And sceptics are made (it is mournfully true)
By priests in the pulpit and saints in the pew,
Who torture the Gospel to get at the proof
That one man is made for another's behoof!
The Bible comes not with its quickening light.
Till conscience and reason interpret aright,
And, vainly you moan o'er the infidel fruit
While nourishing faith in the Slavery-root.
The creed should be better than the man; but what if the man be better than the creed? Business relations with the South, or friends residing there, or political clanship, may so blind men to the hideous conjunction of the Gospel and Southern Slavery, that they may profess to believe in both; but religionists grieve the Holy Spirit and chiefly make Infidels, by fastening any inhuman institution or abominable theory on the Word of God.