Bible View of Slavery

14 And now we see this fact staring us full in the face, that the Christian countries of Europe are the non-slaveholding countries, while slaves are found under the Turk and the infidel. Whence comes this result, if not from the silent but irresistible influence of ££ the precepts and example of our Savior# and his apostles,” which this writer admits we are bound by ? Will he tell us that Christianity had nothing to do with it ? Hear what he says on this head (p. 4) : ££ It is said by some that the great principles of the Gospel, love to God and love to man, necessarily involved the condemnation of slavery. Yet how should it have any such result, when we remember that this was no new principle, but on the contrary, was laid down by the Deity to his own chosen people, and was quoted from the Old Testament by the Saviour himself? And why should slavery be thought inconsistent with it ? In the relation of master and slave, we are assured by our Southern brethren that there is incomparably more mutual love ‘than can ever be found between the employer and the hireling?’ Is not this the very spirit which God himself rebukes by the mouth of his prophet Ezekiel: ££ Yet ye say, The way of the Lord is not equal,” and ££ yet ye say, Doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father ?” Will Christian men, will Christian ministers, to support a tottering and abominable system of wrong and oppression, pluck from the crown of our holy religion its brightest jewel ? Will they join with the infidel and skeptic in ascribing this'amelioration in the condition of mankind to a vague, civilization, and aid in proclaiming ££ Christianity a failure ” ? Even the skeptic Gibbon did not deny this praise to Christianity. But the author says (p. 13): ££ The Anglo- Saxon race is king, why should not the African race be subject, and subject in that way for which it is best adapted, and in which it may be more safe, more useful, more happy, than in any other which has yet been opened to it, in the annals of the world ?” This is strange doctrine—that might makes right—for a Christian minister to promulgate. On what ground, then, does he attack (p. 13) the much-abused King of Dahomey ? Is not his the more powerful intellect, and

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