So, then, Abraham lived in the midst of a system of slave-holding exactly the same in nature with that in the South,—a system ordained of God as really as the other forms of government round about him. He, then, with the divine blessing, made himself the master of slaves, men, women, and children, by buying them,—by receiving them in gifts,—by having them born in his house; and he controlled them as property, just as really as the Southern master in the present day. I ask now, was Abraham a man-stealer? Oh, no, you reiterate: but the Southern master is. Why?



Is the Southern Master a Man-Stealer?

Do you, sir, or anybody, contend that the Southern master seized his slave in Africa, and forcibly brought him away to America, contrary to law? That, and that alone, was and is kidnapping in divine and human statute. No. What then? Why, the abolitionist responds, The African man-stealer sold his victim to the slave-holder; he, to the planter; and the negro has been ever since in bondage: therefore the guilt of the man-stealer has cleaved to sellers, buyers, and inheritors, to this time, and will through all generations to come. That is the charge.

And it brings up the question so often and triumphantly asked by the abolitionist; i.e. "You," he says to the slave-holder,—"you admit it was wrong to steal the negro in Africa. Can the slave-holder, then, throw off wrong so long as he holds the slave at any time or anywhere thereafter?" I answer, yes; and my reply shall be short, yet conclusive. It is this:—Guilt, or criminality, is that state of a moral agent which results from his actual commission of a crime or offence knowing it to be crime or violation of law. That is the received definition of guilt, and you, I know, do accept it. The guilt, then, of kidnapping terminated with the man-stealer, the seller, the buyer, and holders, who, knowingly and intentionally, carried on the traffic contrary to the divine law. THAT GUILT attaches in no sense whatever, as a personal, moral responsibility, to the present slave-holder. Observe, I am here discussing, not the question of mere slave-holding, but whether the master, who has had nothing to do with the slave-trade, can now hold the slave without the moral guilt of the man-stealer? I have said that that guilt, in no sense whatever, rests upon him; for he neither stole the man, nor bought him from the kidnapper, nor had any complicity in the traffic. Here, I know, the abolitionist insists that the master is guilty of this complicity, unless he will at once emancipate the slave; because, so long as he holds him, he thereby, personally and voluntarily, assumes the same relation which the original kidnapper or buyer held to the African.

This is Dr. Cheever's argument in a recent popular sermon. He thinks it unanswerable; but it has no weight whatever. It is met perfectly by adding one word to his proposition. Thus:—The master does NOT assume the same relation which the original man-stealer or buyer held to the African. The master's relation to God and to his slave is now wholly changed from that of the man-stealer, and those engaged in the trade; and his obligation is wholly different. What is his relation? and what is his obligation? They are as follows:——

The master finds himself, with no taint of personal concern in the African trade, in a Christian community of white Anglo-Americans, holding control over his black fellow-man, who is so unlike himself in complexion, in form, in other peculiarities, and so unequal to himself in attributes of body and mind, that it is impossible, in every sense, to place him on a level with himself in the community. This is his relation to the negro. What, then, does God command him to do? Does God require him to send the negro back to his heathen home from whence he was stolen? That home no longer exists. But, if it did remain, does God command the master to send his Christianized slave into the horrors of his former African heathenism? No. God has placed the master under law entirely different from his command to the slave-trader. God said to the trader, Let the negro alone. But he says to the present master, Do unto the negro all the good you can; make him a civilized man; make him a Christian man; lift him up and give him all he has a right to claim in the good of the whole community. This the master can do; this he must do, and then leave the result with the Almighty.

We reach the same conclusion by asking, What does God say to the negro-slave?

