In the high places of social life then—­in the parlor, the drawing-room, the saloon—­special reference should be had, in every arrangement, to the comfort and improvement of those who are least able to provide for the cheapest rites of hospitality.  For these, ample accommodations must be made, whatever may become of our kinsmen and rich neighbors.  And for this good reason, that while such occasions signify little to the latter, to the former they are pregnant with good—­raising their drooping spirits, cheering their desponding hearts, inspiring them with life, and hope, and joy.  The rich and the poor thus meeting joyfully together, can not but mutually contribute to each other’s benefit; the rich will be led to moderation, sobriety, and circumspection, and the poor to industry, providence, and contentment.  The recompense must be rich and sure.

A most beautiful and instructive commentary on the text in which these things are taught, the Savior furnished in his own conduct.  He freely mingled with those who were reduced to the very bottom of society.  At the tables of the outcasts of society, he did not hesitate to be a cheerful guest, surrounded by publicans and sinners.  And when flouted and reproached by smooth and lofty ecclesiastics, as an ultraist and leveler, he explained and justified himself by observing, that he had only done what his office demanded.  It was his to seek the lost, to heal the sick, to pity the wretched;—­in a word, to bestow just such benefits as the various necessities of mankind made appropriate and welcome.  In his great heart, there was room enough for those who had been excluded from the sympathy of little souls.  In its spirit and design, the gospel overlooked none—­least of all, the outcasts of a selfish world.

Can slavery, however modified, be consistent with such a gospel?—­a gospel which requires us, even amidst the highest forms of social life, to exert ourselves to raise the depressed by giving our warmest sympathies to those who have the smallest share in the favor of the world?

Those who are in “bonds” are set before us as deserving an especial remembrance.  Their claims upon us are described as a modification of the Golden Rule—­as one of the many forms to which its obligations are reducible.  To them we are to extend the same affectionate regard as we would covet for ourselves, if the chains upon their limbs were fastened upon ours.  To the benefits of this precept, the enslaved have a natural claim of the greatest strength.  The wrongs they suffer, spring from a persecution which can hardly be surpassed in malignancy.  Their birth and complexion are the occasion of the insults and injuries which they can neither endure nor escape.  It is for the work of God, and not them own deserts, that they are loaded with chains. This is persecution.

Can I regard the slave as another self—­can I put myself in his place—­and be indifferent to his wrongs?  Especially, can I, thus affected, take sides with the oppressor?  Could I, in such a state of mind as the gospel requires me to cherish, reduce him to slavery or keep him in bonds?  Is not the precept under hand naturally subversive of every system and every form of slavery?