The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 4 of 4 eBook

American Anti-Slavery Society
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 262 pages of information about The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 4 of 4.

The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 4 of 4 eBook

American Anti-Slavery Society
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 262 pages of information about The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 4 of 4.

[Footnote 86:  Pittsburg pamphlet p. 12.]

According to Professor Hodge’s According to Professor Hodge’s account of the definition of Slavery_, requisitions of Christianity_,

The spring of effort in the          The laborer must serve at the
laborer is a fair compensation.      discretion of another.

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

His rights as a husband and The authority and claims of the
a father are to be protected. 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 Professor 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 heart’s content.  The hour cannot 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 Professor 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."[87] 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 87:  Supra, p. 7.]

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