Review of Bishop Hopkins' Bible view of slavery, by a Presbyter of the church in Philadelphia

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REVIEW OF BISHOP HOPKINS'

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BY

A PRESBYTER OF THE CHURCH

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PHILADELPHIA.

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5 REVIEW

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BY A PRESBYTER OF THE CHURCH, IN PHILADELPHIA.

The venerable Bishop of Vermont tells us that his "gray hairs admo-
nish him that he may soon be called to give an account of his stewardship,'
in a singular pamphlet which is marked No. 8 of " Papers from the So.
ciety for the Diffusion of Political Knowkdge," whose office is at No. 13
Park Row, New York. This pamphlet, in which the Bishop speaks so
seriously of his approaching destiny is not a 6ermon, but a political docu-
ment, specially written for political purposes, in reply to a letter of inquiry
from notorious politicians in Philadelphia; and is published by apolitical
society in New York for distribution throughout the Free States; but more
especially in Pennsylvania, as it would seem, to affect the elections. It is a
strange thing indeed, and bears the marks of inconsistency for a Bishop,
whose gray hairs admonish him of his final accountability, not to be admo-
nished of the manifest impropriety of entering the political arena at so late
a day, and especially after having so conscientiously refused to sit with his
brother Bishops in the last General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal
Church, while a pastoral letter was being read which he deemed too poli-
tical. It would have been well, too, had the Bishop been furthermore
admonished of the indecorum, not to say impertinence, of entering
another Bishop's diocese with such $, pamphlet as this, without first
having obtained permission, according to the laws of the Church, and
especially a diocese which has received and treated Bishop Hopkins with
so much substantial consideration. No wonder the worthy Bishop of
Pennsylvania and his clergy protested against this interference and poli-
tical intermeddling with the affairs of his diocese and of their several
charges; aad no wonder that protest, so earnest and so decided, has

awakened all th<> malice and the hatred of those Democrats and politi*aJ

Churchmen, vclcpt, Copperheads. But since the Bishop's private umiv.v
nitionfl extend only to this one specific thiug of final accountability, wi ^
he altogether overlooks or ignores the less important matters of workSj
prudence and discretion, even though, as he tells us, "more than fun*
years have elapsed since he erased even to attend the polls,'' it may •>►
permitted to some of his juniors to remind him that his political pua*.
phlet tally makes up for all the mischief which a forty years' attend..
on the polls might have caused, and that it is one of the most flatt. • ._'
unctions ever laid to the guilty soul of slavery: ''From the Word f
God there can be no appeal," the Bishop tells us; of course there cannot;
but from the Bishop's interpretation of that word, so much at varia.'.'r*-
with the universal interpretation of Christendom, there can be a meet
serious appeal. Is the Bishop infallible?

Bishop Hopkins entirely disclaims any responsibility as to the use which
a political taction is now making of his pamphlet, published, as he says,
before the present troubles had taken shape, and before he knew the at-
titude which the ^outh would take. It is a useless disclaimer ; because he
does not deny its authorship, or that it was written in response to au ap-
plication made to him by notorious politicians in Philadelphia. He must
have been aware that it would be used to accomplish certain political ends,
and therefore he cannot evade responsibility in the matter, even the re-
sponsibility of causing disaffection and discord in the diocese of Penn-
sylvania. It is a political hurdy-gurdy which he has manufactured; and
because it so exactly suited this political faction which is now and has
been making such discordant and horrible music with it in this Common-
wealth and in the Church itself, he must meet the responsibility like a
man and stand up to its full measure of indignant protest. Bishop Pot-
ter and his Clergy have a perfect right to protest against this intermed-
dling ; thoy would not be faithful to their trust unless they did. And
shall uiio Bishop engage in a political controversy which seriously affects
the peace and the interests of another Bishop's diocese, and shall this
la~t have no voice in protesting against it? Fair play is a jewel, and the
shoe may bo placed on the other foot. It is for this reason that the
writer of this review signed the protest with his Bishop.

