MINT, CUMMIN AND ANNIS.
While the bench and bar were thus demanding the attention of the
_Visiter_, the pulpit was examining its morals with a microscope, and
defending the sum of all villainies as a Bible institution. The American
churches, with three exceptions, not only neglected "the weightier
matters of the law, judgment and mercy," but were the main defense of
the grossest injustice, the most revolting cruelty; and, to maintain an
appearance of sanctity, were particularly devout and searching in the
investigation of small sins.
A religions contemporary discovered that the _Visiter_ did actually
advertise "Jayne's Expectorant," and such an expectoration of pious
reprehension as this did call forth! The _Visiter_ denied that the
advertisement was immoral, and carried the war into Africa--that old
man-stealing Africa--and there took the ground that chattel slavery
never did exist among the Jews; that what we now charge upon them as
such was a system of bonded servitude; that the contract was originally
between master and servant; the consideration of the labor paid to the
servant; that in all cases of transfer, the master sold to another that
portion of the time and labor of the servant, which were still due;
that there was no hint of any man selling a free man into slavery for
the benefit of the seller; that the servants bought from "the heathen
around about," were bought from themselves, or in part at least, for
their benefit, to bring them under general law and into the church; that
nothing like American slavery was ever known in the days of Moses, or
any other day than that of this great Republic, since our slavery was
"the vilest that ever saw the sun," John Wesley being witness.
The _Visiter_ cited the purchase by Joseph of the people of Egypt, and
Leviticus xxv, xxxix: "If thy brother be waxen poor and sell himself
unto thee." The Bible had not then been changed to suit the exigencies
of slavery. In later editions, "sell himself" is converted into "be
sold," but as the passage then stood it was a sledge-hammer with which
one might beat the whole pro-slavery Bible argument into atoms, and
while the _Visiter_ used it with all the force it could command, it took
the ground that if the Bible did sanction slavery, the Bible must be
wrong, since nothing could make slavery right.