This book review appears in Lehre und Wehre Volume 11 (1865), Number 4 (April), pages 102-113.
“A Scriptural, Ecclesiastical, and Historical View of Slavery,
From the days of the Patriarch Abraham, to the nineteenth century. Addressed to the Right Rev. Alonzo Potter, D. D., Bishop of the Prot. Episcopal Church, in the Diocese of Pennsylvania. By John Henry Hopkins, D. D., LL. D., Bishop of the Diocese of Vermont. New York: W. J. Pooley &. Co, Harpers Building, Franklin Square, pp. VII, & 376 8vo.”[1], [2]
That the devil has succeeded splendidly in driving Christianity out of a large part of the present generation by making humanists out of Christians,—that also the present so-called Christian theology itself is infected, poisoned and corrupted by humanism, no sober Christian will or can deny. At every turn he is haunted by the ill-fated cry: “Liberty and equality!”—On every line of the prevailing daily literature someone is trying to prove to him that our treasure and salvation is not above, where Christ is, but that the truly reasonable, educated, and noble man must find his salvation in himself, and that therefore his endeavors for himself and others are only to be directed to breaking down all so-called restricting barriers, in order to procure for himself free access to all earthly treasures and free space for a full enjoyment of them. And only then, but also certainly then, will there be heaven on earth!
Even if upon a mere reasonable examination of these and similar manifestations of the “human spirit that has come to the right self-awareness,” nonsense and endless confusion of all concepts and conditions arise as a pitiable result; nevertheless even “theologians” of earlier and more recent times, but especially of the most recent time, have allowed themselves to be blinded by the devil to such an extent that they have paid homage to humanism—if initially only to this or that part of its aspirations—as being in harmony with divine revelation, and have become humanists. Even if they are not clearly aware of the spirit that drives them, if they only want to be righteous servants of Christ (which regarding some of them certainly cannot be denied), their speeches and writings prove, nevertheless, that, in certain matters at least, they mix Christ’s kingdom and the world’s kingdom together and portray all kinds of worldly, civil orders, which the gospel allows to remain, not only as hindering barriers, but even as sinful conditions that are to be abolished. This has happened especially with regard to slavery. Theologians of all stripes have declared that slavery, especially the relationship of the master to his slaves, is in itself, that is, in its essence, sin. One, in order to cut off from the outset all objections to such an assertion contrary to Scripture, pointed to Golgotha and asked: “Did not Christ by his death and shedding of blood make all men free?” Isn’t that appalling? Is that not enthusiast madness? Is the spirit that drives one to such assertions and proofs any better than that which fills the manifest children of unbelief? Does that spirit really become a righteous one by taking God’s word in its mouth? Isn’t the devil most dangerous when he uses God’s word?
It is truly refreshing in this time of progress (called “progress” because everything is to be turned upside down) to be able to read through a work like the “View of Slavery” which lies before us. This book combats with all seriousness, with worthy weapons, and with the most brilliant success the manifestations of humanism in the slavery question. And if here the honored reader of “Lehre und Wehre” is shown a selection of this work, it is mainly done in order to draw attention to its precious content and to encourage him to purchase it.
The author, Dr. J. H. Hopkins, is a bishop of the Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Vermont. He is, as he expressly remarks (pp. 51, 52), “no lover of slavery, and no advocate for its perpetuity any longer than circumstances may seem to require.” He says: “All my habits, sympathies, and associations are opposed to slavery and in favor of abolition.” “I am, and always shall be, in favor of a gradual, just, and kindly abolition of slavery, whenever it may please Divine Providence to incline the minds of Southern statesmen to adopt it.” Therefore, in 1857, the author published a work, “The American Citizen,”[3] in which he presented, among other things, a plan for a “gradual and thorough” abolition of slavery, a plan which said essentially the same thing as that presented by the President of the United States in his address to Congress in 1862[4]. But the “ultra-abolitionism” (as the author calls it), which teaches that it is sinful to hold a man as a slave under any circumstances, and teaches that the relation of masters and slaves makes a mockery of the principles of Christianity; that the Constitution of the United States, because it protects the rights of the slaveholder, is “a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell,” and that slavery is the root of all evil and slaveholding among Christians is such a crime for which even hell has no sufficient punishment,—the author combats this ultra-abolitionism, whose teachings he condemns. His whole book is the testimony of a “man in Christ” against this hypocritical abolitionism, which is really nothing but a child of unbelief and one of the many arms of humanism, whereby it draws its “millions” into its happy community, with the result, of course, of choking the inner life.
