The character and influence of abolitionism
Van Dyke, Henry Jackson, 1822-1891. [from old catalog]
Ik5£ ;\feii *%&* £>V-,»*V ' ^MB*hH»^<: -**c # LIBRARY OF CONGRKSS. i I UNITED STATES OF AMWA. J! The Character and Influence of Abolitionism. A SE.BMON PREACHED IN TIIE iixst : tymbttxim C|kw|, froohlp, ON SABBATH EVENING, DECEMBER 9th, 1860. BY Rev. HENRY J. VAN DYKE, Pastor. NEW YORK : D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 443 & 445 BROADWAY. 1860. SERMON. 1 TIMOTHY VI. 1-5. 1. Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. 2. And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren ; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, par- takers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort. 3. If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness ; 4. He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strife of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, 5. Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, suppos- ing that gain is godliness : from such withdraw thyself. I propose to discuss the character and influence of Abolition- ism. With this view, I have selected a text from the Bible, and purpose to adhere to the letter and spirit of its teaching. We acknowledge, in tins place, but one standard of morals* — but one authoritative and infallible rule of faith and practice ; for we are Christians here ; not blind devotees, to bow down to the dictation of any man or church ; not heathen philosophers, to grope our way by the feeble glimmerings of the light of nature ; not modern infidels, to appeal from the written law of God to the corrupt and fickle tribunal of reason and humanity ; but Christians, on whose banner is inscribed this sublime chal* lenge :— " To the law and to the testimony ; if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them." Let me direct your special attention to the language of our text. There is no dispute among commentators, there is no room for dispute, as to the meaning of the expression, "servants under the yoke." Even Mr. Barnes, who is himself a distin- guished Abolitionist, and has done more, perhaps, than any- other man in this country to propagate Abolition doctrines, admits, that "the addition of the phrase 'under the yoke,' shows undoubtedly that it (*. c, the original word, doulos) is to be understood here of slavery." * Let me quote another testi- * Mr. Barnes adopts a most extraordinary method to avoid the force of the precept which commands slaves who have believing masters to " do them service, because they are faithful and Moved, partakers of the benefit:'1 He>ays : " The passage before us only proves that Paul considered that a man who was a slaveholder might be con- verted and be spoken of as a believer or a Christian. Many have been converted in similar circumstances, as many have been in the practice of all other kinds of iniquity. What was their duty after their conversion, was another question ; and what was the duty of their servants or slaves was another question still." Again he says: "The passage does not teach that a man can be a Christian, and continue to hold others in bondage. It does not teach that he ought to be considered as maintaining a good standing in the church if he continues to be a slaveholder. The fact that a man might be converted who was a slaveholder, no more proves that it would be right and desirable that he should continue that relation, than the fact that Saul of Tarsus became a Christian when engaged in persecution proves that it would have been right for him to continue in that business, or that the conversion of the Ephesians, who used ' curious arts,' proved that it would have been proper for them to continue in that employment. Men who are doing wrong, are converted in order to turn them from that course of life, not to justify them in it." Now, in view of these extracts, I have three remarks to make. (1.) They illustrate the power of fanaticism to imbittcr the heart. Mr. Barnes well knew when he wrote these pas- sages, that multitudes of the noblest and holiest men of this land have been, and are, slaveholders — that many of the founders of our government, with Washington at their head, were slaveholders — that there are now in our Southern States thousands of Christian masters who give every Scriptural evidence of piety ; and yet in a way that is all the more severe, because of its quiet and seemingly gentle manner, he teaches that slaveholding is a crime on a par with the imposture of the Ephesian sor- cerers, with the slaughter of Saul the persecutor, a crime so obvious and enormous, that a convert from heathenism, without any inspired instruction upon the subject, at once, and instinctively, abandoned it. (2.) These extracts illustrate most pitiably how fanaticism warps the human intellect. The inspired Apostle commands that slaves who have believing masters (not masters who might become believers, as Mr. Barne?, with an amazing ingenuity, intimptes, but believing masters — masters who had been converted) should do them service. And why ? Because they are "faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit." Because these masters had been converted, were beloved of God, were faithful in the discharge of their social duties, were partakers of the benefits of Divine grace — therefore, their slaves were to be the more obedient and respectful in their deportment. Now does not any one see that such a precept contem- plates the continuance of the relation between the Christian master and his slaves? Would Paul so stultify himself as to give commandments for the regulation of that re- lation, based upon the fact of the master's conversion, if he had expected and known this fact would instantly dissolve the relation itself? When he says, " Children, obey your parents in the Lord," does he not imply that the parental relation is to be con- tinued ? And so when, in the very same passage (Ephesians vi., 1-5), he says, " Ser- vants (douloi, slaves), be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh," does he not intimate, in the strongest form, that he expects that relation to continue ? (o.) These passages cast an imputation upon the integrity and candor of the great Apostle. I do not say Mr. Barnes meant such an imputation : I speak of the effect of such interpretations upon those who imbibe their spirit. Mr. B. puts slaveholding on a level with " all other kinds of iniquity," and indicates his estimate of its guilt by choosing persecution and sorcery to illustrate it. Very well, then ; if thi-i be true, Paul might treat "all other kinds of iniquity" in the same way. To be consistent, he should have said : '• Sorcerers, use your curious arts and practise your impostures in a Christian way. Persecutors, when you hale men and women, and breathe out inony on this point from an eminent Scotch divine. 5,) by enjoining Christian slaves to honor and obey their mas- ters whether they were believers or unbelievers, and by assuring Timothy that if any person taught otherwise, he opposed the wholesome precepts of Jesus Christ, and the doctrine of the gospel which in all points is conformable to godliness or sound morality, and was puffed up with pride, without possessing any true knowledge either of the Jewish or Christian revelation." Our learned Scotch friend then goes on to expound the passage in the following paraphrase, which we commend to the prayerful attention of all whom it may concern :— "Let whatever Christian slaves are under the yoke of unbelievers pay their own masters all respect and obedience, that the character of God whom we worship may not be calumniated, and the doctrine of the gospel may not be evil spoken of, as tending to destroy the political rights of mankind. And those Christian slaves who have believing masters, let them not despise them, fancying that they are their equals because they are their brethren in Christ ; for thonghall Christians are equal as to religious privileges, slaves are infe- rior to their masters in station. Wherefore, let them serve their masters more diligently, because' they who enjoy the benefit of their service are believers and beloved of God. These things teach, and exhort the brethren to practise them. If any one teach differently, by affirming that, under the gospel slaves are not bound to serve their masters, but ought to be made free, and^ threatening and slaughter against the Church, see to it that you strangle and heat and kiH thf saints in the most gentle and tender manner. Adulterers, give to your paramou tha whi h is just. Adulteresses, he obedient and submissive to those whom vou^ve Men who go down from Jerusalem to Jericho, do not despise the thieves amont whom you fall>r they ' are faithful and beloved partakers ot the benefit Who does not see the gross impiety of attributing such teaching to the great ApoDtle ? Lt upon whom is thfs impiety chargeable ? Let the text of this discourse answer fhe question Let those who teach that Paul held back the truth in regard to an enormous crime, answer to their own conscience, and to the distracted country which they have embroiled in fraternal strife, by their unscriptural dogmas. does not consent to the wholesome commandments which are our Lord Jesus Christ's, and to the doctrine of the gospel, which in all points is conformable to true morality, he is puffed up with pride, and knoweth nothing either of the Jewish or the Christian revelations, though he pretends to have great knowledge of both ; but is distempered in his mind about idle questions and debates of words, which afford no foundation for such a doctrine, but are the source of envy, contention, evil-speaking, unjust suspicion that the truth is not sincerely maintained, keen disputings carried on contrary to conscience, by men wholly corrupted in their minds and destitute of the true doctrine of the gospel, who reckon whatever produces most money is the best religion. From all such impious teachers withdraw thyself, and do not dispute with them." It would be easy for me to confirm the testimony of Dr. McKnight, by extracts from commentators of every name and nation. Suffer me to select a few as representatives of various religious denominations. Dr. Adam Clark, who is the standard of biblical criticism among our Methodist brethren, and perhaps the most learned man that large and zealous denomination has ever produced, gives us the following clear exposition : " The word douloi (servants) here means slaves converted to the Christian faith ; and the zugon or yoke is the state of slavery, and by despotai, masters, we are to understand the heathen masters of those christianized slaves. Even these, in such circumstances, and under such domination, are commanded to treat their masters with all honor and respect, that the name of God by which they were called, and the doctrine of God, Christianity, which