conference in the godhead?  “Let us make man in OUR IMAGE after OUR LIKENESS, and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle and over all the earth.”  Then while every living thing, with land, and sea, and firmament, and marshalled worlds, waited to swell the shout of morning stars—­then God created man IN HIS OWN IMAGE; IN THE IMAGE OF GOD created he him.”  This solves the problem, IN THE IMAGE OF GOD, CREATED HE HIM.  This distinction is often repeated and always with great solemnity.  In Gen. i. 26-28, it is expressed in various forms.  In Gen. v. 1, we find it again, “IN THE LIKENESS OF GOD MADE HE HIM.”  In Gen. ix. 6, again.  After giving license to shed the blood of “every moving thing that liveth,” it is added, “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for IN THE IMAGE OF GOD MADE HE MAN.”  As though it had been said, “All these creatures are your property, designed for your use—­they have the likeness of earth, and their spirits go downward; but this other being, MAN, has my own likeness:  IN THE IMAGE OF GOD made I man; an intelligent, moral, immortal agent, invited to all that I can give and he can be.  So in Lev. xxiv. 17, 18, 21, “He that killeth any MAN shall surely be put to death; and he that killeth a beast shall make it good, beast for beast; and he that killeth a MAN he shall be put to death.”  So in Ps. viii. 5, 6, we have an enumeration of particulars, each separating infinitely MEN from brutes and things! 1. “Thou hast made him a little lower than the angels." Slavery drags him down among brutes. 2. "And hast crowned him with glory and honor." Slavery tears off his crown, and puts on a yoke. 3. "Thou madest him to have dominion[A] OVER the works of thy hands." Slavery breaks his sceptre, and cast him down among those works—­yea, beneath them. 4. "Thou hast put all things under his feet.”  Slavery puts HIM under the feet of an “owner.”  Who, but an impious scorner, dare thus strive with his Maker, and mutilate HIS IMAGE, and blaspheme the Holy One, who saith, "Inasmuch as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto ME.”

[Footnote A:  “Thou madest him to have dominion.”  In Gen. i. 28, God says to man, "Have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth,” thus vesting in every human being the right of ownership over the earth, its products and animal life, and in each human being the same right.  By so doing God prohibited the exercise of ownership by man over man; for the grant to all men of equal ownership, for ever shut out the possibility of their exercising ownership over each other, as whoever is the owner of a man, is the owner of his right of property—­in other words, when one man becomes the property of another his rights become such too, his right of property is transferred to his “owner,” and thus as far as himself is concerned, is annihilated.  Finally, by originally vesting all men with dominion or ownership over property, God proclaimed the right of all to exercise it, and pronounced every man who takes it away a robber of the highest grade.  Such is every slaveholder.]