e of attempting to put the boldest and most flagrant sins
under the wing and sanction of the Bible, is chargeable on others as
well as on the advocates of slavery. Not to speak of other instances of
it--it is sought to justify by this blessed book the most despotic forms
of civil government, and the drinking of intoxicating liquors. There are
two evils so great, which arise from this perversion of the word of God,
that I cannot forbear to notice them. One is, that the consciences of
men are quieted, when they imagine that they have found a justification
in the Bible for the sins of which they are guilty. The other is, that
infidels are multiplied by this perversion. A respectable gentleman, who
edits a newspaper in this neighborhood, and who, unhappily, is not
established in the Christian faith, was asked, a few months since, to
attend a meeting of a Bible Society. "I am not willing," said he, in
reply, "to favor the circulation of a volume, which many of its friends
claim to be on the side of slavery." Rely on it, Sir, that wherever your
book produces the conviction that the Bible justifies slavery, it there
weakens whatever of respect for that blessed volume previously existed.
Whoever is brought to associate slavery with the Bible, may, it is true,
think better of slavery; but he will surely think worse of the Bible. I
hope, therefore, in mercy to yourself and the world, that the success of
your undertaking will be small.

But oftentimes the same providence has a bright, as well as a gloomy,
aspect. It is so in the case before us. The common attempt, in our day,
to intrench great sins in the authority of the Bible, is a consoling and
cheering evidence, that this volume is recognised as the public standard
of right and wrong; and that, whatever may be their private opinions of
it who are guilty of these sins, they cannot hope to justify themselves
before the world, unless their lives are, apparently, at least,
conformed, in some good degree, to this standard. We may add, too, that,
as surely as the Bible is against slavery, every pro-slavery writer, who
like yourself appeals to it as the infallible and only admissible
standard of right and wrong, will contribute to the overthrow of the
iniquitous system. His writings may not, uniformly, tend to this happy
result. In some instances, he may strengthen confidence in the system of
slavery by producing conviction, that the Bible sanctions it;--and then
his success will be,