The Influence of the Bible upon Slavery

While treating of the influence of the Bible upon the Social Institutions, there is one subject we cannot pass over in silence, notwithstanding the difficulties attending it. I allude to the relation existing between master and slave. The difficulties are intrinsic, growing out of the subject itself, as well as the enterprise and character of the age. At the present day, and in the present condition of our country, it is a subject of great importance; and it becomes every one in forming his judgment concerning it, to turn to that sacred book in which we profess to find a guide and instructor, and submit his opinions to the unerring decisions of the oracles of God. I do not know that I have any personal interest in giving a perverted, or partial view of this vexed question. Indeed I find it no easy matter to take such a view of it, as satisfies my own mind. The Bible is the fountain from which we are to draw, not only our religious doctrines, but our rules of duty. “I have always observed,” said an able and wise divine, “that when people become better than the Bible, they are very apt to be wrong.” We certainly cannot depend upon the reasonings of men, however plausible their arguments, as we may depend upon the decisions of God. All our notions of property, all our abstract reasonings upon the rights of man and his natural freedom and equality, all our principles of moral science and in all their varied applications, must be ultimately brought to the infallible standard revealed from heaven. God is our teacher. It is not for man to sit in judgment upon any of the truths which he has made known. “God never left his works for man to mend.” His wisdom is unerring 5 nor is there any greater presumption than for us to refuse to make the Bible the standard of our duty, and be satisfied with that standard. Have we a written communication from heaven, whose author is a being of universal charity, boundless knowledge, and eternal truth? Then from this source, and this source alone, are we bound to derive our opinions and our instructions on every subject on which it addresses us. Not more truly “would an infidel be labouring in his vocation” in charging errors upon the inspired penmen of this sacred book, than in relying upon his own reason as the ultimate standard of moral duty, and in taking upon himself to teach the inspired writers, rather than suffer them to teach him. It is an unhappiness that the pub-He mind is in such a state of febrile excitement in relation to slavery, that it is difficult to speak the whole truth in relation to this subject without giving offence. But we may not forget, that this state of feeling has nothing to do with our application of the great principles of moral duty as revealed from heaven. It decides nothing 5 is variable and fluctuating; while truth and duty, as God has revealed them, remain the same.

Slavery has been defined by Dr. Paley, to be, ‘’ the obligation to labour for the benefit of the master, without the contract, or consent of the servant.” This relation has existed in a great variety of forms, and degrees of severity. Very often it has been a condition marked by injustice and cruelty, attended with no adequate remuneration for labour, great civil disabilities and personal suffering, great domestic wrongs, and great intellectual and moral degradation. And there are instances, as facts show, in which it has existed unaccompanied by any of these evils. These are evils that have been wickedly superinduced by the cruelty and cupidity of men, rather than evils which necessarily and essentially belong to the relation itself

Long before the Bible was given to the world, slavery had an extensive prevalence throughout the oriental nations. So far from introducing the evil, it found the earth filled with it, and has silently and gradually so meliorated the relation between the master and the slave, that in the progress of its principles and spirit, it must ultimately either abolish this relation, or leave it resting upon a basis of the purest benevolence, and the source of mutual advantage. This, we purpose to show is the appropriate influence of the Bible upon slavery. Nor do we design to extend our remarks beyond j this single point. What is the legitimate influence of the Bible upon slavery? This is the only question which falls within the range of appropriate discussion in these lectures.

We cannot take an intelhgent view of this question, without a glance at the condition of slavery in those countries where the influence of the Bible I has never been enjoyed. The great antiquity of the Assyrian empire, extending beyond the period when letters were invented, leaves the customs of the ancient Assyrians in great obscurity. Five of the Canaanitish tribes were the vassals of Cherdorlaomer for twelve years, and obtained their liberty by an open revolt. Abram was an inhabitant of Assyria, and at the time of his recovery of Lot from Cherdorlaomer and his allies, he was the proprietor of several hundred “trained servants, born in his house.” From the predatory nature of their wars, it is probable that the condition of slaves in Assyria was not essentially different from the condition of the same class of men in the surrounding countries. The manner in which slaves were treated among the Babylonians, the Persians, and other nations of remote antiquity, was such as “excluded them from every privilege of society, and almost every blessing of life.” They were dependant on the caprice of imperious masters, and were unprotected by the laws. They might be tortured, maimed, or put to death, at the arbitrary will of their masters. In these early ages, in times of great public calamity, men often sold themselves for slaves. While Joseph was the prime minister of Pharaoh, and during the seven years’ famine, the people came to him and said, “Buy us and our land for bread 5 and we will be servants unto Pharaoh.” Joseph granted their request, and said unto them, “Behold I have bought you this day, and your land, for Pharaoh.” Before this time, Egypt was a limited monarchy. The people were free, and had lands independent of the crown. Now they became vassals, feudatory tenants, and the government despotic. The condition of slaves in Egypt we know was sufficiently abject and degraded. We need no greater evidence of this, than Pharaoh’s treatment of the children of Israel, and more especially his cruel order to the midwives. Nor were they enemies, nor the children of enemies, who were subjected to this severe servitude, but the descendants of a family who had been the saviours of Egypt, and the builders up of royal power. Nations whose unmixed ferocity and thirst for revenge were more generally satiated by the indiscriminate butchery of their enemies 5 who denied them even those common funeral rites, which in the opinion of the times, were necessary to the repose of the soul after death 5 who directed even their captive kings to be taken to prison and slain; regarded it as a mitigation of the laws of war to substitute slavery for death. Adult males were usually put to the sword, and the women and children captured and enslaved. A distinguished writer on the principles of political law, remarks, “In former times, it was a custom almost universally established, that those who were made prisoners in a just and solemn war, whether they had surrendered themselves, or were taken by main force, became slaves the moment they were conducted into some place dependant on the conqueror. And this right was exercised on all persons whatever, even on those who happened to be in the enemy’s country at the time when the war suddenly broke out. The prisoners themselves and their posterity were reduced to the same condition.” In some countries, insolvent debtors were sold for slaves. There were periods in the Roman history, when if the debt were not discharged within thirty days after a number of citations, by the direction of the prsetor the pub« lie crier proclaimed in the forum, “Let him be punished with death, or sold beyond the Tiber!” In the institutes of Justinian, slaves are said to become such in three ways — by birth, where the mother was a

