Page:Slavery consistent with Christianity (third edition, 1853).pdf/14

14 darkness, doubt and mysticism, as to render it no longer attractive and desirable.

We will call your attention back again to a few more particulars in the ix. chapter of Genesis, 26th and 27th verses. “Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant.”

In the Asiatic courts and harems, black mutes and eunuchs are preferred as slaves, who are literally the servants of Shem, and servants too under the most painful and humiliating circumstances. But the most remarkable prediction in this memorable transaction is contained in the 27th verse. “God shall enlarge the borders of Japeth; he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant.”

It is a settled point now that our American Indians are the descendants of the Asiatics, or the children of Shem—and we know that the Europeans are the children of Japeth. And God did literally enlarge the borders of Japeth, when he raised up Columbus to discover America. And now, we, the posterity of Japheth, are literally dwelling in the tents or places of Shem, and Canaan is our servant.

But it is worthy of remark and of digression from our subject, that this prediction of the enlargement of the borders of Japheth, and his dwelling in the tents of Shem, are in our own day receiving a further fulfillment.

In looking at the blessing pronounced, Japheth was ultimately to have the pre-eminence even to the supplanting of Shem. Now, this has been fulfilled to the letter in our own country; and it is is [sic] about to be fulfilled too in Asia.

The two greatest powers in Europe, or the world, Russia and England, are making rapid inroads upon the Asiatic provinces: the latter at this time controls little less than two hundred millions of people in that section of the globe. While the Russian eagle, as hungry and insatiable as Albion’s lion, is whetting his bill and pluming himself for a flight, and a banquet on the lend of Shem, the fate of Asia is inevitable. The tents of Shem there, as here, will be occupied by his younger brother—and that obscure and unknown spot on which this memorable prediction was uttered, will witness its final consummation. Let the infidel and sceptic look at these facts.

Canaan, it is said in the 25th verse, “shall be a servant of servants to his brethren.” This is a singular prediction, but most singularly fulfilled, as I have seen both in the South and West Indies, where, on large cotton, coffee or sugar plantations, the slaves are divided into companies with a leader over them of their own color, who is also a slave, and is responsible to his overseer or master. And these leaders, in general, are far more severe to their fellow slaves than their masters or overseers are.