Thabiti M. Anyabwile in his book, The Decline of African American Theology: From Biblical Faith to Cultural Captivity writes of Phillis Wheatley (1753-1784). Although a slave from the age of six, she was highly educated and a Reformed Christian. Anyabwile writes that, "Her most famous collection, simply entitled Poems, reflects a rather sophisticated knowledge of Scripture and theology."
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I am posting a poem she wrote entitled, "To the University of Cambridge, in England." Wheatley wrote it when she was about thirteen years old. I believe it is a fitting poem for this Holy Week.
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Students, to you 'tis giv'n to scan the heights
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Above, to traverse the ethereal space,
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And mark the systems of revolving worlds.
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Still more, ye sons of science ye receive
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The blissful news by messengers from heav'n,
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How Jesus' blood for your redemption flows.
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See him with hands out-stretcht upon the cross;
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He hears revilers, nor resents their scorn:
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What matchless mercy in the Son of God!
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When the whole human race by sin had fall'n,
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He deign'd to die that they might rise again,
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And share with him in the sublimest skies,
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Life without death, and glory without end.
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The picture above is the "Frontispiece from Phillis Wheatley's Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral
