imitate the example, but will remain and listen to the brother opposed to me.]

I certainly have never thought of calling in question the splendid talents, or the eminent attainments of my friend and brother, the Rev. Mr. Blanchard. I have known, for some time how great a man he is. But it will sometimes happen that the greatest men will fail successfully to defend a weak cause. I did not intend to represent Mr. Blanchard as a weak man, but as a man laboring to uphold a weak cause. I did not come here to meet a weak man. I desired our abolition friends to select the strongest man they had; for I felt confident in the strength of the doctrine I hold on the subject. The brother seems to think that I insinuated, because he had not, for nearly a week, replied to my arguments from the Bible, that he was an incompetent debater. I insinuated no such thing. I meant to say, what I believed to be true, that he was oppressed with the difficulties which ever attend the defence of serious error; and I believe it now.

I enquired not whether any particular church, calling itself Methodist, had ever excluded slave-holders, as such, but whether John Wesley, whose opinion of slavery the gentleman quoted, took such ground. I have just received a note from a Methodist minister, worthy of confidence, stating that Wesley instructed missionaries to the West Indies, to preach the Gospel, but to avoid all interference with the subject of slavery. If it is asserted, that he attempted to make slave-holding a bar to communion, let the documentary evidence be produced. I maintain, that the Methodist church never has excluded men from the church, simply because they were slave-holders. Although that church has been divided by the question of slavery, even the northern division of it has not yet made slave-holding a bar to Christian fellowship. And the same may be said of every denomination of Christians of respectable size in our country. Some small churches have excluded slave-holders from their communion; but their numbers in the slave States, are extremely small. And this fact shows the tendency of aboli

tionism even in its mildest form to take the gospel from both masters and slaves. There are, at the present time, as I am informed by a Methodist minister who has made the calculation, near four hundred thousand negroes, (almost all of whom are slaves) members of different evangelical churches in the slave States-a number larger than all the churches that have made slave-holding a bar to communion!

The brother has at last approached my argument from the Old Testament; and he tells us that the bond-servants among the Jews were not slaves, but-what think you?——— clansmen to a sheik! The Jews, he tells us, were sheiksa sort of petty princes-and the bond-servants were their clansmen !

[MR. BLANCHARD rose to explain. I said that each head of a family was a sheik.]

It is notorious, that nothing of this kind ever existed among the Jews. Who does not know that they were, and that God designed they should be, an agricultural peoplenot living like roaming tribes of Arabs, but each family having their farm, and their home, and their servants? The Jewish heads of families shieks, followed by clansmen! Such an idea, I verily believe, was never heard of, till the dire necessity of abolitionism suggested it, as a desperate means of escaping from the plain declarations of the Bible. It is purely a fabrication of a fact which never existed. No respectable author ever suggested it; and precisely the opposite is true, if we are to believe the Bible. But the truth is, abolitionism can sustain itself only by outraging all rules of language, and all historical truth. Be it so; the candid will judge correctly of its character.

The gentleman says, the Jewish bond-servants were not slaves, because there is no trace of laws to sustain and carry out slavery. I affirm, that there are laws, so plain that he who runs may read. The law expressly permits the Jews to buy bondmen and bondmaids of the heathen. Who ever heard of buying apprentices? Moreover, the law permits the master not only to claim the services of the bondman,

but to enforce obedience to his commands by chastisement. The Jews were permitted to buy bondmen, to hold them as a possession, to chastise them and thus enforce obedience, and to transmit them as an inheritance to children. What other laws were necessary?

Again, he argues, that the Jewish servants were not slaves, because, according to Jewish law, the man-stealer was to be put to death. Once more, I ask, is there no difference between stealing a freeman and forcing him into slavery, and purchasing a man already enslaved, so as really to improve his condition? Is there no difference between these two things?

