All within such limits
is the doctrine which is according to godliness--all
beyond, whether on the part of the master or the slave,
and which is attempted to be foisted into the church as a
part of the apostolic doctrine, is schismatical, and
essentially fills up the picture drawn by Paul: "If any
man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words,
even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the
doctrine which is according to godliness; he is proud,
knowing nothing'--from such withdraw thyself." In these
precepts no right is given to the masters to buy and sell,
to traffic in slaves; no right to enslave the children,
and the children's children of his servants; no right to
hold them in a relentless bondage which knows no limit but
the grave, and in which the heritage transmitted by the
slave to his children, is a heritage of bondage to all
generations.
On the 26th of August, 1858, the same season that the foregoing
correspondence took place, Bro. Butler wrote to the editor of the
_Christian Luminary_ the following letter, which is given entire, as
showing the exact position which he occupied ministerially at that
time:
OCENA, ATCHISON CO.
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