p" as brethren in
Christ. Were a church-member of ours to practise thus, we should regard
him as amenable to discipline. We should also regard it as disciplinable
for a master to overwork, or brutally chastise, or but half feed and
clothe his servants; or to hold slaves for mere purposes of gain, or to
traffic in them. None of these inhumanities could we reconcile with the
obligations of a Christian profession; and we confidently hope that in
these views you will heartily concur, and that with them your practice
will correspond.

Christian brethren of the North and the South! The question we have been
considering is one of vast moment. Upon the right disposition of it are
suspended, under God, interests of immeasurable value, and which stretch
far out into the unseen future of our country and the world. Coming ages
and unborn generations are to be affected; favorably or otherwise, by
the decision of this vexed question; and, brethren, unless I misjudge,
its right decision is, to a very great extent, lodged in our hands. As
decides the American church, so, methinks, will decide the American
people. And now,--may I confess it?--I have dared to hope that the
sentiments of this Essay are not only sound, but in unison with the
views of the great mass of American Christians. Are we not agreed in
this: that American slavery is a system of deep injustice and wrong, not
sanctioned by the Word or the providence of God; fraught with
incalculable mischief to the interests of both masters, and slaves, and
to the social and religious well-being of our whole country; a blot on
the escutcheon both of the nation and of the church; a weapon for
scepticism to wield, and an obstacle to the introduction of millennial
glory; and hence, a system which ought speedily to terminate, and which
all good men should unitedly oppose and seek to subvert? If we are thus
agreed, let us join hands as well as hearts, and, swerving neither to
the extreme of passive indifference on the one hand nor to that of
erratic fanaticism on the other, in the majesty of principle let us move
calmly onward, a phalanx of Christian philanthropists, attempting naught
but what they are assured God would have them attempt, and employing
only such means as are warranted by an enlightened conscience. Leaning
prayerfully on Him who hears the sighing of the oppressed, let us push
vigorously forward, and, though the year of jubilee has not yet fully
come, be assured it will come