But again, the Hebrew servants, he says, were not slaves, because the three great rights, life, liberty and property were secured to them. And he quotes the law which makes murder to be punished capitally, because man was made in the image of God. But Christians in the slave States believe that their servants were made in the image of God, and that he who kills one of them designedly, is a murderer; but this does not prevent them from claiming their obedience. Moreover, it is true, that the civil law protects the lives of slaves, about as well as did the law of Moses. The laws may not be always faithfully executed; but this circumstance does not affect the argument. I have already stated, that in Alabama a man was, not long since, sent to the penitentiary for ten years, because he was convicted of having murdered one of his slaves. The gentleman's argument amounts to this: no man can be a slave, whose life is protected by the law, who cannot be killed with impunity. If this be true, I say, there is not a slave in Kentucky; because the civil law does protect the life of the negroes. And with still greater propriety I may affirm, that there are no slave-holders in the Presbyterian church; for, as I have proved, the law of our church forbids any member to treat his slaves cruelly in any way. Yet Mr. B. not only denounces Kentucky as a slave State, but condemns the Presbyterian church as a slave-holding church. Truly, this is hard! The gentleman con

stantly reminds me of a certain mechanic whose sign over his door was in these words: "ALL SORTs of twisting AND TURNING DONE HERE!" [Great laughter.]

But he condemns me for saying, that if I buy a man, he is mine, so far as his services are concerned. Yet the Bible says, that the servant is his master's "money," and is not a man's money his own? Did you ever hear a man say-I have bought an apprentice? Or "I have bought a hired servant?" Would one of your mechanics in Cincinnati say, "I have bought five apprentices, and they are my money?" The gentleman has seemed particularly fond of telling us about the fists of emigrant Germans and Irish. I think I might say, the apprentices of Ohio would show him their fists, if he were to speak of them as servants, as the money of their purchasers! [A laugh.]

But, if the Hebrew bond-servants were apprentices, how long did their indenture continue? Only six years, I think he said. It is true, that Hebrews who became poor and sold themselves, or were sold, went free at the end of six years. But we are speaking of the bondmen and bondmaids, bought from the heathen, from whom the Hebrew servant is expressly distinguished. The scriptures teach, that the Jews might buy them, hold them for a possession, and transmit them as an inheritance to their children. I should like to inquire of the gentleman, whether apprentices are bequeathed as an inheritance to the children of the man to whom they are bound? Is this the law of apprenticeship in Ohio? The ridiculous absurdity of the idea, shows how sorely abolitionism is pressed to support its claims, and how glaringly it is obliged to pervert God's word, that it may turn the edge of the sword of the Spirit.

As a further evidence of the truth of this remark, observe the course pursued by the gentleman in his reply. In attempting to prove, that there were no slaves among the Jews, he confined his remarks to the case of the Hebrew sold for six years, in consequence of poverty, and said nothing of the bond-servants bought of the heathen, who were

Here the aw cabely sa fat the Betrew sECCHI S IVA IMF to serve as a boodman, shall I DE SCHI ma vilnan; yet the brother preses de ase of the Se brew wervant, øndby ex pan, a though it were neraci with ta of the vndvervants of the Hebrews!

Why don be not tike up the case of the real bontmREL bought from a heathen master, beld as a possession, mi be queathed for an inheritance for an inheritance for eve

The

Doa this language mean a "short apprenticeship Univeralists tell us, that forever does not mean forever, but only a limited time; but I never heard before, that it s fied so short a period as fire years! [A laugh] The m employed is the strongest word in the Hebrew language: yet it means five years! This is on a par with his assertion that the servants of the Hebrews were clansmen to Hebrew sheiks! Who ever heard of a sheik whipping the families under him? and buying them? and holding them as a possession? and bequeathing them as an inheritance?

If the gentleman can get over the difficulty placed in his way by the plain letter of the Bible, he must have far more talents, and learning too, than I can pretend to.

[MR. BLANCHARD-I did not say five years-I said six years.]

Oh! yes-six years:-"forever" does not mean only five it means six years. I stand corrected!

[Loud