The history of the present work (which should always be kept in mind for a better understanding of it) is briefly as follows: The author was asked in 1860 from New York “to state in writing [his] opinion of the Biblical argument on the subject of negro slavery in the Southern States.”[5] This he did in a pamphlet entitled: “Bible View of Slavery,” (pp. 5-41. of the present book). Against this appeared a “Protest” from the Bishop and clergy of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, signed by Alonzo Potter, Bishop, and a multitude of Episcopal preachers in Pennsylvania. To this our author replied (pp. 44-50), promising an accurate exposition “of the truth in wherein [he] stand[s],” joined with the testimony of ecclesiastical authorities and history from the apostles’ time to the present day. We find this exposition in our book in pages 51-376.
Let us now turn our attention to the actual content of the present work. In his “Bible View of Slavery” the author defines slavery as servitude for life, passing also to the descendants. And “this kind of bondage appears to have existed as an established institution in all the ages of our world, by the universal evidence of history, whether sacred or profane.”[6] Now he does not want to deny that slavery may be an evil; but then it is only a physical, not a moral one, and therefore no sin, because sin is transgression of the law. If it is now asked: What does the Bible say about slavery?—One must not answer according to one’s own ideas, desires, habits, and personal relationships. For a Christian can only be sure of his judgment if it agrees with God’s Word. Convinced by the word for a long time, the author also only lets the word give answer to the above question. The curse of Noah over Canaan, Abraham’s household, the (9th and) 10th commandment, as well as other regulations and ordinances of the Mosaic law concerning slavery, are first brought forward as proof that the relationship of the master to his slaves was by no means regarded as a sinful one by God, but rather regulated and confirmed by him. The fact that the Lord Christ does not utter a word against slavery, although in his time it was widespread throughout Judea, and the Roman Empire counted sixty million slaves, as well as the well-known sayings of the apostles concerning “servants and masters,” he cites as evidence for the legality of slavery from the New Testament.
The author then proceeds to the refutation of various objections against slavery, on which occasion the well-known propositions from the Declaration of Independence: that all men are born equal, etc., are thoroughly and all-round illuminated and dispatched. One will not read this section without rich profit, even if one could not agree with the author’s reasoning everywhere. Throughout this section also, we see a man who is not dominated by the spirit of the times, who does not sacrifice the Word of God to his favorite opinions, but who lets the Word be his lamp and a light unto his path. What he says against the objections regarding: “Barbaric treatment of slaves;” “Immorality as a necessary consequence of the possession of slaves;” “Ownership of men;” “Would you like to be a slave?” “Separation of spouses, or of parents from children;” “polygamy and slavery were permitted in the Old Testament;”—is as true as it is thorough. He also knows very well how little these principles of his appeal to the taste of his fellow citizens and neighbors. But he does not want to suppress the truth out of cowardice in order to make himself agreeable. “It can not be long” (he says), “before I shall stand at the tribunal of that Almighty and unerring Judge, who has given us the inspired Scriptures to be our supreme directory in every moral and religious duty. My gray hairs admonish me that I may soon be called to give an account of my stewardship. And I have no fear of the sentence which He will pronounce upon an honest though humble effort to sustain the authority of His Word, in just alliance with the Constitution, the peace, and the public welfare of my country.”[7] —So far “The Bible View.”