Does he tell him to ask to be sent back to heathen Africa? No. Does he give him authority to claim a created equality and unalienable right to be on a level with the white man in civil and social relations? No. To ask the first would be to ask a great evil; to claim the second is to demand a natural and moral impossibility. No. God tells him to seek none of these things. But he commands him to know the facts in his case as they are in the Bible, and have ever been, and ever will be in Providence:—that he is not the white man's equal,—that he can never have his level—that he must not claim it; but that he can have, and ought to have, and must have, all of good, in his condition as a slave, until God may reveal a higher happiness for him in some other relation than that he must ever have to the Anglo-American. The present slave-holder, then, by declining to emancipate his bondman, does not place himself in the guilt of the man-stealer or of those who had complicity with him; but he stands exactly in that NICK of time and place, in the course of Providence, where wrong, in the transmission of African slavery, ends, and right begins.

I have, sir, fairly stated this, your strongest argument, and fully met it. The Southern master is not a man-stealer. The abolitionist—repulsed in his charge that the slave-owner is a kidnapper, either in fact or by voluntarily assuming any of the relations of the traffic—then makes his impeachment on his second affirmation, mentioned at the opening of this letter. That the slave-holder is, nevertheless, thus guilty, because, in the simple fact of being a master, he steals from the negro his unalienable right to freedom.

This, sir, looks like a new view of the subject. The crime forbidden in the Bible was stealing and selling a man; i.e. seizing and forcibly carrying away, from country or State, a human being—man, woman, or child—contrary to law, and selling or holding the same. But the abolitionist gives us to understand this crime rests on the slave-holder in another sense:—namely, that he steals from the negro a metaphysical attribute,—his unalienable right to liberty!

This is a new sort of kidnapping. This is, I suppose, stealing the man from himself, as it is sometimes elegantly expressed,—robbing him of his body and his soul. Sir, I admit this is a strong figure of speech, a beautiful personification, a sonorous rhetorical flourish, which must make a deep impression on Dr. Cheever's people, Broadway, New York, and on your congregation, Washington Square, Philadelphia; but it is certainly not the Bible crime of man-stealing. And whether the Southern master is guilty of this sublimated thing will be understood by us when you prove that the negro, or anybody else, has such metaphysical right to be stolen,—such transcendental liberty not in subordination to the good of the whole people. In a word, sir, this refined expression is, after all, just the old averment that the slave-holder is guilty of sin per se! That's it.

I have given you, in reply, the Old Testament. In my next, I propose to inquire what the New Testament says in the light of the Golden Rule.

F.A. Ross.

Huntsville, Ala., Jan. 31, 1857.



The Golden Rule.



This view of the Golden Rule is the only exposition of that great text which has ever been given in words sufficiently clear, and, with practical illustrations, to make the subject intelligible to every capacity. The explanation is the truth of God, and it settles forever the slavery question, so far as it rests on this precept of Jesus Christ.



No. IV.



Rev. Albert Barnes:—

Dear Sir:—The argument against slave-holding, founded on the Golden Rule, is the strongest which can be presented, and I admit that, if it cannot be perfectly met, the master must give the slave liberty and equality. But if it can be absolutely refuted, then the slave-holder in this regard may have a good conscience; and the abolitionist has nothing more to say. Here is the rule.

"Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; for this is the law and the prophets." (Matt. vii. 12.)

In your "Notes," on this passage you thus write:—"This command has been usually called the Savior's Golden Rule; a name given to it on account of its great value.—All that you EXPECT or DESIRE of others, in similar circumstances, DO TO THEM."

This, sir, is your exposition of the Savior's rule of right. With all due respect, I decline your interpretation. You have missed the meaning by leaving out ONE word. Observe,—you do not say, All that you OUGHT to expect or desire, &c., THAT do to them. No. But you make the EXPECTATION or DESIRE, which every man ACTUALLY HAS in similar circumstances, THE MEASURE of his DUTY to every other man. Or, in different words, you make, without qualification or explanation, the MERE EXPECTATION or DESIRE which every man,—with no instruction, or any sort of training,—wise or simple, good or bad, heathen, Mohammedan, nominal Christian,—WOULD HAVE in similar circumstances, THE LAW OF OBLIGATION, always binding upon him TO DO THAT SAME THING unto his neighbor!

