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tIAKY / /f. /v /V JI I /%. /w /w k i} Y Joseph Cltsby. PALLY telegraph. ABOLITIONISM : lT g CHARACTER and influence. J SRRMOX preached by Ret. Henry J. Van !, in the W Presbyterian Church of p, Sunday Evening, Dec. 9, 1860. The First Presbyterian church, corner Reinsen and Clinton streets, Brooklyn, «•densely crowded last evening with a I .rhlv intelligent congregation, who lis .. ’ 4 with marked interest ami attention to a discourse from their pastor, Rev. Henry i. Van Dyke, on the Character and Influ t ticeot Alfcditionisin from a scriptural point ■ view. In his opening supplication the reverend gentleman prayed that Providence would Meis our Southern brethren and res train the progress of discontent among them ,t o, . 11l ,s!or might he made Christ’s ser v.oit, and the servant Chris’t freeman, ami _ ! pl ;h - r united ill Christian love . o )( t church founded by Christ and His \ „istL s in which there is neither Greek . r J.-w, male nor female, bond nor free 4 til all are one in Christ Jesus. He also ,v< d tliatG >1 would bless the people o! \ nhern States, restrain tin' violence • ft , l ie ii men, provide lor those who, by t , j -ati >n of the times have been thrown • , mplovment, keep the speaker him v -in teaching anything which was not . .fdanee with the Divine will, and the minds of his hearers of all . c ami passion, so that they might ■„ uilluu! to be convinced of the truth. || x t( \t was chosen from Paul’s First I ,; Mie to Timothy, sixth chapter, from the f ir >t to tin- fifth verse, inclusive : ■ l.t*< many servants as are under the yoke count "eir owu’iiarK-r- worthy of all honor, that the name ,f < and hi- do. trine tx- not blasphemed. 4 th. • th »t have b.di.-ving master- let them not - 'hem >«■..ui-ethev are brethren; hut rather do - 1 K..r. of th‘benefit The-e things teach and exhort. if mm '. i it otherwise and consent not to ‘ vLe .l- even the words of our Lord Jesus <. ' n'.d to the do< trine which is according to godli- ’4 ' H >- proud, knowing nothing but doting about Ind te of word- whereof cometh envy evil -p, . , dirputiugr of men of corrupt mind®, and It ■ <>f the truth, -tippo-fng that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself. [ f • p ..so, he said, to discuss the charac ter and influence of abolitionism. With th- tiew 1 have selected a text from the Bible, and purpose to adhere to the letter and -p.rit of its teaching. We acknowl . in this place but one standard of mor als, but one authoritative and infallible rule ; Luili and practice. Fur we are Christians . • ; not Baptists to bow’ down to the dic t.i .a of any man or church ; not heathen I .- g.hers to grope our way by the feeble g.uiiin ‘rings of the light of nature, not mod : nil !. Is, to appeal from the written law • I. iio the corrupt and fickle tribunal of >.-i and humanity ; but Christians, on w -• banner is inscribed this sublime ■luien.n —"To the law and to the testimo ny” Il they speak not according to this w ,r l it is because there is no light in them. Lt rn.' direct yoar special attention to the language of our text. There is no r .in Dr dispute as to the m'aning of the . -i.,i *■ cv.uit under the yoke.’ Ib. ii .Mr. Barm s, who is himself a distin gui'htd abolitionist, and has done more p ri ips, than any other man in this cotm n. to propagate abolition doctrines, i mils that ■ i tiie addition of the phrase un rth<- vok« ’’ shows undoubtedly that it (i. i. th.-original word doulos) is to be under- ■ 4 here of slavery. Let me quote an ■iii :■ -tim >nv on this point from an emi. :nt S h divine, I mean Dr. Mcknight, u , - ■ < xposition of the epistle is a stand >’d w »rk in Great Britain ami in this conn ■ v, and whose associations must exempt iiiui f; . n all suspicion of pro-slavery preju -11 • intro luces his exposition of this . i ipl> r with the following explanation : “B i ails, the law of Mums allowed no Is i r iit i • lie made a slave I>r life without ins own consul, the Ju laizing teachers, to mure slav. s to their party, taught that uil the go>p. l likewise involuntary slavery . .w \' I’his doctrim the apostle con :• oi '.-d here, as in his other epistles, by • opining C hristian slaves to honor and >e\ their masters, wh> tie r th y w ere :>“lie\< is or unln licvers, and by assuring ftm >?iiv that if any person taught other wise he opjiosed the w holesome precepts of -a- Christ and the doctrine of the gospel, winch in all points is conformable to godli . s- or - >und morality, and was puffed up wiia pride without possessing any true ■wledg, either of the Jew ish or Christian o velalion.' Our learned Scotch friend n g son to expound the passage in the ' t '.h»wing paraphrase, which we commend ’ > the prayerful attention of all whom it may concern.” 1.-> wlm.. ot < hristian -lave- are under the yoke of unbelievers p»y th.-ir own masters all respect and obe d l e. that tho character of God whom we worship may U'»t i«- < a uiuu tied, and the doctrine of the Gospel may i. >t l>< evil sp >ken of as tending to destroy the political . rights of mankind ; and those Christian slaves who have ieviiig masters not de-pi>ethem fancy ing that I hey an' t ieir equals because they are their brethren in Christ : for though al! Christians are equal as to religious privi -iaves are inferior to their masters in station. W .. r fore, let them serve their masters more diiliirent : . i au-e they who enjoy the benefit of their service • »>< ver- and beloved of God. “These thing- teach > exhort the brethren to practice them." If any one . h differently by affirming that under the gospel - u.-s are not bound to serve their masters, but ought ’■ b ma,),, free, and does not consent to the wholesome ■r.tnatioments which are our Lord de-us Christ's, and • "..!>< trine of the gospel which in all points is con ’“n.j>.e t<> true morality, he is puffed npwith pride and - -th nothing either of the Jewish or the Christian c 0..-. lh" ua. he pretends to have great know 1- _• of both. I’>>. is d.