slave 5 by captivity in war; and by the voluntary sale of himself by a freeman. In Greece, the disproportion between freemen and slaves was nearly in the ratio of ninety to four hundred. This large portion of the population, according to the account given by Mitford, were not only slaves, but nothing could exceed 4he insult, the injury, the cruelty, to which they were subjected. The Spartan youth hunted them as wild beasts, for the sake of making themselves expert in the use of arms. “A scanty and disgusting dress, and dog-skin cap, distinguished them from all the rest of the inhabitants. Those who were too robust had to be enfeebled by various kinds of ill-treatment; and if the masters did not do this, they became themselves liable to a penalty. Every slave annually received a certain number of stripes to remind him that he was a slave! Hymns of a nobler kind they were not allowed to sing; but only gay and sensual songs. To complete their degradation, they were sometimes compelled to sing songs in disgrace and ridicule of themselves; and to the same purpose they were also compelled to perform indecent dances. In order to make the sons of the Spartans loathe the vice of drunkenness, the slaves were compelled to intoxicate themselves in public assemblies. When they became too numerous, they were murdered clandestinely 5 every year, at a certain period, the young Spartans, clad in armour, used to hunt them; and to prevent their increase, they were killed with daggers.”* The same author relates an affecting anecdote respecting the slaves of Sparta. When, during the Peloponesian war, the Spartans became apprehensive of the influence of their slaves, they made proclamation that the most meritorious and heroic among them should present themselves before the magistrate for the honour of freemen. In conformity with this invitation, two thousand presented themselves for this honour. The offer, however, was but a lure to detect the most aspiring and generous minded of those unhappy beings, and drew out their choicest spirits. Instead of the promised freedom, all were inhumanly slain, in accordance with the atrocious policy of that severe and sanguinary state. The slaves of Greece were generally branded like cattle. According to the laws of Lycurgus, they could neither be emancipated, nor sold. In Sicily and Italy, they were chained and confined to work in dungeons. Rome was a continual market for slaves, where they were commonly exposed naked. It is computed by the historian, Gibbon, that this class composed one half of the inhabitants of that extensive empire, and could not have been less than sixty millions. As a body of men, they were considered dangerous to the welfare of the state, and were therefore depressed in every way. They were left entirely at the disposal of their masters, who might treat

* The Nature and Moral Influence of Heathenism, by Tholuck. See Biblical Rep. for 1832. them in whatever manner they pleased, and who were invested with absolute power and authority over them. The aged, the sick, and the infirm, were carried to an island on the Tiber, where they were suffered to perish. Vedius Apollo, an intimate friend of Augustus, fed his fishes with the flesh of his slaves. Nor was this degradation of limited extent. A single individual in Rome had slaves to the amount of four thousand, one hundred and sixteen. When the master was murdered, and the murderer could not be detected, all his slaves, with their wives and children, were put to death. There was a class of slaves among the the Romans, called the Ostiarii, who were chained like watch-dogs before the houses. The laws of Rome regarded them all simply as property 5 not as persons but as things ‘, and as far as they could do so from the nature of the case itself, hardly distinguished them from brutes. Nor was it until the time of the emperor Adrian, more than a hundred years after the birth of Christ, that masters were divested of the arbitrary power over their slaves which they possessed in the days of the republic and the Csesars.

Such was the condition of slavery in pagan lands. Such was essentially its condition when God called Abram from an idolatrous country, to make him the founder of the Hebrew State, Such was its condition when God gave the moral and civil law to Moses on Sinai and in the wilderness. Such was its condition when Nehemiah the Hebrew reformer, a man of no common integrity and boldness, roused the minds of that degenerate community to a conviction of their violated obligations. Such was its condition when the Saviour descended as the great Teacher of men, and when his Apostles so faithfully and fearlessly published and enforced the great truths and duties of the Christian dispensation. Such was its condition during all the progressive revelations which God gave to men down to the period when the sacred canon was completed. Slavery most certainly had existed, and still existed in its worst forms, and with all its most fearful and appalling attendants and consequences. It existed extensively among the Jews, even down to the days of the apostles. Tacitus mentions that there were 20,000 slaves in the army of Simon when Vespasian was marching against Jerusalem.

