The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 2 of 4 eBook

American Anti-Slavery Society
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,105 pages of information about The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 2 of 4.

The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 2 of 4 eBook

American Anti-Slavery Society
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,105 pages of information about The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 2 of 4.
The spring of effort in the labor       The laborer must serve at the
is a fair compensation.                 discretion of another.

Free scope must be given for his moral He is deprived of personal
and intellectual improvement. liberty—­the necessary
                                        condition, and living soul
                                        of improvement, without which
                                        he has no control of either
                                        intellect or morals.

His rights as a husband and a father The authority and claims of
are to be protected. the master may throw an ocean
                                        between him and his family,
                                        and separate them from each
                                        other’s presence at any moment
                                        and forever.

Christianity, then, requires such slavery as Prof.  Hodge so cunningly defines, to be abolished.  It was well provided, for the peace of the respective parties, that he placed his definition so far from the requisitions of Christianity.  Had he brought them into each other’s presence, their natural and invincible antipathy to each other would have broken out into open and exterminating warfare.  But why should we delay longer upon an argument which is based on gross and monstrous sophistry?  It can mislead only such as wish to be misled.  The lovers of sunlight are in little danger of rushing into the professor’s dungeon.  Those who, having something to conceal, covet darkness, can find it there, to their hearts’ content.  The hour can not be far away, when upright and reflective minds at the South will be astonished at the blindness which could welcome such protection as the Princeton argument offers to the slaveholder.

But Prof.  Stuart must not be forgotten.  In his celebrated letter to Dr. Fisk, he affirms that “Paul did not expect slavery to be ousted in a day[A].” Did not EXPECT!  What then?  Are the requisitions of Christianity adapted to any EXPECTATIONS which in any quarter and on any ground might have risen to human consciousness?  And are we to interpret the precepts of the Gospel by the expectations of Paul?  The Savior commanded all men every where to repent, and this, though “Paul did not expect” that human wickedness, in its ten thousand forms would in any community “be ousted in a day.”  Expectations are one thing; requisitions quite another.

[Footnote A:  Supra, p.8.]

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The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 2 of 4 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.