-tempered in his mind about idle : otis and debate of words which afford no founda tiou for such a doctrine, but are the source of every ! i t ,in. evil speaking, unjust suspicion that the - not -incereiv maintainetl. keen disputing# car- • ou nmtrary to conscience by men wholy corrupted oi. r mind- and destitute of the true doctrine or the - who reckon whatever produces most money is : tm (iv-t religion ; from all such impious teachers with- . draw thyself, and do not dispute with them. File L\t as thus c.xpoundeiiby an Amer ican ;d>olitionist and a Scotch divine, (w hose l. sinnony need not be confirmed by quo tations from all the other commentators), is a prophecy written for these days, and wonderfully applicable to our present cir cumstances. It gives us a life like picture of abolitionism in its principles,its spirit and its practice, and furnishes us plain instruc tion in regard to our duty in the premises. Before entering upon the discussion of the. d'tctrine, let us define the terms employed. Bv abolitionism w e mean the principles and measures of abolitionists. And what is an abolitionist ? He is one who believes that slaveholdtng is sin, and ought therefore to be abolished. This is the fundamental, the characteristic, the essential principle of abolitionism —that slaveholding is sin that holding men in involuntary servitude is an infringement upon the rights of tnan, a heinous crime on the sight of God. A man miy believe on political or com me r- cial grounds that slavery is an undesirable system, and that slave labor is not the most profitable ; he may have various views as to the rights of slave holders under the con stitution of the country ; he may think this or that law upon the statute books of South ern States is wrong ; but this does not con stitute him an abolitionist unless he believes that slaveholding is morally wrong. The alleged sinfulness of slaveholding, as it is the characteristic doctrine, so it is the strength of abolitionism in all its ramified and various forms. It is by this doctrine that it lays hold upon the hearts and consciences of men, that it comes as a disturbing force into our ecclesiastical and civil institutions and by exciting religious animosity (which all history proves to be the strongest of hu man passions), imparts a peculiar intensity to every contest into which it enters. And you will perceive it is just here that aboli tionism presents a proper subject for dis cussion in the pulpit —for it is one great purpose of the Bible, and therefore one i great duty of God’s ministers in its exposi tion, to show what is sin and what is not. ’ Those who hold the doctrine that slavehold- ! ing is sin, and ought therefore to be abol ished, differ very much in the extent to w hich they reduce their theory to practice. In some this faith is almost without works. Thev content themselves with only voting in such away as in their judgment will best promote the ultimate triumph of their views. Others stand off at what they sup pose a safe distance, as Shimei did when he stood on an opposite hill to curse King Da vid, and rebuke the sin and denounce di vine judgments upon the sinner. Others more practical, if not more prudent, go into the very midst of the alleged wickedness and teach “servants under the yoke’’ that they ought not to count their own masters worthy of all honor—that liberty is their inalienable right—which they should main tain, if necessary, even by the sheding of blood. Now, it is not for me to decide who of all these are the truest to their own prin ciples. It is not for me to decide whether the man who preaches this doctrine in brave words, amid applauding multitudes in the city of Brooklyn, or the one who in the stillness of the night and in the face of the law’s terrors goes to practice the preaching at Harper’s Ferry, is the most consistent abolitionist and the most heroic man. It is not for me to decide which is the most im portant part of a tree ; and il the tree be poisonous, which is the most injurious, the root, or the branches, or the fruit ? But I am here to-night, in God’s name, and bv His help, to show that this tree ofabolition ism is evil and only evil, root and branch, flower and leaf and fruit ; 4hat it springs from and is nourished by an utter rejection of the Scriptures ; that it produces no real benefit to the enslaved, and is the fruitful source otdivision and strife and infidelity in both church and State. I have four dis tinct propositions on the subject to main tain—four theses to nail up and defend : I. Abolitionism has no foundation in the Scriptures. 11. Its principles have been promulga ted chiefly by misrepresentation and abuse. 111. It leads, in multitudes of cases, and by a logical process, to utter infidelity. l\ . It is the chief cause of the strife i that agitates and the danger that threatens our country. 1. —abolttioxism has no foundation in scrifture. — Passing by the records of the patriarchal age, and waving the ques tion as to those servants in Abraham’s fami ly, "ho, in the simple but expressive lan guage of Scripture, “were bought with his money, ’’ let us come at once to the tribu | mil of that law which God promulgated amid the solemnities of Sinai. What said the law and the testimony to that peculiar people over whom God ruled and f>r "hose institutions He has assumed the responsi bility ? The answer is in the 25th chapter of Leviticus, in these words:— “And if thf brother that dwellcth by thee be waxen poor and be fold unto thee, thou shall not compel him to serve as a bond servant; but as a hired servant ami a sojourner he shall be with thee, and shall serve thee un tothe year of jubilee, and then shall he depart from thee, both he and his children with him.” So fur. vou will observe, the biw refers to the children of Israel, who, by reason of poverty, were reduced to servitude. It was their right to be free at the year of jubilee, unless they chose to remain in perpetual bondage, for which case provision is made I in other and distinct enactments. But not | jso with slaves of foreign birth. There was no year of jubilee provided for them. For what says tlie law? Read the 4 1-46 verses I of the same chapter. | “Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids which thou shalt have shall be of the heathen that are round about | vou. Os them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids.— Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you—of them shall ye buy and of their fat iilies that are with you, which they beget in your land; and they shall be your possess ion. And ve shall take them as an inheritance for your children after yon to inherit ; them as a possession; they shall be your bondmen for- I There it is. plainly written in the divine law. No legislative enactment; no statute framed by legal skill was ever more explic it and incapable of pervision. When the abolitionist tells me that .slaveholding is sin, in the simplicity of my faith tn the Holy I Scriptures, I point him to this sacred‘record, ' and tell him in all candor, as my text does, i that his teaching bluspemes the name of > God and His doctrine. When he begins todoat almut questions and strifes of words, appealing to the Declaration of Independ ence, and asserting that the idea of proper ty in men is an enormity and a crime, I stli hold him to the record, saying, ‘-Ye shall i take him as an inheritance for your chil ■ dren after you to inherit them for a posses sion.’’ When he waxes warm—as he al ways does if his opponent quote Scripture (which is the great test to try the spirits whether they be of God—the very spear of i Ithuriel to reveal their true character) — when he gets angry, and begins to pour out his evil surmisings and abuse upon slave holders—l obey the precept which says, “from such withdraw thyself, ’’ comforting myself with this thought ; that the wisdom ot God is wiser than men and the kindness of God kinder than men, Philosophers may reason and reformers may rave till doomsday, they never can convince me that God, in the Levitical law, or in any other law, sanctioned sin; and as I know, from the plain passage I have quoted; and many i more like it that He did sanction slavehold ing among his ancient people, I know, also, ■ by the logic of that faith which believes the Bible to be his Word,that slaveholding is not sin. There are men even among professing Christians, and not a few minis- ' FRIDAY MORNING, DECEMBER 21, 1860. ters ofthe Gospel, who answer this argu ment from the Old Testament Scriptures by a simple denial of their authority. They do not tell us how God could ever or any where countenance that which is morally wrong, but they content themselves with saying that the Levitical law is no rule of action for us, and they appeal from its de cisions to what they consider the higher tribunal of the Gospel. Let us, therefore, join issue with them before the bar of the New Testament Scriptures. It is a histor» ic truth, acknowledged on all hands, that at tin* advent of Jesus Christ slavery exist ed all over the civilized world, and was in timately inter" oven with its social and civ il institutions. In Judea, in Asia Minor, in Greece, in all the countries where the Saviour or his Apostles preached the Gos pel, slaveholding was just as common as it is to-day in South Carolina. It is not alleged by anyone, or at least by any one having pri'Wnsions to scholarship or candor, ■ that thR Roman laws regulating slavery were even as mild as the very worst statutes ! which have been passed upon the subject ! in modern times. It will not be denied by any lion< st and well informed man that modern civilization and the restraining in fill nce.s of the Gospel have shed ameliora ting influences upon the relation between master and slave, which was utterly un known al the advent of Christianity. And how did J. -us and his Apostles treat this subject? Masters ami slaves met them at every step in their missionary work, and were even present in every audience to which they preached. The Roman law which gave the full power of life and death into the master’s hand was familiar to them, and all the evils connected with the system surrounded them every day as obviously as the light of heaven; and yet it is a fact, which the abolitionist, does not oppoes be cause he cannot deny, that the New Testa ment is utterly silent in regard to the al leged sinfulness of slaveholding. In all the instructions ofthe Saviour —in all the re ported sermons of the inspired Apostles— in all the epistles, they were moved by the Holy Spirit to write for the instruction of coming generations—there is not one dis tinct and explicit denunciation ofslavehold ing, nor the precept requiring the master to emancipate his slaves. Every acknowl edged sin is openly and repeatedly con demned and in unmeasured terms. Drunk enness and adultery, theft and murder—all the moral wrong which ever have been known to alllict society, are forbidden by name; and yet, according to the teaching of abolitionism, this greatest of all sins—this sum of all villainies—is never spoken of ex cept in respectful terms. How can this be accounted for? Let Dr. Wayland whose work on mor al science is taught in many of our schools, answerr this question, and let parents whose children are studying that book diligently consider his answea. 