slavery:--I should be doing you great injustice, were I to convey
the idea that you approve of them. It is admitted that you disapprove of
them; and, it is also admitted, that no responsibility for them rests on
the relation of slaveholder and slave, if that relation have, as you
labor to show, the stamp of Divine approbation. You say, that slavery,
like marriage, is an institution sanctioned by the New Testament; and
that, therefore, neither for the evils which attend it, nor for any
other cause, is it to be argued against. This is sound reasoning, on
your part; and, if your premises are correct, there is no resisting your
deduction. We are, in that case, not only not to complain of the
institution of slavery, but we are to be thankful for it. Considering,
however, that the whole fabric of your argument, in the principal or New
Testament division of your book, is based on the alleged fact that the
New Testament approves of slavery, it seems to me that you have
contented yourself, and sought to make your readers contented, with very
slender evidences of the truth of this proposition. These evidences are,
mainly--that the New Testament does not declare slavery to be a sin:
and, that the Apostles enjoin upon masters and servants their respective
duties; and this, too, in the same connexion in which they make similar
injunctions upon those who stand in the confessedly proper relations of
life--the husband and wife, the parent and child. Your other evidences,
that the New Testament approves of slavery, unimportant as they are,
will not be left unnoticed.

I have attempted to show, that the omission of the New Testament to
declare slavery to be a sin, is not proof that it is not a sin. I pass
on to show, that the Apostolic injunction of duties upon masters and
servants does not prove that slavery is sinless.

I have now reached another grand fallacy in your book. It is also found
in Professor Hodge's article. You, gentlemen, take the liberty to depart
from our standard English translation of the Bible, and to substitute
"slaveholder" for "master"--"slave" for "servant"--and, in substance,
"emperor" for "ruler"--and "subject of an imperial government" for
"subject of civil government generally." I know that this substitution
well suits your purposes: but, I know not by what right you make it.
Professor Hodge tells the abolitionists, certainly without much respect
for either their intelligence or piety, that "it will do no go