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God took pains to put it, plainly and un mistakably, in each one of those two tables of stone ?—Must we not then agree that, just so long and just so far as that great law of God shall be considered binding up on man, so long and so far must the insti tution of slavery —the relation of master and servant —be regarded as having the ex plicit sanction of the Great Law-giver of the universe. Well, it is certain that God did that thing, in the first table, in the fourth commandment, He says: ‘ln it thou ahalt not do any work, thou nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man servant nor thy maid servant' And in the second table, in the tenth command, He says: ‘ Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, nor his man servant, nor his maid servant, nor any thing that is thy neighbor’s.’ Do you not see that God has put His own holy recognition of property in man in the decalogue itself? But, lest it might be said or thought that the servants here mentioned are not staves but hired servants, God was pleased in the original Hebrew to use the very same word which He used in the next chapter, when He said of such servants they are tne mas ter’s money. (Exodus xxi, 9-1.) Surely I need not look any farther in the Old Testa ment. Tne law of God is very plain. It was the law when Jesus came. Did He re peal it ? Did He change it? He had the right to do it. lie would have done it had it been best that slavery should be abolished. He was not afraii of the. slave power; and had He seen, in His infinite wisdom and good ness, that it would be bet ter for the master, better for the slave, or better for the world, better for the welfare of humanity and the promotion of the reli gion of the gospel, He would have repealed it, as He did the old laws of divorce and polygamy. And if He did repeal it, we are under the Gospel and must be govern ed by the new law concerning slavery.— It has been claimed that He did; it has been declared, a thousand times, that what was thus so plainly allowed and even or dained under the Law, was revoked under the Gospel. When was it done? Where is the record ? Slavery is as often men tioned in the New Testament as in the Old. Is it ever mentioned to condemn it? Js there in any allusion to it even an intima tion that it was wrong, or that it was now to be abolished ? Nothing of the kind ever has beep or ever can be found. So far from it, ft is most plainly and unmistakably again and again recognized as a righteous and holy institution, and the relation ot master and slave placed in the same cata logue with those of husband and wife, parent and child. Turn to the sixth chap ter of Ephesians aud read : ‘ Children, obey your parents. Fathers, provoke not youi children to anger. Servants, bo obedieut to them who are your masters, according to the flesh.’ Turn to the of Colossians and read : ‘ Wives, submit your selves unto your own husbands. Husbands, iovo your wives and be not bitter against them. Children, obey your parents. Fa thers, provoke not your children. Servants* obey in ail things your masters. Ma3ters ( give unto your servants that which is just and equal, knowing that you also have a Master in heaven.’ Turn to the second chapter of Ist Peter, and read : * Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the Iroward. be in subjection to your own husbands,’ etc. D<> you not see that the recognition or master und slave, fur the origmul record in all these places, means slave? and what is said of these servants could only apply t* slaves ? Do you not see that the relation of master und slave is classed with those oi husband and wife, parent and child ?—L no mure condemned, no more abolished, but expected just as much to cuutinu among Christian people in all coming tiim as those other household relations ? But I have not done with you yet.— There is another and a most important teaching upon this subject, which has beet, most unfortunately overlooked or disre garded, even by southern Christians. Let us turn now to Ist Timothy—and remem. ber that Timothy and Titus were not ordi nary Christians, but ministers of the Gospel; and the epistles to them are God’s instruc tions, not to church member*, but to preachers. We lose half the meaning oi these epistles when we forget this fact.— In this epistle, the inspired apostle is telling Timothy, as the representative preacher ot Christ, how preachers are to conduct them selves in their official work ; he tells us how to preach, and what to preach. Here in the sixth chapter, he tells us what to preach on the subject of slavery. To Titus he wrote in the same vein : ' Exhort ser vants to be obedient to their own masters, aud to pleae th=>m well in all things, not answering again, not purloining, but show ing all good fidelity. (Titus vfll, 9.) Bui here to Timothy, he goes further; • Let a many {djttfoi) slaves as are under the y oke BANNER AND BAPTIST. count their own masters worthy of all hon or, that the name of God be not blasphemed; and they that have believing masters, let them not. despise them because they are brethren, but rather do them service be cause they are fathful, beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort.’ This is the way the minister of Christ was commanded by the Lord Jesus to preach on the subject of slavery. He was not silently to ignore its existence or the doctrines of the Lord concerning it.— He had a plain and unmistakable message from his Saviour in regard to this institu tion ; and whether it waa popular or un popular, he was to ‘ teach ’ it and ‘ exhort' the people to obey it. But the apostle goes still further. He seems to have an ticipated the day when abolitionists would find their way even into the church and the pulpit. He seems to have foreseen the strife and envy, and lying and wickedness, which their preaching would engender.— Hence, he gives further instruction: that if any man should take it upon himself to teach another doctrine than the one which h-* instructed the true minister to teach, such minister should refuse to recognize that man as a fellow minister, or even as a Christian man, by at once ‘ withdrawing from him ’ all religious fellowship. Hen are the words: ‘ And if any man teach otherwise and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the doctrine which is according to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about strifes of words, whereot eometh envy, strife, railings, evil sur rnisings, perverse disputing* of men of cor rupt minds and destitute of the truth, sup posing that gain is godliness; From such withdraw thyself .’ God gives great and important commands, sometimes, in few and simple words. We have been accus tomed to look upon the law forbidding murder as the most important of the deca logue ; yet it consists of only four short words—‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Here is an other law in but four words, but no less binding than the other. Hero waa our sin —I do not say the sin of the nation, but the sin of the church, and especially the sin of the ministry. God commanded us to do this thing, and we did not do it. Sin is transgression of Ct>d’s law. Here is God's law, in these four plain words: ‘ From such withdraw yourselves' From whom? From those ‘ who teach otherwise' than Timothy was instructed to teaoh on the subject of slavery. Itrequired of every true minister of Jesus Christ a prompt and simple course of action in view of a certain contingency. When the very fir3t man claiming to be a Christian ministor preached the very first sermon in which he put the first senteuce against tho duty of slaves to obey and hon or their masters, and proclaimed their right to liberty and equality, it required of every true minister at once to note that man and have no more fellowship with him. He might no more invite him to his pulpit, or to the table of the Lord. He might not recognize him as a brother in the ministry or the church. He had one duty to per form, and that a very plain one: ‘ From such withdraw thyself.' Brethren, we did not do it. Wo had such men in our churches. We knew’ they taught otherwise. They taught it in books; they taught it in pamphlets; they taught it in newspapers and magazines; they taught it in the social circle; they taught it in their pulpits at home, and they came to the great gatherings of the brethren in the an niversaries of our organizations for religious i benevolence, and they taught it there.— ! They taught it until they had formed a great and overpowering public sentiment ; in opposition to the teachings of the apos tles of Christ; and we continued stil l to meet them as brethren, address them as brethren, preach with them as brethren, and ;odperate with them in other things as breth ren,our equals in the ministry of the Word, t was not until they had gone so far as vir tually to resolve, in the triennial conven- I don, that they could not cooperate with us, that w@ were driven to separate from them because they w'ould no longer permit us on equal terms to remain in their company.— And even then, did we ‘ withdraw from them’ because the Lord bad so commanded us Or, in the Scripture seuse, did we j* withdraw ’at all? Were we not influ enced by a regard to our own self respect ’rather than God’s commandment ?