Studies on Slavery, in Easy Lessons (part 1 of 4)

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STUDIES ON SLAVERY, In Easy Lessons.

COMPILED INTO EIGHT STUDIES, AND SUBDIVIDED INTO SHORT LESSONS FOR THE CONVENIENCE OF READERS.

BY JOHN FLETCHER,

OF LOUISIANA.

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FIFTH THOUSAND.

NATCHEZ: PUBLISHED BY JACKSON WARNER.

CHARLESTON: McCARTER & ALLEN.—NEW ORLEANS: JOHN BALL. PHILADELPHIA: THOMAS, COWPERTHWAIT & CO. 1852.

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ENTERED according to Act of Congress, in the year 1851, by JACKSON WARNER, sin the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the Southern District of Mississippi.

PRINTED BY SMITH & PETERS, Franklin Buildings, Sixth Street below Arch, Philadelphia.

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PUBLISHER’S PREFACE.

This is a legitimate topic of general interest, and it assumes a preponderating importance to the people of the Southern American States, when the fact is taken into consideration that a general league against the institution of African slavery has been entered into and consummated between most of the civilized nations of the earth, and public opinion in many of the sister States of our own National Union has taken the same direction. The result is, to have arraigned the slaveholding States before the mighty bar of public opinion, on the charge of holding, as property, more than ten hundred millions of dollars’ worth of what does not belong to them, which is and never can be the property of man; and this charge embraces, within its scope, the crimes of theft, robbery, rapine, and cruelty.

The time has come when the South must enter her plea of defence, not because the accusers are foreign nations, of which it may justly be said, before their charges are entertained, “Physician, heal thyself,” but because our accusers are among our own brethren, bound to us by freedom’s holiest associations and religion’s most sacred ties.

The author of the “Studies on Slavery” has the double advantage of a full comprehension of the subject both in its Northern and Southern aspect. Born and educated in the former, and qualified by a long residence in the latter section of our Union, he is amply qualified to weigh the prejudices, the teachings, and the arguments of the one, against the facts, the justifications, the religious and political sanctions of the other.

Mr. Fletcher has not only marshalled into his line of impregnable defence the mandates and sanctions of the Sacred Writings concerning the slave institutions, but he has drawn powerful auxiliaries from the sources of ancient history. His exegesis of biblical passages, in the original languages in which they were communicated by inspiration to the world, shows his sound scholarship, as well as his reverence of the literal sense and specific meaning of God’s holy and unimpeachable standard and rule of life and action.

The author has also analyzed the fountain of Moral Philosophy, and detected the bitter waters of error so industriously infused by the eloquent and magical pens of such writers as Dr. Samuel Johnson, Dr. Paley, Dr. Channing, Dr. Wayland, Mr. Barnes, and others. He has confined himself to the moral and ethical bearings of the question, scarcely touching upon its political aspects,—a course calculated to render the book far more useful to the dispassionate seekers after truth, who may belong to different political sects.

Neither time nor labour has been spared in the authorship of the work; and it is believed that, while it is written with candour and calmness, it will be received by the people of the North as well as of the South as a sincere and enlightened endeavour to seek for truth, and thus allay the tumultuous and disorganizing fanaticism of those who have not had opportunity to study the subject, and are incapable of acting upon it with understanding and true decision.

PROEMIAL

Philosophy knows no obligation that binds one man to another without an equivalent. If one man could be subjected to another, who is not bound to render any thing in return, it would be subversive to good morals and political justice. Such a relation cannot exist, only so far as to reach the immediate death of the subjected. But it has been the error of some good men to suppose that slavery presented such a case. It has been their misfortune also to receive the following succedaneums as axioms in the search for truth:—

“All men are born equal.”

“The rights of men are inalienable.”

“No man has power to alienate a natural right.”

“No man can become property.”

“No man can own property in another.”

“The conscience is a distinct mental faculty.”

“The conscience infallibly distinguishes between right and wrong.”

“No man is under any obligation to obey any law when his conscience dictates it to be wrong.”

“The conscience empowers any man to nullify any law; because the conscience is a part and parcel of the Divine mind.”

“Slavery is wholly founded on force.”

“Slavery originates in the power of the strong over the weak.”

“Slavery disqualifies a man to fulfil the great object of his being.”

“The doctrines of the Bible forbid slavery.”

“There is no word, either in the Old or the New Testament, which expresses the idea of slave or slavery.”

“Slavery places its subjects beyond moral and legal obligation: therefore, it can never be a legal or moral relation.”

“Slavery is inconsistent with the moral nature of man.”

“To hold in slavery is inconsistent with the present state of morals and religion.”

“Slavery is contrary to the will of God.”

“No man can hold a slave, and be a Christian.”

Averments of this order are quite numerous. Fanatics receive them; and some others do not distinguish them from truths.

At any age, and in any country, where such errors are generally adopted, and become the rules of political action, morals and religion are always in commotion, and in danger of shipwreck: for, although, where man has only approached so far towards civilization that even the enlightened can merely perceive them as rudimental, yet the great principles that influence human life, morality and religion, are, everywhere, and always have been the same.

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STUDY I.

LESSON I.—Wayland’s definition of moral law, page 7 to 8; sin the antecedent of slavery, 9; the abuse of slavery a sin, 10.

LESSON II.—Wayland on the elements of consciousness, 10 to 11; the degeneracy of races, and slavery as the scriptural means of reclamation, 12; object of punishment, 13.

LESSON III.—Wayland on conscience as a distinct faculty, 14, 15; Channing, Barnes, and abolitionists generally on the same, 16, 17, 18.

LESSON IV.—Wayland on conscience as an independent faculty derived from Shaftesbury, Hutchinson, and Reid, 18; combated by Archbishop Seeker, 19; argument that conscience is neither a distinct faculty nor infallible, 20 to 23.

LESSON V.—Wayland’s doctrine, that slavery sacrifices the slave’s eternal happiness to the master’s temporal, refuted, 23 to 25; the master’s interest and the slave’s moral improvement identical, 26, 27.

LESSON VI.—Wayland’s argument, that slavery is at variance with the laws of God, examined, 27; its connection with productive labour and national wealth considered, 28 to 32; Sismondi’s theory of labour and capital, 32; Wayland on slavery as impoverishing soil refuted, 33, 34.

LESSON VII.—Wayland’s doctrine, that the moral principles of the Bible are opposed to slavery, refuted, 34, 35; Secker’s authority, 36; Wayland on slavery as a prohibition of gospel privileges and matrimony controverted, 37 to 40; Luther and Melancthon quoted, 39; African practice in regard to matrimony, 40; interest of masters to promote permanent marriages among their slaves, 40 to 42.

LESSON VIII.—Wayland, Paley, Channing, and Barnes on the opinion that the sacred writers abstained from condemning slavery on motives of policy, 43 to 47.

LESSON IX.—Wayland’s doubts, caused by Prof. Taylor, 47 to 50; Wayland’s assertion, that the inculcation of the duties of slaves is no sanction of slavery, combated, 51, 52.

LESSON X.—Wayland’s assertion, that Scripture is opposed to slavery, contrasted with the declarations of the Bible, 53; slavery a desirable and ardently sought condition under certain circumstances—historical proofs, 54 to 57.

LESSON XI.—Dr. Paley on slavery and the laws of nature, 57 to 61.

LESSON XII.—Paley on cruelty as an argument against slavery, 62; Lander’s testimony respecting native cruelty in Africa, 63; Paley’s slander on Jesus Christ and Paul and Peter repelled, 65 to 67.

LESSON XIII.—Slavery in ancient Britain, 67; Dr. Samuel Johnson’s argument against negro slavery analyzed, and overthrown by arguments drawn from the laws of nations and the laws of God, 68 to 82.

STUDY II.

LESSON I.—Relation of guardian and ward a Divine institution, 83 to 85.

LESSON II.—Slavery a Divine institution, and the reason why, 85 to 88.

LESSON III.—Slavery the school of adversity to reclaim wicked nations and individuals—Scripture proofs, 89 to 91.

LESSON IV.—Albert Barnes on the slavery of the Israelites in Egypt refuted, 92 to 96; his attempt by human reason to determine the will of God, 97 to 99.

LESSON V.—Barnes’s examination of the Scripture argument on slavery, and the scriptural account of slavery in the days of Abraham, contrasted, 99 to 109.

LESSON VI.—The smiles of God on the institution of slavery proved from the argument of Barnes against it, 110; ratio of slaves to whites, and the relative increase in the United States, 111, 112.

LESSON VII.—The interest of the master and the direct laws of God against the abuses of slavery coincident, 113, 114; Barnes’s cure for slavery, 115.

LESSON VIII.—Barnes’s denial that Christ ever came in contact with slavery compared with scriptural assertions, 116 to 119.

LESSON IX.—The admission of Barnes in regard to slaves escaping to the Hebrew country, 119; his assertion, that the Hebrews were not a nation of slaveholders, overthrown by Scripture testimony, 120, 121.

LESSON X.—Distribution by the Hebrews of captives taken in battle, 122, 123; Greek custom in regard to captives made in war, 124; proof-texts from the Bible, 125.

LESSON XI.—The claim of Barnes to identity with the African race, 126; his views on Paul’s injunction to sympathize with those in bonds controverted, 127, 128.

LESSON XII.—Legend of Antioch, Margarita, and the Roman Præfect Olybius, 128 to 133; song of the slaves, 131, 132; letter of Olybius to the Emperor Probus, manufactured from the language of Mr. Barnes, 133 to 135.

LESSON #XIII.—Barnes’s admissions of the existence of Hebrew and Roman slavery, 136, 137.

LESSON XIV.—The denial of Barnes that slavery cannot be defended by Bible arguments, 138; its influence on agriculture, commerce, arts, and the African slave himself considered, idem; Sedgjo, the African slave in Louisiana, 139, 140; the Periplus of Hanno, 140, 141; the testimony of the Landers on the depravity of native Africans, 142 to 144; the Landers made slaves, 145; various historical authorities on African and Moorish slavery, 145 to 155.

LESSON XV.—Authorities to prove African degradation continued, 155 to 158; slavery subservient to the religious conversion of African slaves, 159, 160.

LESSON XVI.—Paul’s exhortations to slaves considered, 161, 162; God’s sentence of four hundred years of slavery upon the Hebrews, 163.

LESSON XVII.—The assertion of Barnes, that a slave bought with money had compensation commanded to be paid him by Scripture, controverted, 163, 164; Barnes’s declaration of the cunning of the Apostles in not condemning slavery, 165, 166.

LESSON XVIII.—Argument that the injunctions of the Bible upon God’s ancient people are in force and equally binding upon Christians now, (Christians are the heirs of Abraham,) 160 to 169.

LESSON XIX.—Authorities quoted by Barnes, 169; numerous quotations from Barnes on slavery, 170 to 174.

LESSON XX.—Wayland’s assertion, that, if the New Testament authorized slavery, it would be the greatest of curses, adopted by Barnes, 174 to 176.

STUDY III.

LESSON I.—Works of Rev. Dr. Channing—his opinion that the worst errors may arise from religious tendencies, 177, 178.

LESSON II.—Channing’s seven arguments, that a man cannot be held as property, examined, 178, 179; his doctrine of conscience and indestructible rights, 180 to 182.

LESSON III.—Examination of Channing’s seven arguments continued, 183 to 188.

LESSON IV.—That slavery, disease, and death are necessary effects of sin proved by the chapter of curses, (Deut. xxviii.,) 188 to 193; Channing’s standard of feeling or sense of duty controverted, 194, 195.

LESSON V.—Channing’s theory of man’s rights and his consciousness examined, 195, 196; argument that slavery is the best condition for the African race, 197 to 200; criticism on Channing’s use of the words nature, conscience, law of nature, &c., 200 to 204.

LESSON VI.—Channing’s position, that the debasement of African slavery arises from the enslavement of the race in America, controverted, 204 to 206; its influence on the master race, 206, 207.

LESSON VII.—Channing’s views of slavery, as conducive to licentiousness and unrestrained cohabitation between masters and female slaves, examined, 207 to 211; his views of the quality and brotherhood of the races, 212 to 214.

LESSON VIII.—Channing on the relative productiveness of free and slave labour, 215; his opinion that the admission of slave territory was just cause for the dissolution of the Union, 217, 218; his deference to the opinion of Europe, 218; labour and capital, the political influence of slavery, 219 to 221.

LESSON IX.—Channing’s views of the scriptural argument in favour of slavery overthrown, by a parallel between slavery and polygamy, 222 to 230.

LESSON X.—Channing adopting and endorsing Paley’s slander on the integrity of Paul, 230 to 232.

LESSON XI.—Channing’s plan of emancipation and inflammatory counsels to the free States, 232 to 235.

LESSON XII.—The zeal of abolitionism not according to knowledge, 235, 236; Channing’s opinion that the negro is one of the best races of the human family, 237; Channing on West India emancipation and Southern character, 237 to 239.

LESSON XIII.—Sympathy for those suffering punishment from God, for sin, considered, 239 to 241; the deterioration of sin the inevitable cause of slavery, 241 to 243.

LESSON XIV.—God’s government of the universe, and his declaration of the right of man’s property in man, 243 to 246; God’s blessing on the slave-owners, 247, 248.

LESSON XV.—Ham’s intermarriage with the race of Cain the cause of his doom and that of his seed to perpetual servitude, 248 to 250; God never entails a curse without sufficient cause, 250, 251; the mark on Cain, 252 to 255.

STUDY IV.

LESSON I.—Extracts from Bower, 256; the Treuga Dei, 257, 258; Bishop England quoted on the action and records of the Church, 259, 260.

LESSON II.—Establishment of Christianity by law, by Constantine, and the rise of Mohammedanism, 261, 262; the schism of the Greek Church, 263, 264.

LESSON III.—Nature swarming with life, and life merging in distress and death, 264, 265; sin the cause of slavery, and the latter as a protection, 266, 267; slavery in China, 269.

LESSON IV.—Liberty of less value than life, 270; the Divine grant to hold slaves, 271.

LESSON V.—Early church acts and documents approving and providing for slavery, 272; the canons and the constitutions of the apostles, 272 to 274; constitution of Antoninus Pius respecting cruelty to slaves, 275; canons of the Council of Nice and the first appearance of abolitionism in the world, 276, 277; St. Basil’s canonical writings, 278.

LESSON VI.—The invasion of Attila and the Pontiff Leo’s successful intercession, 279, 280; Nero’s African slaves, and the white slaves of the Roman Empire, 281.

LESSON VII.—Church rescripts for the freedom of slaves, and St. Augustin’s mode of manumission in Africa, 282, 283; Pope Leo’s letters, forbidding slaves to enter the priesthood, and protecting the rights of masters, 284, 285; barbarian cruelty to slaves ameliorated by Christianity, 286, 287; canons of the Council of Agdle on slavery, 288; modes of becoming slaves, 289, 290.

LESSON VIII.—Muratori on the manumission of slaves in Rome, 291; colonial and conditional slaves, 292; arming of slaves in defence of Rome and the glutting of the slave-markets of the world, 293; canons of the Fourth Council of Orleans, 294, 295; ditto Fifth Council of Orleans, 296 to 299.

LESSON IX.—Bishop England’s account of slavery in England and Ireland in remote ages, 299, 300; Pope Pelagius and the canons of the Third Councils of Paris and Braga, 301, 302; articles of the Third Council of Toledo, 302, 303.

LESSON X.—The venerable Bede’s account of the slave-trade of England, A.D. 577, 304 to 306; Pope Gregory’s purchase of British youth, 306, 307; Gregory’s pastoral admonitions and epistles, 308 to 311.

LESSON XI.—Constantine’s edict that none but Christians could hold slaves, 212, 213; Gregory’s letter to the Præfect of Sicily, 313 to 315; canons of the Fourth Councils of Orleans and Macon, 315, 316; Gregory to the Bishop of Luna, and the laws of the empire on slavery, 317, 318.

LESSON XII.—Gregory to the Bishop of Naples, 319, 320; the same to the Bishop of Catania, 321.

LESSON XIII.—Justinian’s law to protect debtors against slavery, 323; Gregory’s letters about a Syrian deeply in debt, 322; his letter of emancipation to Montana and Thomas, 324, 325; Justinian’s law of marriage between slaves and persons on different estates, 327, 328; Gregory’s letter on the same subject, 329; his letter to the Bishop of Syracuse on the same, 330, 331.

LESSON XIV.—Gregory’s deed of gift conveying the slave boy Acorimus to Theodore the counsellor, 331, 332; his letter about a slave to the Proctor Bonitus, 333: his document to reclaim runaway slaves, 333, 334; his various letters concerning slaves and the purchase of Barbary slaves, 334 to 336.

LESSON XV.—Canons of the Councils of Toledo and Saragossa, 336 to 339; laws of Ina, king of the West Saxons, and the judgments of Withred, 340 to 343.

LESSON XVI.—The canons of Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury, King Pepin, Council of Bavaria, Pope Adrian and Charlemagne, 343 to 349; canon of the Council of Frankfort, 349, 350.

LESSON XVII.—Laws of Charlemagne on slavery, 350 to 353; canons of the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle, 353; capitulary of the Emperor Lotharius, 353 to 355.

LESSON XVIII.—Unconnected facts bearing on ancient slavery; prostitutes made slaves; Sclavonian bondage; persecution of the Knights Templars, 355 to 360.

LESSON XIX.—Derivation of the word war; Divine authority for wars, 361 to 365; the church claiming the right to declare offensive war under two circumstances, 365; bull of Pope Gregory XI. against the Florentines, 366, 367; Papal bulls against the Venitians and Henry VIII. of England, 367 to 369; the American colonies at New Haven decreeing the Indian tribes to slavery, 369, 370.

LESSON XX.—Ancient piracy and pirates, 370, 371; rise of the Vandals, Goths, Huns, and Tartars, 372; the Northmen, 373 to 379.

LESSON XXI.—Condition of slavery in Europe, 379 to 381.

LESSON XXII.—Origin of the Sclavonians, 381; the descent of the Arabs and Moors, 383, 384.

LESSON XXIII.—Africans generally slaves in their native country, 384; African slavery to the Shemitic races foretold by prophecy, 385, 386; sketch of the life, doctrines, and conquests of Mohammed and his successors, 386 to 390.

LESSON XXIV.—Slavery introduced into the world as a mercy in favour of life, 390; duty and interest combine to incite the master to promote religion and good morals in the slave, 391; slavery commanded by reason and the laws of nature, 392.

STUDY V.

LESSON I.—Faith and observance of facts in the moral world the true modes of learning God’s will, 393.

LESSON II.—The works of creation proofs of the Creator, 394 to 398.

LESSON III.—The question of the admission of evil into the economy of God’s government on earth, and a denial that all men are born equals, 398, 399; the five races of the human family, and the moral necessity of command in some and subordination in others, 399 to 402.

LESSON IV.—Intellect correspondent to organization, 403; inquiry into the nature of instinct by various philosophers, 403 to 405; inexorable inequality of human condition in this world and the next, 406 to 408.

LESSON V.—The moral duty of loving our species defined, 409.

LESSON VI.—Men not equal physically, religiously, mentally, morally, or politically, 410.

LESSON VII.—Justice and the rules of Christianity identical and inseparable, 411, 412.

LESSON VIII.-The golden rule considered in relation to slavery, 413 to 416.

LESSON IX.—The unchangeableness of God, and human misery caused by a general rebellion against his laws, 417 to 420.

LESSON X.—Christianity incompatible with savage life, 420, 421.

LESSON XI.—Gradation in intellect and condition no impediment to Christianity, 421.

LESSON XII.—Christianity and slavery not antagonistic, 422.

LESSON XIII.—Christian humility inculcated, 423.

LESSON XIV.—The radiance of Christian hope equalizes all variety of condition, 423, 424; sketch of the slave’s prospect of immortal happiness, 426 to 428.

LESSON XV.—The feebleness of finite conceptions of infinity, 428, 429; hope for the submissive, 430, 431; the requirement of God that the strong should protect the weak, 432.

STUDY VI.

LESSON I.—Nature of sin; the primal transgression, 433, 434.

LESSON II.—The occupation and doom of Cain, 435, 436.

LESSON III.—The mark upon Cain, Mohammedan traditions, 437, 438; proof-texts from Scripture, 439, 440.

LESSON IV.—The punishment of Cain did not lead him to reformation, 440; Asiatic hyperbole in description, 441, 442.

LESSON V.—The cause of Cain’s degradation renewed upon Canaan, and his masters named, 442, 443.

LESSON VI.—Proofs that the descendants of Ham inherited the curse of Cain, and were black, as also were the Canaanites whom God’s chosen people either exterminated or enslaved, 443 to 447.

LESSON VII.—The negro lineage of Ham established, 447 to 451.

LESSON VIII.—Signification of the name “Naamah” in Hebrew and Arabic, 451 to 455.

LESSON IX.—Variations in different languages of the names of Cain and Naamah, also of other remarkable words, 456 to 458.

LESSON X.—The names and derivatives of the words Cain and Naamah found only among the descendants of Ham, 459 to 464.

LESSON XI.—Proofs scriptural and historical that the descendants of Ham were black, 464 to 470.

LESSON XII.—Biblical proofs that the Canaanites were black, 471 to 473.

LESSON XIII.—Scriptural testimony respecting the colour of the races of the human family, 473 to 477.

LESSON XIV.—Jewish wars against the Ethiopian race; the Philistines black, 478, 479; the origin of these wars the animosity between the Shemitic and Hamitic races, 480; difference in the structure of the bones and the hair between the antagonist races, 481; intermarriage with the Hamitic by the Shemitic race a cause of God’s anger, 482; the dispersion of the Canaanites by the Jewish conquest of Palestine, 482.

LESSON XV.—Derivation and train of thought connected with the word Ham in the Shemitic languages, 483 to 487; the Hebrew personal pronoun, 488 to 491; origin of the word Ethiopian, 493 to 495.

LESSON XVI.—Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, and Coptic derivations of the word Ham, 495 to 502.

LESSON XVII.—Exegesis of the thirty-third chapter of Ecclesiasticus, 502 to 503; the providence of God manifested in placing deteriorated races under the control of races less debased, 504, 505.

STUDY VII.

LESSON I.—Critical examination into the meaning of the Greek word δουλος, doulos, slave, as used both by the sacred and classical writers, 506.

LESSON II.—Abolition denunciation of the Bible, 507, 508; tendency to mystery in the human mind; the God of Abraham and Moses, who gave command how to treat slaves, to be trustingly worshipped, 508, 509.

LESSON III.—The meaning of δουλος as used by the Greek poets, 510; Valckenaerus on the phonetic relation of Greek words to their derivative, 511 to 514; the argument that δουλος could not have meant an unconditional slave, refuted, 515, 516.

LESSON IV.—Extracts from Grecian historians, philosophers, and poets, showing the classical sense in which they used the word δουλος and its derivatives, 516 to 536.

LESSON V.—The use of the word δουλος by Thucydides, Herodotus, and Xenophon, 536 to 546.

LESSON VI.—Extracts from Xenophon continued, 546 to 549.

LESSON VII.—Extracts from Xenophon’s Cyropædia, 549 to 554.

LESSON VIII.—Extracts from Herodotus of Halicarnassus, 554 to 558.

LESSON IX.—The Scriptural use of the word δουλος, 559 to 561.

LESSON X.—Scriptural extracts continued, 562 to 564.

LESSON XI.—The Greek word signifying slave-stealers in 1 Tim. i. 5 to 11, 564 to 566; quotation from Xenophon in proof, 566; the appeal of Mr. Barnes to the Dutch, 567; Greek words from freeman and slave, 568.

LESSON XII.—Paul on slave stealing, 569 to 572.

LESSON XIII.—Reasons for Paul’s instructions to Timothy and to Christian slaves respecting slave-stealing and the duties of the servile condition, 572 to 575.

LESSON XIV.—The use of the word δουλος by Jesus Christ, 576, 577.

LESSON XV.—Use of the word δουλος by Paul, Peter, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, 578 to 581.

LESSON XVI.—Origin of the English word servant and its derivatives, 581; its use by the sacred writers and Grecian scholars, 582 to 585.

STUDY VIII.

LESSON I.—Hebrew orthography of the word by which we mean slave, 586 to 588; the corresponding word in the Arabic, Chaldaic, and Syriac languages, 588 to 590.

LESSON II.—Tendency of the Shemitic languages to the rhetorical figure prosopopœia, 590 to 594.

LESSON III.—Examples of the Hebrew word meaning slave, both as a noun and a verb, 595 to 601.

LESSON IV.—Refutation of the assertion that the root of the Hebrew word meaning slave is also used in a sense signifying worship, 602 to 607.

LESSON V.—Further quotations from the sacred writers, showing the meaning attached to the Hebrew word signifying slave in the Old Testament, 607 to 609.

LESSON VI.—Quotations from the sacred authors of the use of the Hebrew verb signifying to slave, or to be slaves to, 610, 611; identity of welfare and interest between the slave and his master, 612, 613.

LESSON VII.—The two distinct eras in the Hebrew language; its approximation to the Chaldaic and Persian in the second era, 613 to 615.

LESSON VIII.—Meaning attached to the Hebrew word signifying slave by Ezra, Nehemiah, Jeremiah, and other prophets, 616 to 618.

LESSON IX.—The use of the Hebrew word meaning slave in the book of Genesis, and extract from the Rev. J.B. Stratton’s letter to the author on the same, 618 to 620; the word Eden in the Arabic, 620, 621; the Hebrew word meaning tilleth, 622.

LESSON X.—The laws of Moses in Deuteronomy respecting slavery, 623.

LESSON XI.—The Hebrew use of the word meaning slaves in Samuel, and many other books of the Bible, 624 to 627.

LESSON XII.—Declension of the Hebrew noun meaning slave, and the conjugation and paradigms of the Hebrew verb signifying to slave, 628 to 637.

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STUDIES ON SLAVERY.

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Study I.

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LESSON I.

“The Elements of Moral Science: By FRANCIS WAYLAND, D.D., President of Brown University, and Professor of Moral Philosophy. Fortieth Thousand. Boston, 1849.” Pp. 396.

THIS author informs us that he has been many years preparing the work, with a view to furnish his pupils with a text-book free from the errors of Paley. Like Paley, whom he evidently wishes to supersede, he has devoted a portion of his strength to the abolition of slavery. We propose to look into the book with an eye to that subject alone. President Wayland says:

P. 24. “Moral Law is a form of expression denoting an order of sequence established between the moral quality of actions and their results.”

Pp. 25, 26. “An order of sequence established, supposes, of necessity, an Establisher. Hence Moral Philosophy, as well as every other science, proceeds upon the supposition of the existence of a Universal Cause, the Creator of all things, who has made every thing as it is, and who has subjected all things to the relations which they sustain. And hence, as all relations, whether moral or physical, are the result of his enactment, an order of sequence once discovered in morals, is just as inviolable as an order of sequence in physics.

“Such being the fact, it is evident that the moral laws of God can never be varied by the institutions of man, any more than the physical laws. The results which God has connected with actions will inevitably occur, all the created power in the universe to the contrary notwithstanding.

“Yet men have always flattered themselves with the hope that they could violate the moral law and escape the consequences which God has established. The reason is obvious. In physics, the consequent follows the antecedent, often immediately, and most commonly after a stated and well-known interval. In morals, the result is frequently long delayed; the time of its occurrence is always uncertain:—Hence, ‘because the sentence against an evil work is not speedily executed, therefore the hearts of the sons of men are fully set in them to do evil.’ But time, whether long or short, has neither power nor tendency to change the order of an established sequence. The time required for vegetation, in different orders of plants, may vary; but, yet, wheat will always produce wheat, and an acorn will always produce an oak. That such is the case in morals, a heathen poet has taught us. ‘Raro, antecedentum scelestum deseruit pede pœna claudo.’ HOR. lib. iii. car. 2.

“A higher authority has admonished us, ‘Be not deceived; God is not mocked; whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he reap.’ It is also to be remembered, that, in morals as well as in physics, the harvest is always more abundant than the seed from which it springs.”

To this doctrine we yield the highest approval.

The first obvious deduction from the lesson here advanced is, that the laws of God, as once revealed to man, never lose their high moral qualities nor their divine character, at any subsequent age of the world. The law, which God delivered to Moses from Mount Sinai, authorizing his chosen people to buy slaves, and hold them as an inheritance for their children after them, is, therefore, the law of God now. The action of the law may be suspended at a particular time or place, from a change of contingencies,—yet the law stands unaffected.

We hope no one doubts the accuracy of the doctrine thus fairly stated in these “Elements.” But we shall see how fatal it is to some portions of the author’s positions concerning slavery. And we propose to show how this doctrine, as connected with slavery, has been, and is elucidated in scripture. The twenty-eighth chapter of Deuteronomy shows that the fruits of wickedness are all manner of curses, finally terminating in slavery or death.

Here, slavery, as a threatened punishment, distinctly looks back to a course of wickedness for its antecedent. The same idea is spread through the whole Scriptures: “Whosoever committeth sin, is the servant of sin.” John viii. 34. “I am carnal, sold under sin.” Rom. vii. 14. “Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves.” Isa. 1. 1. See, also, Jer. xiii. 22.

The biblical scholar will recollect a multitude of instances where this doctrine is clearly advanced, recognising sin as the antecedent of slavery.

Abraham was obedient to the voice of God. His conduct was the antecedent and the consequent was, God heaped upon him many blessings and among them, riches in various things,—“male and female slaves,” some of whom were “born in his house,” and some “bought with his money;” and God made a covenant with him, granting him, and his seed after him, the land of Canaan for an everlasting possession.

But this gift, as is the continuance of all other blessings, was accompanied with a condition, which is well explained in Genesis, xviii. 19: “For I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord to do justice and judgment; that the Lord may bring upon Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.”

Scholars will concede the fact that “his household” is a term by which his slaves are particularly included, over whom his government was extended; and, without its proper maintenance, the covenant so far on his part would be broken.

From the wording of the covenant it is evident that Abraham had slaves before the covenant was made, since it embraced regulations concerning slaves, but, in no instance, hints that the existence of slavery was adverse to the law of God, or that the holding of slaves, as slaves, was contrary to his will. The deduction is, that slavery exists in the world by Divine appointment; and that the act of owning slaves is in conformity with the moral law.

The doctrine, that sin is the antecedent of slavery, is further elucidated and made still more manifest by the recognition of the institution by the biblical writers, where they place sin and slavery in opposition to holiness and freedom:—thus, figuratively, making righteousness the antecedent of freedom. “Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.” Gal. v. 1. “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” John iii. 32.

The abuse of slavery, like the abuse of any thing else, is doubtless a great sin. Of the blessings God bestows on man, there is perhaps no one he does not abuse; and while we examine the laws of God, as presenting to the mind the vast field of cause and effect,—of antecedent and consequent,—we may be led to a reflection on the necessity of a conformity thereto, lest a long continuance of such abuses shall become the antecedent to future calamities and woes, either to ourselves or posterity; woes and calamities prefigured by those nations and tribes already under the infliction of slavery, as a just punishment of sin.

Thus far, we thank the Rev. Dr. Wayland for this fair exposé of his views of the moral law of God; and if he will apply them now to the institution of slavery,—if he will unfetter his intellect from the manacles imposed on it by a defective education on that subject, and cut himself loose from the prejudices that his associations have gathered around him, we may yet have occasion to rejoice over him as one once an estray from the fold of truth, but now returned, “sitting in his right mind and clothed.” And will not Mr. Fuller and Professor Taylor rejoice with us!

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LESSON II.

In those “Elements of Moral Science,” we find the following, p. 29:

“From what has been said, it may be seen that there exists, in the actions of men, an element which does not exist in the actions of brutes * * * * * * We can operate upon brutes only by fear of punishment, and hope of reward. We can operate upon man, not only in this manner, but also by an appeal to his consciousness of right and wrong; and by such means as may improve his moral nature. Hence, all modes of punishment, which treat men as we treat brutes, are as unphilosophical as they are thoughtless, cruel, and vindictive. Such are those systems of criminal jurisprudence which have in view nothing more than the infliction of pain upon the offender.”

It was unnecessary to inform us that man possesses higher mental endowments than the brute. But the main object of the author in the foregoing paragraph is his deduction; that, because we can operate on man by an appeal to his consciousness of right and wrong, therefore any other mode of governing him is wrong. This consequent we fail to perceive. We also fail in the perception that his postulate is universally true: which we think should have been proved before he can claim assent to the deduction. If this our view be correct, we beg the reverend author to reflect how far he may have made himself obnoxious to the charge of sophistry!

If President Wayland intends, by the clause,—“and by such means as may improve his moral nature,”—to include corporeal punishment, then his mind was unprepared to grapple with the subject; for, in that case, the whole paragraph is obscure, without object, and senseless. We most readily agree that to govern man by appeals to his consciousness of right and wrong is highly proper where the mind is so well cultivated that no other government is required.

But, however unhappy may be the reflection, too large a proportion of the human family will not fall within that class. How often do we see among men, otherwise having some claim to be classed with the intelligent, those of acknowledged bad habits; habits which directly force the sufferer downward to poverty, disgrace, disease, imbecility, and death,—on whom argument addressed to their “consciousness of right and wrong,” “is water spilled on the ground.”

Children, whose ancestors have, for ages, ranked among the highly cultivated of the earth,—each generation surpassing its predecessor in knowledge, in science, and religion,—have been found to degenerate, oftener than otherwise, when trained solely by arguments addressed to their reason, and unaccompanied by physical compulsion.

What then are we to expect from man in a savage state, whose ancestors have been degenerating from generation to generation, through untold ages,—him, who has scarcely a feeling in common with civilized man, except such as is common to the mere animal,—him, whom deteriorating causes have reduced to the lowest grade above the brute?

Domberger spent twelve years in passing through the central parts of Africa, from north to south. He found the negroes, in a large district of country, in a state of total brutality. Their habits were those only of the wild brutes. They had no fixed residences. They lay down wherever they might be when disposed to sleep. They were not more gregarious than the wild goats. So far as he could discover, they had not a language even, by which to hold intercourse with each other. They possessed no power by which they were enabled to exhibit moral degradation, any more than the wild beasts.

Hanno, the Carthaginian navigator, in his Periplus, eight hundred years before the birth of Christ, gives a similar account of a race he calls Gætuli.

It is possible that man, in these extreme cases, where there is very little to unlearn, might sooner be regenerated, elevated to civilization, physical and mental power, than in other cases where there may be far more proof of mental capacity, but where the worst of intellectual and physical habits have stained soul and body with, perhaps, a more indelible degradation.

It would be a curious experiment, and add much to our knowledge of the races of man, to ascertain how many generations, under the most favourable treatment, it would require to produce an equal to Moses, or a David, a Newton, or the learned Dr. Wayland himself, (if such be possible,) from these specimens of man presented before us! And we now inquire, what course of treatment will you propose, as the most practical, to elevate such a race to civilization?

It appears to us God has decided that slavery is the most effectual.

“Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge.” Isa. v. 13. “And they forsook the Lord, and served Baal and Ashteroth. And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and he delivered them into the hands of the spoilers that spoiled them, and he sold them into the hands of their enemies round about.” Judg. ii. 13, 14. See also, iii. 6–8. “If his children forsake my law and walk not in my judgments: if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments: then will I visit their transgressions with the rod and their iniquity with stripes.” Ps. lxxxviii. 30–32. “He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool shall be the servant (עֶבֶד ebed, slave) to the wise of heart.” Prov. ii. 29. “And her daughters shall go into captivity. Thus will I execute judgments in Egypt: and they shall know that I am the Lord.” Ezek. xxx. 18. See also the preceding part of the chapter.

It is highly probable that among savage tribes, punishment and the infliction of pain are often applied with no higher view than to torture the object of displeasure. But to us it seems remarkably unfortunate, in a student of moral and civil jurisprudence, to suggest that legal punishment, among civilized men, is ever awarded or ordered with any such feeling. If our education has given us a correct view of the subject, the man who inflicts pain even on the brute, solely on the account of such a feeling, instantly, so far as it is known, sinks to the grade of a savage; and much more explicitly when the object of revenge is his fellow man. On the contrary, when “the offender” has given unquestionable evidence of a depravity too deeply seated for any hope of regeneration, and the law orders his death, it selects that mode of execution which inflicts the least suffering, and which shall have also the greatest probable influence to deter others who may be downward bound in the road of moral deterioration. There never has been a code of laws among civilized nations, where the object of punishment was to inflict pain on the implicated; only so far as was thought necessary to influence a change of action for the better. The object of punishment invariably has been the improvement of society.

If the Rev. Dr. Wayland had been teaching legislation to savages, or, perhaps, their immediate descendants, his remarks, to which we allude, might have been in place. But may we inquire to what cause are we indebted for them?

Permit us to inquire of the Doctor, where now are to be found the “systems of criminal jurisprudence” to which he alludes? Does he imagine that such system has some likeness to the government of the civilized man over his slave? Or, in their government, does he propose to abolish corporeal punishment, because he may think that will destroy the institution itself? For “a servant (עָ֑בֶד abed, a slave) though he understand, he will not answer.” Prov. xxix. 19.

We cannot pass over the paragraph we have quoted, without expressing the most bitter regret to learn from Dr. Wayland’s own words, that he recognises the fact, without giving it reproval, that “we” punish “brutes” with no other view than to inflict pain. To us, such an idea is most repugnant and awful! And we hope—we pray Him who alone hath power to drag up from the deep darkness of degradation, that the minds of such men may be placed under the controlling influence of a rule that will compel to a higher sense of what is proper, and to a more clear perception of what is truth!

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LESSON III.

The learned Doctor says:

P. 49. “By conscience, or moral sense, is meant that faculty by which we discern the moral quality of actions, and by which we are capable of certain affections in respect to this quality.

“By faculty is meant any particular part of our constitution, by which we become affected by the various qualities and relations of beings around us?” * * * “Now, that we do actually observe a moral quality in the actions of men, must, I think, be admitted. Every human being is conscious, that, from childhood, he has observed it.” * * * * *

P. 50. “The question would then seem reduced to this: Do we perceive this quality of actions by a single faculty, or by a combination of faculties? I think it must be evident from what has been already stated, that this is, in its nature, simple and ultimate, and distinct from every other notion.

“Now, if this be the case, it seems self-evident that we must have a distinct and separate faculty, to make us acquainted with the existence of this distinct and separate quality.”

And for proof, he adds: “This is the case in respect to all other distinct qualities: it is, surely, reasonable to suppose, that it would be the case in this.”

What! have we a distinct faculty by which we determine one thing to be red, and another distinct faculty by which we discover a thing to be black; another distinct faculty by which we judge a thing to be a cube, and another distinct faculty by which we determine it to be a triangle? Have we one distinct faculty by which we find a melon, and another by which we find a gourd? What! one distinct faculty by which we determine a professor of moral philosophy to be a correct teacher, and another by which we discover him to be a visionary?

This faculty of moral sense puts us in mind of Dr. Testy’s description of the peculiar and distinct particles upon the tongue, which render a man a liar, a lunatic, or a linguist; a treacher, a tattler, or a teacher, and so on. His theory is that every mental and moral quality of a man has its distinct particle, or little pimple, upon the tongue, whereby the quality is developed; or, by the aid of which the man is enabled to make the quality manifest. Long practice in examining the tongues of sick people enabled him, he says, to make the discovery. We should like to know what acuminated elevation of the cuticle of the tongue represented “conscience or moral sense,” as a separate and distinct faculty!

Why does he not at once borrow support from the extravagancies of phrenology, and assert, according to the notions of its teachers, that, since the brain is divided into distinct organs for the exercise of each distinct faculty, therefore there must be a distinct faculty for the conception of each idea? There is surely an evident relation between this theory of the author and the doctrines of Gall; nor will the world fail to associate it with the phantasies of Mesmer.

But we ask the author and his pupils to apply to this theory the truism of Professor Dodd: “It is, at all times, a sufficient refutation of what purports to be a statement of facts, to show that the only kind of evidence by which the facts could possibly be sustained, does not exist.”

The theory by which the Doctor arrives at the conclusion that we possess a separate and distinct faculty for the perception of each separate and distinct quality, assimilates to that of a certain quack, who asserted that the human stomach was mapped off, like Gall’s cranium, into distinct organs of digestion; one solely for beef-steak, one for mutton-chops, and another for plum-pudding!

It is a great point with certain of the higher class of abolition writers to establish the doctrine that man possesses a distinct mental power, which they call conscience, or moral sense, by which he is enabled to discover, of himself, and without the aid of study, teaching, or even inspiration, what is right and what is wrong.

The practice is, the child is taught by them that slavery is very wicked; that no slaveholder can be a good man; and much of such matter. Books are put into the hands of the schoolboy and the youth, inculcating similar lessons, fraught with lamentation and sympathy for the imaginary woes of the slave, and hatred and disgust towards the master; and when maturer years are his, he is asked if he does not feel that slavery is very wicked; and the professors of moral philosophy then inform him that he feels so because he possesses “a distinct mental faculty”—distinct from the judgment—which teaches those who cultivate it, infallibly, all that is right and wrong; that this conscience, or moral sense, is more to be relied on than the Bible—than the ancient inspirations of God!

Hence, Channing says:

“That same inward principle, which teaches a man what he is bound to do to others, teaches equally, and at the same instant, what others are bound to do to him.” * * * “His conscience, in revealing the moral law, does not reveal a law for himself only, but speaks as a universal legislator.” * * * “There is no deeper principle in human nature than the consciousness of right.” Vol. ii. p. 33.

And Barnes, on Slavery, says:

P. 381. “If the Bible could be shown to defend and countenance slavery as a good institution, it would make thousands of infidels; for there are multitudes of minds that will see more clearly that slavery is against all the laws which God has written on the human soul, than they would see, that a book, sanctioning such a system, had evidence of Divine origin.”

And this same author makes Dr. Wayland say:

P. 310. “Well may we ask, in the words of Dr. Wayland, (pp. 83, 84,) whether there was ever such a moral superstructure raised on such a foundation? The doctrine of purgatory from a verse of Maccabees; the doctrine of papacy from the saying of Christ to Peter; the establishment of the Inquisition from the obligation to extend the knowledge of religious truth, all seem nothing to it. If the religion of Christ allows such a license from such precepts as these, the New Testament would be the greatest curse that ever was inflicted on our race.”

This book, as quoted by Barnes, we have not seen.

Such is the doctrine of these theologians, growing out of the possession, as they imagine, of this distinct moral faculty, infallibly teaching them the truth touching the moral quality of the actions of men. And what is its effect upon their scarcely more wicked pupils? One of them, in a late speech in Congress, says:

“Sir, I must express the most energetic dissent from those who would justify modern slavery from the Levitical law. My reason and conscience revolt from those interpretations which

Torture the hallowed pages of the Bible, To sanction crime, and robbery, and blood, And, in oppression’s hateful service, libel ‘Both man and God!’”

The ignorant fanaticism, so proudly buoyant even in repose upon its ill-digested reason,—here so flippantly uttered,—to us bespeaks a dangerous man, (as far as he may have capacity,) in whatever station he may be found. The most hateful idolatry has never presented to the world a stronger proof of a distorted imagination giving vent to the rankest falsehood. It is to be deeply regretted that such intellects are ever permitted to have any influence upon the minds of the young. We deem it would be a fearful inquiry, to examine how far the strange assassinations, lately so common at the North, have been the direct result of that mental training of which we here see an example. We fear too little is thought of the quick transition from this erroneous theology to the darkened paths of man when enlightened alone by his own depraved heart.

The saying is true, however awful: He who rejects or dispels the plain meaning of the Bible, rejects our God, and is an idolater; and God alone can give bound to his wicked conceptions.

The foregoing extracts show us a specimen of the arguments and conclusions emanating from the doctrine that the conscience is a distinct mental power, and that it infallibly teaches what is right before God. We deem it quite objectionable—quite erroneous!

We present the proposition: The judgment is as singly employed in the decision of what is right and wrong, as it is in the conclusion that all the parts of a thing constitute the whole of it. True, the judgment, when in the exercise of determining what is right and wrong in regard to our own acts, has been named conscience. But it remains for that class of philosophers, who argue that man possesses a faculty of clairvoyance, to establish that man has also a sister faculty, which they call conscience, or moral sense; and that it exists as an independent mental power, distinct from judgment.

* * * * *

Most men live without reflection. They think of nothing but the objects of sense, of pressing want, and the means of relief. The wonderful works of nature create no wonder. A mine of sea-shells on the Andes excites no surprise. Of the analogies or dissimilarities between things, or their essential relations, the mind takes no notice. Even their intellectual powers exist almost without their cognisance. Their mental faculties are little improved or cultivated; and, as they are forced to the Gazetteer for the description of some distant locality, so they would be to their logic, before they could speak of their own mental functions.

The teaching of this doctrine, untrue as it is, may, therefore, be very harmful; as ill-informed individuals often form a very erroneous judgment about right and wrong, and, under the influence of its teachings, may come to think and believe that their conclusion concerning right and wrong is the product of their infallible guide, the conscience, or moral sense, and therefore past all doubt and beyond question; that their minds are under the influence and control of a new and spiritually higher law than the law of the land, or even the moral law as laid down in the Bible, when not in unison with their feelings. And we venture to prophesy, in case this doctrine shall gain general credence, that such will be the rocks on which multitudes will founder; for simple and ill-informed people may thus be led, and doubtless are, to do very wicked and mischievous acts, under the influence of this belief—a belief of their possessing this power, which no one ever did possess, unless inspired.

“There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Prov. xvi. 25.

* * * * *

Thus we see there is a class of theologians, who, in hot pursuit of abolitionism, seem ready to sacrifice their Bible and its religion to the establishment of such principles as they deem wholly contradictory to, and incompatible with, the existence of slavery; and it is hence that they attempt to teach that man possesses an intuitive sense of its wrong. But shall we not be forced, with regret, to acknowledge, that there are quacks in divinity as well as in physic?

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LESSON IV.

We do not charge Dr. Wayland with being the author of this new doctrine that man possesses an independent and distinct power, faculty, or sense, by the exercise of which he perceives right and wrong, or, in other words, the moral quality of the actions of men, and upon which perception he may rest with safety, as to its accuracy and truthfulness; for the same doctrine has been suggested by greater men than Dr. Wayland, long ago. Lord Shaftesbury, Dr. Hutchinson, and Dr. Reid have laid the foundation; the latter of whom says, (p. 242,) “The testimony of our moral faculty, like that of the external senses, is the testimony of nature, and we have the same reason to rely upon it.“ Again: “As we rely upon the clear and distinct testimony of our eyes, concerning the figures and colours of bodies about us, we have the same reason, with security, to rely upon the clear and unbiassed testimony of our conscience with regard to what we ought or ought not to do.”

* * * * *

Such sentiments may seem to some to be deducible from an indistinct and indefinite reference to our judgment after the understanding has been improved by moral culture, when such judgment, by a mere looseness of language, is sometimes described as if the writers confounded it with the state of mind and moral perfectibility produced by the reception of the Holy Ghost. Thus, Archbishop Secker, in his Fourth Lecture on the Catechism, says:

“How shall all persons know what they are taught to believe is really true?

“Answer. The greater part of it, when it is once duly proposed to them, they may perceive to be so by the light of their own reason and conscience.”

Now it is evident that the bishop’s answer is predicated upon the supposition that the understanding has been cultivated in conformity to the principles of moral truth.

But, from such hasty, perhaps thoughtless, snatches of speculation, occasionally found in some few of the older metaphysical writers, our author and his co-associates in this belief have drawn their materials, remodelled the parts, and reared, even as to heaven, a lofty structure upon a doubtful, tottering base, bringing untold social and political evils upon society, and spiritual death, in its fall, to all who shelter under it. But for the good of the world, in opposition to such a doctrine, truth has erected her column of solid masonry, against which the fanaticism and sophistry of these builders can only, like successive drops of water, carry down the walls some useless portions of the cement.

We repeat, how tottering must be the argument founded upon analogy where there is no relation! We all agree that the senses make truthful representations: all see, smell, and taste alike; vinegar will be sour to the savage, as well as the savant. But is their judgment the same about the moral qualities of actions? What says this moral sense, this conscience, in the savage, who is taught to steal from his friend and torture his enemy? Does the reverend doctor think his moral sense will dictate the same conclusion? What right has he, then, to say, it is the voice of nature—of God? Does he fail to perceive that the moral quality of actions is distinguished by man in conformity to his experience, his training, his education?

We see that men often differ about the moral quality of an action. It might be that no two men would have the same idea about the moral quality of a particular action. Would the conscience, this moral sense, or faculty, in such case, be right in each one? If not, who is to determine which is right and which is wrong? And further, of what use to man can be this distinct, independent, and unchangeably truthful power, which, nevertheless, brings him no certainty? But has the mind of man ever found out that God has overdone, or unnecessarily done, any thing? Will these theorists reflect, that, in case God had seen fit to bestow such a sense on man, inspiration would have been useless, and the Bible not wanted? And the condition of man upon the earth would be wholly stationary instead of progressive. And permit us to inquire, whether this notion of theirs is the reason why some of these theorists speak so rashly, we might say blasphemously, of that sacred volume, upon the condition which they dictate?

The truth is, we have no such infallible guide. The idea of right and wrong, either theologically or physically considered, is always fixed through an exertion of the powers of the understanding. We have no instinctive power reaching the case. Our judgment, our feelings are often unstable, irregular, and sometimes antagonistic. In abstruse cases, very often we cannot even satisfy ourselves what is right and will it be said that we do not often fail to see the object, design, and law of God touching a case?

On every decision on a question of right or wrong, a train of mental action is called into operation, comparing the ideas already in the mind with the facts of the case under review, and noting the similarity of these facts to our idea of right, or whether the facts conform to our idea of wrong. This decision we call judgment: but when the decision reaches to the question of right or wrong, touching our own conduct only, logicians have agreed to call it conscience; not a distinct action from judgment—much less a distinct faculty; and by no means carrying with it more proof of accuracy and correctness than is our judgment about any other matter, where the ideas and facts are equally manifest and accurately presented.

There is another consideration which to us gives proof that the conscience or moral sense is not an independent faculty of the mind, nor to be relied on at all as infallible. Many of us have noticed the changes that imperceptibly come over our moral feelings, and judgment of right and wrong, conscience or moral sense, through the influences of association and habit. Our affluent neighbour, who manifests to others many virtues and some follies, our mind, by association and habit, regards as a perfect model of human greatness and perfection. Thus a corrupt government soon surveys a corrupt people; and a somewhat licentious, but talented and accomplished clergyman, soon finds his hearers in fashion. Nor is it unfrequent, that which should stigmatize a father is beheld with admiration by the son. Thus wealth, to most, is desirable, but its desirability has been created by association; we recollect the objects it enables us to command, often the objects of our principal pursuit. The quality the mind associates with these gratifications, it eventually associates with that which procures them. Thus, we perceive, the mind is able to form a moral estimate upon considerations wholly artificial, which could never happen in case the moral sense was independent, and a distinct faculty teaching us infallible truth.

But how are we to account for the fact that some of the finest intellects, as well as the most learned men, have fallen into this most dangerous error? It should be a subject of deep thought!

We discover, in some men of the highest order of intellects, the power of arriving, as it were instantaneously, at a conclusion, giving it the appearance of being intuitive, rather than the result of what would be, when analyzed, a long chain of reasoning. Thus, the instant and happy thought often springing to the mind when in some sudden or unforeseen difficulty. The nice and instant perception, often displayed by medical men, of the condition of the patient, is an example; and hence the astonishing accuracy of judgment, sometimes noticed in the military commander, from a mere glance of the eye.

In such cases the mind is often not conscious of any mental action; and others, who observe these facts, are led, sometimes, to confound what, in such cases, is a deductive judgment, with intuitiveness. The judgment, thus formed without any perceptible succession of thought, is merely the result of acquirement from long experience and habits of active ratiocination. Some few instances of this unconscious and rapid thought have been exemplified by mathematicians, when the calculator could give no account how he arrived at the conclusion. Will any one claim that they abstract their answers from the most abstruse propositions intuitively, or by instinct, or by any new and distinct faculty of the mind? This habit of mind is as applicable to morals as to any thing else. But in mathematics the data are everywhere the same; whereas in morals the data are as different among men as are their conditions of life; because our ideas of right and wrong, existing in the mind before the judgment is formed on the case to be considered, were introduced by the aid of the senses, through the medium of experience and education; and it is, therefore, quite obvious that the idea of right in one man may be quite like the idea of wrong in another.

But it remains to show the fallacy of the argument by which Dr. Wayland arrives at his conclusion. Let us examine the paragraph quoted, and sift from verbiage the naked points of the argument:

“We do actually observe a moral quality in the actions of men.”

“Do we perceive this quality of actions by a single faculty, or a combination of faculties? This notion” (the perception of the moral quality of an action) “is, in its nature, simple and ultimate, and distinct from every other notion.”

“We have a distinct faculty to make us acquainted with the existence of all other distinct qualities.” “Therefore, it is self-evident that this is a separate and distinct faculty.”

