3 “ Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren. Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japhet, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant 'f which the writer applies to the unfortunate African in this wise : “ But the actual fulfilment was reserved for his (Ham’s) posterity, after they had lost the knowledge of God and become utterly polluted by the abominations of heathen idolatry. The Almighty, foreseeing this total degradation of the race, ordained them to servitude or slavery under the descendants of Shem and Japhet, doubtless because he judged it to be their fittest condition.” Here and in subsequent passages the writer substitutes Ham for Canaan, which is essential to his object; and combines with this the astonishing declaration that we are still living under the Mosaic law. To show that this is no exaggeration or perversion, however surprising it may be, we give his own words. In fact these two points are essential in order to derive any countenance to negro slavery from the Bible : 1st, that the curse passed upon Canaan shall extend to the other children of Ham; and 2dly, that we, conjointly with the children of Israel, should be directed or authorized by God’s law to buy bondmen and bondmaids of the heathen nations around us. Otherwise what becomes of the African slave trade, and its supporters ? After quoting our Saviour’s words : 11 Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil” (Matt. v. 17, which very passage ought to have stayed the hand of this Christian Bishop, as he copied it, by recalling to his mind that Saviour’s own summary of the law and the prophets, in Matt. xxii. 37-39 : “ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind and “ Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself ; on these two commandments hang, all the law and the prophets”)—he goes on to say : “ The next evidence which proves that the Mosaic law was not held to be inconsistent with the Gospel occurs in the statement of the Apostles to St. Paul, made some twenty years, at least, after the establishment of the first Christian church in Jerusalem. ‘ Thou
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