She said nothing, but hid her face in her little babe's neck, pretending to kiss it. But Mr. North wiped his eyes. "There is not much barbarism in that," said he.
"The golden rule," said I; "for this is the law and the prophets.
"The people to whom these touching precepts were given by the Most High, and who were susceptible to these finest appeals, are, as we have said, sometimes represented as a semi-barbarous people, so gross that God was obliged to let them hold slaves! Now, could anything be more civilizing, refining, elevating, than such relationships as this limited servitude of poor Hebrews created? What scenes there must have been oftentimes, when the six years were out, and the servant was about to depart, laden with gifts! And what a scene when, with strong attachment to the family, the servant declined to be free, and went to the door-post to have his ear pierced with the awl, to be a servant, and not only so, but to be an inheritance forever!
"Is this 'the sum of all villanies,' Mr. North?" said I. "Yet it is 'slavery.' 'Auction-blocks,' 'whippings,' 'roastings,' 'separations of families,' are not 'slavery.' They are its abuses; slavery can exist when they cease. I pray you, is such slavery as the God of the Hebrews appointed, in such cases as these, 'forever,' an unmitigated curse?
"Now," said I, "go through our Southern country, and you will find in every city, town, and village just such relationships between the whites and the blacks as must have existed where these Hebrew laws had effect. Think of the little slave-babe, and the Southern lady's letter, which have given occasion to all our conversation. The Gospel, as it subdues and softens the human heart, will make the relationship of involuntary servitude everywhere to be after this pattern. Instead of exciting hatred and jealousy, and provoking war between the whites and blacks, I am for bringing all the influences of the Gospel to bear upon the hearts of the white population, to convert them into such masters as God enjoined the Hebrews to be, and such as the Apostle to the Gentiles enjoined upon Gentile slave-holders as their models. And I am filled with sorrow and astonishment as I see some of the very best and most beloved men among us at the North withholding missionaries and tracts from the Southern country, and—as Gustavus's aunt said some of these do—calling it 'standing up for Jesus!'
"Now," said I, "if such were the injunctions of the Most High as to the manner in which the Hebrews should treat their Hebrew slaves, it is easy to see that such a habit with regard to them would serve greatly to mitigate the sorrows of bondage on the part of Gentile slaves. And thus the curse of slavery, like sin, and even death, is made, under the influences of religion, a means of improvement, a source of blessing. Let but the sun shine on a pile of cloud, and what folds of beauty and deep banks of snowy whiteness does it set forth, and, at the close of day, all the exquisite tints which make the artist despair are flung profusely upon that mass of vapor which but for the sun were a heap of sable cloud.
"The minister," said I, "who, Hattie tells us, classed 'Abraham the slave-holder' with the 'murderer,' and the 'liar and swearer,' knew not what he did. People who laugh and titter at the 'patriarchal institution,' need to peruse the laws of Moses again, with a spirit akin to their beautiful tone; and those who say that to hold a fellow-man as property is 'sin,' are not 'wiser than Daniel,' but they make themselves wiser than God.
"All who sustain the relationship of owner to a human being," said I, "do well to read these injunctions of the Most High, as very many of them do, applying them to themselves. And it is also profitable to read how that a violation of these very slave-laws was, in after years, one great cause of the divine wrath upon the Hebrews. You will find, in the thirty-fourth of Jeremiah, that, not content with having Gentile slaves, the Hebrews violated the law requiring them to release each his Hebrew slaves once in seven years.
"'I made a covenant with your fathers,' God says, 'in the day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, saying, At the end of seven years let ye go every man his brother an Hebrew which hath been sold unto thee. But ye turned and polluted my name, and caused every man his servant to return, and brought them unto subjection. Ye have not hearkened unto me in proclaiming a liberty every one to his brother;—behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine.'
"Thus it is evident that the relation of master and servant was originally ordained and instituted by God as a benevolent arrangement to all concerned,—not 'winked at,' or 'suffered,' like polygamy, but ordained,—that it was full of blessings to all who fulfilled the duties of the relation in the true spirit of the institution; and, moreover, it is true that there are few curses which will be more intolerable than they will suffer who make use of their fellow-men, in the image of God, for the purposes of selfishness and sin; while those who feel their accountableness in this relation, and discharge it in the spirit of the Bible, will find their hearts refined and ennobled, and the relationship will be, to all concerned, a source of blessings whose influences will bring peace to their souls when the grave of the slave and that of his owner are looking up into the same heavens from the common earth."