h verses we read, "And Noah awoke from his wine,
and knew what his younger son had done unto him; and he said, Cursed be
Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said,
Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall
enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem, and Canaan shall
be his servant." Is it not preposterous that any man, any Christian, should
read these verses and say slavery was not instituted by God as a curse on
Ham and Canaan and their posterity?

And who can read the history of the world and say this curse has not
existed ever since it was uttered?

"The whole continent of Africa," says Bishop Newton, "was peopled
principally by the descendants of Ham; and for how many ages have the
better parts of that country lain under the dominion of the Romans, then of
the Saracens, and now of the Turks! In what wickedness, ignorance,
barbarity, slavery, misery, live most of the inhabitants! And of the poor
negroes, how many hundreds every year are sold and bought like beasts in
the market, and conveyed from one quarter of the world to do the work of
beasts in another!"

But does this curse authorize the slave-trade? God forbid. He commanded the
Jews to enslave the heathen around them, saying, "they should be their
bondmen forever;" but he has given no such command to other nations. The
threatenings and reproofs uttered against Israel, throughout the old
Testament, on the subject of slavery, refer to their oppressing and keeping
in slavery their own countrymen. Never is there the slightest imputation of
sin, as far as I can see, conveyed against them for holding in bondage the
children of heathen nations.

Yet do the Scriptures evidently permit slavery, even to the present time.
The curse on the serpent, ("And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because
thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle and above every beast
of the field,") uttered more than sixteen hundred years before the curse of
Noah upon Ham and his race, has lost nothing of its force and true meaning.
"Cursed is the ground for thy sake: in sorrow shalt thou eat of it, all the
days of thy life," said the Supreme Being. Has this curse failed or been
removed?

Remember the threatened curses of God upon the whole Jewish tribe if they
forsook his worship. Have not they been fulfilled?

However inexplicable may be the fact that God would appoint the curse of
continual servitu