they had pro- fessed, might not be blasphemed — might not be evilly spoken of in conse- quence of their improper conduct. Civil rights are never abolished by any communications from God's Spirit. The civil state in which a man was be- fore his conversion, is not altered by that conversion; nor does the grace of God absolve him from any claims which either the State or his neighbor may have on him. All these outward things continue unaltered. And they that have believing masters let them not despise them, supposing themselves to be their equals because they are their brethren in Christ: and grounding their opinion on this, that in him there is neither male nor female, bond nor free: for, although all are equal as to their spiritual privileges and state, yet there still continues in the order of God's providence a great disparity in their sta- tion ; the master must ever be, in this sense, superior to the servant. But rather do them service — obey them the more cheerfully, because they are faithful and beloved— faithful to God's grace, beloved by him and his true followers. Partakers of the beiujit. This is generally understood as referring to the master's participation in the services of his slaves; or it may apply to the servants who are partakers of many benefits from their Christian masters. Others think that benefit here refers to the grace of the gospel, the common salvation of believing masters and slaves." Dr. Doddridge, a great light among the English Congrega- tionalists, whose practical works are in almost every Christian family, and whose precious hymns are sung wherever the name of Christ is known, gives us the following paraphrase : "Let therefore, as many servants as are under the yoke of bondage, ac- connt their own masters worthy of all that civil honor and respect which suits the station in which they respectively are: not taking occasion from their own religious knowledge and privilege to despiseand rebel against them; that the name and doctrine of God which they profess may not he blasphemed by their insolence and pride. And as for those servants who are so happy as to have believing masters, let them not presume on that account to despise them because they are brethren, and with respect to sacred privileges equal in Christ their common Lord ; but let them rather serve them with so much the greater care and tenderness, because they are faithful and beloved, and partakers with them of the great and glorious benefit which the gospel brings - to all its professors of whatever rank or station in life." I will add one more testimony from Olshauskx, (as con- tinued by Wiesinger,) a work which stands deservedly high among the most evangelical productions of modern Germany. "Fs 1. ' As many under the yoke as arc slaves,'— thus De Wette rightly renders the words, taking douloi as'the predicate: for the distinction cannot be intended to be drawn between such slaves as are under the yoke and such as are not. A slave is as svch under the yoke ; the expression therefore does not imply harsh treatment; nor can it in itself mark the distinction between such slaves as serve heathen and such as serve Christian masters. The ex- pression is rather used by the apostle in opposition to the false ideas that were held on the subject of emancipation. A\ h< soever is under the yoke is to conduct himself according to this his position. They are to count then- mas- ters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and the doctrine be not blas- phemed. One can easily conceive what danger there was lest the Christian slave should inwardly exalt himself above his heathen master, and look down upon him. To meet this danger, there is here required of him not merely outward subjection, but inward esteem. "F*. 2 treats of Christian slaves under Christian masters. Such slaves *re not to see in the fact of their masters being their brethren in Christ, a reason for despising them, (for to place themselves on a level with those to whom they owe subjection is already to dee] ise them ;) hut they are rather to find in this circumstance a motive to serve the more, i. e., to do all the more what their position as slaves lays upon them." Dr. Gill, the well known Baptist commentator, gives us substantially the same exposition. The text, as thus expounded by the concurrent testimony of all the commentators, is a prophecy written for these days, and wonderfully applicable to our present circumstances. It gives us a lifelike picture of Abolitionism in its principles, its spirit, and its practice, and furnishes us plain instruction in regard to our duty in the premises. Before entering upon the discussion of the doctrine, let us define the terms employed. By Aboli- tionism, we mean the principles and measures of Abolitionists. And what is an Abolitionist ? He is one who believes that slaveholding is sin, and ought therefore to be abolished. This is the fundamental, the characteristic, the essential principle of Abolitionism — that slaveholding is sin — that holding men in involuntary servitude is an infringement upon the rights of man, a heinous crime in the sight of God. A man may believe, on political or commercial grounds, that slavery is an undesirable system, and that slave labor is not the most profitable ; he may have various views as to the rights of slaveholders under the constitution of the country ; he may think this or that law upon the statute books of the Southern