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.
"The minister," said I, "who, Hattie tells us, classed 'Abraham the
slave-holder' with the 'murderer,' and the 'liar and swearer,' knew not
what he did. People who laugh and titter at the 'patriarchal
institution,' need to peruse the laws of Moses again, with a spirit akin
to their beautiful tone; and those who say that to hold a fellow-man as
property is 'sin,' are not 'wiser than Daniel,' but they make themselves
wiser than God.
"All who sustain the relationship of owner to a human being," said I,
"do well to read these injunctions of the Most High, as very many of
them do, applying them to themselves. And it is also profitable to read
how that a violation of these very slave-laws was, in after years, one
great cause of the divine wrath upon the Hebrews.
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