Confederate clergy. However much the public sentiment may
have been misled respecting the rights and the wrongs of the two parties
in the war, it cannot but be sound at the core on the subject of slavery.
There are many thousands of people who have not the slightest sympathy
with slavery, and who yet sympathise with the slave-owners because they
have a vague impression that the Southerners are brave gentlemen and the
Northerners base mechanics. They have managed by some strange process to
separate the cause of slavery from the cause of the slaveowner, and while
they rejoice at every success which tends towards the establishment of a
confederacy which is to have slavery as the "head stone of the corner,"
they continue to pray as fervently as ever that the fetters of the slaves
may be broken. All such people--and they constitute the mass of the
Southern sympathisers in this country--must be ready to repudiate with the
sternest indignation this attempt to connect the holy religion of Christ
with the most horrible oppression which the cruelty and cupidity of man
ever created.

But it is not enough that the Confederate defence of slavery should be
rejected. It was proper that the Scottish ministers of religion should
deal only with the religious aspect of the question, but it is the duty of
every man who feels that he has any influence in the world--and there is
no man who has not some--to study the political lessons which the address
affords. There can be no doubt that the appeal expresses the genuine
sentiment of the Southern States, softened down by whatever softening
influence there may be in their peculiar kind of Christianity, and shaped
to offend as little as possible the prejudices of British readers. And
what does it show us? Does it show us that emancipation is more likely to
follow from the success of the Southern society which assumes to be at the
helm of all schemes of religion and philanthropy, not only has no desire
to put an end to slavery, but regards it in such a light that it will be
its duty _to extend it as much as possible_. The Southern clergy say that
the relation of master and slave is "not incompatible with our holy
Christianity;" why, therefore, should they seek to get rid of it? From a
thousand pulpits this language will be sent forth week after week, and it
is clear that the religion of the Confederate States will be employed only
to convince the slaveowner that he is doing perfectly right in
per