slavery in his teachings? Any appeal to the slaves to "take their freedom at all hazards?" Any hint to the masters that to hold a fellow Christian in bondage is a "damnable wrong?" Strange that Paul did not give one word of censure to the slaveholder, if his household was arranged on sinful principles. And still more strange that in his charge to the young bishop, Timothy, whom Paul, loving him as his own son, ought to have guided into the way of righteousness and love, the great Apostle has given commands concerning this "peculiar institution" which place it among the conditions of life that Timothy was zealously to watch over and sustain.

"Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed.

"And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort.

"If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness;

“He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings,

"Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself."-1st Timothy, chap 6, verses 1-6.

In the Epistle to Titus, bishop of the Church of the Cretians, similar directions are enforced with that earnestness which shows Paul had no scruple concerning the righteousness of the relation between master and bond-servant; that the latter, in doing his duty faithfully, was serving God; obedience to the master was Christian duty:

"Exhort servants to be obedient unto their own masters, and to please them well in all things; not answering again ;

"Not purloining, but showing all good fidelity; that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things.

"For the grace of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men, "Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world;

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Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;

"Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.

"These things speak and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee."-Titus, chap. 2: 9—15.

Nor did the teachings of Paul end here. His whole epistle to Philemon was called forth by this subject of slavery. Paul had converted a runaway slave belonging to Philemon, a member of the Church at Ephesus. Tradition records that Philemon was a man of high birth, rich and powerful, whom St. Paul had con

verted to the Christian faith. Onesimus, the slave of this rich Ephesian, had escaped from bondage and fled to Rome; there Paul, while a prisoner himself, converted this fugitive; and then-what?

Did Paul tell Onesimus that personal slavery was a degrading service, contrary to God's law, and to the Gospel of Jesus Christ? that all slaves had the "inalienable right of liberty," and should gain it if they had to commit all the crimes of the decalogue? What did Paul do?

He persuaded the fugitive slave, now an humble Christian, to return to his Christian master; he, Paul, writing, as he says, "with mine own hand," a tender letter to Philemon, to beg him to forgive, receive, and treat kindly the returned servant; and Onesimus was bearer of the letter! *

The doctrine of St. Peter is, if possible, more decisive on this subject of the duty of servants than that of St. Paul. The former does not lay any injunction on masters; and his epistle is general for all churches.

"Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward.

"For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.

"For what glory is it, if, when ye be buffeted for your faults, ye shall take it patiently? but if, when ye do well, and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is acceptable with God.

"For even hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps:

"Who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth:

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Who, when he was reviled, reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously:

"Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed. "For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls."-1 Pet., 2: 18.

*Because St. Paul has, in many places, alluded to his own "bonds," it has been attempted to identify these expressions with the bonds of the slave. But this is utterly untenable. "Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them;""Others had trials of bonds and imprisonments;" "Wherein I suffer trouble, even to bonds;" "Ye had compassion of me in my bonds;" "For which I am in bonds," and similar expressions of his sufferings in the cause of Christ abound in the epistles; but will any true believer in the Bible say that these refer to bond-service-the holding of men in slavery—and condemn it? The apostle was alluding to his own imprisonments, unjust persecutions for his religious belief; and mark it well, ye who attempt to justify, by false witness against your southern brethren, robbery, rebellion, murder, because St. Paul asked the kindly sympathy of his Christian friends-not their interference to annoy or destroy those he complained of;-mark it well, he has commanded, by the inspiration of God: "Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of heart, as unto Christ."

I have given the commands and reasons of the apostles in full, because few persons will take the trouble to look out a passage in the Bible from the mere reference.

It is well to know, truly, what was taught as Gospel by the apostles. Did they teach abolition or anti-slavery in the manner now so popular among certain sects of Christians, so called?

Do those denunciators of American slavery find in the Word of God examples or doctrines to sustain and justify their violent invectives? Can they find Bible authority for this? or Bible authority, when they insist on placing polygamy and slavery on the same ground of opposition to the laws of God? or rather affirming the two conditions to have been treated in the same ambiguous manner by the inspired writers?

We affirm that such assertions are false, both to the letter and the spirit of God's laws.

Slavery was inflicted as a curse for sin on a certain portion of mankind.

Monogamy, the marriage of one man with one woman, was the blessing for the race that made Eden a paradise.

