The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1860-12-13
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/ Scriptures by simple denial of their authortv.-
They do, not tell ms how God could ever or any,
| where cOuntenance that which is morally wrong
but they content themselves with saving that the
LeVl.lcal law is no rule OF action for us, and they
appeal from It's decision to what they consider the
| higher tribunal of the Gospel. Let u.s. therefore
JON issue with them before the bar of the New
testament Scriptures. 1t is a historic truth ac-
NnoM%Ieuged % on all hands, that at the advent of Je-
eus Shflst slavery existed all over the civilized
! Woriu ana was intimately interviewer with its So
clal ana civil institutions. In Judea in Asia Mi
nor, in Greece in all the countries where the Sa
Vlour or his Apostles preached the Gospel slave
holding was Just as common as it is today in
South Carolina.
1t is not alleged by any one, or at least by anv
one having any pretensinns to scholarship or can
dor, that the Roman laws regulating slavery were
even as mild as the very worst statutes which have
been passed upon the subject in modern times. 1t
will not be denied by any honest and we-infOrmed
man that modern civilization and the restraining
influences of the Gospel have shed ameOrating in
huenees upon the relation between master and
slaveI which was utterly unknown at the advent of
Christianity. And how did Jesus and his AnostIes
treat this subject? Masters and slaves met them at
every step in their miss onary 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 masters 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 remarkable fact,
which the abotiCnst does not, because he cannot,
deny, that the New Testament is utterly silent in
regard to the alleged sinfulness of slave-holding
In all the instructions of the SaYiour-in all the
reported sermons of the inspired ApOstles-in all
the epistles they moved by the Holy Spirit
to write for the instruction of coming gen.
eratiOns-there is not one distinct and explicit
nunciation of savehoding, nor one precept reouir-
ing the master to emancipate his slaves Every
acknowledged sin is openly and repeatedly CON
demned and in unmeasured terms. Drunkenness
and adultery, theft and murder-al the moral
wrongs which ever have been known to affct soci-
ETY., are forbidden by name; and yet, according to
the teaching of abolitionism, this greatest of all
SlnS-this sum of all villaines-is never spoken of
except in respectful terms. How can this be ac-
counted for?
Let DR.. Waylaud whose work on moral science
IS taught in many of schools, answer this ques
ton, and let parents whose children are studying
that book diligently consider his answer. quote
from Wayand'S Moral Science, page 2l3 =
"Ihe Gospel was designed not for one race or for
one time, but for all races and 70, all times 1t
looked not to the abolition of slavery for that are
alone, but for its universal abolition. Hence the
important object of its author was to gain for it
lodgment IN every part of the known world so
that by Its universal diffusion among all classes of
society IT might quietly and peacefully modify and
subdue the evil passions of men. In this manner
alone could its object-a universal moral reyoIu-
tion-have been accomplished For if it had for
Dldden the evil,instead OF subverting the principle;
ii 1t had proclaimed the unlawfulness of slavery
and taught slaves to resist the oppression of their
masters, it would instantly have arrayed the two
parties in deadly hostility throughout the civilized
world; its announcement would have been the signal
oil serylIo war, and the very name of the Christian
religion would have been forgotten amidst the
agitation of universal blOodshed."
We pause not now to comment upon the admit
ted fact that Jesus Christ and his Apostles pursued
a course entirely different from that adopted by
the abOlitiOnists, including the learned author
himself, nor to inquire whether the teaching of
abolitonism is not as likely TO produce strife and
bloodShed in these days in the first ages of the
Church. What we now call attention to and pro
test against Is the imputatOn here cast upon Christ
and his Apostles. Do you believe the Saviour
sought to insinuate his religion into the earth by
cOncealing Is real design, and preserving pro
found silence in regard Of one of the very worst
sins it to destroy? Do YOU believe that
when he healed the centurion's servant, (whom av-
cry honest commentor admits to have been slave
and pronounced that precious eulogy upon the
master, " have not seen great faith in Israeli
do you believe that Jesus suffered that man to live
on in sin because he deprecated the consequences
of preaching abolitiOnsm
When Paul stood upon Mars hill, surrounded by
ten thousand times many shareholders as there
were idols in the city, do you believe he kept back
any part of the requirements Of the gospel because
he was afraid Of tumult among the people? We
ask these abolition philosophers whether, as a mat
ter oftact, dolatrv and the vices connected with it
were not even more intimately interviewer with
the social and civil Lille of the Roman empire than
slavery was? Did the Apostles abstain from
preaching against idolatry? Nay, who does not
know that by denOuncTng this sin they brought
down upon themselves the whole power of the Ro-
man empire? Nero covered the bodies of the
Christian martyrs with pitch and lighted up the
city with their burning bodies, just because they
would not withhold or compromise the truth in re-
gard to the worship of idols In the light of that
fierce persecution it is protane trifling for DR..