The syllogism is defective because the idea of right or wrong is not simple nor ultimate, but complex, and ever subject to change from the influence of any new light presented to the mind. Nor is it true that we possess a distinct faculty to make us acquainted with each distinct quality; for, if so, the mind would be merely a very large bundle of faculties; and we should neither possess nor stand in need of any reasoning powers whatever, because the naked truth about every thing would always stand revealed before us by these faculties; which, we think, is not the fact.

In syllogistic argument, the first principles must be something that cannot be otherwise—unalterable—an eternal truth; “because these qualities cannot belong to the conclusion unless they belong to the premises, which are its causes.”

The syllogism will then stand thus:

It is not true our notion, or idea, of the moral quality of an action “is simple and ultimate, and distinct from any other idea or notion:”

It is not true that we have a distinct faculty to make us acquainted with the existence of all other distinct qualities:

Therefore, it is not true, nor self-evident, that we perceive the moral qualities of an action, or that we have the idea or notion of it, by the aid of a single distinct and separate faculty.

The “notion” advanced by Dr. Wayland, on this subject, appears to us so strange, that it would be difficult to conceive it to have been issued or promulgated by a schoolman, did we not know how often men, led by passion, some by prejudice, argue from false premises to which they take no heed, or, from a want of information, honestly mistake for truths.

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LESSON V.

P. 206. “It” (slavery) “supposes that the Creator intended one human being to govern the physical, intellectual, and moral actions of as many other human beings as, by purchase, he can bring within his physical power, and that one human being may thus acquire a right to sacrifice the happiness of any number of other human beings, for the purpose of promoting his own.”

This proposition is almost a total error. Slavery supposes the Creator intended that the interest of the master in the slave who, by becoming his slave, becomes his property, should secure to the slave that protection and government which the slave is too degenerate to supply to himself; and that such protection and government are necessary to the happiness and well-being of the slave, without which he either remains stationary or degenerates in his moral, mental, and physical condition.

P. 207. “It” (slavery) “renders the eternal happiness of the one party subservient to the temporal happiness of the other.”

This is equally untrue. Slavery subjects one party to the command of another who is expected to feel it a duty to so “command his household” that “they shall keep the way of the Lord, to do justice and judgment.”

This is the voice of God on the subject, as heretofore quoted. The learned Dr. Wayland is evidently wholly unacquainted with the spirit and intention, and, we may add, origin of the institution of slavery; yet he has, doubtless, been studying some of its abuses.

But suppose a man to study nothing of Christianity but its abuses, and from these alone undertake to describe what he conceives to be its results, its character, and suppositions; he doubtless would make what Dr. Wayland would very justly call a distorted representation; and perhaps, he might safely use a harsher phrase. But would such a representation be productive of any good in the world? It might do much mischief by spreading, broadcast, its errors and misrepresentations; a most delicious food for the morbid appetite of the ignorant and fanatic infidel! Yes, infidelity has its fanatics as well as abolitionism!

“Obey them that have rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.” Heb. xiii. 17.

* * * * *

P. 207. “If argument were necessary to show that such a system as this must be at variance with the ordinance of God, it might easily be drawn from the effects which it produces, both upon morals and national wealth.”

The author, in this instance, as he has in many others, designs to produce an effect on the mind of his reader from what he does not say, as well as from what he does say. We acknowledge this mode to be quite noncommittal, while, on the minds of some, it may be very skilfully used to produce an impression. But we confess ourselves ignorant of any logical rule by which it is entitled to produce any on us. The mode of speech used is intended to produce the impression that the proposition is someway self-evident, and therefore stands in no need of proof or argument. But how the proposition, that slavery is “at variance with the ordinances of God” is self-evident, and needs no proof nor argument, we have not the “moral sense” or “faculty” to discover. But as Dr. Wayland proposes, nevertheless, to prove its truth by its effects on morals and wealth, let us listen to the evidence.

Idem. “Its effects must be disastrous upon the morals of both parties. By presenting objects on whom passion may be satiated without resistance and without redress, it tends to cultivate in the master, pride, anger, cruelty, selfishness, and licentiousness. By accustoming the slave to subject his moral principles to the will of another, it tends to abolish in him all moral distinctions; and thus fosters in him lying, deceit, hypocrisy, dishonesty, and a willingness to yield himself up to the appetites of his master.”

This is his proof that slavery is “at variance with the ordinances of God,” as he has drawn it from its effect on morals;—in which we think him singularly unfortunate. He asks us to receive, as proof of the truth of the proposition, a combination of propositions all requiring proof of their truth, but of the truth of which he offers no proof.

This view of the state of the argument, we imagine, would be sufficient to condemn it in all well-schooled minds; but, nevertheless, we propose to show that which he offers as proof is not true; and even if true, is no proof of the truth of the proposition he endeavours to sustain.

In regard to the master, the effect complained of may or may not exist, as may be the fact whether the master is or is not capable of administering the charge and government of slaves wisely for himself and them. But these abuses, when found to exist, are no proof of the moral impropriety of the institution; for, if so, the abuses of a thing are proof that the thing itself is evil. There are many abuses of government: is government, therefore, at variance with the ordinances of God? The same of matrimony; and is it, therefore, to be set aside? Some men make an abusive use of their education, and, in consequence, would have been more valuable members of society in a state of comparative ignorance: are our universities, therefore, to be abolished? Money has been said to be “the root of all evil;” it, to some extent, is the representative of wealth and power; the possession of either of which may, in some individuals, sometimes apparently enable the possessor “to cultivate pride, anger, cruelty, selfishness, and licentiousness.” The same may be said of power of any kind. But has not Dr. Wayland learned that there are cases where the effect would be and is entirely the reverse?—where power, wealth, or even the possession of slaves, produces in the possessor a greater degree of humility, placidity or mildness, sympathy or charity for others, and orderly conduct in himself? Does the reverend moral philosopher make so low an estimate of the value of civilization—of the influence of Christianity—as not to admit the capability of enjoying a blessing without abusing it?

If Dr. Wayland’s argument be founded on truth, it will be easy to show that any system of things must be at variance with the ordinances of God which permit the possession of either power or wealth: consequently, in such case, we must and should all go back to the savage state. We ask this learned standard author to read the history of Abraham and Isaac, and inform us whether slavery produced the effect on them which he supposes to be an entailment of the institution; for the effect must be proved to be an unchangeable, a universal and unavoidable consequence, before it can receive the character of evidence in the case to which he applies it.

But Dr. Wayland thinks that slavery “tends to abolish all moral distinctions in the slave”—“fosters in him lying, deceit, hypocrisy, dishonesty, and a willingness to yield himself up to minister to the appetites of his master;” and, therefore, “is at variance with the ordinances of God.”

If the doctor had seen the native African and slave in the wild, frantic joy of his savage worship, tendered to his chief idol-god, the imbodiment of concupiscence; if he had seen all the power of the Christian master centered to effect the eradication of this heathen belief, and the habits it engendered; had he witnessed the anxiety of the master for the substitution of the precepts of Christianity; if he had seen the untiring efforts of the masters, sometimes for several generations, before this great object could be accomplished, and the absolute necessity of its accomplishment before the labour of the slave could ordinarily become to him an article of full and desirable profit,—he would probably never have written the paragraph we have quoted!

But since, in the honest, we may perhaps say the amiable, simplicity of his mind, he has composed this lesson for his pupil, which, like the early dew in imperceptible showers on the tender blade, becomes the daily nutriment of his juvenile mind and the habitual aliment of its maturity, we deem it necessary to make one further brief remark in proof of its entire inadequacy to the task assigned it in his argument, as a particular and special, and of its total untruthfulness as a general and comprehensive, maxim in morals.

Our experience is, that the crimes here named, when detected in the slave, are punished, and, if necessary, with severity, if for no other reason, because they render the slave less valuable to his master. The master wishes to find in his slave one on whom he can rely with certainty; in whom there is no dissonance of interest from his own, and whose honesty and obedience are past doubt. The qualities which are the exact opposite of the crimes imputed are, therefore, sedulously cultivated in the slave,—and truly, very often, with small success. But we are surprised at the doctrine which proclaims a system of government that ever punishes and looks with displeasure on “lying, deceit, hypocrisy, and dishonesty,” to be the very thing to foster and nourish those vices! When such is proved to be the fact, we shall regard it as a new discovery in morals.

As to the last clause of what he has adduced as proof of his proposition, we say that any one who is in the employ, or even the company, of another, either as a friend, wife, child, or hireling, as well as slave, may manifest a growing willingness to minister to the appetites of such person; and such inclination, or willingness, will operate to the benefit or injury of those so influenced, in proportion as such appetite is good or bad, or tends to good or evil: but this influence, whether tending to benefit or injury, is not an exclusive incident of slavery, and, therefore, cannot with any propriety, be quoted either for or against it: for, everywhere, “evil communications corrupt good manners.”

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LESSON VI.

Dr. Wayland informs us that slavery is at variance with the ordinances of God, because it diminishes the amount of national wealth. If the diminishing of national wealth be proof of the variance from the ordinances of God, then it will follow that whatever will increase such wealth must be in conformity to such ordinances,—a position which we think no one will attempt to maintain. But let us notice the evidence he adduces to prove that slavery diminishes national wealth. His first proof is, that slavery does not “impose on all the necessity of labour;” but that it “restricts the number of labourers—that is, of producers—by rendering labour disgraceful.”

Now this is surely a proposition which requires to be proved itself before it can be received as a proof of an antecedent proposition; and President Wayland seems to have perceived that, under the general term, “labourers,” it would be incapable of proof; and, therefore, he informs us that by labourers he means producers. The logicians will agree that there is a disjointedness in this proposition (very common in this author) to which exception might be taken; but we suppose Dr. Wayland means that slavery decreases the number of those whose labour is employed in the production of the articles or products of agriculture; for we do not presume he means that the labours of the law, physic, divinity, the mechanic arts, commerce, politics or war, are rendered disgraceful by slavery, but agriculture alone; and that, therefore, it is at variance with the ordinances of God, because it thus diminishes the amount of national wealth. If this is not his meaning, we confess ourselves unable to find any meaning in it.

We know of no surer method to test its truth or falsehood than for the Slave States to compare their number of agricultural producers with those of the Free States, having relation to the entire population. The result will be found wholly adverse to the reverend moralist’s position. In fact, so great is the disproportion between the numbers of agricultural labourers in the Slave States, compared to those in the Free, that the articles of their produce often fall down to prices ruinous to the agriculturist, which very seldom, or never, happens in the Free States. Let Dr. Wayland study the statistics touching this point, and he will find himself in error.

But the proposition of President Wayland includes this minor proposition: That the increase of agricultural products, to the greatest possible extent, increases national wealth. We are very far from discovering the truth of this; because the increase of a production, beyond utility and demand, can add nothing to the value of the production, since value depends upon utility and demand. If this position be true, which we think very few at this day will dispute, it is quite obvious that President Wayland, and even Adam Smith, (from whom we suppose the former has received this notion,) are quite mistaken when they predicate the amount of labour to be the sole measure, or, in fact, the amount of wealth; since that position must render the amount of labour and the amount of wealth terms of convertible significance, which, in fact, is seldom the case. Such, then, being the state of the argument, Dr. Wayland’s proposition is, in effect: That the production of the articles of agriculture, to an extent beyond any demand or value, is in conformity to the ordinances of God; and, therefore, their production, to any less extent, is at variance with those ordinances, because the first increases and the latter decreases national wealth. We shall leave these contradictions for the consideration of the professor of moral philosophy and his pupils.

The second witness Dr. Wayland introduces to prove the truth of his proposition, that slavery lessens the amount of national wealth, is that slavery takes from the labourer the natural stimulus to labour,—the desire of individual benefit,—and substitutes the fear of punishment: And for the third and last, that slavery removes from both parties the disposition and motive to frugality; by which means national wealth is diminished.

If national wealth be the desideratum, in order not to be at variance with the ordinances of God, it matters not whether the contributors to it did so contribute through the selfish view of personal aggrandizement and a desire of elevation above their fellows, or whether they did so to relieve themselves from some stigma or personal infliction that a refusal might be expected to fasten upon them. The motive in both cases is the same—a desire to benefit themselves. Thus Dr. Wayland, therefore, makes a distinction where, in reality, there is no difference.

But again, if the amount of labour be the criterion of the amount of national wealth, as he seems to suppose, it can make no difference, in a national point of view, whether A and B squander the result of their labours into the possession of C and D, or retain it themselves because the change of possession in no way destroys the thing possessed. It might be gathered, from this part of Dr. Wayland’s argument, that the greatest misers would be the most efficient builders of national wealth, and, therefore, most in accordance with the ordinances of God.

We are somewhat at loss to perceive the precise idea the author affixes to the term “national wealth.” Whether this be his or our fault, we leave for others to decide.

Has it ever occurred to the reverend author to estimate the wealth of a nation by the moral, physical, and individual welfare of the population?

But we cannot attempt, or undertake, to expose, nor explain, all the false reasoning, distorted views, and prejudiced conclusions found heaped up, in heterogeneous confusion, by the abolition writers. The dissection of mental putridity is as unwelcome a task as that of the animal carcass in a state of decomposition.

If we cast our eyes over the surface of human life, we notice that wealth and power usually travel hand in hand but that wealth is distributed unequally, varied from the lofty possessions of royal power down to the most scanty pittance of poverty and want;—yet leaving a vast majority in possession of nothing save life, and their right to the use of the elements of nature. It is with these lower classes we have the most to do. The wants of these, most generally, are physical: indeed, we sometimes find them only on a level with the brute. Thus, the African mountaineer is prone and content to feed on the decaying remains of what he may find, and wanders, like the hyena, upon the trail of what he hopes to find his prey; while the savage islanders of the distant seas are satisfied with what the ocean heaves on shore. We notice that these wants are increased by climate; hence, the native of the extreme north, content with his flitch of blubber, yet robs the bear of his hide for a blanket. These wants we also find enlarged by the least contact with civilization. Hence we see the African, on the western coast of his continent, garnished out with the gewgaws of Europe, and the Indian of our own clime with the trinkets of trade. And thus we may notice that, as civilization and capital increase in any country, new objects of desire, new individual wants increase in proportion. Hence, the farm-house now exhibits its carpet, whereas Queen Elizabeth was content with straw!

All these wants require some action, on the part of those who desire their gratification, to continue their supply, or it must cease; because, as a general rule, the product of individual labour must bound the supply of individual wants, in all cases where the individual possesses no capital which yields an additional revenue.

But a large portion of those in savage life produce nothing; so, also, a portion from civilized society seem ever disposed to break through the rules of civilization, to retrograde as to morals, and subsist by trick or some dishonesty. They produce nothing, and are, therefore, a total drawback on the welfare of others. We find, also, another portion, the product of whose labour is inadequate to the supply of their individual wants, and who are without capital to supply the deficiency. Such must die, or resort to charity; or retrograde, and live by their wits. Good men, in all ages, have striven to obviate these evils. The Levitical law did so by permitting the unfortunate man to sell himself, as a slave, for six years, or for life, as he might choose, under the state of the case; or, in case he did not so choose to sell himself, but became indebted beyond his means, the law forced his sale, and also that of his whole family. Although, to some, this law may look harsh, yet its spirit, intention, and effect were in favour of the general good, of morals, and of life. Yet it was slavery; and we take liberty here to say, although some may not be prepared to receive it, that such ever was, is now, and ever will be the spirit, intention, and effect of slavery, when not disfigured by its abuse.

We have in vain looked through these “Elements” for some proposal of the author to meet such cases as those of savages, and of those degenerating and deteriorating poor, in all countries, known to be so from the fact that they ever strive to live by their wits. And here we may remark that it is evident the system of alms-giving must terminate when the capitalists shall find the amount of alms beyond their surplus revenue; and no one will deny that the whole system has a direct tendency towards a general bankruptcy. We therefore ask Dr. Wayland to make a proposal that shall be a permanent and effectual remedy in the cases under consideration.

Now, very few will say, but that if society can find out some humane plan by which beggars and thieves can be forced, if force be necessary, to yield a product of labour equal to the supply of their necessary wants, the ordinances of God will not sanction the act.

From imperfection, perhaps, in the organization of society, we not only see individuals branching off, and taking a downward road, but also, in all old countries, from the very stimulus of nature, a constant tendency to such an increase of population as lessens the value of labour by overstocking the demand, whereby its product becomes less than is required for the supply of individual wants. The consequences resulting from these facts, so ruinous to individual morals and happiness, often become national evils and the causes of national deterioration. But, under the Levitical law, and in all countries with similar provisions, the effect has been, and ever will be, a division of such population into a separate caste,—not national deterioration.

With a view to remedy the evils to which we have invited the attention of the Rev. Dr. Wayland, Sismondi, book vii. chap. 9, has proposed, that inasmuch, as he says, the low wages of the labouring poor redound wholly to the pecuniary benefit of the capitalists who employ them, those capitalists shall be charged by law with their support, when wages become too low to supply the necessary wants of the labourer; at the same time bestowing power on the capitalists to prevent all marriages when the labourer can give no evidence of a prospect of increased means of subsistence, satisfactory to the capitalist, that he will not be burdened with the support of the offspring. We are, by no means, the advocates of Sismondi’s proposed arrangement. But if the labourers, since in some sense they may be considered freemen, give their consent to it, we do not perceive that it would be “at variance with the ordinances of God.”

The author of these “Elements” and Sismondi, we believe, differed little, if any, on the subject of the abolition of slavery touching the negro race. Will he say, the proposal of that philosopher to benefit the condition of the labouring poor, if carried into effect as suggested, would be “at variance with the ordinances of God?” Yet, all the world perceive that it is a mere modification of slavery, containing conditions more obnoxious to human nature than appertains to any condition of slavery now known beyond the African shores.

Man has ever been found to advance in moral improvement civilization, and a stable and healthy increase of population, only in proportion as they have been taught to supply their necessary wants by the products of individual labour. This is what first distinguishes civilized from savage life. The savage relies wholly upon the elements, the casualties that bring him advantage, and the spontaneous productions of nature. The idea of supplying his wants through the products of labour never enters the mind. And will it be denied that, even in civilized countries, they who solely rely upon begging, trick, and dishonesty, for their support, are always found to be deteriorating, both in morals and in their physical ability, rapidly receding from all the characteristics of civilization, in the direction towards savage life. Indeed, a tendency to move in the same direction is often perceptible among those who only partially supply the wants of civilized support by the product of individual labour, and rely upon their wits for the remainder, thus, to some extent, becoming the plunderers of society. We would have been happy to have found the causes why these things are so, as well as to have found the remedy, in “The Elements of Moral Science.”

But let us contemplate, for a moment, a certain class of freemen, the lazaroni of Italy, who exist, merely, upon one small dish of macaroni, daily issued to them from the Hospital of St. Lazarus. We are all familiar with the condition of these people. Let us compare theirs with what would be the condition of the beggars and thieves of some other countries, were they placed under the control of some salutary power, whereby their necessary wants would be supplied by the product of their individual labour. We need not ask which condition is most “at variance with the ordinances of God!”

Dr. Wayland has retained, for his last witness, the old trite charge that slavery impoverishes the soil; that, therefore, it constantly “migrates from the old to new regions,” “where alone the accumulated manure of centuries” can “sustain a system at variance with the laws of nature.” “Hence,” he says, “slavery in this country is acknowledged to have impoverished many of our most valuable districts.”

We are not aware how far Dr. Wayland has founded this statement upon facts drawn from his own observation. Has he done so at all; or has he, carelessly and without reflection, adopted it from the assertions of others notoriously destitute of ability to form an opinion with accuracy, or else too deeply prejudiced to give their opinion any value? Does he wish us to infer that the plough and the hoe, in the hands of a slave, communicate some peculiar poison to the soil; and by reason of which “the ground shall not henceforth yield her strength?” Will he please explain how the effect of which he complains is produced? If he finds it merely in the mode of cultivation, we then inquire whether the same mode would not produce the same effect, even if the plough and hoe were held by freemen? If so, then it is evident that “the impoverishment of many of our most valuable districts” is not the result of slavery, but of a bad mode of cultivation. Or, will the doctor contend that if those valuable districts had been cultivated by free hired men, the evils from negligence in the labourer would be remedied? “He that is a hireling fleeth, because he is a hireling, and careth not for the sheep.” John x. 13.

Dr. Wayland will not deny that the “heathen round about,” of whom the Jews were permitted to buy slaves, were a slave-holding people; but we have no account that their country was impoverished thereby. The Canaanites, whom the Israelites drove out from Palestine, were slaveholders; yet the country was represented as very fertile, even to “overflowing with milk and honey.” The Danites found “Laish very good,” Judg. xviii. 9. And the children of Judah “found fat pasture and good” about Gedar. 1 Chron. iv. 40. “For they of Ham had dwelt there of old!”

For many centuries, slavery extended over every part of Europe, yet history gives us no account of the ruin of the soil. In Greece and Rome, the numbers of slaves were extended to millions beyond any number these States possess; but their historians failed to discover their destructive influence on the fertility of those countries.

Before the impoverishment of the soil can, with any force, be adduced as proof against slavery, it must be proved to be a necessary consequence; which, we apprehend, will be a difficult labour, since the sluggishness and the idleness of the Canaanites, and of the nations round about, left their country overflowing with milk and honey, abounding in fat pastures and good, notwithstanding their population were, to a large extent, slaves,—since, also, the servile cultivation of the soil in Greece and Rome did not impoverish it; and since slavery, which everywhere abounded in Europe, never produced that effect.

If Dr. Wayland will discover the legitimate cause of this impoverishment of the soil in the Slave States, and teach the planters a better mode of cultivation, we doubt not he will receive their thanks, and deserve well of his country, as a public benefactor.

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LESSON VII.

Dr. Wayland says:

P. 209. “The moral precepts of the Bible are diametrically opposed to slavery.”

P. 210. “The moral principles of the gospel are directly subversive of the principles of slavery.” * * * “If the gospel be diametrically opposed to the principles of slavery, it must be opposed to the practice of slavery; and, therefore, were the principles of the gospel fully adopted, slavery could not exist.”

Dr. Wayland having conceived himself to possess a distinct faculty, which reveals to him, with unerring truthfulness, whatever is right and all that is wrong, may be expected to consider himself fully able to decide, in his own way, what instruction God intended to convey to us, on the subject of slavery, through the books of Divine revelation; yet, we cannot but imagine that St. Paul would be somewhat astonished, if presented with the doctor’s decision for his approval, and that he would cry out:

“Who art thou that judgest another man’s servant? To his own master, he standeth, or falleth: yea, he will be holden up; for God is able to make him stand.”

But although we cannot boast of possessing this unerring moral guide, which, of late years, seems to be so common a possession among that class who ardently desire us to believe that they have monopolized all the knowledge of God’s will on the subject of slavery, yet we may venture a remark on the logical accuracy of Dr. Wayland’s argument.

It seems to be a postulate in his mind that the gospel is diametrically opposed to, and subversive of, the principles of slavery. We do not complain of this syllogistic mode; but we do complain, as we have done before, that his postulate is not an axiom, a self-evident truth, or made equal thereto by the open and clear declarations of Christ or his apostles. This defect cannot be remedied by ever so many suppositions, nor by deductions therefrom. Nor will those of a different faith from Dr. Wayland, on the subject of “conscience,” or “moral sense,” be satisfied to receive the declarations of this his “distinct faculty” as the fixed decrees of eternal truth. His assertions and arguments may be very convincing to those who think they possess this distinct faculty, especially if their education and prejudices tend to the same conclusion.

But if what President Wayland says about slavery be true, then to hold slaves is a most heinous sin; and he who does so, and never repents, can never visit Paul in heaven. He necessarily is placed on a parallel with the thief and robber; and Dr. Channing has been bold enough to say so.

But has Paul ever hinted to us any such thing as that the holding of slaves is a sin? Yet he gives us instruction on the subject and relations of slavery. What excuse had St. Paul for not telling us what the Rev. Dr. Wayland now tells us, if what he has told us be true? And if it be true, what are we to think of Paul’s verity, when he asserts that he has “not shunned to declare all the counsel of God?”

Did Jesus Christ ever hint such an idea as Dr. Wayland’s? What are we to understand, when he addresses God, the Father, and says, “I have given unto them the words thou gavest me, and they have received them?” What are we to deduce from his remark on a slaveholder, and who notified him of that fact, when he says to his disciples, “Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel?” What impression was this remark calculated to produce on the minds of the disciples? Does Dr. Wayland found his assertion on Luke xvii. 7–10? or does he agree with Paley that Christ privately condemned slavery to the apostles, and that they kept such condemnation secret to themselves, to prevent opposition to the introduction of Christianity, and left the most wicked sin of slave-holding to be found out by a mere innuendo? Or does Dr. Wayland claim, through the aid of his distinct moral faculty infallibly teaching him the truth, to have received some new light on the subject of slavery, which the FATHER deemed not prudent to be intrusted to the SON, and, therefore, now more lucid and authoritative than what was revealed to the apostles?

The Archbishop Secker has made a remark which appears to us conclusive, and also exactly to fit the case. In his Fifth Lecture on the Catechism, he says:—

“Supposing the Scripture a true revelation, so far as it goes; how shall we know, if it be a full and complete one too, in all things necessary? I answer: Since our Saviour had the Spirit without measure, and the writers of Scripture had as large a measure of it as their commission to instruct the world required, it is impossible that, in so many discourses concerning the terms of salvation as the New Testament contains, they should all have omitted any one thing necessary to the great end which they had in view. And what was not necessary when the Scripture was completed, cannot have become so since. For the faith was, once for all, ‘delivered to the saints,’ Jude 3; and ‘other foundation can no man lay,’ 1 Cor. iii. 11, than what was laid then. The sacred penmen themselves could teach no other doctrine than Christ appointed them; and he hath appointed no one since to make addition to it.”

But it may be proper to take some further notice how the author of these “Elements” attempts to prove the truth of the proposition that “the moral precepts of the Bible are diametrically opposed to slavery.” He says, “God can make known to us his will, either directly or indirectly.”

He may, in express terms, command or forbid a thing; this will be directly;—or he may command certain duties, or impose certain obligations, with which some certain course of conduct is inconsistent; in which case the inconsistent course of conduct will be indirectly forbidden.

We have not followed Dr. Wayland’s exact words, because we found them somewhat confused, and rather ambiguous. We prefer to have the case clearly stated, and we then accept the terms, and repeat the question, “Has God imposed obligations on man which are inconsistent with the existence of domestic slavery?”

In proof that he has, Dr. Wayland presents the Christian duty “to preach the gospel to all nations and men, without respect to circumstances or condition.” We agree that such is our duty, so far as we may have the power; and it appears to us strange how that duty can interfere with the existence of slavery, because the practical fact is, slavery brings hundreds of thousands of negroes into a condition whereby the duty may be performed, and many thereby do come to some knowledge of the gospel, who would, otherwise, have none.

Every Christian slaveholder feels it to be his duty. Is it denied that this duty is ever performed?

But if it is incompatible with the institution of slavery for the slave to be taught Christianity, then Christianity and slavery can never co-exist in the same person. Therefore, Dr. Wayland must prove that no slave can be a Christian, before this argument can have weight.

The man who owns a slave has a trust; he who has a child has one also. In both cases the trustee may do as he did who “dug in the earth and hid his lord’s money.” We cheerfully deliver them up to the lash of Dr. Wayland.

The author of the “Elements of Moral Science” next presents the marriage contract, and seems desirous to have us suppose that its obligations are incompatible with slavery. His words are—

“He has taught us that the conjugal relation is established by himself; that husband and wife are joined together by God; and that man may not put them asunder. The marriage contract is a contract for life, and is dissoluble only for one cause, that of conjugal infidelity. Any system that interferes with this contract, and claims to make it any thing else than what God has made it, is in violation of his law.”

This proposition is bad; it is too verbose to be either definite or correct. There are many things that will interfere with the provisions of this proposition, and yet not be in violation of the laws of God. Suppose one of President Wayland’s pupils has married a wife, and yet commits a crime. He is arrested, and the president is his judge. When about to pronounce sentence of imprisonment for life, the pupil reads to his judge the foregoing paragraph, and argues that he cannot receive such sentence, because it will interfere with the marriage contract, and, therefore, be in violation of the laws of God.

We trust some will deem this a sufficient refutation of the proposition.

But if we take the proposition as its author has left it, we have yet to learn that any slaveholder will object to it; although it may be he will differ with them on the subject of what constitutes Christian marriage, among pagan negroes or their pagan descendants.

Will the reverend moralist determine that a promiscuous intercourse is the conjugal relation established by God himself; that such is the marriage contract which no man may put asunder? Will he decide that an attempt to regulate the conduct of men, bond or free, who manifest such a state of morals, is in violation of the laws of God? Who are his pupils, when he shall say that an attempt to enforce the laws of God, in practice among men, is a violation of them?

So far as our experience goes, masters universally manifest a desire to have their negroes marry, and to live with their wives and children, in conformity to Christian rules. And one reason, if no other, is very obvious. The master wishes to secure the peace and tranquillity of his household. And we take this occasion to inform Dr. Wayland and his coadjutors, that a very large proportion of the punishments that are awarded slaves are for violations of what, perhaps, he may call the marriage contract, so anxious is the master to inculcate the obligations of marriage among them.

It is true, some slaves of a higher order of physical and moral improvement, influenced by the habits and customs of their masters, habituate themselves to a cohabitation with one companion for life; and, in all such cases, the master invariably gives countenance to their wishes; indeed, in some instances, masters have deemed them worthy of having their wishes sanctioned and solemnized by the ceremonies of the church ritual. And in all such cases, superior consideration and advantages are always bestowed, not only in reward of their merit, but as an encouragement for others.

The African negro has no idea of marriage as a sacred ordinance of God. Many of the tribes worship a_Fetish_, which is a personification of their gross notions of procreation; but it inculcates no idea like that of marriage; and we have known the posterity of that people, four or five generations removed from the African native, as firmly attached to those strange habits as if they had been constitutional. Negroes, who have only arrived to such a state of mental and moral development, would find it somewhat difficult to comprehend what the Christian church implied by the marriage covenant! Therefore, where there was no reason to believe that its duties were understood, or that their habits and conduct would be influenced by it any longer than until they should take some new notion, a ceremony of any high order has been thought to do injury. A rule, often broken, ceases to be venerated. And we feel quite sure that some Christians would deem it quite improper to permit those to join in any sacred ceremony which neither their physical nor mental development would permit them to comprehend or obey, whether freemen or slaves.

In the articles drawn up at Ratisbon by Melancthon, we find, Article 16, De Sacram. Matrimo.:

“The sacrament of matrimony belongs only to Christians. It is a holy and constant union of one single man with one single woman, confirmed by the blessing and consecration of Jesus Christ.”

And St. Paul says, Eph. v. 32, of matrimony: “This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the Church.”

We know not whether the author of the “Elements” believes, with Melancthon, that matrimony is a Christian sacrament or not. We believe the majority of modern Protestants do not so consider it, although Luther says, De Matrimonio:

“Matrimony is called a sacrament, because it is the type of a very noble and very holy thing. Hence the married ought to consider and respect the dignity of this sacrament.”

Question:—Would Melancthon, or Luther, or the author of these “Elements,” consent to perform the marriage ceremony, joining, in the holy bonds of matrimony, two negroes, who neither understood the Christian duties it imposed, and of whom it was well known that they would not regard the contract as binding any longer than their fancy or passions might dictate. A Christian sacrament is not only a sign of Christian grace, but the seal of its insurance to us, and the instrument of the Holy Ghost, whereby faith is conferred, as a Divine gift, upon the soul. We feel it a Christian duty to “not give that which is holy to dogs,” nor “cast pearls before swine.” Is Dr. Wayland of the same opinion?

It may be well to advise our author of some facts in proof of what state of connubial feelings exist among African negroes. We quote from Lander, vol. i. p. 312:

“The manners of the Africans are hostile to the interests and advancement of women.”

P. 328. “A man is at liberty to return his wife to her parents, at any time, without adducing any reason for his dislike.” * * * “The children, if any, the mother is by no means permitted to take along with her; but they are left behind with the father, who delivers them over to the care of other women.”

P. 158. “A man thinks as little of taking a wife as of cutting an ear of corn; affection is altogether out of the question.”

Vol. ii. p. 208. “Africans, generally speaking, betray the most perfect indifference on losing their liberty, or in being deprived of their relations; while love of country is, seemingly, as great a stranger to their breasts as social tenderness and domestic affection.”

We quote from the Christian Observer, vol. xix. p. 890: “Mr. Johnson was appointed to the care of Regent’s Town, June, 1816. * * * Natives of twenty-two different nations were there collected together: * * * none of them had learned to live in a state of marriage.”

Proofs of this trait in the African character may be accumulated; and a very determined disposition to live in a state of promiscuous intercourse is often noticeable, in their descendants, for many generations, notwithstanding the master endeavours to restrain it by corporeal punishment. But yet, under this state of facts, our laws forbid the separation of children from mothers, under ages stipulated by law.

It is the interest of the master to have his slaves orderly—to possess them of some interest which will have a tendency to that result. Their quiet settlement in families has been thought to be among the most probable and influential inducements to insure the desired effect, and to produce a moral influence on them. Besides this interest of the master, his education on the subject of marriage must be allowed to have a strong influence on his mind to favour and foster in his slaves a connection which his own judgment teaches him must be important to their happiness and his own tranquillity, to say nothing of his duty as a Christian. Indeed, we never heard of a master who did not feel a strong desire, a pride, to see his slaves in good condition, contented and happy; and we venture to assert, that no man, who entertained a proper regard for his own character, would consent to sell a family of slaves, separately, to different individuals, when the slaves themselves manifested good conduct, and a habit, or desire, to live together in conformity to the rules of civilized life. Even a casual cohabitation is often caught at by the master, and sanctioned, as permanent, if he can do so in accordance with the conduct and feelings of the negroes themselves.

That the owners of slaves have sometimes abused the power they possessed, and outraged the feelings of humanity in this behalf, is doubtless a fact. Nor do we wish to excuse such conduct, by saying that proud and wealthy parents sometimes outrage the feelings of common sense and of their own children in a somewhat similar way. These are abuses that can be, and should be corrected; and we are happy to inform Dr. Wayland that we have lived to see many abuses corrected, and hope that many more corrections may follow in their train. But we assure him that the wholesale denunciations of men who, in fact, know but little about the subjects of their distress, may produce great injury to the objects of their sympathies, but no possible benefit. And let us now, with the best feeling, inform Dr. Wayland, and his co-agitators, of one result of his and their actions in this matter. We assert what we know.

Thirty years ago, we occasionally had schools for negro children; nor was it uncommon for masters to send their favourite young slaves to these schools; nor did such acts excite attention or alarm; and, at the same time, any missionary had free access to that class of our population. But when we found, with astonishment, that our country was flooded with abolition prints, deeply laden with the most abusive falsehoods, with the obvious design to excite rebellion among the slaves, and to spread assassination and bloodshed through the land;—when we found these transient missionaries, mentally too insignificant to foresee the result of their conduct, or wholly careless of the consequences, preaching the same doctrines;—these little schools and the mouths of these missionaries were closed. And great was the cry. Dr. Wayland knows whereabout lies the wickedness of these our acts! Let him and his coadjutors well understand that these results, whether for the benefit or injury of the slave, have been brought about by the work of their hands.

If these transient missionaries were the only persons who had power to teach the gospel to the slave, who has deprived the slaves of the gospel?

If these suggestions are true, will not Dr. Wayland look back upon his labours with dissatisfaction? Does he behold their effects with joy? Has he thrown one ray of light into the mental darkness of benighted Africa? Has he removed one pain from the moral disease of her benighted children? If so perfectly adverse have been his toils, will he expect us to countenance his school, sanction his morality, or venerate his theology? A very small portion of poison makes the feast fatal!

Does he complain because some freemen lower themselves down to this promiscuous intercourse with the negro? We are dumb; we deliver them up to his lash! Or does he complain because we do not marry them ourselves? We surely have yet to learn, because we decline such marriages, and a deteriorated posterity, that, therefore, we interfere with the institution of marriage, or make it something which God did not. We had thought that the laws of God all looked towards a state of physical, intellectual, and moral improvement and that such an amalgamation as would necessarily leave a more deteriorated race in our stead, would be sin, and would be punished, if in no other way, yet still by the very fact of such degradation. Or does Dr. Wayland deny that the negro is an inferior race of man to the white? If the slave and master were of the same race, as they once were in all parts of Europe, intermarriage between them would blot out the institution, as it has done there. In such case, his argument might have some force.

Under the Spanish law, a master might marry his female slave, or he might suffer any freeman to marry her; but the marriage, in either case, was emancipation to her. The wife was no longer a slave; and so by the Levitical law. See Deut. xxi. 14.

The laws of the Slave States of our Union forbid amalgamation with the negro race; consequently such a marriage would be a nullity, and the offspring take the condition of the mother.

The object of this law is to prevent the deterioration of the white race.

Thus we have seen that all the practical facts relating to the influence of the slavery of the Africans among us, touching the subject of marriage, as to them, are in opposition to what Dr. Wayland seems to suppose. In short, the slavery of the negroes in these States has a constantly continued tendency to change—to enforce an improvement of the morals of the African—to an approximation of the habits of Christian life.

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LESSON VIII.

It is conceded by Dr. Wayland, that the Scriptures do not directly forbid or condemn slavery. In search of a path over this morass of difficulty, he says that the Scripture goes upon the “fair ground of teaching moral principles” “directly subversive of the principles of slavery;” and quotes the golden rule in proof; and thus comes to the conclusion that, “if the gospel be diametrically opposed to the principle of slavery, it must be opposed to the practice of slavery.” In excuse for this mode being pursued by the Author of our religion, he says—

P. 212. “In this manner alone could its object, a universal moral revolution, have been accomplished. For, if it had forbidden the evil, instead of subverting the principle,—if it had proclaimed the unlawfulness of slavery and taught slaves to resist the oppression of their masters,—it would instantly have arrayed the two parties in deadly hostility, through the civilized world; its announcement would have been the signal of servile war; and the very name of the Christian religion would have been forgotten amidst the agitations of universal bloodshed.”

We have heretofore attempted to show that this doctrine is extremely gross error;—its very assertion goes to the extinction, the denial of the divinity of Jesus Christ and his religion. And we deeply lament that this was not one of the errors of Paley which Dr. Wayland has seen fit to expunge from his book. (See his Preface.)

Paley says, third book, part ii. chap. 3—“Slavery was a part of the civil constitution of most countries, when Christianity first appeared; yet no passage is to be found in the Christian Scriptures by which it is condemned or prohibited. This is true, for Christianity, soliciting admission into all nations of the world, abstained, as behooved it, from intermeddling with the civil institutions of any. But does it follow, from the silence of Scripture concerning them, that all the civil institutions which then prevailed were right? Or that the bad should not be exchanged for better?”

“Besides this, the discharging the slaves from all obligation to obey their masters, which is the consequence of pronouncing slavery to be unlawful, would have had no better effect than to let loose one half of mankind upon the other. Slaves would have been tempted to embrace a religion which asserted their right to freedom; masters would hardly have been persuaded to consent to claims founded on such authority; the most calamitous of all contests, a bellum servile, might probably have ensued, to the reproach, if not the extinction, of the Christian name.”

In these thoughtless remarks of Paley, abolition writers seem to have found a mine of argument, from which they have dug until they deemed themselves wealthy.

Channing, vol. ii. p. 101, says—

“Slavery, in the age of the apostle, had so penetrated society, was so intimately interwoven with it, and the materials of servile war were so abundant, that a religion preaching freedom to the slave would have shaken the social fabric to its foundation, and would have armed against itself the whole power of the state. Paul did not then assail the institution. He satisfied himself with spreading principles, which, however slowly, could not but work its dissolution.”

This author, thus having satisfied himself with a display which the greater portion of his readers deem original, commences, p. 103, and quotes from “The Elements of Moral Science,” p. 212:

“This very course, which the gospel takes on this subject, seems to have been the only one that could have been taken in order to effect the universal abolition of slavery. The gospel was designed, not for one race or for one time, but for all races and for all times. It looked, not at the abolition of this form of evil for that age alone, but for its universal abolition. Hence, the important object of its author was to gain it a lodgment in every part of the known world:” and concludes with our quotation from the author.

Dr. Barnes “fights more shy;” he sees “the trap.” The Biblical Repertory has unveiled to his view the awful abyss to which this doctrine necessarily leaps. Yet the abyss must be passed; the facts, the doctrine of Paley, and the gulf, must be got over, in some way, or abolition doctrines must be given up. For thirty pages, like a candle-fly, he coquets around the light of this doctrine, until he gathers courage, and finally falls into it under the plea of “expediency.” He quotes Wayland’s Letters to Fuller, p. 73, which says—

“This form of expediency—the inculcating of a fundamental truth, rather than of the duty which springs immediately out of it, seems to me innocent. I go further: in some cases, it may be really demanded,” &c.

“And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life.” Luke xviii. 18.

This man was rich—probably had slaves. Was it inexpedient for the Son of God to have plainly told him of its wickedness? Was not the occasion quite appropriate, if such had been the Saviour’s view?

When the keeper of the prison said to Paul and Silas, “Sirs, what shall I do to be saved?” was it inexpedient in them to have mentioned this sin?

When the subject of slavery was mentioned in Corinthians, Ephesians, Colossians, in Timothy, Titus, and Peter, was it still inexpedient? And in the case of Philemon, “the dearly beloved and fellow-labourer,” when Paul was pleading for the runaway slave, in what did the inexpediency consist? When the centurion applied to the Son of God, and boasted that he owned slaves, can we bring forward this paltry excuse?

This doctrine of Paley has been so commonly quoted, let us be excused for presenting a remark from the “Essays,” reprinted from the Princeton Review, second series, p. 283:

“It is not by argument that the abolitionists have produced the present unhappy excitement. Argument has not been the character of their publications. Denunciations of slave-holding as man-stealing, robbery, piracy, and worse than murder; consequently vituperation of slaveholders as knowingly guilty of the worst of crimes; passionate appeals to the feelings of the inhabitants of the Northern States; gross exaggerations of the moral and physical condition of the slaves, have formed the staple of their addresses to the public.”

P. 286. “Unmixed good or evil, however, in such a world as ours, is a rare thing. Though the course pursued by the abolitionists has produced a great preponderance of mischief, it may incidentally occasion no little good. It has rendered it incumbent on every man to endeavour to obtain, and, as far as he can, to communicate, definite opinions and correct principles on the whole subject. * * * The subject of slavery is no longer one on which men are allowed to be of no mind at all. * * * The public mind is effectually aroused from a state of indifference and it is the duty of all to seek the truth, and to speak in kindness, but with decision. * * * We recognise no authoritative rule of truth and duty but the word of God. * * * Men are too nearly upon a par as to their powers of reasoning, and ability to discover truth, to make the conclusions of one mind an authoritative rule for others.” * * *

The subject for consideration is: If the abolitionists are right in insisting that slave-holding is one of the greatest of all sins,—that it should be immediately and universally abandoned, as a condition of church communion, or of admission into heaven,—how comes it that Christ and his apostles did not pursue this sin in plain and determined opposition? How comes it that the teachings of the abolitionists, on the subject of slavery, are so extremely different from those of Jesus Christ and his apostles? The mind is forced to the conclusion that, if the abolitionists are right, Jesus Christ and his apostles are wrong! We agree that, if slave-holding is a sin, it should at once be abandoned. The whole subject is resolved to one single question: Is slave-holding, in itself, a crime before God?

The abolitionists say that it is; we assert that it is not; and we look to the conduct of Christ and his apostles to justify our position. Did they shut their eyes to the enormities of a great offence against God and man? Did they temporize with a heinous evil, because it was common and popular? Did they abstain from even exhorting masters to emancipate their slaves, though an imperative duty, from fear of consequences? Was slavery more deeply rooted than idolatry? or more deeply interwoven with the civil institutions? more thoroughly penetrated through every thing human—their prejudices, literature, hopes, and happiness? Was its denunciation, if a sin, attended with consequences more to be dreaded than death by torture, wild beasts, the crucifix, the fagot, and the flame? Did the apostles admit drunkards, liars, fornicators, adulterers, thieves, robbers, murderers, and idolaters to the Christian communion, and call them “dearly beloved and fellow-labourers?” Did the Son of God ever intimate of any such unrepentant man, that he had “not found so great faith, no, not in Israel?”

What are we then to think of the intellect of that man who shall affirm that Jesus Christ and his apostles classed the slave-holder with the worst of these characters? Yea, what can such a man think of himself? Did the apostles counsel thieves and robbers how they should advisedly conduct themselves in the practice of these crimes? Were those who had been robbed carefully gathered up and sent back to some known robber, to be robbed again? And, on such occasion, did any of the apostles address such robber in the language of affection, saying, “I thank my God, making mention of thee always in my prayers, hearing of thy love and faith, which thou hast towards the Lord Jesus and toward all saints?”

No one in his senses will deny that the Scriptures condemn injustice, cruelty, oppression, and violence, whether exhibited in the conduct of the master towards his slave or any other person:—crime being the same, whether committed in the relation of master and slave, husband and wife, or the monarch and his subjects. It may so happen that great crimes are committed by persons in these relations. But what is the argument worth which asserts it is very wicked to be a schoolmaster, because some schoolmaster whipped his pupil too much, or another not enough, or a third, in an angry, wicked state of mind, has put one to death?

Who has ever asserted that marriage was not a Divine institution, because some in that state live very unhappily together, and others have conspired against the happiness or life of those whom the institution made it their duty to protect?

Dr. Wayland’s proposition, when analyzed and freed from verbiage, is this: the teaching of moral principles, subversive of the abuse of a thing, is proof that the teacher is opposed to the thing itself! and, if true, we say, is as applicable to every other institution among men, as to slavery.

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LESSON IX.

Dr. Wayland says, p. 213—

“It is important to remember that two grounds of moral obligation are distinctly recognised in the gospel. The first is our duty to man as man, that is, on the ground of the relation which men sustain to each other; the second is our duty to man as a creature of God, that is, on the ground of the relation which we all sustain to God. On this latter ground, many things become our duty which would not be so on the former. It is on this ground that we are commanded to return good for evil, to pray for them that despitefully use us, and, when we are smitten on one cheek, to turn also the other. To act thus is our duty, not because our fellow-man has a right to claim this course of conduct from us, but because such conduct in us will be well-pleasing to God. And when God prescribes the course of conduct which will be well-pleasing to him, he by no means acknowledges the right of abuse in the injurious person, but expressly declares, ‘Vengeance is mine and I will repay it, saith the Lord!’ Now, it is to be observed, that it is precisely upon this latter ground that the slave is commanded to obey his master. It is never urged, like the duty of obedience to parents, because it is right; but because the cultivation of meekness and forbearance under injury will be well-pleasing unto God. Thus servants are commanded to be obedient to their own masters, ‘in singleness of heart, as unto Christ; doing the will of God from the heart, with good-will doing service, as to the Lord, and not to man.’ Eph. v. 5–7.

“Servants are commanded to count their masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. 1 Tim. vi.1. That they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things. Titus iii. 9.

“The manner in which the duty of servants or slaves is inculcated, therefore, affords no ground for the assertion that the gospel authorizes one man to hold another in bondage, any more than the command to honour the king, when that king was Nero, authorized the tyranny of the emperor; or the command to turn the other cheek when one was smitten, justifies the infliction of violence by an injurious man.”

Added to the foregoing, we find the following note:

“I have retained the above paragraph, though I confess that the remarks of Professor Taylor, of the Union Theological Seminary of Virginia, have led me seriously to doubt whether the distinction, to which it alludes, is sustained by the New Testament.”

Why then did he retain it?

In his preface to the fourth edition, which is inserted in the present, after expressing his acknowledgments for the criticisms with which gentlemen have favoured him, he says—

“Where I have been convinced of error, I have altered the text. Where I have only doubted, I have suffered it to remain; as it seemed profitless merely to exchange one doubtful opinion for another.”

We beg to know what doubtful opinion would have been introduced by the deletion of this, which he acknowledges to be doubtful? Why did he not go to the Bible, and inquire of Jesus Christ and the apostles for advice in such a case? “And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” Matt. xiv. 31.

In Matt. xxi. 21, we find that the doubting mind is destitute of Christian power; and the same in Mark xi. 23. Jesus, speaking to his disciples, says to them, Luke xii. 29, “Neither be ye of a doubtful mind.” Does any one imagine that Luke would have left any thing in his book that he thought doubtful? But we find in Rom. xiv. 1, “Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, but not to doubtful disputations.” This surely needs no comment. The poison of doubt is rejected in 1 Tim. ii. 8; and the apostle in Rom. xiv. 23, says, “And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith, for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” How awful is the condition of him who shall attempt to preach a doctrine, and that an important one too, as the doctrine of the Bible, of which he doubts! A doctrine in which he can have no faith! Who shall say it would not be a palpable attempt to change the meaning and alter the sense of the Scripture from its true interpretation?

“Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you.” Deut. iv. 2.

“But there be some that trouble you, and pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say we now again, if any man preach any other gospel unto you than that ye have received, let him be accursed.” Gal. 1. 7–9.

“I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. * * * For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, if any man shall add unto those things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book; and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out or the book of life.” Rev. xxii. 16–19.

“Every word of God is pure. * * * Add not unto his words, lest he reprove thee, and thou be found a liar.” Prov. xxx. 5–6.

We have not seen the remarks of Professor Taylor; but we can easily imagine that a professor of theology, free from the delirium of abolitionism, would not have found it a difficult labour to prove that the main point of the author’s argument was contradicted by Scripture, and that even he himself attempted to sustain it only by assumption. We regret that President Wayland has not given us Professor Taylor’s remarks that made him “doubt.” We, however, will venture our “remark” that the author’s assertion, “the inculcation of the duty of slaves affords no evidence that the Scriptures countenance slavery, more than the command to honour the king authorized the tyranny of Nero,” is a comparison where there is no parallel. Dr. Wayland must first make it appear that all kings, or chief magistrates, are, necessarily, wicked tyrants, like Nero; and that the wicked tyranny is a part and parcel of the thing to be honoured, before his parallel between slavery and monarchy can be drawn; and since, then, the deduction will be useless, we suppose he will not make the attempt.

The parallel that might have been sustained is this: The inculcation of the duty of slaves to obey their masters does not authorize masters to abuse their power over their slaves, any more than the command to honour the king authorized the tyranny of Nero;—from which the deductions are, that masters have a right to command their slaves as things in their peculiar relation, and not as things having a different relation. The master has no right to command a slave, as if the slave stood in the relation of a horse; nor even a horse, as if the horse stood in the relation of a piece of timber: so the king has no right to govern his subjects as if they were idiots or brutes, but as enlightened free-men, if such be their condition.

The object of the government is the happiness no more of the governor than of the governed. This principle, so profusely illustrated in Scripture, it would seem the abolitionists run to shipwreck, in every approach they make towards it.

There are a class of abolition writers who never fail to compare St. Paul’s instruction, to live in obedience to the civil authority, (making no exception even when the worst of monarchs are in power,) with his instruction to slaves to obey their masters; and then say that no argument is to be drawn from the latter in favour of slavery, any more than there is from the former in favour of the wickedness of the Emperor Nero. To some, this position may look quite imposing; while others will associate it with the false position of a wicked, unprincipled lawyer, who is ambitious only to gain his case, and cares not by what falsehood, or by what means. But it is truly mortifying to see such an argument presented, and attempted to be sustained, by any one who pretends to be an honest man, and a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we cannot but reflect that such an one must be in one of three predicaments; either in that of the lawyer, or his understanding must be so obtuse he cannot reason, or so crazed by fanaticism as to be equally stultified in intellect. Yet these men present this argument, or position, with an air which displays the utmost confidence of their having obtained a victory, and of their having established for themselves a lofty intellectual character.

Jesus Christ and his apostles everywhere reprimanded and condemned crime, outrage, and oppression, whether to superiors, equals, or inferiors. Yet these qualities of action must take their character from the facts of the case. The parent will feel it his duty to compel, by force, his froward child to do right; yet the same action directed to his neighbour, or equal, may be manifestly wrong, or even sinful. The crimes of monarchs and the crimes of masters are everywhere condemned, as well as the crimes of all other men. Yet to be a monarch or a master is nowhere condemned, per se, as a sinful condition of itself.

All history agrees that Nero was a wicked, bad prince; he was wicked and bad because his acts were wicked and bad; not because he was a prince or an emperor. Slaves are ordered to be obedient to their masters. Is there any one so crazy as therefore to suppose that the master has a right to overwork, starve, murder, or otherwise misuse his slave? We are all commanded to be obedient to the civil power. Does this give the chief ruler the right to practise the wickedness of Nero?

Is there any proof that Philemon murdered, or was recklessly cruel to his slaves? What justice is there in comparing his character as only on an equality with that of Nero? Was Nero, with all his sins, admitted into the church of Christ? Where is the parallel between him and the “beloved” of the apostle?

We feel authorized to affirm that St. Paul would have rejected from the church a slaveholder, who murdered, starved, or otherwise maltreated his slaves, because these crimes would have been proof of his want of the Christian character. The same evidence of wicked conduct would have excluded any other man, even the emperor, from the church; yet, since slaveholders, who had not been guilty of such enormities, were admitted to the church, and distinguished as “beloved,” this fact becomes proof that slaveholding is no evidence of a sinful character. So monarchs and emperors, who gave proof of the possession of the Christian character, were always admissible to the Christian church. This fact also becomes demonstration, that being a monarch or an emperor gave no proofs of a sinful character.

