No. I.

Rev. A. Barnes:-- Dear Sir:--You have recently published a tract:--"The Church and Slavery." "The opinion of each individual," you remark, "contributes to form public sentiment, as the labor of the animalcule in the ocean contributes to the coral reefs that rise above the waves." True, sir, and beautifully expressed. But while, in harmony with your intimation, I must regard you one of the animalcules, rearing the coral reef of public opinion, I cannot admit your disclaimer of "special influence" among them in their work. Doubtless, sir, you have "special influence,"--and deserve to have. I make no apology for addressing you. I am one of the animalcules. I agree, and I disagree, with you. I harmonize in your words,--"The present is eminently a time when the views of every man on the subject of slavery should be uttered in unambiguous tones." I agree with you in this affirmation; because the subject has yet to be fully understood; because, when understood, if THE BIBLE does not sanction the system, the MASTER must cease to be the master. The SLAVE must cease to be the slave. He must be free, AND EQUAL IN POLITICAL AND SOCIAL LIFE. That is your "unambiguous tone". Let it be heard, if that is the word of God. But if THE BIBLE does sanction the system, then that "unambiguous tone" will silence abolitionists who admit the Scriptures; it will satisfy all good men, and give peace to the country. That is the "tone" I want men to hear. Listen to it in the past and present speech of providence. The time was when you had the very public sentiment you are now trying to form. From Maine to Louisiana, the American mind was softly yielding to the impress of emancipation, in some hope, however vague and imaginary. Southern as well as Northern men, in the church and out of it, not having sufficiently studied the word of God, and, under our own and French revolutionary excitement, looking only at the evils of slavery, wished it away from the land. It was a mistaken public sentiment. Yet, such as it was, you had it, and it was doing your work. It was Quaker-like, mild and affectionate. It did not, however, work fast enough for you. You thought that the negro, with his superior attributes of body and mind and higher advantages of the nineteenth century, might reach, in a day, the liberty and equality which the Anglo-American had attained after the struggle of his ancestors during a thousand years! You got up the agitation. You got it up in the Church and State. You got it up over the length and breadth of this whole land. Let me show you some things you have secured, as the results of your work. First Result of Agitation.

1. The most consistent abolitionists, affirming the sin of slavery, on the maxim of created equality and unalienable right, after torturing the Bible for a while, to make it give the same testimony, felt they could get nothing from the book. They felt that the God of the Bible disregarded the thumb-screw, the boot, and the wheel; that he would not speak for them, but against them. These consistent men have now turned away from the word, in despondency; and are seeking, somewhere, an abolition Bible, an abolition Constitution for the United States, and an abolition God.

This, sir, is the first result of your agitation:--the very van of your attack repulsed, and driven into infidelity.

A Second Result of Agitation.

2. Many others, and you among them, are trying in exactly the same way just mentioned to make the Bible speak against slave-holding. You get nothing by torturing the English version. People understand English. Nay, you get little by applying the rack to the Hebrew and Greek; even before a tribunal of men like you, who proclaim beforehand that Moses, in Hebrew, and Paul, in Greek, must condemn slavery because "it is a violation of the first sentiments of the Declaration of Independence." You find it difficult to persuade men that Moses and Paul were moved by the Holy Ghost to sanction the philosophy of Thomas Jefferson! You find it hard to make men believe that Moses saw in the mount, and Paul had vision in heaven, that this future apostle of Liberty was inspired by Jesus Christ.

You torture very severely. But the muscles and bones of those old men are tough and strong. They won't yield under your terrible wrenchings. You get only groans and mutterings. You claim these voices, I know, as testimony against slavery. But you cannot torture in secret as in olden times. When putting the question, you have to let men be present,--who tell us that Moses and Paul won't speak for you,--that they are silent, like Christ before Pilate's scourging-men; or, in groans and mutterings,--the voices of their sorrow and the tones of their indignation,--they rebuke your pre-judgment of the Almighty when you say if the Bible sanctions slavery, "it neither ought to be nor could be received by mankind as a divine revelation."

