full refutation of that
Argument. Till that is done, we hold ourselves excused from attempting
to prove what we now repeat, that if the Jews during our Savior's
incarnation held slaves, they must have done so in open and flagrant
violation of the letter and the spirit of the Mosaic Dispensation. Could
Christ and the Apostles every where among their countrymen come in
contact with slaveholding, being as it was a gross violation of that law
which their office and their profession required them to honor and
enforce, without exposing and condemning it.

In its worst forms, we are told, slavery prevailed over the whole world,
not excepting Judea. As, according to such ecclesiastics as Stuart,
Hodge, and Fisk, slavery in itself is not bad at all, the term "_worst_"
could be applied only to "_abuses_" of this innocent relation. Slavery
accordingly existed among the Jews, disfigured and disgraced by the
"worst abuses" to which it is liable. These abuses in the ancient world,
Prof. Stuart describes as "horrible cruelties." And in our own country,
such abuses have grown so rank, as to lead a distinguished
eye-witness--no less a philosopher and statesman than Thomas
Jefferson--to say, that they had armed against us every attribute of the
Almighty. With these things the Savior every where came in contact,
among the people to whose improvement and salvation he devoted his
living powers, and yet not a word, not a syllable, in exposure and
condemnation of such "horrible cruelties," escaped his lips! He
saw--among the "covenant people" of Jehovah he saw, the babe plucked
from the bosom of its mother; the wife torn from the embrace of her
husband; the daughter driven to the market by the scourge of her own
father;--he saw the word of God sealed up from those who, of all men,
were especially entitled to its enlightening, quickening
influence;--nay, he saw men beaten for kneeling before the throne of
heavenly mercy;--such things he saw without a word of admonition or
reproof! No sympathy with them who suffered wrong--no indignation at
them who inflicted wrong, moved his heart!

From the alledged silence of the Savior, when in contact with slavery
among the Jews, our divines infer, that it is quite consistent with
Christianity. And they affirm, that he saw it in its worst forms; that
is, he witnessed what Prof. Stuart ventures to call "horrible
cruelties." But what right have these interpreters of the sacred volume
to regard any form of