Will Dr. Wayland undertake to prove that the admission of Constantine to the Christian church gave any license to the wicked murders and hateful hypocrisy of the Emperor Phocas? Or will he venture to extend his argument, and say that the command of marital and filial obedience proves nothing in their favour; since we are commanded to yield a like obedience to the king, although that king be the wicked Phocas? The fact is, the mere character of chief-magistrate, of husband, of parent or slaveholder, is quite distinct from the character which their acts may severally heap upon them. It is, therefore, quite possible for us to reverence and obey the king, yet hold in contempt the person who fills the throne.

Civil government, the relations of parent and child, husband and wife, and slavery itself, are all ordinances of Divine wisdom, instituted for the benefit of man, under the condition of his fallen state. But because these relations are in accordance with the ordinances of God, it by no means follows that the abuses of them are so.

Suppose those who wish to abolish the institution of marriage should present the same argument in their behalf which Dr. Wayland has in this case, it will surely be just as legitimate in the one as the other. But will not Dr. Wayland readily say that there is no parallel between the particular relations compared? We doubt not, he would consider it too stupid to even require refutation.

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LESSON X.

Our author says, as before quoted—

P. 209. “That the precepts of the Bible are diametrically opposed to slavery.”

In proof, he offers one precept:

“Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, and All things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.”

Upon which he says, for argument—

“1. The application of these precepts is universal. Our neighbour is every one whom we may benefit. The obligation respects all things whatsoever. The precept, then, manifestly extends to men as men, or men in every condition; and if to all things whatsoever, certainly to a thing so important as the right of personal liberty.

“2. Again, by this precept it is made our duty to cherish a tender and delicate respect for the right the meanest individual possesses over the means of happiness bestowed on him by God, as we cherish for our own right over our own means of happiness, or as we desire any other individual to cherish for it. Now, were this precept obeyed, it is manifest that slavery could not in fact exist for a single instant. The principle of the precept is absolutely subversive of the principle of slavery. That of the one is the entire equality of right; that of the other, the entire absorption of the rights of one in the rights of the other.”

We propose to make no comment upon these arguments. We cannot do battle against phantoms. But we shall take this golden rule, which we most devoutly reverence, and show that it inculcates slavery, upon a statement of facts.

The 28th chapter of Deuteronomy contains the revelations of blessings and curses promised the Jews, and, we may add, all mankind, for obedience to the laws of God, and for disobedience to the same. At the 68th verse, they were told that they should again be sent to Egypt; or that they should be exposed for sale; or that they should expose themselves for sale, as the passage may be read, and that no man should buy them; or that there should not be buyers enough to give them the benefit even of being slaves, whereby they could be assured of protection and sustenance. This was most signally verified at the time Jerusalem was sacked by Titus; and not only in Egypt, but in many other places, thousands of the Hebrew captives were exposed for sale as slaves. But thousands of them, thus exposed, died of starvation, because purchasers could not be found for them. The Romans, considered them too stubborn, too degraded, to be worthy of being slaves to them, refused to buy them. Their numbers, compared to the numbers of their purchasers, were so great that the price became merely nominal; and thousands were suffered to die, because purchasers could not be had at any price. Their death was the consequence.

Now let us apply the truly golden rule or precept, relied upon by Dr. Wayland in support of abolitionism. Would it teach to buy these slaves, or not?

The same incident happened once again to all the Jews, who were freemen in Spain, during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, when 800,000 Jews were driven from that kingdom in one day; vast multitudes of whom famished to death because, although anxious to do so, they could not find for themselves even a master! Let us ask, what would the precept teach in this case?

Nor has such a peculiar relation of facts been confined to the Jews alone. In 1376, the Florentines, then a travelling, trading, or commercial people, but in many instances quite forgetful of the rules of Christian honesty, became exceedingly obnoxious to their neighbours, especially to the subjects of the church of Rome. To many of them, murder and robbery became a mere pastime. From individuals the moral poison was communicated to their government. The church was despoiled of her patrimony, her subjects of their homes. The church remonstrated until patience was exhausted, when Gregory XI. issued his papal bull, delivering each individual of that nation, in all parts of the earth, who did not instantly make reparation, up to pillage, slavery, or death.

Let us notice how Walsingham witnessed this matter in England, where a large portion of the traders were of that people, all liable, if freemen, to be put to death by any one who might choose to inflict the punishment; and their effects were legally escheated to whomsoever might seize them. Slavery was their only remedy. The Anglo-Saxon Normans, the natives of the realm, had not yet, as a people, sufficiently emerged from the poverty and darkness of the times to give them protection. This, to us so strange a relation between the church and civil government, in regard to the Florentines, produced an action on the part of the king by which he became their personal master. Thus they became slaves, not of the crown, but of the individual who sat upon the throne. Did he act in conformity to this precept or not?

John and Richard Lander were sent by the “London African Association” to explore some parts of Africa. On the 24th of March, 1830, they were only one half day’s travel from the seacoast, at which point they say, vol. i. p. 58:

“Meantime the rainy season is fast approaching, as is sufficiently announced by repeated showers and occasional tornadoes; and, what makes us still more desirous to leave this abominable place, is the fact, as we have been told, that a sacrifice of no less than three hundred human beings, of both sexes and all ages, is about to take place. We often hear the cries of these poor creatures; and the heart sickens with horror at the bare contemplation of such a scene as awaits us, should we remain here much longer.”

It is to be regretted that since the abolition of the slave-trade in Africa, slaves have become of little value in that country. That the Africans in many places have returned to sacrifice and cannibalism, is also true, and a cause of deep sorrow to the philanthropist; but, considering the state and condition of these savages, there is no alternative;—the slave there, if he cannot be sold, is at all times liable to be put to death.

Suppose you buy, and then turn them loose there; they will again and instantly be the subjects of slavery; and even there, slavery is some protection, for, so long as the savage master chooses or is able to keep his slave alive, he is more sure of the usual means of living. But, let us present this state of facts to the Christian, and ask him to apply the golden rule; and, in case the slave-trade with Africa had not now been abolished, what would he deem it his duty to do for the practical and lasting benefit of these poor victims, whom the sympathy of the world has thus consigned to sacrifice and death?

The people of the Slave States have determined not to countenance amalgamation with the slave race; they have determined not to set the slaves free, because they have previously resolved that they will not, cannot live under the government of the negro. In full view of these evils, they have resolved that they will not suffer the presence of that race in their community, on terms of political or social equality. They have, therefore, further resolved, in furtherance of its prevention, to oppose it while life shall last.

Now, Dr. Wayland says—

P. 215. “The slaves were brought here without their own consent; they have been continued in their present state of degradation without their own consent, and they are not responsible for the consequences. If a man have done injustice to his neighbour, and have also placed impediments in the way of remedying that injustice, he is as much under obligations to remove the impediments in the way of justice as he is to do justice.”

The ancestors of our slaves were brought from beyond sea by the people of Old England, and by the people of New England, and particularly by the people of Rhode Island, among the descendants of whom the reverend doctor resides. The ancestors of these slaves were sold to our ancestors for money, and guaranteed, by them, to be slaves for life, and their descendants after them, as they said, both by the laws of God and man. Whether this was false, whether they were stolen and cruelly torn from their homes, the reverend doctor has better means of determining than we. We may sell, we will not free them.

Under this statement of facts, let the reverend doctor apply the golden rule and his own argument to himself. Let him then buy, and set them free in Rhode Island; or send them to Africa, if their ancestors “were unlawfully torn from thence.”

“Wo unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we should not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore, ye be witness unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them that killed the prophets.” Matt. xxiii. 29, 30, 31.

“For they bind heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.” Idem. 4.

Within the last year, our sympathies have been excited by an account now published to the world, of an African chieftain and slaveholder, who, during the year previous, finding himself cut off from a market on the Western coast, in consequence of the abolition of the slave-trade with Europe and America,—the trade with Arabia, Egypt, and the Barbary States not being sufficient to drain off the surplus number,—put to death three thousand!

The blood of these massacred negroes now cries from the ground unto Dr. Wayland and his disciples—

“Apply, oh, apply to bleeding Africa the doctrine of the golden rule, and relieve us, poor African slaves, from starvation, massacre, and death. Come, oh, come; buy us, that we may be your slaves, and have some chance to learn that religion under which you prosper. Then ‘we shall build up the old wastes’—‘raise up the former desolations,’ and ‘repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations.’ ‘And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your ploughmen, and your vine-dressers.’ ‘Then ye shall be named the priests of the Lord; men shall call you the ministers of our God.'” Isa. lxi. 4, 5, 6.

We shall here close our remarks on the Rev. Dr. Wayland’s book; and however feeble they may be, yet we can conscientiously say, we have no “doubt” about the truth of our doctrine.

“Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. Thy faithfulness is unto all generations; thou hast established the earth, and it abideth. They continue, this day, according to thine ordinances; for all are thy servants,” (עֲבָדֶֽיךָ ebedeka, slaves.) cxix. 89, 90, 91.

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LESSON XI.

Among those who have advocated views adverse to those of our present study, we are compelled to notice Dr. Paley, as one of the most influential, the most dignified, and the most learned. He defines slavery to be “an obligation to labour for the benefit of the master, without the contract or consent of the servant.” He says “that this obligation may arise, consistently with the laws of nature, from three causes: 1st, from crimes; 2d, from captivity; and 3d, from debt.” He says that, “in the first case, the continuance of the slavery, as of any other punishment, ought to be proportionate to the crime. In the second and third cases, it ought to cease as soon as the demand of the injured nation or private creditor is satisfied.” He was among the first to oppose the African slave-trade. He says, “Because, when the slaves were brought to the African slave-market, no questions were asked as to the origin of the vendors’ titles: Because the natives were incited to war for the sake of supplying the market with slaves: Because the slaves were torn away from their parents, wives, children, and friends, homes, companions, country, fields, and flocks, and their accommodation on shipboard not better than that provided for brutes: Because the system of laws by which they are governed is merciless and cruel, and is exercised, especially by their English masters, with rigour and brutality.”

But he thinks the American Revolution, which had just then happened, will have a tendency to accelerate the fall of this most abominable tyranny, and indulges in the reflection whether, in the providence of God, the British legislature, which had so long assisted and supported it, was fit to have rule over so extensive an empire as the North American colonies.

Dr. Paley says that slavery was a part of the civil constitution of most countries when Christianity appeared; and that no passage is found in the Christian Scriptures by which it is condemned or prohibited. But he thinks the reason to be, because “Christianity, soliciting admission into all nations of the world, abstained, as behooved it, from intermeddling with the civil institutions of any; but,” says he, “does it follow from the silence of Scripture concerning them, that all the civil institutions that then prevailed were right? or, that the bad should not be exchanged for better? Besides,” he says, “the discharging the slaves from all obligations to their masters would have had no better effect than to let loose one half of mankind upon the other. Besides,” he thinks “it would have produced a servile war, which would have ended in the reproach and extinction of the Christian name.”

Dr. Paley thinks that the emancipation of slaves should be carried on very gradually, by provision of law, under the protection of government; and that Christianity should operate as an alterative, in which way, he thinks, it has extinguished the Greek and Roman slavery, and also the feudal tyranny; and he trusts, “as Christianity advances in the world, it will banish what remains of this odious institution.”

In some of his other writings, Dr. Paley suggests that Great Britain, by way of atoning for the wrongs she has done Africa, ought to transport from America free negroes, the descendants of slaves, and give them location in various parts of Africa, to serve as models for the civilization of that country.

Dr. Paley’s Treatise on Moral and Political Philosophy, from which the foregoing synopsis is taken, was published to the world in 1785; but it had been delivered in lectures, almost verbatim, before the University of Cambridge, several years previous; and it is now a class-book in almost every high literary institution where the English language is spoken. It is, therefore, a work of high authority and great influence.

But we think his definition of the term slavery is not correct. Let us repeat it: “An obligation to labour for the benefit of the master, without the contract or consent of the servant.”

Many, who purchase slaves to be retained in their own families, first examine and consult with the slave, and tell him—“My business is thus; I feed and clothe thus; are you willing that I should buy you? For I will buy no slave who is not willing.”

To this, it is usual for the slave to say, “Yes, master! and I hope you will buy me. I will be a good slave. You shall have no fault to find with me, or my work.”

By all the claims of morality, here is a contract and consent, and the statute might make it legal. But who will say that the condition of slavery is altered thereby? But, says one, this supposition does not reach the case, because all the obligations and conditions of slavery previously existed; and, therefore, the “contract” and “consent” here only amounted to a contract and consent to change masters.

Suppose then, from poverty or misfortune, or some peculiar affection of the mind, a freeman should solicit to place himself in the condition of slavery to one in whom he had sufficient confidence, (and we have known such a case,)—a freeman anxiously applying to his more fortunate friend to enter into such an engagement for life; suppose the law had sanctioned such voluntary slavery, and, when entered into, made it obligatory, binding, and final for ever. There would be nothing in such law contrary to the general powers of legislation, however impolitic it might be; and such a law did once exist among the Jews.

“And if a sojourner or a stranger wax rich by thee, and thy brother that dwelleth by him wax poor, and sell himself unto the stranger or sojourner by thee, or to the stock of the stranger’s family; after that he is sold, he may be redeemed again; and one of his brethren may redeem him. Either his uncle or his uncle’s son may redeem him, or any that is nigh of kin unto his family may redeem him; or, if he be able, he may redeem himself: * * * and if he be not redeemed in one of these years,—then he shall go out in the year of Jubilee, both he and his children with him.” Lev. xxv. 47–54. “Now these are the judgments which ye shall set before them. If ye buy an Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve, and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by himself; and if the servant shall plainly say, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’—then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall bring him unto the door, or unto the door-post, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him for ever.” Ex. xxi. 1–6.

It is clear, then, that “to contract and consent,” or the reverse, is no part of the qualities of slavery. Erase, then, that portion of Dr. Paley’s definition as surplusage; it will then read, “an obligation to labour for the benefit of the master.”

Now, there can be no obligation to do a thing where there is no possible power to do it; and more especially, if there is no contract. But it does not unfrequently occur, that a slave, from its infancy, old age, idiocy, delirium, disease, or other infirmity, has no power to labour for the benefit of the master; and the want of such ability may be obviously as permanent as life, so as to exclude the idea of any prospective benefit. Yet the law compels the master to supply food, clothes, medicine, pay taxes on, and every way suitably protect such slave, greatly to the disadvantage of the master. Or, a case might be, for it is presumable, that the master, from some obliqueness of understanding, might not wish some slave, even in good health, to labour at all, but would prefer, at great expense, to maintain such slave in luxury and idleness, clothed in purple and fine linen, and faring sumptuously every day: surely, such slave, would be under no obligation to labour for the benefit of the master, when, to do so, would be acting contrary to his will and command. Yet none of these circumstances make the slave a freeman, or alter at all the essentials of slavery.

The slave, then, may or may not be under obligation to labour for the benefit of the master. Therefore, the “obligation to labour for the benefit of the master” is surplusage also, and may be erased. So the entire definition is erased—not a word left!

The fact is, Dr. Paley took some of the most common incidents accompanying the thing for the thing itself; and he would have been just as logically correct had he said, that “slavery was to be a hearty feeder on fat pork,” because slaves feed heartily on that article. In his definition Dr. Paley has embraced none of the essentials of slavery.

We propose to notice the passage—“This obligation may arise, consistently with the laws of nature, from three causes: 1st, from crime; 2d, from captivity; 3d, from debt.”

The first consideration is, what he means by “obligation.” In its usual acceptation, the term means something that has grown out of a previous condition, as the obligations of marriage did not, nor could they exist until the marriage was had. If he only means that the “obligations” of slavery arise, &c., then he has told us nothing of the arising of slavery itself. But as he has used the word in the singular number, and given it three progenitors, we may suppose, that, by some figure of rhetoric, not usual in works of this kind, he has used the consequent for the cause. In that case, the sentence should read, “Slavery may arise, consistently with the laws of nature, from three causes,” &c.; which is what we suppose the doctor really meant.

The next inquiry is, what did Dr. Paley mean by “the laws of nature?” Permit us to suffer him to answer this inquiry himself.

In the twenty-fourth chapter of his “Natural Theology,” a work of great merit, he says—

“The wisdom of the Deity, as testified in the works of creation, surpasses all idea we have of wisdom drawn from the highest intellectual operations of the highest class of intelligent beings with whom we are acquainted. * * * The degree of knowledge and power requisite for the formation of created nature cannot, with respect to us, be distinguished from infinite. The Divine omnipresence stands in natural theology upon this foundation. In every part and place of the universe, with which we are acquainted, we perceive the exertion of a power which we believe mediately or immediately to proceed from the Deity. For instance, in what part or point of space, that has ever been explored, do we not discover attraction? In what regions do we not discover light? In what accessible portion of our globe do we not meet with gravitation, magnetism, electricity? together with the properties, also, and powers of organized substances, of vegetable or animated, nature? Nay, further we may ask, what kingdom is there of nature, what corner of space, in which there is any thing that can be examined by us, where we do not fall upon contrivance and design? The only reflection, perhaps, which arises in our minds from this view of the world around us, is that the laws of nature everywhere prevail; that they are uniform and universal. But what do we mean by the laws of nature? or by any law? Effects are produced by power, not by law; a law cannot execute itself; a law refers to an agent.”

By the “laws of nature,” then, Dr. Paley clearly means the laws of God.

Now be pleased to look at the close of Dr. Paley’s remarks on slavery, where he trusts that, “as Christianity advances in the world, it will banish what remains of that odious institution.” How happens it that an institution which arises consistently with the laws of God should be odious to him, unless the laws of God and Dr. Paley are at variance on this subject?

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LESSON XII.

It will be recollected, that Dr. Paley has presented a number of facts, displaying acts of oppression and cruelty, as arguments against the African slave-trade. These facts are arranged and used in place as arguments against the institution of slavery itself; and the verbose opponents of this institution have always so understood it, and so used this class of facts. It is this circumstance that calls for our present view of these facts, rather than any necessity the facts themselves impose of proving their exaggeration or imaginary existence; and doubtless, in many cases, most heartless enormities were committed. But what do they all prove? Truly, that some men engaged in the traffic were exceedingly wicked men.

Such men would fashion the traffic to suit themselves, and would, doubtless, make their business an exceedingly wicked one. But none of the enormities named, or that could be named, constituted a necessary part of the institution of slavery, or necessarily emanated from it. What enormities have wicked men sometimes committed in the transportation of emigrants from Germany and Ireland? Wicked men, intrusted with power, have, at least sometimes, been found to abuse it. Is it any argument against the institution of marriage, because some women have made their husbands support and educate children not their own? Or, because some men murder, treat with cruelty, or make their wives totally miserable and wretched? None of these things were any part of the institution of marriage, but the reverse of it. Apply this view also to the institution of Christianity, for nothing has been more abused. Already, under its very banners, as it were, have been committed more enormities than would probably attend that of slavery through all time. Yet the institution of Christianity has not been even soiled thereby; but its character and usefulness have become brighter and more visible. In proportion to the importance of a thing is its liability to abuse. A worthless thing is not worth a counterfeit.

We have before us the testimony of travellers in regard to the indifference felt by the Africans on being sold as slaves; of their palpable want of love and affection for their country, their relatives, and even for their wives and children. Nor should we forget that a large portion of this race are born slaves to the chieftains, whose wars with each other are mere excursions of robbery and theft.

Lander, vol. i. p. 107, speaking of Jenna, says—

“It must not be imagined that because the people of this country are almost perpetually engaged in conflicts with their neighbours, the slaughter of human beings is therefore very great. They pursue war, as it is called, partly as an amusement, or to keep their hands in it; and partly to benefit themselves by the capture of slaves.”

One decrepit old woman was the victim of a hundred engagements, at Cape La Hoo, during a three years’ war. Lander describes those who claim to be free, as the war men of the path, who are robbers. He says, p. 145, “they subsist solely by pillage and rapine.”

Such is the condition of the poor free negro in Africa. The chieftain often, it is true, has goats, sheep, fields of corn and rice; but we mistake when we suppose that the slaves, the surplus of whom were formerly sent to market, were the proprietors of such property. At Katunqua, p. 179, Lander describes the food to be “such as lizards, rats, locusts, and caterpillars, which the natives roast, grill, bake, and boil.” No people feed on such vermin who possess fields and flocks.

We can form some notion of their companionship, from p. 110: “It is the custom here, when the governor dies, for two of his favourite wives to quit the world on the same day;” but in this case they ran and hid themselves. Also, p. 182: “This morning a young man visited us, with a countenance so rueful, and spoke in a tone so low and melancholy, that we were desirous to learn what evil had befallen him. The cause of it was soon explained by his informing us that he would be doomed to die, with two companions, as soon as the governor’s dissolution should take place.”

There is little or no discrepancy among travellers in their descriptions of the Africans. Their state of society must have been well known to Paley; yet Paley gives us a picture of their state of society from imagination, founded upon that state of society with which his pupils were conversant: “Because the slaves were torn away from their parents, wives, children, and friends, homes, companions, country, fields, and flocks.”

If the picture drawn by Paley were the lone consideration addressed to our commiseration in the argument against slavery as a Divine institution of mercy, we should, perhaps, be at some loss to determine what amount was due from us to the African slave, who had thus been torn from the danger of being put to death!—thus torn from his fields of lizards and locusts, and flocks of caterpillars!

But what shall we think of an argument, founded on relations in England, but applied to Africa, where no such relations exist?

It is a rule to hesitate as to the truthfulness of all that is stated, when the witness is discovered to be under the influence of a prejudice so deeply seated as to mislead the mind, and especially when we discover a portion of the stated facts to be either not true or misapplied.

The reasons assigned by Dr. Paley why the Christian Scriptures did not prohibit and condemn slavery, we deem also quite erroneous:—“For Christianity, soliciting admission into all nations of the world, abstained, as behooved it, from intermeddling with the civil institutions of any;” and then asks, with an air of triumph, “But does it follow from the silence of Scripture concerning them, that all the civil institutions that prevailed were right? or that the bad should not be exchanged for better?”

We wish to call particular attention to this passage, for, even after having examined the books of the Greek philosophers, we are constrained to say we have never seen a more beautiful sophism.

Is it a fact, then, that Jesus Christ and his apostles did compromise and compound with sin, as Dr. Paley thinks it behooved them, and with the design to avoid opposition to the introduction of Christianity?

Say, thou humble follower of the lowly Jesus, art thou ready to lay down thy life for Him who could truckle to sin—to a gross, an abominable sin, which alone would destroy the purity of his character and the divinity of his doctrine? In all love, we pray Him who holds your very breath in his hand, to cause you to tremble, before you shall say that Jesus Christ was a liar, and his apostles perjured!

“I am the true vine; and my Father is the husbandman * * * as the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you; continue ye in my love. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants, for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth; but I have called you friends; for ALL THINGS that I have heard of my Father, I have made known unto you.” John xv. 1, 9, 13, 15.

“And when they were come to him, he said unto them; ye know, from the first day that I came into Asia, after what manner I have been with you, at all seasons, serving the Lord with all humility of mind, and with many tears and temptations, which befell me by the lying in wait of the Jews. And how I kept back nothing that was profitable unto you; but have showed you, and have taught you publicly and from house to house. Wherefore, I take you to record this day, that I am pure from the blood of all men. For I have not shunned to declare unto you ALL THE COUNSEL OF GOD.” Acts xx.

Had St. Paul foreseen the attack upon his character, made by Dr. Paley, seventeen hundred and eighty-five years after, and that upon his Master and their religion, he need not have altered his language to have repelled the slander.

“Simon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to them that have obtained like precious faith with us, through the righteousness of God and of our Saviour Jesus Christ: grace and peace be multiplied unto you, through the knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ our Lord, according as his divine power hath given unto us ALL THINGS THAT PERTAIN UNTO LIFE AND GODLINESS, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.” 2 Pet. i. 1, 2, 3.

And what says this holy man,—what says this same Peter, touching the subject of Dr. Paley’s remarks?

“Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward, * * * for hereunto were ye called.” 1 Pet. ii. 18–21.

Permit us to inquire whether the language of Jesus Christ himself, of St. Paul and St. Peter, does not, in a strong degree, contradict the supposition of Dr. Paley? And let us inquire whether it is probable that a class of men, devoted to the promulgation of a doctrine which ran so counter to many of the civil institutions, customs, habits, and religions then in the world, as to have subjected them to death, would have secretly kept back a part of their creed, when, to have made it known, could not have increased their danger; and, especially, as by the creed itself, such keeping back would have insured to them the eternal punishment hereafter?

“Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God: that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God; which things we also speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth.” 1 Cor. ii. 12, 13. “And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye, therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe ALL THINGS whatsoever I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.” Matt. xxviii. 18–20. “And now, O Father, glorify thou me, with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee before the world was. I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world. Now they have known ALL THINGS whatsoever thou hast given me of thee: for I have given unto them the WORDS which thou gavest me, and they have received them, and have known surely that I came out from thee.” John xvii. 5–8.

It is not possible that we could have had greater evidence that the whole counsel of God, illustrating the Christian duty, was delivered to the apostles, and through them, to the world. Besides, the very presumption of the incompleteness of the instruction undermines the divinity of the doctrine.

There is, perhaps, no one who does not feel pain, sometimes almost unspeakable, when we see a great man leaning upon the staff of error, especially when such error is palpable, gross, and calamitous in its tendency and effects.

But, cheering as the early ray of hope, and welcome as the rest-giving witness of a covenant, will be the proof that human weakness still had power to wade from out the miry labyrinth of error—to stand upon the rock from whence even human eyes might behold some few glimpses of the rising effulgence of truth.

We have some evidence that Dr. Paley did, at a later period of his life, adopt a more consistent view of the Christian Scriptures, touching the subject of this inquiry. In his “Horæ Paulinæ,” a work of exceeding great merit, on the subject of Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church, he enumerates and classifies the subjects of Paul’s instruction, among which slavery is conspicuously mentioned, and then says—“That though they” (the subjects) “be exactly agreeable to the circumstances of the persons to whom the letter was written, nothing, I believe, but the existence and reality of the circumstances” (subjects) “could have suggested them to the writer’s thought.”

In all Christian love and charity, we are constrained to believe that he had discovered his error; and that, had his life been spared longer, he, with diligence and anxiety, would have expunged from his works charges so reflecting on himself, and contrary to the character of the God of our hope.

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LESSON XIII.

Slavery existed in Britain when history commenced the records of that island. It was there found in a state and condition predicated upon the same causes by which its existence is now continued and perpetuated in Africa. But as early as the year 692–3 A.D., the Witna-Gemot, convoked by Ina, began to manifest a more elevated condition of the Britons. Without abolishing slavery, they regulated its government, ameliorated the old practice of death or slavery being the universal award of conquest; by submission and baptism the captive was acknowledged to merit some consideration; life, and, in some cases, property were protected against the rapacity of the conqueror; the child was secured against the mere avarice of the savage parent, and heavy punishment was announced against him who should sell his countryman, whether malefactor, slave, or not, to any foreign master.

He who has the curiosity to notice the steps by which the Britons emerged from savage life, in connection with their condition of slavery, may do well to examine the works of William of Malmsbury, Simeon of Durham, Bede, Alcuin, Wilkins, Huntingdon, Hoveden, Lingard, and Wilton. But he will not find the statutes of the monarchies succeeding Ina free from these enactments until he shall come down near the fourteenth century. Thus, generations passed away before these statutes came to be regarded with general respect. National regeneration has ever been thus slow. Thus, savage life has ever put to death the captive; while we find that slavery, among such tribes, has ever been introduced as a merciful provision in its stead, and is surely a proof of one step towards a more elevated state of moral improvement. But in the case of Britain and the whole of Europe, the slave was of the same original stock with the master; he, therefore, presented no physical impediment to amalgamation, by which has been brought about whatever of equality now exists among their descendants.

But in the close of this study, we propose to take some notice of the arguments of another most distinguished writer in favour of the abolition of slavery, as it now affects the African race.

In 1777, the celebrated Dr. Samuel Johnson wrote his argument in favour of the freedom of the negro slave who accompanied his master from Jamaica to Scotland, and who there brought suit in the Court of Sessions for his freedom. This argument has been deemed by so many to be unanswerable, and ever since that time so generally used as a seed argument in the propagation of abolition doctrines, that we feel it worthy of notice and examination.

Johnson was a bitter opponent of negro slavery; yet, strange, he ever advocated the justice of reducing the American colonies and the West India Islands to the most abject condition of political slavery to the British crown. This system is fully advocated, and garnished by his sarcasm and ridicule, in his famous work, entitled “Taxation no Tyranny.” “How is it,” says he, “that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes.”

Not long after he wrote this argument, on the occasion of a dinner-party at Dilly’s, he said, “I am willing to love all mankind, except an American;” whereupon, adds his biographer, “he breathed out threatenings and slaughter, calling them rascals, robbers, pirates, and exclaiming, he’d burn and destroy them.”

Some knowledge of a man’s peculiar notions relevant to a subject will often aid the mind in a proper estimate of the value of his opinion and judgment concerning correlative matters. His biographer says—

“I record Dr. Johnson’s argument fairly upon this particular case;” * * * “but I beg leave to enter my most solemn protest against his general doctrine with respect to the slave-trade; for I will most resolutely say that his unfavourable notion of it was owing to prejudice, and imperfect or false information. The wild and dangerous attempt, which has for some time been persisted in, to obtain an act of the legislature to abolish so very important and necessary a branch of commercial interest, must have been crushed at once, had not the insignificance of the zealots who vainly took the lead in it, made the vast body of the planters, merchants, and others, whose immense properties are involved in the trade, reasonably enough suppose that there would be no danger. The encouragement which the attempt has received excites my wonder and indignation; and though some men of superior abilities have supported it, whether from a love of temporary popularity when prosperous, or a love of general mischief when desperate, my opinion is unshaken. To abolish a status, which in all ages God has sanctioned and man has continued, would not only be robbery to an innumerable class of fellow-subjects, but it would be extreme cruelty to African savages, a portion of whom it saves from massacre or intolerable bondage in their own country, and introduces into a much happier state of life.” Boswell’s Life of Johnson, vol. ii. pp. 132, 133.

On the same page, the biographer adds—

“His violent prejudices against our West-Indian and American settlers, appeared whenever there was an opportunity.” * * * “Upon an occasion, when in company with several very grave men at Oxford, his toast was: ‘Here’s to the next insurrection of the negroes in the West Indies!’ I, with all due deference, thought that he discovered a zeal without knowledge.”

This was surely bold in Boswell!

Since the culmination of the great British lexicographer, it has been unusual to hear a whisper in question of his high moral accuracy, of his singularly nice mental training, or the perspicuous and lofty display of these qualities in all his works. Even at this day, such a whisper may be proof of temerity. But truth is of higher import than the fear of individual rebuke, or of our literary faith that any one hero in the walks of erudition heretofore went down to the tomb without one mental or classical imperfection.

* * * * *

Argument in favour of a negro claiming his liberty, referred to in Boswell’s Life of Johnson, p. 132.

“It must be agreed that in most ages many countries have had part of their inhabitants in a state of slavery; yet it may be doubted whether slavery can ever be supposed the natural condition of man. It is impossible not to conceive that men in their original state were equal; and very difficult to imagine how one would be subjected to another but by violent compulsion. An individual may, indeed, forfeit his liberty by a crime; but he cannot by that crime forfeit the liberty of his children. What is true of a criminal seems true likewise of a captive. A man may accept life from a conquering enemy on condition of perpetual servitude; but it is very doubtful whether he can entail that servitude on his descendants; for no man can stipulate without commission for another. The condition which he himself accepts, his son or grandson would have rejected. If we should admit, what perhaps may with more reason be denied, that there are certain relations between man and man which may make slavery necessary and just, yet it can never be proved that he who is now suing for his freedom ever stood in any of those relations. He is certainly subject by no law, but that of violence, to his present master, who pretends no claim to his obedience but that he bought him from a merchant of slaves, whose right to sell him never was examined. It is said that according to the constitutions of Jamaica he was legally enslaved; these constitutions are merely positive, and apparently injurious to the rights of mankind, because whoever is exposed to sale is condemned to slavery without appeal, by whatever fraud or violence he might have originally been brought into the merchant’s power. In our own time, princes have been sold, by wretches to whose care they were intrusted, that they might have an European education; but when once they were brought to a market in the plantations, little would avail either their dignity or their wrongs. The laws of Jamaica afford a negro no redress. His colour is considered as a sufficient testimony against him. It is to be lamented that moral right should ever give way to political convenience. But if temptations of interest are sometimes too strong for human virtue, let us at least retain a virtue where there is no temptation to quit it. In the present case there is apparent right on one side, and no convenience on the other. Inhabitants of this island can neither gain riches nor power by taking away the liberty of any part of the human species. The sum of the argument is this: No man is by nature the property of another. The defendant is, therefore, by nature, free. The rights of nature must be some way forfeited before they can be justly taken away. That the defendant has, by any act, forfeited the rights of nature, we require to be proved; and if no proof of such forfeiture can be given, we doubt not but the justice of the court will declare him free.”

The author of this production has artfully surrounded his subject with such a plausibility of concessive proposals, doubtful suggestions, indefinite words and propositions, as will require a sifting of his ideas into a more distinct view. And we fear some will find his argument thus vague and indeterminate; the mind will pass it by, as one of those learned masterpieces of logic, so distant from the eye of our common judgment, that they will sooner yield their assent than endure the labour of examination.

The first suggestion we would offer on the subject of this production is its total inapplicability to the case. The negro was held a slave in Jamaica. The inquiry was not, whether he was so held in obedience to the British law regulating the institution of slavery in Jamaica. The only question was, whether a slave in Jamaica, or elsewhere, who had by any means found his way into Scotland, was or was not free by operation of law. Not a word is directed to that point. And the court of session must have regarded its introduction before them as an argument in the case, as idle and as useless as would have been a page from his Rasselas. The British government established negro slavery by law in all her colonies, but made no provision by which the slave, when once found on the shores of England, could be taken thence again into slavery.

The object, no doubt, was wholly to prevent their introduction there, in favour to her own labouring poor. The British monarchy retained the whole subject of slavery under its own control. The colonies had no voice in the matter. They had no political right to say that the slave, thus imposed on them, should, after he had found his way into any part of the British Isles, be reclaimed, and their right of property in him restored. Their political condition differed widely from the condition of these United States at the formation of this republic.

They, as colonial dependants, had no power to dictate protection to their own rights, or to insist on a compromise of conflicting interests to be established by law.

Dr. Johnson’s argument is exclusively directed against the political and moral propriety of the institution of slavery as a state or condition of man anywhere, instead of the true question at issue. The argument, taken as a whole, is, therefore, a sophism, of the order which dialecticians call “ignoratio elenchi;” a dodging of the question; a substitution of something for the question which is not; a practice common among the pert pleaders of the day—sometimes, doubtless, without their own perception of the fact. In regard to him who uses this sophism to effect the issue, the conclusion is inevitable,—he is either dishonest or he is ignorant of his subject. And when we come to examine this celebrated production as an argument against the moral propriety of the existence of the institution of slavery in the world, we shall find every pillar presented for its foundation a mere sophism, now quite distinctly, and again more feebly enunciated, as if with a more timid tongue, and left to inquiry, adorned by festoons of doubt and supposition.

We shall requote some portions, with a view to their more particular consideration. And, first, “Yet it may be doubted whether slavery can ever be supposed the natural condition of man.” This clause, when put in the crucible, reads, “Yet slavery can never exist in conformity to the law of God.” Whoever doubts this to be the sense, we ask him to suppose what the sense is! The author did not choose these few words to express the proposition, because the law of God could readily be produced in contradiction: “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant (δοῦλος, doulos, SLAVE) of sin.” Besides, then, he loses the benefit of the sophism,—the substitution of the condition of man in his fallen state, through the ambiguity of the word “natural,” for the condition of the first man, fresh from the hand of the Creator. This sophism is one of great art and covertness; so much so, that it takes its character rather from its effect on the mind than from its language; and we therefore desire him who reads, to notice the whole chain of thought passing in the author’s mind,—lest he forget how our present state is the subject of contemplation offered as data, when, on the word “natural,” as if it were a potter’s wheel, our original condition is turned to the front, a postulate, from which we are left to compare and conclude.

The doctrine of the Bible is, that slavery is the consequence of sin. If “natural” be taken to mean the quality of a state of perfect holiness and purity, then slavery cannot be the natural condition of man; no doubts are required in the case. But if “natural” is used to express the quality of our condition under sin, sinking us under the curse of the law, then the propriety of its use will not be “doubtful,” when applied to slavery, because it is a consequent of the quality of the condition. “Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.” The proposition, as thus explained, we think of no value in the argument; but, as left by the author, obscure, its real meaning and intent not obviously perceived nor easily detected, and he may have thought it logical and sound.

“It is impossible not to conceive that men, in their original state, were equal.”

Here is another sophism, which the learned call petitio principii, introduced without the least disguise,—the assumption of a proposition without proof, which, upon examination, is not true. If the author mean, by “original state,” the state of man in paradise, we have no method of examining facts, except by a comparison of Adam with Eve, who was placed in subjection. And if we may be permitted to examine the state of holy beings more elevated than was man,—“For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels,”—then, by analogy, we shall find it possible to conceive that men, in the original state, were not equal, since even the angels, who do the commands of God, are described as those “that excel in strength.”

But if Dr. Johnson mean the state of man after the fall, then Cain was told by God himself, that, if he did well, he should have rule over Abel.

“And very difficult to imagine how one would be subjected to another, but by violent compulsion.” The object of this singular remark is to enforce the proposition, That slavery is incompatible with the law of God, which is not true.

“And if the servant shall plainly say, ‘I love my master * * * I will not go out free:’ then his master shall bring him * * * and he shall serve (be a slave to) him for ever.”

But if it shall be said the value of the passage quoted resides in the term “violent compulsion;” that “violent compulsion,” sufficient to make a man a slave, is incompatible with the law of God, then it will have no weight in the argument, because the “violent compulsion” used may be in conformity to the law of God. “And I will cause thee to serve (be a slave) to thine enemies in the land which thou knowest not.”

“An individual may indeed forfeit his liberty by crime, but he cannot forfeit the liberty of his children.”

This, as a proposition, presents a sophism of the order non causa pro causa, in reverse. We all agree a man may forfeit his liberty by crime; but how are we to deduce from this fact that the liberty of the child cannot be affected by the same crime? The truth is, the crime that deprives a parent of liberty, may, or may not, deprive the child. The framework of this sophism is quite subtle; it implies the sophism, “a dicto secundum quid, ad dictum simpliciter,” to have full effect on the mind. Because, in truth, the crime that deprives the parent of liberty does not invariably involve the liberty of the child, we are, therefore, asked to assent to the proposition that it never does. But, perhaps, an analysis of the proposition before us may be more plain to some, when we remark, what is true in all such compound sophisms, that the proposition containing it is divisible into two distinct propositions.

In this case, the first one is true,—the second not. If, by crime, a man forfeits his life, he forfeits his liberty. If he is put to death previous to a condition of paternity, its prospect is cut off with him. Those beings who, otherwise, might have been his descendants, will never exist. Hence rude nations, from such analogy, in case of very high crimes, destroyed, with the parent, all his existing descendants. Ancient history is full of such examples. The principle is the same as the more modern attaint, and is founded, if in no higher law, in the common sense of mankind; for, when the statute establishing attaints is repealed, the public mind and the descendant both feel that the attaint essentially exists, even without law to enforce it. Who does not perceive that the descendants of certain traitors are effectually attainted at the present day, even among the most enlightened nations. He who denies that the crime of the parent can affect the liberty of the child, must also deny that the character of the parent can affect him; a fact that almost universally exists, and which every one knows.

“Let his children be continually vagabonds and beg; * * * let his posterity be cut off; * * * let the iniquities of his fathers be remembered with the Lord.”

This doctrine was recognised and practised by the church, even in England, in the more early ages. Let one instance suffice. About the year 560, Mauricus, a Christian king of Wales, committed perjury and murdered Cynetus,—whereupon, Odouceus, Bishop of Llandaff, in full synod, pronounced excommunication, and cursed, for ever, him and all his offspring. See Milton’s ΕΙΚΟΝΟΚΛΑΣΤΗΣ, cap. 28.

This principle actively exists in the physical world. The parent contracts some loathsome disease—the offspring are physically deteriorated thereby. He whose moral and physical degradation are such that slavery to him is a blessing, with few exceptions, will find his descendants fit only for that condition. The children of parents whose conduct in life fostered some mental peculiarity, are quite likely, with greater or less intensity, to exhibit traces of the same. “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” The law is not repealed by the mantle of love, which, in mercy, the Saviour has spread over the world, any more than forgiveness blots out the fact of a crime. The hope of happiness hereafter alleviates present suffering, but, in no sense, annihilates a cause which has previously existed.

“A man may accept life from a conquering enemy on condition of perpetual servitude; but it is very doubtful whether he can entail that servitude on his descendants; for no man can stipulate, without commission, for another.”

All that is presented as argument here, is founded upon the proposition, that no man can stipulate for his descendants, whether unborn or not.

If what we have before said be true, little need be said on the subject of this paragraph. For we have already seen that the conduct of the ancestor, to an indefinite extent, both physically influences and morally binds the condition of the offspring. It is comparatively but a few ages since, over the entire world, the parent had full power, by law, to put his children to death for crime, or to sell them into slavery for causes of which he was the judge. And it may be remarked, that such is the present law among, perhaps, all the tribes who furnish from their own race slaves for the rest of the world. It is not necessary here to show why a people, who find such laws necessary to their welfare, also find slavery a blessing to them.

Civilization has ameliorated these, to us, harsh features of parental authority; yet, to-day, the world can scarcely produce a case where the condition of the child has not been greatly affected by the stipulations, the conduct, the influences of the parent, wholly beyond its control. The relation of parent has ever been found a sufficient commission to bind these results to the condition of the offspring.

“But our fathers dealt proudly, and hardened their necks, and hearkened not to thy commandments, and refused to obey; * * * and in their rebellion appointed a captain to return to their bondage.”

“The condition which he (the captive) accepts, his son or grandson would have rejected.”

This, at most, is supposititious, and, as an argument, we think, extremely weak; because it implies, either that the acceptance of the parent was not the result of necessity, and the wisest choice between evils, or that the rejection, by the son, was the fruit of extravagant pretension.

“He that is extravagant will quickly become poor, and poverty will enforce dependence and invite corruption.” * * * “I have avoided that empyrical morality that cures one vice by the means of another.” Johnson’s Rambler.

“If we should admit, what perhaps with more reason may be denied, that there are certain relations between man and man, which may make slavery necessary and just, yet it can never be proved, that he, who is suing for his freedom, ever stood in any of these relations.”

We cannot pretend to know what were the particular facts in relation to the slavery of the individual then in Scotland. It is not, however, pretended that the facts in relation to this slave were not the facts in relation to all others. No suggestion of any illegality as to his slavery in Jamaica is made, other than the broad ground of the illegality of slavery itself. This is quite evident from what follows:

“He is certainly subject, by no law but that of violence, to his present master, who pretends no claim to his obedience, but that he bought him from a merchant of slaves, whose right to sell him was never examined.”

In the passage under consideration, we are confined wholly to negro slavery; and had Dr. Johnson been serious in admitting that slavery, under “certain relations,” was “necessary and just,” he would have yielded his case; because, then, the slave in hand would have been placed in the category of proving that he did not exist under these relations. Johnson well knew that slavery existed in Jamaica by the sanction of the British Parliament, and he manifests his contempt for it, by the assertion that the slave was held only by the law of force. He was, therefore, not reaching for the freedom of that particular slave, but for the subversion of slavery as a condition of man.

The author has heretofore signified a willingness to admit the lawfulness of slavery, when induced by “crime or captivity;” but now denies the validity of such admission, because the relations of “crime and captivity” can never be proved. The apparent object of his admission was merely to rally us, by his liberality, to the admission that these relations could never be proved; and we admit they never can be in the way he provides; and he therefore announces the demonstration of the proposition, that slavery can never be just, because “these relations,” which alone make it so, can never be established. But what are the reasons? They are the very causes which render the Africans obnoxious to the condition of slavery—the degraded, deteriorated, and savage state of that people. The negro slave, in his transit from the interior of Africa, is often sold many times, by one master and chieftain to another, before he reaches the western coast, whence he was transferred by the slave factors to the English colonies. No memory of these facts, or of the slave’s origin, is preserved or attempted. Under these circumstances, though each individual of these slaves induced the condition by “crime or captivity,” such fact could never be established in the English colony. To attempt proof there of any fact touching the case, would be as idle and futile as to attempt such proof in regard to the biography of a baboon. Besides, the truth is, a very large portion of these slaves were born slaves in Africa, inheriting their condition from a slave ancestry of unknown ages, and recognised to be slaves by the laws and customs of the various tribes there, and sent to market as a surplus commodity, in accordance to the laws and usages among them, enforced from time immemorial.

So far as we have knowledge of the various families of man, we believe it to have ever been the practice for one nation to receive the national acts of another as facts fixed, and not subject to further investigation or alteration by a foreign people, especially when none but the people making the decision were affected by it. Johnson surely must have agreed to such a practice, because an opposite course, so far as carried into action, would have involved every nation in universal war and endless bloodshed. Besides, the right to usurp such control would involve the right to enslave, and can only exist when the degeneracy of a nation has become too great a nuisance to be longer tolerated with safety by the people annoyed: self-protection will then warrant the right.

If England makes it lawful for her subjects to buy slaves in Africa and hold them in Jamaica, then her subjects may lawfully hold there such as are decided by the laws of Africa to be slaves. But the author of the argument, with all this before him, having dictated what alone shall make a man a slave, would propose to set up a new tribunal contrary to all international law—contrary to the peace of the world—and, finally, as to the object to which it is to be applied, forever abortive: wherefore his argument in effect is, because “these relations,” which he admits would justly make a man a slave, cannot be proved, therefore what he admits to be true is not true; and puts us in mind of the sophism: “If, when a man speaks truth, he says he lies, he lies; but he lies when he speaks the truth; therefore, by speaking the truth, he lies!” which we think about as relevant to the question.

In his conclusion, Dr. Johnson frankly acknowledges the position we have assigned him:—

“The sum of the argument is this: No man is, by nature, the property of another. The defendant, therefore, is free by nature. The rights of nature must be someway forfeited before they can be justly taken away.”

There are, in our language, but few words of which we make such loose and indefinite use as we do of the word “nature,” and its variously modified forms. It would elucidate what we wish to bring to mind concerning the use of this word, to select some verbose author, of a fanatical habit of thought, or enough so to favour a negligence as to the clearness of the ideas expressed by the terms at his command, and compare the varied meanings which his application of the word will most clearly indicate. We do not accuse Dr. Johnson of any want of astute learning, but we wish to present an excuse for explaining that, by his use of the phrases, “men by nature”—“by nature free”—“the rights of nature,” he means, the rights established by the laws of God. He uses those phrases as synonyms of the Creator, of his providence influencing the condition of man, or the adaptations bestowed on him. The laws of nature are the laws of God. And we are bold to say, no discreet writer uses the words differently. As a sample of its legitimate use, we quote “Milton to Hortlib on Education:”—

“Not to mention the learned correspondence which you hold in foreign parts, and the extraordinary pains and diligence which you have used in this matter, both here and beyond the seas; either by the definite will of God so ruling, or the peculiar sway of nature, which also is God’s working,” &c.

We all agree that God has made the world, and all things therein, and that he established laws for its government, and also for the government of every thing in it. Now we must all agree that it was an act of great condescension, love, and mercy, if God did come down from his throne in heaven, and, from his own mouth instruct a few of the lost men then in the world, his chosen people, what were some of his laws, such as were necessary for them to know and to be governed by, that they might, to the greatest possible extent, live happily in this world, and enjoy eternal life hereafter. Do you believe he did so? You either believe he did, or you believe the Bible is a fable. If you believe he did, then we refer you to Ex. xx. and xxi., and to Lev. xxv., for what he did then reveal, as his law, on the subject of slavery; not that other important revelations were not made concerning this subject, which we shall have occasion to notice in the course of these studies.

If we believe the Bible to be a true book, then we must believe that God did make these revelations to Moses. Among them, one law permitted the Israelites to buy, and inherit, and to hold slaves. And Dr. Wayland, the author of “The Elements of Moral Science,” agrees that what was the law of God must ever remain to be so.

It will follow then, if the laws of God authorize slavery, that a man by nature may be the property of another, because, whatever you may think the laws of nature to be, yet they can have no validity in opposition to the laws of God. If it shall be said that Jesus Christ repealed the law as delivered to Moses, then we answer: He says he came not to destroy, but to fulfil the law and that he fully completed his mission. He had no commission to repeal the law: therefore he had no power to do so.

This portion of Dr. Johnson’s argument is consonant with the notions of the advocates of the “higher law” doctrine, who persist that slavery is a sin, because they think it is.

But if the law permitted slavery, then to hold, cannot be a sin, because God “frameth not mischief by a law.” See Ps. xciv. 20. “Wo unto them that decree unrighteous decrees.” Isa. x. 1. If the law authorizing the Jews to hold slaves was unrighteous, then God pronounces the wo upon himself, which is gross contradiction.

But the law is “pure, holy, and just;” therefore a law permitting sin must be against itself—which cannot be; for, in such case, the law recoils against itself, and destroys its own end and character.

But again: “The end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and faith unfeigned.” 1 Tim. i. 5. Now it is not charity to permit that which cannot be done with a pure heart, because then conscience and faith are both deceived.

Again: The law “beareth not the sword in vain, but to be a terror to evil works, for he (the instrument executing the law) is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.”

If slavery, or to hold slaves, be sin, then also the law granting the license to do so destroys the very object which it was enacted to sustain. But again: If the law allows sin, then it is in covenant with sin and the law itself, therefore, must be sin.

In short, the doctrine is pure infidelity. It is destructive to the object of law, and blasphemous to God. What are we to think of him who holds that God descended in the majesty of his power upon Sinai, and there, from the bottomless treasures of his wisdom and purity, commanding man to wash his garment of every pollution, opened to him—what? Why, an unclean system of morals, stained by a most unholy impurity; but which he is nevertheless to practise to the damning of his soul! Atheism, thou art indeed a maniac!

In the course of these studies, we shall attempt to show that man is not free in the unlimited sense with which the word is here used. Absolute freedom is incompatible with a state of accountability. Say, if you choose, Adam was free in paradise to eat the apple, to commit sin, yet we find his freedom was bounded by an accountability beyond his power to give satisfactory answer: hence the consequent, a change of state, a circumscribing of what you may call his freedom. This, in common parlance, we call punishment; yet our idea of punishment is inadequate to express the full idea; because God cannot be supposed to delight in punishment, or to be satisfied with punishment, in accordance with our narrow views. Such would be inconsistent with the combination of his attributes—a Being so constituted of all power, that each power is predominant, even love and mercy. Thus the law of God clothes the effect in mercy and positive good, inversely to the virulence of the cause, or in direct proportion to its propriety. Thus, righteousness, as a cause, exalteth a nation; but sin is a reproach to any people. Thus the law of God places the sinner under the government of shame, infamy, contempt, as schoolmasters to lead him back to virtue; and it may be observed that the schoolmaster is more forcing in his government in proportion to the virulence of vice, down to the various grades of subjection and slavery, and until the poison becomes so great that even death is a blessing.

But if the mind cannot perceive that the chastenings of the Lord are blessings, let it regard them as lessons. The parent, from the waywardness of the child, perceives that it will fall from a precipice, and binds it with a cord to circumscribe its walk. True, such are poor figures to outline a higher Providence!

The Being who created, surely had power to appoint the government. Can the thing created remain in the condition in which it is placed, except by obedience to the law established for its government? Disobedience must change the condition of the thing and bring it under new restraints—a lessening of the boundaries of freedom. The whole providence of God to man is upon this plan, and is abundantly illustrated, in the holy books, by precept and example. These restraints follow quick on the footsteps of disobedience, until the law—the Spirit shall no longer strive for reformation, but say, “Cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?”

Is this a too melancholy view? Let us, then, look at obedience and its consequents, and turn the eye from this downward path of mental and physical degradation, pain, misery, want, slavery, and death, to the bright prospect of a more elevated state of progressive improvement, secured to us as a consequent, a reward of obedience; the physical powers improving, the mental elevating, and all our faculties becoming instruments of greater truthfulness, until our condition shall be so elevated that the Creator shall say, “Come ye and sit at my right hand!”

The assertion, that “no man is by nature the property of another,” flatters our vanity and tumefies our pride, but is, nevertheless, untrue. We are all absolutely the property of Him who made, and who sustains his right to dispose of us; and does so in conformity to his law. Thus, qualifiedly, we are the property of the great family of man, and are under obligations of duty to all; more pressingly to the national community of which we compose a part, and so on down to the distinct family of which we are a member. It is upon this principle that Fleta says, (book i, chap. 17,) “He that has a companion has a master.” See also the same in Bracton, book i. chap. 16.

