“For they bind heavy burdens, and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men’s shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers.” Idem. 4.
Within the last year, our sympathies have been excited by an account now published to the world, of an African chieftain and slaveholder, who, during the year previous, finding himself cut off from a market on the Western coast, in consequence of the abolition of the slave-trade with Europe and America,—the trade with Arabia, Egypt, and the Barbary States not being sufficient to drain off the surplus number,—put to death three thousand!
The blood of these massacred negroes now cries from the ground unto Dr. Wayland and his disciples—
“Apply, oh, apply to bleeding Africa the doctrine of the golden rule, and relieve us, poor African slaves, from starvation, massacre, and death. Come, oh, come; buy us, that we may be your slaves, and have some chance to learn that religion under which you prosper. Then ‘we shall build up the old wastes’—‘raise up the former desolations,’ and ‘repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations.’ ‘And strangers shall stand and feed your flocks, and the sons of the alien shall be your ploughmen, and your vine-dressers.’ ‘Then ye shall be named the priests of the Lord; men shall call you the ministers of our God.'” Isa. lxi. 4, 5, 6.
We shall here close our remarks on the Rev. Dr. Wayland’s book; and however feeble they may be, yet we can conscientiously say, we have no “doubt” about the truth of our doctrine.
“Forever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven. Thy faithfulness is unto all generations; thou hast established the earth, and it abideth. They continue, this day, according to thine ordinances; for all are thy servants,” (עֲבָדֶֽיךָlʿabadeka ebedeka, slaves.) cxix. 89, 90, 91.
LESSON XI.
Among those who have advocated views adverse to those of our present study, we are compelled to notice Dr. Paley, as one of the most influential, the most dignified, and the most learned. He defines slavery to be “an obligation to labour for the benefit of the master, without the contract or consent of the servant.” He says “that this obligation may arise, consistently with the laws of nature, from three causes: 1st, from crimes; 2d, from captivity; and 3d, from debt.” He says that, “in the first case, the continuance of the slavery, as of any other punishment, ought to be proportionate to the crime. In the second and third cases, it ought to cease as soon as the demand of the injured nation or private creditor is satisfied.” He was among the first to oppose the African slave-trade. He says, “Because, when the slaves were brought to the African slave-market, no questions were asked as to the origin of the vendors’ titles: Because the natives were incited to war for the sake of supplying the market with slaves: Because the slaves were torn away from their parents, wives, children, and friends, homes, companions, country, fields, and flocks, and their accommodation on shipboard not better than that provided for brutes: Because the system of laws by which they are governed is merciless and cruel, and is exercised, especially by their English masters, with rigour and brutality.”
But he thinks the American Revolution, which had just then happened, will have a tendency to accelerate the fall of this most abominable tyranny, and indulges in the reflection whether, in the providence of God, the British legislature, which had so long assisted and supported it, was fit to have rule over so extensive an empire as the North American colonies.