The poor slave was having his probation and discipline, as we all have ours, and he was suffering, as we all do in our turns, from an impudent tongue.  Little did he think that a fellow-creature, looking at him at that moment, was reminded, by his meekness under insult, of Him, our example, who, under such provocation, opened not his mouth, and that I was made to remember, as I stood there and received instruction from him, that the best alleviation and cure of anguished sensibility under ill-treatment is in this same silence, and in thoughts of Jesus.

After the cars had started, I took my Bible from my carpet-bag, and read these passages:  “Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward.  For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, suffering wrongfully.”  Then this is enforced by the example of our incarnate God and Saviour, who is held up to Christian slaves as their example; and in this connection, not only in this passage, but elsewhere in speaking to slaves, the Apostle brings in the most sublime truths relating to redemption.  You will be struck with this in reading what is said to slaves, that in several cases, the train of thought proceeds directly from their condition and its duties, to the most sublime and beautiful truths of salvation.  How divinely wise did these exhortations to slaves appear to me, that morning, in contrast with the spirit of the Northern abolitionist, and his talk about “Bunker Hill,” “’76,” and his “grandfather’s old gun over the mantel-piece,” and his injunctions to slaves as to the duty of stealing, and even murdering, if necessary, to effect their liberty.  This is not the spirit of the New Testament.  The idea of submission on the part of “servants” to “masters,” of “pleasing them well in all things,” of “fear and trembling,” “not purloining but showing good fidelity in all things,” is not found in the Gospel of the abolitionist.  He complains that we do not send the true Gospel to the South.  There are passages in the Epistles addressed to slaves, which, if faithfully regarded, would make fugitive slave laws for the most part needless.  No wonder that the New Testament, with its exhortations to meekness and patience under suffering, and the duty of those who are “under the yoke,” and of masters as being “worthy of honor,” and the caution that the slave do not take undue liberty where his master is a believer, nor assert the doctrine of equality in Christ as a ground for undue familiarity, or disobedience, is repudiated by the vengeful spirit of the abolitionist.  How well the Apostle understood him!  “If any man teach otherwise,” that is, contrary to these injunctions as to the duty of slaves who have believing masters, “he is proud, (that is the leading feature of his error) he is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings.”  What an anomaly it would be to have an abolition convention opened with reading a collect of Paul’s inspired directions to masters and slaves.