"'Let me remind my brother, and you, my pastor, and my brethren, of one
fact which occurs to me at the moment. Manslayers, in cities of refuge,
were to go free at the death of the High Priest then in office; no such
release, however, was granted to the Gentile slaves, showing that
slavery was not a crime in the estimation of the Most High. Otherwise,
He would have legislated for the departure of slaves from their Hebrew
masters, as He did for manslayers fleeing from the avenger of blood.
Excuse the digression. The thought struck me at the moment.'
"'I put it to the brother,' said the Laodicean, 'whether he himself would
not flee to Rome, were he a single man, if he should be made a slave to
that monster in human shape, Osander of Hieropolis?'
"'I cannot say,' replied the Colossian, 'what my temptations might be,
nor how well I should resist them; but slavery being incorporated into
the government, and I being, in the providence of God, sold into bondage
to Osander,--I being either the child of a slave, or one of those who
are called "lawful captives,"--my race, or my capture in war, or my
indebtedness, or my crimes, subjecting me to bondage according to the
constitution of government, I ought to consider my slavery as the mode
which God had chosen for me to glorify him,--by my spirit and temper, by
my words and conduct, by my Christian example in everything, for the
good of Osander's soul, and the honor of religion.
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