tnote B: "Why should I care?"]

Who ever heard of the voluntary return of a fugitive from American
oppression? Do you think that the doctor and his friends could persuade
one to carry a letter to the patriarch from whom he had escaped? And
must we believe this of Onesimus!

"Paul sent back Onesimus to Philemon." On what occasion?--"If," writes
the apostle, "he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on my
account." Alive to the claims of duty, Onesimus would "restore" whatever
he "had taken away." He would honestly pay his debts. This resolution,
the apostle warmly approved. He was ready, at whatever expense, to help
his young disciple in carrying it into full effect. Of this he assured
Philemon, in language the most explicit and emphatic. Here we find one
reason for the conduct of Paul in sending Onesimus to Philemon.

If a fugitive slave of the Rev. Mr. Smylie, of Mississippi, should
return to him with a letter from a doctor of divinity in New York,
containing such an assurance, how would the reverend slaveholder dispose
of it? What, he exclaims, have we here? "If Cato has not been upright in
his pecuniary intercourse with you--if he owes you any thing--put that
on my account." What ignorance of southern institutions! What mockery,
to talk of pecuniary intercourse between a slave and his master! _The
slave himself, with all he is and has, is an article of merchandise_.
What can _he_ owe his master?--A rustic may lay a wager with his mule,
and give the creature the peck of oats which he had permitted it to win.
But who in sober earnest would call this a pecuniary transaction?

"TO BE HIS SERVANT FOR LIFE!" From what part of the epistle could the
expositor have evolved a thought so soothing to tyrants--so revolting to
every man who loves his own nature? From this? "For perhaps he therefore
departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive him for ever."
Receive him how? _As a servant_, exclaims our commentator. But what
wrote the apostle? "NOT _now as a servant, but above a servant_, a
brother beloved, especially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in
the flesh and in the Lord." Who authorized the professor to bereave the
word '_not_' of its negative influence? According to Paul, Philemon was
to receive Onesimus '_not_ as a servant;'--according to Stuart, he was
to receive him "_as a servant!_" If the professor will apply the same
rules of exposition to the writings of the abolitionists, all difference