ce in their circumstances. Professor
Hodge properly says, that our course should be like theirs, "unless it
can be shown that their circumstances were so different from ours, as to
make the rule of duty different in the two cases." And he as properly
adds, "the obligation to point out and establish this difference rests
upon the abolitionists."

The reasons I have given, why the Apostles did not directly attack
slavery, do not apply to the abolitionists. The arm of civil power does
not restrain us from attacking it. To open our lips against the policy
and institutions of civil government is not certain death. A despotic
government restricted the efforts of the Apostles to do good. But we
live under governments which afford the widest scope for exertions to
bless our fellow men and honor God. Now, if we may not avail ourselves
of this advantage, simply because the Apostles did not have it to avail
themselves of, then whatever other interests may prosper under a
republican government, certain it is, that the cause of truth and
righteousness is not to be benefited by it. Far better never to have had
our boasted form of government, if, whilst it extends the freedom and
multiplies the facilities of the wicked, it relieves the righteous of
none of the restrictions of a despotic government. Again, there is a
religious conscience all over this land, and an enlightened and gospel
sense of right and wrong; on which we can and do (as in your
Introduction you concede is the fact) bring our arguments against
slavery to bear with mighty power. But, on the other hand, the creating
of such a conscience and such a sense, in the heathen and semi-heathen
amongst whom they lived and labored, was the first, and appropriate, and
principal work of the Apostles. To employ, therefore, no other methods
for the moral and religious improvement of the people of the United
States, than were employed by the Apostles for that of the people of the
Roman empire, is as absurd as it would be to put the highest and lowest
classes in a school to the same lessons; or a raw apprentice to those
higher branches of his trade which demand the skill of an experienced
workman.

I am here reminded of what Professor Hodge says were the means relied on
by the Saviour and Apostles for abolishing slavery. "It was," says he,
"by teaching the true nature, dignity, equality, and destiny of men; by
inculcating the principles of justice and love; and by leaving these
princ