Bishop Hopkins' pamphlet is made up of several groundless assump-
tions and assertions, and of attempted answers to certain objections made
against the advocates of slavery. The first assumption is that slavery
being "a mrvitude for life , descending to /h'Ojfapriruj," (the definition aud
tho italics are the Bishop's) has "existed as an established institution
in all ages of our world, by the universal evidence of history, whether
Bacred or profane;'' that it "was sanctioned by the Deity" and "au-
thorized by the Almighty." (Page 2.) The Bishop's pamphlet has for

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the first time entirely convinced the writer of this review that slavery is
an accursed thing in itself, and that it originated in a prophetic curse ; but
it has not convinced him that it is an institution existing in all ages of
the world, sanctioned and authorized by the good God. Sacred history
is the most rational account of the creation of the world and of maukiud,
and it contains not one word about slavery as an original institution in
the garden of Eden. Marriage was there instituted, so was worship and
work, as the necessary basis of the family, the church and the state. If
slavery had been necessary to the existence of society in church and
state, or in the family, then slaves would have been"created to dress and
to keep the garden, (Gen. 2 : 15.) But no ^aves were thus created for
this purpose, and the work of dressing and keeping the garden was
specially assigned to Adam. Slavery therefore is not an original institu-
tion existing in all ages of the world, sanctioned and authorized by the
Deity, as marriage, worship and work were; and for more than tico thou-
sand years of the world's existence there is no evidence at all in the
Sacred History that slavery had any existence. Man was made to do his
own work, and from the little evidence that we have of the state of so-
ciety before the flood, it is plain that it had attained to a high degree of
civilization in the arts, without the institution of slavery. How then can
Bishop Hopkins affirm that slavery has existed "in all ages of our world,
by the universal evidence of history, whether sacred or profane?" The
homely distich

" When Adam delv'd and Eve span
Where was then the gentleman?"

would have taught him better than this, if he had any disposition to learn
the truth on this point. And the existence of human society for more
than two thousand years in a high state of civilization without slavery as
an established institution, is an exception to his sweeping assertion that
it has existed in all ages of the world. Slavery is a thing wholly inci-
dent to man in a fallen state, and it was simply a development of man's
inherent depravity and wickedness. God never instituted it. He sim-
ply allowed it to be, as He allows other evils, we do not know why. He
simply made it a punishment of man's sin, which is purely a temporary
aDd earthly punishment, as the deluge was. He never meant it to be
eternal. Hell is the eternal bondage and punishment of sin, and hell
only. Who ever before heard that God's institutions for man's welfare
in society originated in a curse? It is quite a novelty in theology, and
altogether an original discovery. God's institutions are meant to be
blessings, if men will use them rightly. When, therefore, Bishop Hop-
kins asserts that " the first appearance of slavery in the Bible is the won-
derful prediction of the patriarch Xoah," recorded in Genesis ix. 25 v.:
"Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren,"

