In the first place you say the church is "pro-slavery." There is a
sense in which this may be true. The American church of all
denominations, taken as a body, comprises the best and most
conscientious people in the country. I do not say it comprises none
but these, or that none such are found out of it, but only if a census
were taken of the purest and most high principled men and women of the
country, the majority of them would be found to be professors of
religion in some of the various Christian denominations. This fact has
given to the church great weight in this country--the general and
predominant spirit of intelligence and probity and piety of its
majority has given it that degree of weight that it has the power to
decide the great moral questions of the day. Whatever it unitedly and
decidedly sets itself against as moral evil it can put down. In this
sense the church is responsible for the sin of slavery. Dr. Barnes has
beautifully and briefly expressed this on the last page of his work on
slavery, when he says: "Not all the force out of the church could
sustain slavery an hour if it were not sustained in it." It then
appears that the church has the power to put an end to this evil and
does not do it. In this sense she may be said to be pro-slavery. But
the church has the same power over intemperance, and Sabbath-breaking,
and sin of all kinds. There is not a doubt that if the moral power of
the church were brought up to the New Testament standpoint it is
sufficient to put an end to all these as well as to slavery.
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