North Branch democrat. [volume] (Tunkhannock, Pa.) 1854-1867, 1863-08-12
BIBLE VIEW OFsLAvERY.
BY JOHN H. HOPKINS.

Bishop of the Diocese of Vermont
(Contiaued.)
Of course, they sympathize warmly with
the poor, opprssse African, and are gener
ously excited to hate .he system of slavery
| with all their heart. Then the eloouen,
preacher chooses it for the fayorite topic o.
his oratory. The theme is well adopted tc
rouse the feelings, and it is usually by No
means difficult to interest and crafty the
audiance, when the supposed sins of others
| which they are under no temptation to com
NIT, are made the object of censure. In due
time, when the public mind is sufficiently
heated, the politician lays hold of the sub
ject, and makes the anti slavery movement
| the watchword of party. And finally the
Press follows in the wake of the leaders, and
the fire is industriously famed until it be
comes perfect blaze; while the admirine
throng surround it with exultation, and fan.
cy its lurid light to be from heaven, unit
the flames begin to threaten their own secur-
ity.
Such has been the periious course of our
Northern sentiment on the subject of slave.
ry. The great majority, in every communi
ty, are the creatures of habit, of association
and of impulse, and every allowance should
be made for those errors which are commit.
ted IN ignorance, under q generous sympa.
thy for what they suppose to be the rights
0f T
apology for those who are professedly pledg.
ed to unders tand and inculcate the doctrines
of the Bible. On that class of our public in
structors, the present perilous crisis of the
nation casts fearful responsibility. SOL
emnly bound by their sacred office to preach
the Word of God, and to follow Christ and
his apostles, as the heralds of "peace and
goodwill to men, they seem to me strangely
regardless, on this important subject, of their
highest obligations, But it is not for me to
judge them. To their own Master, let them
stand or fall.
/ baVe promised, however, to notice the
various objections which have been raised in
the popular mind Ia the institution of South
eru slavery, aud to these I shall now pro-
ceed.
First On this list stand the propositions of
the far famed Declaration of Independence,
" that all men are created equal; that they
are endowed by their Creator with certain
unalienable rights; that among these are
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"
These statements are here caiied " selfev-
dent truths. But with due respect to the
celebratek names which are appended t.
this document, have never been able to
comprehend that they are "truths'' at all.
In what respect are men 81" created equal"
when every thoughtful person must be sens
ible that they are brought into the world
with all imaginable difference in body, in
mind, and in every characteristic ic of their So
cial position Notwithstanding mankind
have all descended from one common parent.
yet we see them divided into distinct races,
so strongly marked, that infidel philoso
piers insist on the impossibilty of their hav-
ing the same ancestry. Where is the equal
| ity in body between the child born with the
| hereditary taint of scorfula or consumption,
and the infant filled with health and vigor ?
Where is the equality in mind between one
| who is endowed with talent and genius, and
another whose intellect borders on idiocy
Where is the equality in social position be-
tween the son of the Esquimaux or Hotten-
| tot, and the heir Of the American statesman
or British peer2
Neither am I able to admit that all men
are endowed with the unaltenable right to
life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness
because it is manifest that since " sin enter
ed into the world and death by sin," they
| are all dtiendted, forfeited and lost, through
the consequences of transgressi on. Life is
alienated not only by the sentence of the
law, but by innumerabIe forms of violence
and accident. Liberty is oliendted not only
by imbrisonment, but by the Irresistible re-
straints of social bondage to the will, the
temper, the prejudices, the customs, or the
interests of others SO that there is hardly
an individual to be found, even in the most
favored community, who has really the liber-
ty of word aud action so confidently assert
ed as the unaIien1bIe right of all men. And
as regards the "pursuit of happiness" alas !
what multitudes ALLEVIATE their right to it,
beyond recovery, not only in the cells of the
penitentiary, but in the reckless indulgence
of their appetites and passions, in the dis
gust arising from ill-chosen copjugal rela-
tions, in their associations with the prohigste
and the vile, in the pain and suffering of
sickness and poverty as the results of vice,
in the ruin of the gambler, the delirium of
the drunkard, the despair of the suicide, and
in every other form of moral contamination !
If 1t be said, however, that the equality
and unaienable rights of all men, so strong
ly asserted by this famous Declaration, are
only to be taken in o political sense, am