respecter of persons." Freedom you ought, indeed, to
prefer. If you can escape from "the yoke," throw it off. In the mean
time rejoice that "where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty;"
that the gospel places slaves "on a perfect religious equality" with
their master; so that every Christian is "the Lord's freeman." And,
for your encouragement, remember that "Christianity has abolished
both political and domestic servitude wherever it has had free scope.
It enjoins a fair compensation for labor; it insists on the moral and
intellectual improvement of all classes of men; it condemns all
infractions of marital or parental rights; in short it requires not
only that free scope be allowed to human improvement, but that all
suitable means should be employed for the attainment of that end."
[68] Let your lives, then, be honorable to your relations to your
Savior. He bought you with his own blood; and is entitled to your
warmest love and most effective service. "Be not ye the servants of
men." Let no human arrangements prevent you, as citizens of the
kingdom of heaven, from making the most of your powers and
opportunities. Would such an effort, generally and heartily made,
allay excitement at the South, and quench the flames of discord,
every day rising higher and waxing hotter, in almost every part of
the republic, and cement "the Union?"
[Footnote 67: Rev. Mr. Savage, of Utica, New York, had, not very
long ago, a free conversation with a gentleman of high standing in
the literary and religious world from a slaveholding State, where
the "peculiar institution" is cherished with great warmth and
maintained with iron rigor. By him, Mr. Savage was assured, that the
Princeton professor had, through the Pittsburg pamphlet, contributed
most powerfully and effectually to bring the "whole South" under the
persuasion, _that slaveholding is in itself right_--a system _to
which the Bible gives countenance and support_.
In an extract from an article in the Southern Christian Sentinel, a
new Presbyterian paper established in Charleston, South Carolina,
and inserted in the Christian Journal for March 21, 1839, we find
the following paragraphs from the pen of Rev. C.W. Howard, and,
according to Mr. Chester, ably and freely endorsed by the editor.
"There is scarcely any diversity of sentiment at the North upon this
subject. The great mass of the people, believing slavery to be sinful,
are clearly of the opinion that, as a system, it
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