If, by the laws of God, other men could have no property in us, the laws of civil government could have no right to control us. But if the civil government, by the laws of God, has the right to govern and control us, so far as is for the benefit of ourselves and the community, then it will follow, that when our benefit will be enhanced, and that of the community, by our subjection to slavery, either temporary or perpetual, the laws of God, in mercy, will authorize such subjection. Or, if the state of our degradation be such that our continuance upon the earth be an evil past all remedy, then the laws of God will authorize the civil law to decree our exit.

The providence of God to man is practical. He never deals in the silly abstractions of foolish philosophers. He spends no time in experimenting by eristic syllogisms. He deals alone in his own power, which nowhere ever ceases to act, although wholly beyond our comprehension. Man may long for a full view of the Almighty, yet we are destined here to perceive but the “hinder parts” of his presence—the effect of his power, not Him! Let us worship; and, for our guidance, be content with the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night!

In conclusion: Should the author of “The Elements of Moral Science” examine this argument of the great dialectician of the past century, with his acknowledged logical acumen, free from the prejudices of his locality, now so abundantly displayed in that portion of his work to which we object, we would suggest the propriety of his applying the discoveries he may make to emendations in his succeeding thousands.

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Study II.

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LESSON I.

As far as men are able to comprehend Jehovah, the wisest, in all ages, have deduced the fact, that God acts; yet, as an essential Being, he is beyond being acted upon.

That which is manifested by the character of his acts is called his attributes; that is, the thing or quality which we attribute to him as a portion or quality of his essence.

Thus among his attributes, are said to be power, wisdom, truth, justice, love, and mercy. His action is always found to be in conformity and accordance to these attributes. This state of conformity, this certainty of unison of action, is called truth. “Thy word is truth.” John xvii. 7.

A system of laws, permanently established for the production of some object, we call an institution.

Law is the history of how things are influenced by one another; yet the mind should never disconnect such influence from the attributes of Jehovah; and hence Burke very properly says, “Law is beneficence acting by rule.” “The law of the Lord is perfect.” Ps. xix. 7. The deduction follows that the laws of God are well adapted, and intended to benefit all those who are suitably related under them.

By relation we mean the connection between things,—what one thing is in regard to the influence of another. And hence it also follows that, in case the relation is in utter want of a conformity to the attributes of Jehovah, the actor in the relation becomes an opponent, and, so far, joins issue with God himself. The laws fitting the case operate, and his position is consumed, as it were, by the breath of the Almighty.

But yet an institution may be a righteous one, may exist in conformity to the laws of God, and particular cases of a relation, seeming to us to emanate from it, be quite the reverse. For example, the institution of marriage may be righteous, may exist in conformity to the laws of God; yet cases of the relation of husband and wife may be a very wicked relation.

Individuals in a relation to each other under an institution are supposed to bear such comparison to each other as will permit the laws of God, influencing the relation, to be beneficial to them; and when such comparative qualities are not the most suitable, or are more or less unsuitable for the relation, the benefits intended by the relation must be proportionably diminished. If wholly unsuitable, then it is found that the conservative influences of the same laws operate in the direction to cause the relation to cease between them.

If a supposed male and female are each distinctly clothed with qualities wholly unsuited to each other in the relation emanating from the institution of marriage, then, in that case, the relation will be sinful between them; and the repulsion, the necessary consequence of a total unsuitableness, will be in constant action in the direction of sweeping it away.

Will it be new in morals to say that it is consistent with the ordinances of Jehovah to bring things into that relation to each other by which they will be mutually benefited?

As an exemplification of the doctrine, we cite the institution of guardianship—guardian and ward; both words derived from the same Saxon root, weardian, which implies one who protects and one who is protected.

The institution itself presupposes power in the one and weakness in the other, a want of equality between the parties. And it may be here remarked, that, the greater the inequality, the greater the prospect of benefit growing out of the relation, especially to the weaker party. But when the weak, ignorant, or wayward youth is the guardian, and the powerful and wise man is the ward, then the relation will be sinful, and the repulsion necessarily emanating from the relation must quickly terminate it. No possible benefit could accrue from such a case—nothing but evil. The conservative influence of God’s providence must, therefore, suddenly bring it to a close.

Will the assertion be odious to the ear of truth, that the laws of God present the same class of conservative influences in the moral world that is every day discovered in the physical?—that the thing manifestly useless, from which no benefit can accrue, but from which a constant injury emanates, shall be cut away, nor longer “cumber the ground?” Or, where a less degree of enormity and sin have centered, it may be placed under influences of guidance, and controlled into the path of regeneration and comparative usefulness? Surely, if we detach from Jehovah these high attributes, we lessen his character.

When we enter into the inquiry, whether an institution, or the relation emanating from it in a particular case, be sinful or not, it seems obvious that the inquiry must reach the object of the institution and its tendencies, and take into consideration how far they, and the relations created by it, coincide with the laws of God.

The relation of master and slave, and the institution of slavery itself, in the inquiry whether such relation or institution is right or wrong, just or unjust, righteous or sinful, must be subjected to a like examination,—applying the same rules applicable to any other relation or institution,—before we can determine whether or not it exists in conformity to the laws of God.

But human reason is truly but of small compass; and the mercy of God has vouchsafed to man the aids of faith and inspiration. “All scripture is given by inspiration of God.” 2 Tim. iii. 16.

These are important aids in the examination of all moral subjects, without which we may be “ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.” 2 Tim. iii. 7.

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LESSON II.

If it be true that slavery is of divine origin, that its design is to prevent so great an accumulation of sin as would, of necessity, force its subjects down to destruction and death, and to restore those who are ignorantly, heedlessly, and habitually rushing on their own moral and physical ruin, by the renovating influence of divine power, to such a state of moral rectitude as may be required of the recipients of divine grace;—then we should expect to find, in the history of this institution, of its effects, both moral and physical, upon its subjects, some manifestations of such tendencies; some general evidences that, through this ordinance, God has ever blessed its subjects and their posterity with an ameliorated condition, progressive in the direction of his great and final purpose. Let us examine that fact.

In the government of the world, God has as unchangeably fixed his laws producing moral influences, as he has those which relate to material objects. When we discover some cause, which, under similar circumstances, always produces a similar result, we need not hesitate to consider such discovery as the revelation of his will, his law touching its action and the effects produced; and by comparing the general tendency of the effect produced with the previously revealed laws and will of God in relation to a particular matter, we are permitted to form some conclusion whether the cause producing the effect exists and acts in conformity with his general providence towards the matter or subject in question. If so, we may readily conclude that such cause is of his appointment, and that it exists and acts agreeably to his will.

But one of the previously revealed laws of God is, that he ever wills the happiness, not the misery, of his creatures. “Say unto them, As I live, saith the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked should turn from his way and live: turn ye, turn ye from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel!” Ezek. xxxiii. 11. And we may form some conclusion of a man, a class of people, or a nation, from their condition produced by the general result of their conduct, whether their conduct has been in general conformity with the laws of God. If the general result of the conduct of the thief, gambler, tippler, and drunkard,—of him who lives by trickery and deception, is an accumulation of weight of character among men, a display of useful industry, independence, and wealth among his associates; if himself and family are thereby made visibly more healthy, happy, and wise,—if by these practices he and his family become patterns of piety and of all noble virtues, he may hope; but if the contrary of all these is the final result, we may safely condemn.

Another of the laws of God is, “Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee.” Jer. ii. 19. When the characters just named become so great a nuisance that the strong arm of the law of the land takes away their liberty, places a master over them, in fact reducing them to slavery; forces and compels them to habits of useful industry, and, in a length of time, makes of them useful and good men,—then this law is exemplified and also the fact is proved, that slavery, thus induced, is attended with and does produce an ameliorated condition as to the morals, and probably as to the intellectual and physical power, of its subjects. This law was also exemplified in the family of Jacob. God, in the order of his providence, had determined and made a covenant with Abraham, to wit: “In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the land of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates.” Gen. xv. 18. This was to be brought about through the family of Jacob. “And God Almighty bless thee, and make thee fruitful and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a multitude of people, and give the blessing of Abraham to thee, and to thy seed with thee, that thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave unto Abraham.” Gen. xxviii. 3, 4.

There are left us enough traces of the conduct of the family of Jacob, whereby we may know the fact that they, although living in the midst of the promised land, had become incorrigibly wicked and licentious. Judah, who seems to have ranked as the head of the family, notwithstanding the impressive lesson in the case of Esau, took to himself a Canaanitish wife, and his eldest sons became so desperately wicked that, in the language of Scripture, God slew them. Even the salt of slavery could not save them. Of Shelah, we have no further account than that he went into slavery in Egypt. Instead of nurturing up his family with propriety and prudence, Judah seems to have idled away his time with his friend the Adullamite, hunting up the harlots of the country. Reuben committed incest; he went up to his father’s bed. Simeon and Levi, instigated by feelings of revenge in the case of the Hivites, pursued such a course of deception, moral fraud, and murder, leading on the rest of their brethren to such acts of theft and robbery, that Jacob was constrained to say, “Ye have troubled me, to make me stink among the inhabitants of the land.” Gen. xxxiv. 30. Jacob found his children so lost to good morals, so sunken in heathenism and idolatry, that, hoping that a change of abode might also produce a change of conduct, he was impelled to command them, saying, “Put away the strange gods that are among you, and be clean, and change your garments, and let us arise and go to Bethel, and I will make there an altar unto God.” Gen. xxxv. 2, 3.

And let us take occasion here to notice the long-suffering and loving-kindness of the Lord; for, no sooner had they taken this resolution, than Jehovah, to encourage and make them steadfast in this new attempt in the paths of virtue, again appeared to Jacob:

“And God said unto him, I am God Almighty; a nation, and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins. And the land which I gave to Abraham and to Isaac, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed after thee will I give the land.” Gen. xxxv. 11, 12.

“But the sow that was washed has returned to her wallowing in the mire.” 2 Pet. ii. 22.

And what is the next prominent state of moral standing in which we find this family? The young and unsuspecting Joseph brought unto his father their evil report, and hence their revenge. “And when they saw him afar off, even before he came near unto them, they conspired against him to slay him. * * * And they sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver.” Gen. xxxvii. 2, and xviii. 28. And against the deed of fratricide there was but one dissenting voice and he, whose voice it was, dared not boldly to oppose them. He had not the moral courage to contend. Sometimes, in the conduct of men, there may be a single act that gives stronger proof of deep, condemning depravity, than a whole life otherwise spent in wanton, wilful wickedness and sensual sin. Their betrayal of the confidence of an innocent and confiding brother, who neither had the will nor the power to injure them, whose only wish was their welfare, bespeaks a degradation of guilt, a deep and abiding hypocrisy of soul before God and man, and a general readiness to the commission of crimes of so dark a dye, that, it would seem to moral view, no oblations of the good, nor even the prayers of the just, could wash and wipe away the stain. During the history of all time, has God ever chosen such wretches to become the founders of an empire—his own peculiar, chosen people? On the contrary, has not his will, as expressed by revelation, and by the acts of his providence, for ever been the reverse of such a supposition? The laws of God are unchangeable: at all times and among all people, the premises being the same, their operation has been and will ever be the same.

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LESSON III.

“Let favour be showed to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness; in the land of uprightness will he deal unjustly, and will not behold the majesty of the Lord.” Isa. xxvi. 10.

“His own iniquities shall take the wicked himself, and he shall be holden by the cords of his sins.” Prov. v. 22.

“But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments, and his statutes, which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee:

“Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field; cursed shalt thou be in thy basket and thy store; cursed shall be the fruit of thy body and the fruit of thy land; the increase of thy loins, and the flocks of thy sheep. Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in; and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out. The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, vexation and rebuke in all thou settest thy hand unto for to do, until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly; because of the wickedness of thy doings, whereby thou hast forsaken me. And the Lord shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships, the way whereof I spake unto thee. Thou shalt see it no more again; and there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bondmen (לְעָבְדָֽים la ebedim, for slaves) and bondwomen (וְלִשְׁפָה֭וֹת ve lisheppahoth, and for female slaves), and no man shall buy you.” (That is, they should be worthless.) Deut. xxviii. 15–68.

Such, then, are the unchangeable laws of God touching man’s disobedience and non-conformity; and, in this instance of their application, have been seen fulfilled, with wonder and astonishment, by the whole world.

Consistent with the laws of God and the providence of Jehovah, there was no other way to make any thing out of the wicked family of Jacob; no other means to fulfil his promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, except to prepare them in the school of adversity; to reduce them under the severe hand of a master; to place them in slavery, until, by its compulsive operation tending to their mental, moral, and physical improvement, they would become fitted to enjoy the blessing promised their fathers. “Compel them to come in, that my house may be filled.” Luke xiv.

“And when the sun was going down a deep sleep fell upon Abraham, and a horror of great darkness fell upon him; and He (the Lord) said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a strange land that is not theirs, and shall serve (וַֽעֲבָד֭וּם va ebadum, shall be slaves to) them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years.” Gen. xv. 12, 13.

God foresaw what condition the wicked family of Jacob would force themselves into; nor is it a matter of surprise that it filled the mind of Abram with horror.

God never acts contrary to his own laws. The Israelites, in slavery four hundred years under hard and cruel masters, kept closely bound to severe labour, and all the attendants of slavery, had no time to run into deeper sins. The humility of their condition and distinction of race would be some preventive to amalgamation, and a preservative to their purity of blood; and would lead them also to contemplate and worship the God of Abraham. And let it ever be remembered that the worship of God is the very highway to intellectual, moral, and physical improvement, however slow, under the circumstances, was their progress.

Let us take the family of Jacob, at the time of the selling of Joseph, and, from what their conduct had been and then was, form some conjecture of what would have been the providence of God, touching their race, at the close of the then coming four hundred years, had not the Divine Mind seen fit to send them into slavery. Does it require much intellectual labour to set forth their ultimate condition? Would not the result have been their total annihilation by the action of the surrounding tribes; or their equally certain national extinction by their amalgamation with them? If, by the providence of God, as manifested among men through all time, one of these conditions must have attached to them, then will it follow that, to them, slavery was their salvation,—under the circumstances of the case, the only thing that could preserve them from death and extinction on earth.

Under such view of the facts, and the salvatory influence of the institution, slavery will be hailed by the good, pious, and godly-minded, as an emanation from the Divine Mind, portraying a fatherly care, and a watchful mercy to a fallen world, on a parallel with the general benevolence of that Deity who comprehended his own work, and the welfare of his creatures.

The slavery of the Israelites in Egypt for the term of four hundred years was a sentence pronounced against them by Jehovah himself, who had previously promised them great worldly blessings, preceded by the promise of his own spiritual forbearance, of his own holy mercy, as the ultimate design of his providence towards them. And we now ask him, who denies that the design of this term of slavery was to ameliorate and suitably prepare that wicked race for the reception and enjoyment of the promises made, to extricate himself from the difficulties in which such denial will involve the subject. We are aware that there are a class of men so holy in their own sight, that, from what they say, one might judge they felt capable of dictating to Jehovah rules for his conduct, and that they spurn in him all that which their view does not comprehend. Do such forget, when they stretch forth their hand, imagining God to be that which suits them, but which he is not, that they make an idol, and are as much idolaters as they would be had they substituted wood and stone? Such, God will judge. We have no hope our feeble voice will be heard where the mind is thus established upon the presumption of moral purity—we might say divine foresight. But, by a more humble class, we claim to be heard, that, as mortal men, reasoning by the light it hath pleased God to give, we may take counsel together in the review of his providences, as vouchsafed to man, and, by his blessing be enabled to see enough to justify the ways of the Almighty against the slanders of his and our enemy.

The theological student will notice the fact of the holy books abounding with the doctrine that the chastenings of the Lord operate the moral, mental, and physical improvement of the chastised; and that such chastenings are ever administered for that purpose, and upon those whose sins call it down upon them. “My son, despise not the chastenings of the Lord; neither be weary of correction: for those whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.” Prov. iii. 11, 12. “Thus saith the Lord, where is the bill of thy mother’s divorcement, whom I have put away? Or which of my creditors is it to whom I have sold you? Behold, for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves, and for your transgressions is your mother put away.” Isa. l. 1.

The garden of the sluggard produces weeds and want. We know a man of whom it may be said, he is inoffensive; but he is thriftless, indolent, and therefore miserable. He has never learned those virtues that would make him respectable or happy.

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LESSON IV.

“Barnes on Slavery. An Inquiry into the Scriptural Views of Slavery.” By ALBERT BARNES. Philadelphia, 1846.

In his fourth chapter, on the slavery of the Israelites in Egypt, Rev. Mr. Barnes says—

“The will of God may often be learned from the events of his providence. From his dealings with an individual, a class of men or a nation, we may ascertain whether the course which has been pursued was agreeable to his will. It is not, indeed, always safe to argue that, because calamities come upon an individual, they are sent as a punishment on account of any peculiarly aggravated sin, or that these calamities prove that he is a greater sinner than others;—but when a certain course of conduct always tends to certain results—when there are laws in operation in the moral world as fixed as in the natural world—and when there are, uniformly, either direct or indirect interpositions of Providence in regard to any existing institutions, it is not unsafe to infer from these what is the Divine will. It is not unsafe, for illustration, to argue, from the uniform effects of intemperance, in regard to the will of God. These effects occur in every age of the world, in reference to every class of men. There are no exceptions in favour of kings or philosophers; of the inhabitants of any particular climate or region of country; of either sex, or of any age. The poverty and babbling, and redness of eyes, and disease, engendered by intemperance, may be regarded without danger of error, as expressive of the will of God in reference to that habit. They show that there has been a violation of a great law of our nature, ordained for our good, and that such a violation must always incur the frown of the great Governor of the world. The revelation of the mind of God, in such a case, is not less clear than were the annunciations of his will on Sinai.

“The same is true in regard to cities and nations. We need be in as little danger, in general, in arguing from what occurs to them, as in the case of an individual. There is now no doubt among men why the old world was destroyed by a flood; why Sodom and Gomorrah were consumed; why Tyre, Nineveh, Babylon, and Jerusalem were overthrown. If a certain course of conduct, long pursued and in a great variety of circumstances, leads uniformly to health, happiness, and property, we are in little danger of inferring that it is in accordance with the will of God. If it lead to poverty and tears, we are in as little danger of error in inferring that it is a violation of some great law which God has ordained for the good of man. If an institution among men is always followed by certain results; if we find them in all climes, and under all forms of government, and in every stage of society, it is not unsafe to draw an inference from these facts on the question whether God regards the institution as a good one, and one which he designs shall be perpetuated for the good of society.

“It would be easy to make an application of these undeniable principles to the subject of slavery. The inquiry would be, whether, in certain results, always found to accompany slavery, and now developing themselves in our own country, there are no clear indications of what is the will of God.”

We subscribe to the doctrine that God often reveals his will concerning a thing by the acts of his providence affecting it. But we contend that God has extended the field of Christian vision by a more direct revelation, and by the gift of faith; and that the mind which can neither hear the revelation, nor feel the faith, is merely the mind of a philosopher, not of a Christian: he may be a believer in a God, but not in the Saviour of the world.

The direction contained in the foregoing quotation, by which we are to discriminate what are the will and law of God, may be considered, when presented by the mere teacher of abolition, among the most artful, because among the most insidious, specimens of abolition logic. It is artful, because, to the unschooled, it presents all that may seem necessary in the foundation of a sound system of theology; and, further, because every bias of the human heart is predisposed to receive it as an entire platform of doctrine. It is insidious and dangerous, because, although the mind acquiesces in its truth, yet it is false when proposed as the lone and full foundation of religious belief. On such secret and hidden rocks, infidelity has ever established her lights, her beacons to the benighted voyager; and, in their surrounding seas, the shallops of hell have for ever been the most successful wreckers, in gathering up multitudes of the lost, to be established as faithful subjects of the kingdom of darkness.

The religious fanatical theorists of this order of abolition writers have further only to establish their doctrine about the “conscience,” “inward light,” or “moral sense,”—that it is a distinct mental power, infallibly teaching what is right, intuitively spreading all truth before them,—and they will then succeed to qualify man, a being fit to govern the universe, and successfully carry on a war against God!

The man thus prepared, if an abolitionist, reasons: “My conscience or moral sense teaches me infallible truth; therefore, my conscience is above all law, or is a ‘higher law’ than the law of the land. My conscience, feelings, and sympathies all teach me that slavery is wrong. Thus I have been educated. My conscience or moral sense teaches me what are the laws of God, without possible mistake; and according to their teaching, slavery is forbidden.”

In short, he thinks so; and, therefore, it is so. He “is wiser in his own conceit than seven men that can render a reason.”

But we proceed to notice how the doctrine of the author most distinctly agrees with the precepts of infidelity.

“The deist derives his religion by inference from what he supposes discoverable of the will and attributes of God, from nature, and the course of the Divine government.”Watson’s Theo. Inst. vol. ii. p. 542. This learned theologian differs widely from Mr. Barnes. When treating of slavery, Watson frankly admits that we are indebted to direct revelation for our knowledge on the subject.

In page 556, he says—

“Government in masters, as well as in fathers, is an appointment of God, though differing in circumstances; and it is therefore to be honoured. ‘Let as many servants as are under the yoke, count their own masters worthy of all honour;’ a direction which enjoins both respectful thoughts and humility and propriety of external demeanour towards them. Obedience to their commands in all things lawful is next enforced; which obedience is to be grounded on principle, on ‘singleness of heart as unto Christ;’ thus serving a master with the same sincerity, the same desire to do the appointed work well, as is required of us by Christ. This service is also to be cheerful, and not wrung out merely by a sense of duty; ‘not with eye-service as men-pleasers;’ not having respect simply to the approbation of the master, but ‘as the servant of Christ,’ making profession of his religion, ‘doing the will of God,’ in this branch of duty, ‘from the heart,’ with alacrity and good feeling. The duties of servants, stated in these brief precepts, might easily be shown to comprehend every particular which can be justly required of persons in this station; and the whole is enforced by a sanction which could have no place but in a revelation from God,—‘Knowing that whatsoever good thing any man doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free.’ Eph. vi. 5. In other words, even the common duties of servants, when faithfully, cheerfully, and piously performed, are by Christianity made rewardable actions: ‘Of the Lord ye shall receive a reward.’

“The duties of servants and masters are, however, strictly reciprocal. Hence, the apostle continues his injunctions as to the right discharge of these relations, by saying, immediately after he had prescribed the conduct of servants, ‘And ye masters, do the same things unto them;’ that is, act towards them upon the same equitable, conscientious, and benevolent principles as you exact from them. He then grounds his rules, as to masters, upon the great and influential principle, ‘knowing that your Master is in heaven;’ that you are under authority, and are accountable to him for your conduct to your servants. Thus masters are put under the eye of God, who not only maintains their authority, when properly exercised, by making their servants accountable for any contempt of it, and for every other failure of duty, but holds the master also himself responsible for its just and mild exercise. A solemn and religious aspect is thus at once given to a relation which by many is considered as one merely of interest.”

“All the distinctions of good and evil refer to some principle above ourselves; for, were there no Supreme Governor and Judge to reward and punish, the very notions of good and evil would vanish away.” Ellis on Divine Things.

The qualities good and evil can only exist in the mind as they are measured by a supreme law. “If we deny the existence of a Divine law obligatory on men, we must deny that the world is under Divine government, for a government without rule or law is a solecism.” Watson’s Theo. Inst. vol. i. p. 8.

Divine laws must be the subject of revelation. The law of a visible power cannot be known without some indications, much less the will of an invisible power, and that, too, of an order of existence so far above our own that even its mode is beyond our comprehension. Very true, the providence of God towards any particular course of conduct may be taken as the revelation of his will thus far, but, by no means, preclude the necessity of a more direct revelation, until man shall be able to boast that he comprehends the entire works of Jehovah.

The difference between the Christian and the mere theist is, while the latter admits that a revelation of the will of God is or has been made by significant actions, he contends that is a sufficient revelation of the laws of God for the guidance of man. “They who never heard of any external revelation, yet if they knew from the nature of things what is fit for them to do, they know all that God can or will require of them.” Christianity as Old as Creation, p. 233.

“By employing our reason to collect the will of God from the fund of our nature, physical and moral, we may acquire not only a particular knowledge of those laws, which are deducible from them, but a general knowledge of the manner in which God is pleased to exercise his supreme powers in this system.” Bolingbroke’s Works, vol. v. p. 100.

“But they who believe the holy Scriptures contain a revelation of God’s will, do not deny that indications of his will have been made by actions; but they contend that they are in themselves imperfect and insufficient, and that they were not designed to supersede a direct revelation. They also hold, that a direct communication of the Divine will was made to the progenitors of the human race, which received additions at subsequent periods, and that the whole was at length embraced in the book called, by way of eminence, the Bible.” Watson’s Theo. Inst. vol. i. p. 10.

Faith “is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Heb. xi. 1.

As an instance of revelation, we present Lev. xxv. 1, and 44, 45, 46.

“And the Lord spake unto Moses in Mount Sinai, saying: Both thy bondmen and bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids.”

“Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession.”

“And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession, they shall be your bondmen for ever; but over your brethren, the children of Israel, ye shall not rule over one another with rigour.”

Here is direct revelation, and faith gives us evidence of the truth of its being of Divine origin.

Mr. Barnes proposes, by human reason, without the aid of revelation and faith, to determine what is the will of God on the subject of slavery; and it suggests the inquiry, How extensive must be the intellectual power of him who can reason with God? “For he is not a man, as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment; neither is any daysman betwixt us, that might lay his hand upon us both.” Job ix. 32, 33.

We frankly acknowledge, that, in the investigation of this subject, we shall consider the Divine authority of those writings, which are received by Christians as a revelation of infallible truth, as so established; and, with all simplicity of mind, examine their contents, and collect from them the information they profess to contain, and concerning which information it had become necessary that the world should be experimentally instructed.

But the passage quoted from Mr. Barnes gives us a stronger suspicion of his want of orthodoxy and Christian principle from its connection with what he says, page 310:

“If the religion of Christ allows such a license” (to hold slaves) “from such precepts as these, the New Testament would be the greatest curse ever inflicted on our race.”

The fact is, little can be known of God or his law except by faith and revelation. Beings whose mental powers are not infinite can never arrive at a knowledge of all things, nor can we know any thing fully, only in proportion as we comprehend the laws influencing it. In conformity to the present limited state of our knowledge, we can only say, that we arrive at some little, by three distinct means: the senses open the door to a superficial perception of things; the mental powers to their further examination; while faith gives us a view of the superintending control of One Almighty God.

In the proportion our senses are defective, our mental powers deficient, and our faith inactive or awry,—our knowledge will be scanty. The result of all knowledge is the perception of truth. Under the head of the mental powers, philosophers tell us our knowledge is acquired by three methods: intuition, demonstration, and analogy. By intuition they mean when the mind perceives a certainty in a proposition where the relation is obvious, as it is obvious that the whole is greater than a part; and such propositions they call axioms.

When the relation of things is not thus obvious, that is, when the proposition involves the determination of the relation between two or more things whose relations are not intuitively perceived, the mind may sometimes come to a certainty, concerning the relation, by the interposition of a chain of axioms; that is, of propositions where the relations are intuitively perceived. This is called demonstration.

In all such cases, the mind would perceive the relation, and come to a certainty intuitively, if adequately cultivated and enlarged; or, in other words, all propositions that now, to us, require demonstration, would, to such a cultivation, become mere axioms: consequently, now, where one man sees a mere axiom, another requires demonstration.

But the great mass of our ideas are too imperfect or too complicated to admit of intuitive conclusions; consequently, as to them, we can never arrive at demonstration. Here we substitute facts; and reason, that, as heretofore one certain fact has accompanied another certain fact, so it will be hereafter. This is what the philosophers call analogy. Analogy is thus founded on experience, and is, therefore, far less perfect than intuition or demonstration. That gravitation will always continue is analogical; we do not know it intuitively; nor can we demonstrate it. Analogical propositions are, therefore, to us mere probabilities.

But our knowledge has cognizance of ideas only. These ideas we substitute for the things they represent, in which there is a liability to err. Thus a compound idea is an assemblage of the properties of a thing, and may be incomplete and inadequate; wholly different from any quality in the thing itself. What is our idea of spirit, colour, joy? Yet we may conceive an intelligence so extended as to admit that even analogical problems should become intuitive: with God every thing is intuitively known. But even intuitive propositions sometimes reach beyond our comprehension. Example—a line of infinite length can have no end: therefore, the half of an infinite line would be a line also of infinite length. But all lines of infinite length are of equal length; therefore, the half of an infinite line is equal to the whole. Such fallacies prove that human reason is quite limited and liable to err: and hence the importance of faith in God, in the steadfastness of his laws, and the certainty of their operations. “And Jesus answering said unto them, have faith in God.” Mark xi. 22. “And when they were come, and had gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them, and how he had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles.” Acts xiv. 27. “So, then, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Romans x. 17. That is, by revelation. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Heb. xi. 1. “But without faith it is impossible to please God; for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is the rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” Heb. xi. 6. “Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead.” James ii. 17. “And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be; for they are a very froward generation, children in whom there is no faith.” Deut. xxxii. 20. To which add Romans xii. 3.

These passages seem to imply an unchangeable reliance on faith and revelation for all knowledge of God, his laws, and our peace hereafter; and we do feel the most heartfelt regret to see those who claim to be religious teachers, laying the foundation for the most gross infidelity.

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LESSON V.

On page 6, Mr. Barnes says—

“The work” (his own) “which is now submitted to the public, is limited to an examination of the Scripture argument on the subject of slavery.”

Now, if it shall appear that his exertion has universally been to gloss over the Scripture, or strain it into some meaning favourable to abolition, and adverse to its rational and obvious interpretation, the mind will be forced to the conclusion, that his real object has been to hide the “Scripture argument,” and to limit his researches by what he may deem to be sound reason and philosophy; and let it be remembered that such has been the constant practice or every infidel writer, who has ever attempted to reconcile his own peculiar theories to the teachings of the holy books.

“And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.” Gen. xii. 5.

“And he entreated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep, and he-asses, and men-servants (וַֽעַבָדִים va abadim, male slaves), and maid-servants (וּשְׁפָחֹת vu shephahoth, female slaves), and she-asses and camels.” xii. 16. “But Abram said unto Sarai, Behold thy maid (שִׁפְחָהֵךְ shiphhathek, female slave) is in thy hand; do unto her as it pleaseth thee. And when Sarai dealt hardly by her, she fled from her face. And the angel of the Lord found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur. And he said, Hagar, Sarai’s maid (שִׁפְחַ֥ת shiphhath, female slave), whence camest thou and whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai; and the angel of the Lord said unto her, Return to thy mistress and submit thyself unto her hands.” Gen. xvi. 6–9.

“And God said unto Abraham, Thou shalt keep my covenant.” * * * “This is my covenant.” * * * “And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man-child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger which is not of thy seed. He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money must needs be circumcised; and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.” Gen. xvii. 9, 10, 12, 13. “And all the men of his house, born in the house, and bought with money of the stranger, were circumcised with him.” Ver. 27.

“And Abimelech took sheep and oxen, and men-servants (וַ֥עֲבָדִים va abadim, male slaves), and women-servants (וּשְׁפָחֹ֔ת vu shephhahoth, female slaves), and gave them unto Abraham.” Gen. xx. 14.

“Wherefore she said unto Abraham, Cast out the bond-woman, and her son. For the son of this bond-woman shall not be heir with my son, even with Isaac. And God said unto Abraham, let it not be grievous in thy sight, because of the lad, and because of thy bond-woman.” * * * “And also of the son of the bond-woman I will make a nation, because he is of thy seed.” Gen. xxi. 10, 12, 13.

“For it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bond-maid, the other by a free-woman. But he who was of the bond-woman was after the flesh, but he of the free-woman was by promise; nevertheless, what saith the scripture? Cast out the bond-woman and her son, for the son of the bond-woman shall not be heir with the son of the free-woman.” Gal. iv. 22, 23, 30.

“And he said, I am Abraham’s servant (עֶ֥בֶד ebed, male slave), and the Lord hath blessed my master greatly, and he is become great and he hath given him flocks and herds, and silver and gold, and man-servants (וַֽעֲבָד֭יִִם va abadim, and male slaves), and maid-servants (וּשְׁפָחֹ֔ת vu shephahoth, and female slaves), and camels and asses.” Gen. xxiv. 34, 35.

“And the man waxed great, and went forward, and grew until he became very great. For he had possession of flocks, and possession of herds, and great store of servants (וַֽעֲבֻדָּ֖הּ va abudda, of slaves), and the Philistines envied him.” Gen. xxvi. 13, 14.

“And the man (Jacob) increased exceedingly, and he had much cattle, and maid-servants (וּשְׁפָחוֹת vu shephahoth, and female slaves,) and men-servants (וַֽעֲבָדִים va abadim, and male slaves), and camels and asses.” Gen. xxx. 43.

“And I have oxen and asses, flocks, and men-servants (וְעֶ֣בֶד ve ebed, and male slaves), and women-servants (וְשִׁפְחָ֑ה ve shiphha, and female slaves). And I have sent to tell my lord that I may find grace in thy sight.” Gen. xxxii. 5.

Let us now notice how Mr. Barnes treats the records here quoted. He says, page 70—

“Some of the servants held by the patriarchs were ‘bought with money.’ Much reliance is laid on this by the advocates of slavery, in justifying the purchase, and consequently, as they seem to reason, the sale of slaves now; and it is, therefore, of importance, to inquire, how far the fact stated is a justification of slavery as it exists at present. But one instance occurs, in the case of the patriarchs, where it is said that servants were ‘bought with money.’ This is the case of Abraham, Gen. xvii. 12, 13. ‘And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man-child in your generations; he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed; he that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised.’ Compare verses 23, 27. This is the only instance in which there is mention of the fact that any one of the patriarchs had persons in their employment who were bought with money. The only other case which occurs at that period of the world is that of the sale of Joseph, first to the Ishmaelites, and then to the Egyptians—a case which, it is believed, has too close a resemblance to slavery as it exists in our own country, ever to be referred to with much satisfaction by the advocates of the system. In the case, moreover, of Abraham, it should be remembered that it is the record of a mere fact. There is no command to buy servants or to sell them, or to hold them as property—any more than there was a command to the brethren of Joseph to enter in to a negotiation for the sale of their brother. Nor is there any approbation expressed of the fact that they were bought; unless the command given to Abraham to affix to them the seal of the covenant, and to recognise them as brethren in the faith which he held, should be construed as such evidence of approval.

“The inquiry then presents itself, whether the fact that they were bought determines any thing with certainty in regard to the nature of the servitude, or to the propriety of slavery as practised now. The Hebrew, in the passages referred to in Genesis, is ‘the born in thy house, and the purchase of silver,’ מִקְנַה־כֶּסֶף— mi knath keseph—not incorrectly rendered, ‘those bought with money.’ The verb קָנָה kânâ, from which the noun here is derived, and which is commonly used in the Scriptures when the purchase of slaves is referred to, means to set upright or erect, to found or create. Gen. xiv. 19, 22. Deut. xxxii. 6; to get for oneself, to gain or acquire. Prov. iv. 7, xv. 32; to obtain, Gen. iv. 1; and to buy, or purchase, Gen. xxv. 10; xlvii. 22. In this latter sense it is often used, and with the same latitude of signification as the word buy or purchase is with us. It is most commonly rendered by the words buy and purchase in the Scriptures. See Gen. xxv. 10; xlvii. 22; xlix. 30; 1. 13; Josh. xxiv. 32; 2 Sam. xii. 3; Ps. lxxviii. 54; Deut. xxxii. 6; Lev. xxvii. 24, and very often elsewhere. It is applied to the purchase of fields, of cattle, of men, and of every thing which was or could be regarded as property. As there is express mention of silver or money in the passage before us respecting the servants of Abraham, there is no doubt that the expression means that he paid a price for a part of his servants. A part of them were ‘born in his house;’ a part had been ‘bought with money’ from ‘strangers,’ or were foreigners.

“But still, this use of the word in itself determines nothing in regard to the tenure by which they were held, or the nature of the servitude to which they were subjected. It does not prove that they were regarded as property in the sense in which a slave is now regarded as a chattel; nor does it demonstrate that the one who was bought ceased to be regarded altogether as a man; or that it was regarded as right to sell him again. The fact that he was to be circumcised as one of the family of Abraham, certainly does not look as if he ceased to be regarded as a man.

“The word rendered buy or purchase in the Scriptures, is applied to so many kinds of purchases, that no safe argument can be founded on its use in regard to the kind of servitude which existed in the time of Abraham. A reference to a few cases where this word is used, will show that nothing is determined by it respecting the tenure by which the thing purchased was held. (1.) It is used in the common sense of the word purchase as applied to inanimate things, where the property would be absolute. Gen. xlii. 2, 7; xliii. 20; xlvii. 19; xxx. 19. (2.) It is applied to the purchase of cattle, where the property may be supposed to be as absolute. See Gen. xlvi. 22, 24; iv. 20; Job xxxvi. 33; Deut. iii. 19; and often, (3.) God is represented as having bought his people; that is, as having ransomed them with a price, or purchased them to himself. Deut. xxxii. 6: ‘Is he not thy Father that hath bought thee?’ קָּנֶךָ—kânĕkhâ, thy purchaser. Exod. xv. 16: ‘By the greatness of thine arm they shall be still as a stone, till thy people pass over; till the people pass over which thou hast purchased,’ קָנִיהָ,kânithâ. See Ps. lxxiv. 2. Compare Isa. xliii. 3: ‘I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee.’ But though the word purchase is used in relation to the redemption of the people of God, the very word which is used respecting the servants of Abraham, no one will maintain that they were held as slaves, or regarded as property. Who can tell but what Abraham purchased his servants in some such way, by redeeming them from galling captivity? May they not have been prisoners in war, to whom he did an inestimable service in rescuing them from a condition of grievous and hopeless bondage? May they not have been slaves in the strict and proper sense, and may not his act of purchasing them have been, in fact, a species of emancipation in a way similar to that in which God emancipates his people from the galling servitude of sin? The mere act of paying a price for them no more implies that he continued to hold them as slaves, than it does now when a man purchases his wife or child who have been held as slaves, or than the fact that God has redeemed his people by a price, implies that he regards them as slaves. (4.) Among the Hebrews a man might sell himself, and this transaction on the part of him to whom he sold himself would be represented by the word bought. Thus, in Lev. xxv. 47, 48: ‘And if a sojourner or a stranger wax rich by thee, and thy brother that dwelleth by him wax poor, and sell himself unto the stranger or sojourner by thee, or to the stock of the stranger’s family, after that he is sold, he may be redeemed again.’ This transaction is represented as a purchase. Ver. 50: ‘And he shall reckon with him that bought him, (Heb. his purchaser, קֹנֵהוּ konaihū), from the year that he was sold unto the year of jubilee,’ &c. This was a mere purchase of time or service. It gave no right to sell the man again, or to retain him in any event beyond a certain period, or to retain him at all, if his friends chose to interpose and redeem him. It gave no right of property in the man, any more than the purchase of the unexpired time of an apprentice, or the ‘purchase’ of the poor in the State of Connecticut does. In no proper sense of the word could this be called slavery. (5.) The word buy or purchase was sometimes applied to the manner in which a wife was procured. Thus Boaz is represented as saying that he had bought Ruth. ‘Moreover, Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased (קָנִיהִי kânithi) to be my wife.’ Here the word applied to the manner in which Abraham became possessed of his servants, is applied to the manner in which a wife was procured. So Hosea says, (ch. iii. 2,) ‘So I bought her to me (another word, however, being used in the Hebrew, כָּרָה kârâ) for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley.’ Jacob purchased his wives, Leah and Rachel, not indeed by the payment of money, but by labour. Gen. xxix. 15–23. That the practice of purchasing a wife, or paying a dowry for her, was common, is apparent from Exod. xxii. 17; 1 Sam. xviii. 25. Compare Judg. i. 12, 13. Yet it will not be maintained that the wife among the Hebrews, was in any proper sense a slave, or that she was regarded as subject to the laws which regulate property, or that the husband had a right to sell her again. In a large sense, indeed, she was regarded, as the conductors of the Princeton Repertory (1836, p. 293) allege, as the wife is now, as the property of her husband; that is, she was his to the exclusion of the claim of any other man; but she was his as his wife, not as his slave. (6.) The word ‘bought’ occurs in a transaction between Joseph and the people of Egypt in such a way as farther to explain its meaning. When, during the famine, the money of the Egyptians had failed, and Joseph had purchased all the land, the people proposed to become his servants. When the contract was closed, Joseph said to them, ‘Behold, I have bought you —קָנִ֨יהִי— and your land for Pharaoh.’ Gen. xlvii. 23. The nature of this contract is immediately specified. They were to be regarded as labouring for Pharaoh. The land belonged to him, and Joseph furnished the people seed, or ‘stocked the land,’ and they were to cultivate it on shares for Pharaoh. The fifth part was to be his, and the other four parts were to be theirs. There was a claim on them for labour, but it does not appear that the claim extended farther. No farmers who now work land on shares would be willing to have their condition described as one of slavery.

“The conclusion which we reach from this examination of the words buy and bought as applied to the case of Abraham is, that the use of the word determines nothing in regard to the tenure by which his servants were held. They may have been purchased from those who had taken them as captives in war, and the purchase may have been regarded by themselves as a species of redemption, or a most desirable rescue from the fate which usually attends such captives—perchance from death. The property which it was understood that he had in them may have been merely property in their time, and not in their persons; or the purchase may have amounted in fact to every thing that is desirable in emancipation; and, from any thing implied in the word, their subsequent service in the family of Abraham may have been entirely voluntary. It is a very material circumstance, also, that there is not the slightest evidence that either Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob ever sold a slave, or offered one for sale, or regarded them as liable to be sold. There is no evidence that their servants even descended as a part of an inheritance from father to son. So far, indeed, as the accounts in the Scriptures go, it would be impossible to prove that they would not have been at liberty at any time to leave their masters, if they had chosen to do so. The passage, therefore, which says that Abraham had ‘servants bought with money,’ cannot be adduced to justify slavery as it exists now—even if this were all that we know about it. But (4.) servitude in the days of Abraham must have existed in a very mild form, and have had features which slavery by no means has now. Almost the only transaction which is mentioned in regard to the servants of Abraham, is one which could never occur in the slave-holding parts of our country. A marauding expedition of petty kings came from the north and east, and laid waste the country around the vale of Siddim, near to which Abraham lived, and, among other spoils of battle, they carried away Lot and his possessions. Abraham, it is said, then ‘armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan,’ and rescued the family of Lot and his goods. Gen. xiv. This narrative is one that must for ever show that servitude, as it existed in the family of Abraham, was a very different thing from what it is in the United States. The number was large, and it does not appear that any persons but his servants accompanied Abraham. They all were armed. They were led off on a distant expedition, where there could have been no power in Abraham to preserve his life, if they had chosen to rise up against him, and no power to recover them, if they had chosen to set themselves free. Yet he felt himself entirely safe when accompanied with this band of armed men, and when far away from his family and his home. What must have been the nature of servitude, where the master was willing to arm such a company, to put himself entirely at their disposal, and lead them off to a distant land?

“Compare this with the condition of things in the United States. Here, it is regarded as essential to the security of the life of the master that slaves shall never be intrusted with arms. ‘A slave is not allowed to keep or carry a weapon.’[A] ‘He cannot go from the tenement of his master, or other person with whom he lives, without a pass, or something to show that he is proceeding by authority from his master, employer, or overseer.’[B] ‘For keeping or carrying a gun, or powder, or shot, or club, or other weapon whatsoever, offensive or defensive, a slave incurs, for each offence, thirty-nine lashes, by order of a justice of the peace;’[C] and in North Carolina and Tennessee, twenty lashes, by the nearest constable, without a conviction by the justice.[D] Here, there is every precaution from laws, and from the dread of the most fearful kind of punishment, against the escape of slaves. Here, there is a constant apprehension that they may rise against their masters, and every security is taken against their organization and combination. Here, there is probably not a single master who would, if he owned three hundred slaves, dare to put arms in their hands, and lead them off on an expedition against a foe. If the uniform precautions and care at the South against arming the slaves, or allowing them to become acquainted with their own strength, be any expression of the nature of the system, slavery in the United States is a very different thing from servitude in the time of Abraham; and it does not prove that in the species of servitude existing here it is right to refer to the case of Abraham, and to say that it is ‘a good patriarchal system.’ Let the cases be made parallel before the names of the patriarchs are called in to justify the system. But—

“(5.) What real support would it furnish to the system, even if it were true that the cases were wholly parallel? How far would it go to demonstrate that God regards it as a good system, and one that is to be perpetuated, in order that society may reach its highest possible elevation? Who would undertake to vindicate all the conduct of the patriarchs, or to maintain that all which they practised was in accordance with the will of God? They practised concubinage and polygamy. Is it therefore certain that this was the highest and purest state of society, and that it was a state which God designed should be perpetuated? Abraham and Isaac were guilty of falsehood and deception, (Gen. xx. 2, seq.; xxvi. 7;) Jacob secured the birthright by a collusive fraud between him and his mother, (Gen. xxvii.) and obtained no small part of his property by cunning, (Gen. xxx. 36–43,) and Noah was drunk with wine, (Gen. ix. 21;) and these things are recorded merely as facts, without any decided expression of disapprobation; but is it therefore to be inferred that they had the approbation of God, and that they are to be practised still, in order to secure the highest condition of society?

“Take the single case of polygamy. Admitting that the patriarchs held slaves, the argument in favour of polygamy, from their conduct, would be, in all its main features, the same as that which I suggested, in the commencement of this chapter, as employed in favour of slavery. The argument would be this:—That they were good men, the ‘friends of God,’ and that what such men practised freely cannot be wrong; that God permitted this; that he nowhere forbade it; that he did not record his disapprobation of the practice; and that whatever God permitted in such circumstances, without expressing his disapprobation, must be regarded as in itself a good thing, and as desirable to be perpetuated, in order that society may reach the highest point of elevation. It is perfectly clear that, so far as the conduct of the patriarchs goes, it would be just as easy to construct an argument in favour of polygamy as in favour of slavery—even on the supposition that slavery existed then essentially as it does now. But it is not probable that polygamy would be defended now as a good institution, and as one that has the approbation of God, even by those who defend the domestic institutions of the South.' The truth is, that the patriarchs were good men in their generation, and, considering their circumstances, were men eminent for piety. But they were imperfect men; they lived in the infancy of the world; they had comparatively little light on the subjects of morals and religion; and it is a very feeble argument which maintains that a thing is right, because any one or all of the patriarchs practised it.

“But after all, what real sanction did God ever give either to polygamy or to servitude, as it was practised in the time of the patriarchs? Did he command either? Did he ever express approbation of either? Is there an instance in which either is mentioned with a sentiment of approval? The mere record of actual occurrences, even if there is no declared disapprobation of them, proves nothing as to the Divine estimate of what is recorded. There is a record of the ‘sale’ of Joseph into servitude, first to the Ishmaelites, and then to Potiphar. There is no expression of disapprobation. There is no exclamation of surprise or astonishment, as if a deed of enormous wickedness were done, when brothers sold their own brother into hopeless captivity. This was done also by those who were subsequently reckoned among the ‘patriarchs,’ and some of whom at the time were probably pious men. Will it be inferred that God approved this transaction; that he meant to smile on the act, when brothers sell their own brothers into hopeless bondage? Will this record be adduced to justify kidnapping, or the acts of parents in barbarous lands, who, forgetful of all the laws of their nature, sell their own children? Will the record that the Ishmaelites took the youthful Joseph into a distant land, and sold him there as a slave, be referred to as furnishing evidence that God approves the conduct of those who kidnap the unoffending inhabitants of Africa, or buy them there, and carry them across the deep, to be sold into hopeless bondage! Why then should the fact that there is a record that the patriarchs held servants, or bought them, without any expressed disapprobation of the deed, be adduced as evidence that God regards slavery as a good institution, and intends that it shall be perpetuated under the influence of his religion, as conducing to the highest good of society? The truth is, that the mere record of a fact, even without any sentiment of approbation or disapprobation, is no evidence of the views of him who makes it. Are we to infer that Herodotus approved of all that he saw or heard of in his travels, and of which he made a record? Are we to suppose that Tacitus and Livy approved of all the deeds the memory of which they have transmitted for the instruction of future ages? Are we to maintain that Gibbon and Hume believed that all which they have recorded was adapted to promote the good of mankind? Shall the biographer of Nero, and Caligula, and Richard III., and Alexander VI., and Cæsar Borgia be held responsible for approving of all that these men did, or of commending their example to the imitation of mankind? Sad would be the office of an historian were he to be thus judged. Why then shall we infer that God approved of all that the patriarchs did, even when there is no formal approbation expressed; or infer, because such transactions have been recorded, that therefore they are right in his sight?”

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Footnote A:

Rev. Cod. Virg. vol. i. p. 453, sections 83, 84.

Footnote B:

Ibid. vol. i. p. 422, section 6. See Paulding on Slavery, p. 146.

Footnote C:

2 Litt. and Smi. 1150; 2 Missouri Laws, 741, section 4.

Footnote D:

Haywood’s Manual, 521; Stroud on the Laws relating to Slavery, p. 102.

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Does the mind hesitate as to the design of this laboured and lengthy argument? That its object is to do away, to destroy the scriptural force of the facts stated in these records? Does not this argument substantially deny that Abraham had slaves bought with money? And even if he did have them, then that it was just as wicked at that time as he thinks it to be now? Or, if he shall thus far fail, then to bring down the characters of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob to a level with Nero, Caligula, Richard III., and Cæsar Borgia? And the holy books themselves to the standard of Herodotus, Tacitus, and Livy; and inure our mind to compare them with the writings of Hume and Gibbon?

The writer who lessens our veneration for the characters of the ancient worshippers of Jehovah; who, as by a system of special pleading, attempts to overspread the simple announcements of the holy books with doubt and uncertainty, however conscientious he may be in these labours of his hand, while he assumes a most awful responsibility to God, must ever call down upon himself the universal and determined opposition of the intelligent and good among men.

The more secret, the more adroit the application of the poison, the more intensely wicked is the hand that presents it.

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LESSON VI.

Mr. Barnes has devoted twenty-four pages of his book to the slavery of the Hebrews in Egypt, wherein we find no instance that his test is applied with either fairness of deduction or logical accuracy. Indeed, so far as our limited capacity can trace his application to the test, he has made but two points:

I. After repeated judgments upon the Egyptians, for hesitating to set the Hebrews free, God, in his providence, effected their deliverance from slavery. Therefore, we are to infer the indignation of God against the institution of slavery. What were the facts of the case? On account of their sins rendering them unfit for the blessings promised their fathers, God imposed on them slavery four hundred years,—at the expiration of which time he delivered them from it. When a free negro becomes a public nuisance, the court will give judgment that he shall be sold to be a slave five years. The term having expired, if the purchaser holds on, and refuses to let him go, the same court will interfere, set him free, and impose heavy penalties on the master. Does the case show that the court feels indignation against the institution of slavery? We think it proves exactly the opposite!

If the four hundred years of slavery operated to fit the Hebrews for the reception of the blessing; if the five years of slavery re-fitted the negro for the rational enjoyment of liberty, we think the providence of God places the institution of slavery in a valuable point of light.

II. In this review of the slavery of the Israelites in Egypt, Mr. Barnes has noticed the fact of their rapid increase, to the extent of their becoming dangerous to the Egyptian government; and he has compared it with the more rapid increase of the slaves over the whites in the Slave States; and suggests a similar danger to the government of the United States,—adding, that such increase “can be arrested by nothing but emancipation.” Now all this may be true; but in what light does it show forth the institution of slavery? Does Mr. Barnes really mean to say, what is the fact, that the condition of slavery is so well adapted to the negro race, that, by it, their comforts, peace of mind, and general happiness are made so certain and well-secured to them, that they increase rapidly? And that, as they are a race of people whom we do not desire to bear rule over us, or become more numerous than they now are, it would be good policy, and he desires, to set them free, in order that they may be deprived of their present comforts, peace of mind, and happiness, with the view to lessen their increase, and waste them away? If such really be his view, we may regard it as an extraordinary instance of his Christian counsel, and form some idea of what he would be as a slave-holder. But the same increase of the slaves happened in Egypt in a different age, and in reference to a different class of men; nor could any exertion correct it. We may apply the test, and safely infer, THAT GOD SMILES ON THE INSTITUTION OF SLAVERY.

There is, in this chapter on the slavery of the Hebrews, an allusion made to the States of Ohio and Kentucky, (see page 102;) the one represented as “adorned with smiling villages, and cottages, and churches, and the aspect of neatness, thrift, and order;” and that the other wears “the aspect of ignorance, irreligion, neglect, and desolation;” and that the reason of the difference is, because “God smiles upon the free State, and frowns upon the one where slavery exists.”

We do not deem it necessary to question or even examine the correctness of the view of Kentucky, as presented to us by Mr. Barnes: so far as the argument is concerned, we will take it as established. If the institution of slavery is of Divine origin, or if we are to form a notion of the will of God respecting it from his providences affecting the institution, we must keep our eye upon the subject of slavery, not upon those otherwise conditioned. We must look to the slave in Kentucky, and compare his conditions there with his conditions in a state of freedom; and Mr. Barnes has furnished us with data, proving that in Kentucky the slaves are in a rapid state of propagation and increase.