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he is iiuitc right as to the origin of slavery, but his inferences are wholly
wrong. "Servant of sen-ant*' ' in the original Hebrew- simply means,
according to (leseuius, "the lowest menial," whether he be a slave or
only a hired servant. And in the Septuagint translation it means a
'■/muse servant ur since;" one born in the house as a menial or living in
the house in that capacity. Grauting the Bishop his premise that it
means slave in our acceptation of the word, it still remains fur him to
prove that. Noah's prophetic curse has any reference at all to the per-
petual bondage of the African race. On this point theologians, as
learned and as profouud as Bishop Hopkins, differ with him in opinion.
This curse entailed as a punishment on Canaan, doubtless because he in-
herited more than Ham's other children, his father's peculiarly cor-
rupt, and ungrateful, and unfilial disposition, is thought to have been
fully accomplished when the wicked, and licentious, and idolatrous Ca-
naanites were conquered by the Israelites^ and made their "hewers of
wood and drawers of water." The settlement of Africa by unmixed de-
scendants of Ham is still a debated question, and therefore Bishop Hop-
kins must show conclusively that Noah's prophetic curse has any other
reference than to the Canaanites whom Israel reduced to bondage, and
that Africa was wholly settled by Hani's posterity. The African race
has for a^es been a weak and dependent race; but so have other races of
men been. It is from the African race that slaves have been chiefly ob-
tained in modern times; but that is no reason why they alone of all man-
kind have been doomed to perpetual servitude by the Almighty. The
argument proves too much. Other races have been made slaves by
stronger powers in times past, and it is from the Circassian race that Mo-
hammedanism chiefly obtains its slaves. Are these included in the curse
of Noah? If not, then slavery exists elsewhere and independent of this
curse and the Bishop must account for it otherwise than as a Divine in-
stitution originating elsewhere, and not for the only time in Noah's
malediction on Canaan. It is simply an evil which is its own punishment.
The next important assumption which Bishop Hopkins makes as to
the Divine institution of slavery, is, that the moral law, the "Ten Com-
mandments delivered from Mount Sinai," sanctions property, not only in
slaves but in wives and children, oxen and asses. Hear him in the as-
sertion of this monstrous dogma: " It is evident that the principle of pro-
perty— 'anything that is thy neighbor's'-— runs through the whole,"
(p. 1) According to this, a man's wife and children are as much his
property as his houses and lands, his bonds and mortgages, his cattle and
merchandise; and if he chooses, he may sell the one as well as the other.
lie may at any time dissolve the nouuriijige bond and dispose of his chil-
dren, which G-od has made purpotuifly binding, and whom He has in-
trusted to parental care and affectum forever, just as he may part with a

refractory horse or a bale of goods, or a share of poor railroad stock..
The Bishop has good reason to hold the supposition that such a doctrine
as this, is liable to "the prejudice which many good people entertain
against the idea of property, in a human being," (p. 2;) and it is most
likely that the wives and children, husbands and parents, who learn this
exposition of the moral Law may have some prejudice against it. How
would the Bishop like to sell his wife and children to the highest bidder
at a Richmond auction block? If as a good man he might entertain a
prejudice against the idea, then other good men may be privileged to do
the same thing, without incurring the charge of fanaticism. This expo-
sition of the moral Law is as much of a novelty, as the other assertion
that slavery is a Divine institution exiting in all ages of the world; and
we give the Bishop credit for his originality in the one case as in the
other. The whole thing is so absurd on this point, that it needs only to
be stated in order to be refuted. The Bishop is so hard-pressed to quote
Scripture for his purpose, that he lugs in the moral Law to bolster up his
monstrous theory of property in human beings, even wives and children;
when the moral Law has nothing at all to do with the subject. Perhaps
he has discovered somewhere that this part of the Law, which forbids
coveting, applies only to white people, and that the black race is an ex-
ception to the rule — that there may be property in black slaves, but not
in white ones. If so, he will doubtless enlighten us again, when his gray
hairs admonish him so to do.

Again, the Bishop assures us very explicitly and gravely that the Levi-
tical law expressly sanctions slavery as a Divine institution. This law is
based on the higher moral Law. and cannot contravene or contradict it.
He quotes several passages from the books of Exodus and Leviticus, to
justify his position, which have nothing more to do with the subject than
this, viz., that they are rules for the regulation of slavery as it existed in
the Hebrew commonwealth, and for the benefit of the slave. Slaves were not
to be cast out helpless on the world after having served their masters,
and so the masters are charged to provide for them. The law also regu-
lated polygamy and divorce ; but no one will venture to assert, except a
Mohammedan and a Mormon, that polygamy and divorce are Divine in-
stitutions. As God at first made only one wife for a man and no slaves,
so it was His intention that he should have only one wife and no slaves.
Polygamy and divorce arose against this Divine intention and institution
of marriage out of man's depravity, just as slavery did; and the law was
given to regulate both, and to set some bounds and limitations to human pas-
sion and caprice. The very existence of the law is a proof of its necessity,
for it applies only to the lawless and the sinful; and if both polygamy and
slavery had not been sinful and needed regulation, the law would not
have been given for the purpose. To quote all that the Bishop says on

