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Show 56 common is it for the judgment to receive a shape and hue from self interest, from private affection, from the tyranny of opinion and the passions of the multitude ! Few ministers, we trust, can sin against clear, steady light. But how common is it for the mind to waver and to be obscured in regard to scorned and persecuted truth ! When we look beyond the bounds of slavery, we find the civilized and Christian world with few exceptions reprobating slavery, as at war with the precepts and spirit of Christ. But at the South, his ministers sustain it as consistent with justice, equity, and disinterested love. Can we help saying, that the loud, menacing, popular voice has proved too strong for the servants of Christ? We hoped better things than this, because the prevalent sects at the South are the Methodists and Baptists, and these were expected to be less tainted by a worldly spirit, than other denominations in which luxury and fashion bear greater sway. But the Methodists, forgetful of their great founder, who cried aloud against slavery and spared not; and the Baptists, forgetful of the sainted name of Roger Williams, whose love of the despised Indian, and whose martyr spirit should have taught them fearless sympathy with the negro, have been found in the ranks of the foes of freedom. Indeed their allegiance to slavery seems to know no bounds. ' , 57 A Baptist association at the South decreed, that a slave, sold at a distance from his wife, might marry again in obedience to his master ; and that he would even do wrong, to disobey in this particular. Thus one of the plainest precepts of Christianity has been set at nought. Thus the poor slave is taught to renounce his wife, however dear, to rupture the most sacred social tie, that, like the other animals, he may keep up the stock of the estate. The general Methodist Conference during this very year, have decreed, that the testimony of a colored member of their churches should not be received against a white member, who may be on trial before an ecclesiastical tribunal. Thus in church affairs, a multitude of disciples of Jesus Christ, who have been received into Christian communion on the ground of their spiritual regeneration, who belong, as is believed, to the church on earth and in Heaven, are put down by their brethren as incapable of recognizing the obligation of truth, of performing the most common duty of morality, and are denied a privilege conceded, in worldly affairs, to the most depraved. Thus the religion of the South, heaps insult and injury on the slave. And what have the Christians of the North done? We rejoice to say, that from these, have gone forth not a few testimonies against slavery. Not a few ministers in associations, conventions, |