Page:The duties of masters and slaves respectively (1845).djvu/10

6 true Christian, a worthy communicant in the church of God; nay, he may be a faithful and useful minister of the gospel. If so, then the ground assumed by so many Christians and ecclesiastical bodies at the North and the West, in excluding us from their pulpits and from their communion, simply on this one ground, is untenable, and ought to be abandoned. The men who take such ground may be in error, and we, who sincerely believe them to be so, may deplore their error, yet we cannot but respect their consistency and their zeal. Our part should be, to exhibit equal firmness, with a gentler spirit; by no means returning railing for railing, but contrariwise, forbearance and magnanimity.

But, inasmuch as it is undeniable that by these men our ecclesiastical standing, our piety, our sincerity, our very honesty as men, are all called into question, I have thought it but right to request your attention to a public discussion of this subject, which I shall aim to present in the light furnished by the Bible, and with all the plainness which the vast importance of the subject, and the weighty duties this relation imposes upon masters, seem to demand.

I take the ground distinctly and emphatically, that domestic servitude as found among us at the South (however undesirable it may be in some respects) is not, in itself, sinful. The Bible plainly recognizes it; and the (for there is much sin attending it) springs, not from the nature of the relation, but. The command of God is, "Masters, give unto your servants that which is just and equal; knowing that ye also have a Master in heaven!"

Some have ventured to assert, that the text and other similar directions and like allusions found in various parts of the New Testament and the Old, do not necessarily imply slavery, properly speaking; because those designated as servants may have been hired labourers; and those called masters, merely the employers; just as it is now in British families, and in those of our Eastern and Northern States. But no competent judge, no one with the least pretensions to scholarship, will, for one moment, hesitate to admit, that slavery in its most despotic form existed among the ancient Greeks, the Romans, and even among the Jews. Nor can it be denied that the word servant does, in the New Testament, denote a slave, a person held as property by another; and that the word master denotes one who holds certain of his fellow-men in bondage, just as those terms are now used among us. Now the text, thus distinctly recognizing the existence of slavery, does as plainly imply the compatibility of holding slaves, and yet being a Christian; for