— the Levitical Law as justifying the institution of slavery, would be to oc-
cupy too much space; and with this principle of its interpretation we must
refer the reader to the Episcopal political document itself, (pp. 2-4.).
But we have not yet reached the depths of this profound quagmire into
which the toiling and struggling Bishop would lead us. After quoting
all that the Old Testament says expressly on the subject of slavery, he
turns to the New; and brings forth what Christ and his apostles have
to do or not to do, with it. And all this part of his .political pamphlet is
so shocking to every principle of charity and good-will to men, that it
needs special refutation. A sophomore, in his first College essay, might
i&uke this refutation easily, and even then do himself no great credit.
And will it be believed by sensible men that Bishop Hopkins puts in
capital letters as a most important and unanswerable proposition, our Lord's
entire silence on the subject of slavery as a justification of it? And yet
he does this very thing with an air of complete self-satisfaction and
triumph. Hear him: ;' We ask what the Divine Redeemer said in refer-
ence to slavery. And the answer is perfectly undeniable: He did NOT
allude to it at all." (p. 4.) What of it? Is silence always to
be construed into assent? And can silence be fairly and always justly
interpreted as meaning assent and justification? Not at all. Our Lord
says nothing at all about the Jewish Sabbath passing over into the Chris-
tian Sunday ; but is that any reason why He approved or disapproved of
the change? He says nothing at all about suicide; but is that any rea-
son why He approved and justified it? He says nothing at all about poly-
gamy, although He speaks of marriage ; but is that any reason why He
sanctioned it? The words, Sunday, suicide and polygamy, are not once
reported as ever having fallen from His lips; and yet the principles of
His blessed religion are sufficiently explicit as to the things themselves.
Upon what principle of interpretation, then, does Bishop Hopkins affirm
that our Lord's sileuce on the subject of slavery in the Roman Empire,
which by the way was not wholly African slavery, can be construed into
its justification, any more than His silence on the matters of a change in
the Jewish Sabbath, suicide and polygamy, can be construed for or against
them? Silence here is a poor argument iu favor of slavery, and the
Bishop is certainly very ingenious, but not so ingenuous in making it
serve his purpose. The Christian religion is but the full completion and
development of the Jewish, and its abiding principles are one and the same
throughout All Revelation is a unit, showing us our duties to God and
man. This Revelation was made complete and final in Jesna Christ
and by Him; aud therefore the Christian religion must be consistent
with God's original revelations in Eden, and under the Patriarchal and
Mosaic systems. It is designed to restore man's lost innocence and
happiness, and is meant for the whole race, aud for no particular part of it.

If, then, slavery was not established in Eden as a Divine institution, but
only grew up after man's apostacy, and long after, it is certainly no part
of Christianity to sanction it, but to do it away and to restore mankind to
its original state as it existed in Eden. Our Lord was no politician, al-
though He was a good and loyal citizen of the Roman empire, because his
kingdom was not of this world; and it would have utterly defeated His
benevolent design in establishing His religion in the earth, if He had
mingled in politics, inter fered^. in any way with existing institutions, or
allowed Himself to be drawn into any political and partisan complications.
His was- therefore a more prudent silence on the subject of slavery, tban
Bishop Hopkins has shown in the publication of his pamphlet; and if
this too zealous disciple and representative of the Great Bishop of souls
had but imitated His example, it would not have caused such an agita-
tion on this subject as now convulses both Cburch and State in our un-
happy country. It is enough to say that all Christendom, including even
Kussia, has at length utterly repudiated slavery as an abomination and an
evil too intolerable to be endured longer, as to the estimate which Chris-
tianity places upon human bondage, and as to the bounden duty which
she esteems it to get rid of the evil. It is a system which only lingers
in Christian America, and which is now going down to the pit of infamy
and depravity from which it came, as fast as the awful civil war in which
we are now engaged can send it. If it does not finally perish from the
earth in this fearful contest, then God have mercy on our people, and on
the poor black race ! This war has drawn the sword which will cut this
knotty question of slavery in twain, and relieve the anxieties of our states-
men as to the future destiny of our country.

