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Show 170 LIDERTY AND SLAVERY. commandments on which hang all the law and the prophets."* Now this is a very •ignificant passage. The orator, its learned author, will not stop to consider tho te>..-ts of tho Old Testament bearing on the subject of slavery, because they are all me•·gcu in the N cw! Nor will he stop to consider any "such imperfect injunctio"" as those contained in the New, because they are all swallowed up and lost in the grand commandment, "Thotl shalt love thy neighbor as thyself!" If he had bestowed a little more attention on this grand commandment itself, he might have seen, as we have shown, that it in no wise conflicts with the precept which enjoins servants to obey their masters. lie might have seen that it is not at all necessary to "weigh" the one of those precepts "in the scales against'' the other, or to brand either of them as imperfect. For he might have seen a perfect harmony between them. It is no matter of surprise, however, that an abolitionist should find imperfections in the moral code of the New 'l'estamcnt. It is certainly no wonder that Mr. Sumner * Speech in the )lctropolitan Thoatre, 1855. .A ROVMEN'l' FROM 'J'fiE S Cr:.TP'XUHE S. 171 should ha,-c seen imperfections therein. For he has, in direct opposition to the plainest terms of the gospel, discovered that it is the first duty of the slave to fly from his master. In his speech deli vercd in the Senate of the U nitcd States, we find among various other quotations, a verse from Sarah \V. l\forton, in which she exhorts the slave to fly from bondage. IIaving produced this quotation "as part of the testimony of the times," and pronounced it "a truthful homage to tho iualicnablo rights" of the slave, Mr. Sumner was in no mood to appreciate the divine precept, "Servants, obey your masters." Having declared fugitive slaves to be "the heroes of the age," he hac] not, as we may suppose, any very decided taste for the commonplace Scriptural duties of submission and obedience. Nay, he spurns at and rejects such duties as utterly inconsistent with the "inalienable rights of man." He appeals from the oracles of eternal truth to "the testimony of the times." lie appeals from Christ and his apostles to Sarah W. llforton. Aud yet, although he thus takes ground directly against the plainest precepts of the gospel, and even ventures to brand some of them as "imperfect," he has the hardihood to rebuke those who find therein, not what it |