This, sir, is the second result you have gained by your agitation. You have brought a thousand Northern ministers of the gospel, with yourself, to the verge of the same denial of the word of God which they have made, who are only a little ahead of you in the road you are travelling.

A Third Result of Agitation.

3. Meanwhile, many of your most pious men, soundest scholars, and sagacious observers of providence, have been led to study the Bible more faithfully in the light of the times. And they are reading it more and more in harmony with the views which have been reached by the highest Southern minds, to wit:--That the relation of master and slave is sanctioned by the Bible;--that it is a relation belonging to the same category as those of husband and wife, parent and child, master and apprentice, master and hireling;--that the relations of husband and wife, parent and child, were ordained in Eden for man, as man, and modified after the fall, while the relation of slavery, as a system of labor, is only one form of the government ordained of God over fallen and degraded man;--that the evils in the system are the same evils of OPPRESSION we see in the relation of husband and wife, and all other forms of government;--that slavery, as a relation, suited to the more degraded or the more ignorant and helpless types of a sunken humanity, is, like all government, intended as the proof of the curse of such degradation, and at the same time to elevate and bless;--that the relation of husband and wife, being for man, as man, will ever be over him, while slavery will remain so long as God sees it best, as a controlling power over the ignorant, the more degraded and helpless;--and that, when he sees it for the good of the country, he will cause it to pass away, if the slave can be elevated to liberty and equality, political and social, with his master, in that country; or out of that country, if such elevation cannot be given therein, but may be realized in some other land: all which result must be left to the unfoldings of the divine will, in harmony with the Bible, and not to a newly-discovered dispensation. These facts are vindicated in the Bible and Providence. In the Old Testament, they stare you in the face:--in the family of Abraham,--in his slaves, bought with his money and born in his house,--in Hagar, running away under her mistress's hard dealing with her, and yet sent back, as a fugitive slave, by the angel,--in the law which authorized the Hebrews to hold their brethren as slaves for a time,--in which parents might sell their children into bondage,--in which the heathen were given to the Hebrews as their slaves forever,--in which slaves were considered so much the money of their master, that the master who killed one by an unguarded blow was, under certain circumstances, sufficiently punished in his slave's death, because he thereby lost his money,--in which the difference between man-stealing and slave-holding is, by law, set forth,--in which the runaway from heathen masters may not be restored, because God gave him the benefits of an adopted Hebrew. In the New Testament:--wherein the slavery of Greece and Rome was recognised,--in the obligations laid on master and slave,--in the close connection of this obligation with the duties of husband and wife, parent and child,--in the obligation to return the fugitive slave to his master,--and in the condemnation of every abolition principle, "AS DESTITUTE OF THE TRUTH." (1 Tim. vi. 1-5.)

This view of slavery is becoming more and more, not only the settled decision of the Southern but of the best Northern mind, with a movement so strong that you have been startled by it to write the pamphlet now lying before me.

This is the third result you have secured:--to make many of the best men in the North see the infidelity of your philosophy, falsely so called, on the subject of slavery, in the clearer and clearer light of the Scriptures.

Another Result of Agitation.

4. The Southern slave-holder is now satisfied, as never before, that the relation of master and slave is sanctioned by the Bible; and he feels, as never before, the obligations of the word of God. He no longer, in his ignorance of the Scriptures, and afraid of its teachings, will seek to defend his common-sense opinions of slavery by arguments drawn from "Types of Mankind," and other infidel theories; but he will look, in the light of the Bible, on all the good and evil in the system. And when the North, as it will, shall regard him holding from God this high power for great good,--when the North shall no more curse, but bid him God-speed,--then he will bless himself and his slave, in nobler benevolence. With no false ideas of created equality and unalienable right, but with the Bible in his heart and hand, he will do justice and love mercy in higher and higher rule. Every evil will be removed, and the negro will be elevated to the highest attainments he can make, and be prepared for whatever destiny God intends. This, sir, is the fourth result of your agitation:--to make the Southern master know, from the Bible, his right to be a master, and his duty to his slave.

