Hence “THE SAME THINGS,” the same in principle, the same in substance, the same in their mutual bearing upon the welfare of the master and the servants, was to be rendered back and forth by the one and the other.  It was clearly the relation of mutual service.  Do we here find the chattel principle?

3.  Of course, the servants might not be slack, time-serving, unfaithful.  Of course, the master must “FORBEAR THREATENING.”  Slavery without threatening!  Impossible.  Wherever maintained, it is of necessity a system of threatening, injecting into the bosom of the slave such terrors, as never cease for a moment to haunt and torment him.  Take from the chattel principle the support, which it derives from “threatening,” and you annihilate it at once and forever.

4.  This relation was to be maintained in accordance with the principles of the divine government, where “RESPECT OF PERSONS” could not be admitted.  It was, therefore, totally inconsistent with, and submissive of, the chattel principle, which in American slavery is developed in a system of “respect of persons,” equally gross and hurtful.  No Abolitionist, however eager and determined in his opposition to slavery, could ask for more than these precepts, once obeyed, would be sure to confer.

“The relation of slavery,” according to Professor Stuart, is recognized in “the precepts of the New Testament,” as one which “may still exist without violating the Christian faith or the church."[60] Slavery and the chattel principle!  So our professor thinks; otherwise his reference has nothing to do with the subject—­with the slavery which the abolitionist, whom he derides, stands opposed to.  How gross and hurtful is the mistake into which he allows himself to fall.  The relation recognized in the precepts of the New Testament had its basis and support in “justice and equality;” the very opposite of the chattel principle; a relation which may exist as long as justice and equality remain, and thus escape the destruction to which, in the view of Professor Stuart, slavery is doomed.  The description of Paul obliterates every feature of American slavery, raising the servant to equality with his master, and placing his rights under the protection of justice; yet the eye of Professor Stuart can see nothing in his master and servant but a slave and his owner.  With this relation he is so thoroughly possessed, that, like an evil angel, it haunts him even when he enters the temple of justice!

[Footnote 60:  Letter to Dr. Fisk, supra p. 7.]

“It is remarkable,” saith the Princeton professor, “that there is not even an exhortation” in the writings of the apostles “to masters to liberate their slaves, much less is it urged as an imperative and immediate duty."[61] It would be remarkable, indeed, if they were chargeable with a defect so great and glaring.  And so they have nothing to say upon the subject? That not even