Here then, in view of these plain and affecting facts, we propose a grave question. How did the Scriptures treat this solemn subject? What is the course which Moses and the Prophets, Christ and the Apostles pursued in relation to this deeply interesting matter?

It is not difficult to conceive of a course which they mighty and in the judgment of some persons, ‘ought to have adopted. They might have reasoned thus. — Slavery is wrong. No man, no set of men have a right to deprive another of his personal liberty. The obligation of service at the discretion of another is void. Without the contract, or consent, or crime of the servant, such an obligation is in all cases, sinful. All men are born equally free and independent, and have the same right to their freedom which they have to property, or life. In all its features, the whole system of slavery is utterly at war with the law of nature and the law of God. Justice and humanity shrink from it. It is unjust in the same sense and for the same reason, as it is to steal, to rob, or to murder. It destroys the lives, depraves the morals, corrupts the purity, and ruins the souls of men. It discourages industry, makes a mock of the marriage vow, shuts out the light of religious truth from more than one half mankind, and reduces them to a degradation below the dignity and responsibility of intellectual and immortal beings. It is an evil therefore, that may not be endured. The owners of slaves must every where be denounced as wicked men. They must be held up as the objects of public censure and obloquy. They are giants in cruelty and crime. They are men-stealers, robbers, pirates, and may no more have a place in the Church of God on the earth, than they can be admitted into the kingdom of heaven. The system of which they are the abettors must be put down. No matter by what revolutions in Church or State 5 no matter by what agitations, or insurrections: it must be put down. It is a sin, and cannot be abolished too soon. Duty is cur’s, events are God’s. No matter how disastrous the consequences of arresting it, it must be arrested, be they what they may!

Such a course as this I say the Bible might have recommended. And why did it not recommend jsuch a course? It was not from inadvertence, be- ’ cause it frequently adverted to the subject. It must have been from design. The evils of slavery were under the eye of the sacred writers, and met them every where. They were wise and good men, and under the plenary inspiration of the Holy Ghost. They were divinely instructed in the best method of fulfilling their great commission, and of carrying the designs of it into execution. The great Author of the Bible exercised his wisdom in this feature of his revelation as well as in every other. Nor can it be doubted by any, except those who would invalidate all confidence in his word, that he has selected the best method of instructing the world upon this important subject. There was in the nature of things, hut one best method ,* and that method was not only known to God, but he was under a moral necessity of adopting it. Those who find fault with the instructions of the Bible in relation to slavery, directly arraign the rectitude, goodness, and wisdom of him who does all things after the counsel of his own will. Nor may it be supposed there was any want of sensibility in the sacred writers to the deplorable state of the slave population. Nor did they want firmness and energy of character 5 but were every where bold, determined, and steady to their purpose. They

J226 SLAVERY.

were never rash, but never fearful of opposing themselves to the swelling, menacing tide of the corrupt propensities and passions of men, nor hesitated to do all that they could for truth and right, for religion and virtue, for order and happiness, and for the protection of the oppressed, however formidable the opposition they met with, however great the sacrifices, or however imminent the danger. The reason why they did not pursue the course to which we have referred, must have been that it was not the true and right course. It was neither right in itself, nor best for the master or the slave, for the church or the world.

What then was the course which the Bible pur-I sued? In giving this book to mankind, its wise I and benevolent Author undertook the work of a ‘, great reformer. His object was to benefit the world, and subdue it ultimately to himself, by setting in motion a series of moral influences, that were silently to operate for good among the nations, and gradually to renew the face of the earth. His plans were vast and magnificent, and would not be accomplished in a day. Nor did he fail to count the cost of the enterprise. If there were evils in human society, he modified and mitigated them, because to have done more, would in the end have been to accomplish less. If there were existing institutions, long and deeply imbedded in the frame of human society, the abuse of which could not but be deplored, he so regulated the institutions themselves as to sever them from their abuses, while he breathed into all his moral instructions and government, a spirit that should finally eradicate all evil, and fill the earth with holiness and salvation.

Nor is there any subject to which these remarks are more applicable than that of slavery. Let us turn our thoughts in the first place, to what may ibe gathered from the Old Testament in rela- ‘tion to this subject. In glancing at the early history of the Hebrews, and before the giving of the law to Moses, we have already seen that the fathers of that nation, the patriarchs, possessed slaves in great numbers. And yet we do not find that God reproved these holy men for being the proprietors of slaves. He did not at that time forbid slavery. Though, if he designed to do so at all, it would seem to us to have been the proper time for him to have required Abram to emancipate his slaves, yet he made no such requisition. He had just called him out from the corruptions of a pagan empire, for the purpose of founding in his family his visible church, and in them of setting an example to the world of a society that should be under his own guidance and direction. And yet he did not make it a condition of Abram’s adoption into his family that he should give freedom to the servants, that were bought with his money, that were born in his house, or that were given to him by Abimelech. Instead of this, he so far recognizes and sanctions the proprietorship of this patriarch in his servants, that he required every male among them to be circumcised, and claimed for them all the privileges of the covenant, of which circumcision was the seal.*