These four results are so fully before you, that I think you must see and feel them. You have brought out, besides, tremendous political consequences, giving astonishing growth and spread to the slave power: on these I cannot dwell. Sir, are you satisfied with these consequences of the agitation you have gotten up? I am. I thank God that the great deep of the American mind has been blown upon by the wind of abolitionism. I rejoice that the stagnant water of that American mind has been so greatly purified. I rejoice that the infidelity and the semi-infidelity so long latent have been set free. I rejoice that the sober sense North and South, so strangely asleep and silent, has risen up to hear the word of God and to speak it to the land. I rejoice that all the South now know that God gives the right to hold slaves, and, with that right, obligations they must fulfil. I rejoice that the day has dawned in which the North and South will think and feel and act together on the subject of slavery. I thank God for the agitation. May he forgive the folly and wickedness of many who have gotten it up! May he reveal more and more, that surely the wrath of man shall praise him, while the remainder of wrath he will restrain!

Declaration of Independence.

I agree with you, sir, that the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence contains five affirmations, declared to be self-evident truths, which, if truths, do sustain you and all abolitionists in every thing you say as to the right of the negro to liberty; and not only to liberty,--to equality, political and social. But I disagree with you as to their truth, and I say that not one of said affirmations is a self-evident truth, or a truth at all. On the contrary, that each one is contrary to the Bible; that each one, separately, is denied; and that all five, collectively, are denied and upset by the Bible, by the natural history of man, and by providence, in every age of the world. I say this now. In a subsequent communication, I will prove what I affirm. For the present I merely add, that the Declaration of Independence stands in no need of these false affirmations. It was, and is, a beautiful whole without them. It was, and is, without these imaginary maxims, the simple statement of the grievances the colonies had borne from the mother-country, and their right as colonies, when thus oppressed, to declare themselves independent. That is to say, the right given of God to oppressed children to seek protection in another family, or to set up for themselves somewhat before twenty-one or natural maturity; right belonging to them in the British family; right sanctioned of God; right blessed of God, in the resistance of the colonies as colonies--not as individual men--to the attempt of the mother-country to consummate her tyranny. But God gives no sanction to the affirmation that he has created all men equal; that this is self-evident, and that he has given them unalienable rights; that he has made government to derive its power solely from their consent, and that he has given them the right to change that government in their mere pleasure. All this--every word of it, every jot and tittle--is the liberty and equality claimed by infidelity. God has cursed it seven times in France since 1793; and he will curse it there seventy times seven, if Frenchmen prefer to be pestled so often in Solomon's mortar. He has cursed it in Prussia, Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain. He will curse it as long as time, whether it is affirmed by Jefferson, Paine, Robespierre, Ledru Rollin, Kossuth, Greeley, Garrison, or Barnes.

Sir, that paragraph is an excrescence on the tree of our liberty. I pray you take it away. Worship it if you will, and in a manner imitate the Druid. He gave reverence to the mistletoe, but first he removed the parasite from the noble tree. Do you the same. Cut away this mistletoe with golden knife, as did the Druid; enshrine its imaginary divinity in a grove or cave; then retire there, and leave our oak to stand in its glory in the light of heaven. Men have been afraid to say all this for years, just as they have been timid to assert that God has placed master and slave in the same relation as husband and wife. Public sentiment, which you once had and have lost, suppressed this utterance as the other. But now, men speak out; and I, for one, will tell you what the Bible reveals as to that part of the Declaration of Independence, as fearlessly as I tell you what it says of the system of slavery.

How Men are made Infidels.

I agree with you that some men have been, are, and will be, made infidels by hearing that God has ordained slavery as one form of his government over depraved mankind. But how does this fact prove that the Bible does not sanction slavery? Why, sir, you have been all your life teaching that some men are made infidels by hearing any truth of the Bible;--that some men are made infidels by hearing the Trinity, Depravity, Atonement, Divinity of Christ, Resurrection, Eternal Punishment. True: and these men find "great laws of their nature,--instinctive feelings"--just such as you find against slavery, and not more perverted in them than in you, condemning all this Bible. And they hold now, with your sanction, that a book affirming such facts "cannot be from God."

