romising hostility, and had his words been thunderbolts of
denunciation, then indeed would he have been a hero after the very
hearts of the abolitionists. But, as it is, they have to _apologize_ for
the great apostle, and try, as best they may, to deliver him from his
_very equivocal position_! But if they are true apostles, and not false,
then, we fear, the best apology for his conduct is that he had never
read the Declaration of Independence, nor breathed the air of Boston.

This point, however, we shall not decide. We shall examine their
apologies, and let the candid reader decide for himself. St. Paul, it is
not denied, sent back Onesimus. But, says Mr. Barnes, he did not
_compel_ or _urge_ him to go. He did not send him back against his will.
Onesimus, no doubt, desired to return, and St. Paul was moved to send
him by his own request. Now, in the first place, this apology is built
on sheer assumption. There is not the slightest evidence that Onesimus
requested St. Paul to send him back to his master. "There may have been
many reasons," says Mr. Barnes, "why Onesimus desired to return to
Colosse, and no one can prove that he did not express that desire to St.
Paul, and that his 'sending' him was not in consequence of such
request." True; even if Onesimus had felt no such desire, and had
expressed no such desire to St. Paul, it would have been impossible, in
the very nature of things, for any one to prove such negatives, unless
he had been expressly informed on the subject by the writer of the
epistle. But is it not truly wonderful, that any one should, without the
least particle or shadow of evidence, be pleased to imagine a series of
propositions, and then call upon the opposite party to disprove them? Is
not such proceeding the very stuff that dreams are made of?

No doubt there may have been reasons why Onesimus should desire to
return to his master. There were certainly reasons, and reasons of
tremendous force, too, why he should have desired no such thing. The
fact that Philemon, whom he had offended by running away, had, according
to law, the power of life and death over him, is one of the reasons why
he should have dreaded to return. Hence, unless required by the apostle
to return, he _may_ have desired no such thing, and no one can prove
that an expression of such desire on his part was the ground of the
apostle's action. It is certain, that he who affirms should prove.

In the second place, if St. Paul wer