to involve his beloved daughter in his efforts, upon whom such an act of mercy cannot fail to bring the blessings of Heaven for her entire life. God promises to reward us for giving a simple glass of cold water in his name. What then if ons has stopped so many torrents of blood and saved so many poor creatures from terrible misery? Now, the king can do this if he wants to, and I have no doubt that he will want to if Your Majesty deigns to ask him.
  
  Please excuse, madam, the boldness of an old pastor, and accept the assurance of the profound respect with which I have the honour to be,
  
  Your Majesty's very humble and obedient servant,
  
  Charles, Cardinal Lavigerie
  
  Archbishop of Carthage and Algiers
  
  ===
  
  To His Majesty the King of the Netherlands:
  
  Sire,
  
  Yesterday, Sunday, 21 September, I gave a speech in Saint-Sulpice Church on African slavery and, on that occasion, I recalled that the horrors that are bloodying and devastating Africa, and which the civilized world has decreed an end to through the resolutions of the Brussels Conference, will continue to destroy our immense continent unless all the powers agree to put a stop to them.
  
  I have taken the liberty of expressing the wish that Your Majesty will deign to accept and sign the general act of Brussels, as all the other nations represented at the conference have already done.
  
  I reminded the faithful who were listening to me about the admiration deserved by the past, the generous sentiments, and the patriarchal virtues of Holland and its revered king, who was loved by all his subjects without exception, Protestants and Catholics alike.
  
  Sire, if I represented, to any degree, the ideas or interests of politics, I would not dare to join my voice with that of your people in begging Your Majesty to settle, since it now depends solely on his, the great question of the abolition of slavery; but I am only a pastor, an old man, and I have only one feeling that drives me to act: it is love, pity for my unfortunate sheep.
  
  We will all have to give an account of our lives to God one day.
  
  At my age, when I see eternity already so close, I could not resign myself to reproaching myself, when I appear before God, for not having done everything possible to put an end to such cruel suffering. And I think that, on the contrary, nothing would assure me more of heaven's mercy than having contributed, in an effective way, to ending the torments of so many poor creatures.
  
  Sire, in the name of Christian honour and the happiness of your child, deign to give the order to add Your Majesty's signature without delay to those of all the powers of the Brussels conference.
  
  Forgive me, sire, for my boldness: it comes entirely from your virtues, from your kindness so well known to your people, and also from the pity I feel for the misery, the tears, and so much bloodshed that I have witnessed for so long!
  
  Please accept, sir, the expression of my deepest respect, with which I have the honour to be,
  
  Your Majesty's very humble and obedient servant,
  
  Charles, Cardinal Lavigerie
  
  Archbishop of Carthage and Algiers