Sir, you have left out the very idea which contains the sense of that Scripture. It is this: Christ, in his rule, presupposes that the man to whom he gives it knows, and from the Bible, (or providence, or natural conscience, so far as in harmony with the Bible,) the various relations in which God has placed him; and the respective duties in those relations; i.e. The rule assumes that he KNOWS what he OUGHT to expect or desire in similar circumstances.

I will test this affirmation by several and varied illustrations. I will show how Christ, according to your exposition of his rule, speaks on the subject,—of revenge, marriage, emancipation,—the fugitive from bondage. And how he truly speaks on these subjects.



Revenge—Right according to your view of the Golden Rule.

Indian and Missionary—Prisoner tied to a tree, stuck over with burning splinters.

Here is an Indian torturing his prisoner. The missionary approaches and beseeches him to regard the Golden Rule. "Humph!" utters the savage: "Golden Rule! what's that?" "Why" says the good man, "all that you expect or desired other Indians, in similar circumstances, do you even so to them." "Humph!" growls the warrior, with a fierce smile,—"Missionary—good: that's what I do now. If I was tied to that tree, I would expect and desire him to have his revenge,—to do to me as I do to him; and I would sing my death-song, as he sings his. Missionary, your rule is Indian rule,—good rule, missionary. Humph!" And he sticks more splinters into his victim, brandishes his tomahawk, and yells.

Sir, what has the missionary to say, after this perfect proof that you have mistaken the great law of right? Verily, he finds that the rule, with your explanation, tells the Indian to torture his prisoner. Verily, he finds that the wild man has the best of the argument. He finds he had left out the word OUGHT; and that he can't put it in, until he teaches the Indian things which as yet he don't know. Yea, he finds he gave the commandment too soon; for that he must begin back of that commandment, and teach the savage God's ordination of the relations in which he is to his fellow-men, before he can make him comprehend or apply the rule as Christ gives it.



Marriage—Void under your Interpretation of the Golden Rule.

Lucy Stone, and Moses—Lady on sofa, having just divorced herself—Moses, with the Tables of the Law, appears: she falls at his feet, and covers her face with her hands.

This woman, everybody knows, was married some time since, after a fashion; that is to say, protesting publicly against all laws of wedlock, and entering into the relation so long only as she, or her husband, might continue pleased therewith.

Very well. Then I, without insult to her or offense to my readers, suppose that about this time she has shown her unalienable right to liberty and equality by giving her husband a bill of divorcement. Free again, she reclines on her couch, and is reading the Tribune. It is mid-day. But there is a light, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about her. And he, who saw God on Sinai, stands before her, the glory on his face, and the tables of stone in his hands. The woman falls before him, veils her eyes with her trembling fingers, and cries out, "Moses, oh, I believed till now that thou practised deception, in claiming to be sent of God to Israel. But now, I know thou didst see God in the burning bush, and heard him speak that law from the holy mountain. Moses, I know ... I confess.".... And Moses answers, and says unto her, "Woman, thou art one of a great class in this land, who claim to be more just than God, more pure than their Maker, who have made their inward light their God. Woman, thou in 'convention' hast uttered Declaration of Independence from man. And, verily, thou hast asserted this claim to equality and unalienable right, even now, by giving thy husband his bill of divorcement, in thy sense of the Golden Rule. Yea, verily, thou hast done unto him all that thou expectedst or desiredst of him, in similar circumstances. And now thou thinkest thyself free again. Woman, thou art a sinner. Verily, thine inward light, and declaration of independence, and Golden Rule, do well agree the one with the other. Verily, thou hast learned of Jefferson, and Channing, and Barnes. But, woman, notwithstanding thou hast sat at the feet of these wise men, I, Moses, say thou art a sinner before the law, and the prophets, and the gospel. Woman, thy light is darkness; thy declaration of equality and right is vanity and folly; and thy Golden Rule is license to wickedness.

