15 should not the surrounding tribes be subject ? Has the writer any other reason to give for interfering in the local institutions of this king, who is an independent monarch, obeying his own laws—which are his own'will—than that same higher law of conscience, for obeying which, in reference to the injustice of negro slavery at the South, he assails so violently the philanthropists of our age ? But to return to the point from which we digressed: the religion of Christ, then, we assert, practically put an end to slavery. What distinction of master and slave could long exist in a community where the disciples of the same Lord had all things common ? under a religion which taught men to be lowly in their own eyes; which taught that “ God had chosen the base things of the world and things which are despised, yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught the things that are; that no flesh should glory in his presence” (1 Cor. i. 27, 28). Having thus shown that the Gospel influence, by acting upon the hearts and consciences of individuals, gradually but surely worked the release of the slave and the extinction of slavery, it will hardly be deemed necessary to dwell upon those exhortations and consolations addressed by the apostles to the faithful servants of Christ, who were also servants after the flesh. All these exhortations show the sympathy of the apostles (St. Paul particularly) with the condition of their unfortunate brethren ; where their case is hopeless with an earthly master, they exhort them not to bring reproach upon their Christian profession ; advising them to bear for a time their earthly misfortune, since God, for Christ’s sake, will in good season give them eternal freedom. St. Paul was a Boman citizen; he was also a Jew, who had abandoned and decried the traditions of his fathers ; he was bitterly hated and eagerly watched by the unbelieving Jews, who sought every opportunity of entrapping him. His mission was in no respect political; he was an ambassador of Christ: his duty was to enforce that personal purity of life, and reformation of the heart, which he knew would work all other changes in due time. But in his writings, as everywhere in the New Testament, slavery is the hard lot, to be borne—the burden and the yoke ; freedom—the blessing
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