—.and ! while we i.o longer met with them in *>n vention to cooperate in the g cat work of giving the gospel to the heather, did we I not still continue to call them brethren and treat them as if they bad been tree c inls | ters of Christ ? ! But, Baptist churches ar.d Baptist min | inters were r.ot alone in ‘his. The people of other denominations were even more guilty than we. The Presbyterians had | been bearing * their testimo* y against slave, ry,’ as they termed it, ever since 1819 — land many in their general assemblies were |accutomed very officiously ‘to teach oth- erwise,’ —and yet southern members only begged that they might still be allowed to remain in fellowship with them. And if at last they have ‘withdrawn themselves’ and formed anew organization, it has been only when further cooperation was no long er possible. The Methodists have been stiii more gyilty. Tnoy laid the very foundation of their ohurch in an op* n pledge to violate this law of God. Their preachers were all, both north and south, expressly re quired to ‘ teach otherwise.* They were sect out for the express purpose of ‘ teach ing otherwise.’ Every one of was bound, by a solemn vow to God, that he would ‘teach otherwise.’ la its very in ception, the Methodist Episcopal Church of America was a great * Abolition Society.' Do not start—do not exclaim that it could not be so ! It certainly was so; and every intelligent Methodist, who is familiar with tho history of his own church, knows that it was so. ido not say that it was nothing more, but an abolition society it surely was. It was organized in Baltimore, on Southern soil, and soearly as 1784—before the blood of the Revolution had soaked into the ground, or the tears of that war had yet ■fried on the nation’s cheek ; yet even there and at that early day, the preachers who formed that church by denouncing slavery as an * abomination ’ which must immediately be ‘ extirpated ’ from among us, and adopted strenuous measures to accomplish the object. (See Emery’s His tory of the Discipline, page 43.) Ten >ears later, they declared in conference, and made it a part of the discipline, ‘That they were more than ever convinced of the great evil of African slavery , as it still ex isted ’ in this country, and adopted new measures for its ‘ extirpation.' And so they continued from time to time, not only to ‘ leach otherwise,' but, by all means in their power, to promote and build up the spirit of abolition in the north, and, so far as public sentiment would permit, in the south. And it is remarkable, that although their church was divided ona point relating to this subject, yet even in the ‘ Church South’ they continued for years to ‘teach otherwise,’ by retaining in their Discipline the same rules which had been tho occasion of their separation. They still continued to ask—in Section 9, Part 2— ‘ What shall he done for the extirpation of the evil of slavery ? * and to answer: ‘Wo declare that wo arc as much as ever convinced ol the -'•i! of slavery; therefore, no slave ho! icr shall be eligible to any official sta don in our church,’ etc. They still contin ued to print and sell tho Notes of their great commentator, Clark, in which he says (Noteon Ephesians vi, 5): ‘ln heathen countries, slavery was in some sort excusa ble. Among Christians, it is an enormity and a crime, for which perdition has scarce ly .no adequate state of punishment.’- Within the last few years the Discipline has been changed. But there is room for doubt whether, at last, it was because God required it in His word, or only because publio sentiment in the south would no longer tolerate such teachings. The repentance, if we have indeed re pented at all, has been slow and reluctant. But let us hope that now at last we no longer have among us any man ‘ teaching otherwise,’ and yet received by any people as a minister of Christ. Let us hope that this wicked war, if it do no other good, may at least do this : bring all who preach the Gospel to preach it truly in regard to slavery. Had it been done at first, we should have had no war. The preachers had much more to do with its production than the politicians. The so-called minis ters of Christ have done much more than Lincoln or Seward, or any of their party, in bringing upon our once loved and happy country this storm of blood and death.— Had anti-slavery doctrines been left whert they belong, to the assemblies of infidelity and irreligion, that party would have had no power. Our question was, Is slavery a sill ? l have shown you that, to be a sin, it must be a violation of the law of God. And then, that God’s law, so far from forbidding or condemning it, actually commended it in the lives of the Patriarchs ; ordained and ehtablished it in the secular code of the Jews ; recognized and perpetuated it in the Ten Commandments themselves; and for bade any minister of Christ, under the | Gospel, to * teach otherwise,’ or even to give Christian fellowship and brotherhood ito any one who should ‘teach otherwise.’ It follows, then, that whatever our sin may be, it is not holding men and women in slavery. God has made this thing very plain. But now someone may ask whether i there is no Scripture on tke other side. — Men w hom the world counts'wise and good have for years been denouncing the insti tution as a thing accursed of God and eon [trary to both the spirit and the letter ot I the Sacred Word. Is it possible they have lied against God? Ur could they have honestly been so utterly mistaken in regard to His teachings? To such suggestion? only one reply is needful, i wish it could be engraved as with a pen of iron on eveiy heart, so as never to be forgotten or over looked in this ; or any other discussion in volving religious faith or duty. It is this : The Bible is never on both sides of any ques tion. If it teaches that slavery is right, it does not teach that slavery is wrong. It doe.s not contradict on one page ’what it averts on another. It is always consistent with itself. If it were not so, it would not be worth the paper that it.is printed on. — It would not be God’s" Bible. Our God is not like a wily "politician, whose words are meant to please all parties. Nor are His holy oracles like the utterances of the heathen temples, intended to have a double meaning. He teaches all the time the same things. Nor does the plain fetter of His teachings contradict the spirit of them, as has been falsely asserted. The letter and the spirit are the same, for they are both of God. And hence it follows, that although seme people, by garbled quota tions, taken out of their connection and perverted to a Use quite different from that they were intended to have, rnay have sue ceeded in convincing themselves or others that slavery is forbidden, it can not be so. A careful and candid examination of such quotations will show that they are not in tended to contradict, and do not contradict what, as we have seen, the Bible plain!) teaches. And here let me add, that while this is true of slavery, it is. equally true of every other übject. The Bible does not teach one set of doctrines in one place and a different and opposing set in another. — The Gospel does not in one part require one form of church organization, church order or church government, and another or several others opposed to and inconsist ent with it iri another part. What it re quires once, it requires all tho time. Nor does it teach in some places that one desig nated act is the baptism of the New Testa rnent, and in other plaoes that some other and altogether different sot is that same ordinance. It does not teach that the Epis copalians are right, and the Presbyterians , t ro right, and the Methodists and Baptist? are equally right. If any one denomination is right, then the others, just so far as the) differ from that one, are wrong. The Scriptures are not on a 1 sides of the }ues ions in disputo among these various and opposing denominations. All denotnina tions may possibly be wrong, but it is cer tain that they can not ail be right; just as certain as it is that two propositions which contradict each other can not both be true. But this is an episode. I have wandered from the subject of slavery. One thing yet remains—not, indeed, to complete my argjment. but to give it the full force it ought to have upon the mind and heart: — Why did God thus ordain and re-ordain this institution ? He had an objeot in vie w; an object at once kind and noble, worthy of God, the Ruler of the universe. We must accept His law as right and good and holy, even though we should be utterly unable to see what that object was. It is enough for us that so God w’ills, and so God says.— This is the strongest possible proof that it is just and kind. But in this case we are not left without reason of another sort.— He who has observed the influence of slave ry in elevating and ennobling an inferior race ot men, by the close contact into which it brings them with a superior race, will be at no loss to discover one reason, and that one of itself sufficient to ‘justify this wa\ of God to man.’ We have been told ot the degrading and demoralizing influence of slavery, until the thoughtless and inob servant may have been led tobt l eve that it really has had some such influence.— But look at the facts. Has slavery de graded the negro race in this country ? Men sea the negro inferior to the whit* man, the slave beneath his master, and the\ it once conclude that it is slavery which has made him so. But if you will learn the truth, you must compare the negro it slavery with the negro in freedom. The compari<on is easily made. There ar* millions of the race who have remained in their state of liberty in Africa. But among them all you can no where find any consid erable number who, in point of intellect or morality, religion or civilization, can bear any comparison with the Jour millions ot ! slaves in the Confederate States. During several years of constant travellin. in Af | rica, Mr. Bowen said he did not meet at ; ‘ honest man or a modest woman ’ Th* few freed men who have gone back to Africa, as colonists of Liberia, after a few generations spent in slavery to the white man, are able at once to take the marten 'of thousands of natives who have had the | iienefit ot their original freedom during the | same generations. But there is another reason why God [ordained slavery. It is found in the intens* I selfishness of human nature, and the power of money capital to oppress the. poor. Slavery is God’s remedy against oppres sion. It is not, perhaps, the remedy that Dr. Way land or Dr. Barnes would have suggested. But “the foolishness of God is wiser than men.’ God is a better philoso pher than Dr. Way land. He understands human nature. He knows that it is very selfish. lie was unwilling to trust the comfort of tho poor laborer to the mere humanity of the rich. He would make it the interest of the rich to provide for tho poor. In every country, sooner or later, capital accumulates in the hands of some, while others remain poor. The poor man’e capital is his strength, his capacity to labor. This is all he has to feed and clothe himself and family. Now shall it be for the inter est of the rich man to extort from him the greatest amount of labor for the smallest amount of money, to press him down to the lowest point of human endurance; o r shall it be for his interest to see that ho jie never over-worked, never under fed, never needlessly exposed to hardships, never left to suffer in sickness, that his children are well fed and well clad, and grow up vigor ous and healthy ? This i9 the question. God answers it by making the laborer the property of the capitalist. It is then not merely a dictate of humanity, but also or self-interest which demands that the laborer, the slave, be clothed and fed and nursed. The strongest of motives known to roan demands it. It may be denied even to this. There are some masters who are cruel and reckless of the lives and health even of their own household—but what would such masters be if it were for their interest to be cruel and oppressive, as it surely would if the laborer were IJot their own property ? To illustrate what I mean, let us goto England where then boasted freedom has placed, capital and labor in opposition. Herein the splendid mansion of the rich landholder surrounded by every luxury that taste can call for or money can pur chase. Go to his stable. You see that his horse lives in a fine briek house, with adty roof above his head. He has good fresh air to breathe, nice clean straw to sleep on, a blanket to keep him warm in bad weather, plenty of the best and most wholesome food to eat. Even the colts, who are yet too young to labor, are carefully fed and nurtured. If sick, they have the best of medical advice and the most careful nurs ing. Every thing that a horse need ask for, if a horse could talk, is theirs. It is for the owner’s interest that it should be so. But, now, go to the hovel across the way, where the poor man lives who drivhe horse. The human laborer has no com fortable house. His home is a poor cot tage or hovel, thatched with straw. If &e is unable to work for a little time, aud can’t pay ront, he is cast out even from that. Ilis food is scanty. His family are often in want. If sick, his wages stop, and he must suffer on or die. It matters noth ing to his employer how he fares. He pays him so much money for so much work, and that is all. When the work stops, the connection ceases; and while it continues it is the interest of the employer to pay little and require much. What'is the result? Hundreds of thousands daily begging work or bread, and many starving ing for the want of both. Poor houses in every parish filled with thousands of rag ged, starving paupers, sustained by a re. luetant and compulsory charity; little children driven by their own parents to such laborious tasks as early destroy health and life. Huge prisons filled with vagabonds and petty thieves. I trust that God is now about to set us free from Northern dictation and foreign interference, and permit us, in our Confederacy, to show how His plan to obviate these eviL can ba made to work under the benignant influence of true Christianity. [ CONCLUSION NEST WEES.) Army Chaplain*. These devoted workers for their country *nd their Saviour, find that religious read, mg for the soldiers helps them very much in their labors of love. Hence, they call for tracts, Testaments, and religious papers. These brethren say that the soldiers are very fond of religious papers, and many of them have written and asked for The Banner to be sent to them weekly for distribution. But while brother H. would gladly furnish targe numbers to his country’s defenders, he cah not do so unless the means are fur. mshed. Will not these ChaplUins take up contributions for this object? and will not brethren, pastors and others, at home do the same, and forward the amount to fcro rher II.? Each number of The Banner will be worth more to the soldier that an ordinary tract. J. M. W. All Baptist ministers and others, in tb* 'ontederate Slates, friendly to the paper ars requested to act as Agents.