If we pass from the days of Abraham to those of Moses, we find a moral law revealed from heaven, and a code of civil statutes, in both of which the existence of a state of servitude is distinctly recognized, without being forbidden. In the fourth commandment it is written, “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 nor thy maid servants And in the tenth commandment it is written,” Thou shalt not covet thy neighbours house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbours wife, nor his man servant nor his maid servant If from the moral, we turn to the civil code of the Hebrews, we find the following facts. As one of its great and capital principles, it forbids the slave trade, or the seizing of those who are free and selling them as slaves. “He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death.” This is the deliberate judgment of the divine mind in relation to every branch of this nefarious traffic. It is an offence punished with death. The original man-stealer and the receiver of the stolen person must lose their life under the Mosaic law. The slave cap-

* Gen. 17: 10 — 13, and 27.

tain and the negro dealer are here admonished of their reward. This code also recognizes the distinction between slaves and hired servants. “It shall not seem hard unto thee when thou sendest him away from thee j for he hath been worth double a hired servant unto thee, in serving thee these six years.”* So that when this code speaks of servants it speaks of them not as hired freemen, but as slaves. The Mosaic law refers to the following ways in which a Hebrew might lose his liberty. In extreme poverty, he might sell himself “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 the Jubilee.”t A father might sell his children. “If a man sell his daughter to be a maid servant, she shall not go out as the men servants do.”J Insolvent debtors became the slaves of their creditors. “My husband is dead, and the creditor is come to take my two sons to be bondmen.”|| A thief, if he had not the money to pay the fine exacted from him by the law, was by the sentence of the judge to be sold for the benefit of him whom he had robbed. “If a thief be found, he shall make full restitution; if he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.”§ As the Hebrews were liable

*Deut. 15: 18. and Lev. 25: 39, 40. fLev. 25: 39. X Exod. 21: 7. I| II Kings, 4:1. § Exod. 22: 3. to be taken prisoners of war, and sold for slaves, so a Hebrew slave who had been ransomed from a gentile, might be sold by him who ransomed him to one of his own nation, and the price of his redemption was “reckoned from the year that he was sold, unto the year of jubilee.”* The Hebrews were also allowed to hold slaves whom they purchased from the surrounding nations, who should be “their possession, and an inheritance for their children after them.”t All the prisoners of war also that were taken by the Hebrews, were slaves. “When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be, if it make an answer of peace, — that all the people that shall be found therein shall be tributaries unto thee and shall serve thee. But if it make war against thee, then thou shalt beseige it, and shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword, but the women and the little ones shalt thou take unto thyself.”J In these seven ways, slavery might originate among the Hebrews. And it is worthy to be distinctly remarked, that with the exception of those slaves that were purchased from surrounding nations, and those who were taken in war, it was a state of servitude originating with the consent of the servant, or growing out of ids fault. It was also a servi-

*Lev. 25: 50. fLev. 25: 45. :j:Deut. 20: 14. and Numbers, 31: 18 — 35. tude greatly modified by very many important mitigations. Every where the Jewish law is most scrupulously protective of the person of the slave, while it allows for the master’s peculiar relation, on the ground that the servant is “his money.” While it recognizes the right of the master to the possession of the servant, it recognizes no rights that are inconsistent with the high nature of his being, but is itself the guardian of every right, founded on his obligations as a moral and responsible agent, to God or his fellow men. As in the patriarchal, so it was in the Mosaic age: the slave passed under the bonds of God’s covenant, was consecrated by his master to God, and was educated in his fear. The law guarded his person from severity, in some cases by the death of the master, and in others by his own immediate freedom. He enjoyed all religious rites and privileges, not excepting the sabbath, the year of jubilee, the annual festivals, the new moons, the day of atonement, and other seasons of appointed rest. He had a sure and certain support, and was entitled to all affection and kindness. Every where God admonished the Hebrews against treating their slaves as they themselves had been treated in Egypt, and as slaves were generally treated in surrounding countries. In addition to this, let it be borne in I mind, that no Hebrew could by the laws of Moses, Ibe a slave for a longer term than six years, unless by intermarrying with his master’s servants, or for other causes, he chose to remain in servitude; and I at the end of the six years, he was to be sent out I liberally furnished. A female Hebrew servant also, I frequently became the wife of her master, or the wife of his son; and in that event was entitled to I all the privileges of honourable matrimony, or a I lawful daughter. I cannot help thinking, that the system of servitude under the laws of Moses, so, far as it regarded slaves who were themselves Hebrews, was not unlike the system of apprenticeship in Great Britian, and in this country, where ;a child is bound out for a term of years, and at the end of that period the parent receives a stipulated compensation for his services.

