And no, we're not talking crosses, Stars of David, and crescents. We're talking about the U.S. of A. because Douglass envisions his listeners as worshippers of America. And he uses repeated religious imagery to show how their national pride mirrors religious practice.

He asks if he's meant, on behalf of slaves, "to bring our humble offering to the national altar" (4). He says he knows he is being asked to "give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee" (9) and to go to the "grand illuminated temple of liberty, and [...] join you in joyous anthems" (21). But, he says, to ask him to do this is "sacrilegious irony" (21) because he can't participate in worshipping the nation that enslaved him and others.

Douglass bookends his speech with this religious imagery, departing from it during the middle of the speech but returning at the end to drive home the idea of American hypocrisy.

He concludes that:

[…] your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mock; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy. (82)

In short, Douglass uses religious imagery to demonstrate just how unholy America is.