Wayland or any other man to tell US that Jesus or
Paul held back their honest opinions Of slavery for
fear OF ga servile war, in which the very name Of
the Christian religion would have been forgotten"
nj Of 10 roll iui iC rpts
forgotten; nor are Gods great purposes of re
demptiOn capable Of being defeated bv an
honest declaration of His truth everywhere and
at all times. And vet this philosophy, so disbon-
oring to Christ and his Apostles, is moulding the
character of our young men and women. 1t comes
into our schools and mingles with the very ebIood
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 maintain, at all hazards and in the face
Of the Saviours example to he contrary, the un-
scriptural dogma that slaveholdiDg is sin. But it
must be observed in this connection that the AD0s.
ties went much farther than to abstain from preach
ing against slavehoding. They admitted slave
holders to the communion OF the Church. In our
text masters are acknowledged as "brethren, faith
full and beloved, partakers of the benefit"
If the New Testament is t. be received as a
faithful history, no man rejected by the
apostolic church upon the ground that he owned
slaves. IL he abused his power a master, if he
ayaied himself of the authority conferred by the
Roman law to commit adultery, or murder, or cru
city, he was rejected for these crimes, Just as he
would be rejected now for similar crimes from any
Christian church in our Southern States. If pa
rents abused or neglected their children they were
censured, not for having children, but for not
treating them properly. And so with the slave
holder. 1t was not the owning of slaves, but the
manner in which he fulfilled the duties of his sta
tiOn that made him a subject for church discipline.
The mere fact that he was Shareholder no more
subjected him to censure than the mere fact that
he was a father a husband. 1t is upon the re-
cognized lawfulness of the relation that all the
precepts regulating the reciprocal duties of that
relation are based.
These precepts scattered all through the in
spired epistles. There is not one command or ex-
hortatiOn to emancipate the slave. The Apostle
well knew that, for the present emancipation would
horted to be kind and considerable, and the slave to
be obedent, that so they might preserve the unity
of that church in which there is no distinction be-
tween Greek or Jew, male or female, bond or free
Oh, il ministers of the Gospel in this land or age
had but followed Paul as he followed Christ
and instead of hurng anathemas and exciting
wrath against Shareholders, had sought Onl@ to
bring both master and slave to the fou tain of Eman
ues blood; if the agencies OF the blessed Gospel had
only been suffered to work their way quietly as the
light and dew of the morning, into the struc-
ture of society, both North and South how different
would have been the position of our country
this day before God! Hew different would have
been the privileges enjoyed by the poor black mans
soul, which, in this bitter contest has been too
mucn neglected ana deSplsed. linen there would
have been no need to have converted our churches
into military barracks for collecting firearms to
carry upon a distant frontier, 10 need for
a sovereign State to execute the fearful penalty of
the law upon the invader for doing no more than
honestly to carry out the teaching of abolition
preachers, who bind heavy burdens and griev-
GUS to be borne, and lay them on mems
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 de-
ISOLATION God will hold the real authors responsible
No occasion or pretext for slaveholdng States to
pass such stringent laws for the punishment of the
secret incendiary and the prevention Of servile
war.
shall not attempt to show what will be the con-
diton of the African race in this country when the
Gospel shall have brought all classes under its COM
plete dominion. What civil and social relations
do not know | cordially embrace the current
opinion of our church that slavery is permitted
and regulated by the divine law under both the
Jewish and Christian dispensatiOns, not the final
destiny of the enslave1, but important and
cessary process in their transition from heahenism
to Christianity-a wheel in the great machinery Of
Providence by which the final redemption is to be ao
complished. However this may be- one thing ]
know, and every abolitionist might know it if he
would, that there are Christian families at the
South in which patriarcha fidelity and affection
subsist between the bond and the free, and where
slaves are better fed and clothed and instructed,
and have better opportunity for salvation than
the ma iorty 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 great. Fanaticism at
the North is one chief stumbhng-blOck in the wav
of the Gospel at the South. This is one great
grievances that presses to-day upon the hearts of