o far from being a good thing, is a
tremendous curse; yea, more, that it is a stupendous wrong; and hence,
that it should be tolerated in the church of Christ no longer than the
best interests of all concerned may render necessary for a safe
termination.

But it may be, after all, that I have failed to secure the assent of
some of my southern brethren to the justness of the foregoing positions
and inferences. It may be that they still regard the system of bondage
prevailing in their midst as in the main beneficial, defensible from the
Bible, and, with some modifications perhaps, worthy of perpetuity. Well,
brethren, suppose you do thus regard it; and for argument's sake
suppose, too, that you may possibly be right,--that slave-holding may be
in itself the harmless thing which you deem it; ought you not
cheerfully to abandon it, in obedience to a great Bible
principle,--that of refraining from things which are in themselves
lawful, or which your conscience may not condemn, out of regard to the
conscience of aggrieved Christian brethren, or to the prejudices of
those whose salvation you would not obstruct? You are aware, brethren,
that this magnanimous principle Paul both inculcated and exemplified.
You are also aware that a large majority of the Christians now living
regard your cherished institution as unjustifiable, and at variance with
the spirit of Christianity; and, so regarding it, they long for its
extinction, and are grieved with you for cleaving to it so tenaciously,
and refusing to concert measures for its ultimate overthrow. Indeed,
they are more than grieved; they are profoundly agitated by the fresh
developments of the iniquitous system which you are helping to uphold;
and there seems no prospect, while that system endures, of their
becoming tranquillized. A tempest has sprung up and is raging in the
church of Christ,--to say nothing of the civilized world,--which seems
not likely to cease till its cause be removed; and slavery is that
cause. Now I put it to you, brethren, if here be not an opportunity of
exemplifying, on a broad scale, the self-denying and noble principle
which Paul indicates in the words, "All things are lawful for me, but
all things are not expedient;" "Eat not for his sake that shewed it, and
for conscience' sake: ... conscience, I say, not thine own, but of the
other;" "Though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant
unto all, that I might gain the more." Have it, if you w