ositive and negative,
this great question devolves on those Christians among whom American
slavery has its seat, or who are personally identified with it. Hoping,
brethren, that the sentiments thus far advanced are your sentiments, I
shall have your further assent when I say,

1. That the extinction, at the earliest consistent date, of the system
of servitude existing among you, is a result at which you ought steadily
and strenuously to aim. And, as you see, we base this obligation of
yours, not on the assumption of any sinfulness which you may sustain to
slavery, but on the acknowledged injustice and woes, past, present, and
prospective, of the system as a system,--its contrariety, as a system,
to the fundamental principles of Christianity. Did we regard you as
necessarily sinners, if in any sense you hold slaves, then the least we
could ask of you would be, that with contrition of heart you should
instantaneously cease to indulge in this sin, for all sin should be
immediately abandoned. As it is, we only ask, that, just as fast as your
slaves can be prepared for freedom, and as the providence of God may put
it in your power to liberate them, you will do so. We are not so unwise
as to expect that the work of extinction can be accomplished in a day.
We know, too, that you are not, in your church capacity, the constituted
arbiters of the question as a question of State policy. And, so long as
your legislatures and their constituencies are resolved on maintaining
the system, perhaps you will be unable to effect as much as you desire
in the way of promoting its overthrow. And yet, brethren, there is a way
in which we think you can, with entire safety and manifest propriety,
contribute largely and directly to the extinction of American slavery.
Would the entire Southern church cease all personal participation in
slavery, and throw her whole weight and influence into the scale of
slavery's complete subversion, that "consummation devoutly to be wished"
would soon ensue. Slave-holding, no longer practised or justified by the
church, but discountenanced, could not long retain its foothold in the
State. Now if this be so, our slaveholding brethren will confess that
they are imperiously bound, by motives of Christian duty, to liberate
their bondmen with all consistent speed. Meantime, and as one important
means of qualifying them for freedom, you ought,

2. To see to it that not only your own, but all the bondmen among
you,--you