Page 95, he says—“The whites were to the slaves—

In 1790. In 1840.

North Carolina, 2.80 to 1 1.97 to 1 South Carolina, 1.31 ” 1 79 ” 1 Georgia, 1.76 ” 1 1.44 ” 1 Tennessee, 13.35 ” 1 3.49 ” 1 Kentucky, 5.16 ” 1 3.23 ” 1

“From this it is apparent that, in spite of all the oppressions and cruelties of slavery, of all the sales that are effected, of all the removals to Liberia, and of all the removals by the escape of the slaves, there is a regular gain of the slave population over the free in the slave-holding States. No oppression prevents it here more than it did in Egypt, and there can be no doubt whatever that, unless slavery shall be arrested in some way, the increase is so certain that the period is not far distant when, in all the Slave States, the free whites will be far in the minority. At the first census, taken in 1790, in every Slave State there was a very large majority of whites. At the last census, in 1840, the slaves out-numbered the whites in South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The tendency of this, from causes which it would be easy to state, can be arrested by nothing but emancipation.”

But Mr. Barnes does not state what those causes are; and will he acknowledge that they really are what we have before stated? So far as these facts teach any thing, it is that God smiles on the institution of slavery. Let it be true, as Mr. Barnes says it is, that Ohio exhibits a state of prosperity, and Kentucky a state of “desolation,”—the legitimate deduction is, that those, having the direction and government of affairs in Ohio are wiser and more intelligent than those of the same class in Kentucky. We shall leave all further view of the matter to Mr. Barnes and the people of Kentucky.

The four hundred years of slavery in Egypt were not a sentence on the Hebrews for the especial benefit of the Egyptians, but for that of the Hebrews themselves. The court did not sentence the free negro, who had become a nuisance, to five years of slavery, for the especial benefit of the purchaser, but for the prospect of amelioration in the negro himself. The races of Ham were not made subject to slavery for the especial benefit of Shem and Japheth; but because, in such slavery, their condition would be more elevated, and better, than in a state of freedom. The slave-owner may be very wicked, and God may destroy him for his wickedness, and yet his merciful designs, by the institution of slavery, not be affected thereby. An eastern monarch, determined to destroy his minister, sent him a present of a thousand slaves and a hundred elephants. The minister dared not refuse the present; but not being able profitably to employ them, was ruined. But the condition of the slave and the elephant was not injured. The poor-house was not made for the especial benefit of its keeper, but for its subjects.

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LESSON VII.

The benefit of the slave-owner depends on a different principle, upon the wisdom, propriety, and prudence with which he governs and manages his slaves. If he neglect their morals, suffering them to become idle, runaways, dissolute, thieves, robbers, and committers of crime, he is made, to some extent, responsible; or if he neglect to supply suitable clothing, food, and medicine, attention in sickness, and all other necessary protection, he is liable to great loss; his profit may be greatly diminished; or, if he abuse his slave with untoward cruelty, he may render him less fit for labour,—may destroy him altogether; or the law may set in, and compel the slave to be sold to a less cruel master. The interest of the master has become protection to the slave; and this principle holds good in all countries, in all ages, and among all men. But it is yet said, that there are men who most outrageously abuse, and sometimes kill their slaves. Very true and because some men do the same to their wives, is it any argument against marriage? It proves that there are men who are not fit to be slave-owners. And what is the providence of God, as generally manifested, in these cases? That such husband does not enjoy the full blessing designed by the institution of marriage; or such marriage is, in some way, shortly set aside. That such slave-owner does not enjoy the full benefit a different course would insure to him; or, in some way, he is made to cease being a slave-owner. Such instances are most direct and powerful manifestations against the abuses,—not of the institution itself.

But God has not left his displeasure of the abuses of slavery to be found out by our poor, dim, mortal eyes; by our weak view of his manifestations. He made direct laws on the subject.

“But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant (עַבְדְּךָ abeddeka, male slave,) nor thy maid-servant (וַֽאֲמָֽתֶךָ va amatheka, nor thy female slave), nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates.” Exod. xx. 10.

“But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God; in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant (וְעַבְדְּךָׄ ve abeddeka, male slave), nor thy maid-servant (וַֽאֲמָחֶךָ va amatheka, female slave), nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; that thy man-servant (עַבְדְּךָ abeddeka, male slave) and thy maid-servant (וַֽאֲמָֽתֶךָ va amatheka, female slave) may rest as well as thou.” Deut. v. 14.

But we find laws correcting abuses of quite a different nature; abuses that grow out of the perverse nature of man towards his fellow-man of equal grade, touching their mutual rights in property:

“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his man-servant (וְעַבְדּ֤וֹ ve abeddo, male slave), nor his maid-servant (וַֽאֲמָתוֹ va amatho, female slave), nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.” Exod. xx. 17.

“Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbour’s wife, neither shalt thou covet thy neighbour’s house, his field, or his man-servant (וְעַבְדּ֤וֹ ve abeddo, male slave), or his maid-servant: (וַאֲמָתוֹ va amatho, female slave), his ox, or his ass, or any thing that is thy neighbour’s.” Deut. v. 21—the 18th of the Hebrew text.

It does appear to us that these statutes speak volumes—portraying the providences of God, and his design in regard to the institutions of slavery. The word covet, as here used, as well as its original, implies that action of the mind which reaches to the possession of the thing ourselves, and to the depriving of our neighbour, without a glimpse at the idea of payment, reciprocity, or compromise; consequently, it is the exact action of mind, which, when cultivated into physical display, makes a man a thief. The command forbids that the mind shall be thus exercised, for the command only reaches to the exercise of the mind; an exercise, which, from the very nature of it, must for ever draw us deeper into crime. It is a command that well comes to us from Jehovah direct, because it is a command that man could never enforce: the individual, and Jehovah alone, can only and surely tell when it is broken. But it may be broken in various ways; it may be broken by writing books persuading others that it is no crime, that it is even praiseworthy, by any other course of conduct, to weaken the tenure of the proprietor in the property named.

“But fools do sometimes fearless tread, Where angels dare not even look!”

We hold the doctrine good that, whenever we find that the providence of God frowns upon the abuse of a thing, such abuse is contrary to his law. So, also, the doctrine is indisputably true that all laws, all providences against the abuse of a thing, necessarily become laws and providences for the protection of the thing itself; consequently, it always follows that they contemplate protection.

Mr. Barnes compares the slavery of the Hebrews in Egypt to the condition of slavery in the United States, and complains of the harsh treatment of the slaves in the latter country. See p. 92:

“Preventing the slaves from being taught to read and write; prohibiting, as far as possible, all knowledge among themselves of their own numbers and strength; forbidding all assemblages, even for worship, where there might be danger of their becoming acquainted with their own strength, and of forming plans for freedom; enacting laws of excessive severity against those who run away from their masters; appointing severe and disgraceful punishments, either with or without the process of law, for those who are suspected of a design to inform the slaves that they are men and that they have the rights of human beings; and solemnly prohibiting the use of arms among the slaves, designed to prevent their rising upon their masters, or ‘joining themselves to an enemy to fight against their masters,’ and ‘getting up out of the land.’”

We did suppose from this passage that Mr. Barnes might desire us to lie down, and let the slaves kill or make slaves of us. But he has presented us with his cure for all these wrongs on pages 383, 384. He says—

“Now here, I am persuaded, is a wise model for all other denominations of Christian men, and the true idea of all successful efforts for the removal of this great evil from the land. Let all the evangelical denominations but follow the simple example of the Quakers in this country, and slavery would soon come to an end. There is not power of numbers and influence out of the church to sustain it. Let every denomination in the land detach itself from all connection with slavery, without saying a word against others; let the time come when, in all the mighty denominations of Christians, it can be assured that the evil has ceased with them FOR EVER; and let the voice, from each denomination, be lifted up in kind, but firm and solemn, testimony against the system; with no ‘mealy’ words; with no attempt at apology; with no wish to blink it; with no effort to throw the sacred shield of religion over so great an evil; and the work is done. There is no public sentiment in this land, there could be none created, that would resist the power of such testimony. There is no power out of the church that could sustain slavery an hour, if it were not sustained in it. Not a blow need be struck. Not an unkind word need be uttered. No man’s motive need be impugned. No man’s proper rights invaded. All that is needful is for each Christian man, and every Christian church, to stand up in the sacred majesty of such a solemn testimony; to free themselves from all connection with the evil, and utter a calm and deliberate voice to the world; and THE WORK WILL BE DONE!”

This looks very much like converting the church into an instrument of political power. We might indulge in severe remarks. We might quote some very cogent and rebuking passages of Scripture; but, since we believe that where the spirit of Christ is, he will be there also, we do not deem it necessary.

From the very considerable labour evidently bestowed in the preparation of the test, apparently to be applied in his reasoning on this subject, a feeling of disappointment rests upon the mind when we discover how little use Mr. Barnes has made of it.

We have given a view of Mr. Barnes’s peroration; his complaints; the wrongs that excite his sympathy; and his final conclusion of the whole matter. We have attempted to reason by the same rule he has adopted, and, so far as he has chosen to apply it, leave it to others to judge whether it is not most fatal to the cause he advocates.

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LESSON VIII.

We are told that book-making, among some, has become a trade. That some men write books to order, to suit the market; that there is no knowing what may be an author’s principles, or whether he has any at all, by what may be in his book.

The principal object of such a writer must be his money—his pay: if in great haste to get it in possession, he may be expected sometimes to be careless; and unless very talented and experienced in the subject on which he writes, to record contradictions.

Page 83, Mr. Barnes says—“The Hebrews were not essentially distinguished from the Egyptians, as the Africans are from their masters in this land, by colour.” But he continues, pages 86 and 87—“They (the Hebrews) were a foreign race, as the African race is with us. They were not Egyptians, any more than the nations of Congo are Americans. They were not of the children of Ham. They were of another family; they differed from the Egyptians, by whom they were held in bondage, as certainly as the African does from the Caucasian or the Malay divisions of the great family of man.”

In page 228, on another subject, he says—“If, therefore, it be true that slavery did not prevail in Judea; that there is no evidence that the Hebrews engaged in the traffic, and that the prophets felt themselves at liberty to denounce the system as contrary to the spirit of the Mosaic institutions, these FACTS will furnish an important explanation of some things in regard to the subject in the New Testament, and will prepare us to enter on the inquiry how it was regarded by the Saviour; for if slavery did not exist in Palestine in his time: if he never came in contact with it, it will not be fair to infer that he was not opposed to it, because he did not often refer to it, and expressly denounce it.”

This is in strict conformity with the following:

Page 242. “There is no conclusive evidence that he ever came in contact with slavery at all. * * * There is no proof which I have seen referred to from any contemporary writer, that it existed in Judea in his time at all; and there is no evidence from the New Testament that he ever came in contact with it.”

Also, page 244. “There is not the slightest proof that the Saviour ever came in contact with slavery at all, either in public or in private life.”

Also, page 249. “We have seen above, that there is no evidence that when the Saviour appeared, slavery in any form existed in Judea, and consequently there is no proof that he ever encountered it.”

Permit us to compare these statements with Matt. viii. 5–14:

“And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, (verse 6,) and saying, Lord, my servant, &c. (Verse 9,) For I am a man of authority, having soldiers under me; and I say to this man go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh, and to my SERVANT (δουλῳ, slave), Do this, and he doeth it,” &c.

Also, Luke vii. 2–10. “And a certain centurion’s servant (δοῦλος, slave) was sick,” &c. * * * “beseeching him that he would come and heal his servant (δοῦλον, slave.)” (Verse 10,) “And they that were sent, returning to the house, found the servant (δοῦλον, slave) whole that had been sick.”

So also, Luke xix. 12–16. (Verse 13,) “And he called his ten servants (δοῦλους, slaves),” &c. Also John viii. 33–36: “And they answered him, we be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage (δεδουλεύκαμεν, in slavery) to any man; how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?” (Verse 34,) “Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, whoever committeth sin is the servant (δοῦλος, slave) of sin.” (Verse 35,) “And the servant (δοῦλος, slave) abideth not in the house for ever, but the Son abideth ever. If the Son therefore make you free, you shall be free indeed.”

Permit us also to compare them with the following, Mr. Barnes’s own statements. See page 250: “All that the argument does require, whatever conclusion we may reach as to the manner in which the apostles treated the subject, is, the admission of the fact, that slavery everywhere abounded; that it existed in forms of great severity and cruelty; that it involved all the essential claims that are now made by masters to the services or persons of slaves; that it was protected by civil laws; that the master had the right of transferring his slaves by sale, donation, or testament; that in general he had every right which was supposed to be necessary to perpetuate the system; and that it was impossible that the early preachers of Christianity should not encounter this system, and be constrained to adopt principles in regard to the proper treatment of it.”

And, again, page 251: “It is fair that the advocates of the system should have all the advantage which can be derived from the fact, that the apostles found it in its most odious forms, and in such circumstances as to make it proper that they should regard, and treat it as an evil, if Christianity regards it as such at all.”

And, again, pages 259, 260: “I am persuaded that nothing can be gained to the cause of anti-slavery by attempting to deny that the apostles found slavery in existence in the regions where they founded churches, and that those sustaining the relation of master and slave were admitted to the churches, if they gave real evidence of regeneration, and were regarded by the apostles as entitled to the common participation of the privileges of Christianity.”

But there are other errors in this “Scriptural View of Slavery,” page 245:

“He (the Saviour) never uttered a word in favour of slavery, * * * not even a hint can be found, in all he said, on which a man * * * who meant to keep one already in his possession, could rely to sustain his course.”

We ask that this assertion of Mr. Barnes shall be compared with Luke xvii. 7–11:

“But which of you having a servant (δοῦλον, slave) ploughing, or feeding cattle, will say unto him, by and by, when he has come from the field, Go, sit down to meat? And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken, and afterward thou shalt eat and drink? Doth he thank that servant (δούλῳ, slave) because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not.” “So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants; we have done that which was our duty to do.”

And, again, Mr. Barnes says: “The nations of Palestine were devoted to destruction, not to servitude.” See page 118.

Compare this with the following, from page 156: “There were particular reasons operating for subjecting the nations around Palestine to servitude, which do not exist now. They were doomed to servitude for sins.”

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LESSON IX.

Deut. xxiii. 9. “When the host goeth forth against thine enemies, then keep thee from every wicked thing”—directions what to do, or what not to do, in time of war, being continued, the 15th and 16th verses read thus:

“Thou shalt not deliver up to his master the servant (slave) which is escaped unto thee.” * * * “He shall dwell with thee, even among you in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates where it liketh him best; thou shalt not oppress him.”

This passage is quoted by Mr. Barnes, upon which he says, page 140—

“I am willing to admit that the command probably relates only to the slaves which escaped to the country of the Hebrews from surrounding nations; and that in form it did not contemplate the runaway slaves of the Hebrews in their own land.”

Pray, then, for what purpose does he speak as follows?

“A seventh essential and fundamental feature of the Hebrew slavery was, that the runaway slave was not to be restored to his master; on this point the law was absolute.”

And to sustain this assertion, he quotes this same passage from Deuteronomy, and, commenting thereon, says, pages 140, 141—“This solemn and fundamental enactment would involve the following results or effects. (1.) No laws could ever be enacted in the Hebrew commonwealth by which a runaway slave could be restored to his master. No revolution of the government, and no change of policy, could ever modify this principle of the constitution. (2.) No magistrate could on any pretence deliver up a runaway slave.”

Then, again, page 190:

“Slaves of the United States are to be restored to their masters, if they endeavour to escape. We find among the fundamental principles of the Mosaic laws a provision that the slave was never to be restored, if he attempted to do thus. He was to find in the land of Judea an asylum. The power and authority of the commonwealth were pledged for his protection.”

And yet, again, page 226:

“As one of the results of this inquiry, it is apparent that the Hebrews were not a nation of slaveholders.”

We present these passages to shows Mr. Barnes’s mode of argument. But let us examine, for a moment, the indications of the holy books on the subject of runaway slaves. When David had protected the flocks of Nabal, upon the mountains of Carmel, on a holiday, he sent his young men, to ask a present, as some compensation for the same.

“And Nabal answered David’s servants, and said, Who is David? and who is the son of Jesse? There be many servants ( abadim, slaves) nowadays that break away every man from his master. Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it unto men, whom I know not whence they be?” 1 Sam. xxv. 10, 11.

We think the indications are that for slaves to run away was a common occurrence, and that it was immoral to give them countenance or protection and Nabal, pretending that David might be one of that class, excused himself from bestowing the present on that account.

“And it came to pass at the end of three years, that two of the servants (עֲבָדִים abadim, slaves) of Shemei ran away unto Achish, son of Maachah king of Gath; and they told Shemei, saying, Behold thy servants (עֲבָדֶיךָ, abadeka, slaves) be in Gath. And Shemei arose and saddled his ass, and went to Gath to Achish to seek his servants (עֲבָדָ֑יו abadav, slaves); and Shemei went and brought his servants (עבָדָיו abadav, slaves) from Gath.” 1 Kings, ii. 39, 40.

If it can be said that Jehovah has views and wishes, then it may he said, that the views and wishes of Jehovah on the subject of runaway slaves must, at all times, be the same. “In him there is no variableness, nor shadow of turning.”

“And she had a hand-maid (שִׁפְחַה shiphehah, female slave), an Egyptian (מִצְרִית mitserith, Egyptian, a descendant of Misraim, the second son of Ham), whose name was Hagar.” Gen. xvi. 1.

Upon a feud between her and her mistress, her mistress dealt hardly by her, and she ran away: “And the angel of the Lord found her by a fountain of water in the wilderness, by the fountain in the way to Shur.” (8th verse,) “And he said, Hagar, Sarai’s maid, whence comest thou? and whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai.” (The angel did not say to her, “Here is a shilling; get into Canada as soon as possible!”) “And the angel of the Lord said unto her, Return to thy mistress and submit thyself under her hands.” Gen. xvi. 7–9.

On page 117, Mr. Barnes says—

“In the laws of Moses, there is but one way mentioned by which a foreigner could be made a slave; that is, by purchase. Lev. xxv. 44. And it is remarkable that the Hebrews were not permitted to make slaves of the captives taken in war.”

Let us compare this assertion, made by Mr. Barnes, with the 31st of Numbers:

“And the Lord spake unto Moses saying, Avenge the children of Israel of the Midianites. * * * (Verse 9,) And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones. * * * (Verse 11,) And they took all the spoils and all the prey, both of men and of beasts. (Verse 12,) And they brought the captives and the prey unto Moses and Eleazar the priest. * * * (Verse 25,) And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Take the sum of the prey that was taken, both of man and beast. * * * (Verse 27,) And divide the prey into two parts, between them that took the war upon them, who went out to battle, and between all the congregation. * * * (Verse 28,) And levy a tribute unto the Lord of the men of war which went out to battle, one soul of five hundred, both of the persons and of the beeves. * * * (Verse 30,) And of the children of Israel’s half, thou shalt take one portion of fifty of the persons, &c. * * * (Verse 32,) And the booty, being the rest of the prey, which the men of war had, was * * * sheep. (Verse 35,) And thirty-two thousand persons in all. * * * (Verse 36,) And the half which was the portion of them that went out to war, was, &c. * * * sheep, &c. (Verse 40,) “And the persons were sixteen thousand, of which the Lord’s tribute was thirty and two persons. (Verse 42) And the children of Israel’s half which Moses divided from the men that warred * * * was, &c. * * * sheep, &c. * * * (Verse 46,) and sixteen thousand persons. (Verse 47,) Even of the children of Israel’s half, Moses took one portion of fifty, both of man and of beast, and gave them unto the Levites which kept the charge of the tabernacle of the Lord, as the Lord commanded Moses.”

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LESSON X.

In ancient times, all persons conquered in battle were liable to be put to death by the national laws then existing. If the conqueror suffered the captive to escape death, imposing on him only the cutting off his thumbs, hands, or ears; or, without these personal deformations, subjecting him to slavery, as was often the case, especially when the captive was of low grade,—it was ever regarded as an act of mercy in the conqueror.

In the 17th verse of the thirty-first chapter of Numbers, Moses commanded that “every male among the little ones, and every woman who had known a man,” should be killed, even after they had been taken to the Israelitish camp; and that none should be reserved for slaves, except female children, of whom, it appears, there were thirty-two thousand. The booty taken in this war, was distributed by Moses, in conformity to the especial direction of God himself, as follows:—(Verse 25,) “And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, (verse 26,) Take the sum of the prey that was taken, both of man and of beast, thou, and Eleazar the priest, and the chief fathers of the congregation, (verse 28,) and levy a tribute unto the Lord of the men of war which went out to battle: one soul of five hundred, both of the PERSONS, and of the beeves, and of the asses, and of the sheep: (verse 29,) Take it of their half, and give it unto Eleazar the priest, for a heave-offering of the Lord. (Verse 30,) And of the children of Israel’s half, thou shalt take one portion of fifty of the PERSONS, of the beeves, of the asses, and of the flocks, of all manner of beasts, and give them to the Levites which keep the charge of the tabernacle of the Lord. (Verse 31,) And Moses and Eleazar did as the Lord commanded Moses.”

Houbigant, in his commentary upon this chapter, has given us the following

Table of the distribution of the booty of this war:

Sheep 675,000 { To the Soldiers 337,500 To the Lord 675 { ” People 337,500 ” Levites 6,750 Beeves 72,000 { ” Soldiers 36,000 ” Lord 72 { ” People 36,000 ” Levites 720 Asses 61,000 { ” Soldiers 30,500 ” Lord 61 { ” People 30,500 ” Levites 610 Persons 32,000 { ” Soldiers 16,000 ” Lord 32 { ” People 16,000 ” Levites 320

This table has been adopted by Dr. Adam Clark in his Commentary, to which he adds—

“In this table the booty is equally divided between the people and the soldiers; a five-hundredth part being given to the Lord, and a fiftieth part to the Levites.” And this learned divine, in his commentary on the 28th verse, says—“And levy a tribute unto the Lord, one soul of five hundred, &c. * * * The persons to be employed in the Lord’s service, under the Levites: the cattle either for sacrifice or for the use of the Levites. (Verse 30.) Some monsters have supposed that one out of every five hundred of the captives was offered in sacrifice to the Lord! But this is abominable. When God chose to have the life of a man, he took it in the way of justice, as in the case of the Midianites above; but never in the way of sacrifice.”

In the 29th verse, we learn that the Lord’s portion was to be given to Eleazar the priest, “for a heave-offering of the Lord.” The word heave-offering is rendered from the word תְּר֥ווּמַ֖ת terūmath, from the root רוּם rūm, which means a lifting up, exalting, elevation of rank, while the form here used means a gift, a contribution, associated with the idea of being lifted up, exalted, elevated to a higher condition. Hence, when the priest presented a heave-offering, he moved his censer upwards, in a perpendicular line, with the view to intimate the elevating tendency resulting from the relation of the person offering, the thing offered, and the one to whom it is offered; whereas, in a wave-offering, he moved his censer in a horizontal line, intimating a relation of steadfastness and unchangeability. Because the cross is represented by perpendicular and horizontal lines, some early commentators have imagined that the heave and wave-offerings were typical of the cross of Christ. The word “heave,” as here used, is purely Saxon; heafan, to lift, to raise, to move upward. We may well say to heave up; but it is bad Saxon to say heave down. From this same Saxon word comes our word heaven, on account of the notion of its lofty location, and the elevating influence of the acts of him who shall reach it; each act which makes us nearer heaven may not inappropriately be considered a heave-offering to the Lord. The corollary is, that if God had regarded the making these children slaves a sin,—since sin always deteriorates and degrades, the reverse of elevation or lifting up,—he never could have ordered any of them to be given to him as a heave-offering.

We trust to establish the point that the enslavement of such people as we find the African hordes now to be, to those who have a more correct knowledge of God and his laws,—of those most wicked Midianites, to those to whom God had most especially revealed himself,—must, so long as the laws of God operate, have an elevating influence upon those so enslaved. Thus we shall perceive that the Hebrew word translated into our old Saxon heave-offering was the most appropriate, and significant of the facts of the case, that could be expressed by language.

Our received version of this chapter, which is a good translation of the original, contains no word by which we directly express the idea of slavery: so is it in the original. But we trust the readers of either will not be found so awry as not to perceive that the idea and facts are as fully and substantially developed as though those terms were used in each.

In the most of languages, an idea, and facts in relation to it, may be and are often expressed without the use of the name of the idea, and sometimes of the facts. The Greek is well deemed a most particular and definite language. In Thucydides, liber vii. caput 87, this sentence occurs: ἔπειτα πλην Αθὴναιῶν, καὶ εἴτινες Σικελιωτῶν ἤ Ἰταλιωτῶν ξυνεστρατευσαν, τοὺς ἄλλους ἀπέδοντο. Here, there is no word expressing the idea of slavery. Literally, it is: “Then, except the Athenians, and some of the Sicilians or Italians, who had engaged in the war, all others were sold.” Yet Dr. Smith, the rector of Holy Trinity Church, in Chester, England, who lived at an age beyond the reach of prejudice or argument on the subject of slavery, (he was born in 1711,) has correctly translated the passage thus: “But, after this term, all but the Athenians, and such of the Sicilians and Italians as had joined with them in the invasion, were sold out for slaves.” Smith’s Thucyd. p. 285.

And permit us further to inquire how the assertion of Mr. Barnes, page 117, that, “in the laws of Moses there is but one way mentioned by which a foreigner could be made a slave; that is, by purchase, Lev. xxv. 44; and it is remarkable that the Hebrews were not permitted to make slaves of the captives taken in the war”—will compare with Deut. xx. 10–16:

“And when thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it.” * * * “And it shall be, if it make answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be, that all the people that is found therein, shall be tributaries unto thee, and shall serve thee” (וַֽעֲבָדֽוּךָ va abaduka, shall be slaves to thee). “And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it.” “And when the hand of thy God hath delivered it into thy hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword.” “But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is within the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee.” “Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of those nations.”

It is evident that the captives here allowed to be made were to be slaves, from what follows on the same subject, in the same book, xxi. 10–15: When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the Lord thy God hath delivered them into thy hands, and thou hast taken them captive, and seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldst have her to thy wife: then thou shalt bring her home to thy house, and she shall shave her head and pare her nails: and she shall put the raiment of her captivity from off her, and shall remain in thy house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that, thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife. And it shall be, if thou have no delight in her, then thou shalt let her go whither she will; but thou shalt not sell her at all for money: thou shalt not make merchandise of her, because thou hast humbled her.”

Thus the fact is proved, that if he had not thus made her his wife, she would have been his slave and an article of merchandise.

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LESSON XI.

In the introductory part of Mr. Barnes’s book, he makes some remarks in the nature of an apology for his undertaking to examine the subject of slavery. Page 20, he says—

“Belonging to the same race with those who are held in bondage. We have a right, nay, we are bound to express the sympathies of brotherhood, and ‘to remember those who are in bonds as bound with them.’”

We were not aware of any fact relating to Mr. Barnes’s descent; nor did we before know from what race he was descended.

We were truly much surprised at this avowal, and endeavoured to imagine that he had used the word in some general and indefinite sense, as some do when they say animal race, and human race. But on examining his use of the word, page 20: “How is a foreign race, with so different a complexion, and in reference to which, so deep-seated prejudices and aversions exist, in every part of the land, to be disposed of if they become free?”—and page 27: “And the struggles which gave liberty to millions of the Anglo-saxon race did not loosen one rivet from the fetter of an African;” page 83: “The Hebrews were not essentially distinguished from the Egyptians, as the Africans are from their masters in this land, by colour;” and page 86: “They were a foreign race, as the African race is with us;” and page 96: “There are in the United States now, according to the census of 1840, 2,486,465 of a foreign race held in bondage;” and page 97: “It would have been as just for the Egyptians to retain the Hebrews in bondage as it is for white Americans to retain the African race;”—we were forced to conclude that the author understood his language and its meaning.

Such, then, being the fact, we cannot find it in our heart to blame him for “expressing the sympathies of brotherhood.” But we feel disposed with kindness to relieve his mind from the burthen of such portion of sympathy for those of his race who are in slavery, as he may conceive to be a duty imposed by the injunction, “Remember those who are in bond, as bound with them.” We will quote the passage, Heb. xiii. 3: “Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them.” It is translated from the Greek— Μιμνήσκεσθε τῶν δεσμίων ὡς συνδεδεμένοι, Mimnēsicĕsthe tōn dĕsmiōn hōs sundĕdĕmĕnoi. The words translated “bonds,” “bound with,” &c. are derived from the root δέω, deo, and signifies to bind, to bring together, to chain, to fetter, to hinder, to restrain, &c., which meaning falls into all its derivations. When one was accused of some offence, and was, on that account, restrained, so that he might be surely had at a trial for the same, such restraint would be expressed, as the case required, by some of its derivations. Hence we have δέσις, dĕsis, the act of binding; δέσμα, desma, a bond, a chain; δέσμιος, desmios, chained, fettered, imprisoned, &c.; δεσμός, desmos, a bond, chain, knots, cords, cables; δεσμόω, desmŏō, to enchain, to imprison; δεσμοφύλαξ, desmophulax, a jailer, &c.

The word is used, differently varied, in Matt. xvi. 19; xviii. 18; Acts viii. 23; xx. 23; xxiii. 21; xxvi. 29; Rom. vii. 2; 1 Cor. vii. 39; Eph. iv. 3; Philip. i. 16; Col. iv. 18; 2 Tim. ii. 9; Philem. 10; Heb. x. 34; xi. 36; and never used, in any sense whatever, to express any condition of slavery. St. Paul was under the restraint of the law upon a charge of heresy. All the Christians of his day were very liable to like danger. His only meaning was that all such should be remembered, as though they themselves were suffering a like misfortune. Suppose he had expressed the idea more diffusely and said, “Remember all Christians who, for teaching Christ crucified, are persecuted on the charge of teaching a false religion, as though you yourselves were persecuted with them.”

Such was the fact. Surely no one, by any course of rational deduction, could construe it into an injunction to remember or do any thing else, in regard to slavery or its subjects, unless upon the condition that the slave was, by some means, under restraint upon a similar charge. St. Paul was never married; cannot be said to have looked with very ardent eyes upon the institution of marriage; by many is thought to have been unfavourably disposed towards it. We have among us, to this day, some who pretend that they think it a great evil, are its bitter enemies, and give evidence that, if in their power, they would totally abolish it. Suppose such a man should say that, because he belonged to the same race with those who were bound in the bonds of wedlock, it was his privilege to express the sympathies of brotherhood, and expostulate against that evil institution; nay, that he was enjoined by St. Paul to do so, in this passage, “Remember those who are in bonds, as bound with them,”—what would be the value of this appeal to St. Paul? But the very word he uses, in the passage quoted, is also used, almost invariably, in the gospels, to express the restraint imposed by matrimony; yet it is never used to express any condition, or quality, or station, in regard to slavery.

The naked, unadorned proposition presented by Dr. Barnes is, that, because St. Paul enjoined the Hebrew Christians to sympathize with, to remember all those who were labouring under persecution on the account of their faith in Christ, they were also bound to remember, to sympathize with the slaves, on the account of their being in slavery, as though they were slaves themselves. We feel that such argument must ever be abortive.

From the delicacy of Dr. Barnes’s situation, as “belonging to the same race with those held in bondage,” we feel it a duty to treat the position with great forbearance. Had it come from one of the more favoured race of Shem, or the still more lofty race of Japheth, we should have felt it an equal duty to have animadverted with some severity.

It would have appeared like a design to impose on those ignorant of the original; and might have put us in mind of the cunning huckster, with his basket of addled eggs,—although unexpectedly broken in the act of their delivery to the hungry traveller; yet the incident was remembered by the recorder of propriety.

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LESSON XII.

Antioch is said to have been the birthplace of St. Margaret,—of which there are many legends, to one of which we allude. It brings to mind some early views of Christianity; besides, at her time, a large portion of the population of Antioch were slaves, and are alluded to in the legend.

She was the daughter of the priest of Apollo, and was herself a priestess to the same god. She is said to have lived in the time and under the authority of the Præfect Olybius, who became devoted to her mental and personal accomplishments and very great beauty. He is said to have sought her in marriage, and, after great labour and exertion, to have brought about such a state of affairs as to insure her approval and consent. But, although thus the affianced bride of Olybius, by some means she had held intercommunion with the private teachers of Christianity, and was converted to its faith; a fact known only to her and them.

Upon such a state of things, arrives from Probus, Rome’s imperial lord, Vopiscus, charged to admonish the præfect how fame bore tidings of the frequent apostasy from the true religion of the gods, and the increase of the unholy faith of the Galileans at Antioch; and that the laws were made to be executed upon the godless, whose wicked and incestuous rites offend the thousand deities of Rome.

Olybius well knows that the least faltering on his part would probably be followed by his being shown the mandate for Vopiscus to supersede him in the government; for which he determines to not give him the least pretence: hence he orders the immediate arrest of all suspected; convenes his council in the halls of justice, and announces thus his views:

“Hear me, ye priests on earth, ye gods in heaven! By Vesta, and her virgin-guarded fires; By Mars, the sire and guardian god of Rome; By Antioch’s bright Apollo; by the throne Of him whose thunder shakes the vaulted skies; And that dread oath I add, that binds the immortals, The unblessed waters of Tartarean Styx; Last, by the avenger of despised vows, The inevitable, serpent-haired Eumenides, Olybius swears, thus mounting on the throne Of justice, to exhaust heaven’s wrath on all That have cast off their fathers’ gods for rites New and unholy. From my heart, I blot Partial affection and the love of kindred; Even if my father’s blood flowed in their veins, I would obey the emperor and the gods!”

MILLMAN.

* * * The prisoners are ushered in, heard, and ordered to death; among whom a female veiled, as if Phœbus-chosen!

“What! dare they rend our dedicated maids, Even from our altars? Haste! withdraw the veil, In which her guilty face is shrouded close. Ha! their magic mocks my sight! I seem to see What cannot be——Margarita! Answer, if thou art she!”

His mind was agonized at the thoughts of her position: silently, to himself, he says—

“————————This pale and false Vopiscus Hath from great Probus wrung his easy mandate; Him Asia owns her præfect, if Olybius Obey not this fell edict.” * * *

Much art and great argument were privately used to produce her recantation; to which she calmly answers—

—————————“Who disown their Lord On earth, will He disown in heaven!”

* * * Sent to the arena; the torture and execution of the prisoners proceed, according to the order of their arraignment. The populace become enraged, and loudly demand the blood of the apostate priestess; while the præfect, in his palace, digests a plan to surely save her life. The high-priest of Apollo, her father, in his robes of office and with his official attendants, must boldly enter the arena, and offer pardon, in the name of his god, to any one who utters the cabalistic word signifying “I RECANT;” must hastily apply to each in person; at Margarita, one instructed must imitate her voice; instantly the priest is to throw the mantle of the god upon her; and the attendants, by force, to carry her to the palace of Olybius, where, instead of her execution, her marriage with Olybius is to take place.

The procession of priests (of whom none but her father, and her sister in disguise as a proxy for the act of recantation, knew the secret) are urged instantly to action: “For,” says Olybius, “my very soul is famished in every moment of delay!”

The procession moves in all pomp and splendour, with a view to produce an alterative effect on the mind of the maddened populace. Its approach to the arena is proclaimed by a sentinel there; on hearing which, Margarita falls at the feet of the headsman, and successfully implores instant death, that her father may be spared the misery of witnessing it. She breathes a prayer in forgiveness of Olybius, and receives the stroke of death as the procession enters. The father rages, demands torture to make the Christians say how they enthralled her: a Christian teacher explains, as with “a still, small voice;” the priests of Apollo listen!

Rage and excitement had reached the utmost bound. There was a pause, as the recess between two raging storms. The stillness reached even the palace, and reason did feel as if

“There was darkness over all the land. Olybius, then:— What means this deathlike stillness? Not a sound Or murmur, from yon countless multitudes; A pale, contagious horror seems to creep Even to our palace. Men gaze mutely round, As in their neighbour’s face to read a secret They dare not speak themselves: Even thus, along his vast domains of silence, Dark Pluto gazes, when the sullen spirits Speak only with fixed look and voiceless motion. 'Tis misery! Speak; Olybius orders; speak to me, Nor let mine own voice, like an evil omen, Load this hot air unanswered.”

A messenger announces the death of Margarita; Olybius rushes to kill him; but, recovering self-command—

——————————“Oh, I’m sick Of this accursed pomp: I will not use Its privilege of revenge. Fatal trappings Of proud authority! That * * * * * * * * shine and burn into the very entrails! Supremacy!! the great prerogative Of being blasted by superior misery!”

A second messenger announces that

“The enchantress Margarita, by her death, Hath wrought upon the changeful populace. That they cry loudly on the Christian’s God: Emboldened multitudes, from every quarter, Throng forth, and in the face of day proclaim Their lawless faith. They have taken up the body, And hither, as in proud ovation, bear it, With clamour and with song. All Antioch crowds Applauding round them.”

We are favoured only with the song of the slaves, who, upon that holiday, intermingled in the throng about the palace of Olybius, to which the body of Margarita has been borne; by which we may perceive how Christianity has elevated them above thoughts of their condition:

SONG OF THE SLAVES.

Sing to the Lord! Oh, let us shout his praise! More lofty pæans let our masters raise. Midst clouds of golden light, a pathway clear, With soaring soul, these martyred saints have trod To Him, the only true Almighty God! Earth’s tumults wild and pagan darkness drear, To bonds of peace and songs of joy give way: Behold! we bring you light—one everlasting day!

Sing to the Lord! No more shall frantic Sibyl’s yell, Watchful Augurs, or those of magic spell, No, not Isis, nor yet Apollo’s throne, No, nor even Death, with Lethean bands, Shall longer bind the soul; before us stands Him of the Cross of Calvary:—His groan Of death burst forth from its eternal womb, While angel spirits shout, and open wide the tomb!

Sing to the Lord! The Temple’s veil is rent! From Moab’s plains, the Slave, an outcast, sent From this cold world shall, soaring, fly to heaven, From depths of Darkness, Night, and Orcus dread. Each spirit woke at the Eternal’s tread On the head of Death! a promise given To all Earth’s houseless, homeless, and forlorn, Before the Ages were—or His Eldest Son was born!

Sing to the Lord! Lo! while God’s rebels rave, He plunges down, and renovates the slave— Vengeance and love at once bestowed on man. See! crushed is Baal’s, proud Moloch’s temple falls; Shout to the Lord! No more shall blood-stained walls, Nor mountain grove, nor all the gods of Ham, Dispel a Saviour’s love! Correction’s rod Hath won the world,—for Heaven and Thee, O God!

It is one of the providences of Jehovah, that the very wretched forget their wrath, and the broken in spirit their violence. And it may be well for those who examine moral conduct by the evidences of the providences of God, to notice how wrath conduces to wretchedness, and violence to a breaking down of the spirit.

Olybius was by no means prepared to adopt the humiliating doctrines of the new faith; but he perceived it to be well adapted to the condition of those in the extremely low walks of life. By it the slave was taught to become “the freeman of the Lord,” and the wretched, destitute, and miserable, to become “heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ.” These doctrines, and the whole system, being founded upon the pillars of Humility, Faith, Hope, and Charity, were an arrangement to make the most humble as happy as the most exalted; as to happiness and hopes of heaven, it made all men equal; nor is it surprising that the low classes more readily become its converts.

Olybius may have seen some beautiful features in this system; but his philosophy forbid his faith. He calmly decided that it was a superstition too low to combat—worthy only of contempt. But he perceived that the blood of a hundred made a thousand Christians, and was convinced the only remedy was to improve and elevate the mind,—to imbue it with deep religious feeling and principle, a reverence and veneration for the gods.

He deeply felt the wound inflicted by the presence of Vopiscus, and would gladly have proved to the emperor that change of government, either as to ruler or its general system, could not affect the condition of this new doctrine. But he had no knowledge of the Christian’s God, nor of his attributes as a distinct Being; and hence, although he may be regarded as a most deadly enemy, yet, since the providences of Jehovah, through the mild light of the gospel, begin to develop themselves to the human understanding, we may deem his report to the emperor, on the Christian superstition, to be ONE OF ITS MOST UNDYING PANEGYRICS; as an extract from which, we may well imagine, he wrote thus:—

Olybius to the Emperor Probus.

* * * “Great reforms on moral subjects do not occur, except under the influence of religious principle. Political revolutions and changes of policy and administration do indeed occur from other causes, and secure the ends which are desired. But, on subjects pertaining to right and wrong; on those questions where the rights of an inferior and down-trodden class are concerned, we can look for little advance, except from the operation of religious principle.

“Unless the inferior classes have power to assert their rights by arms, those rights will be conceded only by the operations of conscience and the principles of religion. There is no great wrong in any community which we can hope to rectify by new considerations of policy, or by a mere revolution. The relations of Christianity are not reached by political revolutions, or by changes of policy or administration.

“Political revolutions occur in a higher region, and the condition of the Christian is no more affected by a mere change of government, than that of the vapours of a low, marshy vale is affected by the tempest and storm in the higher regions of the air. The storm sweeps along the Apennines, the lightnings play, and the thunders utter their voice, but the malaria of the Campagna is unaffected, and the pestilence breathes desolation there still. So it is with Christianity. Political revolutions occur in higher places, but the malaria of Christianity remains settled down on the low plains of life, and not even the surface of the pestilential vapour is agitated by all the storms and tempests of political changes; it remains the same deadly, pervading pestilence still. Under all the forms of despotism; in the government of aristocracy, or an oligarchy; under the administration of a pure democracy, or the forms of a republican government; and in all the changes from one to the other, Christianity remains still the same. Whether the prince is hurled from the throne, or rides into power on the tempest of revolution, the down-trodden Christian is the same still:—and it makes no difference to him whether the prince wears a crown, or appears in a plain, republican garb,—'whether Cæsar is on the throne, or slain in the senate-house.'”

In these imputed sentiments of Olybius, the indications of the will of Jehovah, in establishing and protecting the institutions of Christianity, by his providences towards it, is vividly portrayed to the Christian eye. Jehovah would not suffer “the gates of hell to prevail against it.” Of the very materials intended by its enemies for its destruction, he made them build its throne.

The scene, by which we have introduced this imaginary report of Olybius to the emperor, has been merely to remove from the mind any bias tending to a partial conception of the indications of the will of God, as evinced by his providences therein described, that we may more readily discover the fact, that, instead of showing Christianity to be worthy only of contempt, Olybius did pronounce its eulogium.

Change the words Christian and Christianity into slave and slavery; prince into master, and it then is what Mr. Barnes did say, and has said, (pages 25, 26, 27,) word for word, about the institution of slavery; and, as if desirous to portray the providences of God towards it down to the present time, continuously says. See pages 27 and 28—

“Slavery among the Romans remained substantially the same under the Tarquins, the consuls, and the Cæsars; when the tribunes gained the ascendency, and when the patricians crushed them to the earth. It lived in Europe when the northern hordes poured down on the Roman Empire; and when the caliphs set up the standard of Islam in the Peninsula. It lived in all the revolutions of the Middle Ages,—alike, when spiritual despotism swayed its sceptre over the nations, and when they began to emerge into freedom. In the British realms, it has lived in the time of the Stuarts, under the Protectorate, and for a long time under the administration of the house of Hanover. With some temporary interruptions, it lived in the provinces of France through the revolution. It lived through our own glorious Revolution; and the struggles which gave liberty to millions of the Anglo-Saxon race did not loosen one rivet from the fetters of an African, nor was there a slave who was any nearer to the enjoyment of freedom after the surrender of Yorktown, than when Patrick Henry taught the notes of liberty to echo along the hills and vales of Virginia. So in all changes of political administration in our own land, the condition of the slave remains unaffected. Alike whether the Federalists or Republicans have the rule; whether the star of the Whig or the Democrat is in the ascendant; the condition of the slave is still the same. The pæans of victory, when the hero of New Orleans was raised to the presidential chair, or when the hero of Tippecanoe was inaugurated, conveyed no * * * intimation of a change to the slave; nor had he any more hope, nor was his condition any more affected, when the one gave place to his successor, or the other was borne to the grave. And so it is now. In all the fierce contests for rule in the land; in the questions about changes in the administration, there are nearly three millions of our fellow-beings, who have no interest in these contests and questions, and whose condition will be affected no more, whatever the result may be, than the vapour that lies in the valley is by the changes from sunshine to storm on the summits of the Alps or the Andes.”

This may be all true, but what is the indication of God’s will, as taught by these, his providences towards it? “And now I say unto you refrain from these men, and let them alone; for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought; but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.” Acts v. 38, 39.

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LESSON XIII.

Thus, it has pleased God, at an early age of the world, to reveal to the mind of man this mode of learning his will by the indications of Providence.

But Mr. Barnes has given us further data, whereby we may be enabled to examine more deeply into the indications of God’s will touching the institution of slavery, by reference to his providences concerning it, growing out of the universality and ancientness of the institution. Thus, page 112, he says—“That slavery had an existence when Moses undertook the task of legislating for the Hebrews, there can be no doubt. We have seen that servitude of some kind prevailed among the patriarchs; that the traffic in slaves was carried on between the Midianites and the Egyptians, * * * and that it existed among the Egyptians. It was undoubtedly practised by all the surrounding nations, for history does not point us to a time when slavery did not exist. * * * There is even evidence that slavery was practised by the Hebrews themselves, when in a state of bondage and that though they were as a nation ‘bondmen to Pharaoh,’ yet they had servants in their families who had been ‘bought with money.’ * * * At the very time that the law was given respecting the observance of the passover, and before the exode from Egypt, this statute appears among others: ‘This is the ordinance of the passover: there shall no stranger eat thereof: but every man-servant, that is bought for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat thereof.’ It is clear, from this, that the institution was always in existence, and that Moses did not originate it.” Again, page 117: “A Hebrew might be sold to his brethren if he had been detected in the act of theft, and had no means of making restitution according to the provisions of the law. Exod. xxii. 3. ‘He shall make full restitution; if he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.’” “This is in accordance with the common legal maxim, Luat in corpore, qui non habet in aere. The same law prevailed among the Egyptians, and among the Greeks also till the time of Solon. * * * By the laws of the twelve tables, the same thing was enacted at Rome. A native-born Hebrew might be a servant in a single case in virtue of his birth. If the master had given to a Hebrew, whom he had purchased, a wife, and she had borne him children; the children were to remain in servitude.” See Exod. xxi. 4. Again, page 250: “It is unnecessary to enter into proof that slavery abounded in the Roman Empire, or that the conditions of servitude were very severe and oppressive. This is conceded on all hands.” And page 251: “Slavery existed generally throughout the Roman Empire was very great.” * * * Page 252: “Of course, according to this, the number of slaves could not have been less than sixty millions in the Roman Empire, at about the time when the apostles went forth to preach the gospel.” And again, page 253: “The slave-trade in Africa is as old as history reaches back. Among the ruling nations of the north coast, the Egyptians, Cyrenians, and Carthaginians, slavery was not only established, but they imported whole armies of slaves, partly for home use, and partly, at least by the Carthaginians, to be shipped for foreign markets.”

“They were chiefly drawn from the interior, where kidnapping was just as much carried on then as now. Black male and female slaves were even an article of luxury, not only among the above-named nations, but in Greece and Italy.”

Mr. Barnes has quoted and adopted the foregoing, and many other passages, from the Biblical Repository. (See Bib. Rep. pp. 413, 414.) And again, page 259 of Barnes: * * * “And it is a rare thing, perhaps a thing that never has occurred, that slavery did not prevail in a country which furnished slaves for another country.”

Many of the foregoing statements are facts as well established as any part of history. But these truths, honestly admitted by Mr. Barnes, are pregnant with important considerations touching the institution of slavery and the providence of God towards it.

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LESSON XIV.

Mr. Barnes says, page 381—

“If slavery is to be defended, it is not to be by arguments drawn from the Bible, but by arguments drawn from its happy influences on agriculture, commerce, and the arts; * * * on its elevating the black man, and making him more intelligent and happy than he would be in his own land; on its whole benevolent bearing on the welfare of the slave, in this world and the world to come.”

It must give every good man the deepest grief to discover this growing disposition among religious teachers to thrust aside the teachings of the Bible, and to place in its stead the worldly advantages and personal considerations of individual benefit. What shall we think of the religious feeling and orthodoxy of him who places “agriculture, commerce, and the arts” in higher authority than the books of Divine revelation. Thus, this teacher says, “If the Bible teaches slavery, then the Bible is the greatest curse that could happen to our race;” yet allows, that if slavery shall have a beneficial and happy influence on “agriculture, commerce, and the arts,” it may be sustained and defended. Such is the obvious deduction from the proposition! Mistaken man! But, since we say that slavery is most triumphantly sustained and defended by the Bible, let us take a view of it agreeably to Mr. Barnes’s direction. So far as we have means, it may be well to examine the negro in his native ranges.

About thirty years ago, we had a knowledge of an African slave, the property of Mr. Bookter, of St. Helena Parish, La. Sedgjo was apparently about sixty years of age—was esteemed to be unusually intelligent for an African. We propose to give the substance of his narrative, without regard to his language or manner. For a length of time we made it an object to draw out his knowledge and notions; and on the subject of the Deity, his idea was that the power which made him was procreation; and that, as far as regarded his existence, he needed not to care for any other god. This deity was to be worshipped by whatever act would represent him as procreator. It need not be remarked that this worship was the extreme of indecency; but the more the act of worship was wounding to the feelings or sense of delicacy, the more acceptable it was to the god. The displays of this worship could not well be described.

Sedgjo’s account put us in mind of Maachah, the mother of Asa. In this worship, it was not uncommon to kill, roast, and eat young children, with the view to propitiate the god, and make its parents prolific. So also the first-born of a mother was sometimes killed and eaten, in thankfulness to the god for making them the instruments of its procreation. The king was the owner and master of the whole tribe. He might kill and do what else he pleased with them. The whole tribe was essentially his slaves. But he usually made use of them as a sort of soldiers. Those who were put to death at feasts and sacrifices were generally persons captured from other tribes. Persons captured were also slaves, might be killed and eaten on days of sacrifice, or sold and carried away to unknown countries. If one was killed in battle, and fell into the hands of those who slew him, they feasted on him at night. If they captured one alive who had done the tribe great injury, a day was set apart for all the tribe to revenge themselves and feast on him. The feet and palms of the hands were the most delicious parts. When the king or master died, some of his favourite wives and other slaves were put to death, so that he yet should have their company and services. The king and the men of the tribe seldom cultivated the land; but the women and captured slaves are the cultivators. They never whip a slave, but strike him with a club; sometimes break his bones or kill him: if they kill him, they eat him.

Sedgjo belonged to the king’s family; sometimes commanded as head man; consequently, had he not been sold, would have been killed and eaten. The idea of being killed and eaten was not very dreadful to him; he had rather be eaten by men than to have the flies eat him.

He once thought white men bought slaves to eat, as they did goats. When he first saw the white man, he was afraid of his red lips; he thought they were raw flesh and sore. It was more frightful to be eaten by red than by black lips.

On shipboard, many try to starve, or jump into the sea, to keep themselves from being eaten by the red-lips. Did they but know what was wanted of them, the most would be glad to come. He cannot tell how long he was on the way to the ships, nor did he know where he was going; thinks he was sold many times before he got there; never saw the white man till he was near the sea; all the latter part of his journey to the coast the people did not kill or eat their slaves, but sold them. Their clothing is a small cloth about the loins. The king and some others have a large cloth about the shoulders. Many are entirely naked all their lives. Sedgjo has no wish to go back; has better clothing here than the kings have there; if he does more work, he has more meat. If he is whipped here, he is struck with a club there. There, always afraid of being killed; jumped like a deer, if, out of the village, he saw or met a stranger; is very glad he came here; here he is afraid of nobody.

Such is the substance of what came from the negro’s own lips. It was impossible to learn from him his distinct nation or tribe. Mr. Bookter thought him an Eboe, which was probably a mistake.

* * * * *

The Periplus, or voyage of Hanno, was made 570 years before the Christian era. Its account was written in Punic, and deposited in the temple of Moloch, at Carthage. It was afterwards translated into Greek; and thence into English, by Dr. Faulkner, a sketch of which may be found in the “Phœnix of Rare Fragments,” from which we quote, pp. 208–210:

“Beyond the Lixitiæ dwell the inhospitable Ethiopians, who pasture a wild country, intersected by large mountains, from which they say the river Lixus flows. In the neighbourhood of the mountains lived the ‘Troglodytæ,’ (people who burrowed in the earth,) men of various appearance, whom the Lixitiæ described as swifter in running than horses. * * * Thence we proceeded towards the east the course of a day, * * * from which proceeding a day’s sail, we came to the extremity of the lake, that was overhung by large mountains, inhabited by savage men clothed in skins of wild beasts, who drove us away by throwing stones, and hindered us from landing. * * * Thence we sailed towards the south twelve days, * * * the whole of which is inhabited by Ethiopians, who would not wait our approach, but fled from us. Their language was not intelligible, even to the Lixitiæ who were with us. * * * When we had landed, we could discover nothing in the daytime except trees; in the night we saw many fires burning, and heard the sound of pipes, cymbals, drums, and confused shouts. We were then afraid, and our diviners ordered us to abandon the island; * * * at the bottom of which lay an island like the other, having a lake, and in this lake another island, full of savage people, the greater part of whom were women, whose bodies were hairy, and whom our interpreters called Gorillæ. Though we pursued the men, we could not seize any of them; all fled from us, escaping over the precipices, and defending themselves with stones. Three women were however taken; but they attacked their conductors with their teeth and hands, and could not be prevailed on to accompany us. Having killed them, we flayed them, and brought their skins with us to Carthage.”

