question whether God is or is not a true witness; that is, provided it is God's testimony, and not merely the testimony of the Chillicothe Presbytery, that it is a "heinous sin and scandal" to buy, sell and hold slaves.
Again (p. 21):
If language can convey a clear and definite meaning at all, I know not how it can more plainly or unequivocally present to the mind any thought or idea, than the twenty-fifth chapter of Leviticus clearly and unequivocally establishes the fact that slavery was sanctioned by God himself, and that buying, selling, holding and bequeathing slaves, as property, are regulations which are established by himself. ******** What language can more explicitly show, not that God winked at slavery merely, but that, to say the least, he gave a written permit to the Hebrews, then the best people in the world, to buy, hold and bequeath, men and women, to perpetual servitude? What, now, becomes of the position of the Chillicothe Presbytery? * * * * Is it, indeed, a fact, that God once gave a written permission to his own dear people ["ye shall buy"] to do that which is in itself sinful? Nay, to do that which the Chillicothe Presbytery says "is a heinous sin and scandal"? ******** God resolves that his own children may, or rather "shall," "buy, possess and hold," bond-men and bond-women, in bondage, forever. But the Chillicothe Presbytery resolves that "buying, selling, or holding slaves, for the sake of gain, is a heinous sin and scandal."
We do not mean to say that Mr. Smylie had the internal slave-trade directly in his mind in writing these sentences; but we do say that no slave-trader would ask for a more explicit justification of his trade than this.
Lastly, in regard to that dissolution of the marriage relation, which is the necessary consequence of this kind of trade, the following decisions have been made by judicatories of the church.
The Savannah River (Baptist) Association, in 1835, in reply to the question,
Whether, in a case of involuntary separation, of such a character as to preclude all prospect of future intercourse, the parties ought to be allowed to marry again?
answered.
That such a separation, among persons situated as our slaves are, is civilly a separation by death, and they believe that, in the sight of God, it would be so viewed. To forbid second marriages, in such cases, would lie to expose the parties, not only to stronger hardships and strong temptation, but to church censure, for acting in obedience to their masters, who cannot be expected to acquiesce in a regulation at variance with justice to the slaves, and to the spirit of that command which regulates marriage among Christians. The slaves are not free agents, and a dissolution by death is not more entirely without their consent, and beyond their control, than by such separation.
At the Shiloh Baptist Association, which met at Gourdvine, a few years since, the following query, says the Religious Herald, was presented from Hedgman church, viz:
Is a servant, whose husband or wife has been sold by his or her master into a distant country, to be permitted to marry again?
The query was referred to a committee, who made the following report; which, after discussion, was adopted:
That, in view of the circumstances in which servants in this country are placed, the committee are unanimous in the opinion that it is better to permit servants thus circumstanced to take another husband or wife.
The Reverend Charles C. Jones, who was an earnest and indefatigable laborer for the good of the slave, and one who, it would be supposed, would be likely to feel strongly on this subject, if anyone would, simply remarks, in estimating the moral condition of the negroes, that, as husband and wife are subject to all the vicissitudes of property, and may be separated by division of estate, debts, sales or removals, &c. &.c., the marriage relation naturally loses much of its sacredness, and says:
It is a contract of convenience, profit or pleasure, that may be entered into and dissolved at the will of the parties, and that without heinous sin, or injury to the property interests of any one.
In this sentence he is expressing, as we suppose, the common idea of slaves and masters of the nature of this institution, and not his own. We infer this from the fact that he endeavors in his catechism to impress on the slave the sacredness and perpetuity of the relation. But, when the most pious and devoted men that the South has, and those professing to spend their lives for the service of the slave, thus calmly, and without any reprobation, contemplate this state of things as a state with which Christianity does not call on them to interfere, what can be expected of the world in general?
It is to be remarked, with regard to the sentiments of Mr. Smylie's pamphlet, that they are endorsed in the appendix by a document in the name of two presbyteries, which document, though with less minuteness of investigation, takes the same ground with Mr. Smylie. This Rev. James Smylie