1 note from Wav land's Moral Science, page 213: “The Gospel was designed not for one race or for one time, but for all races and for all times. It looked not to the abolition of slavery for that age alone, but for its universal abolition. Hence the important object of its author was to gain for it a lodgment in every part ofthe known world, so that by its universal diffusion among all classes of society it might quietly and peacefully modify audsubdue the evil passions of men. In this manner alone could its object—a universal moral revolu tion—have been accomplished. For if it had forbidden the evil, instead of subverting the principle;if it had pro claimed the unlawfulness of slavery and taught slaves to resist, the oppression of their masters, it would in stantly have arrayed the two parties in deadly hositility throughout the civilized world; its announcement would have been the signal of servile war aud the very name of the Christian religion would have been forgotton amidst the agitation of universal bloodshed.” We pause not now to comment upon the admitted fact that Jesus Christ and his Apostles pursued a course entirely differ*' ent from that adopted by the abolitionists, including the learned author himself, nor to inquire whether the teaching of aboli tionism is not as likely to pioduce strife and bloodshed in those days as in the first ofthe church. What wo now call atten tion to and protest against is the imputation here cast upon Christ and his Apostles. Do you believe the Saviour sought to insinuate his religion into the earth by concealing its real design, and pr 'serving a profound si lence in regard to the very worst sins it came to <i< slroy? Do yon believe (ha] when he healed the centurion’s servant, (whom every honest commentator admits to nave been a slave), and pronounced that precious eulogy upon the master, “I have not seen so great faith in Israel”—do you believe that Jesus suflered that man to live on in sin because he deprecated the con cequenes of preaching abolitionism? When Paul stood upon Mars’ hill, surrounded by ten thousand limes as many slaveholders as there "ere idols in the city, do you be lieve he kept back any part of the require ments ofthe gospel because he was afraid of a tumult among the people? We ask these abolition philosophers whether, as a matter of fact, idolatry and the vices con nected with it were not even more intimate ly interwoven with the social and civil life of the Roman empire than slavery was- Did the Aposths abstain from preaching against idolatry ? Nay, who doesnot know that by denouncing this sin they brought down upon themselves the whole power of the Roman empir< ? Nero covered the bodies ofthe Christian myrtyrs with pitch and lighted up the city with their burning bodies, just because they would not withhold or compromise the truth in regard to the worship of idols. In the light of that fierce persecution it is a profane trifling for Dr. Wayland or any other man to tell us that Jesus or Paul held back their honest opin ions of slavery for fear of “a servile war,” in which the very name of the Christian re ligion would have been forgotten.’’ The name of the Christian religion is not so eas ily forgotton ; nor are God’s great purpo ses of redemption capable of being defeated 1 by an honest declarat ion of His truth every- | where and at all times. And yet this phil- I sophy, so dishonoring to Christ and his J Apostles, is moulding the character of our young men and women. It comes into our chosols and mingles with the very lifeblood I of future generations the sentiment that Christ and his Apostles held back the truth, ; and suffered sin to go unrebuked for fear of the wrath of man. And all this to main tain, at all hazards, and in the face of the Saviour’s example to the contrary, the un- ■ scriptural dogma that slaveholding is sin. But it must be observed in this connection that the Apostles went much further than to abstain from preaching against slave- 1 holding. They admitted slaveholders to the communion of the church. In our text, masters are acknowledged a«.“ brethren, I faithful and beloved, partakers ofthe bene- j j fit,” If the New Testament is to be receiv- | ed as a faithful history, no man was ever re j jected by the apostolic church upon the ground that he owned slaves. If he abused his power as a master, if he availed him-* self of the authority conferred by the Ro man law to commit adultery, or murder or cruelty, he was rejected for these crimes, just as he would be rejeted now for similar crimes from any Christian church in our Southern States. If parents abused or ne glected their children they were censured, not for having children, but for not treat ing them properly. Aud so with the slave holder. It was not the owning of slaves, but the manner in which he fulfilled the duties of his station that made him a sub j ject for such discipline. The mere fact that he was a slaveholder no more subject ed him to censure than the mere fact that he was a farther ora husband. It is upon the recognized lawfulness of therelation that all the precept -egulating the reciprocal ' duties of that relation arc based. These precepts are scattered all throng the inspired epistles. There is not one command or exhortation to emancipate the slave. The Aposfle well knew that for the present emancipation would be no real blessing to him. But the master is exhort ed to be kind and considerate, and the slave to he obedient, that so they might preserve the unity of that church in which there is no distinction between Greek or Jew. male or female,bond or free, Oh, if ministers ofthe Gospel in this land or age hail but followed Christ, and, instead of hurling anathemas and exciting wrath aginst slave holders, had sought only to bring both mas ter and slave to the fountain of Emanuel’s blood; if the agencies of the blessed Gos pel had only been suflered to work their way quietly, as the light and dew of the morning, into the structure of society, both North and South, how different would have been the position of our country this day before God ' How different would have been the privileges enjoyed by the poor black*nan’s soul, which in this bitter con test, has been too much neglected aud des pised. Then there would have been no need to have converted our churches into military barracks for collecting firearms to carry on war upon a distaht frontier. No need for a sovereign State to execute the fearful penalty ofthe law upon the invader for doing no more than honestly to carry out the teaching of abolition preachers, who bind heavy burdens, and grevious to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders, while they touch them not with one of their fingers. No need for the widow and the orphan to weep in anguish of heart over those cold graves, for whose dishonor and desolation God will hold the real authors responsible. No occasion or pretext for slavehol ling States to pass such stringent laws for the punishment of the secret in