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.” 1 Tim. vi. 1, 2.

The Epistle of Paul to Philemon, deserves peculiar attention, not only because it furnishes a distinguished instance in which the justice and legality of slavery is admitted, but exhibits the holy and eminent apostle as exerting his influence to restore the runaway slave to his master. Philemon, whom Paul had converted, owned a slave, named Onesimus, who ran away from his master, and fled to Rome. Paul subsequently visited Rome; and there converted Onesimus. He persuaded Onesimus to return to his master and his duty; and writes to Philemon to receive him with kindness. The following passage shows in what estimation Paul, the great apostle of the Gentiles, held Philemon, the slave-holder. "Paul a prisoner of Jesus Christ, and Timothy our brother, unto Philemon, our dearly beloved and fellow labourer: grace to you, and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God: making mention of thee always in my prayers; hearing of thy love and faith which thou hast toward the Lord Jesus, and toward all the saints; that the communication of thy faith may become effectual, by the acknowledging of every good thing, which is in you, in Jesus Christ. For we have great joy and consolation in thy love, because the bowels of the saints are refreshed by thee, brother."

The spirit which pervades the following passage, cannot fail to strike the Christian reader with admiration; and constitutes an illustrious contrast to the troublous, fierce and insurrectionary disposition manifested by the fanatics.

"Wherefore," continues Paul, "though I might

be much bold in Christ to enjoin thee, that which is convenient, yet for love sake I rather beseech thee, being such an one as Paul the aged, and now also a prisoner of Jesus Christ; I beseech thee for my son Onesimus, whom I have begotten in my bonds: which in time past was to thee unprofitable, but now profitable to thee and me; whom I have sent again. Thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels. Whom I would have retained with me, that in thy stead he might have ministered unto me in the bonds of the gospel: but without thy mind would I do nothing; that thy benefit should not be as it were of necessity, but willingly. For perhaps he therefore departed for a season, that thou shouldest receive him for ever; not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord? If thou count me therefore as a partner, receive him as myself, if he hath wronged thee, or oweth thee ought, put that on mine account: I Paul have written it with mine own hand, I will repay it, albeit I do not say how thou owest unto me thine own self besides. Yea, brother, let me have joy of thee in the Lord: refresh my bowels in the Lord. Having confidence in thy obedience, I wrote unto thee, knowing that thou wilt also do more than I say."

The fanatics who find it impossible to explain away these cases of the direct sanction of slavery, and who seek in vain for a line or word which discourages or condemns that institution, seize, in their despair, upon the golden rule-" do unto others as you would that others should do unto you," and so pervert it as to make it condemn what our Saviour and his apostles directly sanctioned. This presumptuous and profane attempt to make our Saviour's precepts inconsistent with his conduct, to distort his

language, by a laboured and false inference, into a censure of that which he impliedly encouraged, cannot be regarded without indignation. It exhibits the desperate character of that fanaticism, which would rather cast a reproach upon the Divine Founder of our blessed religion, than relinquish one of the cherished chimeras of their overheated and bewildered fancies.

Their application of the "golden rule,” strips it of its golden attributes, and makes it sanction all that it was intended to condemn. They insist that the maxim, as interpreted by them, requires that the authority of the master over the slave should be immediately relinquished. We may add that, it requires further, that the authority of the father over his child, of the master over his apprentice, of the tutor over his pupil, should also be given up. It requires that the ruler should not control the private citizen; that the judge should not sentence the convict, nor the jailor confine the thief. Neither the child, servant,'nor scholar-the citizen, convict, nor thief are dealt with according to their desires; nor as those, in whose power they are placed, would desire, if their relative position were reversed. That rule which would require that their wishes should be regarded as rights, and conceded accordingly, would abrogate all law, would place the innocent at the mercy of the guilty, involve right and wrong in indistinguishable confusion, and render society a chaotic and jarring mass of wretchedness and crime.

The direct and only rational exposition of the golden rule is, that, in every relation of life, we should do that which we believe to be our strict duty; that we should free ourselves from the prejudices and errors which our selfishness begets, and consider our duties rigidly and disinterestedly, unswayed by the flattery, weakness and self-deceit of

our own natures. For this purpose we should imagine ourselves in the place of him with whom we are acting, and do unto him that which we, possessed of our present knowledge of the circumstances of the case, would conceive proper, and which we would, if guided by a right intelligence, wish done unto us. The father should do unto his child as he would, if a child, and informed of his own interest, wish his father should do unto him; in like manner slave-holders should act towards their slaves, as a slave, possessed of their knowledge of the calamitous results of emancipation, and willing to be guided by that knowledge, would wish them to act. If the slave-holder, by placing himself, in fancy, in the condition of the slave, can imagine that the emancipation of the mass of ignorant, indolent and savage blacks in the South would result in consequences favourable to the greatest good of the greatest number, he has a right to emancipate them. But until he can arrive at that conviction, he has no moral right to flood the country with the horrors which must ensue, and would be guilty of an act of patricidal and guilty madness— ruinous to his country, his race, and even to the objects of his ill-directed and malign benevolence.

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CHAPTER X.

Slavery considered, in continuation-Influence of Slavery-on civilization-on the female sex -on morality-on the political character and destinies of a country-on our country.

A PIOUS and correct mind cannot but hesitate to question the general benevolence of an institution which appears to have resulted from the laws of nature, to have existed from the earliest period, and to have prevailed beneath the eye and sanction of our Saviour himself. We cannot but believe, that if slavery were an evil, it could not have been thus linked with the necessities of the race; thus entailed, generation after generation, upon millions of the human family, and permitted to exist in its most rigorous form, even among God's favoured people, and in the immediate presence of the Divine Founder of Christianity. An examination of its influence upon the prosperity of nations, will vindicate Providence from the presumptuous charge of having continued and sustained an institution inimical to the moral and physical interests of the race; and prove that slavery, instead of operating injuriously, has, in its general influence, tended to ameliorate the condition and elevate the character of mankind.

The civilization of the race, if not kindled, was aided and heightened by the institution of slavery. Slaves are only valuable where regular labour is to be performed; and must, in all ages, have been en

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