The two most revolting features of slavery among this people are recorded in the following paragraphs. “If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall surely be punished;” and the punishment was death. “Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money.” The reason of this law I suppose to be this. If the servant survived a number of days, it could not be so clearly proved that the punishment occasioned his death, as to justify the death of the master. It might rather be charitably presumed, that he died from some other cause. There would not be conclusive evidence of deliberate malice. The pecuniary interest which the master had in his servant was a presumption in his favour, and the law would not condemn unless on the strongest testimony. And was not this right 5 and are not, ought not all penal laws to be construed as favourably as possible to the accused? The other paragraph is this. “Of thy bond-men and thy 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 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 bond-men forever.” It seems difficult to deny that this feature of slavery existed among the Jews until the final destruction of their city. The language of the passage is that of injunction, but it implies nothing more than that the Hebrews were permitted to procure slaves of the surrounding nations, and hold them in perpetual bondage. No considerate man supposes that they were required to do this, and that the Hebrew who neglected to do it was living in sin. We have two remarks to submit in relation to this general permission. The first is, that the kind of servitude to which foreign slaves were subjected was in all respects the same with the servitude of the Hebrews themselves, except that it was perpetual. They were protected by the laws 5 were circumcised, and introduced to all the blessings and promises of God’s peculiar people. But there is another remark. The condition of the Hebrews was a peculiar condition. The nations with which they were surrounded, were nations whom for their total apostacy from the worship of the true God, their degraded idolatry, their unnatural cruelty and pollution, the Hebrews were required to exterminate. There was one condition on which they were relieved from the execution of this decree. It was that the Canaanites submitted to their invaders, renounced their idolatry, and became Hebrews. Their conquerors were the ministers of the divine justice, commanded to execute this sentence, and to relax its rigour BO far as their enemies submitted to their government and their religion. The right to destroy carried with it the right to enslave 5 while the slaves purchased their lives by the voluntary surrender of their liberty.

I cannot think that I have set the slavery of the Hebrews in too fair colours. I have not designed to do so. Most certainly, it was a very different thing from what it was in the surrounding nations. Look at the contrast, and see the influence of the Bible upon slavery, even at that early age of the world. Slavery there was among the Hebrews, but few of its evils. The eiUire dispensation of the Jews made at once a bold and decided invasion upon its abuses and eradicated them. And yet it is a fact equally clear, that it left the relation between master and servant untouched, and instead of denouncing slavery as a crime, is offended only with its abuses.

t-Such was the meUoration which the Bible introduced in regard to this large class of our fellow-beings, for whom it so kindly and wisely legislated under the old dispensation and down to the coming of Christ. And nothing is more obvious than that, while it exerted the happiest influence upon this relation of social life, it did not overturn and destroy it. The same essential principles of reform, and no others, we find every where developed in i the New Testament. Employed exclusively in propagating the doctrines of their Divine Master, his apostles no where opened a crusade upon the despotism of the government under which they lived, or upon the institutions sanctioned by its laws. Melioration in civil affairs they left to be gradually brought about by the silent operation of those divine principles which purify the heart; which have in their progress banished such an amount of sin, tyranny, and slavery from the world; and which are destined, in the same heaven-like way, to complete their work. In all the mutual intercourse of men, the great maxim which they enforce is one and unchanging: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them; for this is the law and the prophets.” This spirit runs through the whole of the New Testament, and addresses itself equally to the master and the slave. One cannot but observe with admiration, the high-born wisdom, the meekness and gentleness with which the apostles conducted this discussion. The re-I ligion they taught is a religion of love- It breathes peace on earth and good will to men. What incongruity with such a spirit to have excommunicated every slaveholder! or to have made immediate emancipation the condition of church membership! What incongruity with such a spirit to have excited revolt among the Christian slaves, or to have disseminated notions which must have revolutionized the principles of social order, and broke down all the distinctions of rank and condition? They did nothing of all this. They were taught from above, and their wisdom and meekness gave efficacy to their ministrations. They had access to the slave population of the Roman empire; they penetrated “Caesar’s household;” they urged the cause of their Master in the palaces of kings, and carried the hearts of masters and slaves by gaining their impartial attention, and expressing the gentleness of Christ.

I have been not a little affected with their instructions to both these classes of men. Mark their delicacy, and at the same time their tenderness and sympathy when they address the poor slave — just weak enough to begin to think he is an emperor, because by the grace of God he has be- ( come a Christian. “Art thou called being a servant? Care not for it. But if thou may est be I free, use it rather. For he that is called in the I Lord, being a servant, is the Lord’s freeman. Let j every man abide in the same calling wherein he is I called!” How wise! how kind! How different |( from some modern reformers! I seem to see the great apostle laying his paternal hand upon the head of the poor slave, and hear him say, Care not for your slavery. You are the Lord’s freeman. Stay where you are. You shall have a throne hereafter. And that your master may share it with you, let him see your spirit of love and meekness. “Be obedient to your masters, according to the flesh, with good will doing service as unto the Lord, and not unto men. Account your masters worthy of all honour that the name of God be not blasphemed!” If you have Christian masters, demean not yourselves superciliously on this account, but rather more affectionately and dutifully 5 “despise them not because they are brethren, but rather do them service because they are faithful and beloved!” Nor is it to the slave only that they address their counsels. While they neither excommunicate, nor even rebuke the master, simply because he is a master, they do not withhold their rebuke of all his oppression and injustice — nay they thunder forth their anathemas against the degradation, the ignorance, the misery, the wickedness, and every violation of the personal and domestic rights to which he subjects his slaves, and solemnly remind him of the fearfulness of that day when God shall call him to account. They admonish him not to be unmindful of the obligations to his slaves on his part. They say to him, “• Masters, give unto your slaves that which is just and equal. Do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening 5 knowing that your Master also is in heaven, neither is there any respect of persons with him!” They say to him, You are responsible, as well as your slaves *, and as you would enjoy the favour of your Judge, honour his religion, and find mercy at that day, be ye merciful as your Father in heaven is merciful. Your slaves are not things but persons j they are not brutes, but fne7i j they are not your creatures, but Gods j they are not your property, but his who “made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of the earth, if haply they might feel after him and find him.”

