ed Pharaoh, not to
mitigate the bondage of the Israelites, but to deliver them from it--and
that, too, immediately. The system of slavery is wicked in God's sight,
and, therefore, did He require of Pharaoh its immediate abandonment. The
phrase, "let my people go, that they may serve me," shows most
strikingly one feature of resemblance between Egyptian and American
slavery. Egyptian slavery did not allow its subjects to serve God,
neither does American. The Egyptian master stood between his slave and
their God: and how strikingly and awfully true is it, that the American
master occupies the like position! Not only is the theory of slavery,
the world over, in the face of God's declaration; "all souls are mine:"
but American slaveholders have brought its practical character to
respond so fully to its theory--they have succeeded, so well, in
excluding the light and knowledge of God from the minds of their
slaves--that they laugh at His claim to "all souls."

3d. Paul, in one of his letters to the Corinthian Church, tells
servants--say slaves, to suit your views--if they may be free, to prefer
freedom to bondage. But if it be the duty of slaves to prefer freedom to
bondage, how clearly is it the correlative duty of the master to grant
it to him! You interpret the Apostle's language, in this case, as I do;
and it is not a little surprising, that, with your interpretation of it,
you can still advocate slavery. You admit, that Paul says--I use your
own words--"a state of freedom, on the whole, is the best." Now, it
seems to me, that this admission leaves you without excuse, for
defending slavery. You have virtually yielded the ground. And this
admission is especially fatal to your strenuous endeavors to class the
relation of master and slave with the confessedly proper relations of
life, and to show that, like these, it is approved of God. Would Paul
say to the child, "a state of freedom" from parental government "on the
whole is the best?" Would he say to the wife, "a state of freedom from
your conjugal bonds" on the whole is the best? Would he say to the child
and wife, in respect to this freedom, "use it rather?" Would he be thus
guilty of attempting to annihilate the family relation?

Does any one wonder, that the Apostle did not use stronger language, in
advising to a choice and enjoyment of freedom? It is similar to that
which a pious, intelligent, and prudent abolitionist would now use under
the like circumstances. Pau