In the following chapters of the present work, written as a defense, substantiation, and closer analysis of the “Bible View”, the author shows a thorough knowledge as well as a skillful treatment of the accumulated material. In a mass of excerpts from the writings of older and newer philosophers, jurists and theologians, from the resolutions of councils, etc., we do not have chaos in our book, but we find everything well ordered and appropriately strung together, so that one may follow the author at every turn not only without fatigue, but with ever curious interest. We find a “cloud of witnesses,” who all, although coming from the most different times, countries, and relations, directly or indirectly represent the author’s object. To the Justinian institutions we are first referred, and afterwards led to the “fathers, councils, historians, lawyers, divines and commentators.”[8] They all proved “that Christianity never undertook to abolish slavery, even when it extended over all races and all varieties of men—that religion operated to ameliorate, but not to do it away—that its extinction in Europe was not the result of any direct assault, but a gradual dying out through the changes of society—that the first positive attack upon it was not from the Church, nor from Christians, but from the Atheists of the French Revolution; and that it was never supposed to be a sin to hold a slave, where the laws of the country authorized it, until our own age assumed the novel work of ultra-abolitionism.”[9]
It would perhaps not be without interest for the reader to have some of the otherwise probably less known excerpts shared here. From the institutions of Justinian it is shown that the laws of the Roman Empire recognized and regulated slavery during the reign of the Christian Emperor Justinian; that slavery existed according to the law of nations, that its origin was attributed to war (for those captured in battle were subject to death, from which slavery saved them, and therefore the Romans called them servi, “saved ones”). It is further shown that the slavery of those times was by no means limited to Ham’s descendants, but included all nations with which the Romans had ever waged war; and although therefore many slaves were equal to their masters in descent, knowledge, skill, and mental energy, yet power over the life and death of their slaves was conferred upon the masters, and even the church in the fourth century could not emancipate a slave, even if he had been ordained a bishop, without the knowledge and consent of his master.
After our author, as it were in passing, enlists Aristotle and Philo of Alexandria as witnesses for himself, the writings of the “Fathers” are presented. There we first hear Tertullian regarding the attempt to draw away a slave from the service of his master. “What can be more unjust, what more iniquitous, what more shameful than an attempt to benefit the slave in such a way that he shall be snatched from his master, that he shall be delivered to another, that he shall be suborned against the life of his master, while he is yet in his house, living on his granary and trembling under his correction? Such a rescuer would be condemned in the world no less than a man-stealer.”[10] Then we hear Jerome on 1 Tim. 6:1, 1 Cor. 7:21. and Eph. 6:5-9.
From Augustine the following passage, among others, is shared: “The first and daily power of man over man, is that of the master over the slave. Almost every house has this sort of power. There are masters, there are also slaves—those names are different, but men and men are equal names. And what saith the Apostle, teaching slaves to be subject to their masters? ‘Ye bondservants, be obedient to your masters according to the flesh, because there is a Master according to the Spirit.’ He is the true Master and Eternal, but these are temporal, according to the time. While thou art walking in the way, while thou art living in this world, Christ is not willing to make thee proud. This happens to thee that thou mayest be made a Christian, and having a man for thy master, thou art not made a Christian that thou shouldst disdain to serve. Yet since thou servest man, by the order of Christ, thou dost not serve the man, but Him who has so ordered thee. And therefore he (the Apostle) saith: ‘Obey your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in simplicity of heart, not as eye-servants, or as men pleasers, but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the mind, with good will’[11] Behold, therefore, he does not make free men of servants, but he makes good servants of bad servants. How much do the wealthy owe to Christ, who thus regulates their home.”[12]
St. Basil the Great, in his rules for the monastic orders, says: “Moreover, let slaves detained under the yoke, if they fly to the convent of the brethren, be first admonished and made better, and then be returned to their masters; in which the blessed Paul is to be imitated, who, when he had brought forth Onesimus, through the Gospel, sent him back to Philemon.”[13] Space does not allow to share testimonies also from Chrysostom, Prosper, and Gregory the Great. Also out of quite a number of conciliar decisions only one shall be shared here. At the Council of Gangra A. D. 341 it was decided: “If anyone, under pretext of religion, shall teach a slave to despise his own master, that he should depart from his service and no longer submit to him with benevolence and honor, let him be accursed.”[14]
After some excerpts from Fleury’s Church History and from Bingham’s “Antiquities of the Christian Church,” we find Melanchthon and Calvin (Luther is missing, which is very regrettable!) presented as witnesses from the Reformation era, and then comes a long series of exegetes from the Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, Congregationalists, and Episcopalians. It will be to the author’s credit that he always lets these witnesses speak to us to such an extent that we can form our own judgment about their actual views on the question at hand. That there are also such statements which are contrary to the biblical doctrine of slavery, will surprise no one, if one considers that many of the witnesses are people who are not always ready to give up cherished views to the service of truth in matters “where reason fights against faith.” But those very anti-biblical statements about slavery are only occasional,—and even if a testimony cannot serve to make the waverers firm and certain because of such internal contradictions, it is always the case with our compiler, that even these witnesses do not declare slavery to be sin per se, so far as and as long as they interpret a relevant passage of Scripture,—and that is sufficient for his purpose. On the whole, many of the cited testimonies give the impression that their writers, initially subdued by the power of the word, simply let themselves be guided by the word, until suddenly the abolitionist spirit gains the upper hand, and then not only the spirit [of the word] but also common sense seems to have departed from the writers. Hereafter follow some passages from the commentaries of more recent times; the above will be confirmed by them.
