They carefully instructed both masters and servants in their relative duties, as masters and servants; and otherwise left the institution of slavery as they found it.  How unlike the great apostles of modern reform!  Many will no doubt be ready to ask, if slavery is an evil, why did not Christ and his apostles strike directly at its root, and eradicate it from the face of the earth?  Others may impiously ask if it is an evil, why did the Almighty permit it, or why does he tolerate it?  The latter interrogatory is fully considered in the preceding Chapter; but I will for obvious reasons make a few additional remarks in reply.  I again beg such persons to recollect that we are but finite beings, and cannot, therefore, fully comprehend the Infinite Mind; and that God is moreover the Supreme Ruler of the universe, and that to Him belongs the right to govern and dispose of the work of his own hands, as he, in his infinite wisdom, sees fit and proper.  We may observe His dealings with man, but we cannot in all cases say why he acts thus; nor have we any right to ask him, why hast them done thus?  Slavery is a consequence of sin, and God, in his providence, suffered it to fall on the posterity of Ham as a just and righteous judgment—­as a punishment suitable and proper—­as a punishment proportioned to the magnitude of the crime.  The Divine Being, no doubt, intended that the signal punishment inflicted on Ham’s posterity, should be a warning to all future generations, in all future time, to warn them of the danger of violating his commands, and deter them from the commission of crime.  God, no doubt, willed that it should continue until the crime was adequately punished, and future generations warned of the danger of violating his laws; and his own honor vindicated.  We have reason to believe that God moreover willed, that in his own good time, this evil, as well as all other evils should be eradicated; and that the sons and daughters of Adam should enjoy universal freedom; and that “righteousness should cover the earth, as the waters cover the great deep.”  But God willed to bring about this result, not only in his own time, but in his own way.  By his own appointed means as revealed in his Holy Word; and that we as co-workers with him, in the accomplishment of his designs, should be guided by his revealed will.  So far as we deviate from the revealed will of God in the use of means, we sin against him, and are destined to disappointment.  The Holy Scriptures justify the conclusion, that in the process of time, the Almighty disposer of events, will root out all evil from the face of the earth.  “Every plant,” (says Jesus Christ,) “that my heavenly father hath not planted shall be rooted up.”  But there are many evils so interwoven with the institutions of society, that they can only be rooted out by the general spread of the benign and purifying influences of the Gospel.