Only one other reason will be given why it is more needful to overthrow American, than it was to overthrow Roman slavery.  The Church was then but a handful of “strangers scattered throughout” the heathen world.  It was made up of those who had little influence, and who were esteemed “the filth of the world, and the offscouring of all things.”  It had, probably, little, if any thing, to do with slavery, except to suffer its rigors in the persons of many of its members.  But here, the Church, comprising no very small proportion of the whole population, and exerting a mighty influence for good or ill on the residue, is tainted, yes, rotten with slavery.  In this contrast, we not only see another reason why the destruction of American slavery is more important than was that of Roman slavery; but we also see, that the Apostles could have been little, if at all, actuated by that motive, which is more urgent than any other in the breasts of the American abolitionists—­the motive of purging the Church of slavery.

To return to what you say of the abominations and horrors of Greek and Roman slavery:—­I should be doing you great injustice, were I to convey the idea that you approve of them.  It is admitted that you disapprove of them; and, it is also admitted, that no responsibility for them rests on the relation of slaveholder and slave, if that relation have, as you labor to show, the stamp of Divine approbation.  You say, that slavery, like marriage, is an institution sanctioned by the New Testament; and that, therefore, neither for the evils which attend it, nor for any other cause, is it to be argued against.  This is sound reasoning, on your part; and, if your premises are correct, there is no resisting your deduction.  We are, in that case, not only not to complain of the institution of slavery, but we are to be thankful for it.  Considering, however, that the whole fabric of your argument, in the principal or New Testament division of your book, is based on the alleged fact that the New Testament approves of slavery, it seems to me that you have contented yourself, and sought to make your readers contented, with very slender evidences of the truth of this proposition.  These evidences are, mainly—­that the New Testament does not declare slavery to be a sin:  and, that the Apostles enjoin upon masters and servants their respective duties; and this, too, in the same connexion in which they make similar injunctions upon those who stand in the confessedly proper relations of life—­the husband and wife, the parent and child.  Your other evidences, that the New Testament approves of slavery, unimportant as they are, will not be left unnoticed.

I have attempted to show, that the omission of the New Testament to declare slavery to be a sin, is not proof that it is not a sin.  I pass on to show, that the Apostolic injunction of duties upon masters and servants does not prove that slavery is sinless.