committing clear robbery.

"2. To reduce them to the necessity of universal concubinage, by denying
to them the civil rights of marriage, thus breaking up the dearest
relations of life, and encouraging universal prostitution.

"3. To deprive them of the means and opportunities of moral and
intellectual culture, in many States making it a high penal offence to
teach them to read, thus perpetuating whatever of evil there is that
proceeds from ignorance.

"4. To set up between parents and their children an authority higher
than the impulse of nature and the laws of God, which breaks up the
authority of the father over his own offspring, and at pleasure
separates the mother at a returnless distance from her child, thus
abrogating the clearest laws of nature, thus outraging all decency and
justice, and degrading and oppressing thousands upon thousands of
beings, created like themselves in the image of the most high God! This
is slavery as it is daily exhibited in every slave State."

Yes, such is the nature and character of an institution in this
enlightened Christian republic, claiming to be the freest nation on
earth, calling itself "an asylum for the oppressed," inviting the
downtrodden subjects of all the despots of the old world to come to this
happy land, and place themselves under the protection of the American
eagle, and in this "eyrie of the free" taste and enjoy the sweets of
liberty!

The views presented in the above extracts may be taken, it is to be
presumed, as an exponent of the southern Christian sentiment on domestic
slavery. There are, indeed, exceptions. It is painful to notice that
within a few years some men of reputed piety and worth have been
attempting to maintain that American slavery is a "divine and
patriarchal institution," "sanctioned by the Bible,"--is "necessary to
the highest state of society," and is "to be perpetuated;" but I am
happy to believe that the number of those who hold such views,
repudiating those of the Presbyterian church, and at the same time call
themselves disciples of Him who said, "whatsoever ye would that men
should do to you, do ye even so to them," is comparatively small.

I close this long letter by subscribing myself, as ever,

Your affectionate

Friend and Brother.

LETTER VIII.

THREE QUESTIONS SUGGESTED.--1. MUST SLAVERY BE PERPETUAL?--2. DOES
THE CHURCH OF CHRIST SUSTAIN ANY RESPONSIBILITY IN THIS MATTER?--3.
WHAT SHALL WE DO?

MY DEAR CHRIST