[739] As it is necessary in these times to avoid ambiguity, I say that I mean, by "Diviner still," Christ. If ever God was man—or man God—he was both. I never arraigned his creed, but the use—or abuse made of it. Mr. Canning one day quoted Christianity to sanction negro slavery, and Mr. Wilberforce had little to say in reply. And was Christ crucified, that black men might be scourged? If so, He had better been born a Mulatto, to give both colours an equal chance of freedom, or at least salvation.
[In a debate in the House of Commons, May 15, 1823 (Parl. Deb., N.S. vol. ix. pp. 278, 279), Canning, replying to Fowell Buxton's motion for the Abolition of Slavery, said, "God forbid that I should contend that the Christian religion is favourable to slavery ... but if it be meant that in the Christian religion there is a special denunciation against slavery, that slavery and Christianity cannot exist together,—I think that the honourable gentleman himself must admit that the proposition is historically false.">[
[NL] {549}
—— and One Name Greater still
Whose lot it was to be the most mistaken.—[MS, erased.]
[NM] To leave the world by bigot fashions shaken.—[MS. erased.]
[NN] Which never flatters either Whig or Tory.—[MS. erased.]
[740] {550}[Martial, Epig., x. 46.]
[741] ["Feeble" for "foible" is found in the writings of Mrs. Behn and Sir R. L'Estrange (N. Engl. Dict.).]
[NO] But now I can't tell when it will be done.—[MS. erased.]