"Woman, hast thou ears? Hear: I, by authority of God, ordained that the man should rule over thee. I placed thee, and children, and men-servants, and maid-servants, under the same law of subjection to the government ordained of God in the family,—the state. I for a time sanctioned polygamy, and made it right. I, for the hardness of men's hearts, allowed them, and made it right, to give their wives a bill of divorcement. Woman, hear. Paul, having the same Spirit of God, confirms my word. He commands wives, and children, and servants, after this manner:—'Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as it is fit in the Lord; children, obey your parents in all things, for this is well pleasing unto the Lord; servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers; but in singleness of heart, fearing God.' Woman, Paul makes that rule the same, and that submission, the same. The manner of the rule he varies with the relations. He requires it to be, in the love of the husband, even as Christ loved the church,—in the mildness of the father, not provoking the children to anger, lest they be discouraged,—in the justice and equity of the master, knowing that he also has a master in heaven: (Colossians.) Woman, hear. Paul says to thee, the man now shall have one wife, and he now shall not give her a bill of divorcement, save for crime. Woman, thou art not free from thy husband. Christ's Golden Rule must not be interpreted by thee as A. Barnes has rendered it; Christ assumes that thou believest God's truth,—that thou knowest the relation of husband and wife, and the obligations and rights of the same, as in the Bible; then, in the light of this knowledge, verily, thou art required to do what God says thou oughtest to do. Woman, thou art a sinner. Go, sin no more. Go, find thy husband; see to it that he takes thee back. Go, submit to him, and honor him, and obey him."



Emancipation—Ruin—Golden Rule, in your meaning, carried out.

Island in the Tropics—Elegant houses falling to decay—Broad fields abandoned to the forest—Wharves grass-grown—Negroes relapsing into the savage state—A dark cloud over the island, through which the lightning glares, revealing, in red writing, these words:—"Redeemed, regenerated, and disenthralled by the irresistible genius of universal emancipation".—[Gospel—according to Curran—and the British Parliament.]

Jamaica, sir, to say nothing of St. Domingo, is illustration of your theory of the Golden Rule, in negro emancipation. You tell the Southern master that all he would expect or desire, if he were a slave, he must do unto his bondman; that he must not pause to ask whether the relation of master and slave be ordained of God or not. No. You tell him, if he would expect or desire liberty were he a slave, that settles the question as to what he is to do! He must let his bondman go free. Yea, that is what you teach: because the moment you put in the word OUGHT, and say, all that you OUGHT to expect or desire,—i.e. all that you know God commands you to expect or desire in your relations to men, as established by him,—THAT do to them. Sir, when you thus explain the Golden Rule, then your argument against slave-holding, so far as founded on this rule, is at once arrested; it is stopped short, in full career; it has to wait for reinforcement of FACT, which may never come up. For, suppose the FACT to be, that the relation of master and slave is one mode of the government ordained of God. Then, sir, the master, knowing that FACT, and knowing what the slave, as a slave, OUGHT to expect or desire, he, the master, then FULFILS THE GOLDEN RULE when he does that unto his slave which, in similar circumstances, he OUGHT to expect to be done unto himself. Now comes the question, OUGHT he then to expect or desire liberty and equality? THAT is the question of questions on this subject. And without hesitation I reply, The Golden Rule DECIDES that question YEA or NAY, absolutely and perfectly, as God's word or providence shows that the GOOD of the family, the community, the state, REQUIRES that the slave IS or IS NOT to be set free and made equal. THAT GOOD, as God reveals it, SETTLES THE QUESTION.

Let the master then see to it, how he hears God's word as to THAT GOOD. Let him see to it, how he understands God's providence as to THAT GOOD. Let him see to it, that he makes no mistake as to THAT GOOD. For God will not hold him guiltless, if he will not hear what he tells him as to THAT GOOD. God will not justify him, if he has a bad conscience or blunders in his philosophy. God will punish him, if he fails to bless his land by letting the bond go free when, he OUGHT to emancipate. And God will punish him, if he brings a curse upon his country by freeing his slave when he OUGHT NOT to give him liberty.