See also King Humpsal’s History of African Settlements, translated from the Punic books, by Sallust and into English by H. Stewart, page 221:

“The Gætuli and the Libyans, as it appears, were the first nations that peopled Africa; a rude and savage race, subsisting partly on the flesh of wild beasts, and partly, like cattle, on the herbs of the field. Among these tribes social intercourse was unknown; and they were utter strangers to laws, or to civil government; wandering during the day from place to place, as inclination prompted; at night, wherever chance conducted them they took up their transient habitation.” See page 224, same book: “At the back of Numidia, the Gætuli are reported to inhabit, a savage tribe, of which a part only made use of huts; while the rest, less civilized, lead a roving life, without restraint or fixed habitation. Beyond the Gætuli is the country of the Ethiopians.”

In Judg. iii. 7, 8, we have as follows: “And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, and forgot the Lord their God. * * * Therefore the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of Chusan Rishathaim," (כּוּשָׁן רִשְׁעֲתַיִם) which, means the “wicked Ethiopians.” Let us notice its similarity of sentiment with a record in hieroglyphics, in the temple of Karnac, where Cush is used as the general term to mean the negro tribes: thus, “Kush, barbarian, perverse race;” and there inscribed over the figures of negro captives, two thousand years before our Christian era. See Gliddon’s Lectures, page 42.

We quote from Horne’s “Introduction to the Study of the Scriptures,” thus: “It is a notorious fact that these latter” (the Canaanites) “were an abominably wicked people.”

“It is needless to enter into any proof of the depraved state of their morals; they were a wicked people in the time of Abraham; and even then were devoted to destruction by God. But their iniquity was not yet full. In the time of Moses, they were idolaters; sacrificers of their own crying and smiling infants; devourers of human flesh; addicted to unnatural lusts; immersed in the filthiness of all manner of vice.” See Christian Observer of 1819, p. 732.

But let us look at the negro tribes in more modern days. We quote from Lander, p. 58: “What makes us more desirous to leave this abominable place, is the fact (as we have been told) that a sacrifice of no less than three hundred human beings, of both sexes and all ages, is shortly to take place. We often hear the cries of many of these poor wretches; and the heart sickens with horror at the bare contemplation of such a scene as awaits us should we remain here much longer.”

And page 74: “We have longed to discover a solitary virtue lingering among the natives of this place, (Badagry,) but as yet our search has been ineffectual.”

And page 77: “We have met with nothing but selfishness and rapacity, from the chief to the meanest of his people. The religion of Badagry is Mohammedanism, and the worst species of paganism; that which sanctions and enjoins the sacrifice of human beings, and other abominable practices, and the worship of imaginary demons and fiends.”

Page 110: “It is the custom here, when a governor dies, for two of his favourite wives to quit the world on the same day, in order that he may have a little pleasant, social company in a future state.”

Page 111: “The reason of our not meeting with a better reception at Loatoo, when we slept there, was the want of a chief to that town, the last having followed the old governor to the eternal shades, for he was his slave. Widows are burned in India, just as they are poisoned or clubbed here; but in the former country, I believe no male victims are destroyed on such occasions.”

“At Paoya, (page 124,) several chiefs in the road have asked us the reason why the Portuguese do not purchase as many slaves as formerly; and make very sad complaints of the stagnation in this branch of traffic.”

Page 158: “At Leograda, a man thinks as little of taking a wife as cutting an ear of corn. Affection is altogether out of the question.”

Page 160: “At Eitcho, it will scarcely be believed, that not less than one hundred and sixty governors of towns and villages between this place and the seacoast, all belonging to Yariba, have died from natural causes, or have been slain in war, since I was last here; and that of the inhabited places through which we have passed, not more than a half-dozen chiefs are alive at this moment, who received and entertained me on my return to Badagry, three years ago.”

Page 176: “They seem to have no social tenderness; very few of those amiable private virtues which would win our affection, and none of those public qualities that claim respect or command admiration. Their love of country is not strong enough in their bosoms to incite them to defend it against the irregular incursions of a despicable foe. * * * Regardless of the past as reckless of the future; the present alone influences their actions. In this respect they approach nearer to the brute creation than perhaps any other people on the face of the globe.”

Page 181: “In so large a place as this, where two-thirds of the population are slaves.” * * *

Page 192: “The cause of it was soon explained by his informing us that he would be doomed to die with two companions, (slaves,) as soon as their governor’s dissolution should take place.”

Page 227: “In the forenoon we passed near a spot where our guides informed us a party of Falatahs, a short time ago, murdered twenty of their slaves, because they had not food sufficient,” &c.

Page 232: “At Coobly, he would rather have given us a boy (slave) instead of the horse.”

Page 233: “Monday, June 14th.—The governor’s old wife returned from Boossa this morning, whither she had gone in quest of three female slaves who had fled from her about a fortnight since. She has brought her fugitives back with her, and they are now confined in irons.”

Page 272: “Both these days the men have been entering the city; and they have brought with them only between forty and fifty slaves.”

Page 278: “The chief benefits resulting to Bello from the success of the rebels, were a half-yearly tribute, which the magia agreed to pay him in slaves.”

Page 282: “At Yaooris.—And many thousands of his men, fearing no law, and having no ostensible employment, are scattered over the face of the whole country. They commit all sorts of crimes; they plunder, they burn, they destroy, and even murder, and are not accountable to any earthly tribunal for their actions.”

Page 312: “At Boossa.—The manners of the Africans too, are hostile to the interest and advancement of woman, and she is very rarely placed on an equality with her husband.”

Page 228: “A man is at liberty to return his wife to her parents at any time, and without adducing any reason.”

Page 345: “The Sheikh of Bornou has recently issued a proclamation, that no slaves from the interior countries are to be sent for sale farther west than Wowow,—so that none will be sent in future from thence to the seaside. The greatest and most profitable market for slaves is said to be at Timbuctoo, whither their owners at present transport them to sell to the Arabs, who take them over the deserts of Tahara and Libya to sell in the Barbary States. An Arab has informed us that many of his countrymen trade as far as Turkey, in Europe, with their slaves, where they dispose of them for two hundred and fifty dollars each. * * * Perhaps it would be speaking within compass to say that four-fifths of the whole population of this country, (the Eboe,) likewise every other hereabouts, are slaves.”

Vol. ii. page 208: “It may appear strange that I should dwell so long on this subject, for it seems quite natural that every one, even the most thoughtless barbarian, would feel at least some slight emotion on being exiled from his native land and enslaved; but so far is this from being the case, that Africans, generally speaking, betray the most perfect indifference on losing their liberty and being deprived of their relatives; while love of country is seemingly as great a stranger to their breasts as social tenderness and domestic affection. We have seen many thousands of slaves; some of them more intelligent than others; but the poor little fat woman whom I have mentioned,—the associate of beasts and wallowing in filth,—whose countenance would seem to indicate only listnessness, stupidity, and perhaps idiotism, without the smallest symptom of intelligence—she alone has shown any thing like regret on gazing on her native land for the last time.”

Page 218: “It has been told us by many that the Eboe people are confirmned Anthropophagi; and this opinion is more prevalent among the tribes bordering on that kingdom than with the nations of more remote districts.”

We shall close our extracts from Lander’s work, by the following, showing that the Africans made slaves of the two Landers themselves.

Page 225: “The king then said, with a serious countenance, that there was no necessity for further discussion respecting the white men, (the two brothers Lander,) his mind was already made up on the subject; and for the first time, he briefly explained himself, to this effect: That circumstances having thrown us in the way of his subjects, by the laws and usages of the country he was not only entitled to our own persons, but had equal rights to those of our attendants. That he should take no further advantage of his good fortune than by exchanging us for as much English goods as would amount in value to twenty slaves.”

The following we transcribe from Stedman’s Narrative, vol. ii. page 267: “I should not forget to mention that the Gingo negroes are supposed to be Anthropophagi, or cannibals, like the Caribbee Indians, instigated by habitual and implacable revenge. Among the rebels of this tribe, after the taking of Boucore, some pots were found on the fire, with human flesh, which one of the officers had the curiosity to taste; and declared that it was not inferior to some kinds of beef or pork. I have since been informed, by a Mr. Vaugils, an American, who, having travelled a great number of miles inland in Africa, at last came to a place where human arms, legs, and thighs hung upon wooden shambles, and were exposed to sale like butcher’s meat. And Captain John Keen, formerly of the Dolphin, but late of the Vianbana schooner, in the Sierra Leone Company’s service, positively assured me that, a few years since, when he was on the coast of Africa, in the brig Fame, from Bristol, Mr. Samuel Briggs, owner, trading for wool, ivory, and gold-dust, a Captain Dunningen, with the whole crew belonging to the Nassau schooner, were cut in pieces, salted, and eaten by the negroes of Great Drewin.”

But this is nothing to what is related, on good authority, respecting the Giagas, a race of cannibals who are said to have overrun a great part of Africa. These monsters, it is said, are descended from the Agows and Galia, who dwell in the southern extremity of Abyssinia, near the sources of the Nile. Impelled by necessity or the love of plunder, they left their original settlements, and extended their ravages through the heart of Africa, till they were stopped by the Western Ocean. They seized on the kingdom of Benguela, laying to the south of Angola; and in this situation they were found by the Romish missionaries, and by our countryman, Andrew Battel, whose adventures may be found in Purchas’s Pilgrim. Both he, and the Capuchin Cavozzi, who resided long among them and converted several of them to Christianity, gave such an account of their manners as is enough to chill the blood with horror. We shall spare our readers the horrid detail, only observing that human flesh is one of their delicacies, and that they devour it, not from a spirit of revenge, or from any want of other food, but as the most agreeable dainty. Some of their commanders, when they went on an expedition, carried numbers of young women along with them, some of whom were slain almost every day, to gratify this unnatural appetite.” See Modern Universal History, vol. xvi. p. 321; also Anzito; also Edin. Encyc. vol. ii. p. 185.

In continuation of this subject, permit us to take a view of these tribes, at a time just before the slave-trade commenced among them with Christian nations. The Portuguese were first to attempt to colonize portions of Africa, with the double view of extending commerce and of spreading the Christian faith. They commenced a settlement of that kind in the regions of Congo, as early as 1578; shortly after which, the Angolas, an adjoining nation, being at war with each other, one party applied to Congo and the Portuguese for aid, which was lent them. Soon a battle took place, in which 120,000 of the Angolas and Giagas were slain. See Lopez’s Hist. of Congo.

About the same time, we find in Dappus de l'Afrique, the following data:

“The natives of Angola are tall and strong but, like the rest of the Ethiopians, they are so very lazy and indolent, that although their soil is admirably adapted to the raising of cattle and the production of grain, they allow both to be destroyed by the wild beasts with which the country abounds. The advantages which they enjoy from climate and soil are thus neglected. * * * We are told that the people in some of the idolatrous provinces still feed on human flesh, and prefer it to all other; so that a dead slave gives a higher price in market than a living one. The cannibals are in all probability descended from the barbarous race of the Giagas, by whom the greater part of the eastern and south-eastern provinces were peopled. One most inhuman custom still prevails in this part of the kingdom, and that is, the sacrificing of a number of human victims at the burial of their dead, in testimony of the respect in which their memory is held. The number of these unhappy victims is therefore always in proportion to the rank and wealth of the deceased; and their bodies are afterwards piled up in a heap upon their tombs. * * * This prince (Angola Chilvagni) became a great warrior, enlarged the Angolic dominions, and died much regretted; and was succeeded by his son, Dambi Angola. Unlike his father, he is described as a monster of cruelty, and, happily for his subjects, his reign was of short duration. Nevertheless, he was buried with great magnificence; and, according to the barbarous custom of the country, a mound was erected over his grave, filled with the bones of human victims, who had been sacrificed to his manes.”

“He was succeeded by Ngola Chilvagni, a warlike and cruel prince, who carried his victorious arms within a few leagues of Loando. * * * Intoxicated with success, he fancied himself a God, and claimed divine honours. * * * Ngingha was elected his successor, a prince of so cruel a disposition that all his subjects wished his death; which, happily for them, soon arrived. Nevertheless, he was buried with the usual pomp, with the usual number of sacrifices. His son and successor, Bandi Angola, discovered a disposition still more cruel than his father’s. * * * To counteract these and other idolatrous rites, and to soften that barbarity of manners which so generally prevailed, the Portuguese, when they established themselves in the country, (1578,) were at great pains to introduce the invaluable blessings of Christianity. * * * so that from the year 1580 to 1590, we are informed, no less a number than 20,000 were converted and publicly professed Christianity.” * *

“Her remains were no sooner deposited beside her sisters, in the church which she had built, than Mona Zingha declared his abhorrence to Christianity, and revived the horrid Giagan rites. Five women, of the first rank, were by his orders buried in the queen’s grave, and upwards of forty persons of distinction were next sacrificed. * * * He wrote the viceroy at Loando, that he had abjured the Christian religion, which he said he had formerly embraced merely out of respect * * * to his queen, and that he now returned to the ancient sect of the Giagas. That there might remain no doubt of his sincerity in that declaration, he followed it with the sacrifice of a great number of victims, in honour of their bloody and idolatrous rites, with the destruction of all Christian churches and chapels, and with the persecution of the Christians in all parts of his kingdom.”

And we may here remark that even the nations of the coast could never be persuaded to abolish human sacrifice, nor to the introduction of Christianity, to any extent, until after the introduction of the slave-trade with christian nations. See also Osborn’s Collection of Travels, vol. ii. p. 537; Mod. Universal Hist. vol. 43; and Edin. Encyc. vol. ii. pp. 107, 109, 110, 113.

Over two hundred years ago, and during the reign of Charles I. of England, Sir Thomas Herbert, (not Lord Edward Herbert, who wrote a deistical book, entitled, “Truth,”) a gentleman of most elevated connection, and a scholar devoted to science and general literature, with a mind adorned by poetry and influenced by the strongest impulses of human sympathy; and one, of whom Lord Fairfax said,

“He travelled, not with lucre sotted, But went for knowledge—and he got it!”

This author, in his Tour in Africa, writes thus: “The inhabitants here along the Golden coast of Guinea, and Benin, bounded with Tombotu, (Timbuctoo,) Gualata, and Mellis, and watered by the great river Niger, but, especially in the Mediterranean (inland) parts, know no God, nor are at all willing to be instructed by nature—“Scire nihil jucundissimum.” Howbeit the Divel, who will not want his ceremonie, has infused prodigious idolatry into their hearts, enough to relish his pallet, and aggrandize their tortures, where he gets power to fry their souls, as the raging sun has scorched their cole-black carcasses. * * * Those countries are full of black-skinned wretches, rich in earth, as abounding with the best minerals and with elephants, but miserable in Demonomy. * * * Let one character serve for all. For colour they resemble chimney-sweepers; unlike them in this, they are of no profession, except rapine and villany make one; for here, Demonis omnia plena. * * * But in Loango and the Anziqui the people are little other than divels incarnate; not satisfied with nature’s treasures, as gold, precious stones, flesh in variety, and the like; the destruction of men and women neighbouring them, whose dead carcasses they devour with a vulture relish and appetite; whom if they miss, they serve their friends such scurvy sauce, butchering them, and thinking they excuse all in a compliment that they know no better way to express love than in making two bodies in one, by an inseparable union; yea, some, as some report, proffering themselves to the shambles, accordingly are disjointed and set to sale upon the stalls. * * * The natives of Africa being propagated from Cham, both in their visages and natures, seem to inherit his malediction. * * * They are very brutes. A dog was of that value here that twenty salvages (slaves) have been exchanged for one of them; but of late years the exchange here made for negroes, to transport into the Cariba isles and continent of America, is become a considerable trade.”

It will be remembered how great have been the exertions of the British Government to abolish totally the slave-trade in Africa. A great number of slave ships were captured, and the negroes found on board sent to Sierra Leone. Strong hopes were entertained that “poor, suffering Africa” was about to be civilized.

We quote from the Hibernian Auxiliary Missionary Report, Christian Observer, 1820, pages 888 and 889:

“The slave-trade, which like the (fabled) upas, blasts all that is wholesome in its vicinity, has, in one important instance, been here overruled for good. It has been made the means of assembling on one spot, and that on a Christian soil, individuals from almost every nation of the western coast of Africa. It has been made the means of introducing to civilization and religion many hundreds from the interior of that vast continent, who had never seen the face of a white man, nor heard the name of Jesus. And it will be made the means under God of sending to the nations beyond the Niger and the Zaire, native missionaries who will preach the Redeemer in the utmost parts of the country, and enable their countrymen to hear in their own tongue the wonderful works of God. European avarice and native profligacy leave no part of Africa unexplored for victims; and these slaves, rescued by our cruisers, and landed on the shores of our colony, are received by our missionaries and placed in their schools.”

The sympathies of the world were excited on this subject, and every civilized heart cried amen, in union with the impulsive feelings of this Hibernian Report.

But let us remember to inquire a little into the facts, and examine whether these hopes were well or ill founded. We quote from vol. xix. of the Christian Observer, page 890:

“Mr. Johnson was appointed to the care of Regent’s Town, in the month of June, 1816. On looking narrowly into the actual condition of the people intrusted to his care, he felt great discouragement. Natives of twenty-two different nations were there collected together. A considerable number of them had been but recently liberated from the holds of slave-vessels. They were greatly prejudiced against one another, and in a state of continual hostility, with no common medium of intercourse but a little broken English. When clothing was given to them, they would sell it, or throw it away: it was difficult to induce them to put it on; and it was not found practicable to introduce it among them, until led to it by the example of Mr. Johnson’s servant-girl. None of them, on their first arrival, seemed to live in a state of marriage; some of them were soon afterwards married by the late Mr. Butscher; but all the blessings of the marriage state and of female purity appeared to be quite unknown. * * * Superstition, in various forms, tyrannized over their minds; many devil’s houses sprang up, and all placed their security in wearing gregrees. Scarcely any desire of improvement was discernable. * * * Some, who wished to cultivate the soil, were deterred from doing so by the fear of being plundered of the produce. Some would live in the woods, apart from society; and others subsisted by thieving and plunder: they would steal poultry and pigs from any who possessed them, and would eat them raw; and not a few of them, particularly of the Eboe nation, the most savage of them all, would prefer any kind of refuse meat to the rations which they received from Government.”

Doubtless Mr. Johnson and his successors have done all that good men could do, even under the protection of the British Government; but have they, in the least, affected the slave-trade of Africa, otherwise than to divert its direction, or have they diminished it to any observable extent? True, its course has been changed, and its enormities thereby increased tenfold. Instead of its subjects being brought under the regenerating influences of Christianity, they are sacrificed at the shrine of friends at home, or sent among pagans or Mohammedans! Let the Christian philosopher think of these things.

While we recollect the proclamation of the Emperor of Bourno, let us look at the slave-trade as now carried on with the Barbary States, the Arab tribes, and Egypt and Asia, as well as Turkey in Europe. We quote from “Burckhart’s Travels in Nubia,” as reported in the Christian Observer, vol. xix. p. 459:

“The author had a most favourable opportunity of collecting intelligence and making observations on this subject, (slavery,) as connected with the northeastern parts of Africa by travelling with companies of slaves and slave-merchants through the deserts of Nubia. * * * The chief mart in the Nubian mountains, for the Egyptian and the Arabian slave-trade, is Shendy. * * * To this emporium, slaves are brought from various parts of the interior, and particularly from the idolatrous * * * tribes in the vicinity of Darfour, Bozgho, and Dar Saley.”

Our traveller calculated the number sold annually in the market of Shendy at five thousand. “Far the larger part of these slaves are under the age of fifteen.”

See page 460: “Few slaves are imported into Egypt without changing masters several times. * * * A slave, for example, purchased at Fertit, is transferred at least six times before he arrives at Cairo. These rapid changes, as might be expected, are productive of great hardship to the unfortunate individuals, especially in the toilsome journey across the deserts. Burckhart saw on sale at Shendy, many children of four or five years old, without their parents. * * * Burckhart has entered into the details of cruelties of another kind, practised on the slaves to raise their pecuniary value. The particulars are not suitable for a work of miscellaneous perusal. * * * The great mart, however, for the supply of European and Asiatic Turkey with the kind of slaves required as guardians for the harem, Mr. Burckhart informs us, is not at Shendy, but at a village near Siout, in Upper Egypt, inhabited chiefly by Christians.” (Abyssinians, we suppose.)

The mode of marching slaves is described as follows: “On the journey, they are tied to a long pole, one end of which is tied to a camel’s saddle, and the other, which is forked, is passed on each side of the slave’s neck, and tied behind with a strong cord, so as to prevent him drawing out his head: in addition to this, his right hand is also fastened to the pole, at a short distance from the head, thus leaving only his legs and left arm at liberty. In this manner he marches the whole day behind the camel: at night he is taken from the pole and put in irons. While on the route to Souakim, I saw several slaves carried along in this way. Their owners were afraid of their escaping, or of becoming themselves the objects of their vengeance; and in this manner they would continue to be confined until sold to a master, who, intending to keep them, would endeavour to attach them to his person. In general, the traders seem greatly to dread the effects of sudden resentment in their slaves; and if a grown-up boy is to be whipped, his master first puts him in irons.”

Page 333: “Females with children on their backs follow the caravans on foot; and if a camel breaks down, the owner generally loads his slaves with the packages; and if a boy in the evening can only obtain a little butter with his dhourra bread, and some grease every two or three days to smear his body and hair, he is contented, and never complains of fatigue. Another cause which induces the merchants to treat the slaves well (?) is their anxiety to dissipate the horror which the negroes all entertain of Egypt and the white people. It is a common opinion in the black slave countries that the Ouleder Rif, or children of Rif, as the Egyptians are there called, devour the slaves, who are transported thither for that purpose: of course, the traders do every thing in their power to destroy this belief; but, notwithstanding all their endeavours, it is never eradicated from the mind of the slaves.”

Page 462: “The manners of the people of Souakim are the same as those I have already described in the interior, and I have reason to believe that they are common to the whole of eastern Africa, including Abyssinia, where the character of the inhabitants, as drawn by Bruce, seems little different from that of these Nubians. I regret that I am compelled to represent all the nations of Africa which I have yet seen, in so bad a light.”

We next quote from the Family Magazine, 1836, page 439, as follows: “Many of the Dayaks have a rough, scaly scurf on their skin, like the Jacong of the Malay Peninsula. * * * The female slaves of this race, which are found among the Malays, have no appearance of it. * * * With regard to their funeral ceremonies, the corpse * * * remains in the house till the son, the father, or the next of blood, can procure or purchase a slave, who is beheaded at the time the corpse is burned, in order that he may become the slave of the deceased in the next world. * * * Nobody can be permitted to marry till he can present a human head of some other tribe to his proposed bride. * * * The head-hunter proceeds in the most cautious manner to the vicinity of the villages of another tribe, and lies in ambush till he can surprise some heedless, unsuspecting wretch, who is instantly decapitated. * * * When the hunter returns, the whole village is filled with joy, and old and young, men and women, hurry out to meet him, and conduct him, with the sound of brazen cymbals, dancing, in long lines, to the house of the female he admires, whose family likewise come out to greet him with dances, and provide him with a seat, and give him meat and drink. He holds the bloody head still in his hand, and puts part of the food into his mouth, after which the females of the family receive the head from him, which they hang up to the ceiling over the door. If a man’s wife die, he is not permitted to make proposals of marriage to another till he has procured another head of a different tribe. The heads they procure in this manner, they preserve with great care, and sometimes consult in divination. The religious opinions connected with this practice are by no means correctly understood: some assert they believe that every person whom a man kills in this world becomes his slave in the next. * * * The practice of stealing heads causes frequent wars among the tribes of the Idean. Many persons never can obtain a head; in which case they are generally despised by the warriors and the women. To such a height is it carried, however, that a person who has obtained eleven heads has been seen, and at the same time he pointed out his son who, a young lad, had procured three.”

James Edward Alexander, H.L.S., during the years 1836 and 1837, made an excursion from the Cape of Good Hope into the interior of South Africa and the countries of the Namaquas, Boschmans, and Hill Damaras, under the auspices of Her Majesty’s Government and the Royal Geographical Society, which has been published in two volumes; from which we extract, vol. i. page 126: “I was anxious to ascertain the extent of knowledge among the tribe (Damaras) with which I now dwelt; to learn what they knew of themselves, and of men and things in general; but I must say that they positively know nothing beyond tracing game and breaking in jack-oxen. They did not know one year from another; they only knew that at certain times the trees and flowers bloom, and then rain was expected. As to their own age, they knew no more what it was than idiots. Some even had no names. Of numbers, of course, they were nearly or quite ignorant; few could count above five; and he was a clever fellow who could count his ten fingers. Above all they had not the least idea of God or of a future state. They were, literally like the beasts which perish.”

Page 163, 164, and 165: “At Chubeeches the people were very poor. * * * Standing in need of a shepherd, I observed here two or three fine little Damara boys, as black as ebony. * * * I said to the old woman to whom Saul belonged, ‘You have two boys, and they are starving; you have nothing to give them.’ ‘This is true,’ she replied. ‘Will you part with Saul?’ said I; ‘I want a shepherd, and the boy wants to go with me.’ ‘You will find him too cunning,’ returned the old dame. ‘I want a clever fellow,’ said I. ‘Very well,’ she replied; ‘give me four cotton handkerchiefs and he is yours.’ ‘Suppose,’ said I, ‘you take two handkerchiefs and two strings of glass beads?’ ‘Yes! that will do;’ and so the bargain was closed; and thus a good specimen of Damara flesh and blood was bought for the value of about four shillings. * * * I told him to go and bring his skins; on which he informed me that he had none, saving what he stood in—and that was his own sable hide, with the addition of the usual strap of leather around his waist, from which hung a piece of jackal’s skin in front. Constant exposure to the vicissitudes of the weather, without clothes, hardens the skin of the body like that of the face; and still it is difficult to sleep at nights without proper covering. In cold weather, the poor creatures of Namaqua Land, who may have no karosses, sit cowering over a fire all night, and merely doze with their heads on their knees.”

Vol. ii. page 23: “Can any state of society be considered more low and brutal than that in which promiscuous intercourse is viewed with the most perfect indifference; where it is not only practised, but spoken of without any shame or compunction? Some rave about the glorious liberty of the savage state, and about the innocence of the children of nature, and say that it is chiefly by the white men that they become corrupt. The Boschmans of Ababres had never seen white men before; they were far removed from the influence of the Europeans.”

Vol. i. page 102: “Notwithstanding that some people maintain that there is no nation on earth without religion in some form, however faintly it may be traced in their minds, yet, after much diligent inquiry, I could not discover the slightest feeling of devotion towards a higher and invisible power among the Hill Damaras.”

In Mohammedan countries, the most unfavourable portions of the slave’s existence, as such, is while in the hands of the geeleb, or slave-merchant, and until he is sold to one who designs to keep him permanently. In the first instance, if negroes, they suffer much in the journey from the place of purchase to that of sale. For instance, it has been known, in the journey from Sennaar and Darfour to the slave-mart at Cairo, or even the intermediate one at Siout, the loss in a slave caravan, of men, women, camels, and horses, amounted to not less than 4000. The circumstances of the mart itself scarcely appear in a more favourable aspect than those of the journey,—whether we regard the miserable beings, as in the market at Cairo, crowded together in enclosures like the sheep-pens in Smithfield market, amid the abominable stench and uncleanness which result from their confinement; whether, as at another great mart at Muscat, we perceive the dealer walking to and fro, with a stick in his hand, between two lots of ill-clothed boy and girls, whom he is offering for sale, proclaiming aloud, as he passes, the price fixed on each; or else leading his string of slaves through the narrow and dirty streets, and calling out their prices as he exhibits them in this ambulatory auction. * * * The slaves, variously exhibited, usually appear quite indifferent to the process, or only show an anxiety to be sold, from knowing that as slaves, finally purchased, their condition will be much ameliorated. * * * How little slavery is dreaded is also shown by the fact that even Mohammedan parents or relatives are, in cases of emergency, ready enough to offer their children for sale. During the famine which a few years since drove the people of Mosul to Bengal, one could not pass the streets without being annoyed by the solicitations of parents to purchase their boys and girls for the merest trifle; and even in Koordistan, where no constraining motive appeared to exist, we have been sounded as to our willingness to purchase young members of the family. Europeans in the East are scarcely considered amenable to any general rules, but Christians generally are not allowed to possess any other than negro slaves.” London Penny Mag. 1834, pp. 243, 244; also, Sketches of Persia, and Johnson’s Journey from India.

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LESSON XV.

Quotations from books of authority, portraying the universal state of degradation of the African hordes, may be made to an unlimited extent. Our object has been to present some idea of what the negro is in his own country, when beyond the influence of American slavery. We will now advance some views of him and his race, as they present themselves in this American slavery. And here let us premise that the population of the African tribes is estimated at 50,000,000, 40,000,000 of whom are deemed to be slaves, that the wars among them are not so much wars to make freemen slaves, as they are to appropriate the slaves of one owner to the rightful ownership of another, according to their notions of law and their customs of right. Among them, conquest always subjects to slavery. When slaves take a captive, he is the property of their master. Slavery exists there according to their laws and customs; and there is no evidence, nor in fact is it probable, that even the slave-trade with America has ever increased the extent or degree of slavery in Africa.

We quote from a truly able and sympathetic writer, J. Morier’s “Second Journey through Persia,” as reported in the Christian Observer, vol. xvi. page 808:

“During the time we were at the Brazils, the slave-trade was in full vigour, and a visit to the slave-market impressed us more with the iniquity of this traffic than any other thing that could be said or written on the subject. On each side of the street where the market was held, were large rooms in which the negroes were kept; and during the day, they were seen in melancholy groups, waiting to be delivered from the hands of the trader, whose dreadful economy might be traced in their persons, which at that time were little better than skeletons. If such were their state on shore, with the advantage of air and space, what must have been their condition on board the ship that brought them hither? It is not unfrequent that slaves escape to the woods, where they are almost as frequently retaken. When this is the case, they have an iron collar put about their necks, with a long hooked arm extending from it, to impede their progress through the woods, in case they should abscond a second time. Yet amid all this misery, it was pleasing to observe the many negroes who frequented the churches, and to see them, in form and profession, at least making a part of a Christian congregation.”

Mr. Morier’s statement may bear testimony to abuses of slavery; but it certainly bears testimony to another thing more important to the slave. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Prov. ix. 10.

And we here beg leave to remark that we shall, in all instances, draw our proofs from the enemies of the institution. We quote from Berbick’s Notes on America, page 20, and reported in vol. xvi. of the Christian Observer, published in London, May 10th, page 109:

“I saw two female slaves and their children sold by auction in the street; an incident of common occurrence here, though horrifying to myself and many other strangers. I could hardly bear to see them handled and examined like cattle; and when I heard their sobs and saw the big tears rolling down their cheeks at the thought of being separated, I could not refrain from weeping with them.”

This may have been very cruel in the white man; but who has ever heard of a negro in Africa displaying such a strength of tenderness and feeling of sympathy as here manifested? And how are we to account for it in this instance, if not by the regenerating influence of a few generations in American and Christian slavery? However slow the action, the condition of the mental faculties was improved and the moral condition ameliorated. But in the same page, he says—

“A traveller told me that he saw, a few weeks ago, one hundred and twenty sold by auction in the streets of Richmond, and that they filled the air with their lamentations.”

The case of the women was not solitary, and doubtless we shall find such proof of an improved state of the affections quite common. But this good man continuously pursues the subject:

“It has also been confidently alleged, that the condition of slaves in Virginia, under the mild treatment they are said to experience, is preferable to that of our English labourers. I know and lament the degrading state of dependent poverty to which the latter have been gradually reduced by the operation of laws originally designed for their comfort and protection. I know also that many slaves pass their lives in comparative ease, and seem to be unconscious of their bonds, and that the most wretched of our paupers might even envy the allotment of the happy negro.”

We will now quote from Lieutenant Francis Hall, of the British Light Dragoons. In his Travels in Canada and the United States, published in London, 1818, pages 357 to 360, he says—

“I took the boat this morning, and crossed the ferry over to Portsmouth, the small town which I told you was opposite to this place, (Norfolk.) It was court-day, and a large crowd of people was gathered about the door of the court-house. I had hardly got upon the steps to look in, when my ears were assailed by the voice of singing, and turning round to observe from what quarter it came, I saw a group of about thirty negroes, of different sizes and ages, following a rough-looking white man, who sat carelessly lolling in his sulkey. They had just turned round the corner, and were coming up the main street, to pass by the spot where I stood, on their way out of town. As they came nearer, I saw some of them loaded with chains to prevent their escape, while others had hold of each other’s hands, strongly grasped, as if to support themselves in their affliction. I particularly noticed a poor mother, with an infant, as she walked along, while two small children had hold of her apron on either side, almost running, to keep up with the rest. They came along singing a little wild hymn, of sweet and mournful melody, flying, by Divine instinct of the heart, to the consolations of religion, the last refuge of the unhappy, to support them in their distress.”

We have no knowledge of Lieutenant Hall’s powers of deduction, nor of what he thought this story proved. But it will surely give us new views of Africa, if he will travel there, and find such a scene there, among the many slaves he may now see naked, tied to poles, and leaving their country for ever. The world has been flooded with stories of this description, some of which prove the abuses of slavery, but all of them prove some amelioration, both mentally and physically, in the condition of the slave here, when compared with the condition of the African at home, whether bond or free.

Mr. Barnes has admitted one into his book, pages 136, 137, and 138, which adds strength to our position: its length excludes a copy. We quote again from the Christian Observer, vol. xv. p. 541: “Missions of the United Brethren at Surinam.”—Mr. Campbell writes: “On the plantations and at Sommelsdyk there was a great desire among the negroes to hear the gospel, which finds entrance into many of their hearts. * * * At Paramaribo, the negro congregation consisted, at the close of 1813, of 550.” “On the 30th of August, 1814, the same missionary writes that the word of God among the negroes in Paramaribo continues to increase, and we have great reason to rejoice and take courage when we see marked proofs of the Divine blessing upon our feeble ministry.” See page 542. “Antigua.”—“A letter from this island, dated, Grace Hill, Jan. 14th, 1814. * * * The congregation of Christian negroes at this place consisted, at the close of 1813, of 2087 persons.” Again, page 543: “Some poor negroes, who, although they sigh under the pressure of slavery and various hardships, or ailments of body, seek consolation and refreshment from the meritorious passion of Jesus, are enabled, with tears of joy, to lay hold on these words of Scripture: ‘I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.’” Again, p. 554: “Jamaica.”—Mr. Lang, the missionary, writes thus, on the 5th February, 1814: “It pleases the Lord still to bless our labours with success, so as to encourage us to believe that he has thoughts of peace regarding the negroes in Jamaica also, and will visit them yet more generally with his salvation,” &c. Page 546: “Danish Islands.—The number of Christian negroes belonging to the different missions in the Danish Islands, was, at the end of 1813, as follows:

At Friedensthal, St. Croix 5,100 ” Friedensberg ” 2,396 ” New Hernhutt, St. Thomas 949 ” Nisky ” 1,304 ” Bethany, St. Jan 474 ” Emmaus ” 952 ——— Total 11,175

“St. Kitts.—On the 10th August, 1814, the missionaries write that they have lately had several very pleasing instances of negroes departing this life in reliance on the merits of the Saviour, with great joy and the sure and steadfast hope of everlasting life.”

Among us it seems to be but little known what have been the providences of God towards the slaves of the West Indies. The following sketch is taken from the Report of the Moravian Missionaries, as found in the Christian Observer, vol. xvi. page 64:

Missions to the Slaves in the

DANISH ISLANDS. When begun. No. of No. of Settlements. Missionaries.

St. Thomas } 2 }

St. Croix } 1732 3 } 32

St. Jan. } 2 }

BRITISH ISLANDS.

Jamaica 1754 4 10

Antigua { 1756 3 } 16

{ 1817 1 }

St. Kitts 1775 1 4

Barbadoes. 1738 3 11

SOUTH AMERICA }

generally. } 1765 1 4

—— ——

20 77

The Dutch took possession of the Cape of Good Hope in 1650. Slaves from various parts of Africa, Mozambique, and the Malay Islands were introduced; we have no means of knowing to what extent. Somerville found the city of Cape Town to contain 1145 houses, 5500 white and free people of colour, and 10,000 slaves. In all of the years 1736–1792, and 1818, the Moravians established 27 missionaries to the blacks. But they, nor no other people, have ever been able to produce any considerable effect there, or elsewhere, upon the natives, except upon such as were in slavery among a Christian people. The sound of the gospel had no charms for the wild, roving savage.

But, as reported in the Christian Observer, vol. xiv. page 830, Campbell says—“In the colony of the Cape of Good Hope, considerable efforts have been made of late, particularly by Sir John Cradock, aided by the zeal of the colonial chaplain, the Rev. Mr. Jones, to diffuse the blessings of Christian instruction, not only among the slaves, but among all classes. * * * Several of the negroes read the New Testament tolerably well, and repeat questions from Walls’s Catechism: on the Lord’s day they were well-dressed, and attended church.” But, page 829, same vol.: “At Cape Town, Mohammedanism is much on the increase. The free Mohammedans are strenuous in their efforts to make proselytes among the slaves,” &c.

We have endeavoured to show that the providences of God towards the African races in slavery to Christian nations, tend to their deliverance from idolatry, and to their restoration to an acceptable worship of the true God. And may we not inquire whether the introduction to this worship was not foretold by the prophets? “Thus saith the Lord, The labour of Egypt, and merchandise of Ethiopia and of the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto thee, and they shall be thine: they shall come after thee; in chains they shall come over, and they shall fall down unto thee, they shall make supplication unto thee, saying, Surely, God is in thee; and there is none else, there is no God” beside. Isa. xlv. 14.

“From beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, my suppliants, even the daughters of my dispersed, shall bring mine offering.”

“I will also leave in the midst of thee an afflicted and poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord.” Zeph. iii. 10, 12.

The progress of the Christian religion among the slaves of the United States is known to the world, and needs no mention here. No such accounts have ever come from the African tribes at any period of time. These indications of the providence of God seem to show that he smiles upon the institution of African slavery in all Christian lands, and “that its tendencies are to elevate the black man, and make him more intelligent and happy than he would be in his own land, and that it has a benevolent bearing on the welfare of the slave in this world and the world to come.”

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LESSON XVI.

Our limits will not permit an extended accumulation of the testimony showing the degenerate condition of the African hordes, nor of those facts showing the ameliorating effect of American slavery upon that race of mankind. A large volume would not contain more than an abstract. This effect is obvious to any one acquainted with the race; while the deep degradation of the races from which they have descended has caused some philosophers to adopt the opinion that they are not of a common origin with the white races of the earth. But we present the doctrine that sin—that any want of conformity to the laws of God touching our health and happiness, our physical and mental improvement and condition, has a direct tendency to deteriorate the animal man, and that a general abandonment and disregard of such laws, through a long series of generations, will be sufficient to account for the lowest degradation found to exist. We believe there is truth in the saying, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge;” that, when the progenitors for a series of ages manifest some particular quality or tendency of action, the same may be found, even in an increased degree, in their descendants; and that this principle holds true to some extent through the whole animal world. Further, that such progressive tendency to some particular mental or physical condition may be obviated, and its action reversed, by a sufficient controlling influence or force.

And if it shall be found that there may be truth in this position, we might submit the inquiry: If God in his wisdom foresaw that the family of Jacob would become so degraded, in one generation, that it would require the counteracting influence of four hundred years of slavery to place them in a condition fit to receive and enjoy the blessings promised their fathers; how long will it require a similar state of control to produce a like renovation among the descendants of Ham, the degraded Africans? But we think, so far as the inquiry can interest us, it has been answered by St. Paul: “Let as many servants (δοῦλοι, douloi, slaves) as are under the yoke, count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them because they are brethren; but rather do them service (δουλευέτωσαν, be slaves to them,) because they are faithful and beloved partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort. If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even to the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself. But godliness, with contentment, is great gain, for we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain that we can carry nothing out; and having food and raiment, let us be therewith content. But they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil; which while some covet after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But thou, O man of God! flee these things; and follow after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, meekness. Fight the good fight of faith; lay hold on eternal life, whereunto thou art also called, and hast professed a good profession before many witnesses. I give thee charge, in the sight of God who quickeneth all things, and before Jesus Christ, who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession, that thou keep this commandment (ἐντολήν, an order, a command, a precept, a charge, injunction) without spot (ἄσπιλον, free from stain, spotless, faultless), unrebukable (ἀνεπίληπτον, of whom no hold can be taken, not to be attacked, irreprehensible), until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 1 Tim. vi. 1–14.

Thus St. Paul has told us how long this doctrine shall be taught; that it shall be taught free from any alteration, change; free from any stain, pure and spotless; and that his manner of teaching it shall be plain, simple, open, and bold; so that there could be no hold taken of him; and the doctrines, instructions, counsels and commands here given were to be so taught, until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But Mr. Barnes says, page 194—

“If we may draw an inference also from this case, (the Hebrews in Egypt,) in regard to the manner in which God would have such a people (slaves in America) restored to freedom, it would be in favour of immediate emancipation.”

God himself sentenced the Hebrews to slavery for four hundred years. “And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and lo, a horror of great darkness fell upon him. And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve (וַֽעֲבָדֽוּם va æbadum, shall be slaves to, or shall slave themselves to) them, and they shall afflict them four hundred years.” Gen. xv. 12, 13. At the expiration of which time he delivered them from it. An instance drawn from their case can be legitimately applied only to one where the term of servitude has been determined.

God made no attempt to liberate the Hebrews until the expiration of the term allotted them for servitude. Mr. Barnes evidently applies his inference to the abolition of the institution generally, and thus places himself in opposition to St. Paul. But our mind has come to the decision that the apostle is the higher authority. And the inquiry is also left upon the mind, whether, in the matter of his whole book, Mr. Barnes has not “run before he was sent;” whereby he may have subjected himself to the mortification of again seeing, in his own case, the counsels of Achitophel turned into foolishness.

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LESSON XVII.

Mr. Barnes has quoted some few passages of Scripture to which he applies a meaning we deem erroneous; but we attach no blame to him on this account; because our English version itself, of the passages referred to, has a tendency to lead to an inadequate conception of the idea conveyed by the original. The doctor says, page 128—“That even the servant that was bought was to have compensation for his labour; and there are some general principles laid down, which, if applied, would lead to that: thus, Jer. xxii. 13, 'Wo unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by wrong; that uses his neighbour’s service without wages, and giveth him not for his work.'” He quotes this same passage for the same purpose, pp. 353 and 360, and seems to regard it as a secure pillar, and on which he founds his doctrines. The words, “that useth his neighbour’s service without wages, and giveth him not for his work,” are translated from

מִשְׁפָּ֑ט בְּרֵעֵ֨הוּ֙ יַֽעֲבֹ֣ד חִנָּ֔ם וּפֹֽעֲל֖וֹ לֹֽא יִתֶּן־לֽוֹ׃

The passage admits of two additional readings, thus: Who shall judge for a neighbour as to his slave undeservedly no wages, no gifts; or, Who shall have adjudged as to his neighbour that he shall slave himself, undeservedly or gratuitously, without wages or reward. The meaning is: Who shall corruptly judge that his neighbour shall not receive wages or compensation for the services of his slave; or, that the neighbour himself shall so slave himself to another without wages or compensation. The word עֶבֶד a slave is often used as a verb, to express such action as would be that of a slave.

On page 67, Mr. Barnes says—“The word, ἀνδραποδίστης, andrapodistĕs, occurs once, 1 Tim. i. 10, with the most marked disapprobation of the thing denoted by it. ‘The law is made for murderers of fathers, murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers, for man-stealers, for liars,’ &c.”

The truth is, that the word δουλος, doulos, is the peculiar word to denote slavery, and is so used in the New Testament and everywhere else; but this word also means slave, &c., and is never used disconnected from the idea of slavery, but carries with it the idea of some change, as to place, condition, possession, or ownership. We shall notice how some men are striving to change the Greek, as to the meaning of the word δοῦλος, doulos, because, unless they do so, the New Testament is strongly against them. However, of the word used in 1 Tim. i. 10, ἀνδραποδισταῖς, andrapodistais, it is true, that it is used “with the most marked disapprobation of the thing denoted by it;” and it is just as true that the thing denoted by it is the stealing and enticing away other men’s slaves! Slave-stealers is its only and legitimate meaning in the place used. Had St. Paul intended to express the idea, men-stealers, he would have used the word ἀνθροποκλεπταῖς, anthropokleptais; which would have expressed the very thing wanted by Mr. Barnes. We shall examine these words in another portion of our study. But Mr. Barnes does not appear to be aware why it was that St. Paul instructed Timothy that the law was made for slave-stealers: for whose benefit we will explain; and by which explanation he will learn that the abolitionists commenced their labours during the days of the apostles. From some of the relations of Christianity, not well understood by the Gentile churches, the idea was entertained by some that the operation of Christianity abolished the bonds of matrimony between a believing and an unbelieving party; that it abolished the authority of an unbelieving parent over a believing child; that it abolished slavery in case the slave was converted to the faith, and especially if the master belonged to the household of God. On these subjects and others, the Corinthian church addressed St. Paul for instruction and advice. It is to be regretted that their letter has not come down to us; but, we can gather what it contained, from the answer of St. Paul: “Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me.” 1 Cor. vii. 1.

Touching the subject before us, see his answer in the 20th to the 25th verse; and the same subject continued in Eph. vi. 5–10; also Col. iii. 22–25; he found it necessary to instruct Titus on this subject: see Tit. ii. 9–15, and, finally, as in the passage before us, and also vi. 1–15. St. Peter also found it necessary to correct the errors of these abolitionists, and to give them instruction on this subject. 1 Pet. ii. 18–25.

Had St. Paul regarded slavery as an evil, he certainly had no excuse for not denouncing it. Nor do we know of any of the early fathers of the church that did so. St. Ignatius, in his second epistle to Polycarp, says—“Overlook not the men and maid servants. Let them be the more subject to the glory of God, that they may obtain from him a better liberty. Let them not desire to be set free at public cost, that they be not slaves to their own lusts.” See also, General Epistle of Barnabas, xiv. 15: “Thou shalt not be bitter in thy commands towards any of thy servants that trust in God, lest thou chance not to fear him who is over both; because he came not to call any with respect to persons, but whomsoever the Spirit prepared.”

Such is the construction of the human mind, and of human language, that whenever a thing is made a subject of remark, or merely brought to mind, it, of necessity, must be so, in one of three positions: either a thing to be commended; to be reprehended; or as a thing of total indifference. A glaring sin and gross evil could not have been a thing of indifference to Jesus Christ and his apostles. They, therefore, cannot be supposed to have acted honestly in not condemning a sin, when by them mentioned, or brought to mind. It is a supposition too gross for refutation!

But it is conceded by Mr. Barnes, page 260, that “the apostles did not openly denounce slavery as an evil, or require that those who were held in bondage should be at once emancipated. * * * These things seem to me to lie on the face of the New Testament; and whatever argument they may furnish to the advocates of slavery in disposing of these facts, it seems plain that the facts themselves cannot be denied.”

The facts, then, must stand in commendation and approval. They cannot be got rid of by arguing ever so ingeniously, that Jesus Christ and his apostles were cunning; that they acted with prudence; that they dexterously taught it to be an evil by implication; or that they acted with deep-seated and far-reaching expediency; nor by any other subterfuge by which the enemies of God are striving to mould his essence and character into an idol to suit themselves.

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LESSON XVIII.

“If, however, it should be conceded that this passage (Lev. xxv. 45, 46) means that the heathen might be subjected to perpetual bondage, and that the intention was not that they should be released in the year of jubilee, still it will not follow that this is a justification of perpetual slavery as it exists in the United States. For, even on that supposition, the concession was one made to them, not to any other people.” Barnes, p. 156.

This is not the first time the abolitionists have presented this proposition, and seem to deem it insurmountable. Therefore, it may merit a few words of inquiry.

Is it contended that God ever grants or denies, or, in other words, acts, except in conformity with some universal rule or law of his providence and government? For, to suppose otherwise, must involve the consideration of an inferior and capricious being. If God, on any occasion, permitted slavery, then it is deducible from the unchangeableness of God and his laws, that he always permits it, when all the circumstances and conditions shall be found to exist as they were when he did so permit it. The Jews, as a nation, were God’s people; his worshippers, his church. “And ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation.” Exod. xix. 6. “For thou art a holy people unto the Lord thy God: The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all people that are upon the face of the earth.” Deut. vii. 6.

But, in the order of God’s providence, other people were to be the recipients of the grace of God also: “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills: all nations shall flow unto it.” Isa. ii. 2.

“Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion; for lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith the Lord. And many nations shall be joined to the Lord in that day, and shall be my people.” Zech. ii. 10, 11.

This is in strict conformity with the promise of Jehovah to Isaac: “And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” Gen. xxvi. 4.

The time of this great enlargement of the church of God was the advent of the Saviour. The Christian church succeeded as heirs of all the promises, benefits, and free grace of the ancient church and people of God;—in fact, became heirs of Abraham;—“And the father of circumcision to them, who are not of the circumcision only, but who walk in the steps of that faith of our father Abraham, which he had being yet uncircumcised. For the promise that he should be the heir of the world was not to Abraham, or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.” * * * “Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all, (as it is written, I have made thee the father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not, as though they were.” Romans iv. 11, 12, 16, 17.

“Therefore remember, that ye being in times past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called the circumcision in the flesh made by hands;

“That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenant of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.

“But now in Christ Jesus, ye who sometime were afar off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ; for he is our peace, who hath made both one; and hath broken down the middle wall of partition between us.” Eph. ii. 11, 12, 13, 14.

“Know ye, therefore, that they which are of faith, the same are children of Abraham. And the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen by faith, preached before the gospel to Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed.” Gal. iii. 7, 8.

And wherefore Peter very properly describes the Gentile church of Christ by similar language applied to the Jews, the chosen people of God to whom the promises of the law were made: “But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light; which in time past were not a people, but are now a people of God; which had not obtained mercy, but have now obtained mercy.” 1 Peter ii. 9, 10.

The theological student will recollect many more very pertinent proofs of the heirship of the Christian church to the chosen people of God. “Think not I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets; I come not to destroy the law, but to fulfil.” Matt. v. 17.

So far then as the Gentile nations have become Christianized, have become the followers of Christ, so far they have, through faith, become the peculiar people of God, and heirs and children of Abraham; and, as heirs, succeeded to all things resulting from the providence and grace of God to his peculiar people.

The broad and universal principle concerning slavery is, that a want of knowledge of the true God, a want of conformity to his law, have a constantly deteriorating effect, whereas, on the contrary, a knowledge of Jehovah and a conduct in conformity to his law, (since the fallen state of man renders him unable to comply with the law) the application of God’s grace, and free forgiveness through faith and repentance, shall have the redeeming effect of a full compliance with the law. As the one position is deteriorating, forcing as it were downward to destruction and death,—the other is as constantly elevating towards all perfection and life eternal.

Thus the mercy of God is manifested to the degraded and heathen nations, by substantially placing them under a protection and guidance, which, however slow may be the progress, must of necessity have an elevating influence on thousands, in proportion as they, with heart-felt willingness, yield themselves to it. “Oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men! For he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness. Such as sit in darkness and the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and iron; because they rebelled against the words of God, and contemned the counsels of the Most High: therefore, he brought down their heart with labour; they fell down, there was none to help. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he raised them out of their distresses. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and brake their bands in sunder. Oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men.” Psa. cvii. 8–15.

* * * * *

In conclusion, we may remark, that under this view of the law, the announcements of holy writ, so far as they regard the subject under consideration, are as applicable to the Christian people of the present day as they at any time were to the Hebrews themselves.

“Thus saith the Lord, The labour of Egypt, and merchandise of Ethiopia, and of the Sabeans, men of stature, shall come over unto thee, and they shall be thine: they shall come after thee; in chains they shall come over, and they shall fall down unto thee, they shall make supplication unto thee, saying, Surely God is in thee; and there is none else, there is no God” beside. Isa. xlv. 14.

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LESSON XIX.