The Rev. Thomas Scott, whose Commentary, republished in Philadelphia in 1862 from the London edition of 1822, writes under the unmistakable influence of his time, soon after the great movement for the abolition of slavery under Wilberforce, in his notes on Exodus 21: “Slavery was almost universal in the world, and though, like war, it always proceeded of evil, and was generally evil in itself, yet the wisdom of God deemed it better to regulate, than to prohibit it. We should not, however, judge of the practice itself by these judicial regulations, but by the law of love. Slavery, like war, may in some cases in the present state of things be lawful; for the crime which forfeits life no doubt forfeits liberty; and it is not inconsistent even with the moral law for a criminal to be sold and treated as a slave, during a term of time proportioned to his offense. In most other cases, if not in all, it must be inconsistent with the law of love.”[15] [16] Concerning Eph. 6:5: “Servants, be obedient to your masters,” etc., Scott says: “The Apostle next exhorts servants who had embraced Christianity to be obedient to their masters, according to the flesh, that is, to whom they were subjected in temporal matters. In general, the servants at that time were slaves, the property of their masters, and were often treated with great severity, though seldom with that systematic cruelty which commonly attends slavery in these days.”[17] (“Where,” asks our author, “did Dr. Scott find his authority for this statement? The testimony of history is altogether against him.”) “But the apostles were ministers of religion,” continues Dr. Scott, “not politicians; they had not that influence among rulers and legislators which would have been necessary for the abolition of slavery. Indeed, in that state of society as to other things, this [Lehre und Wehre interjects: “the influence on the legislators for the abolition of slavery”] would not have been expedient: God did not please miraculously to interpose in the case, and they were not required to exasperate their persecutors by expressly contending against the lawfulness of slavery. Yet both the law of love and the Gospel of grace tend to its abolition as far as they are known and regarded; and the universal prevalence of Christianity must annihilate slavery, with many other evils, which, in the present state of things, can not wholly be avoided. In the wisdom of God the apostles were left to take such matters as they found them, and to teach servants and masters their respective duties, in the performance of which the evil would be mitigated, till in due time it should be extirpated by Christian legislators.”[18]
But even more clearly than Dr. Scott in the shared excerpts, Dr. Adam Clarke, a Methodist, shows us the conflict between the spirit of God and the spirit of abolitionism. For instance: “1 Tim. 6:1: Let as many servants as are under the yoke, etc. “The word δουλος here,” saith Dr. Clarke, “means slaves converted to the Christian faith, and the ζυγον or yoke, is the state of slavery. Even these, in such circumstances, and under such domination, are commanded to treat their masters with all honor and respect, that the name of God, by which they were called, and the doctrine of God, Christianity, which they had professed, might not be blasphemed, might not be evil spoken of, in consequence of their improper conduct. Civil rights are never abolished by any communications from God’s Spirit. The civil state in which man was before his conversion is not altered by that conversion, nor does the grace of God absolve him from any claims which either the state or his neighbor may have upon him. All these outward things continue unaltered.”[19] This is, of course, quite healthy fare that Dr. Clarke is presenting to his readers here. The same Dr. Clarke, however, who lets the Holy Spirit speak to his readers from 1 Tim. 6:1, allows another spirit to speak concerning Eph. 6:5, and says: “Although in heathen countries slavery was in some sort excusable, yet among Christians it is an enormity and a crime, for which perdition has scarcely an adequate state of punishment.”[20] Thus he (or the spirit of ultra-abolitionism) speaks of Eph. 6:5. But the words “with good will” in the 7th verse of the same chapter he explains, “Do not take up your service as a cross, or bear it as a burden, but take it as coming in the order of God’s Providence, and a thing that is pleasing to him!”[21]
