writer supposes that he is attacking _me_, when every line is an
attack on Christ and Christianity. Have _I_ pretended power of working
miracles? Have I imagined or desired that miracle would shield me
from persecution? Did Jesus _not_ "publicly denounce the social and
political evils" of Judaea? was he not "summarily dealt with"? Did
he not know that his doctrine would send on earth "not peace, but a
sword"? and was he _mendacious_ in saying, "Peace I leave unto
you?" or were the angels mendacious in proclaiming, "Peace on earth,
goodwill among men"? Was not "every syllable that Jesus uttered" in
the discourse of Matth. xxiii., "an incentive to sedition?" and does
this writer judge it to be _mendacity_, that Jesus opened by advising
to OBEY the very men, whom he proceeds to vilify at large as immoral,
oppressive, hypocritical, blind, and destined to the damnation of
hell? Or have I anywhere blamed the apostles because they did _not_
exasperate wicked men by direct attacks? It is impossible to answer
such a writer as this; for he elaborately misses to touch what I have
said. On the other hand, it is rather too much to require me to defend
Jesus from his assault.

Christian preachers did not escape the imputation of turning the world
upside down, and at length, in some sense, effected what was imputed.
It is matter of conjecture, whether any greater convulsion would
have happened, if the apostles had done as the Quakers in America. No
Quaker holds slaves: why not? Because the Quakers teach their members
that it is an essential immorality. The slave-holding states
are infinitely more alive and jealous to keep up their "peculiar
institution," than was the Roman government; yet the Quakers have
caused no political convulsion. I confess, to me it seems,
that if Paul, and John, and Peter, and James, had done as these
Quakers, the imperial administration would have looked on it as a
harmless eccentricity of the sect, and not as an incentive[16] to
sedition. But be this as it may, I did not say what else the apostles
might have succeeded to enforce; I merely pointed out what it was that
they actually taught, and that, _as a fact_, they did _not_ declare
slavery to be an immorality and the basest of thefts. If any one
thinks their course was more wise, he may be right or wrong, but his
opinion is in itself a concession of my fact.

As to the historical progress of Christian practice and doctrine on
this subject, it is, as usua