So, then, the Golden Rule does not, OF ITSELF, reveal to man at all what are his RELATIONS to his fellow-men; but it tells him what he is to DO, when he ALREADY KNOWS THEM.

So, then, you, sir, cannot be permitted to tell the world that this rule must emancipate all the negro slaves in the United States,—no matter how unprepared they may be,—no matter how degraded,—no matter how unlike and unequal to the white man by creation,—no matter if it be a natural and moral impossibility,—no matter: the Golden Rule must emancipate by authority of the first sentiments of the Declaration of Independence, and by obligation of the great law of liberty,—the intuitional consciousness of the eternal right!

No. The Rule, as said, presupposes that he who is required to obey it does already know the relations in which God has placed him, and the respective duties in those conditions. Has God, then, established the relations of husband and wife, parent and child, master and slave? Yes. Then the command comes. It says to the husband, To aid you in your known obligations to your wife,—to give you a lively sense of it,—suppose yourself to be the wife: whatsoever, therefore, you OUGHT, in that condition, to expect or desire, that, as husband, do unto your wife. It says to the parent, Imagine yourself the child; and whatsoever, as such, you OUGHT to expect or desire, that, as parent, do unto your child. It says to the master, Put yourself in the place of your slave; and whatsoever you OUGHT, in that condition, to expect or desire, that, as master, do unto your slave. Let husband, parent, master, know his obligations from God, and obey the Rule.



Fugitive Slave—Obeying the Golden Rule under your version.

Honorable Joshua R. Giddings and the Angel of the Lord—Hon. Gentleman at table—Nine runaway negroes dining with him—The Angel, uninvited, comes in and disturbs the feast.

Giddings has boasted in Congress of having had nine fugitive slaves to break bread with him at one time. I choose, then, to imagine that, during the dinner, the angel who found Hagar by the fountain stands suddenly in the midst, and says to the negroes, "Ye slaves, whence came ye, and whither will ye go?" And they answer and say, "We flee from the face of our masters. This abolitionist told us to kill, and steal, and run away from bondage; and we have murdered and stolen and escaped. He, thou seest, welcomes us to liberty and equality. We expect and desire to be members of Congress, Governors of States, to marry among the great, and one of us to be President. Giddings, and all abolitionists, tell us that these honors belong to us equally as to white people, and will be given under the Golden Rule." And the angel of the Lord says to them, "Ye slaves, return unto your masters, and submit yourselves under their hands. I sent your fathers, and I send you, into bondage. I mean it unto good, and I will bring it to pass to save much people alive." Then, turning to the tempter, he says, "Thou, a statesman! thou, a reader of my word and providence! why hast thou not understood my speech to Hagar? I gave her, a slave, to Sarah. She fled from her mistress. I sent her back. Why hast thou not understood my word four thousand years ago,—that the slave shall not flee from his master? Why hast thou also perverted my law in Deuteronomy, (xxiii. 15, 16?) I say therein, 'Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee: he shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates where it liketh him best: thou shalt not oppress him.' Why hast thou not known that I meant the heathen slave who escaped from his heathen master? I commanded, Israel, in such case, not to hold him in bondage. I made this specific law for this specific fact. Why hast thou taught that, in this commandment, I gave license to all men-servants and maid-servants in the whole land of Israel to run away from their masters? Why hast thou thus made me, in one saying, contradict and make void all my laws wherein I ordained that the Hebrews should be slave-owners over their brethren during years, and over the heathen forever? Why hast thou in all this changed my Golden Rule? I, in that rule, assume that men know from revelation and providence the relations in which I have placed them, and their duties therein. I then command them to do unto others what they thus know they ought to do unto them in these relations; and I make the obligation quick and powerful, by telling every man to imagine himself in such conditions, and then he will the better KNOW 'whatsoever' he should do unto his neighbor. Why hast thou made void my law, by making me say, 'All that thou expectest or desirest of others, in similar circumstances, do to them'? I never imagined to give such license to folly and sin. Why hast thou imagined such license to iniquity? Verily, thou tempter, thou hast in thy Golden Rule made these slaves thieves and murderers, and art now eating with them the bread of sin and death.

