arch the records he has
given us, with care, to see in what light he has looked upon it, and
find the warrant for concluding, that we shall honor him by efforts to
abolish it; which efforts, in their consequences, may involve the
indiscriminate slaughter of the innocent and the guilty, the master and
the servant. We all believe him to be a Being who is the same yesterday,
to-day, and forever.

The first recorded language which was ever uttered in relation to
slavery, is the inspired language of Noah. In God's stead he says,
"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 Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and
Canaan shall be his servant."--Gen. ix: 25, 26, 27. Here, language is
used, showing the _favor_ which God would exercise to the posterity of
Shem and Japheth, while they were holding the posterity of Ham in a
state of _abject bondage_. May it not be said in truth, that God decreed
this institution before it existed; and has he not connected its
_existence_ with prophetic tokens of special favor, to those who should
be slave owners or masters? He is the same God now, that he was when he
gave these views of his moral character to the world; and unless the
posterity of Shem and Japheth, from whom have sprung the Jews, and all
the nations of Europe and America, and a great part of Asia, (the
African race that is in them excepted,)--I say, unless they are all
dead, as well as the Canaanites or Africans, who descended from Ham,
then it is quite possible that his favor may now be found with one class
of men who are holding another class in bondage. Be this as it may, God
_decreed slavery_--and shows in that decree, tokens of good-will to the
master. The sacred records occupy but a short space from this inspired
ray on this subject, until they bring to our notice, a man that is held
up as a model, in all that adorns human nature, and as one that God
delighted to honor. This man is Abraham, honored in the sacred records,
with the appellation, "Father" of the "faithful." Abraham was a native
of Ur, of the Chaldees. From thence the Lord called him to go to a
country which he would show him; and he obeyed, not knowing whither he
went. He stopped for a time at Haran, where his father died. From thence
he "took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their
substance that they had gathered, and