from you may have opened the way for his permanent continuance with you.  Not now as a slave.  Heaven forbid!  But superior to a slave.  Superior, did I say?  Take him to your bosom, as a beloved brother; for I own him as a son, and regard him as such, in all the relations of life, both as a man and a Christian.  ‘Receive him as myself.’  And that nothing may hinder you from complying with my request at once, I hereby promise, without adverting to your many and great obligations to me, to pay you every cent which he took from your drawer.  Any preparation which my comfort with you may require, you will make without much delay, when you learn, that I intend, as soon as I shall be able ’to perform the journey,’ to make you a visit.”

And what if Dr. Baxter, in giving an account of this letter should publicly declare that Professor Stuart, of Andover regarded slaveholding as lawful; for that “he had sent Archy back to his son Isaac, with an apology for his running away” to be held in perpetual slavery?  With what propriety might not the professor exclaim:  False, every syllable false.  I sent him back, NOT TO BE HELD AS A SLAVE, but recognized as a dear brother, in all respects, under every relation, civil and ecclesiastical.  I bade my son receive Archy as myself.  If this was not equivalent to a requisition to set him fully and most honorably free, and that, too, on the ground of natural obligation and Christian principle, then I know not how to frame such a requisition.

I am well aware that my supposition is by no means strong enough fully to illustrate the case to which it is applied.  Professor Stuart lacks apostolical authority.  Isaac Stuart is not a leading member of a church consisting, as the early churches chiefly consisted, of what the world regard as the dregs of society—­“the offscouring of all things.”  Nor was slavery at Colosse, it seems, supported by such barbarous usages, such horrid laws as disgrace the South.

But it is time to turn to another passage which, in its bearing on the subject in hand, is, in our view, as well as in the view of Dr. Fisk. and Prof.  Stuart, in the highest degree authoritative and instructive.  “Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrines be not blasphemed.  And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit.” [44]

[Footnote 44:  1 Tim. vi. 1. 2.  The following exposition of this passage is from the pen of ELIZUR WRIGHT, JR.:—­