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Show LIBEUTY AND SLAVERY. gate thy resentment, consider, that perhaps also f or this reason /w was separated from thee for a little while, (so rrpo( <lJpa" signified, 1 Tbess. ii. 17, note 2,) that thou mightest have Mm thy slave for life." Dr. :Macknight also adJs, in a footnote: "By telling Philemon that he would now have Onesimns forever, the apostle intimates to him his firm pcrsnasion that Oncsimus would never any more run away from him." Such seems to be the plain, obvious import of the apostle's a1·gument. No one, it is believed, who bad no set purpose to subserve, or no foregone conclusion to support, would view this argument in any other light. Perhaps he was separated for a while as a slave, that "thou mightest have him forever," or for life. IIow have him? Surely, one would think, as a slave, or in the same capacity from which he was separated for a while. The argument requires this; the opposition of the words, and the force of the passage, imperatively require it. But yet, if we may believe Mr. Barnes, the meaning of St. Paul is, that perhaps Onesimus was separated for a while as a servant, that Philemon might never receive him again as a servant, but forever as a Christian brother! Lest we should be suspected of misrepresentation, we shall give AR GU MENT FROM TilE SC UII'T URE S. 195 his o\vn words. "'rhe meaning is," says be, "that it was possible that this was permitted in the providence of God, in order that Onesimus might be brought under the influence of the gospel, and be far more serviceable to Philemon as a Christian than he could have been in his former relation to him." In the twelfth verse of the epistle, St. Paul says: "Whom I have sent again," or, as Macknight more accurately renders the words, "IIim I have sent back," (5" a""rep.¢a.) II01·e we see the great apostle actually sending back a fugitive slave to !tis master. This act of St. Paul is not, and cannot be, denied. The words are too plain for denial. Oncsimus "I have sent back." Surely it cannot be otherwise than a most unpleasant spectacle to abolitionist eyes thus to see Paul, the agcd,-perhaps the most venerable and glorious hero whose life is upon record,-assume such an attitude toward tho institution of slavery. llad he dealt with slavery as he always dealt with every thing which he regarded as sin; had he assumed toward it an attitude of stern and uncompromising hostility, and had his words been thunderbolts of denunciation, then indeed would he have been a hero after the very hearts of the |