Thus far Dr. Scott. These are substantially the views given of this epistle by Calvin, Whitby, Henry, Doddridge, McKnight, Hodge, and others: none of whom were slaveholders, or friends of the institution. Now, our purpose is not to vindicate the intrinsic innocence of slaveholding here, by dwelling again upon the just arguments, which have been already stated: that a slaveholder here receives from an inspired apostle the highest Christian commendations; and that he is addressed as a brother minister in the church. The Epistle presents still more emphatic evidence: First, if the relation is unrighteous, and the master's authority unfounded, then the only ground upon which the duty of the slave's submission rests, is that of Christian forbearance. When the wicked bonds were once happily evaded, and the oppressed person in safety, that ground of obligation was wholly at an end. A captive has been unlawfully detained by a gang of highwaymen, for the purpose of exacting ransom. He has given them the slip, and is secure. Is there any obligation to go back, because, while there, there was an obligation to refrain from useless violence and bloodshed? Let us even suppose that the means of the captive's escape were in some point immoral: does this fact make it his duty to go back and submit himself to the freebooters? By no means. To God he ought to repent of whatever was immoral in the manner of his escape: but he is bound to make no reparation for it to the robbers, because they had no right to detain him at all. But we see St. Paul here enjoining on the newly-awakened conscience of Onesimus, the duty of returning to his master. That the apostle sent him, and that he went back under a sense of moral obligation, is proved by two facts: St. Paul had a strong desire to retain him, being greatly in need of an affectionate domestic, in his infirm, aged, and imprisoned condition, but he felt that he must not. (Verse 13.) Paul had no power, except moral power, to make Onesimus go back, being himself a helpless captive; so that the latter must have been carried back by a sense of duty. Hence this instance proves, beyond a cavil, that the relation of master and servant was moral; it lies above the level of all those quibbles which we have been compelled to rebut.