rgia, and seeks a refuge in
the parish of the Connecticut doctor of Divinity, who once gave
public notice that he saw no reason for caring for the servitude of
his fellow men.[43] Under his influence, Caesar becomes a Christian
convert. Burning with love for the son whom he hath begotten in the
gospel, our doctor resolves to send him back to his master.
Accordingly, he writes a letter, gives it to Caesar, and bids him
return, staff in hand, to the "corner-stone of our republican
institutions." Now, what would my Caesar do, who had ever felt a
link of slavery's chain? As he left his _spiritual father_, should
we be surprised to hear him say to himself, What, return of my own
accord to the man who, with the hand of a robber, plucked me from my
mother's bosom!--for whom I have been so often drenched in the sweat
of unrequited toil!--whose violence so often cut my flesh and
scarred my limbs!--who shut out every ray of light from my mind!--who
laid claim to those honors to which my Creator and Redeemer only
are entitled! And for what am I to return? To be cursed, and
smitten, and sold! To be tempted, and torn, and destroyed! I cannot
thus throw myself away--thus rush upon my own destruction.

[Footnote 43: "Why should I care?"]

Who ever heard of the voluntary return of a fugitive from American
oppression? Do you think that the doctor and his friends could
persuade one to carry a letter to the patriarch from whom he had
escaped? And must we believe this of Onesimus?

"Paul sent back Onesimus to Philemon." On what occasion?--"If,"
writes the apostle, "he hath wronged thee, or oweth the aught, put
that on my account." Alive to the claims of duty, Onesimus would
"restore" whatever he "had taken away." He would honestly pay his
debts. This resolution the apostle warmly approved. He was ready, at
whatever expense, to help his young disciple in carrying it into
full effect. Of this he assured Philemon, in language the most
explicit and emphatic. Here we find one reason for the conduct of
Paul in sending Onesimus to Philemon.

If a fugitive slave of the Rev. Dr. Smylie, of Mississippi, should
return to him with a letter from a doctor of divinity in New York,
containing such an assurance, how would the reverend slaveholder
dispose of it? What, he exclaims, have we here? "If Cato has not
been upright in his pecuniary intercourse with you--if he owes you
any thing--put that on my account." What ignorance of southern
institutio