From a commentary which has found the widest circulation among the “Orthodox Congregationalists,” a note by Dr. Jenks, on 1 Cor. 7:21, “Art thou called being a servant, etc.,” is transcribed, which thus reads: “The sense is not clear. Chrysostom and all the old commentators understand, ‘You need care so little, that even if you can gain your freedom, prefer your servitude as a greater trial of Christian patience!’ (So a religion of despotism counsels, contrary to the precept, ‘Do not evil that good may come,’ and to the prayer, ‘Lead us not into temptation.’ By what right can any man imbrute God’s image, which Christ atoned for, to a mindless, will-less, soulless, rightless chattel! Yet) so Camer, Schmidt, Sparck, Estius, De Dieu, and the Syr. And this sense, they think, is confirmed by the following consolatory words, ‘For he,’ etc. It is also ably defended by De Dieu and Wolf. But there is a certain harshness about it to which necessity alone would reconcile me. What is detrimental to human happiness can not be promotive of virtue. The true intent seems that of Beza, Grot., Ham., and most recent commentators. ‘Do not feel a too great trouble on that account, as if it could materially affect your acceptance with God, and as if that were a condition unworthy of a Christian.’ ‘Grace knows no distinctions of freedom or servitude, therefore bear it patiently.’ Grotius adds: ‘And above all, let it not drive you to seek your freedom by unjustifiable means.’ And he remarks that a misunderstanding of the nature of Christian liberty had made many Christian slaves not only murmur at their situation, but seek to throw off all bondage. O just yet merciful God! enlighten the slave and his master in these United States, at once and always to do Thy will!”[22]
Our author calls the excerpt just given a “fair specimen of the rhetoric that has been so common, of late years, on the subject of slavery,” and he continues, “taking it for granted that the slave must be made a brute, without mind, soul, will or right, a mere chattel; although these gentlemen must know that among the ancients the slaves were often highly educated to be instructors of youth, that Esop was a slave, and Terence was a slave, and Epictetus was a slave, while amongst the slave population of the South, enough of their negroes have been taught and emancipated to plant the new State of Liberia, and of those who still remain with their masters, nearly five hundred thousand are reported as members of Christian societies, in good standing. These facts being perfectly notorious, one can hardly read such a display of our commentator’s anti-slavery prejudice without desiring that he might study the Ninth [Eighth] Commandment, ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor,’ with a wholesome regard to personal application.”[23]
The reader should not tire if a few more excerpts are given from two chapters of our book. Headings of the further chapters are: Man-Stealing; The Golden Rule; Personal Fitness; St. Domingo; Wilberforce; Results of Emancipation; Gradual Cessation of Slavery; Gibbon; Robertson; Motley; Margrave; Public Opinion; The English Poor; Treatment of Slaves; Mrs. Kemble; Theodore Parker; Emerson. Let us take the chapter on “Man-Stealing” first. On this topic a pamphlet directed against the author says: “In the year 1562, Sir John Hawkins set fire to a city in Africa and carried off two hundred and fifty slaves. And the king of Dahomey captured, quite lately, a town in which he slew one third of the population and took the remainder into captivity.”[24] To which our author replies:[25], [26] “This is assumed to be the mode in which all the slaves at the South were originally reduced to bondage; and as their masters can have no better title than those who sold them, therefore they are all involved in the sin of man-stealing!” “Now, really, this sort of absurdity strikes me as a most extraordinary example of sophistical perverseness. If these facts were brought forward against the slave-trade, they might be deemed appropriate.” [….] “But what has that to do with their domestic slavery? Have they attacked the African towns, and slaughtered the inhabitants, and taken away the captives?” In former times, Old England and New England carried on the trade, but the southerners brought the Africans into their possession through proper purchase. Now, of course, ‘the receiver is as bad as the thief,’ but only if the receiver knows that the