States is wrong ; but this docs not constitute him an Abolitionist ; to be entitled to this name, he must believe that slaveholding is morally ivrong. The alleged sinfulness of slaveholding, as it is the characteristic doctrine, so it is the strength of Abolitionism in all its ramified and various forms. It is by this doctrine that it lays hold upon the hearts and consciences of men, that it comes as a disturbing force into our ecclesiastical and civil institutions, and by exciting religious animosity, (which all history proves to be the strongest of human passions,) imparts a peculiar intensity to every con- test into which it enters. And you will perceive it is just here that Abolitionism presents a proper subject for discussion in the pulpit: for it is one great purpose of the Bible, and there- fore one great duty of God's ministers in its exposition, to show what is sin and what is not. Those who hold the doctrine that slaveholding is sin, and ought therefore to be abolished, differ very much in the extent to which they reduce their theory to practice. In some this faith is almost without works. They content themselves with only voting in such a way as in their judgment will best pro- 9 mote the ultimate triumph of their views. Others stand off at what they suppose a safe distance, as Shimei did when he stood on an opposite hill to curse King David, and rebuke the sin, and denounce Divine judgments upon the sinner. Others, more practical, if not more prudent, go into the very midst of the alleged wickedness, and teach " servants under the yoke " that they ought not to count their own masters worthy of all honor — that liberty is their inalienable right — which they should maintain, if necessary, even by the shedding of blood. Now, it is not for me to decide who, of all these, are the truest to their own principles. It is not for me to decide whether the man who preaches this doctrine in brave words, amid ap- plauding multitudes in the city of Brooklyn, or the one who, in the stillness of the night, and in the face of the law's terrors, goes to practise the preaching at Harper's Ferry, is the most consistent Abolitionist, and the most heroic man. It is not for me to decide which is the most important part of a tree ; and if the tree be poisonous, which is the most injurious, the root, or the branches, or the fruit. But I am here to-night, in God's name, and by His help, to show that this tree of Aboli- tionism is evil, and only evil — root and branch, flower, and leaf, and fruit ; that it springs from, and is nourished by, an utter rejection of the Scriptures ; that it produces no real benefit to the enslaved, and is the fruitful source of division and strife, and infidelity, in both Church and State. I have four distinct propositions on the subject to maintain — four theses to nail up over this pulpit, and defend with the " word of God, which is the sword of the Spirit/' I. — Abolitionism has no foundation in the Scriptures. II. — Its principles have been promulgated chiefly by misre presentation and abuse. III. — It leads in multitudes of cases, and by a logical pro- cess, to utter infidelity. IV. — It is the chief cause of the strife that agitates, and the danger that threatens, our country. 10 I. ABOLITIONISM HAS NO FOUNDATION IN SCRIPTURE. Passing by the records of the patriarchal age, and waiving the question as to those servants in Abraham's family who, in the simple, but expressive language of Scripture, " were bought with his money/' let us come at once to the tribunal of that law which God promulgated amid the solemnities of Sinai. What said the law and the testimony to that peculiar people over whom God ruled, and for whose institutions He has assum- ed the responsibility ? The answer is in the twenty-fifth chap- ter of Leviticus, in these words : — " And if thy brother that dwelleth by thee be "waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant ; but as a hired servant and a sojourner he shall be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee, and then shall he depart from thee, both he and his chil- dren with him." So far, you will observe, the law refers to the children of Israel, who by reason of poverty were reduced to servitude. It was their right to be free at the year of jubilee, unless they chose to remain in perpetual bondage ; for which case provision is made in other and distinct enactments.* But not so with slaves of foreign birth. There was no year of jubilee provided for them.f For what says the law ? Read the forty-fourth to forty-sixth verses of the chaj)ter. " Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids •which thou shalt have shall be of the heathen that are round about you. Of them shall ye buy bondmen * Exodus xxi. 5, 6 : " And if the servant (i. e., the Hclrew servant, as the context i?hows) 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 also bring him to the door or unto the door-post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl : AND HE SHALT. SERVE HIM FOREVER." tThe Abolitionists have blown this jubilee trumpet with a zeal worthy of a better cause. They have insisted that under the Levitieal economy slaves could only be held for Jifiy years. Now, inasmuch as the average of human life is somewhere between thirty and forty years, seme, at least, of these slaves, according to the interpretation of the Abolitionists themselves, must have ended their days in bondage. But the fact is, as any one may see by a candid reading of the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus, the 3 ear of jubilee had no reference to bondmen of foreign birth, but only to Hebrew landowners who were " waxen poor and fallen in decay." " They might purchase bondmen of the heathen nations that were round about them, or of those strangers that sojourned among them, and might claim a dominion over them, and entail them upon their families, as an inheritance, for the year of jubilee sltould give (hem no dis- charge."