cendiary and the prevention of servile war. I shall not attempt to show what will be the condition ofthe African race in this country when the Gospel shall have brought all classes under its complete dominion. What civil and social relations men will ' sustain in the times of millenial glory Ido not know. I cordially embrace the current opinion of our church that slavery is per mitted and regulated by the divine law un. der both the Jewish and Christian dispensa tions, not as the final destiny of the enslav ed, but as un important and necessary pro cess in their transition from heathenism to Christianity-—a wheel in the great machin ery of Providence, by which the final re demption is to be accomplished. However this may be, one thing I know, and every abolitionist might know it if he would, that there are Christian families at the South in which a patriarchal fidelity and affection subsist b' tween the bond and the free, and where slaves are better fed ami clothed ami ! instructed, and have a better opportunity for salvation than the majority of laboring people in the city of New York. If the tongue of abolitionism had only kept silence these twenty years past the number of such families would be. tenfold as great. Fa naticisin at the North is one chiefstumbling block in the way ofthe Gospel at the South. This is one groat grievance that presses to day upon the hearts of our Christian breth ren at the South. This, in a measure, ex- . plains why such im n as Dr. Thornwell, of South Carolina, and Dr. Palmer, of New Orleans —nun "hose genius and learning and piety would adorn any state or station—are willing to secede from the Union. They fuel that the influence of | their Christian ministry is hindered, and : their power to do good to both master and l slave crippled, by the constant agitations of ! abolitionism in our national councils, ami the incessant turmoil excited by the un criptural dogma, that slaveholding is sin. 11. THE PRINCIPLES OF ABOLITIONISM HAVE BEEN PROPOGATED CHIEFLY BY MISREPRE SENTATION AND ABUSE. Having no foundation in Scripture, it does not carry on its warfare by scripture weapons. Its prevailing spirit is fierce and proud, and its language is full of wrath and bitterness. Let me prove this by tes timony from its own lips. 1 quote Dr. Channing of Boston, whose name is a tower ofstrength to the abolition cause, and whose memory is their continual boast. In a work published in the year 1836,1 find the following words: — “The abolitionists have done wrong, I believe ; nor Is their wrong to be winked at because done lauatically or with good intention# ; for how much mischief may be I wrought with good designs ! They have fallen into the j common error of enthusiasts, that of exaggerating their i object, feeling as if no evil existed but that which .they opposed, aud as if no guilt could be compared with that : of countenancing and the upholding it. The tone of their ■ newspapers, so far as as I have seen them, has often been ; fierce bitter and abusive. They have sent forth their | orators, some of them transported with fiery zeal, to sound the alarm against slavery through the land, to i gather together young and old, pupils from schools,fe | males hardly arrived at years of discretion, the ignorant, i the excitable, the impetuous, and to organize these in : to associations for the battle against oppression. Very I unhappily they preached their doctrine to the colored i people aud collected them into societies. To this mix i ed aud excitable multitude, minute heart-rending des ' criptions of slavery were given in piercing tones of’pas eiou ; aud slaveholder# were held up as monster# ofcrnel- I ty and crime. The abolitionist, indeed proposed to con vert slaveholders : and for this end he approached them with vituperation and exhausted on them the vocabulary ! of abuse. And he has reaped as he sowed.” Such is the testimony of Dr. Channing, given in the year 1836. What would he have thought and said if he had lived until ■ the year 1860, and seen this little stream, over whose infant violence he lamented, | swelling into a torrent and flooding the land? Abolitionism is abusive in its per- 1 i sistent misrepresentation of the legal prin- j ciples involved in the relation between mas. ! j ter and slave. They reiterate in a thous- I i and exciting forms the assertion that the 1 ; idea of property in man blots out his man hood and degrades him to the level of a brute or a stone. “Domestic slavery,’’ says Dr. Wayland in his work on Moral Science, “supposes at best that the relation between master and slave is not that which exists between man and man, but is a modifica tion at least of that which exists between man and the brutes.” Do not these abo litionist philosophers know that according to the laws of every civilized country on earth a man has property in his children and a woman nas property in her husband? The statutes of the State of New York and of every other Northern State recognize and protect this property, and our courts of jus tice have repeatedly assessed its value. If a man is killed on a railroad his wife may bring suit and recover damages for the pe cuniary loss she has suffered. If one man entice away the daughter of another, and marry her while she is still under age, the father may bring a civil suit for damages for the loss of that child’s sen"’- - ■ ' 'bn pecuniary compensation is the uiii ? redress the law provides. Thus the common law of Christendom and the statutes of our own State recognize property in man. In what does that property consist? Simply in such services as a man or a child may properly be required to render. This is all that the Levitical law, or any other law means when it says, “Your bondmen shall be your pos session or property and an inheritance for your children.” The property consistsnot in the right to treat the slave like a brute, but simply in a legal claim for such servi ces as a man in that position may properly be requirCtlHo render. And yet abolitions ists, in the face of the divine law, persist in denouncing the very relation between mass ter and slave, “as a modification, at least, of that which exists between man and the brutes.’’ This, however, is not the worst or most prevalent form which their abusive spirit assumes. Theirjnode ofurguingthe question of slaveholding’ by a pretended appeal to facts, is a tissue of misrepresentas tion from beginning to end. Let me illuss trate my meaning by a parallel case. Sup pose I undertake to prove th£ wickedness of marriage as it exists in the city of New lork. In this discussion suppose the Bib e is excluded, or at least that it is not recog nized as having exclusive jurisdiction in the decision of the question. My first appeal is to the statute law of the state. I show there enactments which nullify the law of God and make divoice a marketable and cheap commodity. I collect the atker tisements of your daily papers, in which lawyers offer to procure the legal separa tion of man and wife for a stipulated price, to say nothing in this sacred place of other advertisements which decency forbids - me to quote. Then I turn to the records ofour criminal courts, and find that every day some cruel husband beats his wife, or some unnatural parent murders his child, or some discontented wife or husband seeks the dis solution ofthe marriage bond. In the next place, I turn to the orphan asylums and* hospitals, and show there the miserable wrekcsof domestic tyranny in wives desert ed and children maimed by drunken pa rents. In the last place, Igo through our streets and into our tenement houses, and count the thousands of ragged children,who, amid ignorance and filth,are training for the prison and gallows. Summing all these facts together, 1 put them forth as the fruits of marriage in the city of New York, and a proof that the relation itself is sinful. Iff were a novelist, and had written a book to illustrate this same doctrine, I would call this array of facts a “Key.’’ In this key 1 say nothing about the sweet charities and affections that flourish in ten thousand homes, not a word about the multitude of loving kindnesses that characterize the daily life of honest people, about the in struction and <lisciplinethat are training children at ten thousand firesides for use fulness here and glory hereafter ; all this I ignore, and quote only the statute book, the newspapers, the records of criminal courts and the miseries of the abodes of poverty. Now, what have I done? I have not mistated or exaggerated a single fact. And yet am I not a falsifier and slanderer of lhe deepest die? Is there a virtuous woman or an honest man in this citv whose cheeks would not burn with indignation at my one-aided and injurious stat'-ments? Now, this is just what ab olitionism has done in regard to slave holding. It has undertaken to illustrate its cardinal doctrine in works of-fiction, and then, to sustain the creation of its fancy, has attempted to underpin it with an accumulation of tacts. These facts are collected in precisely the way I have de scribed. The statute books of slavehold ing States are searched, and every wrong enactment collated, uewsjraper reports of cruelty and crime on lhe part of wicked masters are treasured up and classified, all the outrages that have been perpetrat ed “by lewd fellows of the baser sort, ” of whom there are plenty, both North and South, are eagerly seized and recorded, and this mass of vileness and filth collected from the kennels and sewers of society is put forth as a faithful exhibition of slave holding. Senators in the forum, and minis ters in the pulpit, distil this raw material into the more refined slander “that South ern society is assentially barbarous, and that slaveholding had its origin in hell.” Legislative bodies enact and re-enact statutes which declare that slaveholding is such an enormous crime that if a South ern man, under the broad shield of the con stitution, and with the decisions of the Su preme Court of the country in his hand, shall come within their jurisdiction, and set up a claim to a fugitive slave, he shall be punished with a fine of $2,000 and fif teen years imprisonment. This method of argument has continued until multitudes of honest Christian people in this and other lands believe that slaveholuing is the sin of sins, thesuinofall villanies. Let me illustrate this by an incident in my own ex perience. A few years, since 1 took from the centre table -of a Christan family in Scotland, by whom I had been most kindly entertained, a book entitled “Life and man ners in America.’’ On the blank leaf was an inscription, stating that the book had been bestowed upon one of the children of the family as a reward of diligence in an institution.of learning. The frontispiece ’ was a picture ol a man of fierce coumen.- ance beating a naked woman. The con tents ofthe l>ook were profesedly compiled from the testimony of Americans upon the . subject of slavery. I dare not quote in i this place the extracts which 1 made in mv memorandum. It will be sufficient to say that the book asserts as undoubted facts i that the banks of the Missisippi are stud ded with iron gallows for the panishment i of slaves—that in the city of Charleston the bloody block on which masters cut off the ; hands of disobedient servants may be seen i in the public squares, and that sins against i chastity are common and unrebuked in ' professedly Christian Now in my heart 1 did not feel angry at I the author of that book, nor at the school teacher who bestowed it upon his scholar, I for in Christian charity 1 gave them credit ' for honesty in the case; but standing there a stranger among the martyr memories of i that glorious land to which my heart had so 1 often made its pilgrimage, I did feel that ; you and I, and every man in America was ? wronged by the revilersof their native land ' who teach foreigners that hanging and cut -5 ting off hands, and beating women, are ' the characteristics of our life and man- i ners. t But we need not go to foreign lands i for proof that abolitionism has carried on r its warfare by the language of abuse. j The annual meeting of the American anti i slavery Society brings the evidence to our doors. We have been accustomed to r laugh at these venal exhibitions of fanati t cisni, not thinking perhaps that what was , fun for us was working death to our breth ren whose propeity and reputation we r are bound to protect. The fact is we < have suffered a fire to be built in our i midst, whose sparks have been scattered « far and wide ; and now when the smoke f of the conflagration comes back to blind ; our eyes, and the heat of it begins to r scorch our industrial and commercial! in ? terests, it will not do for us to sayth t > the utterances of that society are the ra - I viuga of a fanatical and in significant few; . for the men who compose it are honored , in our midst with titlesand offices. * Its president is a Chief Justice ofthe ’ State of New Jersey. 