nder the modern anti-slavery
doctrine that immediate emancipation is the only remedy for the sin of
slavery. The South was alarmed and soon became imperious and exacting;
the North was timid and yielding. Then began the special era of
ecclesiastical compromises. Let me specify:

1. The utterances as to the guilt of slavery were modified, reaching at
length the point where some of the most eminent doctors of divinity and
the most learned professors in theological seminaries tried to vindicate
from the Bible the toleration of slavery.

2. Disclaimers were made as to the right to interfere with slavery. As,
for example, a large ecclesiastical assembly by vote disclaimed "any
right, wish or intention to interfere with the civil and political
relation between master and slave, as it exists in the slaveholding
States of this Union." A distinguished bishop is reported to have said:
"I have never yet advised the liberation of a slave, and I think I never
shall;" and an eminent doctor of divinity declared: "If by one prayer I
could liberate every slave in the land I would not dare to offer it."

3. Fine distinctions were drawn in behalf of slaveholders. It was
warmly urged in their defense that while slavery was a sin, the
individual slaveholder might not in every case be a sinner--a charity
that was made to cover a multitude of sinners. One large religious
assembly declared that it could not "exclude slaveholders from the table
of the Lord;" it would rather "sympathize with and succor them in their
embarrassments." An elaborate report was adopted at another large
convocation, in which it was suggested that the convert should be
admitted into the church while still a slaveholder, an oppressive ruler
and a proud Brahmin, in the hope that under proper teaching, "the master
may be prepared to break the bonds of the slave, the oppressive ruler to
dispense justice to the subject, and the proud Brahmin fraternally to
embrace the man of low caste."

The great motive for these concessions was the desire for church
enlargement. Slavery was a sin, but the slaveholder might not always be
guilty, and if church unity and church extension were to be secured in
the South, some concessions must be made. Then, too, there was
undoubtedly the hope that concessions and fraternal intercourse in
public assemblies and in Christian work would win the confidence of the
slaveholders, and perhaps prepare the way for the gradual removal of
slavery; and