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4. We must not, in seeking the extinction of American slavery, so insist on its immediate abolition as to repudiate the responsibility which a master owes to this dependent and depressed class of his fellow beings; but that that end be kept steadily in view, to be accomplished as speedily as is consistent with the best good of the parties concerned. The immediate and total extinction of southern slavery, if not obviously impossible, is of questionable expediency. The upas of American slavery has struck its roots so deep, and shot its branches so far, and so interlaced itself with all surrounding objects, that, to have it instantaneously and unreservedly uprooted, might prove, in many cases, disastrous; and, at all events, is not to be expected. To say nothing of other obstacles to the immediate abolition of Southern slavery, the highest good of many of the slaves makes it inexpedient. Some, probably many of them, need to pass through an educating process,–a kind of mental and moral apprenticeship,–in order to their profiting largely by the boon of emancipation.[J]

II. We are now to inquire, lastly, what duties, positive and negative, this great question devolves on those Christians among whom American slavery has its seat, or who are personally identified with it. Hoping, brethren, that the sentiments thus far advanced are your sentiments, I shall have your further assent when I say,

1. That the extinction, at the earliest consistent date, of the system of servitude existing among you, is a result at which you ought steadily and strenuously to aim. And, as you see, we base this obligation of yours, not on the assumption of any sinfulness which you may sustain to slavery, but on the acknowledged injustice and woes, past, present, and prospective, of the system as a system,–its contrariety, as a system, to the fundamental principles of Christianity. Did we regard you as necessarily sinners, if in any sense you hold slaves, then the least we could ask of you would be, that with contrition of heart you should instantaneously cease to indulge in this sin, for all sin should be immediately abandoned. As it is, we only ask, that, just as fast as your slaves can be prepared for freedom, and as the providence of God may put it in your power to liberate them, you will do so. We are not so unwise as to expect that the work of extinction can be accomplished in a day. We know, too, that you are not, in your church capacity, the constituted arbiters of the question as a question of State policy. And, so long as your legislatures and their constituencies are resolved on maintaining the system, perhaps you will be unable to effect as much as you desire in the way of promoting its overthrow. And yet, brethren, there is a way in which we think you can, with entire safety and manifest propriety, contribute largely and directly to the extinction of American slavery. Would the entire Southern church cease all personal participation in slavery, and throw her whole weight and influence into the scale of slavery’s complete subversion, that “consummation devoutly to be wished” would soon ensue. Slave-holding, no longer practised or justified by the church, but discountenanced, could not long retain its foothold in the State. Now if this be so, our slaveholding brethren will confess that they are imperiously bound, by motives of Christian duty, to liberate their bondmen with all consistent speed. Meantime, and as one important means of qualifying them for freedom, you ought,

2. To see to it that not only your own, but all the bondmen among you,–your entire slave population,–are furnished with the Bible, and qualified to read and comprehend it; and also with stated preaching. They need a written and preached gospel, were it only to fit them to exchange, with advantage, a state of vassalage for the dignity of freemen; for all experience proves that the Bible and the pulpit are of all instruments the best to qualify men safely to exercise the right of self-government. But there is a servitude more dreadful by far than any domestic bondage that men have ever groaned under; and your slaves need the Bible, and the Bible preached, to prove God’s instruments of breaking the chains imposed by Satan, and making them Christ’s freemen. Before God and in prospect of eternity, the distinctions between the master and his slave dwindle into insignificance. Having souls that are alike impure and alike precious, alike remembered by a dying Saviour and alike in need of the regenerating change, they stand alike in need of God’s Word, written and preached, as the Spirit’s instrument in renewing and sanctifying the soul. Hence the Bible and preaching are as much the rightful inheritance of the slave as of the master. We rejoice that these truths and the obligations resulting therefrom are, to some extent, recognized by southern Christians; and that, in spite of certain adverse statutes, so much is being done there for the spiritual well-being of the slaves. Go on, brethren, in the good work of evangelizing your slave population; in teaching them the art of reading and the rudiments of knowledge; in putting the Bible into their hands, and affording them stated opportunities to read it, and to hear it expounded by you and by Christ’s ministers. Go on, we say, till there be not one southern slave, who, in point of religious privileges, is not on a footing of equality with yourselves. Prosecuting this laudable work in the spirit of love, you will probably encounter no serious opposition. The adverse but dead statutes referred to will not, we hope, be galvanized into life, in order to oppose you.