Page:The duties of masters and slaves respectively (1845).djvu/27

23 servants. One of the surest means to promote this great object would be found, I am persuaded, in the legalization of marriage among them. The mercenary creditor, the hardened trafficker in human sinews, and the devotee of a loathsome licentiousness, might clamour in opposition, but not, I should suppose, the intelligent, the upright, the generous-spirited master, who has the best interests of his servants at heart.

4. The master owes to his slaves all practicable facilities for securing their eternal salvation.

The master's rights are bounded by the grave, but his responsibilities overleap that barrier, and stretch onward through eternity. The slave has a soul like yours or mine; and for his salvation, as truly as for yours or mine, the Redeemer died. A master has no right to peril his slaves' prospects for the life to come. The slave has a right to be so treated that he may learn to live honestly, virtuously, and respectably here, and may enjoy every possible advantage for securing eternal life in heaven hereafter. Religious instruction from the Bible, and that from early childhood, every servant is entitled to receive from his master, together with the rest furnished by a weekly Sabbath, and all suitable facilities for attending the public worship of God. If the master is entitled to the labour of his servant during six days, God claims the seventh day for observance as a Sabbath: a day of sacred rest to your man-servant, and your maid-servant, as well as to yourself and your cattle. Every master is bound by the very nature of the relation he sustains to his servants, to see to it that they receive suitable religious instruction, that they rest on the Sabbath, and that they be encouraged, nay required, to attend seriously on the public worship of God. Were this required of every servant, (as it ought to be,) and were the duty always enforced by the master's own example in the family, and in the house of God each Sabbath: what a different appearance would Southern society present! Masters would be honoured and loved by their servants, as their true friends; and servants would, as a body, be contented, industrious, orderly, virtuous, and happy. The servant would regard himself as a constituent part of his master's family, and he would be so regarded and so treated by his master. Abraham so treated his servants; he brought them into covenant with God. The servants born in his house, and those bought with his money, he circumcised. Gen. 17: 12,13,23; and by so doing he pledged himself to instruct, and to require his servants to keep the law of God. The Mosaic law contemplated this; for the bond-servant of a priest might eat of the sacred offerings, just as one of the priest's own family might do. In every Hebrew family also, their bond-servants, whether inherited or bought