Sir, some men are made infidels by hearing the Ten Commandments, and they find "great laws of their nature," as strong in them as yours in you against slavery, warring against every one of these commandments. And they declare now, with your authority, that a book imposing such restraints upon human nature, "cannot be from God" Sir, what is it makes infidels? You have been wont to answer, "They will not have God to rule over them. They will not have the BIBLE to control the great laws of their nature." Sir, that is the true answer. And you know that the great instinct of liberty is only one of three great laws, needing special teaching and government:--that is to say, the instinct to rule; the instinct to submit to be ruled; and the instinct for liberty. You know, too, that the instinct to submit is the strongest, the instinct to rule is next, and that the aspiration for liberty is the weakest. Hence you know the overwhelming majority of men have ever been willing to be slaves; masters have been next in number; while the few have struggled for freedom.

The Bible, then, in proclaiming God's will as to these three great impulses, will be rejected by men, exactly as they have yielded forbidden control to the one or the other of them. The Bible will make infidels of masters, when God calls to them to rule right, or to give up rule, if they have allowed the instinct of power to make them hate God's authority. Pharaoh spoke for all infidel rulers when he said, "Who is the Lord that I should obey his voice?"

The Bible will make infidels of slaves, when God calls to them to aspire to be free, if they have permitted the instinct of submission to make them hate his commands. The Israelites in the wilderness revealed ten times, in their murmuring, the slave-instinct in all ages:--"Would to God we had died in the wilderness!"

You know all this, and you condemn these infidels. Good.

But, sir, you know equally well that the Bible will make infidels of men affirming the instinct of liberty, when God calls them to learn of him how much liberty he gives, and how he gives it, and when he gives it, if they have so yielded to this law of their nature as to make them despise the word of the Lord. Sir, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram spoke out just what the liberty-and-equality men have said in all time:--"Ye, Moses and Aaron, take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them: wherefore, then, lift ye up yourselves above the congregation?" Verily, sir, these men were intensely excited by "the great law of our nature,--the great instinct of freedom." Yea, they told God to his face they had looked within, and found the higher law of liberty and equality--the eternal right--in their intuitional consciousness; and that they would not submit to his will in the elevation of Moses and Aaron above them.

Verily, sir, you, in the spirit of Korah, now proclaim and say, "Ye masters, and ye white men who are not masters, North and South, ye take too much upon you, seeing the negro is created your equal, and, by unalienable right, is as free as you, and entitled to all your political and social life. Ye take, then, too much upon you in excluding him from your positions of wealth and honor, from your halls of legislation, and from your palace of the nation, and from your splendid couch, and from your fair women with long hair on that couch and in that gilded chariot: wherefore, then, lift ye up yourselves above the negro?"

Verily, sir, Korah, Dathan, and Abiram said all we have ever heard from abolition-platforms or now listen to from you. But the Lord made the earth swallow up Korah, Dathan, and Abiram!

I agree with you then, sir, fully, that some men have been, are, and will be, made infidels by hearing that God, in the Bible, has ordained slavery. But I hold this to be no argument against the fact that the Bible does so teach, because men are made infidels by any other doctrine or precept they hate to believe.

Sir, no man has said all this better than you. And I cannot express my grief that you--in the principle now avowed, that every man must interpret the Bible as he chooses to reason and feel--sanction all the infidelity in the world, obliterate your "Notes" on the Bible, and deny the preaching of your whole life, so far as God may, in his wrath, permit you to expunge or recall the words of the wisdom of your better day.

Testimonies of General Assemblies.