Thus do the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament treat the subject of slavery. They sanction no other slavery than this. The exclusive title of man over a fellow worm, who belongs not to him, but to God 5 the assertion of any human will as supreme over a fellow-creature, when there is no supreme will in heaven or on earth, but the divine will 5 the lording it over the conscience of the slave, when God alone is Lord of the conscience 5 this they rebuke and indignantly condemn. Whatever servitude denies the slave the rights of his moral nature, annihilates his capacity of improvement, crushes intellect that would otherwise brighten and expand, subdues affections that would otherwise be elevated to the spirit of heaven, shuts out the light of truth, and binds body and soul in the chains of ignorance and death 5 they denounce as one of the things which the Lord hateth. But a slavery that is dissevered from all these evils, and dissociated from the abuses to which it is so exposed from the corrupt propensities and selfish passions of men, it no where, to my knowledge, forbids. Such a slavery, for example, as Onesimus sustained to Philemon, a state of Christian servitude, a state in which the master and the slave were required to conduct themselves as brethren and heirs of the common faith and salvation, Paul certainly did not forbid., when he restored this fugitive slave to his master. So far from justifying him for absconding, he required him to go back, at the same time furnishing him with a letter of introduction to his master, entreating him to overlook his fault, and regard him as a penitent and faithful servant, and “brother beloved.^’

I hold myself ready to revise these views, whenever I see evidence from the Bible that they are not true. Nothing is more plain to my mind, than that the word of God recognizes the relation between master and slave as one of the established institutions of the age 5 and that while it addresses slaves as Christian men, and Christian men as slaveholders, it so modifies the whole system of slavery, as to give a death blow to all its abuses, and breathes such a spirit, that in the same proportion in which its principles and spirit are imbibed, the yoke of bondage will melt away, all its abuses cease, and every form of human oppression will be unknown. The Bible is no agitator. It gradually meliorates what it cannot suddenly remove. Instead of carrying fire and sword throughout the world without the least prospect of advaiit tage, it aims at making men holy and fitting them ’ for heaven. It changes human governments only as;’ it changes the human character; and thus produces all those alterations which commend themselves to I a mind enlightened by the truth and spirit of God. It aims at transforming the world 5 but it is by transforming the dispositions and hearts of men, and diffusing throughout all the social institutions, the supreme love of God, and the impartial love of man.

Let us now take a brief view of the practical effect of these general principles, as they have actually been applied by several Christian States. European civilization may be said to have commenced from the fall of the Roman empire. To say nothing of antecedent periods, from this time, the Bible, though often in the hands of a corrupted hierarchy, has been exerting a powerful influence on all the social institutions. Barbarism gradually subsided into feudalism, and feudalism gave way to the various modifications of civil liberty. Slavery was among the last of the evils, so imbedded in the constitution of human society, to which the Bible extended its influence. “Mr. Barrington, who has given a very strong picture of the degradation and oppression of the tenants under the English tenure of pure villenage, is of opinion that feudal servitude existed in England so late as the reign of Elizabeth.”* But the personal servitude which grew out of the abuses of the feudal system, was a much milder form of slavery than that which existed among the ancients. “No person in England was a villain in the eye of the law, except in relation to his master. To all other persons he was a freeman, and as against them he had rights of property 5 and his master for excessive injuries committed upon the vassal was answerable at the kings suit.”t The importation of negro slaves into the Spanish colonies had commenced as early as 1501 5 and in 1517, the emperor Charles V. granted a patent to certain persons to supply the Spanish islands with slaves from Africa. But this entersprise was opposed with great spirit and vigour by some of the Christians of Spain, who had great influence in mitigating slavery in the colonies. The first Englishman who introduced the practise of buying, or kidnapping negroes in Africa, and transporting and selling them for slaves in the West Indies, was Sir John Hawkins, an English admiral born at Plymouth, and who signalized himself under Elizabeth, especially against the invincible armada. It is matter for lamentation that having signalized himself in so good a cause, he should have become signal in a cause which loads his name with everlasting reproach. This was in the year 1562. From that time to the

* Kent’s Commentaries, Vol. II. f Ibid, year 1808, the British West Indies became the great receptacle of these unhappy beings. “In 1620, a Dutch vessel carried a cargo of slaves from Africa to Virginia 5 and this was the sad epoch of the introduction of African slaves into the English colonies on this continent. The Dutch records of New Netherlands allude to the existence of slaves in their settlements on the Hudson, as early as 1626 5 and slavery is mentioned in the Massachusetts laws, between 1630 and 1641.”*

Thus, for well nigh three successive centuries, the negro race remained almost without an advocate — crushed, broken, and deserted, and the objects of a cupidity which it would seem nothing could satiate. England, deeply stained with the guilt of this foul traffic, at length stands foremost for the relief and elevation of the African race, unless we except the government and people of Massachusetts, who, in 1645-’46, so boldly protested against the introduction of African slaves into the colony as a heinous crime.f At the commencement of that distinguished era which was introduced about half a century ago, when the missionary spirit began to agitate the Christian world 5 when the judgments of heaven began to

* Kent’s Commentaries.

