working with his own hands.” . And he laid upon his followers in broad terms, and without making any exception, the injunction “that if any would not work, neither should he eat.” Judging from his language, we should say that, if there was any particular form of society which the Apostle desired to found, it was not one in which the true citizen should be exempt from labor, but one in which labor should be the lot s of all, and all should contribute to the common store. Feudalism tried to prove that the Apostles were gentlemen by birth, entitled to bear coats of arms. They would have to / undergo some historical transformation of a similar kind to make them fit founders of the religion professed by the slaveowning aristocracy of the South. “Would you do a benefit to the horse or the ox by giving him a cultivated understanding or fine feelings? So far as the mere laborer has the pride, the knowledge, or the aspirations of a freeman, he is unfitted for his situation, and must doubly feel its infelicity. If there are sordid, servile, and laborious offices to be performed, is it not better that there should be sordid, servile, and laborious beings to perform them ** Such is the opinion of Chancellor Harper, put forth in his address to the South Carolina Institute. Was it the opinion of a Master who washed His disciples’ feet? It is difficult to understand how people who hold these sentiments can even use, without a sense of unfitness, the common language of Christianity. Such phrases as “Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant,” must seem to them to denote something sordid and degrading. “It is by the existence of slavery,” says another Southern writer, “exempting so large a portion of our citizens from labor, that we have leisure for intellectual pursuits.” But there is something in the spirit of the Gospel which, whether rightly or wrongly understood, has led Christianity, instead of cherishing an exclusive intellectual order, to educate the poor; and to draw forth, by all the means in its power, the

8 DOES THE BIBLE SANCTION

intellectual gifts of that class for the highest service of the
community. Great systems of education, the direct offspring
of Christianity, and a multitude of Christian foundations for
the purpose of education, bear witness to the fact. Nor do
the comparative fruits of the two systems, so far as they have
been tried, condemn the common practice of the Christian
world. On the contrary, the principle that all orders are
“members one of another,” seems, when applied to education,
to act more favorably on the intellect even of the higher
class than the opposite principle. “From the banks of the
Mississippi to the banks of the James,” says a traveller in
the South, “I did not (that I remember) see, except perhaps
in one or two towns, a thermometer, nor a book of Shake-
speare, nor a piano-forte or sheet of music; nor the light of a
carcel or other good centre-table or reading-lamp, nor an en-
graving or copy of any kind of a work of art of the slightest
merit.” “I am not speaking,” he adds, “of what are com-
monly called “poor whites’; a large majority of all these
houses were the residences of shareholders, a considerable
proportion cotton-planters.”” Some of the compositions
which are the fruits of the “intellectual leisure,” purchased
by the hopeless degradation of the laboring class are before
us. They are among the most barbarous ever produced by
civilized man. They seem, moreover, to turn mainly on one
subject. The presence of a great social wrong absorbs such
intellect as the community has in the work of its justification.
It does not leave the real leisure and the serenity of mind
which philosophy, science, and poetry demand.
New England has taken the course sanctioned by Chris-
tendom and condemned by the Slaver. Like Scotland, or
even more than Scotland, she has made a system of popular
education the basis of her Commonwealth, and established
throughout her territory the free schools which, above all
other free institutions, the South, as we have seen, repudiates

* Journeys and Explorations, Wol. II. p. 285.

and abhors. The result of this is that intelligence is generally diffused among the people, and that the great writers of England have a second and an ample Empire in the North. The highest fruits of intellect are everywhere long in ripening; and this must especially be the case in a nation of which a large part consists of immigrants, intent on obtaining the means of subsistence, and the energies of which are to a great extent absorbed in providing the material basis of civilization and reclaiming a vast expanse of virgin land. Under such circumstances, the love of utility must be expected to predominate over that of beauty, practical invention over pure science, practical discussion over the pursuit of theoretic truth. Yet the North has already produced writers in different departments who take a high place in literature, and who may fairly be regarded as the earnest of still better things to

come. Men of intellect are very apt, from their natural fas- so o o tidiousness, to dislike Equality; yet if they look over history * & they will find that Equality has been their best friend. - - > There is nothing, the prevalence of which in a community & ‘ is more fatal to high intellect than gross luxury. And there?' 2 o' can be no doubt that in a modern Slave State gross io o prevails in the highest degree. The ancient Slave States at . s the time of their intellectual greatness were comparatively * * free from luxury, at least of the grosser kind. S : . In fact, the character to which the slave-owners aspireo seems to be not so much that of the Christian, with its that: o ity and humility, or even that of the intellectual Greek, as #.g. * that of the ancient Roman. “The relations between the North and the South,” says a Southern organ, “are very s

analogous to those which subsisted between Greece and the of Roman Empire, after the subjugation of Achaia by the Con- * sul Mummius. The dignity and energy of the Roman character, conspicuous in war and politics, were not easily toned

and adjusted to the arts of industry and literature. The de

y

o generate and pliant Greeks, on the contrary, excelled in the f ...