"Why hast thou tortured my speech wherein I say that I have made of one blood all nations of men, to mean that I have created all men equal and endowed them with rights unalienable save in their consent? I never said that thing! I said that I made all men to descend from one parentage! That is what I say in that place! Why hast thou tortured that plain truth? Thou mightest as well teach that all 'the moving creatures that have life, and fowl that fly above the earth, in the open firmament of heaven,' are created equal, because I said I brought them forth of the water. Thou mightest as well say that 'all cattle, and creeping thing and beast of the earth, are created equal, because I said I brought them forth of the earth, as to affirm the equality of men because I say they are of one blood. Nay, I have made men unequal as the leaves of the trees, the sands of the sea, the stars of heaven. I have made them so, in harmony with the infinite variety and inequality in every thing in my creation. And I have made them unequal in my mercy. Had I made all men equal in attributes of body and mind, then unfallen man would never have realized the varied glories of his destiny. And had I given fallen man equality of nature and unalienable rights, then I had made the earth an Aceldama and Valley of Gehenna. For what would be the strife in all the earth among men equal in body and mind, equal in power, equal in depravity, equal in will, each one maintaining rights unalienable? When would the war end? Who would be the victors where all are giants? Who would sue for peace where none will submit? What would be human social life? Who would be the weak, the loving? Who would seek or need forbearance, compassion, self-denying benevolence? Who would be the grateful? Who would be the humble, the meek? What would be human virtue, what human vice, what human joy or sorrow? Nay, I have made men unequal and given them alienable rights, that I might INSTITUTE HUMAN GOVERNMENT and reveal HUMAN CHARACTER.

"Why hast thou been willingly ignorant of these first principles of the oracles of God, which would have made thee truly a Christian philosopher and statesman?"



Fugitive Slave—Obeying the Golden Rule as Christ gave it

Rev. A. Barnes and the Apostle Paul—Minister of the gospel in his study—Fugitive slave, converted under his preaching, inquiring whether it is not his duty to return to his master—Paul appears and rebukes the minister for wresting his Gospel.

With all respect and affection for you, sir, I imagine a slave, having run away from his master and become a Christian under your preaching, might, with the Bible in his hands and the Holy Spirit in his heart, have, despite your training, question of conscience, whether he did right to leave his master, and ought not to go back. And I think how Paul would listen, and what he would say, to your interpretation of his Epistle to Philemon. I think he would say,—

"I withstand thee to thy face, because thou art to be blamed. Why hast thou written, in thy 'Notes,' that the word I apply to Onesimus may mean, not slave, but hired servant? Why hast thou said this in unsupported assertion? Why hast thou given no respect to Robinson, and all thy wise men, who agree that the word wherein I express Onesimus's relation to Philemon never means a hired servant, but a slave,—the property of his master,—a living possession?

"Why hast thou called in question the fact that Philemon was a slave-holder? Why hast thou taught that, if he was a slave-holder when he became a Christian, he could not continue, consistently, to be a slave-owner and a Christian,—that if he did so continue, he would not be in good standing, but an offender in the church? (See Notes.)

"I say Philemon was the master of Onesimus, in the real sense of a slave-owner, under Roman law, in which he had the right of life and death over him,—being thereby a master in possession of power unknown in the United States. And yet I call Philemon 'our dearly beloved and fellow-laborer,' I tell him that I send to him again Onesimus, who had been unprofitable to him in time past; but now, being a Christian, he would be profitable. I tell him, I send him again, not a slave, (only,) but above a slave, a Christian brother, beloved, specially to me, but how much more unto him, both in the flesh and in the Lord. Dost thou know, Albert Barnes, what I mean by that word, in the flesh? Verily, I knew the things wherein the master and the slave are beloved, the one of the other, in the best affections of human nature, and in the Lord! therefore I say to Philemon that he, as master, could receive Onesimus as his slave, and yet as a brother, MORE beloved, by reason of his relation to him as master, than I could regard him! Yea, verily,—and I say to thee, Albert Barnes, thou hast never been in the South, and thou dost not understand, and canst not understand, the force, or even the meaning, of my words in the flesh; i.e. in the love of the master and the slave to one another. But Philemon I knew would feel its power, and so I made that appeal to him.