Mr. Barnes has referred to Vatalbus, Rabbi Solomon, Abenezra Joh. Casp. Miégius, Constitutiones Servi Hebræi, Ugolin, Maimonides, Michaelis, John’s Archæology, Selden de Uxore Hebraica, and some other books which are not at hand, in support of his doctrine, and the points on which he predicates it. We did not doubt the accuracy of these references and quotations; but, page 149, we find the following in his book: “It would appear from Josephus, that on the year of jubilee all slaves were set at liberty;” and he refers to “Antiquities,” vol. ii. chap. xii. sec. 3, which, so far as it refers to slavery, reads thus: “Accordingly I enjoin thee to make no more delays, but to make haste to Egypt, and to travel night and day, and not to draw out the time, and to make the slavery of the Hebrews and their sufferings to last the longer.”

We do not see how the passage warrants the assertion of Mr. Barnes, and apprehended some mistake, such as a young lawyer, willing to appear very learned, might make, by affixing to his brief a long list of authorities, merely from an examination of his index.

But the sentence here quoted from Mr. Barnes, containing the proposition that Josephus said, in his Antiquities, vol. ii. chap. xii sec. 3, that all slaves were set at liberty in the year of jubilee, is consecutively followed in his book, thus: “The fiftieth year is called by the Hebrews the jubilee, wherein debtors are freed from their debts, and slaves are set at liberty.” And this sentence is marked as quoted from Josephus, and as though it was the exact passage to be found in the place just before referred to. The fact is, this sentence is nearly a part of what may be found in book iii. chap. xii. sec. 3 of Antiquities, thus: “And that fiftieth year is called by the Hebrews the jubilee wherein debtors are freed from their debts, and slaves are set at liberty; which slaves became such, though they were of the same stock, by transgressing some of those laws whose punishment was not capital, but they were punished by this method of slavery.”

Suppose the mistake to be in the number of the book, still, does the passage, as fully quoted, give any authority for the assertion of Mr. Barnes? Thus the mind is led to inquire what credit is to be given to these references?

But we hasten to give a few extracts illustrative of Mr. Barnes’s thought and argument. He says, p. 126—

“Considering the universal prevalence of slavery when the gospel was preached, it is not probable that any considerable number would be found, who were masters and servants in the sense of a voluntary servitude on the part of the latter.” He says—

Page 273: “The permanency of the institution (slavery) can derive no support from what they (the apostles) said on the subject, and in no manner depends on it.”

Page 300: “It is only the antagonistic fanaticism of a fragment of the South, which maintains the doctrine that slavery is, in itself, a good thing, and ought to be perpetuated. It cannot by possibility be perpetuated.”

Page 301: “The South, therefore, has to choose between emancipation, by the silent and holy influence of the gospel, securing the elevation of the slaves to the stature and character of freemen, or to abide the issue of a long continued conflict against the laws of God.”

Page 306: “And if a Christian master at the present time * * * should be troubled in his conscience in regard to his right to hold slaves, there is no part of the apostolic writings to which he could turn to allay his feelings or calm his scruples.”

Page 311: “Now this undeniable fact, that the right of the master over the person and services of the slave, is never recognised at all in the New Testament.”

Page 312: “Whatever distinction of complexion there may be, it is the doctrine of the Bible that all belong to one and the same great family, and that, in the most important matters pertaining to their existence, they are on a level.”

Page 315: “Up to the time when its truths (the gospel’s) were made known, the great mass of mankind had no scruples about its propriety; they regarded one portion of the race as inferior to the other, and as born to be slaves. Christianity disclosed the great truth that all men were on a level; that all were equal.”

Page 317: “If a man should in fact render to his slaves ‘that which is just and equal;’ would he not restore them to freedom? Would any thing short of this be all that is just and equal?”

Page 322: “No man has a right to assume that when the word δοῦλος, doulos, occurs in the New Testament, it means a slave.”

Page 331: “No argument in favour of slavery can be derived from the injunctions addressed by the apostles to the slaves themselves.”

Page 340: “From the arguments thus far presented in regard to the relations of Christianity to slavery, it seems fair to draw the conclusion, that the Christian religion lends no sanction to slavery.”

Page 341: “The Saviour and his apostles inculcated such views of man as amount to a prohibition of slavery.” Page 345: “He (Jesus Christ) was not a Jew, except by the accident of his birth, but he was a man; in his human form there was as distinct a relation to the African * * * as there was to the Caucasian.”

We have understood that one popular clergyman at the North (an abolitionist) has gone so far as to say that Jesus Christ was a negro! To what folly and extravagance will not wickedness subject its slaves!

Mr. Barnes says, page 375—“These considerations seem to me to be conclusive proof that Christianity was not designed to extend and perpetuate slavery; but that the spirit of the Christian religion would remove it from the world, because it is an evil, and displeasing to God.”

To all of which, worthy of answer, it may be well to apply the sentiment which he attributes to Dr. Fuller, that the New Testament is not silent on the subject of slavery; that it recognises the relation; that it commands slaves to obey their masters, and gives reasons why they should do so. And it may be steadily affirmed, if slavery be a sin, that such commands and counsels are not only a suppressio veri, but a suggestio falsi; not only a suppression of the truth, but a suggestion of what is false!

* * * * *

If it shall be said that God merely sanctioned or permitted slavery in the time of the patriarchs, who will say that he did not enjoin it in the time of Moses? A repeal of this injunction demanded a countervailing revelation of no equivocal character, clear and decided, without the admission of a doubt.

“And God spake unto Moses in Mount Sinai, saying, * * * But thy bond-men and bond-maids which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bond-men and bond-maids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy and of their families, which they beget in your land; and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance, for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession: they shall be your bond-men for ever.” Lev. xxv. 1, 44, 45, 46.

Mr. Barnes has adduced no proof that this law was ever repealed; nor do the holy books contain any evidence of such repeal; yet he has denied the existence of slavery in Judea, at the time of the advent of the Saviour. See pp. 228, 242, 244, and 249, before quoted, and, we trust, sufficiently refuted. But we now add, that at the time Jesus Christ and his apostles were on the earth, Judea was a province of Rome. Now, since it was clear that slavery was inculcated by the Hebrew laws, unless it was forbidden by the Roman, we could not come to the conclusion that slavery did not exist in Judea at their time, even if Jesus Christ and his apostles had never alluded to it.

But,—see Matt. xxvi. 51: “Behold, one of them which were with Jesus stretched out his hand and drew his sword and struck the servant (δοῦλον, doulon, slave) of the high-priest,” then some suitable but different word would have been used, as in the following: “And the servants (δοῦλοι, douloi, slaves) and officers (ἱπηρέται, hupēretai, attendants, persons who aid, assistants) stood there,” John xviii. 18; proving the fact that both slaves and other attendants were present, and that the slave was named distinctly from such other attendants. There can be no doubt about these facts; and in proof that slavery was not forbidden by the Roman laws, we quote from Mr. Barnes, page 251: “In Italy, it was computed that there were three slaves to one freeman; and in this part of the empire alone, their numbers amounted to more than twenty millions.”

Page 252: * * * “The number of slaves could not have been less than sixty millions in the Roman Empire, at about the time the apostles went forth to preach the gospel.”

Page 254: * * * “The following places are mentioned, either as emporia for slaves or countries from which they were procured: Delos, Phrygia, and Cappadocia, Panticapæum, Diascurias, and Phanagoria on the Euxine or Black Sea; Alexandria and Cadiz; Corsica, Sardinia, and Britain; Africa and Thrace.”

And does it astonish us that in these dark ages of human degradation, Britain helped to supply Rome with slaves? It should be remembered that conquest gave the right in ancient days to enslave all barbarous and deeply degraded nations; and it might be inquired whether such principle was not alluded to by the prophet: “Shall the prey be taken from the mighty, or the lawful captive delivered.” Isa. xlix. 24. History will inform us that all these nations were of the lowest order. St. Jerome, in his writings against Jovinian, informs us what were the morals of Britain. He says—“Why should I refer to other nations, when I myself, when a youth in Gaul, have seen the Atticotti, a British tribe, eating human flesh? Should they find shepherds tending their herds of swine or cattle, and flocks of sheep in the woods, they are wont to cut off the fleshy parts of the men, and the breasts of the women, which are esteemed the most delicious food.”

Who then is to say that Britain is not now indebted for her high state of intellectual improvement to the pike, bludgeon, and sword of the Roman, Dane, Saxon, and Norman? And can we say that the hand of God was not in this? The same providences and principles that have ever applied to degraded Africa apply to all degraded nations, and even to individual men. “Whosoever committeth sin is the servant (δοῦλος, doulos, slave) of sin.”

And it may be said that nations and individuals thus enslave themselves. “Behold, for your iniquities ye have sold yourselves.” Isa. l. 1. These principles may be seen every day operating among the most degraded of even the most enlightened nations. The history of the present day informs us of the deep degradation of the African tribes; and that even in their own country the great mass are slaves. Consistently with the laws of God, they could not be otherwise; and even slavery among themselves, subject to sacrifice and death as we have seen it, is yet better for them than a state of freedom. We have seen how the free hordes roam like the brutes, making that place home where night overtook them. Suppose such to be cannibals, of which we have proof, it might so happen, that, in one day, one half of their number would be destroyed by themselves. Therefore, as distressing as slavery must be among them, yet it is far preferable to their dejected condition of freedom.

We know of no one who pretends to believe that the masses of the African tribes have increased in number since the commencement of our era; whereas, a few scattering individuals, brought into slavery, within the last few generations, in these States, have increased to near four millions; nearly one-twelfth of the number of the entire population of Africa. However wicked may be the Christian master, how much more is slavery to be desired by the negro than any condition among these pagan hordes! We, therefore, do not deem it presumptuous to say, that so degraded is the condition of the African in his own land, that it has been elevated in proportion as it has been affected by the slave-trade, and more especially with Christian nations. The first tendencies towards civilization, and whatever dawning of mental development there may be now noticed among the African tribes, are traceable alone to that source. And the Christian philosopher might well inquire whether, in the providence of God, its existence, from the time of Noah to the present, has not been the saving principle which has alone preserved the tribes of Ham from the condition of Sodom and Gomorrah, and other nations long since wasted away.

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LESSON XX.

Mr. Barnes has quoted and adopted the following passage from President Wayland, page 310: “If the religion of Christ allows such a license (to hold slaves) from such precepts as these, the New Testament would be the greatest curse that ever was inflicted on our race.” On the account of the avowal of Dr. Barnes as to his race, heretofore noticed, we feel a degree of gladness that the above passage is not original with him: we should expect to find in him a sympathy on this subject, unpleasant to encounter, because legitimately acting on his mind. A man may be a philosopher or a Christian, yet the ties of nature, the sympathies of kindred are not abated.

We are informed that heretofore, written arguments in favour of abolitionism by Dr. Wayland and against it by Dr. Fuller, have been published. We have not seen the work; but are told that the abolitionists claim victory for Dr. Wayland, and that the opponents also claim it for Dr. Fuller; and from the foregoing passage as quoted, we conclude that Dr. Wayland found himself, at least, in straits on the subject. If such be the fact, it may account why the abolitionists thought Dr. Barnes’s present work necessary. But, however these things may be, the passage from Dr. Wayland is a volume of deep instruction, announcing the feelings and theological consistency, we might say fanaticism, of, we hope, but a few extraordinary men, now appearing in our land; men, we doubt not, conscientious in their opinion that God designs the government of the world to be in strict conformity with human reason, and who cannot, therefore, pray in the spirit of the Son: “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done.” Luke xxii. 42. “If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” Rom. viii. 9.

In the book before us, the author falls into one error, common to every writer on his side of the question: That slavery is the cause of the degradation of the Africans and the slaves generally. We maintain that the converse is the true state of the case. Another error is the substitution of what may be abuses of slavery for the institution itself. This author, like most of the abolition writers of whom we have any knowledge, evinces an inability to enter into an impartial consideration of the subject, from his deep and overshadowing prejudices against it. Indeed, the whole work, from page to page, carries proof of a previous determination to condemn, not less obvious than in the instance of the judge who, in summing up a case, said—“It is true, in this case, the accused has proved himself innocent; but, since a guilty man might prove himself so, and since I myself have always been of the opinion that he was guilty, it will be the safest to condemn.”

The style of the work before us is always diffuse and declamatory, sometimes elevated, but often cumbrous; still his language bears the impress of classical learning and a cultivated mind; but there is in the work a want of conciseness; it abounds in contradictory positions and a frequent inconclusiveness of deduction, which make it obnoxious to a charge of carelessness. But may we not account for these defects by the urgent solicitude of his readers?

The morbid appetite of the Northern abolitionists was probably hungry for the work. Having no wish to oppose his pecuniary views, we refrain from further extracts, lest we should infringe his copyright. Nor did we at all contemplate a classical review of the work. The book contains about 400 pages. If it could be condensed, like a pot of new-brewed and foaming, into potable beer, to a fourth of that size, it might well claim such attention; and from the specimens of ability displayed, if it were proved that the doctor has suffered his zeal to run ahead of the truth in regard to his race, we should judge him fully competent to the task of such improvement.

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Study III.

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LESSON I.

“The Works of William Ellery Channing, D.D.,” in six volumes. Tenth Edition. Boston, 1849.

These volumes include essays, sermons, and lectures on various subjects. The style is easy, flowing, and persuasive; the language is generally clear, often elevated, sometimes sublime. Few can read the book and not feel the evidence, whatever may be the error of his doctrine, that the author added to his literary eminence a purity of intention. Such a work must always make a deep impression on the reader. It is this fact that prompts the present essay. It may be said of Channing what Channing said of Fenelon:

“He needs to be read with caution, as do all who write from their own deeply excited minds. He needs to be received with deductions and explanations. * * * We fear that the very excellencies of Fenelon may shield his errors. Admiration prepares the mind for belief; and the moral and religious sensibility of the reader may lay him open to impressions which, while they leave his purity unstained, may engender causeless solicitude.” Vol. i. p. 185.

Dr. Channing’s sympathies for every appearance of human suffering, for every grade of human imperfection, gave a peculiar phasis, perhaps most amiable to his intellect, religion, and writings. He sought perfection for himself—he was ardent to behold it universal. Heaven must for ever be the home of such a spirit. But the scenes of earth gave agitation and grief. Limited, in his earthly associations, to the habits of the North, the very purity of his heart led him to attack what he deemed the most wicked sin of the South. His politics were formed upon the model of his mind. Religion spread before him her golden wing, and science aided in the elevation of his view.

But, O thou Being, God Eternal! why not this earth made heaven? Why thy most perfect work imperfection? Why thy child, clothed with holiness or shod with the gospel, run truant to thy law, thy providence and government?

But, lo, we are not of thy council. We were not called when the foundations of eternity were laid. We are, truly, all very small beings. Our virtues, even purity, may lead in error. May not our best intentions lead down to wo?

“It is a fact worthy of serious thought, and full of solemn instruction, that many of the worst errors have grown out of the religious tendencies of the mind. So necessary is it to keep watch over our whole nature, to subject the highest sentiments to the calm, conscientious reason. Men, starting from the idea of God, have been so dazzled by it, as to forget or misinterpret the universe.” Channing, vol. i. p. 14.

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LESSON II.

Volume ii. page 14, Dr. Channing says—

“1. I shall show that man cannot be justly held and used as property.

“2. I shall show that man has sacred rights, the gifts of God, and inseparable from human nature, of which slavery is the infraction.

“3. I shall offer some explanations to prevent misapplication of these principles.

“4. I shall unfold the evils of slavery.

“5. I shall consider the argument which the Scriptures are thought to furnish in favour of slavery.

“6. I shall offer some remarks on the means of removing it.

“7. I shall offer some remarks on abolitionism.

“8. I shall conclude with a few reflections on the duties belonging to the times.”

In support of the first proposition, to wit, “I will show that man cannot be justly held and used as property,” the doctor has advanced seven arguments. He says, page 18—“It is plain, that, if one man may be held as property, then every other man may be so held.” * * * “Now let every reader ask himself this plain question: Could I, can I, be rightfully seized, and made an article of property,” &c. Page 19: “And if this impression be delusion, on what single moral conviction can we rely? * * * The consciousness of indestructible rights is a part of our moral being. The consciousness of our humanity involves the persuasion that we cannot be owned as a tree or brute. As men, we cannot justly be made slaves. Then no man can be rightfully enslaved.”

The first idea we find, touching property, is in Gen. i. 26: “And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.” Verse 28th: “And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”

In Lev. xxv. 44: “Both thy bond-men and bond-maids which thou shalt have shall be of the heathen, that are round about you: of them shall ye buy bond-men and bond-maids.” Verse 45: “Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you which they beget in your land, and they shall be your possession.” Verse 46: “And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession, they shall be your bondmen for ever.”

And if we look at the first verse of this chapter, that the foregoing was announced by God himself to Moses from Sinai; and from which it would seem that God and Dr. Channing were of quite a different opinion on this subject.

We know not what notion Dr. Channing may have entertained of “man’s indestructible rights.” But let us ask, what rights has he that may not be destroyed? The right to breath? Suppose, by his own wantonness, carelessness, or wickedness, he is submerged in water, what becomes of his right to breathe, since he can no longer exercise it? Can you name any right that, under the providence of God, may not be destroyed? Freemen have rights, but subject to alteration, and even extinction; slaves have rights, but subject to the same changes. There is no such thing as an “indestructible right” appertaining to any existence, save to the Great Jehovah! He must be an immortal God who can possess an indestructible right. We use the word “right” in Dr. Channing’s sense—just claim, legal title, ownership, the legal power of exclusive possession. You ask, has not man an indestructible right to worship God? We answer, no! Man has no such right to worship God; such right would make him a partner. The worship of God is a duty which man owes; the forbearance of which is forbidden by the moral law, by justice and propriety. Nothing can be forbidden or ordered touching an indestructible right; for such command, if to be obeyed, changes the quality of the right; or rather shows that it was not indestructible.

Such arguments may seem to give great aid and beauty to a mere rhetorical climax, but, before the lens of analyzation, evaporates into enthusiastic declamation,—which, in the present case, seems to be addressed to the sympathies, prejudices, and impulses of the human heart.

In his writings on slavery, in fact through all his works, we find a fundamental error, most fatal to truth. He makes the conscience the great cynosura of all that is right in morals, and of all that is true in religion.

Hence, in the passage before us,—“The consciousness of indestructible rights is a part of our moral being,”—the consciousness of such rights is his proof that we possess them; therefore, “the consciousness of our humanity involves the persuasion (proof) that we cannot be owned;” and, therefore, “as men (being men) we cannot justly be made slaves.” So, page 25: “Another argument against the right of property in man, may be drawn from a very obvious principle of moral science, the conscience.” Page 33. “His conscience, in revealing the moral law, does not reveal a law for himself only, but speaks as a universal legislator. He has an intuitive conviction that the obligations of this divine code press on others as truly as on himself. * * * There is no deeper principle in human nature than the consciousness of rights.”

Vol. iii. page 18: “By this I mean that a Christian minister should beware of offering interpretations of Scripture which are repugnant to any clear discoveries of reason, or dictates of conscience.”

Page 93: “We believe that all virtue has its foundation in the moral nature of man; that is, conscience, or his sense of duty.”

Page 164: “One of the great excellencies of Christianity is that it does not deal in minute regulations; but, that, having given broad views of duty,” &c., * * * “it leaves us to apply these rules, and express their spirit, according to the promptings of the divine monitor within us”—the conscience.

Vol. vi. page 308: “We have no higher law than our conviction of duty.”

“Conscience is the supreme power within us. Its essence, its grand characteristic, is sovereignty. It speaks with divine authority. Its office is to command, to rebuke, to reward; and happiness and honour depend on the reverence with which we listen to it.” Vol. iii. pp. 335, 336.

Such passages plainly expose the view of what Dr. Channing calls conscience: in answer to which we say, the conscience may be a poor guide to truth. The African savage feels a clear conscience when he kills and eats his captive. The Hindoo mother is governed by her conscience when she plunges her new-born infant beneath the flood, a sacrifice to her gods. The idolaters of Palestine were subdued by conscience when they thrust their suckling infants into the flames to appease Moloch; yet God did not think it was right, and forbade them to do so.

The truth is, the conscience is merely that part of the judgment which takes notice of what it deems right or wrong; consequently, is as prone to be in error as our judgment about any other matter.

For the accuracy of this definition, we refer to all the standard writers on logic, and those on the human understanding, treating on the subject. And in fact, Dr. Channing is forced to recede from his position when he finds that Abraham, Philemon, and some good men even of the present day, were slave-owners; and in vol. vi. page 55, he says—“It is a solemn truth, not yet understood as it should be, that the worst institutions may be sustained, the worst deeds performed, the most merciless cruelties inflicted by the conscientious and the good.”

And again, page 57: “The great truth is now insisted on, that evil is evil, no matter at whose door it lies; and that men acting from conscience and religion may do nefarious deeds, needs to be better understood.”

Would it not have been more frank for Dr. Channing to have said, that the conscience would be an unerring guide so long as it agreed with his, but when it did not, why, then he would inquire into the matter?

* * * * *

It is to be lamented that, among the unlearned at the present day, a confused idea of something tantamount to the conscience being a divine monitor within us has taken a deep root among the minds of men; having grown out of the fact that such was the doctrine of some of the fanatical teachers of former days.

If we shall be permitted to speak of property, in reference to our and its relation to the Divine Being, then we cannot strictly say that man can own property. Jehovah stands in no need. Behold the cattle upon a thousand hills are his; all is the work of his hand; all, all is his property alone! At most, God has only intrusted the possession, the administration of the subjects of his creation, to man for the time being,—to multiply, to replenish and subdue. It is only in reference to our relation to one another that we can advance the idea of property. Man was commanded to have dominion over the whole earth, to replenish and subdue, in proportion to the talent bestowed on him for that purpose. This command presupposes such a state of things as we find, of advancement, progression, and improvement. But in the course of the Divine administration, God has seen fit to bestow on one man ten talents, and on another but one; and who shall stand upon the throne of the Almighty, and decide that he of the ten talents shall have no relation with the progression of him of but one talent?

“Take therefore the talent from him, and give it unto him of ten talents. For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.” Matt. xxv. 28, 29; see also Luke xvii. 24–26.

And what, in the course of Divine providence, is to become of him who buried his talent in the earth, and from whom it was taken away? “Blessed is that servant whom his Lord when he cometh shall find so doing. Of a truth I say unto you, that he will make him ruler over all that he hath.” Luke xii. 43, 44. “Jesus answered them, Verily I say unto you, whoever committeth sin is the servant (δοῦλος, doulos, slave) of sin.” John viii. 34. “Behold for your iniquities have ye sold yourselves.” Isa. l. 1. “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren.” Gen. ix. 25. עֶֽבֶד עֲבָדִים ebed, ebedim, a most abject slave shall he be!

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LESSON III.

The second argument in support of his first proposition is, “A man cannot be seized and held as property, because he has rights;” to enforce which, he says—“Now, I say, a being having rights cannot justly be made property; for this claim over him virtually annuls all his rights.” We see no force of argument in this position. It is also true that all domestic animals, held as property, have rights. “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib.” They all have “the right of petition;” and ask, in their way, for food: are they the less property?

But his third argument in support of his first proposition is, that man cannot justly be held as property, on the account of the “essential equality of man.” If to be born, to eat, to drink, and die alike, constitutes an essential equality among men, then be it so! What! the African savage, born even a slave amid his native wilds, who entertains no vestige of an idea of God, of a future state of existence, of moral accountability; who has no wish beyond the gratification of his own animal desire; whose parentage, for ages past, has been of the same order; and whose descendants are found to require generations of constant training before they display any permanent moral and intellectual advancement; what, such a one essentially equal to such a man as Dr. Channing?

The truth is, such a man is more essentially equal with the brute creation. We shall consider the subject of the equality in another part of our study, to which we refer. We, therefore, only remark, that the doctrine is a chimera.

His fourth argument in support of the proposition is, “That man cannot justly be held as property, because property is an exclusive right.” “Now,” he says, “if there be property in any thing, it is that of a man in his own person, mind, and strength.” “Property,” he repeats, “is an exclusive right.”

If a man has an exclusive right to property, he can alienate it; he may sell, give, and bequeath it to others. If a man is the property of himself, suppose he shall choose to sell himself to another, and deliver himself in full possession to the purchaser, as he had before been in the full possession of himself—whose property will he be then? See a case in point in Deut. xv. 12–17; see also Exod. xxi. 1–7.

His fifth argument is that, “if a human being cannot without infinite injustice be seized as property, then he cannot, without equal wrong, be held and used as such.” If a human being shall be found a nuisance to himself and others in a state of freedom, then there will be no injustice in his being subjugated, by law, to such control as his qualities prove him to require in reference to the general good; even if the subject shall not choose such control as a personal benefit to himself.

The sixth argument is, that a human being cannot be held as property, because, if so held, “the latter is under obligation to give himself up as a chattel to the former.” “Now,” he says, “do we not instantly feel, can we help feeling, that this is false?” And that “the absence of obligation proves the want of the right.”

We suppose all acknowledge God as the author of the moral law. The moral law forcibly inculcates submission to the civil or political law, even independent of any promise to do so. Now, no one can have a right to act in contradiction to law. The absence of this right, then, proves the existence of the obligation.

For his seventh argument, he says—“I come now to what is, to my mind, the great argument against seizing and using a man as property. He cannot be property in the sight of God and justice, because he is a rational, moral, immortal being; because created in God’s image, and therefore in the highest sense his child; because created to unfold godlike faculties, and to govern himself by a Divine law, written on his heart, and republished in God’s word.”

Dr. Channing adds a page or two in the same impulsive strain, of the same enthusiastic character. We may admire his style, his language, the amiable formation of his mind, but we see nothing like precision or logical deduction in support of his proposition. We see nothing in it but the declamation of a learned, yet an over-ardent, enthusiastic mind. His whole book is but a display of his mental formation. He could love his friends; yea, his enemies. He could have rewarded virtue, but he never could have punished sin. He could have forgiven the greatest outrage, but he never could have yielded a delinquent to the rigid demands of justice. He was a good man, but he never could have been an unbending judge.

The laws of God have been made for the government and benefit of his creatures. God, nor his law, is, like man, changeable. His law, as expressed or manifested towards one class of objects, is also expressed and manifested towards all objects similarly situated. The law, brought into action by an act of Cain, would also have been brought into action by a similar act of Abel. The law condemnatory of the shedding of blood is still in fearful existence against all who shall have brought themselves within the category of Cain’s acts, the most of which have probably not been recorded.

We anticipate from another portion of our studies, that “sin is any want of conformity unto the law of God.” Sin is as necessarily followed by ill consequences to the sinner as cause is by effect. A man commits a private murder; think ye, he feels no horrors of mind—no regrets? Is the watchfulness he finds necessary to keep over himself for fear of exposure, through the whole of life, not the effect of the act? Is not his whole conduct, his friendships and associations with men, his very mental peculiarities, his estimate of others, often all influenced and directed in the path of his personal safety, the avoidance of suspicion? And is all this no punishment? Probably, to have been put to death would have been a much less suffering; and who can tell how far this long, fearful, and systematic working of his mind is to affect the mental peculiarities of his offspring? Shall he, who, by wanton thoughtlessness, regardless of propriety, the moral law, and the consequences of its breach, contracts some foul, loathsome, consuming disease, that burns into the bones, and becomes a part of his physical constitution, leave no trace of his sin on his descendants? Deteriorated, feeble, and diseased, they shall not live out half their days!

A long-continued course of sin, confined to an individual, or extended to a family or race of people, deteriorates, degenerates, and destroys. Such deterioration, continued perhaps from untold time, has brought some of the races of men to what we now find them; and the same causes, in similar operation, would leave the same effect on any other race; and Dr. Channing’s “child of God” ceases to be so. “Ye are of your father, the devil.” John viii. 44. “And Dr. Channing’s man, created to unfold godlike faculties, and to govern himself by a Divine law written on his heart,” ceases to act as he supposes: “And the lusts of your father ye will do: he was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth; because there is no truth in him.” John viii. 44. And what saith the Spirit of prophecy to these degenerate sons of earth? “When thou criest, let thy companions deliver thee; but the wind shall carry them away; vanity shall take them; but he that putteth his trust in me shall possess the land, and shall inherit my holy mountain.” Isa. lvii. 13.

“And if thou shalt say in thy heart, wherefore came these things upon me? For the greatness of thine iniquity are thy skirts discovered, and thy heels made bare. Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good that are accustomed to do evil. Therefore will I scatter them as stubble that passeth away by the wind of the wilderness. This is thy lot, the portion of thy measures from me, saith the Lord: because thou hast forgotten me, and trusted in falsehood. Therefore, will I discover thy skirts upon thy face, that thy shame may appear.” Jer. xiii. 22–26.

“And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hand of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off: for the Lord hath spoken it.” Joel iii. 8.

And what saith the same Spirit to those of opposite character?

“The sons also of them that afflicted thee shall come bending unto thee; and they that despised thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet.” Isa. lx. 14.

“And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your ploughmen and your vine-dressers.” Ibid. lxi. 5.

“They (my people) shall not labour in vain, nor bring forth trouble; they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord, and their offspring with them. And it shall come to pass, before they shall call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.” Ibid. lxv. 234.

What are the threatenings announced in prospect of their deterioration and wickedness?

“And thou (Judah) even thyself, shalt discontinue from thy heritage that I gave thee; and I will cause thee to serve (עֲבַדְתִּיךָ be a slave to) thine enemies in a land which thou knowest not.” Jer. xvii. 4.

“Are ye not as the children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? saith the Lord. * * * Behold the eyes of the Lord God are upon this sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; saving that I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, saith the Lord.” Amos ix. 7, 8.

The consequences of sin are degradation, slavery, and death:

“A righteous man hateth lying; but a wicked man is loathsome and cometh to shame.”

“He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind; and the fool shall be servant (עֶֽבֶד ebed, slave) to the wise of heart.”

“As righteousness tendeth to life, so he that pursueth evil, pursueth it to his own death.” Prov.

* * * * *

Dr. Channing has suffered his idea of property to bring him great mental suffering: he evidently associates, under the term property, those qualities and relations only, which are properly associated in an inanimate object of possession, or at most in a brute beast. He has, no doubt, suffered great misery from the reflection that a human being has ever been reduced to such a condition. But his misery has all been produced by his adherence to his own peculiar definition of the word property. His definition is not its exact meaning, when applied to a slave. Had the doctor attempted an argument to show that the word property could not consistently be applied to a slave, he might, perhaps, have improved our language, by setting up a more definite boundary to the meaning of this term, and saved himself much useless labour.

Mankind apply the term property to slaves: they have always done so; and since Dr. Channing has not given us an essay upon the impropriety of this use of the word, perhaps the accustomed usage will be continued. But we imagine that no one but the doctor and his disciples will contend that it expresses the same complex idea when applied to slaves, which is expressed by it when applied to inanimate objects, or to brute beasts. It will be a new idea to the slaveholder to be told that the word property, as applied to his slaves, converts them at once into brute beasts, no longer human beings; that it deprives them of all legal protection; and that he, the master, in consequence of the use of this word, stands in the same relation to his slave that he does to his horse; and we apprehend he will find it quite as difficult to comprehend how this metamorphosis is brought about, as it is for the doctor and his disciples, how the slave is property.

We may say a man has property in his wife, his children, his hireling, his slave, his horse, and a piece of timber,—by which we mean that he has the right to use them, in conformity to the relations existing between himself and these several objects. Because his horse is his property, who ever dreamed that he had therefore the right to use him as a piece of timber?

No man has a right to use any item of property in a different manner than his relations with it indicate; or, in other words, as shall be in conformity with the laws of God. Our property is little else than the right of possession and control, under the guidance of the laws by which we are in possession for the time being.

The organization of society is the result of the conception of the general good. By it one man, under a certain chain of circumstances, inherits a throne; another, a farm; one, the protection of a bondman, or whatever may accrue to these conditions from other operating causes; and another, nothing. If Dr. Channing and his disciples can find out some new principles by which to organize society, producing different and better results, they will then do what has not been done.

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LESSON IV.

The doctrine that slavery, disease, and death are the necessary effects of sin, we humbly claim to perceive spread on every page of the holy books. This doctrine is forcibly illustrated in the warning voice of Jehovah to the Israelites. They were emphatically called his children—peculiar people—his chosen ones. He made covenants with them to bless them; yet all these were founded upon their adherence to the Divine law. These promises repealed no ordinance of Divine necessity in their behalf. He expressed, revealed the law, so far as it was important for them at the time, and then says, Deut. xxviii. 14–68:—

“15. But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day, that all these curses shall come upon thee and overtake thee:

“16. Cursed shalt thou be in the city, and cursed shalt thou be in the field.

“17. Cursed shall be thy basket and thy store.

“18. Cursed shall be the fruit of thy body, and the fruit of thy land, the increase of thy kine, and the flocks of thy sheep.

“19. Cursed shalt thou be when thou comest in, and cursed shalt thou be when thou goest out.

“20. The Lord shall send upon thee cursing, vexation, and rebuke, in all that thou settest thy hand unto for to do, until thou be destroyed, and until thou perish quickly: because of the wickedness of thy doings whereby thou hast forsaken me.

“21. The Lord shall make the pestilence cleave unto thee, until he have consumed thee from off the land, whither thou goest to possess it.

“22. The Lord shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew: and they shall pursue thee until thou perish.

“23. And thy heaven that is over thy head shall be brass, and the earth that is under thee shall be iron.

“24. The Lord shall make the rain of thy land powder and dust: from heaven shall it come down upon thee, until thou be destroyed.

“25. The Lord shall cause thee to be smitten before thine enemies: thou shalt go out one way against them, and flee seven ways before them; and shalt be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth.

“26. And thy carcass shall be meat unto all fowls of the air, and unto beasts of the earth, and no man shall fray them away.

“27. The Lord will smite thee with the botch of Egypt, and with the emerods, and with the scab, and with the itch, whereof thou canst not be healed.

“28. The Lord shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart:

“29. And thou shalt grope at noonday, as the blind gropeth in darkness, and thou shalt not prosper in thy ways; and thou shalt be only oppressed and spoiled evermore, and no man shall save thee.

“30. Thou shalt betroth a wife, and another man shall lie with her: thou shalt build a house, and thou shalt not dwell therein: thou shalt plant a vineyard, and shalt not gather the grapes thereof.

“31. Thine ox shall be slain before thine eyes, and thou shalt not eat thereof: thy ass shall be violently taken away from before thy face, and shall not be restored to thee: thy sheep shall be given unto thine enemies, and thou shalt have none to rescue them.

“32. Thy sons and thy daughters shall be given unto another people, and thy eyes shall look, and fail with longing for them all the day long: and there shall be no might in thy hand.

“33. The fruit of thy land and all thy labours shall a nation which thou knowest not eat up: and thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed always:

“34. So that thou shalt be mad for the sight of thy eyes which thou shalt see.

“35. The Lord shall smite thee in the knees, and in the legs, with a sore botch that cannot be healed, from the sole of thy foot unto the top of thy head.

“36. The Lord shall bring thee, and thy king which thou shalt set over thee, unto a nation which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, and there shalt thou serve (וְעָבַֽדְתָּ ve abadta, and shall slave yourselves to) other gods, wood and stone:

“37. And thou shalt become an astonishment, a proverb, and a by-word, among all nations whither the Lord shall lead thee.

“38. Thou shalt carry much seed out unto the field, and shalt gather but little in: for the locust shall consume it.

“39. Thou shalt plant vineyards and dress them, but shalt neither drink of the wine, nor gather the grapes: for the worms shall eat them.

“40. Thou shalt have olive-trees throughout, but thou shalt not anoint thyself with the oil: for thine olive shall cast his fruit.

“41. Thou shalt beget sons and daughters, but thou shalt not enjoy them, for they shall go into captivity.”

(Into captivity is translated from בַּשֶׁבִי bashshebi; the prefix preposition in, into, &c. here makes bash. The root is shebi. The translation is correct, but the idea extends to such a possession of the captive as includes the idea of a right of property. The same word is used when dumb beasts are taken as spoil in war; thus, Amos iv. 10, שְׁבִי סוּסֵיבֶם shebi susekem, I have taken your horses, i. e. I have captured your horses,—the right of property in the horses is changed. The idea in the text is, they shall go into slavery.)

“42. All thy trees and fruit of thy land shall the locust consume.

“43. The stranger that is within thee shall get up above thee very high; and thou shalt come down very low.

“44. He shall lend to thee, and thou shalt not lend to him: he shall be the head, and thou shalt be the tail.

“45. Moreover, all these curses shall come upon thee, and shall pursue thee, and overtake thee, till thou be destroyed: because thou hearkenedst not unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to keep his commandments and his statutes which he commanded thee.

“46. And they shall be upon thee for a sign, and for a wonder, and upon thy seed for ever.”

(For a sign אוֹת oth, a mark, sign, &c. It may be noted that this word is used in Gen. iv. 15: “And the Lord set a mark upon Cain,” אוֹת oth, mark, sign, &c.)

“47. Because thou servedst not the Lord thy God with joyfulness and with gladness of heart for the abundance of all things.

“48. Therefore shalt thou serve (עָבַדְתָּ be a slave to) thine enemies which the Lord shall send against thee, in hunger, and in thirst, and in nakedness, and in want of all things: and he shall put a yoke of iron upon thy neck, until he have destroyed thee.

“49. The Lord shall bring a nation against thee from far, from the end of the earth, as swift as the eagle flieth, a nation whose tongue thou shalt not understand;

“50. A nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old, nor show favour to the young:

“51. And he shall eat the fruit of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy land, until thou be destroyed: which also shall not leave thee either corn, wine, or oil, or the increase of thy kine, or flocks of thy sheep, until he have destroyed thee.

“52. And he shall besiege thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land: and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all thy land which the Lord thy God hath given thee.

“53. And thou shalt eat the fruit of thine own body, the flesh of thy sons and of thy daughters which the Lord thy God hath given thee, in the siege and in the straitness wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee:

“54. So that the man that is tender among you, and very delicate, his eye shall be evil toward his brother, and toward the wife of his bosom, and toward the remnant of his children which he shall leave.

“55. So that he will not give to any of them of the flesh of his children whom he shall eat: because he hath nothing left him in the siege, and in the straitness wherewith thine enemies shall distress thee in all thy gates.

“56. The tender and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter,

“57. And toward her young one that cometh out from between her feet, and toward her children which she shall bear: for she shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege and straitness wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in thy gates.

“58. If thou wilt not observe to do all the words of this law that are written in this book, that thou mayest fear this glorious and fearful name THE LORD THY GOD.

“59. Then the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed, even great plagues, and of long continuance, and sore sicknesses and of long continuance.

“60. Moreover, he will bring upon thee all the diseases of Egypt, which thou wast afraid of, and they shall cleave unto thee.

“61. Also every sickness, and every plague which is not written in the book of this law, them will the Lord bring upon thee, until thou be destroyed.

“62. And ye shall be left few in number, whereas ye were as the stars of heaven for multitude; because thou wouldest not obey the voice of the Lord thy God.

“63. And it shall come to pass, that as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good, and to multiply you; so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you and to bring you to nought; and ye shall be plucked from off the land whither thou goest to possess it.

“64. And the Lord shall scatter thee among all people from the one end of the earth even to the other, and thou shalt serve (עׇבַדְתָּ, be slave to) other gods which neither thou nor thy fathers have known, even wood and stone.

“65. And among these nations shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest: but the Lord shall give thee there a trembling heart, and failing of eyes, and sorrow of mind.

“66. And thy life shall hang in doubt before thee; and thou shalt fear day and night, and shalt have none assurance of thy life:

“67. In the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were even! and at even shalt thou say, Would God it were morning! for the fear of thy heart wherewith thou shalt fear, and for the sight of thine eyes which thou shalt see.

“68. And the Lord shall bring thee into Egypt again with ships, by the way whereof I spake unto thee. Thou shalt see it no more again: and there ye shall be sold unto your enemies for bond-men and bond-women, and no man shall buy you.

Ye shall be sold, i. e. be exposed to sale, or expose yourselves to sale, as the word הִתְמַכַּרְתֶּם hith maccartem may be rendered; they were vagrants, and wished to become slaves that they might be provided with the necessaries of life.” Clarke’s Commentary.

The markets were overstocked with them, says Josephus: * * * “They were sold with their wives and children at the lowest price, there being many to be sold, and few purchasers.”

Hegesippus also says—“There were many captives offered for sale, but few buyers, because the Romans disdained to take the Jews for slaves, and there were not Jews remaining to redeem their countrymen.”

“When Jerusalem was taken by Titus, of the captives who were sent into Egypt, those under seventeen were sold; but so little care was taken of them, that 11,000 of them perished for want.” Bishop Newton.

St. Jerome says—“After their last overthrow by Adrian, many thousands of them were sold, and those who could not be sold were transported into Egypt, and perished by shipwreck and famine, or were massacred by the inhabitants.”

A similar condition happened to the Jews in Spain, when, under the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, they were driven out of that kingdom, concerning which, Abarbinel, a Jewish writer says—“Three hundred thousand, young and old, women and children, (of whom he was one,) not knowing where to go, left on foot in one day: some became a prey, some perished by famine, some by pestilence,—some committed themselves to the sea, but were sold for slaves when they came to any coast; many were drowned and burned in the ships which were set on fire. In short, all suffered the punishment of God the Avenger.”

Benson, in his Commentary, says—“How these instances may affect others, I know not, but for myself I must acknowledge, they not only convince, but astonish me beyond expression. They are truly, as Moses foretold they would be, a sign and a wonder for ever.”

Scott says—“Numbers of captives were sent by sea into Egypt, (as well as into other countries,) and sold for slaves at a vile price, and for the meanest offices; and many thousands were left to perish from want; for the multitude was so great that purchasers could not be found for them all at any price. * * * To such wretchedness is every one exposed, who lives in disobedience to God’s commands. * * * None will suffer any misery above his deserts: but, indeed, we are all exposed to this woful curse, for breaking the law of God.”

Henry says—“I have heard of a wicked man, who, on reading these threatenings, was so enraged that he tore the leaf out of his Bible.”

Upon a review of all this evidence, to what conclusion is the mind inclined? Are there no circumstances under which man may become a slave—“property, in the sight of God and justice?”

Dr. Channing says, vol. ii. page 28—“Such a being (man) was plainly made to obey a law within himself. This is the essence of a moral being. He possesses, as part of his nature, and the most essential part, a cause of duty, which he is to reverence and follow.”

This is in accordance with his idea of conscience—“the Divine monitor within us.” But we are forced to differ from Dr. Channing. To obey the law of God, not some creature of man’s, or our own judgment, is the creed we inculcate; and we further teach that “such a being was plainly made” “to reverence and follow” the law of God, not his own opinion or the feelings of his own heart.

If this doctrine is not true in theology, can it be so in regard to slavery, or any thing else?

Page 29, he says—“Every thing else may be owned in the universe; but a moral, rational being cannot be property. Suns and stars may be owned, but not the lowest spirit. Touch any thing but this. Lay not your hand upon God’s rational offspring. The whole spiritual world cries out, FORBEAR!”

We do not quote this as an argument. If his postulate be true concerning the “law within himself,” he needs no argument; his opinion is enough: his feeling, his “sense of duty” governs the matter. But, while his disciples “reverence and follow” their “sense of duty,” by obeying a law within themselves, and, according to their conscience, “own the sun and stars,” may not those who believe the Bible to be the word of God, who “reverence and follow” it, as their “sense of duty,” and obey it as a law within themselves, according to their conscience, own slaves?

But Dr. Channing continues—“The highest intelligences recognise their own nature, their own rights, in the humblest human being. By that priceless, immortal spirit which dwells in him, by that likeness of God which he wears, tread him not in the dust, confound him not with the brute.” And he then gravely adds—“We have thus seen that a human being cannot rightfully be held and used as property. No legislation, not that of all countries or worlds, could make him so. Let this be laid down as a first, fundamental truth.”

Such were his opinions. We view them, if not the ravings, at least the impressions, of fanaticism. When counsellor Quibble saw his client Stultus going to the stocks, he cried out, “It is contrary to my sense of justice; to the laws of God and man; no power can make it right!” Yet Stultus is in the stocks!

But what shall we say of him who makes the sanction of his own feelings the foundation of his creed, of his standard of right? What of him, who, in his search for truth, scarcely or never alludes to the Bible as the voice of God, as the Divine basis of his reasons, as the pillar on which argument may find rest? Has some new revelation inspired him? Has he heard a voice louder and more clear than the thunder, the trumpet from the mount of God? Has he beheld truth by a light more lucid than the flaming garments of Jehovah? Or has he only seen a cloud, not from the top of Sinai, but from the dismal pit of human frailty?

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LESSON V.

Dr. Channing’s second proposition is: “Man has sacred rights, the gifts of God, and inseparable from human nature, of which slavery is the infraction;” in proof of which he says, vol. ii. p. 23—“Man’s rights belong to him as a moral being, as capable of perceiving moral distinctions, a subject of moral obligation. As soon as he becomes conscious of a duty, a kindred consciousness springs up, that he has a right to do what the sense of duty enjoins, and that no foreign will or power can obstruct his moral action without crime.”

Suppose man has rights as described; suppose he feels conscious, as he says; does that give him a right to do wrong, because his sense of duty enjoins him to do so? And may he not be prevented from so doing? Was it indeed a crime in God to turn the counsels of Ahithophel into foolishness?

Page 33. “That some inward principle which teaches a man what he is bound to do to others, teaches equally, and at the same instant, what others are bound to do to him!” Suppose a few Africans, on an excursion to capture slaves, find that this “inward principle” teaches them that they are bound to make a slave of Dr. Channing, if they can; does he mean that, therefore, he is bound to make slaves of them?

Idem, p. 33. “The sense of duty is the fountain of human rights. In other words, the same inward principle which teaches the former, bears witness to the latter.”

If the African’s sense of duty gives the right to make Dr. Channing a slave, we do not see why he should complain; since, by his own rule, the African’s sense of duty proves him to possess the right which his sense of duty covets.

Page 34. “Having shown the foundation of human rights in human nature, it may be asked, what they are. * * * They may all be comprised in the right, which belongs to every rational being, to exercise his powers for the promotion of his own and others’ happiness and virtue. * * * His ability for this work is a sacred trust from God, the greatest of all trusts. He must answer for the waste or abuse of it. He consequently suffers an unspeakable wrong when stripped of it by others, or forbidden to employ it for the ends for which it is given.”

We regret to say that we feel an objection to Channing’s argument and mode of reasoning, for its want of definiteness and precision. If what he says on the subject of slavery were merely intended as eloquent declamations, addressed to the sympathies and impulses of his party, we should not have been disposed to have named such an objection. But his works are urged on the world as sound logic, and of sufficient force to open the eyes of every slaveholder to the wickedness of the act, and to force him, through the medium of his “moral sense,” to set the slaves instantly free.

A moral action must not only be the voluntary offspring of the actor, but must also be performed, to be judged by laws which shall determine it to be good or bad. These laws, man being the moral agent, we say, are the laws of God; by them man is to measure his conduct.

Locke says, “Moral good and evil are the conformity or disagreement of our voluntary actions to some law, whereby good or evil is drawn upon us from the will or power of the lawmaker.”

But the doctrine of Dr. Channing seems to be that this law is each man’s conscience, moral sense, sense of duty, or the inward principle. If the proposition of Mr. Locke be sound logic, what becomes of these harangues of Dr. Channing?

We say, that the law, rule, or power that decides good or evil, must be from a source far above ourselves; for, if otherwise, the contradictory and confused notions of men must necessarily banish all idea of good and evil from the earth. In fact, the denial of the elevated, the Divine source of such law, is also a denial that God governs; for government without law is a contradiction.

If the conscience, as Dr. Channing thinks, is the guide between right and wrong according to the law of God; then the law of God must be quite changeable, because the minds of men differ. Each makes his own deduction; therefore, in that case, the law of God must be what each one may severally think it to be; which is only other language to say there is no law at all. “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes.” Prov. xxi. 2. But, “The statutes of the Lord are right.” Ps. xix. 8. The laws of God touching the subject of slavery are spread through every part of the Scriptures. Human reason may do battle, but the only result will be the manifestation of its weakness. The institution of slavery must, of necessity, continue in some form, so long as sin shall have a tendency to lead to death; so long as Jehovah shall rule, and exercise the attributes of mercy to fallen, degraded man.

But let us for a moment view the facts accompanying the slavery of the African race, and compare them with the assertion, p. 35, that every slave “suffers a grievous wrong;” and, p. 49, that every slave-owner is a “robber,” however unconscious he may be of the fact.

So far as history gives us any knowledge of the African tribes, for the last 4000 years, their condition has been stationary; at least they have given no evidence of advancement in morals or civilization beyond what has been the immediate effect of the exchange of their slaves for the commodities of other parts of the world. So far as this trade had influence, it effected almost a total abolition of cannibalism among them. That the cessation of cannibalism was the result of an exchange of their slaves as property for the merchandise of the Christian nations, is proved by the fact that they have returned to their former habits in that respect upon those nations discontinuing the slave-trade with them. Which is the greatest wrong to a slave, to be continued in servitude, or to be butchered for food, because his labour is not wanted by his owner?

No very accurate statistics can be given of African affairs; but their population has been estimated at 50,000,000, and to have been about the same for many centuries; of which population, even including the wildest tribes, far over four-fifths have ever been slaves among themselves. The earliest and the most recent travellers among them agree as to the facts, that they are cannibals; that they are idolaters, or that they have no trace of religion whatever; that marriage with them is but promiscuous intercourse; that there is but little or no affection between husband and wife, parent and children, old or young; that in mental or moral capacity, they are but a grade above the brute creation; that the slaves and women alone do any labour, and they often not enough to keep them from want; that their highest views are to take slaves, or to kill a neighbouring tribe; that they evince no desire for improvement, or to ameliorate their condition. In short, that they are, and ever have been, from the earliest knowledge of them, savages of the most debased character. We have, in a previous study, quoted authority in proof of these facts, to which we refer.

Will any one hesitate to acknowledge, that, to them, slavery, regulated by law, among civilized nations is a state of moral, mental, and physical elevation? A proof of this is found in the fact that the descendants of such slaves are found to be, in all things, their superiors. If their descendants were found to deteriorate from the condition of the parents, we should hesitate to say that slavery was to them a blessing. Which would man consider the most like an act of mercy in Jehovah, to continue them in their state of slavery to their African master, brother, and owner, or to order them into that condition of slavery in which we find them in these States? Which state of slavery would a man prefer, to a savage, or to a civilized master?

The Hebrews, Medes, Persians, Chaldeans, Syrians, Greeks, and Romans have, on the borders of Africa, to some extent, amalgamated with them, from time immemorial. But such amalgamation has never been known to attain to the position, either physically, mentally, or morally, of their foreign progenitors; perhaps superior to the interior tribes, yet often they scarcely exhibit a mental or moral trace of their foreign extraction. The thoughtless, those of slovenly morals, or those of none at all, from among the descendants of Japheth, have commingled with them in the new world; but the amalgamation never exhibits a corresponding elevation in the direction of the white progenitor. The connection may degrade the parent, but never elevate the offspring. The great mass look upon the connection with abhorrence and loathing; and pity or contempt always attends the footsteps of the aggressor. These feelings are not confined to any particular country or age of the world. Are not these things proof that the descendants of Ham are a deteriorated race? Will the declarations of a few distempered minds, as to their religion, feeling, and taste, weigh in contradiction? What was the judgment of Isaac and Rebecca on this subject? See Gen. xxvi. 35; xxvii. 46; also xxviii. 1.

Since the days of Noah, where are their monuments of art, religion, science, and civilization? Is it not a fact that the highest moral and intellectual attainment which the descendants of Ham ever displayed is now, at this time, manifested among those in servile pupilage? The very fact of their being property gives them protection. What, he their “robber,” who watches over their welfare with more effect and integrity than all their ancestry together since the days of Noah! By the contrivance of making them property, has God alone given them the protection which 4000 years of sinking degradation demand, in an upward movement towards their physical, mental, and moral improvement, their rational happiness on earth, and their hopes of heaven. What, God’s agent in this matter a robber of them!

Let us assure the disciples of Dr. Channing that there are thousands of slaves too acute observers of truth to come to such a conclusion; who, although from human frailty they may sometimes seem to suffer an occasional or grievous wrong, can yet give good reason in proof that slavery is their only safety. Let us cast the mind back to a period of five hundred years ago. A Christian ship, intent on new discoveries, lands on the African coast. The petty chieftain there, is and about to sacrifice a number of his slaves, either to appease the manes of his ancestor, to propitiate his gods, or to gratify his appetite by feasting. Presents have been made to the natives; it is thought their friendship is secured; the Christians are invited to the fête, the participants are collected, the victims brought forward, and the club uplifted for the blow. The Christians, struck with surprise, or excited by horror, remonstrate with the chief; to which he sullenly replies: “Yonder my goats, my village, all around my domain; these are my slaves!” meaning that, by the morals and laws that have from time immemorial prevailed there, his rights are absolute; that he feels it as harmless to kill a slave as a goat, or dwell in his village. But the clothing of the Christian is presented, the viands of art are offered, the food of civilization is tasted, the cupidity of the savage is tempted, and the fête celebrated through a novel and more valuable offering. What, these Christians, who have bought these slaves, robbers!