— Matthew Henry. 11 and bondmaids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among yon — 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. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession ; they shall be your bondmen forever. There it is, plainly written in the Divine law. No legis- lative enactment, no statute framed by legal skill, was ever more explicit and incapable of perversion. When the Aboli- tionist tells me that slaveholding is sin, in the simplicity of my faith in the Holy Scriptures, I point him to this sacred re- cord, and tell him, in all candor, as my text does, that his teaching blasphemes the name of God and His doctrine. When he begins to dcte about questions and strifes of words, appeal- ing to the Declaration of Independence, and asserting that the idea of property in men is an enormity and a crime, I still hold him to the recoid, saying, " Ye shall take them as an in- heritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a pos- session." When he waxes warm, as he always does if his opponent quote Scripture, (which is the great test to try the spirits whether they be God — the very spear of Ithuriel to re- veal their true character) — when he gets angry, and begins to pour out his evil surmisings and abuse upon slaveholders, I obey the precept which says, " from such withdraw thyself," comforting myself with this thought : that the wisdom of God is wiser than men, and the kindness of God kinder than men. Philosophers may reason, and reformers may rave till dooms- day ; they never can convince me that God, in the Levitical law, or in any other law, sanctioned sin ; and as I know, from the plain passage I have quoted, and many more like it, that He did sanction slaveholding among His ancient people, I know, also, by the logic of that faith which believes the Bible to be His word, that slaveholding is not sin. Abolitionists are accustomed to answer this appeal to the L3vitical law, by asserting that the Old Testament gives the same sanction to polygamy that it does to slaveholding ; and I am sorry to observe that ministers of the gospel make this broad assertion in the pulpit, without condescending to give us the proof-texts. Suppose the Old Testament does sanction polyg- amy, what then ? What is the purpose of the Abolitionist in 12 making this assertion ? Does he mean to cast contempt upon the Levitical law, by proving that it sanctions what all Chris- tians under the gospel admit to be wrong ? Or does he mean to maintain that both slaveholding and polygamy are relations on which the Divine sanction rests ? If it can be proved that the law of God, as promulgated by Moses, did sanction polygamy, I am prepared at once to say that polygamy is in itself no sin ; and if there has been no explicit repeal of that sanction, that it is still right to have a plurality of wives. I know of nothing as sin except that which transgresses God's law. But the fact is, this attempt to offset slaveholding with polygamy is mere assertion. We call for the proof. Point us in the divine law which came by Moses, a passage in reference to a plurality of wives, clear and explicit, like that we have quoted in reference to the purchase of bondmen from the heathen. It cannot be done. It is true some of the patriarchs had more wives than one ; and this fact is recorded. And so David committed murder and adultery ; and that fact is re- corded. But did God sanction these sins for which the sweet singer poured out his broken heart in the fifty-first Psalm, as He did sanction slaveholding, by inserting in His law express directions as to how they were to be committed ? There can- not be found anywhere in the Levitical law, either a permission that a man may have two wives, or any direction as to how he shall obtain them. The nearest approach to such a precept is found in Deut. xxi. 15, where it says, " if a man have two wives," he shall do thus and so with with the children. In other words, he did not approve, but found it advisable to 13 tolerate it as a point of civil expediency." — Commentaries on the Laws of Moses, vol. 2, p. 8. Now, even if we admit that for expediency sake the in- spired lawgiver tolerated polygamy, it must be evident to every candid reader, that slaveholding holds a very different position under the divine law. Slaveholding is there not merely by a silence which gives consent, but it is there as a matter of ex- press enactment. It was anticipated by the law. It is not true, as is so often asserted, that Moses found slavery among the Israelites. At the time when he came to set up their na- tionality under the most perfect theocracy the world ever saw, they had themselves been slaves for generations. When they went out of Egypt, they had no social or commercial ties to bind them to a relation which the cruelty of their heathen masters had so long used as an instrument of oppression. There was not one slave