r entire slave population,--are furnished with the Bible, and
qualified to read and comprehend it; and also with stated preaching.
They need a written and preached gospel, were it only to fit them to
exchange, with advantage, a state of vassalage for the dignity of
freemen; for all experience proves that the Bible and the pulpit are of
all instruments the best to qualify men safely to exercise the right of
self-government. But there is a servitude more dreadful by far than any
domestic bondage that men have ever groaned under; and your slaves need
the Bible, and the Bible preached, to prove God's instruments of
breaking the chains imposed by Satan, and making them Christ's freemen.
Before God and in prospect of eternity, the distinctions between the
master and his slave dwindle into insignificance. Having souls that are
alike impure and alike precious, alike remembered by a dying Saviour and
alike in need of the regenerating change, they stand alike in need of
God's Word, written and preached, as the Spirit's instrument in renewing
and sanctifying the soul. Hence the Bible and preaching are as much the
rightful inheritance of the slave as of the master. We rejoice that
these truths and the obligations resulting therefrom are, to some
extent, recognized by southern Christians; and that, in spite of certain
adverse statutes, so much is being done there for the spiritual
well-being of the slaves. Go on, brethren, in the good work of
evangelizing your slave population; in teaching them the art of reading
and the rudiments of knowledge; in putting the Bible into their hands,
and affording them stated opportunities to read it, and to hear it
expounded by you and by Christ's ministers. Go on, we say, till there be
not one southern slave, who, in point of religious privileges, is not on
a footing of equality with yourselves. Prosecuting this laudable work in
the spirit of love, you will probably encounter no serious opposition.
The adverse but dead statutes referred to will not, we hope, be
galvanized into life, in order to oppose you.

It only remains that we name a few things, which we trust our Southern
brethren will unite with us in saying that they should refrain from
doing. (1.) You ought not to, and we trust you will not, betray
impatience and irritation, whenever we of the North attempt to press the
claims of the enslaved on your attention. Your doing this,--as you
sometimes have,--seems to indicate, that, in your opinio