may here be proper for me, specially in connection with the office to which I was unwillingly chosen at the late Triennial Convention, to state my own views on this subject. I do it without unkindness and without reserve. I am perfectly willing to have it understood, that whatever may be my view as expressed in my third letter of the connection between the holding of slaves, and profession of religion, in a state of society where the institution has become long established, I never could, without doing violence to my conscience, do any thing towards the establishment in a heathen land of a church into which slavery could by any means find admittance. I believe that I should sin wilfully against God, if I ever promulgated a slaveholding Christianity. I use the word without opprobrium, and merely to designate a fact. I know that this avowal is not necessary. But I prefer to make it, lest I should, under any circumstances, be accused of acting with duplicity. You, at least, will appreciate my motives, and will at once perceive that no other course of conduct could legitimately flow from the sentiments which I profess. And I do not see how Christians at the South can look upon the subject in any other light. I never found one who would be willing to introduce slavery into this country, were it not established; nay, who would not consider such an act both wicked and unwise. And can a brother expect me to do in another country what he would not do in his own, or can he expect me to take any step, which by the remotest legitimate consequence might lead to this result? I am sure that every reflecting Christian must see that I could never do it, either in honor or with a good conscience.

My task is ended. I have written in haste, and amid the pressure of other and imperative engagements. I have, however, long felt that I owed a debt of humanity and charity to my Christian brethren at the South, both free and enslaved. I have desired to bear my testimony in favor of those whom I believed to be suffering the greatest injustice, and to bear it in the presence of those, many of whom I believe, through erroneous views of the teachings of the Scriptures, to be responsible to God for that injustice. I rejoice that I have had the opportunity of addressing them through one who, whatever he might think of my argument, will do justice to my motives. If, my dear brother, in aught that I have written, I have betrayed a spirit at variance with the kindness of the gospel; if a word that I have uttered has been designed to give the slightest pain to a Christian brother, you will believe me when I say it is not merely unintentional, but directly in opposition to my most thoughtful and vigilant intention. I have desired to address the understanding and conscience of my brethren, and to avoid every allusion that would even remotely tend to deter them from examining this subject in the light of what seems to me to be the teaching of the Holy Scriptures. To them I commit what I have written, with the humble prayer that God may use it to advance the cause of righteousness and mercy.

Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, make us perfect in every good work to do his will, working in us that which is well pleasing

in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever.

Amen.

I am, my dear brother, yours, with every sentiment of Christian affection,

THE AUTHOR of the MORAL SCIENCE.

11*

DR. FULLER'S LETTERS.

LETTER I.

TO THE REV. FRANCIS WAYLAND, D. D.

MY DEAR BROther

I have been compelled for several weeks to abandon my charge, and am now in the country, seeking to recruit my health. Your very able letters have reached me here slowly and with long intervals, and I need not say that the importance of the matter, and my great love and esteem for the writer, have commanded all the attention I can now bestow on any subject. The chaste style and luminous thought of these communications, their earnestness and truthfulness, and admirable Christian spirit, make them just like every thing I have known of the "Author of the Moral Science;' and I am far more anxious that they should be circulated at the South than any remarks from my pen. To establish great moral principles is your province; mine be the humbler office of an inquirer. Peace and truth are all I seek, and if in this discussion my arguments be refuted, I shall be well content, provided peace and truth are secured; I shall at least fall by no weak hand, and enjoy whatever of consolation Abimelech cov

eted, when he "called hastily unto his armorbearer, and said, Draw thy sword, and slay me, that men may not say of me, A woman slew him.'

Indeed I am not quite sure how far I am required to encounter you at all. My letter was sent at the suggestion of the Reflector, a paper which seems to me to be conducted not only with ability, but remarkable frankness and independence and its single object was to employ my feeble effort against the fundamental dogma of the modern abolitionists, that slaveholding is necessarily "a heinous crime in the sight of God." Such is the position assumed in the constitution of the American Anti-slavery Society; and the inference is manifest-all slaveholders should be excommunicated from Christian fellowship, no matter how pious; indeed, to apply the term pious to such persons, is as if one should speak of devout hypocrites, or holy pirates. Now this doctrine is really as monstrous as it is uncharitable; it finds its prompt refutation, not only in a thousand examples among those whom it insults, but in the verdict of the whole Christian and civilized world, and I do believe in the consciences of the abolitionists themselves. It is a doctrine peculiar to the restless and turbulent fanaticism of this country; for in England no such ground was taken by the churches, even in periods of the intensest excitement. There, slavery was regarded as a national evil, and the energies of those wishing its removal were exerted, not in denouncing their fellow-citizens, on whom the national policy had entailed the sad inheritance, but in moving parliament to adopt measures by which the rights both of the master