Such was not the slavery that offered itself to the eyes of the Prophets and Apostles; a normal servitude, of right, based upon a native and indestructible inferiority was not then in question, but an accidental servitude among equals, to which the chances of war had given birth, and which emancipation suppressed entire.  Quite different is the slavery which depends on race, and which, it may be said, supposes a malediction; do what one will, this latter will subsist, it will, in a manner, survive itself; it will find, besides, in the idea of a providential dispensation, the natural excuse for its excesses.  This slavery the Bible condemns in the most explicit manner.  If its champions dare suppose two species, the book of Genesis shows them all mankind springing from one man, and the Gospel recounts to them the redemption wrought in behalf of all the descendants of Adam; if they argue from the curse pronounced against Canaan, the Old Testament presents to them the detailed enumeration of the Canaanites, a vast family, in which the whites figure as well as the blacks.

In short, there is a deadly struggle between the Gospel and slavery under all its forms, and particularly under the odious form which the African slave trade has given it in modern times.  The Gospel has been, is, and will be, at the head of every earnest movement directed against slavery.  It is important that it should be so; it is the only means of avoiding the acts of violence, the revolts, the extreme calamities from which the whites and the blacks would equally suffer.  The Gospel is admirable, inasmuch as by the side of the duties of masters, it proclaims those of slaves; as in the time of the Apostles, it does not hesitate to recommend to them gentleness, submission, scrupulous fidelity, love for those who maltreat them, the practice of difficult virtues; it makes them free within, in order to render them capable of becoming free without.

To judge of this method, we have only to compare the miserable population of St. Domingo with the beautiful free villages which cover the English islands.  How true the saying:  “The wrath of man never accomplishes the justice of God.”  Wherever the wrath of man has had full sway, even to chastise abominable abuses, it has remained a curse.  I tremble when I think of the revolts which may break out at any moment in the Southern States.  Bloodshed, let us not forget, would sully our banner; to the right of the slaves, such a crisis would be forever opposed, and who knows whether a terrible return might not burst upon them?

The mind becomes troubled at the mere image of the horrors that would ensue from civil war.  May the Christians of America comprehend, at length, in a more perfect manner, the greatness of the part that God reserves for them, and the extent of the responsibilities that are weighing upon them.  To take a stand frankly against slavery; to remove their last pretexts from sincere men who seek to reconcile it with the