“’But how is it with slavery?  God never forbade it; he recognized it; when He framed the Jewish code it was perfectly easy to exclude slavery; but hardly are the Ten Commandments out of his lips when He ordains slave-holding, gives particular directions about it, decrees that certain persons shall be an inheritance forever.  Jesus Christ never uttered one word against slavery, though he did against polygamy; the Apostles have never written nor preached to us against slavery, but on the contrary here is the Apostle to the Gentiles sending back a servant escaped from his master; and in that letter on the pastor’s table he enjoins duties on masters and slaves.  I have confidence that my brother will not again class slavery with polygamy, for it would be a reflection upon divine wisdom and justice.

“’One thing more.  My brother says slavery is the sum of all villanies.

“’But did not the Most High God place his people in slavery for seventy years, in Babylon?  This does not prove that slavery is a good thing, in itself; for by the same proof heathenism might be shown to be a blessing.  Slavery was a curse, a punishment; but still, God would not have made use of slavery to punish his people, if, theoretically and practically, it is by necessity all which my brother alleges.  It surely did not, in that case, prove a “villany” to Babylon.  They were the best seventy years of their probationary state, when that people held the Jews in captivity.  Now I beg not to be misunderstood nor to have my meaning perverted.  I am not pleading for slavery.  I simply say that God would not have put his people, whom He had not cast off forever, into slavery, if slavery, per se, were the sum of all villanies, or, if the practical effect of it on them would be, necessarily, destruction, or inconsistent with his purposes of benevolence.  I will add, that every people and every man, who hold others in bondage, should be admonished that when God puts his captives, his bondmen, into their hands, He is most jealous of the manner in which the trust is discharged.  I do think, I say it here with all possible emphasis, it is the most delicate, the most solemn, the most awful responsibility, to stand in the relation of master to a bondman.

* * * * *

“No further discussion was had at that time, the hour being late, and so the meeting was closed with prayer and singing.  Masters and servants joined to chant a hymn, of which the following, written many years after by Gregory of Nazianzum, might almost seem to be the expansion:—­

  “’Christ, my Lord, I come to bless Thee,
    Now when day is veiled in night,
  Thou who knowest no beginning,
    Light of the eternal light.

  “’Thou hast set the radiant heavens,
    With thy many lamps of brightness,
  Filling all the vaults above;
    Day and night in turn subjecting
    To a brotherhood of service,
  And a mutual law of love.