After Bishop Hopkins has so triumphantly vindicated slavery by rea-
son of our Lord's entire silence on the subject, he goes on to speak of
His having come to fulfil the Mosaic law, and all its requirements about
slavery. Of course He did; but in a widely different manner from that
which the Bishop would have us believe He adopted. Christ came to
fill up the dead form of the letter of the Mosaic law with his own divine
and living spirit; and this spirit is so pre-eminently one of mercy, kind-
ness, love, and good will to the poor, the oppressed and the downcast of
our race, as to make it most certain that human bondage, save for crime,
was never intended to be the normal condition of any portion of the
human family. Christ came to do away every curse entailed upon man-
kind, 6y reason of sin, the curse in which slavery originated included;
and to proclaim and effect freedom to every captive and bondman, both
as to soul and body. He came to carry out and complete the true intent
of all Divine Law, which is to bring men everywhere to Christ for salva-
tion— for restoration to a lost innocence and happiness. To be free from
sin is indeed the only true freedom of soul; but to be free from the curse of

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■>io as it affects the body and the social position, is also no inconsiderable part
of the libertj wherewith Christ makes His people free. We have already
seen that it was the design of the Levitical law to regulate slavery for
the benefit of the slave, and to restrain the passion and caprice of the
master; and to carry out and complete this benevolent design in Christiani-
ty, it is necessary that slavery be done away altogether. Perpetuate it
as it existed in Hebrew times, aud the same law must be perpetuated for
its regulation: if an advance is to be made in social and religious life,
by an express revelation to the world in Jesus Christ, then it is obvious
that the Levitical law, and slavery with it, must give place to the higher
law of the one original Lawgiver. This higher law is the law of Love,
which forbids wrong, oppression and injustice to auy man, black or
white, brown or red ; and which charges us to do to others as we would
have them do to us. It is indeed a beautiful illustration of the mutual
love which Bishop Hopkins affirms to exist between the masters and
slaves of the South, that mounted patrols must guard plantation and
district from plunder, arson, rape and murder; and that blood hounds
must be kept to bring back escaping fugitives to the lash, to work and to
happiness! There may be instances of kindness and watchful care, just
as there may be for horses and cattle, and for the same reason, of self-in-
terest ; but that there is any general regard for the slaves as rational, ac-
countable and immortal beings, or as anything different from valuable
property, is denied by those who have long lived where slavery exists in
its perfection and very best developments. Christianity addresses itself
to all men without distinction of color, race, rank or station, as immortal
and accountable beings; aud therefore slavery is as incompatible with its
just and merciful spirit as anything can well be conceived to be.

After exhausting the Gospels, and finding there only silence on the sub-
ject of slavery, Bishop Hopkins next turns to the Pauline Epistles to see if
he can find anything more than silence to favor his "Bible view of
slavery." He quotes a few passages here and there as to the relative
duties of master and servant, which, while they recognise service and la-
bor as necessarily existing, do not give the least intimation that slavery
is a Divine institution, or that human bondage is made perpetual in the
African race. All these passages quoted from St. Paul's Epistles are
simply rules for the regulation of the conduct of both master and slave
towards each other, just as the Levitical Law on this point was; and
they give no hint whatever that unpaid, unrequited labor is a perpetual
principle of GlhVs just government. If the Bishop had only turned to the
Epistle of St. James, and read in the fifth chapter the heavy woes de-
nounced against those rich men, '• The hire of whose labourers that have
reaped down their fields, which is of them kept back by fraud, crieth ;
aud the cries of them which have reaped are eutered into the ears of the

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Lord of Sabbaoth," it is most likely that he might have obtained some
hint of what a just and righteous God lays down as a fundamental princi-
ple of His Kingdom. The labourer is worthy of his hire, be he white or
be he black, be he slave or be he freeman;' and to withhold that hire in
any case is a violation of this principle, and must recoil sooner or later
on him who withholds it, with righteous severity. God is the avenger
of all wrongs like this, and He will repay. If He is now repaying the
South in the desolation of its fair fields, in the impoverishing of its rich
planters, and in the liberation of thousands of slaves, it is bu^ just re-
compense, for which all good men may be devoutly thankful.

