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3. In our visits to the throne of grace, we ought, with more frequency and fervor, “to remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them.” Assured that all hearts and events are at God’s disposal, that he abhors oppression, and that prayer is the Christian’s mode of taking hold of God’s strength, we must make full proof of this as a weapon with which to effect the subversion of slavery. It may be that importunate, persevering prayer will effect more in behalf of the enslaved than all other instrumentalities. It is, at least, quite certain that other means will prove inefficacious, if this be not superadded.

But the question we are considering has a negative as well as positive side; and we will next inquire, what we anti-slavery Christians ought to refrain from doing.

1. We must not, in our efforts to subvert slavery, indulge in an unchristian spirit, or in language adapted needlessly to anger and alienate those whom it should be our aim to win. A cause that is intrinsically good may be advocated in a bad spirit, or with improper weapons; and such may have sometimes been the case with ours. Would that all men had ever borne it in mind, that truth and love are the only weapons with which to wage a successful conflict with this or any other deep-seated moral evil.

2. We must not, in our zeal for emancipation, allow mere feeling or benevolent impulses partially to dethrone reason; and thus disqualify ourselves for taking impartial views of the subject, or for accurately discriminating between truth and error. There may have been men in the anti-slavery ranks, with whom sympathy was every thing, and reason–and even the Bible–comparatively nothing. In obeying the injunction to “remember them that are in bonds,” they may have neglected to remember any thing else. Slavery seemed to occupy their entire field of vision. Hence, not fully informed in regard to the actual condition of things at the South, they have erroneously supposed that the slave codes prevailing there were the standard by which to judge of the actual condition of the slaves, and that all the Southern church was actually practising the barbarities authorized by those codes. As there was no just appreciation of the actual conduct of masters towards their servants, so there was no allowance made for the circumstances which conspired to render them masters, nor for the obstacles which stand in the way of their ceasing to be masters. It must be admitted, that generally, where unrighteous laws are suffered to exist, the mass of the community will not be better than the laws; but there are exceptions,–men who intend to give heed to a higher law. So much for allowing an amiable but blind sympathy to usurp that throne which reason and revelation were designed conjointly to occupy. It scarcely need be added, that these ultraisms have done much to prejudice the anti-slavery cause, and bring it, in the eyes of some, into unmerited contempt. We must wipe away that reproach, by so conducting our warfare with slavery as to evince that we are neither men of one idea, nor men whose judgment is led captive by their sensibilities.

3. We must not, in opposing slavery, indorse the sentiment, that one cannot in any conceivable circumstances give credible evidence of piety, and yet continue in form to hold slaves; that being a master is, in any and in all circumstances, a disciplinable offence in the church; or that it should, without exception, constitute a barrier to church-membership, or to the communion of saints at Christ’s sacramental board. While we believe that all the great principles of God’s Word go to subvert slavery, and while we are constrained to regard the holding of slaves as diminishing the evidence of a man’s piety, and thus far alienating his claims to a good standing in the Christian church, we may nevertheless make exceptions, and not keep a man out of the church, or discipline him when in it, merely because he sustains temporarily the relation of master, not for selfish ends, but, as in rare cases, for benevolent reasons. But if a man defends the system, and takes away from a fellow man inalienable human rights, then we may and should refuse him admission, or subject him to discipline, as the case may be. But, obvious and important as is this distinction, it is one which some anti-slavery men may have failed to make; and that failure may have prejudiced or retarded the cause of emancipation. A good cause suffers by having a single uncandid statement or untenable argument advanced in its support; and the friends of the enslaved must afford their opponents no room for saying, that their reasonings are illogical or anti-scriptural.