Winthrop’s and Bancroft’s Histories, as referred to by Chancellor Kent slaverv. 243

descend on the nations which had “given their power and strength to the beast 5” when the cause of evangelical truth was revived, and the spirit of God began to descend in that series of revivals of religion which has not ceased to the present hour 5 a movement was begun in Britain, by which Christianity and civihzation were conveyed to long-neglected and abused Africa. Clarkson, Sharpe, Wilberforce, Thornton and Gregorie, became the undaunted and unwearied advocates for the abolition of the slave trade throughout the civilized world, and the inquiry was every where agitated, whether it were not practicable to wipe away this deep stain from Christian lands. About the same time, the estabhshment of the colony of Sierra-Leone, and the fearful revolution in St. Domingo, gave additional impulse to the enterprise, and awakened the hope that the day of Africa’s deliverance was near. “God Almighty has set before me,” said Wilberforce, “two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade, and the reformation of manners.” After some few unsuccessful struggles, the celebrated Mr. Pitt was enhsted in this cause, and Mr. Fox concluded the last speech he ever made in parliament with the immortal resolution for the abolition of the slave trade.* In the mean time, such men as Sir Samuel Romily and Sir James Mcintosh, aided by venerable prelates.

* See Croly’s Life of George IV. threw the vigour of their minds and the ardour of their hearts into the benevolent struggle, and Edmund Burke had exclaimed, “-This is not a traffic in the labour of man, but in the man himself!” In March, 1807, the bill for abolition was passed. After the general peace in Europe, in 1814, the subject was again brought before parliament for the purpose of securing the co-operation of the other Christian powers in the suppression of this nefarious traffic. In 1823, the house of commons unanimously adopted a series of resolutio’!! with the ultimate view of emancipating all slaves within the British dominions. The parliament of Great Britain had peculiar facilities for doing this. It had unlimited power. The slaves were not a constituent part of their own population, but in remote and feeble islands, having no voice in the government at home, and whom a few ships of the line could awe into obedience. In 1826, the same resolutions were adopted unanimously by the house of lords. A little before this, Mr. Buxton and Mr. Canning had introduced the resolutions for the more lenient treatment of the slaves, especially as regards religious instruction and their social condition. And, in 1833, a more decisive course of action was adopted 5 and the memorable bill passed, which, at an expense of £ 20,000,000, as an equitable consideration to the planters for the slaves, resolved on the entire abolition of slavery throughout the British colonies. But, as we have already seen, Great Britain, in opposition to repeated expostulation and strong remonstrance from such men as Franklin, Adams, and Hancock, had extended the evils of slavery, and diffused this malignant plague throughout lands to which the omnipotence of her parliament could no longer be extended. Though long since abolished in New England, slavery was introduced into that country soon after its settlement. But it was in a form modified and mitigated by the spirit and principles of the Bible. While the cupidity of New England had done much to replenish the slave market of the south, the institutions of the Mosaic law were professedly the model of her own slavery. It was early enacted in the Massachusets colony, that “all slaves shall have the liberties and Christian usage which the law of God established in Israel concerning such persons, doth morally require.” The law in the state of Connecticut is thus expressed by Judge Reeve, in his law of baron and femme. ‘’ Slavery here was very far from being of the absolute and rigid kind. The master had no control over the life of his slave. If he killed him, he was liable to the same punishment as if he killed a freeman. He was as liable to be sued by the slave in an action for beating, or w’ounding, or for immoderate chastisement, as he would be if he had thus treated an apprentice. A slave was capable of holding property in character of a devisee, or legatee. If the master should take away such property, his slave would be entitled to an action against him. Slaves had the same right of life and property as apprentices 5 and the difFerence between them was this, — an apprentice is a servant for a time, and a slave is a servant for life.”

And where the Bible has begun to exert this influence, it does more. It gradually remedies the evil, and wears it away. It did in Massachusetts, and slavery was abolished by their constitution. It did in Connecticut, and statutes were passed in 1783 and 1797, which have in their gentle and gradual operation, totally extinguished slavery in that State. It did in New Jersey by an act of the legislature in 1784. It did in Pennsylvania, by a similar act in 1780. In New York, for a long series of years, the Bible appears to have exerted little influence in mitigating the condition of the slave. “The master and mistress were authorized to punish their slaves at discretion, not extending to life or limb, and each town was authorized to appoint a common whipper for their slaves, to whom a salary was to be allowed. In the year 1740, it was observed by the legislature, that all due encouragement ought to be given to the direct importation of slaves, and all smuggling of slaves condemned, as an eminent discouragement to the fair trader!” The criminal code against them was fearfully severe. When capitally impeached, they were often tried out of the ordinary course of justice, and denied the rights and privileges of free subjects under like accusations. They were convicted on suspicion and on testimony that would have been rejected by any court where a white man was the accused person. In 1741 on the discovery of what was called the “negro plot,” thirteen were adjudged to the stake in our own city.* The last execution of this kind was witnessed at Poughkeepsie shortly before the commencement of the revolutionary vvar.f But this severity could not long be sustained in a Christian land. In process of time the penal code against slaves was meliorated 5 facihties were multiplied for the manumission of slaves 5 and the importation of slaves was at length prohibited. Laws were enacted also to teach the slaves to read, and a system commenced for the gradual abolition of slavery. Till at length, by the act of the 31st. of March, 1817, it was declared that every subject of the State, from and after the 4th day of July, 1827, shall be free. And now tell me, where except in Christian lands, can any such history of slavery be found as this? Is it not true that the Bible has silently and gradually so meliorated the relation between the master and the slave, that in the progress of its principles and spirit, it must ultimately either abolish this relation, or leave it on a basis of the purest benevolence!

