W. FISK

          “SO THEY WRAP [SNARL] IT UP.”

What are we taught here?  That in the ecclesiastical organizations which grew up under the hands of the apostles, slavery was admitted as a relation that did not violate the Christian faith; that the relation may now in like manner exist; that “the abuse of it is the essential and fundamental wrong;” and of course, that American Christians may hold their own brethren in slavery without incurring guilt or inflicting injury.  Thus, according to Prof.  Stuart, Jesus Christ has not a word to say against “the peculiar institutions” of the South.  If our brethren there do not “abuse” the privilege of enacting unpaid labor, they may multiply their slaves to their hearts’ content, without exposing themselves to the frown of the Savior or laying their Christian character open to the least suspicion.  Could any trafficker in human flesh ask for greater latitude!  And to such doctrines, Dr. Fisk eagerly and earnestly subscribes.  He goes further.  He urges it on the attention of his brethren, as containing important truth, which they ought to embrace.  According to him, it is “Bible doctrine,” showing, that “the abolitionists are on a wrong course,” and must, “if they would succeed, take a different position.”

We now refer to such distinguished names, to show, that in attempting to prove that Jesus Christ is not in favor of American slavery, we contend with something else than a man of straw.  The ungrateful task, which a particular examination of Professor Stuart’s letter lays upon us, we hope fairly to dispose of in due season.  Enough has now been said to make it clear and certain, that American slavery has its apologists and advocates in the northern pulpit; advocates and apologists, who fall behind few if any of their brethren in the reputation they have acquired, the stations they occupy, and the general influence they are supposed to exert.

Is it so?  Did slavery exist in Judea, and among the Jews, in its worst form, during the Savior’s incarnation?  If the Jews held slaves, they must have done in open and flagrant violation of the letter and the spirit of the Mosaic Dispensation.  Whoever has any doubts of this may well resolve his doubts in the light of the Argument entitled “The Bible against Slavery.”  If, after a careful and thorough examination of that article, he can believe that slaveholding prevailed during the ministry of Jesus Christ among the Jews and in accordance with the authority of Moses, he would do the reading public an important service to record the grounds of his belief—­especially in a fair and full refutation of that Argument.  Till that is done, we hold ourselves excused from attempting to prove what we now repeat, that if the Jews during our Savior’s incarnation held slaves, they must have done so in open and flagrant violation of the letter and spirit of the Mosaic Dispensation.  Could Christ and the Apostles every where among their countrymen come in contact with slaveholding, being as it was a gross violation of that law which their office and their profession required them to honor and enforce, without exposing and condemning it?