in all that mighty host who gathered around Mount Sinai, to receive the law by which their future institu- tions were to be moulded. Regarding Moses (as Michaelis and other rationalistic com- mentators do) merely in the light of a human lawgiver, how easy would it have been for him, by the insertion of one positive prohibition into his code, or even by the preaching of one abolition sermon, to put the stigma of his disapprobation for- ever upon slaveholding ! How easy for him to keep silence, as it is alleged he did, in reference to polygamy, and thus leave slaveholding on the footing of an evil tolerated for expediency sake ! Or to speak more like a Christian minister, how easy it would have been for God, if he regards slaveholding as sinful, in those days when his chosen people trembled before Sinai, un- der the utterance of that law which was to shape their charac- ter and destiny as a nation, to write the doctrine of Abolition- ism in His holy law, and grave it indelibly upon the inspired records of the world. The fact that he uttered no such doc- trine, but, on the contrary, instructed the chosen seed to pur- chase, and hold, and bequeath their bondmen to their posterity, shuts every man up to the alternative, either to reject Abo- litionism, or reject Moses as an inspired lawgiver. It must be admitted that the Jewish Rabbis, who taught 14 for commandments the doctrines of men, construed the law into a sanction of polygamy. But Christ, the true expounder, showed them how their traditions made void the law. Eead Tiis de- liverance on this subject in Matt. xix. 3-9 ; Mark x. 11 ; Luke xvi. 18. He admits that Moses suffered a man to marry a second wife, provided he had previously divorced the first ; but declares that even this permission was because of the hard- ness of their hearts ; and then referring them to the original and model marriage, by which twain were made one flesh, he promulgates that great divine law, which, however it is tram- pled on now by the legislatures of nominally Christian states, was strictly observed in the Apostolic Church, so that a Chris- tian man as well as a Christian minister, was " the husband of one wife." Admitting, for the sake of the argument, that the Levitical law gives no more sanction to slaveholding than it did to polygamy, we ask the advocates of Abolitionism if Christ ever rebuked the prevailing practice in regard to the one, as he did in reference to the other ? Leaving Moses and the Prophets, let us turn now to Jesus and His Apostles. There are men, even among professing Christians, and not a few ministers of the gospel, who answer the argument from the Old Testament Scriptures, by a simple denial of their authority. They do not tell us how God could ever or any where countenance that which is morally wrong but they content themselves with saying that the Levitical law is no rule of action for us ; and they appeal from its decisions to what they consider the higher tribunal of the gospel.5*-1 Let us, therefore, join issue with them before the bar of the New Testament Scriptures. Here there is no lack of witnesses in the case. It is a historic truth, acknowl- edged on all hands, that at the advent of Jesus Christ slavery existed all over the civilized world, and was intimately interwoven with its social and civil institutions. In Judea, in Asia Minor, in Greece, in all the countries where the Saviour or his Apostles * Some years since, Dr. Wayland publicly asserted that the New Testament is the onlji and sufficient rule of faith for Christians. The editors of the New York Observer challenged this statement ; and, as I have been informed, the late Dr. James Alex- ander offered to debate the question in the columns of that journal. Dr. Wayland pru- dently declined the discussion, promising, however, that he would, at a convenient season, explain and defend his views. The promised explanation has not yet appeared. 15 preached the gospel, slaveholding was just as common as it is to- day in South Carolina. It is not alleged by any one, or, at least, by any one having any pretensions to scholarship or candor, that the Roman laws regulating slavery were even as mild as the very worst statutes which have been passed upon the subject in modern times. It will not be denied by any honest and well-informed man, that modern civilization and the restraining influences of the gospel, have shed ameliorating influences upon the relation between master and slave, which were utterly unknown at the advent of Christianity. And how did Jesus and his Apostles treat this subject ? Masters and slaves met them at every step in their missionary work, and were present in every audience to which they preached. The Roman law, which gave the full power of life and death into the master's hand, was familiar to them ; and all the evils connected with the system surrounded them every day, as obviously as the light of heaven. And yet, it is a remarkable fact, which the Abolitionist does not, because he cannot deny, that the New Testament is utterly silent in re- gard to the alleged sinfulness of slaveholding. In all the in- structions of the Saviour ; in all the reported sermons of the in- spired Apostles; in all the epistles they were moved by the Holy Spirit to write, for the instruction of coming generations — there is not one distinct and explicit denunciation of slavehold- ing, nor one precept requiring the master to emancipate his