property is stolen. Now, with respect to the original stock of Africans, from which the southern Negroes have descended, can it be proved 1. that they were stolen, and 2. that the buyers knew about this crime? Not at all. “We are told, by Malte Brun, that in Africa two thirds of the population are slaves, which, as the whole is estimated at ninety millions, would give sixty millions for the present number of the native slaves.” Now, “No one can be farther than I from justifying the barbarity of the African slave-trade.” But if the slave traders received their sad cargo of human beings from the King of Dahomey out of the number of Negroes who were already slaves, can they therefore be called man-stealers? The Negroes were sold at certain prices, and if the slave traders had inquired into the origin of their sad cargo of human beings, the barbarian despot would simply have replied: That’s none of your business! So even the traders themselves cannot be convicted that they have stolen the slaves. Now, how could the southern planters have known that the slaves were stolen in the time when the slave trade was still permitted? And if they did not know, since they could not have known, how could they be accused of participating in man-stealing? But even if those planters had learned that the first slaves were really stolen, it would be neither right nor reasonable to call their heirs and descendants, who came into the possession of the slaves in a right and legal way, accomplices of men-stealers. For consider by what right you or anyone here is in possession of land and house! The land belonged to the Indians; England based its legal claim to it on the discovery of it. But can the discovery of the property of another make it my property? But according to the old European maxim, ‘All land inhabited by savage, heathen tribes belongs to us,’ this land was taken, just as the natives were taken and made slaves of them. Thus: “the ultra-abolitionist holds his property by the same title precisely, that the Southern planter claims in his slaves.” By force or fraud the land has been taken away from the real owners, the Indians. “When our ultra-abolitionist talks of the negro, he tells us that all men are brothers, and is pathetically eloquent upon the Christian rule of doing to others as we would that they should unto us. But when his subject is the Indian, he has no idea that the rule is applicable.”[27]
The author then makes a comparison between the Indians of today and the slaves of the South, which is entirely to the advantage of the latter, and says in conclusion: “Can a Christian believer in the providence of God fail to see that a blessing to the African has followed in the train of Southern slavery, while a blight has rested on the system adopted for the Indian? Is it possible to doubt that if the Indians could have been successfully subjected to the white man, it would have been infinitely better for them at the present day?”[28]
The author introduces the 42nd chapter, “The English Poor,” by speaking of the treatment of the slaves, and making a comparison between the evils which the slaves have to endure at the hands of their masters, and those to which the laboring free classes are subjected. He already remarked that he is truly hostile to all cruel treatment and oppression of the Negroes, and that he rejects it everywhere; but this kind of treatment is so little the general one in the South that in the majority of cases there is evidence of such a pleasant relationship as can only exist between slaves and masters. If, on the other hand, one looks at the misery in which, for example, a large part of the poor in England find themselves, then it can be rightly asserted that the slaves are generally much better off than those unfortunates. For proof of this he quotes a recent work by Joseph Kay, Esq. on the social condition of the people of England.[29] There we read, among other things: “In the civilized world there are few sadder spectacles than the present contrast in Great Britain of unbounded wealth and luxury, with the starvation of thousands and tens of thousands, crowded into cellars and dens, without ventilation or light, compared with which the wigwam of the Indian is a palace. Misery, famine, brutal degradation, in the neighborhood of stately mansions which ring with gayety and dazzle with pomp and unbounded profusion, shock us as no other wretchedness does.”[30]—Thus is the situation in England.
