that he be allowed to sleep out his life, would be in all respects a slave. I avoid, however, all nice distinctions, that I may meet the subject practically.

Having described the condition of a slave, I ought now to advert to the obligations of the master; but I have not space, nor is it requisite. Let me only say, (and with the most solemn earnestness, for God forbid I should ever utter a word which may perpetuate cruelty and sin,) that the right of the master not only does not give him any such license of wholesale oppression and wrong as you suppose, but really places him under the deepest corresponding obligations to promote the interest, temporal and eternal, of his slaves. And though we have all been "verily guilty concerning our brethren" who are dependent on us, yet I trust the South is becoming every day more alive to its responsibility. Already much has been effected; and, as a class, I believe our slaves to be now better compensated, and, in moral, intellectual, and religious condition, superior to most operatives in Europe. From parliamentary reports, it appears that in Ireland three millions and a half of people live in mud hovels, having one room, and without chimney or window. In England and Wales there are three millions of people without any pastoral provision. In London itself the sta tistics of misery and vice are appalling. On one occasion, said a speaker in Exeter Hall, four families occupied one small room, each hiring a corner; cases the power is, with "believing masters," controlled by a sense of duty to the servant, and accountability to God, and love to both.

and in one of these corners there was a corpse lately dead, and four men using it as a table to play cards upon. And if this be so in Great Britain, need I speak of Spain and Russia, or attest what I myself have seen of ignorance and superstition and degradation in Italy? We are far, however, from having acquitted ourselves of our duty; and I do not wish to palliate, much less defend by recrimination, the unfaithfulness of the South to the sacred trust imposed upon us. I therefore dismiss this part of the subject without enlarging, as I easily might.

Let me finish this letter; and I do it by repeating the hope that my brethren at the North will not continue to confound slavery with its concomitants, and denounce it as necessarily a heinous crime in the sight of God. This assertion is not true. It is truth mixed up with error, and, like all half truths, is more pernicious than pure falsehood. At the South such a charge is felt to be unjust, and serves only to exasperate. At the North it foments a bitter and unrelenting spirit of proscription. It does not aid, but injure, the cause of the slave; for it must require, not his improvement, but his immediate emancipation, which you do not advise. It will rend apart those in this country who ought to be united, and on whose union, I am persuaded, the integrity of our national existence depends. It outrages the convictions of the mass of the wise and good in every land. It is contradicted by the venerable testimony of every Christian church for ages. And, what is infinitely worse than all, it arrays those who adopt it in irreconcilable conflict with the Bible-a conflict

hopeless indeed, and serving only to vindicate the impregnable stability of the truth, but yet a conflict greatly to be deplored.

Most affectionately, dear brother,

Yours,

R. FULLER.

LETTER IV.

TO THE REV. FRANCIS WAYLAND, D. D.

MY DEAR BROTHER

Up to this point I have considered the subject before us as a pure question of moral and political science, and attempted to show that, like other social organizations, slavery is not necessarily a crime; and that even the power of the Roman master, though perfectly despotic, was not in itself a sin. To establish this was the more important, because good men are justly shocked, when they understand slavery to be a heinous sin, and find people attempting to shelter themselves under the sanction of the Bible. Perish the thought! they exclaim, and I cordially join them. To charge this impiety upon Christians at the South, however, is to do them great injustice. Such an accusation takes for granted the very thing we deny. We believe that all just moral institutes are only an expansion of those golden maxims, "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye also to them;" and, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." We believe these precepts apply to

masters and servants, just as to masters and apprentices, or parents and children, or kings and subjects. We believe that they reach every abuse of slavery; and condemn all intellectual, moral, and domestic injustice. But we do not believe that they make the relation itself sinful, or require, as they must do if it be a crime, its prompt dissolution. Such disruption might, and in some cases would, subvert society itself, and be real charity neither to the masters nor the slaves.

It will not do, then, for you to conduct the cause as if we had been proved guilty, and were put on our defence. This is the ground always taken at the North, and because Southern Christians reply with the Bible in their hands, they are misunderstood. Politically, and ethically, I have proved that despotism itself is not necessarily a sin. In appealing to the word of God, we are not required to prove a negative, and justify ourselves; but you, to make out your case, and prove us guilty. "Sin is a transgression of the law," and you are bound to show the law we transgress. All will acknowledge this to be the fair position of the accuser and accused. Whereas I submit to you, that your Bible argument entirely overlooks our forensic rights, and is an examination of the question whether the Bible justifies slavery. Suppose the Bible does not justify it; still, unless condemned by the Bible, slavery may remain among things indifferent, and be classed with that large number of actions whose moral character depends on the peculiar circumstances of each case. Nor am I surprised that those who undertake your arduous office always pursue this line of reasoning, since

the assertion that slavery is itself and always a sin, jars harshly with what appears to plain men as the unequivocal teaching of the Scriptures; and, therefore, it is felt, in the outset, that much explanation and ingenuity are indispensable; otherwise, not only must the charge fail, but the prosecutors themselves incur a serious impeach.

ment.

The assertion just mentioned as to the inherent guilt of slavery, is the distinctive article with modern abolitionists. But after studying the subject in all its bearings, they have clearly perceived, that if the Hebrew and Greek terms rendered servant in our Bibles really signify slave, there is an end either of their dogma or of submission to the Scriptures. Hence, after trying in vain the whole apparatus of exegetical torture, they have-with, I believe, much unanimity-set all philology and history at defiance, and resolutely deny that such is the import of those words. When Paul says, "We are all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free," the terms "Jew" and "Gentile" mean something; but "bond" and "free" imply no distinction at all! And to get rid of the Old Testament, various interpretations have been contrived, of which the latest is quite curious. While moving earth and heaven about the thraldom of the negro, the abolitionists refuse to the white man even liberty of speech, and wish to erect an inquisition over the mind. A very pious Presbyterian pastor has lately been arraigned by them, not for holding slaves, but for daring even to utter his honest convictions on the subject of slavery. And at that trial it was