When fugitive slaves in America are sent back to their masters with such letters as that of St. Paul to Philemon, and treated as St. Paul expects Onesimus to be treated on their return, American slavery will have some claim to be regarded as a Scriptural institution. But in that case it will also be near its end. For such a feeling as the writer of the Epistle supposes to exist in the hearts of Christians as to their relations with each other, though it would not prevent a Christian slave from remaining in the service of his master, would certainly prevent a Christian master from continuing to hold his fellow Christian as a slave.
St. Paul must have known what Slavery under the Roman Empire was. He must have known that it was a vast reign not only of abominable cruelty, but of still more abominable lust. He must have known that it was fed to a great extent by the man-stealing which he classes with murder and parricide. He must have known the deadly effects which it produced on the character of the Slave-owner, to whose unbridled passions human beings of both sexes were subjected without limit or redress.[1] He must have known that this was the real “cancer” which was eating into the vitals of morality and drawing society to its ruin. It would have been strange therefore if he had selected
- ↑ Let it be observed that in those days there were no Abolitionists to disturb, by their fanatical attacks, the kindly relations between the Slave and his Master, or to mar the harmonious working of the institution. The world saw, by a fair and decisive experiment, what it was to give man a despotic and uncontrolled power over man. That tyranny is mildest when it is unchecked and undenounced is a theory flattering to human nature, but not verified by the experience of history.
