Referring to this act of Paul, the Rev. Dr. Stringfellow of Virginia wrote:
“Oh, how immeasurably different Paul’s conduct to this slave and master, from the conduct of our abolition brethren! This is sufficient to teach any man that slavery is not, in the sight of God, what it is in the sight of the abolitionists” (Scriptural View of Slavery).
The Rev. Moses Stuart of Massachusetts wrote:
“What, now, have we here? Paul sending back a Christian servant, who had run away from his Christian master.... Paul’s conscience sent back the fugitive slave. Paul’s conscience, then, like his doctrines, was very different from that of the abolitionists.”
It was no easy task to convince the Bible moralist that slavery was wrong. When the French Revolutionists rejected the Bible, they abolished slavery in the colonies. When the church regained control of the government, the Bible came back, and with it slavery. When Clarkson’s bill for the abolition of slavery was before Parliament, Lord Chancellor Thurlow characterized it as a “miserable and contemptible bill,” and “contrary to the Word of God.”
Charles Bradlaugh, in the North American Review, writing of his own Christian England, says:
“George III., a most Christian king, regarded abolition theories with abhorrence, and the Christian House of Lords was utterly opposed to granting freedom to the slave. When Christian missionaries, some sixty years ago, preached to Demerara negroes under the rule of Christian England, they were treated by Christian judges, holding commission from Christian England, as criminals for so preaching. A Christian commissioned officer, member of the Established Church of England, signed the auction notices for the sale of slaves as late as 1824.”
The most zealous defenders of slavery in this country were Bible moralists. The Rev. Alexander Campbell wrote: “There is not one verse in the Bible inhibiting slavery, but many regulating it. It is not then, we conclude, immoral.”
The Rev. E. D. Simms, professor in Randolph-Macon College, wrote: “These extracts from Holy Writ unequivocally assert the right of property in slaves.”
The Rev. R. Furman, D. D., Baptist, of South Carolina, said: “The right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example.”