the middle ages, as to civil and religious toleration, prevailing.
However much we may reprobate and deplore those unworthy views of God and religion which are implied in such declarations as are here recorded,—however blasphemous and absurd they may appear,—still, it is apparent that their authors uttered them with sincerity; and this is the most melancholy feature of the case. They are as sincere as Paul when he breathed out threatenings and slaughter, and when he thought within himself that he ought to do many things contrary to the name of Jesus. They are as sincere as the Brahmin or Hindoo, conscientiously supporting a religion of cruelty and blood. They are as sincere as many enlightened, scholarlike and Christian men in modern Europe, who, born and bred under systems of civil and religious despotism, and having them entwined with all their dearest associations of home and country, and having all their habits of thought and feeling biased by them, do most conscientiously defend them.
There is something in conscientious conviction, even in case of the worst kind of opinions, which is not without a certain degree of respectability. That the religion expressed by the declarations which we have quoted is as truly Antichrist as the religion of the Church of Rome, it is presumed no sensible person out of the sphere of American influences will deny. That there may be very sincere Christians under this system of religion, with all its false principles and all its disadvantageous influences, liberality must concede. The Church of Rome has had its Fenelon, its Thomas â Kempis; and the Southern Church, which has adopted these principles, has had men who have risen above the level of their system. At the time of the Reformation, and now, the Church of Rome had in its bosom thousands of praying, devoted, humble Christians, which, like flowers in the clefts of rocks, could be counted by no eye, save God's alone. And so, amid the rifts and glaciers of this horrible spiritual and temporal despotism, we hope are blooming flowers of Paradise, patient, prayerful, and self-denying Christians; and it is the deepest grief, in attacking the dreadful system under which they have been born and brought up, that violence must be done to their cherished feelings and associations. In another and better world, perhaps, they may appreciate the motives of those who do this.
But now another consideration comes to the mind. These Southern Christians have been united in ecclesiastical relations with Christians of the northern and free states, meeting with them, by their representatives, yearly, in their various ecclesiastical assemblies. One might hope, in case of such a union, that those debasing views of Christianity, and that deadness of public sentiment, which were the inevitable result of an education under the slave system, might have been qualified by intercourse with Christians in free states, who, having grown up under free institutions, would naturally be supposed to feel the utmost abhorrence of such sentiments. One would have supposed that the church and clergy of the free states would naturally have used the most strenuous endeavors, by all the means in their power, to convince their brethren of errors so dishonorable to Christianity, and tending to such dreadful practical results. One would have supposed also, that, failing to convince their brethren, they would have felt it due to Christianity to clear themselves from all complicity with these sentiments, by the most solemn, earnest and reiterated protests.
Let us now inquire what has, in fact, been the course of the Northern church on this subject.
Previous to making this inquiry, let us review the declarations that have been made in the Southern church, and see what principles have been established by them.
1. That slavery is an innocent and lawful relation, as much as that of parent and child, husband and wife, or any other lawful relation of society. (Harmony Pres., S. C.)
2. That it is consistent with the most fraternal regard for the good of the slave. (Charleston Union Pres., S. C.)
3. That masters ought not to be disciplined for selling slaves without their consent. (New-school Pres. Church, Petersburg, Va.)
4. That the right to buy, sell, and hold men for purposes of gain, was given by express permission of God. (James Smylie and his Presbyteries.)
5. That the laws which forbid the education of the slave are right, and meet the approbation of the reflecting part of the Christian community. (Ibid.)
6. That the fact of slavery is not a question of morals at all, but is purely one of political economy. (Charleston Baptist Association.)
7. The right of masters to dispose of the time of their slaves has been distinctly recognized by the Creator of all things (Ibid.)