The misery of thousands of children in London and other cities of England is truly terrible. They grow up in the greatest filth of body and soul without instruction, discipline and care. “It has been calculated that there are at the present day in England and Wales nearly eight millions of persons who can not read and write…. Of all the children in England and Wales, between the ages of five and fourteen, more than the half are not attending any school.”[31] Thousands upon thousands of vagrants of both sexes, who roam the highways and byways by day, congregate by night in the most miserable dens, called “vagrant lodging houses”; men old and young, women old and young, and children of all ages pass the nights there in ghastly confusion. “The scenes which take place are horrible.” Abominations of all kinds take place.[32]
Among the poor of England, the use they make of ‘burial clubs’ is also terrible. In order to get the money for the burial of their children (a sum that of course exceeds the real costs), they not infrequently cause the death of their children by starvation, other bad treatment, or poison.[33] Sins against the 6th commandment are the norm among these poor in the most horrible way, and that in the rural districts not less than in the big cities. In certain districts it is reported not only that the women are not ashamed of fornication, but also that this sin garners no attention among the other inhabitants.[34] Even incest is no longer rare.[35] The pen refuses to copy verbatim even the mildest reports about this vice. Read this chapter in the book itself, and compare the conditions described therein with the worst that has been said of slave life, and you will be able to call it a good life compared to the misery among the poor of England, which mocks all description.
At the end of our book we find a serious and dignified admonition to the bishop Potter mentioned at the beginning. In an appendix we also have the Latin text of many of the excerpts given. The whole work is, as said, worthy of the most detailed study; one will have rich profit from it. And even if it is very regrettable that the Venerable Bishop Hopkins (now the oldest bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States) does not stand in the one true position from which one may argue with earnestness and strength against chiliasm, which is merely “ultra-abolitionism” in the spiritual sphere, as he has against the abolitionism of the humanists, we do not want to let ourselves be hindered by this from heartily thanking him for the mass of good and instructive things presented in his book, and urgently recommending the work to all readers. W. St.
[1] Even now, when the end of slavery in our new fatherland is obviously approaching, we gladly accept the present submission, not, of course, for the purpose of stopping that end, for we, as native Germans, have never been able to acquire a taste for this peculiarly republican institution of the “glorious Union” and are therefore far from weeping a tear for this dying institution. The reason for our joy is much rather this, that thereby a testimony is given that, even if everything else becomes prey to transitoriness, nevertheless the truth concerning it remains unchanged, namely in our case, the doctrine of the Scriptures on slavery, whether the thing itself continues to exist or perishes. In the same way, the doctrine of the obedience of subjects remains true for absolute monarchies also, even if all kingdoms should one day become free republics. In addition to this, every doctrine of Scripture is of the highest importance not only with regard to its primary subject, but also in a thousand other respects, and spreads the clearest light over other areas as well. We are also happy about it, when again and again that glittering spirit of fraud, which wants to make the world happy, is opposed, which wants to put the humanistic lie in place of the biblical truth by temperance agitations, by women’s emancipation agitations, by slavery agitations, and by who knows what other agitations. Also, it will certainly please the readers of “Lehre und Wehre” to see that there are still some among the American theologians who have the courage not to give Christianity away to the fashionable American sentimentality which passes for religion. B. [Original footnote]
[2] A Scriptural, Ecclesiastical, and Historical View of Slavery
[5] p.3
[6] p.6
[7] p.41
[8] p.86
[9] pp.86-87
[10] p.99
[11] Ephesians 6:5-7
[12] p.102
[13] p.103
[14] p.111
[15] Thomas Scott, The Holy Bible: Containing the Old and New Testaments, According to the Authorized Version: With Explanatory Notes, Practical Observations, and Copious Marginal References
[16] p.143
[17] p.146
[18] pp.146-147
[19] p.159
[20] p.53
[21] p.158
[22] p.161
[23] pp.161-162
[24] p.234
[25] His answer is only given here according to the main points. [original footnote]
[26] [The following summary includes direct quotations as indicated and translations of the paraphrased portions where appropriate.]
[27] p.237
[28] p.237
[29] The Social Condition and Education of the People in England
[30] p.285
[31] p.299
[32] p.289
[33] pp.289-290
[34] p.297
[35] p.293