Thus Bishop Hopkins goes through the Bible from Genesis to Refla-
tion, picking out all that seems to favor his view of slavery as a ^Divine
institution; but taking no notice whatever of anything in its sacred pages
that militates against it. He never condescends to consider the matter
of Israel's bondage in Egypt, and of their wonderful deliverance by the
direct interposition of God ; for this would not have served his purpose.
This deliverance is the type of freedom for all God's children, both in
body and soul, as it shall ultimately be effected by the interposition of
the Gospel of Christ in this world's iniquitous despotisms. Bishop Hop-
kins is well aware of this, and hence his singular and judicious omission
of this subject in his political pamphlet.

And now we have followed the Bishop to the centre of his dark and
tangled bog of assumption and perversion. What does he do next? He
comes to a spot where the phosphorescent light is somewhat more abun-
dant, and he tosses it about with remarkable vigor. He surrounds him-
self with as much brilliancy as is possible under the circumstances, and
fairly glows and shines in purple punk. The Declaration of Indepen-
dence declares that " all men are born free and equal, and are endowed
with certain inalienable rights," &c. The Bishop declares that he "has
never been able to comprehend that these are truths at all," (p. 7.)
None are so blind as they who will not see. He even asserts that "this
most popular dogma is fallacious in itself, and only mischievous in its
tendencies," (p. 11.) He is bold enough to insinuate that it had its
origin in the infidel doctrines of the French Encyclopedists, which latter
proclaimed Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, The Rights OF Man,
as the battle cry of the first Revolution in France, (p. 9;) although he is
discriminating enough to see the difference between the revolution of the
American Colonies against the mother Country, and this first atheistical
French revolution. If the Bishop will turn to Farrar's recent work on
the " History of Free Thought," page 194, of Appleton's Edition, he will
find that one of the causes which produced atheism and its consequent
revolution in France, was the position of the church and her bishops and
clergy on the side of a most terrible, corrupt and intolerable despotism of

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the state. The church, as the exponent of Christianity, had become
wholly secular ; she was no longer the Kingdom of Christ in works of
charity and good will to men'; she had become the instrument of cruelty
and injustice and oppression ; and no wonder that thinking men judged
nf Christ's religion by her character and acts as allied with the state.
And God meant that the church should suffer for this apostacy and be
brought back to her original position and calling, by the terrors of that
dreadful revolution. He meant to bring good out of this great evil, just
as He brought the world's salvation out" of the horrors of the Crucifixion.
No one will justify the French revolution for this reason, any more than
he will justify the Crucifixion; but the whole thing shows that when
Bishops and Clergy depart from their strictly spiritual functions and be-
come politicians and oppressors of mankind, they must pay the penalty
of all apostates. The rights of man can never be trampled down with im-
punity, even by Bishops; men may be so driven to despair and forget
the obligations of religion when this is done, as to hurl Bishops and re-
ligion from their seats to a deep though temporal destruction. And
Bishop Hopkins' attempt to do this very thing by justifying slavery
on Bible principles, may yet have something to do with intensifying the
awful convulsion now going on amongst us, and bring his church into
serious trouble.

The consideration of the Declaration of Independence occupies almost
as much space in the Bishop's political pamphlet as the Bible does, show-
ing that he considers it of importance to meet its doctrine of human
equality as he best can. He rises to positive grandiloquence on matters
that have no possible connexion with its doctrine of political equality and
citizenship. The bodies of men are unequal in stature and strength; the
Esquimaux or Hottentot are not socially what American statesmen or
British peers are ; men differ intellectually; their inalienable rights are
forfeited by imprisonment, by violence, by accident, and by unhappy mar-
riages; rulers and ruled are not equal; Hindoos, Tartars, &c, are not
equal to Saxons; there are thrones, dominions, principalities and powers
in heavenly places in a grand system of order and gradation; mountains
and rivers, beasts and birds are unequal; there is "monarchy in the bee-
hive, and aristocracy in the ant-hill;" flies have no government at all;''
minerals shine with unequal lustre, and precious stones sparkle with un-
equal and varied brilliancy ; the mammoth cave and the minutest crys-
tal, the mountains of granite and sand-hills, are all unequal, &c, &c; but
what has all this bombast to do with the Declaration of Independence?
Thomas Jefferson is generally supposed to have drawn this instrument
f.r the American colonies, and not for the whole Universe of God. It is
reasonably thought to be a political state paper, and not a small Bible.
Its theory is, that invented and factitious distinctions between citizens,

