ARCHBISHOP POTTER. Some of our wise ones will have it that
_doulos_ means slave. Archbishop Potter, than whom no man was
more learned in Grecian antiquities, in his work on them,
published years ago, says, chap. 10, "Slaves, as long as they
were under the government of a master, were called _oiketdi_;
but _after their freedom_ was granted them, they were _douloi_,
not being like the former, a part of their master's estate,
but only obliged to some grateful acknowledgments and small
services, such as were required of the _Metoikoi_, to whom they
were in some few things inferior."
* * * * *
THE YOUNGER EDWARDS, (Pastor of a church in New Haven, and
afterwards President of Union College)--"Every man who cannot
show, that his negro hath by his voluntary conduct, forfeited
his liberty, is obligated _immediately to manumit him_. And to
hold [such an one] in a state of slavery, is to be every day
guilty of robbing him of his liberty, or of _man-stealing_--and
fifty years from this time (1791) it will be as _shameful for a
man to hold a negro slave, as to be guilty of common robbery or
theft_."
* * * * *
DR. ADAM CLARKE. "Among Christians slavery is an _enormity_,
and a _crime_ for which _perdition_ has scarcely an adequate
state of punishment."
* * * * *
REV. ALBERT BARNES. "From the whole train of reasoning which
I have pursued, I trust it will not be considered as improper
to regard it as a position clearly demonstrated, that the fair
influence of the Christian religion would everywhere abolish
slavery. Let its principles be acted out; let its maxims
prevail and rule in the hearts of all men, and the system,
in the language of the Princeton Repertory, 'would SPEEDILY
come to an end.' In what way this is to be brought about, and
in what manner the influence of the church may be made to
bear upon it, are points on which there may be differences of
opinion. But there is one method which is obvious, and which,
if everywhere practised, would certainly lead to this result.
It is, _for the Christian church to cease all connection with
slavery_."
* * * * *
REV. S. H. COX, D. D. "The cause of human rights is only the
converse of the cause of human duties; and how pious, or how
orthodox, or how heroic, I should like to know, is he, for
whose higher evangelical refinement of sensibility, this
subject of righteousness is too 'delicate' to be theologized
into our ethics, our creed, or our prayers? Away with such
nauseating and hypocritical affectation, in high places, and
low ones, too."--_Letter to S. J. May, Auburn, May 5, 1835._