UNCLE TOM'S CABIN

250 KEY TO UNCLE TOM S CABIN.
fullyand honestly,as well when your
hack was church do with her catechumens and communicants
turned as while were
you lookingover them?
? Read the advertisements of
Would you not expect that they should take
Southern
said to them ? that they
newspapers, and see. In every
notice of what you
should behave themselves with respect towards
you and yours, and be as careful of everything
belonging to you
as you would be yourselves?
You are servants : do, therefore,as you would
wish to be done by, and you will be both good every
servants to your masters, and good servants to
God, who requires this of you, and will reward
you well for it,if you do it for the sake of con-
in obedience to his commands.
science,
The reverend teachers of such expositions
the slave-prisons
ofscripture do greatinjustice to the natural
extent
sense of theirsable catechumens,iftheysuppose
them incapable of detecting such veryshallow
sophistry, and of proving conclusively
hands as freely
that " it is a poor
rule that won't
"
"
work both ways." Some shrewd old patriarch,
of the stamp of those who rose up and
went out at the exposition of the Epistle Philemon,and who show such gi^eat acuteness
the vicissitudesof
in bringingup objections agains the
truth of God, such as would be thought peculiar
to cultivatedminds,mightperhaps,
if he dared,replyto such an exposition of
scripture in this way : Supposeyou were a
"
slave, could not have a cent of your
own
earnings duringyour whole life, could have
no legalrightto your wife and children,
could never send your children to school, chiefly speak,
and had, as
you have told us, nothing but
labor and poverty in this life, how would
you like it? Would you not wish your
Christian master to set you free from this
condition?" We submit itto ABOLITION OF SLAVERY THROUGHOUT
every
is no respecter of persons, whether this interpretation
America and throughout Christendom.
To this noble course the united voice of
one who
of Sambo's is not as good as
the bishop's Ạnd if not,why not? Christiansin all other countries is urgently
To us, with our feelings and associations. calling the American ohurch. Expressions
such discourses as these of Bishop Meade of this feeling have come from Christians of
appear
hard-hearted and unfeeling to the all denominations in England,in Scotland,
lastdegree. We should,however,do great in Ireland,in France, in Switzerland, in
injustice to the character of the man, if we Germany, in Persia,in the Sandwich Islands,
supposed that theyprove
him to have been
such. They merelygo to show how perfectlyone
spiritṬhey have loved and honored
use
may familiarize amiable and estimable
this American church. They have rejoiced
men with a system of oppression, in the brightness of her rising. Pier prosperity
tilltheyshall have lost all consciousnessof
the wrong
which it involves.
That BishopMeade's reasonings did not
thoroughly convince himself is evident from
the fact that, afterall his representations of
the superior advantages slavery as a means
of religious improvement, did,at last,
emancipate his own slaves.
But,in addition to what has been said,
thiswhole system of religious instructionis
darkened by one hideous shadow," the
slave-trade. What does the Southern
city in the slave-raising states behold the
depots,kept constantly
full of assorted
! In
slave-coffles 1 Who preaches the gospel in
negroes from the ages of ten to thirty
slave-consuming state see the re-
whither these poor wrecks
and remnants of families are constantly
borne ! Who preaches the gospelto the
ceiving-houses
'? If we consider the tremendous
"
of this internal trade, if
we read papers
with columns of auction
advertisements of human beings, changing
as if they were dollar-bills
instead of human
realizehow
utterly
instructionmust
"
creatures, we shall then
allthose influencesof religious
be nullifiedby leaving
the subjects of them exposed " to all
property."
CHAPTER X.
WHAT 18 TO BE DONE ?
The thing to be done,of which I shall
is that the whole 'American
church,of alldenominations, should unitedly
come up, not in form, but in fact,to
the noble purpose avowed by the Presbyterian
Assembly of 1818, to seek the entire
and in China. All seem to be animated by
and success have been to them as their
own, and they have had hopesthat God
meant to confer inestimable blessings
her upon allnations. The American church
through
of birds and
sounds
songs
voicesof cheerful industry, and
of gladness, contentment and peace.
But, lo ! in this beautiful orb is seen a
disastrous spot
of dim eclipse,
wideningshadow threatens a
has been to them like the rising of a glorious
sun, sheddinghealing from his wings, dis-
mists and fogs, and bringing
persing
gradually
whose
totaldark-