“The Bible classes men-stealers or slave-traders among the murderers of fathers and mothers, and the most profane criminals on earth.”
John Jay, Esq., of the City of New-York—a most exemplary Episcopalian—in a pamphlet entitled, “Thoughts on the Duty of the Episcopal Church, in Relation to Slavery,” says:—
“Alas! for the expectation that she would conform to the spirit of her ancient mother! She has not merely remained a mute and careless spectator of this great conflict of truth and justice with hypocrisy and cruelty, but her very priests and deacons may be seen ministering at the altar of slavery, offering their talents and influence at its unholy shrine, and openly repeating the awful blasphemy, that the precepts of our Saviour sanction the system of American slavery. Her Northern clergy, with rare exceptions, whatever they may feel on the subject, rebuke it neither in public nor in private, and her periodicals, far from advancing the progress of abolition, at times oppose our societies, impliedly defending slavery, as not incompatible with Christianity, and occasionally withholding information useful to the cause of freedom.”
A writer in a late number of “The Anti-Slavery Church man,” published in Geneva, Wisconsin, speaking of a certain portion of the New Testament, says:—
“This passage of Paul places necessary work in the hands of Gospel ministers. If they preach the whole Gospel, they must preach what this passage enjoins—and if they do this, they must preach against American slavery. Its being connected with politics does not shield them. Political connections cannot place sin under protection. They cannot throw around it guards that the public teachers of morals may not pass. Sin is a violation of God’s law—and God’s law must be proclaimed and enforced at all hazards. This is the business of the messenger of God, and if anything stands in its way, it is his right, rather it is his solemn commission, to go forward—straightway to overpass the lines that would shut him out, and utter his warnings. Many sins there are, that, in like manner, might be shielded. Fashion, and rank, and business, are doing their part to keep much sin in respectability, and excuse it from the attacks of God’s ministers. But what are these, that they should seal a minister’s lips—what more are the wishes of politicians?”
For further testimony from this branch of the Christian system, if desired, we refer the reader to the Rev. Dudley A. Tyng, the Rev. Evan M. Johnson, and the Rev. J. McNamara,—all Broad Church Episcopalians, whose magic eloquence and irresistible arguments bid fair, at an early day, to win over to the paths of progressive freedom, truth, justice and humanity, the greater number of their High and Low Church brethren.
BAPTIST TESTIMONY.
Concerning a certain text, the Rev. Mr. Brisbane, once a slaveholding Baptist in South Carolina, says:—
“Paul was speaking of the law as having been made for men-stealers. Where is the record of that law? It is in Exodus xxi. 16, and in these words: ‘He that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his possession, he shall surely be put to death.’ Here it will be perceived that it was a crime to sell the man, for which the seller must suffer death. But it was no less a crime to hold him as a slave, for this also was punishable with death. A man may be kidnapped out of slavery into freedom. There was no law against that. And why? Because kidnapping a slave and placing him in a condition of freedom, was only to restore him to his lost rights. But if the man who takes him becomes a slaveholder, or a slave seller, then he is a criminal, liable to the penalty of death, because he robs the man of liberty. Perhaps some will say this law was only applicable to the first holder of the slave, that is, the original kidnapper, but not to his successors who might have purchased or inherited him. But what is kidnapping? Suppose I propose to a neighbor to give him a certain sum of money if he will steal a white child in Carolina and deliver him to me. He steals him; I pay him the money upon his delivering the child to me. Is it not my act as fully as his? Am I not also the thief? But does it alter the case whether I agree before hand or not, to pay him for the child? He steals him, and then sells him to me. He is found by his parents in my hands. Will it avail me to say I purchased him and paid my money for him? Will it not be asked, Do you not know that a white person is not merchantable? And shall I not have to pay the damage for detaining that child in my service as a slave? Assuredly, not only in the eyes of the law, but in the judgment of the whole community, I would be regarded a criminal. So when one man steals another and offers him for sale, no one, in view of the Divine law, can buy him, for the reason that the Divine law forbids that man shall in the first place be made a merchantable article. The inquiry must be, if I buy, I buy in violation of the Divine law, and it will not do for me to plead that I bought him. I have him in possession, and that is enough, God condemns me for it as a man-stealer. My having him in possession is evidence against me, and the Mosaic law says, if he be found in my hands, I must die. Now, when Paul said the law was made for men-stealers, was it not also saying the law was made for slaveholders? I am not intending to apply this term in harsh spirit. But I am bound, as I fear God to speak what I am satisfied is the true meaning of the apostle.”
In his “Elements of Moral Science,” the Rev. Francis Wayland, D.D., one of the most erudite and distinguished Baptists now living, says:—