really fellow-Christians: let them become in a true sense one Church: let them share the same Christian education: let them read the same Bible: let them partake of the Communion together: and it will then be seen whether the relation between fellow-Christians is really compatible with the relation between Master and Slave.
That there are very great difficulties in the way of a religious as well as of a social fusion between the negroes and the whites, no reasonable man would deny. But this shews that the position into which the piratical cupidity of the whites has brought the two races is an awkward one; not that it was sanctioned by St. Paul. As things are at present, the plea that Slavery is a great blessing as a missionary agency, and as a mode of bringing the African heathen within the fold of the Church, can scarcely be maintained. Montesquieu has some remarks on the notion that “religion gives those who profess it the right of making slaves of those who do not, in order the better to labour for its propagation.” “It was this notion,” he says, “which encouraged the destroyers of America in their crimes. It was on this idea that they founded the right of making all those nations slaves; for these brigands, who were determined to be both brigands and Christians, were very devout.”
It is to be borne in mind that the Apostle, who bids slaves obey their masters and be content with their lot for the sake of their Lord’s religion and in the assurance of a higher freedom, also teaches masters to observe justice and equity towards their slaves. “Masters,