I am pained to say, that slavery in no very miti- ’ gated form still exists in these United States.

* Smith’s History of New York.
Kent’s Commentaries.

I There are Christian masters to whom the evils land abuses of slavery are unknown. Nor are ‘they few. And yet there are abuses in this system which it is high time were eradicated. I speak not now of those physical evils to which these our suffering fellow men are subjected, but of the domestic wrongs, the intellectual ignorance, and jmoral debasement to which they are doomed. The slave population of the south are by law forbidden to read 5 they may not unlock the treasures of human and divine knowledge. This cannot be right. This must be an offence in the sight of .<jrod. Christian men at the south, high-minded land honourable men should adopt early measures to remove this evil. They scarcely know how such a policy appears to impartial minds of all lands. The condition of slaves in the southern States is described by Chancellor Kent, to be “more analagous to that of the slaves of the ancients, than to that of the villeins of feudal times, both in respect to the degradation of the slaves, and the full dominion and power of the master. The statute regulations with regard to slaves, follow the principles of the civil law, and are extremely severe, but the master has no power over life, or limb 5 and the severe letter of their laws is softened and corrected by the humanity of the age, and the spirit of Christianity.” This is a sufficiently melancholy picture from such a pen. We lament it 5 we deeply lament it before God and the world. Nor is this the worst. It is estimated in a recent and important work on the slave trade, by Mr. Buxton, of the Enghsh parHament, that not less than one thousand negroes are, even at this late period of the world, every day torn from their homes in Africa, by the horrible cupidity of their fellow men.

And how shall the evil be remedied? Just as the Bible, and all sound experience tell us it has been remedied; — through the influence of the gospel, by the power of Christian truth, by the meekness and gentleness of Christian men. Crossness, calumny, obstinacy, and fury are not the remedy. Angry passions and bitter invective are not the remedy. Strife and ill will, accrimonious discussions and sanguinary war are not the remedy. These will throw a thousand obstacles in your path, and involve you in endless difficulties, and create needless enemies and opposition. Who does not see that it has done so already? and that in Virginia, in Kentucky, in Maryland, and in the District of Columbia, a very sensible and inauspicious change has taken place within a very few years in the sentiments of the public in relation to slavery? The late Dr. Griffin, one of the most devoted friends of the coloured race in this land, said to me a few months before his death, “I do not see that the efforts in favour of immediate emancipation, have effected any thing but to rivet the chains of the poor slave.” Is not this a lamentable fact? Deeply as this evil was laid in the foundations of our country, it has already disappeared in many portions of it, driven away by the spirit of the gospel and of liberty 5 and if we are to expect its entire banishment, we must look for it in the operation of the same gentle, yet not less effectual causes which have hitherto lightened the sorrows of the captive, and led the north to free herself from this stain. We would remedy the evil by the light of truth, by the ardour of love, by the soft mercies that distil from the olive branch of peace, by the balm of Gilead. The recklessness of dissention, the disunion of our body politic, and its consequent horrors will be disastrous both to the master and the slave. Desperate haste and inconsiderate heedlessness will but defeat their object. And where do we find the authority and encouragement to such a course? In the wishes, but not in the judgment 5 in the unthinking, and I fear at times designingfanaticism of a few modern reformers, but not in past experience 5 not in calm, foreseeing benevolence 5 and above all, we find it not in the word of I God. Believe me, my young friends, there is “a more excellent way.” You may shut out the light of truth from the master and the slave 5 you may give birth to unsleeping jealousies and bitter animosity which a century cannot assuage j you may divide the land which is otherwise destined to be the glory of the church and the world; and you will have only bound faster the chains which would have relaxed and fallen off*, and have paralyzed the hands of Ethiopia just as she was “stretching them out unto God.” Hesitate then, ere you throw yourselves into a stream, which, as passion and bitter animosity shall swell its current, will launch you on an ocean of dissension and civil strife. Pause, ere you put your hands to a mighty engine, which, when in motion, you will have no power to guide or restrain — perhaps an engine of destruction, the effects of which may be felt through coming centuries, crushing the dearest interests of yourselves and your posterity. And while you pause, will you not listen to the dictates of an unbiassed judgment; to the best and most enlightened feelings of your hearts; will you not consult that Book which, while it refrains from rudely interfering with the existing institutions of society, is destined, by the mild diffusion of its light and influence, to banish the evils of slavery from the world.