7th.  The only other reason I will mention for believing, that the slavery modification of servitude is not approved of God, is, that it has never been known to work well—­never been known to promote man’s happiness or God’s glory.  Wickedness and wretchedness are, so uniformly, the product of slavery, that they must be looked upon, not as its abuses, but as its legitimate fruits.  Whilst all admit, that the relations of the family state are, notwithstanding their frequent perversions, full of blessings to the world; and that, but for them, the world would be nothing better than one scene of pollution and wo;—­to what history of slavery will you refer me, for proof of its beneficent operation?  Will it be to the Bible history of Egyptian slavery?  No—­for that informs us of the exceeding wickedness and wretchedness of Egyptian slavery.  Will it be to the history of Greek and Roman slavery?  No—­for your own book acknowledges its unutterable horrors and abominations.  Will you refer me to the history of the West Indies for proofs of the happy fruits of slavery?  Not until the earth is no more, will its polluted and bloody pages cease to testify against slavery.  And, when we have come down to American slavery, you will not even open the book which records such facts, as that its subjects are forbidden to be joined in wedlock, and to read the Bible.  No—­you will not presume to look for a single evidence of the benign influences of a system, where, by the admission of your own ecclesiastical bodies, it has turned millions of men into heathen.  I say nothing now of your beautiful and harmless theories of slavery:—­but this I say, that when you look upon slavery as it has existed, or now exists, either amidst the darkness of Mahommedanism or the light of Christianity, you dare not, as you hope for the Divine favor, say that it is a Heaven-descended institution; and that, notwithstanding it is like Ezekiel’s roll, “written within and without with lamentations and mourning and wo,” it, nevertheless, bears the mark of being a boon from God to man.

Having disposed of your “strong reasons” for the position, that the New Testament authorizes slavery, I proceed to consider your remaining reasons for it.

Because it does not appear, that our Saviour and the Apostle Peter told certain centurions, who, for the sake of the argument, I will admit were slaveholders, that slaveholding is sinful, you argue, and most confidently too, that it is not sinful.  But, it does not appear, that the Saviour and the Apostle charged any sinful practices upon them.  Then, by your logic, all their other practices, as well as their slaveholding, were innocent, and these Roman soldiers were literally perfect.—­Again; how do you know that the Saviour and the Apostle did not tell them, on the occasion you refer to, that they were sinners for being slaveholders?  The fact, that the Bible does not inform us that they told them so, does not prove that they did not; much less does it prove, that they did not tell them so subsequently to their first interview with them.  And again, the admission that they did not specifically attack slavery, at any of their interviews with the centurions, or on any other occasions whatever, would not justify the inference, that it is sinless.  I need not repeat the reasoning which makes the truth of this remark apparent.