d them by unconscious instruments, and in
the face of human expectation. Nay more, that every attempt which has
been made by fallible man to extort from the world obedience to his
"abstract" notions of right and wrong, has been invariably attended with
calamities dire, and extended just in proportion to the breadth and
vigor of the movement. On slavery in the abstract, then, it would not be
amiss to have as little as possible to say. Let us contemplate it as it
is. And thus contemplating it, the first question we have to ask
ourselves is, whether it is contrary to the will of God, as revealed to
us in his Holy Scriptures--the only certain means given us to ascertain
his will. If it is, then slavery is a sin. And I admit at once that
every man is bound to set his face against it, and to emancipate his
slaves, should he hold any.

Let us open these Holy Scriptures. In the twentieth chapter of Exodus,
seventeenth verse, I find the following words: "Thou shalt not covet thy
neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his
man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any
thing that is thy neighbor's"--which is the tenth of those commandments
that declare the essential principles of the great moral law delivered
to Moses by God himself. Now, discarding all technical and verbal
quibbling as wholly unworthy to be used in interpreting the word of God,
what is the plain meaning, undoubted intent, and true spirit of this
commandment? Does it not emphatically and explicitly forbid you to
disturb your neighbor in the enjoyment of his property; and more
especially of that which is here specifically mentioned as being
lawfully, and by this commandment made sacredly his? Prominent in the
catalogue stands his "man-servant and his maid-servant," who are thus
distinctly _consecrated as his property_, and guaranteed to him for his
exclusive benefit, in the most solemn manner. You attempt to avert the
otherwise irresistible conclusion, that slavery was thus ordained by
God, by declaring that the word "slave" is not used here, and is not to
be found in the Bible, And I have seen many learned dissertations on
this point from abolition pens. It is well known that both the Hebrew
and Greek words translated "servant" in the Scriptures, means also, and
most usually, "slave." The use of the one word, instead of the other,
was a mere matter of taste with the translators of the Bible, as it has
been with all the