Does any one fancy Philemon treating Onesimus, after this epistle, as fugitive slaves are treated in America, putting up his wife and children directly after for sale, or delivering him, over to the first slave merchant that was willing to take charge of him, and carry him a hundred leagues away?  It is so certain that Philemon did more than had been told him, that the Epistle to the Colossians shows us the “faithful and well-beloved brother Onesimus” honorably mentioned among those concerned about the spiritual interests of the church.

Do what one will, there is an implied abolition of slavery (implied but positive) at the bottom of that close fraternity created by the faith in the Saviour.  Between brethren, the relation of master and slave, of merchant and merchandise, cannot long subsist.  To sell on an auction-block or deliver over to a slave-driver an immortal soul, for which Christ has died, is an enormity before which the Christian sense of right will always recoil in the end.  “In this,” it is written, “there is neither Greek nor Jew, nor circumcision nor uncircumcision, nor barbarian nor Seythian, nor bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all.”  Let slaveholders put to themselves the question what they would say to-day if the epistle to Philemon were addressed to them; and it is addressed to them; the Onesimuses of the South—­and such there are—­are thus thrown upon the conscience of their masters, their brothers.

I have said enough on the subject to dispense with examining very numerous passages in which slavery is supposed by the writers of the New Testament.  The duties of masters and of slaves are laid down by them without doubt, and the existence of the institution is not contested for a moment; only, it is brought face to face with that which will slay it:  the doctrine of salvation through Christ, of pardon, of humility, of love, is, in itself, and without the necessity of expressing it, the absolute negation of slavery.

It has fully proved so, and the early ages of Christianity leave no doubt as to the interpretation given by Christians to the teachings of the Apostles.  Despite the rapid corruptions introduced into the churches, we see one brilliant fact shining forth in them:  emancipations becoming more frequent, slaves, as well as free men, succeeding to ecclesiastical offices, spiritual equality producing the fruit which it cannot help producing, namely, legal equality.  Observe, too, how the edicts of the emperors multiplied as soon as the influence of Christianity was exerted in the Roman world.  And all these edicts had but one aim:  to sweeten servitude, to increase affranchisement by law, to facilitate voluntary emancipation.