&

3. o , oft|o 3’s to . ~~ So i.i... ...; 3. jörsons BIBLE SANCTION * † Es handicraft and polite professions. We learn from the vigorous invective of Juvenal, that they were the most useful and capable of servants, whether as pimps or professors of rhetoric. Obsequious, dexterous, and ready, the versatile Greeks monopolized the business of teaching, publishing, and manufacturing in the Roman Empire, allowing their masters ample leisure for the service of the State, in the Senate or in the field.” In confirmation of this historical theory it may be remarked that the Romans of the Southern States, like those of the Capitol, sprang from an asylum. One who was much o in the foundation of Virginia said of that Colony, that “the number of felons and vagabonds transported did bring such evil characters on the place, that some did choose s to be hanged ere they would go there, and were.” o It is true that the planters also claim a reputation for schivalry; and chivalry, no doubt, has its root deep in Chris3tianity. But we must beg leave to add, that a chivalry 's which exercises uncontrolled tyranny over defenceless vic**ś tims, which flogs women naked, which buys and sells them

o o: as the wretched victims of brutal lust, which breeds human *z,

~ * beings like cattle, which tears husbands from their wives and ! -

--> -.'s children from their mothers, which stands by and exults or

3 & 4 moralizes while men are burned alive at slow fires, is a chiv! ", alry such as the Christian world has not yet seen. The type

vo ** - N3 of character which it tends to produce may be higher than

o * that of St. Louis, Edward I., and Bayard, but it certainly is

So, ošn e Same. We have said that the founders of Christianity, when they preached political resignation as necessary for the time, did not pass on mankind, a sentence of political despair. They submitted to the powers of an evil world, but they nevertheless did, and meant to do, that by which those powers would be destroyed. They bade the slave remain a slave, but it was in order that he might not imperil the sacred deposit of Christian principle which bore with it the redemption of the o, - - - o, o **, co vo also (c "too 2 o & *. y ...to'o. ovo. "... – on to et of to A “. - * * . , * ! † - ove (... . ~! -

AMERICAN SLAVERY 2 101

slave o The kingdom of Christ was not of this world,
but nevertheless its liegemen looked forward to the day when
“ the kingdoms of this world should become the kingdoms of
our Lord and His Christ, and that He should reign forever
and ever.” -
Therefore the Church, whenever she has been herself, and
whenever she has acted in the spirit of her Founder, has
labored, not by inciting revolution, but by inculcating social
duty and kindling social affection, to do away with all unjust
and harsh distinctions between man and man, to diffuse the
principles of fraternity and equality in their true sense
through the world, and to make each community a commu-
nity indeed. Therefore she has instinctively and steadily
insisted on the education of the poor. Therefore she has
steadily assailed slavery and caste, and feudal serfdom, and
all such barriers as prevented the different classes of men in
Christian nations from becoming members one of another.
The brotherhood of man, in short, is the idea which Chris-
tianity in its social phase has been always striving to realize,
and the progress of which constitutes the social history of
Christendom. With what difficulties this idea has struggled;
how it has been marred by revolutionary violence, as well as
impeded by reactionary selfishness; to what chimerical hopes,
to what wild schemes, to what calamitous disappointments, to
what desperate conflicts, it has given birth; how often, being
misunderstood and misapplied, it has brought, not peace on
earth, but a sword, – it is needless here to rehearse. Such
miscarriages, such delay, could not be averted unless the
nature of man was to be changed, or the effort by which his
character is formed, and which appears to be the law of his
being, was to be superseded by the fiat of Omnipotence.
Countless ages have no doubt yet to run before the idea is
realized and the hope fulfilled. Still, as we look back over
the range of past history, we can see beyond doubt that it is
towards this goal that Christianity as a social principle has
been always tending and still tends.