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and titled nobility, and hereditary monarchy, are not of the nature of hu-
man rights originally bestowed upon mankind — but that they are pure
inventions simply tolerated. The Hebrew nation was constituted without
a king; and God was angry when the people became tired of His sole
sovereignty and desired a human king in His place. All their troubles
began with this human kingdom, and never ceased till the nation was
finally destroyed. Thomas Jefferson and the signers of the Declaration
of Independence were indeed slave-holders, but they did not wish slavery
to be perpetual in the new state which they had met to form; and hence
their agreement to the proposition that all men are born free and equal, J
in a political point of view. Surely they had brains enough — and so has
every plow-boy who goes on the Fourth of July to hear the Declaration
read — to perceive the real meaning of that instrument as entitling all ci-
tizens to the equal right and privilege of choosing law-makers and rulers,
or of being chosen to office; and surely they all had enough sense to per-
ceive the difference between a mountain and a mole-hill, a whale and a
minnow, an eagle and a bat, a lion and a mouse, or a Bacon and a Hop-
kins.

But the Bishop tells us that tbe Declaration of Independence is now
'* no part of our present system" of organic law, (page 10,) and that its
doctrine of human political equality is not at all binding. It is an "absurd
proceeding," and an "unmitigated perversity," for our orators, preach-
ers and politicians to say that it is either true or binding, (p. 10.) What
a subterfuge is this ! The seven years' war of Independence grew out of
this Declaration. The Constitution of the United States and a new inde-
pendent nation were tbe result of it. It is the great Charter of our pre-
sent liberties and national prosperity. It will remain as an integral part
of our nationality as long as that nationality endures. To set it aside
would be to set aside our very existence, and commit national suicide.
The Bishop's hostility to that immortal instrument may only pass away
with his life ; he may sleep on in entire inability to perceive its self-evi-
dent truths, as Rip Van Winkle slept through the Revolution; but for
all that, the world will move on; the- present war of freedom against
despotism, of civilization against barbarism, will accomplish its purpose;
and the drowsy Bishop may yet live to see, if he will rub his eyes a little
when he wakes up, a new sign-board in Burlington — the Washington of
Emancipation, instead of the King George of Slavery — and the whole as-
pect of affairs in our country totally changed.

There is one objection against the cruelty of slavery which the Bishop
attempts to answer that is almost too monstrous for belief, coming as it
does from a man of God and a high teacher of Christianity. The slaves
are lashed at whipping-posts for refractory conduct, men and women ; and
this is justified by the example of Christ driving the traders from th

no.-

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Temple with a whip of small cords! (p. 11.) Was Christ then whipping
tfavet into tmbmiuitmf Had His act any possible connexion with slavery?
He had just been acknowledged as the Messiah, and as such He was
coming to take possession of the royal palace and temple of his spiritual
kingdom, the House of Prayer for all nations. He found bad men there
who were not slaves, but Jewish freemen, profaning the Temple with their
merchandise, and perverting it from its original purpose; and His autho-
ritative act was simply one of restoration and of purging the Temple. A
whip was necessary to drive out the cattle and the sheep, as well as to
punish those who kept them there for sale contrary to the law; but it
was not a whip designed to reduce the African race to submission to
Southern task-masters. Bishop Hopkins may, if he choose, use a whip
to drive profane Abolitionists out of his church, after his Lord's exam-
ple; but he may not use it on the bare backs of poor slaves crying him
to have mercy, and justify his cruel act by this proceeding at the Tem-
ple. And we recommend him to add to his other symbols of office — viz.:
his mitre, his crosier, and his cross — a good stout whip, as a terror to all
Eastern Abolitionists. It will keep them in order, and be apt to keep
them out of his church forever. The lashing of slaves justified and ap-
proved by the example of Christ at the Temple, is simply an unconscious
and unintentional blasphemy, for which we pray the good Christ that the
Bishop may be forgiven.