"Why hast thou said, that I did not send Onesimus back by authority? I did send him back by authority,—yea, by authority of the Lord Jesus Christ? For it was my duty to send him again to Philemon, whether he had been willing to go or not; and it was his duty to go. But he was willing. So we both felt our obligations; and, when I commanded, he cheerfully obeyed. What else was my duty and his? Had I not said, in line upon line and in precept upon precept, 'Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eye-service, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, pleasing God'? (Coloss. iii. 22.) Had not Peter written, 'Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward'? (1 Pet. ii. 18.) Onesimus had broken these commandments when he fled from his master. Was it not then of my responsibility to send him again to Philemon? And was it not Christ's law to him to return and submit himself under his master's hand?

"Why, then, hast thou not understood my speech? Has it been even because thou couldst not hear my word? What else has hindered? What more could I have said, than (in 1 Tim. vi. 1-5) I do say, to rebuke all abolitionists? Yea, I describe them—I show their principles—as fully as if I had called them by name in Boston, in New York, in Philadelphia, and said they would live in 1857.

"And yet thou hast, in thy commentary on my letter to Timothy, utterly distorted, maimed, and falsified my meaning. Thou hast mingled truth and untruth so together as to make me say what was not and is not in my mind. For thou teachest the slave, while professing not so to teach him, that I tell him that he is not to count his master worthy of all honor; that he is to despise him; that he is not to do him service as to a Christian faithful and beloved. No. But thou teachest the slave, in my name, to regard his Christian master an offender in the sight of Christ, if he continues a slave-owner.

"Thou tellest him to obey only in the sense in which he is to submit to injustice, oppression, and cruelty; and that he is ever to seek to throw off the yoke in his created equality and unalienable right to liberty. (See Notes.)

"This is what thou hast taught as my gospel. But I commanded thee to teach and exhort just the contrary. I commanded thee to say after this way:—'Let as many servants as are under the yoke, count their own masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren; but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and exhort.'

"Thou, in thy 'Notes,' art compelled, though most unwillingly, to confess that I do mean slaves in this place, in the full and proper sense; yea, slaves under the Roman law. Good. Then do I here tell slaves to count their masters, even when not Christians, worthy of all honor; and, when Christians, to regard them as faithful and beloved, and not to despise them, and to do them service? Yet, after all this, do I say to these same slaves that they have a created equality and unalienable right to liberty, under which, whenever they think fit, I command them to dishonor their masters, despise them, and run away! Sir, I did never so instruct slaves; nay, I did never command thee so to teach them. But I did and do exhort thee not so to train them; for I said then and say now to thee, 'If any man teach [slaves] otherwise, [than to honor their masters as faithful and beloved, and to do them service,] and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and DESTITUTE OF THE TRUTH, supposing that gain is godliness; from such withdraw thyself,'

"What more could I have said to the abolitionists of my day? What more can I say to them in this day? That which was true of them two thousand years ago, is true now. I rebuked abolitionists then, and I rebuke them now. I tell them the things in their hearts,—the things on their tongues,—the things in their hands,—are contrary to wholesome words, even the words of the Lord Jesus Christ. Canst thou hear my words in this place without feeling how faithfully I have given the head, and the heart, and the words, and the doings of the men, from whom thou hast not withdrawn thyself?

