vey such ideas.

Another answer is given by Dr. Channing. "Slavery," he says, "in the age
of the apostle, had so penetrated society, was so intimately interwoven
with it, and the materials of servile war were so abundant, that a
religion, preaching freedom to its victims, would have armed against
itself the whole power of the State. Of consequence Paul did not assail
it. He satisfied himself with spreading principles, which, however
slowly, could not but work its destruction." To the same effect, Dr.
Wayland says, "The gospel was designed, not for one race or one time,
but for all men and for all times. It looked not at the abolition of
this form of evil for that age alone, but for its universal abolition.
Hence the important object of its author was to gain it a lodgment in
every part of the known world; so that, by its universal diffusion among
all classes of society, it might quietly and peacefully modify and
subdue the evil passions of men; and thus, without violence, work a
revolution in the whole mass of mankind. In this manner alone could its
object, a universal moral revolution, be accomplished. For if it had
forbidden the _evil_ without subduing the _principle_, if it had
proclaimed the unlawfulness of slavery, and taught slaves to _resist_
the oppression of their masters, it would instantly have arrayed the two
parties in deadly hostility throughout the civilized world; its
announcement would have been the signal of a servile war; and the very
name of the Christian religion would have been forgotten amidst the
agitations of universal bloodshed. The fact, under these circumstances,
that the gospel does not forbid slavery, affords no reason to suppose
that it does not mean to prohibit it, much less does it afford ground
for belief that Jesus Christ intended to authorize it."[265]

Before considering the force of this reasoning, it may be well to notice
one or two important admissions contained in these extracts. First,
then, it is admitted by these distinguished moralists, that the apostles
did not preach a religion proclaiming freedom to slaves; that Paul did
not assail slavery; that the gospel did not proclaim the unlawfulness of
slaveholding; it did not forbid it. This is going the whole length that
we have gone in our statement of the conduct of Christ and his apostles,
Secondly, these writers admit that the course adopted by the authors of
our religion was the only wise and proper one. Paul satisfied himsel