Three other objections against slavery the Bishop would fain answer,
viz., its barbarity, its sin, and its property in man. It is the interest
of the master to treat his slaves kindly, just as it is his interest to treat
his horses and cows kindly. And is self-iuterest the basis of morality
and of all civilization? Bishop Butler will teach Bishop Hopkins a bet-
ter doctrine than that. Righteousness, aa a fundamental principle
against all -elf-interest, is the basis of all religion, morality and Christian
civilization; and until Bishop Hopkins can prove the perfect righteous-
ness of slavery as a Divine institution, we prefer to believe that it is a
foul iniquity worthy only of the deepest barbarism. Again, it is objected
to slavery that it is a sin per se. And his answer to this is that there is
morfe vice and sin in New York than in all the South, (p. 12.) We
shall let New York take care of this libel, and beg to say that it is no
answer to the objection. Man-stealing, man-selling, and man-breeding in
slaves remain as a confessed and revealed sin, even if the city of New
York is drunken, licentious and profane. And last of all, comes up the
question of property in slaves, as an objection to slavery, which the
Bishop again considers on the score of service and of social inequality.
(p. 12.) He boggles at it, and pulls up his legs out of the mire with
heroic energy, as if conscious of his failing strength; and yet it remains
lurue that all labor, whether for life or for a short time of service must

15

be paid, by tbe direct ordinance of God. No device of man can ever set
aside this fundamental principle of God's government as it respects ser-
vice and labor, not even tbe ingenious device of Bishop Hopkins and his
Southern friends.

"How would you like to be a slave?" is the argumentum ad homincm,
which the worthy Bishop considers in the fifth place as one of the popu-
lar objections to slavery, (p. 13.) And he answers it by saying, that
the slaves in the South are far happier and in a better condition than the
slaves of the King of Dahomey. This is only an argument as to one sys
tern of slavery being better than anotlier, and no argument at all in favo
of the Divine institution of slavery, in itself considered. It may alliSbe
true enough that slavery in the Southern States is far better than i/Zs in
the kingdom of Dahomey ; but does that make it true that God has in-
stituted it in one place more than in the other? It is a case of special
pleading which the Bishop has not yet entirely forgotten since the days
that he practised the art. It would have been far better for the cause of
truth and righteousness, if the Bishop had been employed as counsel for
the other side of the question. He will pardon us for referring to his
legal acumen, and for his dexterity in managing his case, on the score
that he is iiow a Bishop who has forsaken the law for the Gospel.

And, J-*m:>f all, this eatalopue of objections, which the Bishop so trium-
phantly ^s^tes, is, that of the separation of husbands and wives, parents
and children, as involved in slavery. His answer is, that laboring men,
military and naval men are long separated from their wives and children.
But they are not sold into perpetual bondage, and sent far away where
sight of wives and children shall never more greet their eyes and gladden
their hearts. And therefore it is no parallel ease. It ia, simply, some
more of the Bishop's special pleading. ,

Bishop Hopkins closes his political pamp/let on his Bible view of
slavery, with a pathetie homily, or part of homily, about the Christian
Church and himself as advocates of the system of human bondage ; and he
promises to give us another book on Fathers and Councils, as they relate
to the subject. In a more recent letter he threatens to give a brother
bishop and his elergy the enenviable notoriety of being published to the
world in his forthcoming book. We grant the Bishop his perfect ability
of making both himself and others notorious, but we doubt his ability
of making anything or anybody famous. However, as we may be mistaken
on this last point, we humbly beg of his lordship that he may include this
review with the name of its writer, which appears in the list of his protes-
tants, in that immortal work, so that both may have some chance of going
down to posterity.

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