r hands to God, is the fruit of
the institution here. An officious meddling with the institution, from
feeling and sentiments unknown to the Bible, may lead to the
extermination of the slave race among us, who, taken as a whole, are
utterly unprepared for a higher civil state; but benefit them, it
cannot. Their condition, _as a class_, is now better than that of any
other equal number of laborers on earth, and is daily improving.

If the Bible is allowed to awaken the spirit, and control the
philanthropy which works their good, the day is not far distant when
the highest wishes of saints will be gratified, in having conferred on
them all that the spirit of good-will can bestow. This spirit which was
kindling into life, has received a great check among us of late, by that
trait which the Apostle Peter reproves and shames in his officious
countrymen, when he says: "But let none of you suffer as a murderer, or
as a thief, or as an evil doer, or as a busy-body in other men's
matters." Our citizens have been murdered--our property has been stolen,
(if the receiver is as bad as the thief,)--our lives have been put in
jeopardy--our characters traduced--and attempts made to force political
slavery upon us in the place of domestic, by strangers who have no right
to meddle with our matters. Instead of meditating generous things to our
slaves, as a return for gospel subordination, we have to put on our
armor to suppress a rebellious spirit, engendered by "false doctrine,"
propagated by men "of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth," who
teach them that the gain of freedom to the slave, is the only proof of
godliness in the master. From such, Paul says we must withdraw
ourselves; and if we fail to do it, and to rebuke them with all the
authority which "the words of our Lord Jesus Christ" confer, we shall be
wanting in duty to them, to ourselves, and to the world.

THORNTON STRINGFELLOW.

FOOTNOTE:

[229] The property in slaves in the United States is their _service or
labor_. The Constitution guarantees this property to its owner, both in
apprentices and slaves. And the Supreme Court has decided, Judge Baldwin
presiding, that all the means "necessary and proper" to secure this
property, may be constitutionally used by the master, in the absence of
all statute law. The Roman law made the slave of that law, to be, not a
_personal chattel_, held to service or labor only, as is t