the Princeton professor has the assurance to affirm.  He admits that KINDNESS, MERCY, AND JUSTICE, were enjoined with a distinct reference to the government of God.[62] “Without respect of persons,” they were to be God-like in doing justice.  They were to act the part of kind and merciful “brethren.”  And whither would this lead them?  Could they stop short of restoring to every man his natural, inalienable rights?—­of doing what they could to redress the wrongs, sooth the sorrows, improve the character, and raise the condition of the degraded and oppressed?  Especially, if oppressed and degraded by any agency of theirs.  Could it be kind, merciful, or just to keep the chains of slavery on their helpless, unoffending brother?  Would this be to honor the Golden Rule, or obey the second great command of “their Master in Heaven?” Could the apostles have subserved the cause of freedom more directly, intelligibly, and effectually, than to enjoin the principles, and sentiments, and habits, in which freedom consists—­constituting its living root and fruitful germ!

[Footnote 61:  Pittsburg pamphlet, p. 9.]

[Footnote 62:  The same, p. 10.]

The Princeton professor himself, in the very paper which the South has so warmly welcomed and so loudly applauded as a scriptural defence of “the peculiar institution,” maintains, that the “GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE GOSPEL have DESTROYED SLAVERY throughout the greater part of Christendom"[63]—­“THAT CHRISTIANITY HAS ABOLISHED BOTH POLITICAL AND DOMESTIC BONDAGE WHEREVER IT HAS HAD FREE SCOPE—­that it ENJOINS a fair compensation for labor; insists on the mental and intellectual improvement of ALL classes of men; condemns ALL infractions of marital or parental rights; requires, in short, not only that FREE SCOPE should be allowed to human improvement, but that ALL SUITABLE MEANS should be employed for the attainment of that end."[64] It is indeed “remarkable,” that while neither Christ nor his apostles ever gave “an exhortation to masters to liberate their slaves,” they enjoined such “general principles as have destroyed domestic slavery throughout the greater part of Christendom;” that while Christianity forbears “to urge” emancipation “as an imperative and immediate duty,” it throws a barrier, heaven high, around every domestic circle; protects all the rights of the husband and the father; gives every laborer a fair compensation; and makes the moral and intellectual improvement of all classes, with free scope and all suitable means, the object of its tender solicitude and high authority.  This is not only “remarkable,” but inexplicable.  Yes and no—­hot and cold, in one and the same breath!  And yet these things stand prominent in what is reckoned an acute, ingenious, effective defence of slavery!

[Footnote 63:  Pittsburg pamphlet, p. 18, 19.]

[Footnote 64:  The same, p. 31.]