I agree with you that the Presbyterian Church, both before and since its division, has testified, after a fashion, against slavery. But some of its action has been very curious testimony. I know not how the anti-slavery resolutions of 1818 were gotten up; nor how in some Assemblies since. I can guess, however, from what I do know, as to how such resolutions passed in Buffalo in 1853, and in New York in 1856. I know that in Buffalo they were at first voted down by a large majority. Then they were reconsidered in mere courtesy to men who said they wanted to speak. So the resolutions were passed after some days, in which the screws were applied and turned, in part, by female hands, to save the chairman of the committee from the effects of the resolutions being finally voted down!

I know that, in New York, the decision of the Assembly to spread the minority report on the minutes was considered, in the body and out of it, as a Southern victory; for it revealed, however glossed over, that many in the house, who could not vote directly for the minority report, did in fact prefer it to the other.

I was not in Detroit in 1850; but I think it was established in New York last May that that Detroit testimony was so admirably worded that both Southern and Northern men might vote for it with clear consciences!

I need not pursue the investigation. I admit that, after this sort, you have the stultified abstractions of the New School Presbyterian Church,--while I have its common sense; you have its Delphic words,--I have its actions; you have the traditions of the elders making void the word of God,--I have the providence of God restraining the church from destroying itself and our social organization under folly, fanaticism, and infidelity. You, sir, seem to acknowledge this; for, while you appear pleased with the testimony of the New School Presbyterian Church, such as it is, you lament that the Old School have not been true to the resolutions of 1818,--that, in that branch of the church, it is questionable whether those resolutions could now be adopted. You lament the silence of the Episcopal, the Southern Methodist, and the Baptist denominations; you might add the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. And you know that in New England, in New York, and in the Northwest, many testify against us as a pro-slavery body. You lament that so many members of the church, ministers of the gospel, and editors of religious papers, defend the system; you lament that so large a part of the religious literature of the land, though having its seat North and sustained chiefly by Northern funds, shows a perpetual deference to the slave-holder; you lament that, after fifty years, nothing has been done to arrest slavery; you lament and ask, "Why should this be so?" In saying this, you acknowledge that, while you have been laboring to get and have reached the abstract testimony of the church, all diluted as it is, the common-sense fact has been and is more and more brought out, in the providence of God, that the slave-power has been and is gaining ground in the United States. In one word, you have contrived to get, in confused utterance, the voice of the Sanhedrim; while Christ himself has been preaching in the streets of our Jerusalem the true meaning of slavery as one form of his government over fallen men.

These, then, are some of the things I promised to show as the results of your agitation. This is the "tone" of the past and present speech of Providence on the subject of slavery. You seem disturbed. I feel sure things are going on well as to that subject. Speak on, then, "in unambiguous tones." But, sir, when you desire to go from words to actions,--when you intimate that the constitution of the Presbyterian Church may be altered to permit such action, or that, without its alteration, the church can detach itself from slavery by its existing laws or the modification of them,--then I understand you to mean that you desire to deal, in fact, with slave-holders as offenders. Then, sir, you mean to exscind the South; for it is absurd to imagine that you suppose the South will submit to such action. You mean, then, to exscind the South, or to exscind yourself and others, or to compel the South to withdraw. Your tract, just published, is, I suppose, intended by you to prepare the next General Assembly for such movement? What then? Will you make your "American Presbyterian," and your Presbyterian House, effect that great change in the religious literature of the land whereby the subject of slave-holding shall be approached precisely as you deal with "theft, highway-robbery, or piracy?" Will you, then, by act of Assembly, Synod, Presbytery, Session, deny your pulpits, and communion-bread and wine, to slave-holding ministers, elders, and members? Will you, then, tell New England, and especially little Rhoda, We have purified our skirts from the blood: forgive us, and take us again to your love? What then? Will you then ostracize the South and compel the abolition of slavery? Sir, do you bid us fear these coming events, thus casting their shadow before from the leaves of your book?

Sir, you may destroy the integrity of the New School Presbyterian Church. So much evil you may do; but you will hereby only add immensely to the great power and good of the Old School; and you will make disclosures of Providence, unfolding a consummation of things very different from the end you wish to accomplish for your country and the world.

I write as one of the animalcules contributing to the coral reef of public opinion.

F. A. Ross.