Mr. Barnes has quoted and adopted the following passage from President Wayland, page 310: “If the religion of Christ allows such a license (to hold slaves) from such precepts as these, the New Testament would be the greatest curse that ever was inflicted onour race.” On the account of the avowal of Dr. Barnes as tohis race, heretofore noticed, we feel a degree of gladness that the above passage is not original with him: we should expect to find in him a sympathy on this subject, unpleasant to encounter, because legitimately acting on his mind. A man may be a philosopheror a Christian, yet the ties of nature, the sympathies of kindred are not abated.
We are informed that heretofore, written arguments in favour of abolitionism by Dr. Wayland and against it by Dr. Fuller, have been published. We have not seen the work; but are told that the abolitionists claim victory for Dr. Wayland, and that the opponents also claim it for Dr. Fuller; and from the foregoing passage as quoted, we conclude that Dr. Wayland found himself, at least, instraitson the subject. If such be the fact, it may account why the abolitionists thought Dr. Barnes’s present work necessary. But, however these things may be, the passage from Dr. Wayland is a volume of deep instruction, announcing the feelings and theological consistency, we might say fanaticism, of, we hope, but a few extraordinary men, now appearing in our land; men, we doubt not, conscientious in their opinion that God designs the government of the world to be in strict conformity with human reason, and who cannot, therefore, pray in the spirit of the Son: “Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done.”Lukexxii. 42. “If any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his.”Rom.viii. 9.
In the book before us, the author falls into one error, common to every writer on his side of the question: That slavery is the cause of the degradation of the Africans and the slaves generally. We maintain that the converse is the true state of the case. Another error is the substitution of what may be abuses of slavery for the institution itself. This author, like most of the abolition writers of whom we have any knowledge, evinces an inability to enter into an impartial consideration of the subject, from his deep and overshadowing prejudices against it. Indeed, the whole work, from page to page, carries proof of a previous determination to condemn, not less obvious than in the instance of the judge who, in summing up a case, said—“It is true, in this case, the accused has proved himself innocent; but, since a guilty man might prove himself so, and since I myself have always been of the opinion that he was guilty, it will be the safest to condemn.”
The style of the work before us is always diffuse and declamatory, sometimes elevated, but often cumbrous; still his language bears the impress of classical learning and a cultivated mind; but there is in the work a want of conciseness; it abounds in contradictory positions and a frequent inconclusiveness of deduction, which make it obnoxious to a charge of carelessness. But maywe not account for these defects by the urgent solicitude of his readers?
The morbid appetite of the Northern abolitionists was probably hungry for the work. Having no wish toopposehis pecuniary views, we refrain from further extracts, lest we should infringe his copyright. Nor did we at all contemplate a classical review of the work. The book contains about 400 pages. If it could be condensed, like a pot of new-brewed and foaming, into potable beer, to a fourth of that size, it might well claim such attention; and from the specimens of ability displayed, if it were proved that the doctor has suffered his zeal to run ahead of the truth in regard to hisrace, we should judge him fully competent to the task of such improvement.