night and day--in
storm, as well as in sunshine--under the
lash--bleeding--groaning--dying--and all this, not to minister to his
actual needs, but to his luxuriousness and sensuality.

You ridicule the idea of the abolition of slavery, because it would make
the slaveholder "so poor, as to oblige him to take hold of the maul and
wedge himself--he must catch, curry, and saddle his own horse--he must
black his own brogans (for he will not be able to buy boots)--his wife
must go herself to the wash-tub--take hold of the scrubbing broom, wash
the pots, and cook all that she and her rail-mauler will eat." If Paul
were, as you judge he was, opposed to the abolition of slavery, it is at
least certain, from what he says of the character of his life in his
address to the Elders, that his opposition did not spring from such
considerations as array you against it. In his estimation, manual labor
was honorable. In a slaveholding community, it is degrading. It is so in
your own judgment, or you would not hold up to ridicule those humble
employments, which reflect disgrace, only where the moral atmosphere is
tainted by slavery. That the pernicious influences of slavery in this
respect are felt more or less, in every part of this guilty nation, is
but too true. I put it to your candor, sir, whether the obvious fact,
that slavery makes the honest labor of the hands disreputable, is not a
weighty argument against the supposition that God approves it? I put it
to your candor, sir, whether the fact, which you, at least, cannot
gain-say, that slavery makes even ministers of the gospel despise the
employments of seven-eighths of the human family, and, consequently, the
humble classes, who labor in them--I put it to your candor, whether the
institution, which breeds such contempt of your fellow-men and fellow
Christians, must not be offensive to Him, who commands us to "Honor all
men, and love the brotherhood?"

In another argument, you attempt to show, that Paul's letter to Philemon
justifies slaveholding, and also the apprehension and return of fugitive
slaves. After having recited the Resolution of the Chilicothe
Presbytery--"that to apprehend a slave who is endeavoring to escape from
slavery, with a view to restore him to his master, is a direct violation
of the Divine law, and, when committed by a member of the church, ought
to subject him to censure"--you undertake to make your readers believe,
that Paul's sending Onesimus to Philemon,