'l’tie ministers who r havethiown over its doings the sanction ' of our holy religion are quoted and mag- • nified all over the land as the representa ’ five men of the age ; and the man who 1 stood up in its deliberations in the year 1852 and exhausted the vocabulary of , abuse upon the compromise measures, , and the great statsmen who framed them is now a Judge in our courts and the 1 guardian of our lives and our property. . It will doubtless be said that misrepre sentation and abuse have not been con fined, in the progress of this unhapy con test to the abolitionists ofthe North; that . ’demagogues and self seeking men at the “South have.been violent and abusive, and that newspapers profesedly in the inter ests of the South, with a spirit which can be characterized as little less than diabol ical, have circulated r very scandal in the most aggravated and irritating form. But suppose all this to be granted—what then. Can Christian men, justify or palliate the wrath :rid evil retaliation which it has provoked from their neighbors ? If I were preaching to-day in a Southern au dience it would be my duty, and I trust God would give rue grace to perform it, to tell them of their -i ~s in this matter ; and especially would it be my privilege as a minister of the Gospel ot peace—a priv ilege from which no false views of man hood should prevent me—to exhort and beseech them as brethren. I would as sure them that there are multitudes here who still cherish the memory of the bat tle fields and council chambers where our . fathers cemented this Union of States, and who still stand by the compact of the [ constitution to the utmost extremity. I would tell the thousands of Christian ministers, among whom are some ofthe brightest ornaments of the American pul pit, and the tens of thousand of Christian men and women, towards whom, while the love of-Christ burns in inc, my heart never can grow cold, that if they will only be patient and hope to the end, all wrongs may yet be righted. I’hereforo I would beseech them not to put a great gulf be tween us and cut off the very opportunity for reconcilation upon an honorable basis, by a revolution whose end no human eye can see. But, then, lam not preaching at the South. I stand here, n, one ofthe main fountain heads of t rn abuse we have complained of. I stand here to rebuke this sin, and ex hort the guilty parties to repent and for sake it. It is magnanimous and Christ like for those from whom the first pi evo cation came to make the first concessions. Tiie legislative enactments which are in open and acknowledged violation of the constitution, and whose chief design is to put a stigma upon slaveholding, must and will be r. pealed. Truth and justice will ultimately prevail; and God’s bless ing and the blessings of generations yet unborn will rest upon that party, in this unhappy contest, who first stand forth to utter the language of conciliation and proffer the olive branch of peace The great fear is that the retraction will come tuo late: but sooner or later it will come. Abolitionism ought to and one day will change the inode of its warfare and adopt a new vocabulary. I believe in the liber ty of the press and in free<lum of speech ; but Ido not believe that any man has a right before God, or m the eye of civilized law, to speak and publish what he pleases without regard to the consequences. With the conscientious convictions of our fellow-citizens neither we nor the laws has any right to interfere; but the law ought to protect all men from the utter ance of libellous words, whose only effect is to create division and strife. I trust and pray, and call upon you to unite with me in th*- supplication, that God would give abolitionists repentance and a better mind, so that in time to come ’ they may at least propagate their princi ples in decent and respectful language. HI. ABOLITIONISM LEADS IN MtTLTITVDES Of' CASES, AND BY A LOGICAL PROCESS TO UTTER INFIDELITY. On this point L would not ami will not be misunderstood. Ido not say that ab olitionism is infidelity. I speak only of the tendencies of the system as indicated in its avowed principles and demonstrate ed in its practical fruits. It does not try slavery by the Bible; but as one of its leading advocates ha- re cently declared, it tries the Btble by the principles of freedom. It insists that the word of God must be made to support certain human opinions or forfeit all claims upon our faith. That I may not be sus pected of exaggeration on this point, let me quote from the recent work of Mr. Barnes a passage which may well arrest the attention of all thinking men : ‘ There are great principles in our na ture, as God has made us, which can nev er be set aside by any authority of a pro fessed revelation. If a book claiming to be a revelation from God, by any fair in terpretation defended slavery, or placed it on the same basis as the relation of hus band and wife, parent and child, guardian and ward, such a book would not, and could not be received by the mass of man kind as a Divine revelation.” This assumption, that men are capable of judging beforehand, what is to be ex pected in a Divine revelation, is the cock atrice’s egg, from which in all ages here sies have been hatched. This is the spi der’s webb which men have spun out of their own brains, and clinging to which, they have attempted to swing over the yawning abyss of infidelity. Alas, how , many have fallen in and been dashed to , pieces! When a man sets up tin* great principles ofour nature (by which lie al way s means his own preconceived opin ions) as the supreme tribunal before which even the law of God must betried—when a man says “the Bible must teach aboli tionism or I will not receive it,”he has al ready cut loose from the sheet anchor of faith. True belief says “ Speak, Lord,thy sei vant waits to hear.” Abolitionism says Speak, Lord, but speak in accordance with the principles of human nature or they cannot be received by the great mass ' of mankind as a Divine revelation.’’ The fruit of such principles is just what we , might expect. Wherever the seed of ab olitionism has been sown broadcast a plen tiful crop of infidelity has sprung up. In lhe communities where anti slavery ex citement has been most prevalent, the power of the Gospel has invariably de clined and when the title of fanaticism begins to subside, the wrecks of church order, and of Christian character have been scattered on the shore. I mean no disrespect to New England— to the good men who there stand by the ancient land marks and contend earnestly for the truth - nor to the illustrious dead whose praise is in all the churches, but who does not know that the States in which abolition ism has achieved its most signal triumphs are at the same time the great strong holds of infidelity in the land ? I have of ten thought that if some of those old pil grimfathers could come back, in the spirit and power of Elias, to attend a grand cel ebration at Plymouth rock, they might well preach on this text; “It ye were Abraham’s children ye would do the works of Abraham.” The effect of abolitionism upon individuals is*"* no less striking and mournful than its influence upon communities. It is a remarkable and in structive fact, and one at which Christian men would do well to pause and consider, that in this country all the prominent leaders of aboli tionism, outside of the ministry, have become avowed infidels ; and that all our notorious abo lition preachers have renounced the great doc trines of grace as they are taught in the stand ards of the reformed churches—have resorted to the most violent processes of interpretation to avoid the obvious meaning of plain Scriptu ral texts, and ascribed to the apostles of Christ principles from which piety and moral courage instinctively revolt. They make that to be sin which the Bible does not declare to be sin.— They denounce in language such as the sternest pi ophets of the Law never employed, a relation which Jesus and his apostles recognized and regulated. They seek to institute terms and texts of Christian communion utterly at va riance with the organic law of the church as founded by its Divine Head ; and, attempting to justify this usurpation of Divine prerogatives by an appeal from God’s law to the dictates of fallen human nature, they would set up a spirit ual tyranny more odious and insufferable, be cause more arbitrary and uncertain in its deci sions, than Popery itself. And as the tree is so have its fruits been. It is not a theory, but a demonstrated fact, that abolitionism leads to in fidelity. Such men as Carrison, and Giddings, and Gerrit Smith, have yielded to the current of their own principles and thrown the Bible overboard. Thousands of humbler men who listen to abolition preachers w I »and do like wise. And whether it be the . raints of offi cial position, or lhe preventing grace of God, that enables such preachers to row up the stream and regard the authority of Scripture in other matters, their influence upon this one subject is all the more pernicious because they prophesy in the name of Christ. In this sincere and plain utterance of my deep convictions I am only dis charging my conscience towards the flock over which lam set. When the shephard -eeth the wolf coming he is bound to give warning. IV.—ABOLITIONISM IS THE CHIEF CAUSE OF THE STRIFE THAT AGITATES AND THE DANGER THAT i THREATENS OCR COUNTRY. Here, as upon the preceding point, I will not I be misunderstood. lam not here as the advo | cate or opponent of any political party; and it i is no more than simple justice lor me to say i plainly that I «io not consider Republican and ' Abolitionist as necessarily synonymous terms. . ; There are tens of thousands of Christian men who voted with the successful party in the late election who do not sympathise with the princi ples or aims of abolitionism. Among these are some beloved members of my own Hock, who will not hesitate a moment to put the seal of their approbation upon the doctrine of thia dis course. And what is still more to the point, there seems to be sufficient evidence that the man who has just been chosen to be the head of this nation is among the more conservative and Bible-loving men of his party. We have no fears that if the new administration could be quietly inaugurated, it would or could aboh tionize the government. There are honest peo ple enough in the Northern Slates to prevent such arcsuit. But, then, while this is admit ted as a simple matter of truth and justice, it cannot be denied, on tiie other hand, that ab olitionism did enter with ail its characteristic bitterness in the recent contest; that the result never could have been accomplished without its assistance, and tint it now appropriates the vic tory in words of lidicule ami scorn that sting like a serpent Let me give you as a single specimen of the spirit tn which abolitionism has carried on its political warfare, an extract from a journal which claims to have a larger circula tion than any other religious paper in the hand. I quote from the New York Independent, of September, 1856: lhe people will not levy war nor inaugurate a revolution, even to relieve Kansas, until they have first tried what they can do by voting. Ts this peaceful remedy should fail to be applied this year, then the people will count the cost [ Concluded on page 4. ] No. 277