slaves. Every acknowledged sin is openly and repeatedly condemned, and in unmeasured terms. Drunkenness and adultery, theft and murder — all the moral wrongs which ever have been known to afflict society, are forbidden by name ; and yet, according to the teaching of Abolitionism, this greatest of all sins — this sum of all villanies — is never spoken of except in respectful terms. How can this be accounted for ? Let Dr. Wayland, whose work on moral science is taught in many of our schools, answer this question ; and let parents whose children are studying that book, diligently consider his answer. I quote from Wayland's Moral Science, page 213 : — " The gospel was designed not for one race or for one time, but for all races and for all times. It looked not to the abolition of slavery for that age alone, but for its universal abolition. Hence, the important object of its An- 1G thor was to gain for it a lodgment ia every part of the known world, so that, by its universal diffusion among all classes of society, it might, quietly and peacefully, modify and subdue the evil passions of men. 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 principlo ; if it had pro- claimed 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 throughout 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 agitation of universal bloodshed. The fact, under these circumstances, that the gospel does not forbid slavery, affords no reason to suppose that it does not mean to prohibit it." We pause not now to comment upon the admitted fact that the gospel does not forbid slavery, and that Jesus Christ and his Apostles pursued a course entirely different from that adopt- ed by the Abolitionists, including the learned author himself ; nor to inquire whether the teaching of Abolitionism is not as likely to produce strife and bloodshed in these days as in the first ages of ^the Church. "Doulos" is derived from the verb djo, to bind, and always signifies a bondman. Dr. Robinson, whose Lexicon is the great standard upon such questions, says : " The doulos was never a hired servant, the latter being called by another name — mislhios, or misthotvs.'' This testimony is confirmed by every authority, ancient and modern, European and American, except a little clique of Abolitionists, who, to sus- tain their dogma, would not only wrest the Scriptures, but overturn the very founda- tions of the Greek language. 17 a matter of fact, idolatry, and the vices connected with it, were not even more intimately interwoven with the social and civil life of the Koman empire than slavery was ? Did the Apostles abstain from preaching against idolatry ? Nay, who does not know that by denouncing this sin they brought down upon themselves the whole power of the Roman empire ? Nero covered the Christian martyrs with pitch, and lighted up the city with their burning bodies, just because they would not withhold or compromise the truth in regard to the worship of idols. In the light of that fierce persecution, it is a profane trifling for Dr. Wayland, or any other man, to tell us that Jesus or Paul held back their honest opinions of slavery in order to avoid " a servile war, in which the very name of the Christian religion would have been forgotten." The name of the Chris- tian religion is not so easily forgotten ; nor are God's great pur- poses of redemption capable of being defeated by an honest declaration of His truth everywhere and at all times. And yet this philosophy, so dishonoring to Christ and His Apostles, is moulding the character of our young men and women. It comes into our schools, and mingles with the very life-blood of future generations the sentiment that Christ and his Apostles held back the truth, and suffered sin to go unrebuked to avoid the wrath of man. And all this to maintain, at all hazards, and in the face of the Saviour's example to the contrary, the unscriptural dogma that slaveholding is sin. But it must be observed, in this connection, that the Apos- tles went much further than to abstain from preaching against slaveholding. They admitted slaveholders to the communion of the church. In our text, masters are acknowledged as " breth- ren, faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit." If the New Testament is to be received as a faithful history, no man was ever rejected by the Apostolic Church upon the ground that he owned slaves. If he abused his power as a master, if he availed himself of the authority conferred by the Roman law to commit adultery, or murder, or cruelty, he was rejected for these crimes, just as he would be rejected now for similar crimes from any Christian Church in our Southern States.* * One of the grossest sins of Abolitionism, and one chief root of the bitterness that 2 18 If parents abused or neglected their children, they were cen- sured, not for having children, but for not treating them proper- ly. And so with the slaveholder. It was not the owning of slaves, hut the manner in which he fulfilled the duties of his station, that made him a subject for church discipline. The mere fact that he was a slaveholder no more subjected him to censure, than the mere fact that he was a father or a husband. It is, obviously, upon the recognized lawfulness of the relation, that all the precepts regulating the reciprocal duties of that re- lation are based.