BIBLE TESTIMONY.
Every person who has read the Bible, and who has a proper understanding of
its leading moral precepts, feels, in his own conscience, that it is the
only original and complete anti-slavery text-book. In a crude state of
society--in a barbarous age--when men were in a manner destitute of
wholesome laws, either human or divine, it is possible that a mild form of
slavery may have been tolerated, and even regulated, as an institution
clothed with the importance of temporary recognition; but the Deity never
approved it, and, for the very reason that it is impossible for him to do
wrong, he never will, never can approve it. The worst system of servitude
of which we have any account in the Bible--and, by the way, it furnishes
no account of anything so bad as slavery (the evil-one and his hot home
alone excepted)--was far less rigorous and atrocious than that now
established in the Southern States of this Confederacy. Even that system,
however, the worst, which seems to have been practiced to a considerable
extent by those venerable old fogies, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, was one
of the monstrous inventions of Satan that God "winked" at; and, to the
mind of the biblical scholar, nothing can be more evident than that He
determined of old, that it should, in due time, be abolished. To say that
the Bible sanctions slavery is to say that the sun loves darkness; to say
that one man was created to domineer over another is to call in question
the justice, mercy, and goodness of God.
We will now listen to a limited number of the
PRECEPTS AND SAYINGS OF THE OLD TESTAMENT.
"Proclaim liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants
thereof."
"Let the oppressed go free."
"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself."
"Thou shalt not respect the person of the poor, nor honor the person
of the mighty; but in righteousness shalt thou judge thy neighbor."
"The wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night
until the morning."
"Envy thou not the oppressor, and choose none of his ways."
"Do justice to the afflicted and needy; rid them out of the hand of
the wicked."
"Execute judgment and justice; take away your exactions from my
people, saith the Lord God."
"Therefore thus saith the Lord; ye have not hearkened unto me, in
proclaiming liberty, every one to his brother, and every man to his
neighbor: behold, I proclaim a liberty for you, saith the Lord, to
the sword, to the pestilence, and to the famine; and I will make you
to be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth."
"He that stealeth a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his
hand, he shall surely be put to death."
"Whoso stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry,
but shall not be heard."
"He that oppresseth the poor reproacheth his Maker."
"I will be a swift witness against the sorcerers, and against the
adulterers, and against false swearers, and against those that
oppress the hireling in his wages, the widow, and the fatherless, and
that turn aside the stranger from his right, and fear not me, saith
the Lord of Hosts."
"As the partridge setteth on eggs, and hatcheth them not; so he that
getteth riches, and not by right, shall leave them in the midst of
his days, and at his end shall be a fool."
And now we will listen to a few selected
PRECEPTS AND SAYINGS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
"Call no man master, neither be ye called masters."
"All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you do ye even
so to them."
"Be kindly affectionate one to another with brotherly love; in honor
preferring one another."
"Do good to all men, as ye have opportunity."
"Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made you
free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage."
"If thou mayest be made free, use it rather."
"The laborer is worthy of his hire."
"Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."
Some years ago a clerical lickspittle of the slave power had the temerity
to publish a book or pamphlet entitled "Bible Defence of Slavery," which
the Baltimore _Sun_, in the course of a caustic criticism, handled in the
following manner:--
"Bible defence of slavery! There is no such thing as a Bible defence
of slavery at the present day. Slavery in the United States is a
social institution, originating in the convenience and cupidity of
our ancestors, existing by State laws, and recognized to a certain
extent--for the recovery of slave property--by the Constitution. And
nobody would pretend that, if it were inexpedient and unprofitable
for any man or any State to continue to hold slaves, they would be
bound to do so on the ground of a "Bible defence" of it. Slavery is
recorded in the Bible, and approved, with many degrading
characteristics. War is recorded in the Bible, and approved, under
what seems to us the extreme of cruelty. But are slavery and war to
_endure_ for ever because we find them in the Bible? or are they to
_cease_ at once and for ever because the Bible inculcates peace and
brotherhood?"
Thus, in the last five chapters inclusive, have we introduced a mass of
anti-slavery arguments, human and divine, that will stand, irrefutable and
convincing, as long as the earth itself shall continue to revolve in its
orbit. Aside from unaffected truthfulness and candor, no merit is claimed
for anything we have said on our own account. With the best of motives,
and in the language of nature more than that of art, we have simply given
utterance to the honest convictions of our heart--being impelled to it by
a long-harbored and unmistakable sense of duty which grew stronger and
deeper as the days passed away.
If half the time which has been spent in collecting and arranging these
testimonies had been occupied in the composition of original matter, the
weight of paper and binding and the number of pages would have been much
greater, but the value and the effect of the contents would have been far
less. From the first, our leading motive has been to convince our
fellow-citizens of the South, non-slaveholders and slaveholders, that
slavery, whether considered in all its bearings, or, setting aside the
moral aspect of the question, and looking at it in only a pecuniary point
of view, is impolitic, unprofitable, and degrading; how well, thus far, we
have succeeded in our undertaking, time will, perhaps, fully disclose.
In the words of a contemporaneous German writer, whose language we readily
and heartily endorse, "It is the shame of our age that argument is needed
against slavery." Taking things as they are, however, argument being
needed, we have offered it; and we have offered it from such sources as
will, in our honest opinion, confound the devil and his incarnate
confederates.
These testimonies, culled from the accumulated wisdom of nearly six
thousand centuries, beginning with the great and good men of our own time,
and running back through distant ages to Saint Paul, Saint John, and Saint
Luke, to Cicero, Plato, and Socrates, to Solomon, David, and Moses, and
even to the Deity himself, are the pillars of strength and beauty upon
which the popularity of our work will, in all probability, be principally
based. If the ablest writers of the Old Testament; if the eloquent
prophets of old; if the renowned philosophers of Greece and Rome; if the
heavenly-minded authors and compilers of the New Testament; if the
illustrious poets and prose-writers, heroes, statesmen, sages of all
nations, ancient and modern; if God himself and the hosts of learned
ministers whom he has commissioned to proclaim his word--if all these are
wrong, then we are wrong; on the other hand, however, if they are right,
we are right; for, in effect, we only repeat and endeavor to enforce their
precepts.
If we are in error, we desire to be corrected; and, if it is not asking
too much, we respectfully request the advocates of slavery to favor us
with an _expose_ of what they, in their one-sided view of things, conceive
to be the advantages of their favorite and peculiar institution. Such an
_expose_, if skillfully executed, would doubtless be regarded as the
funniest novel of the times--a fit production, if not too immoral in its
tendencies, to be incorporated into the next edition of D'Israeli's
curiosities of literature.