"Verily, thou canst not hear my speech, and therefore thou canst not interpret my gospel. Thou believest it is impossible that I sanction slavery! Hence it is impossible for thee to understand my words: for I do sanction slavery. How? Thus:—

"I found slavery in Asia, in Greece, in Rome. I saw it to be one mode of the government ordained of God. I regarded it, in most conditions of fallen mankind, necessarily and irresistibly part of such government, and therefore as natural, as wise, as good, in such conditions, as the other ways men are ruled in the state or the family.

"I took up slavery, then, as such ordained government,—wise, good, yea best, in certain circumstances, until, in the elevating spirit and power of my gospel, the slave is made fit for the liberty and equality of his master, if he can be so lifted up. Hence I make the RULE of magistrate, subject, master and servant, parent and child, husband and wife, THE SAME RULE; i.e. I make it THE SAME RIGHT in the superior to control the obedience and the service of the inferior, bound to obey, whatever the difference in the relations and service to be rendered. Yea, I give exactly the same command to all in these relations; and thus, in all my words, I make it plainly to be understood that I regard slavery to be as righteous a mode of government as that of magistrate and subject, parent and child, husband and wife, during the circumstances and times in which God is pleased to have it continue. I saw all the injustice, the oppression, the cruelty, masters might be guilty of, and were and are now guilty of; but I saw no more injustice, oppression, and cruelty, in the relation of master and slave, than I saw in all other forms of rule,—even in that of husband and wife, parent and child. In my gospel I condemn wrong in all these states of life, while I fully sanction and sustain the relations themselves. I tell the magistrate, husband, father, master, how to rule; I tell the subject, wife, child, servant, how to submit. Hence, I command the slave not to flee from bondage, just as I require the subject, the wife, the child, not to resist or flee from obedience. I warn the slave, if he leaves his master he has sinned, and must return; and I make it the duty of all men to see to it, that he shall go back. Hence, I myself did what I command others to do: I sent Onesimus back to his master.

"Thus I sanction slavery everywhere in the New Testament. But it is impossible for thee, with thy principles,—thy law of reason,—thy law of created equality and unalienable right,—thy elevation of the Declaration of Independence above the ordinance of God,—to sustain slavery. Nay, it is impossible for thee, with thy interpretation of Christ's Golden Rule, to recognise the system of servile labor; nay, it is impossible for thee to tell this slave to return to his master as I sent Onesimus back; nay, thou art guarded by thy Golden Rule. Thou tellest him that, if thou hadst been in his place, thou wouldst have expected, desired freedom, that thou wouldst have run away, and that thou wouldst not now return; that thou wouldst have regarded thy created equality and unalienable right as thy supreme law, and have disregarded and scorned all other obligations as pretended revelation from God. Therefore thou now doest unto him 'whatsoever' thou wouldst expect or desire him to do unto thee in similar circumstances; i.e. thou tellest him he did right to run away, and will do right not to return! This is thy Golden Rule. But I did not instruct thee so to learn Christ. Nay, this slave knows thou hast not not given him the mind of Christ; nay, he knows that Christ commands thee to send him to his master again. And thus do what thou OUGHTEST to expect or desire in similar circumstances; yea, do now thy duty, and this slave, like Onesimus, will bless thee for giving him a good conscience whenever he will return to his obedience. Thus Paul, the aged, speaks to thee."

So, then, the Golden Rule is the whole Bible; yea, Christ says it is-"the law and the prophets;" yea, it is the Old Testament and the New condensed; and with ever-increasing glory of Providence in one sublime aphorism, which can be understood and obeyed only by those who know what the Bible, or Providence, reveals as to man's varied conditions and his obligations therein.

I think, sir, I have refuted your interpretation of the Golden Rule, and have given its true meaning.

The slave-holder, then, may have a good conscience under this commandment. Let him so exercise himself as to have a conscience void of offence towards God and towards men.

Yours, &c. F.A. Ross.



Conclusion.



I intended to, and may yet, in a subsequent edition, write two more letters to A. Barnes. The one, to show how infidelity has been passing off from the South to the North,—especially since the Christian death of Jackson; the other, to meet Mr. Barnes's argument founded on the spirit of the age.

The End.