* These precepts are scattered all through the inspired epis- tles. There is not one command or exhortation to emancipate the slave. The Apostle well knew that for the present emanci- pation would be no real blessing to him. But the master is exhorted to be kind and considerate, and the slave to be obe- dient, that so they might preserve the unity of that Church in which there is no distinction between Greek or Jew, male or female, bond or free. It is often said that if the Bible does sanction slaveholding, it does not sanction American slavery ; that it is not against slaveholding abstractly that the Abolitionist protests, but against the system of American slavery taken as a ivhole. To this I answer, the Bible does not sanction American marriage. The system, taken as a whole, is full of evil and has sprung up between the North and the South, is its persistent slander on this isub- ject. For example, some years ago it was asserted, and reiterated by Abolition jour- nals and lecturers, that a minister at the South, without injury to his character, had tied up his slave on Sabbath morning, and, having inflicted a cruel punishment, left him suspended, while he went to church to preach and administer the Lord's supper, and then returned to inflict additional stripes upon his lacerated victim. This is but a specimen. In regard to crimes against chastity, the Southern churches have been shamefully slandered. What wonder that Christian mothers, and even ministers of the gospel, are roused to a revolutionary indignation by such abuse? * It is often said that this argument from the precepts of the apostles proves too much ; that it makes the Bible sanction despotism, even the despotism of Nero. In reply to this we quote a few sentences from Dr. Hodge's celebrated Essay on Slavery : " The argument for the lawfulness of slaveholding is not founded on the mere in- juncticn, ' slaves obey your masters,' analogous to the command, 'let every soul be subject to the higher powers,' but on the fact that the apostles did not condemn slavery; that they did not require emancipation ; and that they recognized slaveholders as Christian brethren. To make the objection of any force, it must be shown that Paul not only enjoined obedience to a despotic monarch, but that he recognized Nero as a ( hristian. ' When this is done, then, we shall admit that our argument is fairly met, and that it is just as true that he sanctioned the conduct of Kero as that he acknowl- edged the lawfulness of slavery." 19 iniquity. The laws of the several States in regard to it, are, many of them, abominable ; and the fruits that grow out of it are heart-sickening and dreadful. Husbands beat and poison their wives. Oh, if ministers of the gospel in this land and age had but followed Paul as he followed Christ, and, instead of hurling anathemas and exciting wrath against slaveholders, had sought only to bring both master and slave to the fountain of Emanuel's blood ; if the agencies of the blessed gospel had only been suffered 20 to work their way quietly, as the light and dew of the morning, into the structure of society, both North and South — how differ- ent would have been the position of our country this day before God ! How different would have been the privileges enjoyed by the poor black man's soul, which, in this bitter contest, has been too much neglected and despised ! Then there would have been no need to have converted our churches into military barracks for collecting fire-arms to carry on war upon a distant frontier. No need for a sovereign State to execute the fearful penalty of the law upon the invader, for doing no more than honestly to carry out the teaching of Abolition preachers, who bind heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders, while they touch them not with one of their fingers. No need for the widow and the orphan to weep in anguish of heart over those cold graves, for whose dishonor and desolation God will hold the real authors responsible. No occasion or pretext for slaveholding States to pass such stringent laws for the punishment of the se- cret incendiary and the prevention of servile war. I shall not attempt to show what will be the condition of the African race in this country when the gospel shall have brought all classes under its complete dominion. What civil and social relations men will sustain in the times of millennial glory, I do not know. I cordially incline to the current opinion of our church, that slavery is permitted and regulated by the Divine law, under both the Jewish and Christian dispensations, not as the final destiny of the enslaved, but as an important and neces- sary process in their transition from heathenism to Christianity — a wheel in the great machinery of Providence, by which the final redemption is to be accomplished. However this may be, one thing I know, and every Abolitionist might know, if he would, that there are Christian families at the South in which a patri- archal fidelity and affection subsist between the bond and the free, and where slaves are better fed and clothed and instructed, and have a better opportunity for salvation, than the majority of laboring people in the city of New York. If the tongue of Abo- litionism had only kept silence these twenty years past, the num- ber of such families would be tenfold as great. Fanaticism at the North is one chief stumbling-block in the way of the gospel 21 at the South. This is one great grievance that presses to-day upon the hearts of our Christian brethren in the Southern States. 