“The golden rule,” said I; “for this is the law and the prophets.

“The people to whom these touching precepts were given by the Most High, and who were susceptible to these finest appeals, are, as we have said, sometimes represented as a semi-barbarous people, so gross that God was obliged to let them hold slaves!  Now, could anything be more civilizing, refining, elevating, than such relationships as this limited servitude of poor Hebrews created?  What scenes there must have been oftentimes, when the six years were out, and the servant was about to depart, laden with gifts!  And what a scene when, with strong attachment to the family, the servant declined to be free, and went to the door-post to have his ear pierced with the awl, to be a servant, and not only so, but to be an inheritance forever!

“Is this ‘the sum of all villanies,’ Mr. North?” said I.  “Yet it is ‘slavery.’  ‘Auction-blocks,’ ‘whippings,’ ‘roastings,’ ’separations of families,’ are not ‘slavery.’  They are its abuses; slavery can exist when they cease.  I pray you, is such slavery as the God of the Hebrews appointed, in such cases as these, ‘forever,’ an unmitigated curse?

“Now,” said I, “go through our Southern country, and you will find in every city, town, and village just such relationships between the whites and the blacks as must have existed where these Hebrew laws had effect.  Think of the little slave-babe, and the Southern lady’s letter, which have given occasion to all our conversation.  The Gospel, as it subdues and softens the human heart, will make the relationship of involuntary servitude everywhere to be after this pattern.  Instead of exciting hatred and jealousy, and provoking war between the whites and blacks, I am for bringing all the influences of the Gospel to bear upon the hearts of the white population, to convert them into such masters as God enjoined the Hebrews to be, and such as the Apostle to the Gentiles enjoined upon Gentile slave-holders as their models.  And I am filled with sorrow and astonishment as I see some of the very best and most beloved men among us at the North withholding missionaries and tracts from the Southern country, and—­as Gustavus’s aunt said some of these do—­calling it ‘standing up for Jesus!’

“Now,” said I, “if such were the injunctions of the Most High as to the manner in which the Hebrews should treat their Hebrew slaves, it is easy to see that such a habit with regard to them would serve greatly to mitigate the sorrows of bondage on the part of Gentile slaves.  And thus the curse of slavery, like sin, and even death, is made, under the influences of religion, a means of improvement, a source of blessing.  Let but the sun shine on a pile of cloud, and what folds of beauty and deep banks of snowy whiteness does it set forth, and, at the close of day, all the exquisite tints which make the artist despair are flung profusely upon that mass of vapor which but for the sun were a heap of sable cloud.