OCR Text |
Show .. " -· \ 70 LI'nERTY AND SLAVERY. zeus, we should be willing to inflict the same great evil upon others. A foolish desire, we repeat, in one relation of life, '' not a good reason for a. foolislt or injurious act in anotlter relation thereof. Tho precept which requires us to do as we would be done by, was intended to enlighten the conscience. It is nscd by abolitionists to hoodwink and deceive the conscience. This precept directs us to conceive ourselves placod in the condition of others, in order that we may the more clearly perceive what is duo to them. The abolitionist employs it to convince us that, because we desire liberty for ourselves, we should extend it to all men, even to those who arc not qualified for its enjoyment, and to whom it would prove "the greatest possible injury." He employs it not to show us what is due to others, but to persuade ns to injure them ! He may deceive himself; but so long as we believe what even he admits as highly probable-namely, that the "abolition of slavery would be the greatest possible injury to the slaves themselves"- we shall never use the divine precept as an instrument of delusion and of WI'ong. What! inflict the greatest injury on our neighbor, and that, too, out of pure Christian charity? But we need not argue with tho abolitionist ARGUMENTS OF ABOLITIONISTS. 71 upon his own admissions. W c have infinitely stronger ground to stand on. The precept, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," is to be found in the Old Testament as well as in the New. Thus, iu the nin9teenth chapter of Leviticus, it is said, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself;" and no greater love than this is anywhere inculcated in the New Testament. Yet in the twenty-fifth chapter of the same book, it is written, "Of the children of the strangers that d\) sojourn among you, of them shall yo buy, and of their families that arc with you, which they begat in your laud : and they shall bo your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for yout· chili!I·en after you, to inherit them for a possession ; they shall be your bondsmen forever." This language is too plain for controversy. In regard to this very passage, in which the Hebrews are commanded to enter upon and take possession of the land of the Canaanites, Dr. Wayland himself is constrained to admit-" The authority to take them as slaves seems to be a part of this original, peculiar, and I may perhaps say, anomalous grant."* Now, if the prin- * Letters, p. 60. |