Slavery was never in any way, nor by any word, forbidden in God's laws; it was recognized in the law on Mount Sinai; provided for and perpetuated by the Mosiac code; never prohibited in the teachings of Jesus Christ, either in parable or precept, but justified and enforced; and it was acknowledged and made consonant with Christian duty by the apostles.

On the other hand, polygamy was utterly prohibited by the marriage law of Eden, that made the wedded pair one; it was absolutely forbidden on Mount Sinai, in the seventh commandment; most scathingly rebuked by the teachings of Jesus Christ, who reaffirmed the marriage law of Eden in a manner that shows it was never set aside, that it could not have been set aside without breaking the seventh commandment; and polygamy was authoritatively forbidden by the apostles to their Gentile converts. The Hebrews knew that the laws of Moses were made for a

people whose usages in marriages were one man with one woman, like our own, after the example of Isaac and Rebecca.

*

The two systems, therefore, had not the same origin, nor can they be classed together in a single result.

If slavery, the bond-service that makes one man the property

*This is proven by the law of Moses, which required the marriage of a childless widow to her deceased husband's brother. The law supposes that a man can leave only ONE widow; which could never be counted on in a nation of polygamists.

of another, be thus sanctioned by God's Word, both in the Old and New Testaments, is it to continue till the end of time? Is it to be in the millennium ?

We cannot answer that question from the Bible, except so far as this while men are subjected to the penalty of hard labor for bread, and women to the penalty of obedience, each wife to her own husband, we do not see why the penalty that subjected the posterity of Ham to slavery should be remitted.

"Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren"-is peremptory, and as unlimited respecting time as the sentence on our first parents. In Revelation, chap 6, ver. 15, "bondman and freeman" flee together from the wrath of God; both are sinners.

In the prophetic books, where allusions are made to the millennium, God's chosen people are represented as having servants, who perform the duties of bond-service.

"For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land; and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob.

"And the people shall take them, and bring them to their place; and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord for servants and handmaids; and they shall take them captives, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors."-Isaiah, chap. 14, verses 1, 2.

We thus learn that Israel, when restored at the millennium, will have the right to hold bond-servants, and that they will hold them. The holy prophet does not tell the people of God to give the strangers that follow them equal rights and privileges with themselves. Now, if thus to hold even their enemies in bondage had been "sin of itself," "the sum of all villanies, would it have been thus prophetically, or symbolically, if you please, accorded to God's people as a privilege? as a sign of the Lord's mercy? The like privileges and blessings are promised to Israel, in chapters 60, verse 10, and 61, verse 5-Isaiah:

"And the sons of strangers shall build up thy walls, and their kings shall minister unto thee."

"And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your ploughmen and your vine-dressers."

We might quote a multitude of other texts which show that domestic slavery was an established condition of social life, recognized throughout the whole period of Bible history, and never, in a single instance, condemned as wrong in itself, as a sin, per se. Therefore we do not know how any Christian can deny this proposition: Slavery is sanctioned by the Bible.

But how shall we reconcile this difference of condition among men with the doctrine of "equal rights" which our political teachers enunciate ?

The Bible settles it all. The parable of the talents is the true code of the Christian. Equal duties for equal privileges. St. Paul illustrates this Bible Bill of Rights in his first epistle to the Corinthians, twelfth chapter.* Read it every word, and learn

"Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.

"And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord.

"And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.

"But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. "For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit;

"To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit;

"To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues:

"But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will.

"For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.

"For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.

"For the body is not one member, but many.

"If the foot shall say, Because I am not the hand, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?

"And if the ear shall say, Because I am not the eye, I am not of the body; is it therefore not of the body?

"If the whole body were an eye, where were the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where were the smelling?

"But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him.

"And if they were all one member, where were the body?

"But now are they many members, yet but one body.

"And the eye cannot say unto the hand, I have no need of thee; nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of you.

"Nay, much more those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary;

"And those members of the body, which we think to be less honorable, upon these we bestow more abundant honor; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness.

"For our comely parts have no need; but God hath tempered the body together, having given more abundant honor to that part which lacked;

"That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another.

"And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it.

"Now, ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular.

"And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healing, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.

"Are all apostles? are all prophets? are all teachers? are all workers of miracles?

"Have all the gifts of healing? do all speak with tongues? do all interpret? "But covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet show I unto you a more excellent way"-(which was charity, as Paul explained in the next chapter.)