Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1857-05-09
PUTNAM on BISHOP HOPKINS.

But Putnam is not content with charging the
Supreme Court as the falsi6er of history for the
sake Of Slavery extension and worse yet, proving
it-not content with adding to this the recklessness
of assailing the pious "O5ser vers' and Watch
men, Of the Church, but it has also the temer.ty
TO review as it deserves tho recent defence Of
Slavery by the new champion FROM Fcrmont--The
Right Rev. John Henry Hopkins, ID, LID,
Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the
Diocese of Vermont. This imposing title even
does not deter Putnam from lite rash purpose but
it proceeds to say:
In it he Bishop l~Iopkins) states that he thinks
It wrong for the American citizen to dance the
polka, but perfectly proper for him to hold his
brother in slavery. The bishop says, he holds
''conversation parties" 70 be innocent ana equally
80 the selling n child from its mother. He says,
that Canaan was cursed, and, therefore, Governor
Wise NAV dispose of black men and women Mt
thc highest rates. The Right Reverend John
Henry Hopkins has written some four or five
hundred pages to show that the citizens should
obey the law but omits to state what his pastoral
advice would have been to mothers with babes
under two years of age in the latter days OF the
lawciver IIerud Of Juden. lilo also does not find
room in his prolix disquisiion upon the duties of
she American Citizen, which is tho title OF his
book, to inform his pupil what he Is to do when
the law OF the lana cOntrANeileS VIC pam u VI
God. Fur it is evident that, if a Law is to be
obeyed, because it i, a law, u regulation to lie, or
10 steal, or 10 deliver up the fugitive, so 1t be
legally enacted, has the same authority as one to
collect taxes. Bot If the discretion Of the citizen
or his conscience are ever to interfere, o., IN other
words, if there he the individual and collective
right of rebellion, it would be only complaisant
in a bishop, who writes n book in which he finds
room to discuss the pr0priety and morality OF
dancing, to indicate when the right may be assert
ed. The single point of interest in the american
Citizen is tho elaborate reitcration of the spiritual
argument for slavery, which is easily enough re
futed by the younger classes of Sunday-sohool
girls, and which falls ut this day, and in this
country, with peculiar OBLIGATION from the lips OF
n high dignitary in the church OF Him who SAID,
.'Do unto others rs ye would they should do unto
YOU" Bishop Hopkins anticipates a millennium
when "the whole world shall behold the happy
fruits of slavery in the regeneration of Africa
from her long bondage of barbarism and idola'ry."
IF il we're not 80 ~tragical, this would be too ludi
srous. Let this gentleman consider one question
Even il you knew that some OF the Africans, who
should survive the horrors of the slave-ship, and
she long, dreadful, compulsory labor in swamps
and fields, the gradual imbruting of human beings
treated as cattle. with every natural right and af-
Sec,i0n utraged-even if you knew some could
survive 1t all and attain a kind of fond and ignor-
ant feeling that you would call Christianity, do
YOU, as a man, not rs a bishop, believe for one
LUOulOhb UNIV Wv tatS't ''S 1'e 1872
single one of those victims, was doing anything
but an accursed actf Do you think that any
honest Christian man supposes for a solitary
instant that trader to be any better than a devil
and a servant of God only as criminals arc? OF
course God will bring good cut of it. God brings
good out of everything. Would that reflection
reconcile Bishop Hopkins TO have his house burnt
down and all that was dearest to him in it? There
was one who said, at must needs be that ofenses
comes; bat woe to him by whom the odense
cometh." With the usual inronsequenee of the
south-side of the slavery discussion, after having
made slavery the instrument OF the Christian re-
generation Of Africa, the bishop undertakes to
show the iuexpediency of slavery. But let the
bishop take comfort. 1.-THE Lord has made slavery
yight, be will alsn, in view OF it's hold upon this
sountry. make 1t sxpedient. And if il be the
christian process for Africa, what right has
Bishop Hopkins or any other rious man to resist
the due operation of that process? Excepting
lhs portion of the volume VIC have indicated, which
attracts attention solely by its subject and not at
all by the ability with which it is treated, the
american Citizen 10 like o series OF o country
cl%ergyman's weekly lectures. We do not advise
any American who wishes to improve himsslf as a
man. a Christian, or a patriot. to lsaye his South,
Tillo,sou. Hooker, Herbert, or Jeremy Taylor, and
take to Hopkins.
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.ssworts of Daniel Webster, vol. y, p 33a