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Show 142 LIBERTY AND SLAVERY. land, "that the IIcbrews held slaves from the time" of the conquest of Canaan, "nd that Ab•·aham and the patriarchs held them many centuries before. I grant also that Moses enacted laws with special reference to th"t relation ..... I wonder that any should have had the hardihood to deny so plain a matter of record. I should almost as soon deny the delivery of the ten commandments tc Moses." Now, is it not wonderful th"t directly in the face of "so plain a matter of rcco•·d," a pious Presbytel"ian pastor should have been arraigned by abolitionists, not for holding slaves, but" for daring to be so far a freeman as to express his convictions on the subject of slavery, Most abolitionists must have found themse a little embarrassed in such a pro-ceeding. For there was the fact, staring them in the face, that Abraham himself, "the friend of God"' and the "father of the faithful," was the owner and holder of more than a thousand slaves. How, then, could these professing Christians proceed to condemn and excommunicate a poor brother for having merely approved what Abraham had practised? Of all the good men of old, Abraham was the most eminent. The sublimity of his faith and the ARGUMENT FROM THE SCRIPTURES. 143 fen:or of ~is p~cty bas, by the unerring voice of mspu·atwn Jtsclf, been held up as " model for the imitation of all future ages. IIow, then, could a P"rcel 6f poor common saints presume without blushing, to try and condemn one o; their number because he was no better than "Father Abraham?" This was the difficulty; and, but for a ve•·y happy disco,-CI"J', it must ha\'C bccu au exceedingly perplexing one. But "Necessity is the mother of invention." On this tJ-ying occasion she conceived u10 happy thought that the plain matter of reco•·d "was all a mistake;" that Abraham never owned a slave; that, on tho contrary "i,e was "~ pri~ce," and the "men ·whonl h: bought \VItb hJs money" were "his subjects" merely! If, then, we poor sinners of the South should be driven to tbe utmost extremity,-all honest arguments and pleas failing us,-m"y we not esc~pc the unutterable horrors of civil war, by callmg our masters princes, and our slaves subjects? We shall conclude this topic with the pointed and powmful words of Dr. Fuller, in his reply to Dr. Wayland: "Abraham" says he " , . . ' , was the fncnd of God,' and walked with God in the closest and most endearing intercourse; nor |