Let us look back to the days of the house of Saul, when, perhaps, David, hiding himself from his face amid the villages of Ammon, chanced upon the ancestors of Naamah, the mother of Rehoboam, a later king of Israel. Finding them about to sacrifice a child upon the altar of Moloch, “Stay thy hand!” says the son of Jesse; “I have a message to thee from the God of Israel; deliver me the child for these thirty pieces of silver!” And, according to the law of the God of his fathers, it becomes his “bond-man for ever.” What, was David a robber in all this? Suppose the child to have been sold, resold, and sold again, is the character of the owner changed thereby?

But it is concerning the rights of the descendants of these slaves that we have now to inquire. See Luke xvii. 7–10:

“7. But which of you having a servant (δοῦλος, slave) ploughing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he has come from the field, Go, and sit down to meat?

“8. And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken and afterwards thou shalt eat and drink?

“9. Doth he thank that servant (δουλον, slave) because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not.

“10. So likewise ye, when ye have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.”

Suppose a proprietor, in any country or at any age, receives into his employment an individual, who thereafter resides and has a family upon his estate: upon the death of the individual, will his heirs accrue to any of the rights of the proprietor, other than those granted, or those consequent to their own or their ancestor’s condition, or those that may accrue by operation of law? Where is the political enactment, the moral precept, the Divine command, teaching an adverse doctrine?

Before we close our view of Dr. Channing’s second proposition, we design to notice his use of the word “nature.” He says, that man has rights, gifts of God, inseparable from human “nature.” We confess that we are somewhat at a loss to determine the precise idea the doctor affixes to this term. The phrase “human nature” is in most frequent use through these volumes. But in vol. i. page 74, he says—“Great powers, even in their perversion, attest a glorious nature.” Page 77: “The infinite materials of illustration which nature and life afford.” Page 82: “To regard despotism as a law of nature.” Page 84: “His superiority to nature, as well as to human opposition.” Page 95: “We will inquire into the nature and fitness of the measures.” Page 98: “The first object in education naturally was to fit him for the field.” Page 110: “From the principles of our nature.” Page 111: “Nature and the human will were to bend to his power.” Idem: “He wanted the sentiment of a common nature with his fellow-beings.” Page 112: “With powers which might have made him a glorious representative and minister of the beneficent Divinity, and with natural sensibilities.” Page 119: “Traces out the general and all-comprehending laws of nature.” Page 143: “A power which robs men of the free use of their nature,” &c. Page 146: “Its efficiency resembles that of darkness and cold in the natural world.” Page 184: “Whose writings seem to be natural breathings of the soul.” Page 189: “Language like this has led men to very injurious modes of regarding themselves, and their own nature.” Idem: “A man when told perpetually to crucify himself, is apt to include under this word his whole nature.” Idem: “Men err in nothing more than in disparaging and wronging their own nature.” Idem: “If we first regard man’s highest nature.” Page 190: “We believe that the human mind is akin to that intellectual energy, which gave birth to nature.” Idem: “Taking human nature as consisting of a body as well as mind, as including animal desire,” &c. Idem: “We believe that he in whom the physical nature is unfolded.” Page 191: “But excess is not essential to self-regard, and this principle of our nature is the last which could be spared.” Page 192: “It is the great appointed trial of our moral nature.” Page 193: “Our nature has other elements or constituents, and vastly higher ones.” Idem: “For truth, which is its object, is of a universal, impartial nature.” Page 196: “Is the most signal proof of a higher nature which can be given.” Idem: “It is a sovereignty worth more than that over outward nature.” Idem: “Its great end is to give liberty and energy to our nature.” Page 198: “Our moral, intellectual, immortal nature we cannot remember too much.” Page 200: “The moral nature of religion.” Page 202: “We even think that our love of nature.” Idem: “For the harmonies of nature are only his wisdom made visible.” Page 203: “That progress in truth is the path of nature.” Page 211: “It has the liberality and munificence of nature, which not only produces the necessary root and grain, but pours forth fruits and flowers. It has the variety and bold contrasts of nature.” Idem: “The beautiful and the superficial seem to be naturally conjoined.” Page 212: “And by a law of his nature.” Page 213: “These gloomy and appalling features of our nature.” Page 215: “These conflicts between the passions and the moral nature.”

* * * * *

We regret that so eminent and accurate a scholar, and so influential a man, should have fallen into such an indefinite and confused use of any portion of our language. If we mistake not, it will require more than usual reflection for the mind to determine what idea is presented by its use in the most of these instances. We know that some use this word so vaguely, that if required to explain the idea they wished to convey by it, they would be unable to do so. But there are those from whom we expect a better use of language. Many English readers pass over such sentences without stopping to think what are the distinct ideas of the writer. There are, in our language, a few words used in our conversational dialect, as if especially intended for the speaker’s aid when he only had a confused idea, or perhaps none at all, of what he designed to say; and we extremely regret that words, to us of so important meaning, as nature and conscience, should be found among that class. The teacher of theology and morals should surely be careful not to lead his pupils into error. Might not the unskilled inquirer infer that nature was a substantive existence, taking rank somewhere between man and the Deity? And what would be his notion, derived from such use of the term, of its offices, of its influence on, and man’s relation with it? What is our notion as to the definite idea these passages convey?

“Man has rights, gifts of God, inseparable from human nature, of which slavery is the infraction.” By “human nature,” as here used, we understand the condition or state of being a man in a general sense. Our inference is, then, that God has given man rights, that is, all men the same rights, which are inseparable from his state of being a man; consequently, if by any means these rights are taken from him, then his state of being a man is changed, or ceases to exist; and since slavery breaks these rights, therefore a slave is not a man.

But the fact we find to be that the slave is, nevertheless, a man; and hence it follows that these rights were not inseparable from his state of being a man, or that he had not the rights.

If slavery is sinful because it infringes the rights of man, then any other thing is also sinful which infringes them. Will the disciples of Dr. Channing deny that these rights are infringed by the constitution of the civil government? The law gives parents the right to govern, command, and restrain minor children; to inflict punishment for their disobedience. Is parental authority a sin? Government, in every form, is found to deprive females of a large proportion of the rights which men possess. When married, their rights are wholly absorbed in the rights of the husband. This must be very sinful!

Idiots have no rights. In reality, the very idea of rights vanishes away with the power to exercise them. But in a state of civil government, it is a mere question of expediency how personal rights shall be adjusted; which is very manifest, if we look at the different constitutions of government now in the world. In one, men who follow certain occupations have certain rights as a consequence. Men who are found guilty of certain breaches of the law lose a portion or all their rights. The president of our senate loses the right to vote, except under condition; and we agree that a mere majority shall rule. Thus forty-nine of the hundred cease to find their rights available. They must submit. Man, as a member of civil society, is only a small fraction of an unit, and has no right to exercise a right unconformably to the expression of the sense of the general good. Man has no right to live independent of his fellow-man, like a plant or a tree; consequently, his rights must be determined and bounded by the general welfare. Dr. Channing ceases to be enlightened by moral science when he announces that, because a man is “conscious of duty,” therefore, what he may think his right cannot be affected by others “without crime.” So reverse may be the fact, that it may be a crime in him to claim the right his conscious duty may suggest.

Man cannot be said to be in possession of all things that he, or such theorists, may deem his rights only in a monocratic state. But how will he retain them? For then, so far as he shall have intercourse with others, every thing will come to be decided by the law of might; so that, instead of gaining, he will lose all rights. But suppose him to live without intercourse; what is a naked, abstract right, that yields him nothing above the brute? God never made a man for such a state of life; because it at once includes rebellion to his government; and, therefore, its every movement will be to retrograde.

Will the disciples of Dr. Channing be surprised to find that the only medicine God has prepared for such a loathsome moral disease as will then be developed, is slavery to a higher order of men?

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LESSON VI.

Dr. Channing’s third position is to offer explanations to prevent misapplication of the principles presented in his first two propositions.

Vol. ii. page 51, he says—“Sympathy with the slave has often degenerated into injustice towards the master.” We fully agree with him; and we also admit “that the consciences of men are often darkened by education.” This short chapter is evidently written in a spirit of conciliation, and contains many truths eloquently told; yet, he finally grasps his doctrines, and repeats his elucidations.

His fourth position is, “To unfold the evils of slavery.” He says the first great evil is the debasement of the slave. Page 60: “This word, (slave,) borrowed from his condition, expresses the ruin wrought by slavery within him. * * * To be an instrument of the physical, material good of another, whose will is his highest law, he is taught to regard as the great purpose of his being. Here lies the evil of slavery. Its whips, imprisonment, and even the horrors of the middle passage from Africa to America, these are not to be named in comparison with this extinction of the proper consciousness of a human being, with the degradation of a man into a brute.”

If it be a fact that the debasement of the negro race has been brought about by their having been made slaves in America; then it will be a very strong argument, we are willing to acknowledge, an insurmountable one, against the institution. That Dr. Channing thinks such to be the fact, we have no doubt; for we cannot a moment admit that he would assert what he did not believe was true. But “the consciences of men are often darkened by education.” We hold that the assertion is capable of proof, that the debasement of the race was the moral, the necessary effect of a long course of sin; and that, instead of slavery producing the debasement, the fact is, the debasement produced the slavery; or, in other words, slavery is the moral, the necessary effect of the debasement.

The leading object, through all our studies, is the elucidation of the fact, that sin has a poisonous effect upon the moral, mental, and physical man, that is in constant action in the direction of deterioration, debasement, ruin, death. Such we teach to be the doctrine of the holy books, spread through the whole volume, elucidated upon every page; that slavery, like a saviour, steps in upon this descending road, arresting the downward progress, the rapid fall to final, to unalterable ruin and death.

“If his children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my commandments,—then will I visit their transgressions with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes.” Ps. lxxxix. 30–32. “A righteous man hateth lying: but a wicked man is loathsome, and cometh to shame.” Prov. xiii. 5. “Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, return, ye children of men.” Ps. xc. 3. “I have therefore delivered unto the mighty one of the heathen; he shall surely deal with him: I have driven him out for his wickedness.” Ezek. xxxi. 11. “And I will sell your sons and your daughters into the hands of the children of Judah, and they shall sell them to the Sabeans, to a people far off; for the Lord hath spoken it.” Joel iii. 8. “Nevertheless they shall be his servants (לַֽעֲבָדִים slaves), that they may know my service (עֲב֣וֹדָתִ֔י, and the service (וַֽעֲבוֹדַ֖ת, slavery) of the kingdoms of the countries.” 2 Chron. xii. 8. “The show of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Wo unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves.” Isa. iii. 9. “Therefore my people are gone into captivity, because they have no knowledge; and their honourable men are famished, and their multitude dried up with thirst.” “And the mean man shall be brought down, and the mighty man shall be humbled, and the eyes of the lofty shall be humbled: but the Lord of hosts shall be exalted in judgment, and God that is holy shall be sanctified in righteousness.” Isa. v. 13, 15, 16.

Dr. Channing’s book before us goes on to specify this debasement as to the intellect; its influence on the domestic relations; how it “produces and gives license to cruelty.” The fact that debasement reaches all these points, we agree to; nay, further, that it reaches to every act and thought. But we refer all these displays of debasement to the result of the degradation, of which slavery is only the moral, the natural consequence. If we find a man debased as to one thing, it is in conformity with the common sense of mankind to expect to find him debased as to another.

Channing, pp. 78, 79. “I proceed to another view of the evils of slavery. I refer to its influence on the master. * * * I pass over many views. * * * I will confine myself to two considerations. The first is, that slavery, above all other influences, nourishes the passion for power and its kindred vices. There is no passion which needs a stronger curb. Men’s worst crimes have sprung from the desire of being masters, of bending others to their yoke.”

It is to be lamented that man is so prone to sin; that he is not more undeviating in the paths of virtue, of goodness, of perfection. The charge made by Dr. Channing in the passage quoted, we are sorry to acknowledge, is too true. But so far as we have any knowledge of the history of man, even in the absence of slavery, the time has never been when the passion for power and its kindred vices did not find sufficient food for their nourishment. The evil passions alluded to are not so particular as to their food but that, if they do not find a choice thing to nourish themselves on, they will feed and nourish themselves on another.

It, perhaps, would not be difficult to show that the love of power and its kindred vices first operated to bring on us “all our wo;” stimulated Cain to kill Abel; in fact, has been in most powerful action among those causes that have introduced slavery to the world. Slavery gave no birth to these passions. They drove Nebuchadnezzar from his throne down to the degradation of the brute. “Is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom, by the might of my power, and for the honour of my majesty?” Dan. iv. 12.

He had great power, great wealth, and, it is true, he had great possessions in slaves. The prophet understood his case, and spoke plainly. If his owning thousands of slaves merely had nursed in him a forgetfulness of God, the seer would not have hesitated so to inform him. Great prosperity in the affairs of the world in his case, as in some others of a somewhat later day, so puffed him up that he forgot who he was. The owning of slaves may puff up a silly intellect—doubtless, often does; but the same intellect would be more likely to be puffed up by a command of a more elevated grade, as officers of government, or, even in private life, by the control of superior amounts of wealth; or even by the conceit of possessing a great superiority of intellect.

Doubtless, the disciples of Dr. Channing will agree that abundant instances of such tumidity might be found in any country, even among those who never owned a slave.

It may be a fact, that, to some, the having control over and owning a slave have a greater tendency to produce the effect of puffing up the owner than would his value in money or other property; because it may be a fact that a given amount in one kind of property may possess such tendency to a greater extent than another. But the truth probably is, that one man would be the most puffed up by one thing, and another man by another. We agree that being thus puffed up is a sin; that it leads to consequences extremely ruinous, and often fatal. Very small men are also liable to the disease, and they sometimes take it from very slight causes. It is true, “there is no passion that needs a stronger curb.” What we contend is, that it is not a necessary consequence of owning slaves, any more than it is of owning any other property, or of possessing any other command of men; and that so far as it is an argument against owning slaves, it is also an argument against owning any other property, or of having any other control, or of possessing any other command among men.

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LESSON VII.

Dr. Channing continues his view of the evils of slavery, and says, p. 80, 81—

“I approach a more delicate subject, and one on which I shall not enlarge. To own the persons of others, to hold females in slavery, is necessarily fatal to the purity of a people: that unprotected females, stripped by their degraded condition of woman’s self-respect, should be used to minister to other passions in man than the love of gain, is next to inevitable. Accordingly, in such a community, the reins are given to youthful licentiousness. Youth, everywhere in peril, is, in these circumstances, urged to vice with a terrible power. And the evil cannot stop at youth. Early licentiousness is fruitful of crime in mature life. How far the obligation to conjugal fidelity, the sacredness of domestic ties, will be revered amid such habits, such temptations, such facilities to vice as are involved in slavery, needs no exposition. So sure and terrible is retribution even in this life! Domestic happiness is not blighted in the slave’s hut alone. The master’s infidelity sheds a blight over his own domestic affections and joys. Home, without purity and constancy, is spoiled of its holiest charm and most blessed influences. I need not say, after the preceding explanations, that this corruption is far from being universal. Still, a slave-country reeks with licentiousness. It is tainted with a deadlier pestilence than the plague.

“But the worst is not told. As a consequence of criminal connections, many a master has children born into slavery. Of these, most, I presume, receive protection, perhaps indulgence, during the life of the fathers; but at their death, not a few are left to the chances of a cruel bondage. These cases must have increased since the difficulties of emancipation have been multiplied. Still more, it is to be feared that there are cases in which the master puts his own children under the whip of the overseer, or sells them to undergo the miseries of a bondage among strangers.

“I should rejoice to learn that my impressions on this point are false. If they be true, then our own country, calling itself enlightened and Christian, is defiled with one of the greatest enormities on earth. We send missionaries to heathen lands. Among the pollutions of heathenism, I know nothing worse than this. The heathen who feasts on his country’s foe, may hold up his head by the side of the Christian who sells his child for gain, sells him to be a slave. God forbid that I should charge this crime to a people! But, however rarely it may occur, it is a fruit of slavery, an exercise of power belonging to slavery, and no laws restrain or punish it. Such are the evils which spring naturally from the licentiousness generated by slavery.”

The owner of slaves who acts in conformity to the foregoing picture, to our mind displays proofs of very great debasement, and his offspring, stained with the blood of Ham, we should deem most likely to be quite fit subjects of slavery: we cannot therefore regret that the laws do not punish nor restrain him from selling them as slaves; we should rather regret that the laws did not compel him to go with them.

That there are instances in the Slave States where the owner of female slaves cohabits with them, and has offspring by them, is true. There may be instances where such parent has sold them into slavery,—they, in law, being his slaves; yet we aver we have never known an instance in which it has been done. That such offspring have been sold as slaves, by the operation of law, must certainly be acknowledged; and that such instances have been more frequent since the action of the abolitionists has aroused the Slave States to a sense of their danger, and thereby caused the laws to be more stringent on the subject of emancipation, is also true. And are you, ye agitators of the slave question, willing to acknowledge this fact? And that your conduct—even you yourselves—are even now the cause, under God, of the present condition of slavery, which many such persons now endure? Is not he who places the obstruction on the highway, whereby the traveller is plunged in death, the guilty one? In what light, think ye, must this class of slaves view you and your conduct? But we wish not to upbraid you. If you are ignorant, words are useless. If you are honest men and know the truth, we prefer to leave you in the hands of God and your own conscience.

We hold that cohabitation with the blacks, on the part of the whites, is a great sin, and is proof of a great moral debasement; nor will we say but that the conservative influences of God’s providence may have moved the abolitionists to the action of for ever placing a bar to the emancipation of this class of slaves, such coloured offspring, in order that the enormity of the sin of such cohabitation may be brought home, in a more lively sense, to the minds of their debased parents.

“I saw the Lord sitting upon his throne, and the host of heaven standing on his right hand and on his left.

“And the Lord said, Who will entice Ahab, king of Israel, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth Gilead? And one spake after this manner, and another saying after that manner.

“Then there came out a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said, I will entice him; and the Lord said unto him, Wherewith?

“And he said, I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And the Lord said, Thou shalt entice him.” 2 Chron. xviii. 18–21; 1 Kings, xxii. 19.

We wish to state a fact which may not be generally known to the disciples of Dr. Channing: we speak of Louisiana, where we live. Here is a floating population, emigrants from all parts of the world, especially from free countries and states, nearly or quite equal in number to the native-born citizens who have been raised up and grown to maturity amid slaves or as the owners of slaves. If the cohabitation complained of is at all indicated by the mixed-blooded offspring, then the proof of this cohabitation will be far overbalancing on the side of this floating population.

But again, there are instances where an individual from this class, who thus cohabits with some master’s slave, and has offspring, and, succeeding in some business, buys her, probably with the intention of emancipation; but, as he becomes a proprietor and fixed citizen, procrastination steals upon him, and he finds himself enthralled by a coloured family for life.

Let the number of these instances be compared with those where the delinquents have been habituated, from the earliest youth, to the incidents of slavery, and the former class is found to be entitled to the same pre-eminence. From this class also there are instances where the white man, so cohabiting with the slave whom he has purchased for the purpose of emancipation, sends her and his offspring to some free State, often to Cincinnati, the Moab of the South! “Let mine outcasts dwell with thee, Moab.” Isa. xvi. 4.

Let such instances as this last named be contrasted with like instances emanating from among the native-born, or those raised among slaves, and the former class are still far in the majority. In short, the fact is found to be, that those who have been born, raised, and educated among them, and as the owners of slaves, are found more seldom to fall into this cohabitation than those who are by chance among slaves, but had not been educated from youth among them.

Far be it from us to recriminate. Our object alone, in presenting these facts, is to show, to give proof, that slavery is not the cause of the debasement which urges the white man on to cohabitation with the negro.

We will ask no questions as to the frequency of such intercourse in some of the large Northern cities, in which blacks are numerous as well as free, between them and the debased of the whites. What if we should be told, in answer, if the charge were established, that such whites acted from conscience, under a sense of the essential equality of the negro with the white man, and under the religious teaching of the advocates of amalgamation!

He who writes on and describes moral influences, must be expected to view them as he has been in the habit of seeing them manifested. We therefore regret exceedingly to see that Dr. Channing has made the assertion that, “to own the persons of others, to hold females in slavery, is necessarily fatal to the purity of a people; that unprotected females, stripped by their degraded condition of woman’s self-respect, should be used to minister to other passions in men than the love of gain, is next to inevitable.”

If this assertion is warranted by the moral condition of society as displayed before him, may we not find in it a solution of the fact, that those who have been reared up under all the influences of slavery on the master, are far less frequently found to fall into the odious cohabitation with the negro than are those who have not.

However, we have among us some very wicked and debased men, who own slaves, and who have been born and educated in the midst of the influences of the institution of slavery, and who yet cohabit with their female negroes. But the moral sense of the community, from day to day and from year to year, more and more distinctly gives reproof, more and more emphatically points to such the finger of contempt and scorn, and continues to increase in energy, expressing its loathing and abhorrence; and all this is taking place under the influences of slavery on the master. Do all these things give proof that slavery is the progenitor of this debasement, or the reverse?

Dr. Channing was mistaken; his mind was in error: he substituted the consequent for the cause.

We deem it useless to spend time or argument with those who will pertinaciously deny and refuse to listen to facts, unless they shall be in support of their previously conceived views or prejudices. We are aware that the numerical proportion which we have ascribed to what we call “a floating population” may seem incredible to those in other countries, where the facts are quite different. Yet we are sure that such estimate is within the truth.

Here, as everywhere else, the government, the legislative power of the country, is in the hands of the permanent and more elevated and wealthy classes; in the hands of slave-owners. Would such a class consent to laws throwing difficulties in the way of emancipation, if the effect of such laws were to be expended on their own offspring? To the more elevated and cultivated class of community in any country (and here such are all slave-owners) is to be ascribed the tone of moral feeling. Does any man covet for himself the loathing and scorn of community?

The family of the slave-owner is taught to regard the negro as a race of man radically inferior, in moral capacity, in mental power, and even in physical ability, to the white man; that, although he is susceptible of improvement in all these things, and even does improve in the state of slavery to the white man, yet that it would require untold generations to elevate him and his race to the present standing of the white races.

The child, the mere youth, and those of more experience, see proofs of these facts in every comparison. The master feels them to be true, and is taught, that, while he governs with compassion, forbearance, and mercy, and as having regard to their improvement, any familiarity on terms of equality, beyond that of command on his side, and obedience on theirs, is, and must be, disgrace to him. He is taught to consider the negro race, from some cause, to have deteriorated to such extent that his safety and happiness demand the control of a superior; he regards him as a man, entitled to receive the protection of such control; and that he, like every other man, will be called to account unto God, according to the talents God has given him. He is taught, by every hour’s experience, to know that slavery to the negro is a blessing. He is taught to feel it a duty to teach, as he would an inferior, the negro his moral duty, his obligations to God, the religion of the Bible, the gospel of Christ.

But the man born and educated in the Free States is taught that “he who cannot see a brother, a child of God, a man possessing all the rights of humanity, under a skin darker than his own, wants the vision of a Christian.” Channing, vol. ii. p. 14. “To recognise as brethren those who want all outward distinctions, is the chief way in which we are to manifest the spirit of him who came to raise the fallen and save the lost.” Ibidem.

Vol. ii. pp. 20, 21, 22, he says—“Another argument against property (in slaves) is to be found in the essential equality of men.” * * * “Nature indeed pays no heed to birth or condition in bestowing her favours. The noblest spirits sometimes grow up in the obscurest spheres. Thus equal are men;—and among these equals, who can substantiate his claim to make others his property, his tools, the mere instruments of his private interest and gratification?” * * * “Is it sure that the slave, or the slave’s child, may not surpass his master in intellectual energy, or in moral worth? Has nature conferred distinctions, which tell us plainly who shall be owners and who shall be owned? Who of us can unblushingly lift up his head and say that God has written ‘master’ there? Or who can show the word ‘slave’ engraven on his brother’s brow? The equality of nature makes slavery a wrong.”

May we aid the disciples of Dr. Channing by referring them to Prov. xvii. 2, “A wise servant (עֶֽבֶד ebed, slave) shall have rule over a son that causeth shame, and shall have part of the inheritance among the brethren?” And will the doctor and his disciples believe the proverb any the more true, when we inform them that it is a matter of frequent occurrence in slave-holding communities. Vol. v. p. 89, 90, he says—“But we have not yet touched the great cause of the conflagration of the Hall of Freedom. Something worse than fanaticism or separation of the Union was the impulse to this violence. We are told that white people and black sat together on the benches of the hall, and were even seen walking together in the streets! This was the unheard-of atrocity which the virtues of the people of Philadelphia could not endure. They might have borne the dissolution of the national tie; but this junction of black and white was too much for human patience to sustain. And has it indeed come to this? For such a cause are mobs and fires to be let loose on our persons and most costly buildings? What! Has not an American citizen a right to sit and walk with whom he will? Is this common privilege denied us? Is society authorized to choose our associates? Must our neighbour’s tastes as to friendship and companionship control our own? Have the feudal times come back to us, when to break the law of caste was a greater crime than to violate the laws of God? What must Europe have thought, when the news crossed the ocean of the burning of the Hall of Freedom, because white and coloured people walked together in the streets?

“Europe might well open its eyes in wonder. On that continent, with all its aristocracy, the coloured man mixes freely with his fellow-creatures. He sometimes receives the countenance of the rich, and has even found his way into the palaces of the great. In Europe, the doctrine would be thought to be too absurd for refutation, that a coloured man of pure morals and piety, of cultivated intellect and refined manners, was not a fit companion for the best in the land. What must Europe have said, when brought to understand that, in a republic, founded on the principles of human rights and equality, people are placed beyond the laws for treating the African as a man. This Philadelphia doctrine deserves no mercy. What an insult is thrown on human nature, in making it a heinous crime to sit or walk with a human being, whoever it may be? It just occurs to me, that I have forgotten the circumstance which filled to overflowing the cup of abolitionist wickedness in Philadelphia. The great offence was this, that certain young women of anti-slavery faith were seen to walk the streets with coloured young men!”

Such are the lessons taught the youth as well as the aged of the Free States, even by Dr. Channing himself. We now ask, under the teachings of which school will the pupils be the best prepared for this cohabitation with the negro?

The burning of the Hall of Freedom was, no doubt, a very great outrage, well meriting severe condemnation. Yet we cannot but notice, that Dr. Channing has nowhere, in all his works, said one word about the burning of the Convent on Mount Benedict, by his own townsmen, the good people of Boston.

We care not with what severity he punishes such outrages. But it is the influence of his lesson in palliating the familiarity, and mitigating the evil consequences of a coalition of the white man with the negro, that we present to view. It is with grief that we find him infusing into his disciples this nauseating, disgusting, moral poison; preparing their minds to feel little or no shame in a cohabitation with the negro, so degrading to the white man, and so disgraceful in all Slave States. Yea further, what are we to think of the judgment, of the taste,—may we not add, habits, of a man who could unblushingly publish to the world his partiality to the negro of Jamaica, after his visit there, as follows:

“I saw too, on the plantation where I resided, a gracefulness and dignity of form and motion, rare in my own native New England.” Vol. vi. p. 51.

Again, page 52. “The African countenance seldom shows that coarse, brutal sensuality which is so common in the face of the white man.”

May we be pardoned for feeling a strong desire,—rather, a curiosity,—to be made acquainted with the faces of the white men with whom he was the most familiar!

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LESSON VIII.

In vol. ii. page 82, Dr. Channing says—

“I cannot leave the subject of the evils of slavery, without saying a word of its political influence.”

He considers that “slave labour is less productive than free.” This is doubtless true; and if so, it proves that the master of the slave does not require of him so much labour as is required of a hired labourer. Are the friends of abolition angry, because, in their sympathy for the slave, they have found something to be pleased with?

He considers that “by degrading the labouring population to a state which takes from them motives to toil, and renders them objects of suspicion or dread,” impairs “the ability of a community to unfold its resources in peace, and to defend itself in war.”

This proposition includes the idea that the Slave States have degraded a portion of their citizens to a state of slavery. This is not true. Our ancestors, contrary to their will, were forced to receive a degraded race among them, not as citizens, but slaves;—and does it follow now, that we must again be forced to make this degraded race our political equals? Even the British Government, with all its claim to sovereign rule, never dreamed of imposing on us a demand so destructive to our political rights; so blighting to social happiness; so annihilating to our freedom as men; so extinguishing to our very race. Do the friends of abolition deem us so stupid as not to see, if, even when the negro is in slavery, cases of amalgamation happen, that, when he shall be elevated to political freedom, the country would, by their aid, be overspread by it? Do they think that we do not see that such a state of things is degeneracy, degradation, ruin, worse than death to the white men? And will they chide, if, in its prevention, we drench our fields in our own blood in preference? The British Government urged the race here as an article of property, of commerce and profit, as they did their tea. They stipulated, they guaranteed them to be slaves, they and their posterity for ever—not citizens! On such terms alone could they have been received. The South then, as now, to a man would have met death on the battle-field, sooner than have suffered their presence on other conditions.

The British governmental councils, our colonial assemblies, our primitive inquiring conventions never viewed them in any other light. It was not on their account we sought for freedom. It was not in their behalf we fought for liberty. It was not for them our blood ran like water. It was not to establish for them political rights we broke the British yoke, or founded here this great government. Our national synods recognised them only as property; our constitutional charter, only as slaves; our congressional statutes, only as the subjects of their masters.

There is falsity in the very language that frames the proposition which inculcates that these slaves are a portion of population that ever can be justly entitled to equal political rights, or that they are, or ever were, degraded by the community among whom they are now found.

So degraded, both mentally and physically, is the African in his own native wilds, that, however humiliating to a freeman slavery may seem, to him it is an elevated school; and however dull and stupid may be his scholarship, yet a few generations distinctly mark some little improvement. We cannot doubt, some few individuals of this race have been so far elevated in their constitutional propensities that they might be well expected to make provident citizens; and the fact is, such generally become free, without the aid of fanaticism. But what is the value of a general assertion predicated alone upon a few exceptions? Some few of our own race give ample proof that they are not fit to take care of themselves: shall we, therefore, subject our whole race to pupilage?

That such a population, such a race of men, is as conducive to national grandeur, either as to resources or defence, as the same number of intellectual, high-minded yeomanry of our own race might be well expected to be, perhaps few contend; and we pray you not to force us to try the experiment. But if such weakness attend the position in which we feel God has placed us, why distress us by its distortion? Why torment our wound with your inexperienced, and therefore unskilful hand? Why strive ye to enrage our passions, by constantly twitting us with what is not our fault? Do you indeed wish to destroy, because you have no power to amend? Why, then, your inexperience as to facts, aided by misrepresentation and sophistry in the digestion of language and sentiment,—and we exceedingly regret that we can correctly say, open falsehood,—as found on pages 86, 87?—

“Slavery is a strange element to mix up with free institutions. It cannot but endanger them. It is a pattern for every kind of wrong. The slave brings insecurity on the free. Whoever holds one human being in bondage, invites others to plant the foot on his own neck. Thanks to God, not one human being can be wronged with impunity. The liberties of a people ought to tremble, until every man is free. Tremble they will. Their true foundation is sapped by the legalized degradation of a single innocent man to slavery. That foundation is impartial justice, is respect for human nature, is respect for the rights of every human being. I have endeavoured in these remarks to show the hostility between slavery and ‘free institutions.’ If, however, I err; if these institutions cannot stand without slavery for their foundation, then I say, let them fall. Then they ought to be buried in perpetual ruins. Then the name of republicanism ought to become a by-word and reproach among the nations. Then monarchy, limited as it is in England, is incomparably better and happier than our more popular forms. Then, despotism, as it exists in Prussia, where equal laws are in the main administered with impartiality, ought to be preferred. A republican government, bought by the sacrifice of half, or more than half of a people, stripping them of their most sacred rights, by degrading them to a brutal condition, would cost too much. A freedom so tainted with wrong ought to be our abhorrence.”

Let not the looseness of the doctor’s regard for the Union surprise. With him a dissolution of the Union had become a fixed idea. On pages 237 and 238, he says—

“To me it seems not only the right, but the duty of the Free States, in case of the annexation of Texas, to say to the Slave-holding States, ‘We regard this act as the dissolution of the Union.’ * * * A pacific division in the first instance seems to me to threaten less contention than a lingering, feverish dissolution of the Union, such as must be expected under this fatal innovation. For one, then, I say, that, earnestly as I deprecate the separation of these States, and though this event would disappoint most cherished hopes for my country, still I could submit to it more readily than to the reception of Texas into the confederacy.” “I do not desire to share the responsibility or to live under the laws of a government adopting such a policy.” * * * “If the South is bent on incorporating Texas with itself, as a new prop to slavery, it would do well to insist on a division of the States. It would, in so doing, consult best its own safety. It should studiously keep itself from communion with the free part of the country. It should suffer no railroad from that section to cross its borders. It should block up intercourse with us by sea and land.” Vol. ii. p. 239.

We do not quote these passages for the sake of refuting them. “In Europe, the doctrine would be thought too absurd for refutation.” “What must Europe have thought when” these sentiments “crossed the ocean.” * * * “What must Europe have said, when brought to understand that, in a republic founded on the principles of human rights and equality,”—and this writer acknowledges the doctrine that “the constitution was a compromise among independent States, and it is well known that geographical relations and the local interest were among the essential conditions on which the compromise was made;” and concerning which, he adds, “Was not the constitution founded on conditions or considerations which are even more authoritative than its particular provisions?” (see vol. ii. p. 237,)—“What must Europe have said,” when informed that these sentiments were expressed against the right of the South to hold slaves? Slaves, whom she, herself, in our childhood, had sold us? Why, she must have thought that we were on the eve of a civil war, and that Dr. Channing was about to take command of an army of abolitionists to compel the South to submit to his terms! “Europe might well open its eyes in wonder” at such extravagance.

“Such,” says our author, are “the chief evils of slavery;” and we are willing to leave it to “Europe” to decide whether he has not furnished us with declamation instead of argument.

Under the head, “Evils of Slavery,” he examines those considerations that have been urged in its favour, or in mitigation, which we deem unnecessary to notice further than to note a few passages in which there is between us some unity of sentiment.

Page 89. “Freedom undoubtedly has its perils. It offers nothing to the slothful and dissolute. Among a people left to seek their own good in their own way, some of all classes fail from vice, some from incapacity, some from misfortune.”

Page 92. “Were we to visit a slave-country, undoubtedly the most miserable human beings would be found among the free; for among them the passions have a wider sweep, and the power they possess may be used to their own ruin. Liberty is not a necessity of happiness. It is only a means of good. It is a trust that may be abused.” Page 93. “Of all races of men, the African is the mildest and most susceptible of attachment. He loves where the European would hate. He watches the life of a master, whom the North American Indian, in like circumstances, would stab to the heart.”

The African may exhibit mildness and attachment in slavery when others would exhibit a reverse feeling; but it is not true that he exhibits these qualities as a fixed moral principle, resulting from intellectual conclusion.

Page 95. “No institution, be it what it may, can make the life of a human being wholly evil, or cut off every means of improvement.” Idem. “The African is so affectionate, imitative, and docile, that, in favourable circumstances, he catches much that is good; and accordingly the influence of a wise and kind master will be seen in the very countenance and bearing of his slaves.” Or, rather, we find traces of these qualities developed among their descendants. But the truth is far below this description.

We had expected to have received light and pleasure from the examination of Dr. Channing’s view of slavery in a political attitude. We confess we are disappointed. His political view of it is, at least, jejune. To us, it suggests the superior adaptation of his genius and education to the rhapsody of a prayer-meeting than to the labours of a legislative hall. We doubt much whether he had ever arrived to any very clear and general view of the organization of society. Finding, under this head, very little in his volumes that a politician can descend to encounter, we shall close our present Lesson with a very few remarks.

* * * * *

Capital and labour can exist in but two relations; congenerous or antagonistic. They are never congenerous only when it is true that labour constitutes capital, which can only happen through slavery. The deduction is then clear, that capital for ever governs labour; and the deduction is also as clear, that, out of slavery, capital and labour must be for ever antagonistic. But, again, capital governs labour, because, while capital now exists, labour can possess it only by its own consumption. But when the two are congenerous, labour, as a tool, is not urged to its injury, because the tool itself is capital; but when antagonistic, the tool is urged to its utmost power, because its injury, its ruin touches not the capital. Hence, we often hear slave-labour is the less productive. The proposition is not affected by facts attending him who is said to be free, but who only labours for his individual support; because while he adds nothing to the general stock of capital, he yet falls within the catalogue of being a slave to himself: “The Lord sent him forth to till the ground,” (לַעֲבֹד la evod, to slave the ground;) to do slave-labour for his own support; to slave himself for his own subsistence.

Such is the first degree of slavery to which sin has subjected all mankind. Therefore, in such case, labour is capital. But the very moment a lower degradation forces him to sell his labour, capital is the only purchaser, and they at once become antagonistic. On the one hand, labour is seeking for all; on the other, capital is seeking for all. But the capital governs, and always obtains the mastery, and reduces labour down to the smallest pittance. Thus antagonistic are capital and labour, that the former is for ever trying to lessen the value of the other by art, by machinery; thus converting the tool of labour into capital itself. The political difference between the influence of these two relations, capital and labour, is very great. We feel surprised that the sympathies of the abolitionists are not changed, from the miseries where capital and labour are decidedly congenerous, to a consideration of that morass of misery into which the worn-out, broken tools of labour are thrown, with cruel heartlessness, where capital and labour are antagonistic.

Under the one system, beggars and distress from want are unknown, because such things cannot exist under such an organization of society. But, under the other, pauperism becomes a leading element. The history of that class of community, in all free countries, is a monument and record of free labour.

We ask the politician to consider these facts, while he searches the history of man for light in the inquiry of what is the most tranquil, and, in all its parts, the most happy organization of society.

Under the head of “The Political Influence of Slavery,” Dr. Channing has taken occasion to inform us of his feelings as to the stability of this Union; that he prefers its dissolution to the perpetuation of slavery; and that he proposes a “pacific division.” And what is his “pacific division?” Why, he says, (if we must repeat it,) “the South must studiously keep itself from communion with the Free States; to suffer no railroad from the Free States to cross its border; and to block up all intercourse by sea and land!” Why, it is “death in the pot!”

O most unhappy man! the most unfortunate of all, to have left such a record of intellectual weakness and folly behind! But we will forbear.

We think Dr. Channing’s declarations and proposals wholly uncalled for. We regret the existence of such feelings at the North. We say feelings, because we are bold to say, such sentiments are alone the offspring of the most ignorant, wicked, and black-hearted feelings of the human soul. Their very existence shows a preparedness to commit treason, perjury, and the murders of civil war! The disciples of Dr. Channing, on the subject of abolitionism, may be too stupid to perceive it; for “Evil men understand not judgment.” Prov. xxviii. 5.

We regret this feeling at the North the more deeply on the account of the extraordinary generant quality of sin. For it propagates, not only its peculiar kind, but every monster, in every shape, by the mere echo of its voice! Will they remember, “He that diggeth a pit shall fall into it; and whoso breaketh a hedge, a serpent shall bite him.” Or, that, “It is an honour to cease from strife; but every fool will be meddling.” Prov. But since such feelings do exist, we feel thankful to God that the sin of the initiative in the dissolution of this Union is not with the Slave States. We know there are many good men in the North. Much depends on what they may do. We believe the union of these States need not—will not be disrupted.

But if the laws of Congress can neither be executed nor continued, nor oaths to be true to the constitution longer bind these maniacs, the issue will finally be left in the hand of the God of battles! It becomes the South to act wisely, to be calm, and to hope as long as there can be hope. And to the North, let them say now, before it be too late, “We pray you to forbear. We entreat you to be true to your oaths, and not force us, in hostile array, to bathe our hands in blood.”

But, if the term of our great national destiny is to be closed, and war, the most cruel of all wars, is to spread far beyond the reach of human foresight,—the South, like Abraham in olden time, will “arm their trained servants,” and go out to the war, SHOUTING UNDER THE BANNER OF THE ALMIGHTY!

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LESSON IX.

As a fifth proposition; Dr. Channing says—“I shall consider the argument which the Scriptures are thought to furnish in favour of slavery.”

In the course of these studies, we have often had occasion to refer to the Scripture in our support. We have shown that even the Decalogue gave rules in regulation of the treatment of slaves; that commands from the mouth of God himself were delivered to Abraham concerning his slaves; that the Almighty from Sinai delivered to Moses laws, directing him whom they might have as slaves,—slaves forever, and to be inherited by their children after them; rules directing the government and treatment of slaves, who had become such under different circumstances. We have adverted to the spirit of prophecy on the subject of the providence of God touching the matter, to the illustrations of our Saviour, and the lessons of the apostles. Others have done the same before us. But Dr. Channing says, page 99—“In this age of the world, and amid the light which has been thrown on the true interpretation of the Scriptures, such reasoning hardly deserves notice.”

Had Tom Paine been an abolitionist, he could scarcely have said more! He continues—“A few words only will be offered in reply. This reasoning proves too much. If usages sanctioned in the Old Testament, and not forbidden in the New, are right, then our moral code will undergo a sad deterioration. Polygamy was allowed to the Israelites, was the practice of the holiest men, and was common and licensed in the age of the apostles. * * * Why may not Scripture be used to stock our houses with wives as well as slaves.”

We know not what new light has come to this age of the world, enabling it to interpret the Scriptures more accurately than is afforded by the language of the Scriptures themselves. Whatever it may be, we shall not deprive Dr. Channing nor his disciples of its entire benefit, by the appropriation of its use to ourselves; and therefore we shall proceed to examine his position, by interpreting the Scriptures in the old-fashioned way—understanding them to mean what they say.

The first instance the idea is brought to view which we express by the term wife, is found in Gen. ii. 20 “There was not found a help meet for him.” The original is לֹֽא־מָצָ֥א עֵ֖זֶר בְּנֶגְדּֽוֹ not found, discovered, help, aid, or assistance, flowing, proceeding, at, to, or for him. Let it be noticed that the idea is in the singular. The word ishsha, used to mean one woman, or wife, is so distinctly singular, that it sometimes demands to be translated by the word one, as we shall hereafter find.

Same chapter, verse 22: “Made he a woman,” אִשָׁ֑ה ishsha, woman, wife.

Ver. 23: “Shall be called woman,” אִשָּ֔ה ishsha, woman, wife.

Ver. 24: “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and cleave unto his wife,” אִשְׁתּ֑וֹ ishto, his wife, his woman, “and they shall be one flesh.”

Ver. 25: “The man and his wife,” אִשְׁתּ֑וֹ ishto, wife, woman.

These terms are all in the singular number. We propose for consideration, how far these passages are to be understood as a law and rule of action among men.

Gen. vii. 7: “And Noah went in, and his sons, and his wife, and his sons’ wives with him, into the ark.”

Ver. 9: “There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and female, as God had commanded Noah.”

We propose also for consideration, how far these passages are an indication of the law of God, and his providence, as bearing on polygamy.

Exod. xx. 17 (18th ver. of the Hebrew text): “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife,” אֵ֣שֶׁת, esheth, in the construct state, showing that she was appropriated to the neighbour in the singular number. If the passage had read, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wives, or any of them, the interpretation must have been quite different.

So also Deut. v. 21: “Neither shalt thou desire thy neighbour’s wife,” אֵ֣שֶׁת, esheth.

The twenty-second chapter of Deuteronomy relates the law concerning a portion of the relations incident to a married state; but we find the idea always advanced in the singular number. There was no direction concerning his wives. Had the decalogue announced, “Thou shalt have but one wife,” the language of these explanations and directions, to be in unison therewith, need not have been changed.

The subject is continued through the first five verses of the twenty-fourth chapter, but we find the idea wife still expressed in the same careful language, conveying the idea, as appropriated to one man, in the person of one female only. The term “new wife,” here used, does not imply that she is an addition to others in like condition, but that her condition of being a wife is new, as is most clearly shown by the word חֲדָשָׁ֔ה hadasha, from which it is translated. The sentiment or condition explained in this passage is illustrated by our Saviour in Luke xiv. 20: “I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come,”—that is, until the expiration of the year,—having reference to this very passage in Deuteronomy for authority. But this passage is made very plain by a direct command of God: see Deut. xx. 7: “And what man is there that hath betrothed a wife, and hath not taken her? Let him go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man take her.”

But the institution of marriage was established, before the fall of man, by the appropriation of one woman to one man. Now, that this fact, this example, stands as a command, is clear from the words of Jesus Christ, in Matt. xix. 4, 5: “And he answered and said, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning, made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother and shall cleave unto his wife; and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore, they are no more twain, but one flesh.”

We trust, “at this age of the world,” there is a sufficiency of light, among even the most unlearned of us, whereby we shall be enabled to interpret these scriptures, not to license polygamy, but to discountenance and forbid it, by showing that they teach a contrary doctrine. But, perhaps, the explanation is more decided in Mark x. 8–11: And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.” “And he saith unto them, whoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery against her.”

Surely, if a man commit adultery by marrying the second when he has turned off the previous, it may be a stronger case of adultery to marry a second wife without turning off the first one!

We think St. Paul interprets the Scriptures in the old-fashioned way, Eph. v. 31: “For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.”

See 1 Cor. vi. 16–18: “What! know ye not that he which is joined to a harlot is one body? For two, saith he, shall be one flesh. Flee fornication.” And further, the deductions that St. Paul made from these teachings are plainly drawn out in his lessons to Timothy: “If a man desire the office of bishop, he desireth a good work. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife.” “Let the deacons be the husbands of one wife.” 1 Tim. iii. 1, 2, 12.

“These things command and teach. Let no man despise thy youth; but be thou an example of the believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in faith, in purity.” 1 Tim. iv. 11, 12.

And we now beg to inquire whether this lesson to Timothy is not founded upon the law as delivered to Moses? “And the Lord said unto Moses, Speak unto the priests the sons of Aaron, and say unto them:” * * * “They shall be holy unto their God, and not profane the name of their God.” * * * “They shall not take a wife that is a whore, or profane; neither shall they take a woman put away from her husband.” * * * “And he that is the high priest among his brethren * * * shall take a wife in her virginity.” “A widow, or a divorced woman, or profane, or a harlot, these he shall not take; but he shall take a virgin of his own people to wife.” “Neither shall he profane his seed among his people: for I the Lord do sanctify him.” Lev. xxi. 1, 6, 7, 10, 13, 14, 15.

We doubt not it will be conceded that the teachings of the Bible are, that polygamy includes the crime of adultery and fornication, both of which have a tendency towards a general promiscuous intercourse. In addition to the express commands as to the views thus involved, to our mind there are specifications on the subject equally decisive. “If any man take a wife * * * and give occasion of speech against her, * * * then shall the father of the damsel and her mother take and bring forth the tokens; * * * and the damsel’s father shall say, * * * and, lo, he hath given occasion of speech against her. * * * And the elders of the city shall take that man and chastise him; and they shall amerce him in a hundred shekels of silver, * * * and she shall be his wife; he may not put her away all his days.” “But if this thing is true, and the tokens of her virginity be not found for the damsel; then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her father’s house, and the men of the city shall stone her with stones that she die.” * * * “If a man be found lying with a woman married to a husband, then they shall both of them die.” * * * “If a damsel that is a virgin be betrothed unto a husband, and a man find her in the city and lie with her; then ye shall bring them both out unto the gate of that city, and ye shall stone them with stones that they die.” * * * “But if a man find a betrothed damsel in the field, and the man force her and lie with her; then the man only that lay with her shall die.” * * * “If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found, then the man that lay with her shall give unto the damsel’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife: * * * he may not put her away all his days.” Deut. xxii. 13–25, 28, 29.

“A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord; even unto his tenth generation.” Idem, xxiii. 2.

“These are the statutes which the Lord commanded Moses between a man and his wife, between the father and his daughter, being yet in her youth in her father’s house.” Num. xxx. 16.

“When thou art come into the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee, * * * and shalt say, I will set a king over me,” &c. * * * “But he shall not,” &c. * * * “Neither shall he multiply wives to himself, that his heart turn not away.” Deut. xvii. 14–17.

The inferences to be drawn from a review of these statutes, in opposition to polygamy, we deem of easy deduction. We leave them for the consideration of those who shall examine the subject.

We deem it extraordinary that, “at this age of the world,” we should find men who seem to think that because Moses had a statute which, under certain circumstances, authorized husbands to divorce their wives, that thereby he permitted polygamy.

“When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her,” (it is the same word elsewhere translated nakedness,) “then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife. And if the latter husband hate her, and write her a bill of divorcement, and giveth it in her hand, and sendeth her out of his house; or if the latter husband die, which took her to be his wife; her former husband which sent her away may not take her again to be his wife, after that she is defiled; for this is abomination before the Lord.” Deut. xxiv. 1–4.

Is there any thing here that favours polygamy? Such was the law. But in the original, there is a term used which became the subject of discussion among the Jews, perhaps shortly after its promulgation. This term, in our translation “uncleanness,” some understand to mean such moral or physical defects as rendered her marriage highly improper or a nullity; others understand it to mean, or rather to extend to and embrace, all dislike on the part of the husband whereby he became desirous to be separated from her.

This interpretation seemed most conducive to the power of the husband, and, therefore, probably had the most advocates; and it is said that the Jewish rulers so suffered it to be understood, and that even Moses, as a man, suffered it; noticing that where the wife became greatly hated by the husband, she was extremely liable to abuse, unless this law was so explained as to permit a divorce. The Jews kept up the dispute about this matter down to the days of our Saviour; when the Pharisees, with the view to place before him a difficult question, and one that might entangle him, if answered adverse to the popular idea, presented it to him, as related in Matt. xix. He promptly decides the question, whereupon they say—

“Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away? He saith unto them, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you, Whoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery; and whoever marrieth her that is put away, doth commit adultery.” Matt. xix. 7, 8, 9.

Mark describes this interview thus: “And the Pharisees came to him, and asked him, saying, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife, tempting him? And he answered and said unto them, What did Moses command you? And they said, Moses suffered to write a bill of divorcement, and to put her away. Jesus answered and said unto them, For the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept: but from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female.” Mark x. 2–6.

But do these answers, either way, favour polygamy? Is it not clear that the law was in opposition to it?

It is true, the Jews, corrupted by the neighbouring nations who fell into it, practised the habit to a great extent; and so they did idolatry and many other sins. But was idolatry allowed to the Israelites?

What truth can there be in the assertion that they were allowed a thing, in the practice of which they had to trample their laws under foot? And, under the statement of the facts, what truth is there in the assertion that “polygamy was licensed in the age of the apostles?”

If such was “the practice of the holiest men,” it proves nothing except that the holiest men were in the practice of breaking the law.

It is true that a looseness of adjudication on the subject of divorce grew up, perhaps even from the time of Moses, among the Jews, on account of the dispute about the interpretation of the law. But upon the supposition that the law was correctly interpreted by those who advocated the greatest laxity, which Jesus Christ sufficiently condemned, yet there is found nothing favouring polygamy in it; for even the loosest interpretation supposed a divorce necessary. The dispute was not about polygamy; but about what predicates rendered a divorce legal.

In the books of the Old Testament we find the accounts of many crimes that were committed in those olden days; but can any one be so stupid as to suppose the law permitted those crimes, because the history of them has reached us through these books?

If the polygamy of Jacob, rehearsed in these books, teaches the doctrine that these books permitted polygamy,—then, because these books relate the history of the murder of Abel, it must be said that these books permit murder? And because, in these books, we have the account of the disobedience of Adam and Eve, that therefore disobedience to the command of God is legalized also!

Before we can say that polygamy is countenanced by the Old Testament as well as slavery, we must find some special law to that effect. And some of the advocates of abolition, striving to make a parallel between slavery and polygamy, pretend they have done so in Lev. xviii. 18: “Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, besides the other in her lifetime.”

These advocates interpret this law to permit a man to marry two wives or more, so that no two of them are sisters; and because few take the trouble to contradict them, they seem to think their interpretation to be true, and urge it as such.

It was clear the law permitted no additional wife, so as to allow two or more wives, unless, by the example of Jacob, the law was ameliorated. His example was the taking of sisters; and if the original be correctly translated, his example is condemned by the law cited. We surely fail to see how forbidding polygamy as to sisters, permits it as to others. Louisiana by law forbids any free white person being joined in marriage to a person of colour. If that State, in addition, forbids free white persons being married to slaves, does it repeal the law as to persons of colour?

But to the Hebrew scholar we propose a small error in the translation of this passage. The preceding twelve verses treat on the subject of whom it is forbidden to marry on the account of consanguinity, the last of which names the grand-daughter of a previous wife, declaring such act to be wicked, and closes the list of objections on account of consanguinity, unless such list be extended by the passage under review; for the succeeding sentence is a prohibition of all females who may be unclean; consanguinity is no more mentioned; yet these prohibitions continue to the 23d verse; and it is to be noticed that each prohibition succeeding the wife’s grand-daughter commences with a וְ (vav with sheva), whereas not one on the ground of consanguinity is thus introduced; illustrating the fact that each prohibition, succeeding the wife’s grand-daughter, is founded upon new and distinct causes.

The widow of a deceased husband who had left no issue was permitted to marry his brother; it was even made a duty. Therefore, by parity of reason, there could be no objection, on the account of consanguinity, for the husband of a deceased wife to marry her sister.

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