Bartholomew,--that they
would hold their peace about the body of Cuffee dancing to the music of
the cart-whip, provided only they could save the soul of Sambo alive by
presenting him a pamphlet, which he could not read, on the depravity of
the double-shuffle,--that they would consent to be fellow-members in the
Tract Society with him who sold their fellow-members in Christ on the
auction-block, if he agreed with them in condemning Transubstantiation,
(and it would not be difficult for a gentleman who ignored the real
presence of God in his brother man to deny it in the sacramental wafer,)--
if those excellent men had been told this, they would have shrunk in
horror, and exclaimed, "Are thy servants dogs, that they should do these
things?"
Yet this is precisely the present position of the Society.
There are two ways of evading the responsibility of such inconsistency.
The first is by an appeal to the Society's Constitution, and by claiming
to interpret it strictly in accordance with the rules of law as applied to
contracts, whether between individuals or States. The second is by denying
that Slavery is opposed to the genius of Christianity, and that any moral
wrongs are the necessary results of it. We will not be so unjust to the
Society as to suppose that any of its members would rely on this latter
plea, and shall therefore confine ourselves to a brief consideration of
the other.
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