"Then what is man? And what man, seeing this, And having human feelings, does not blush, And hang his head, to think himself a man?" Besides all this, recollect that there are about FIFTY MILLIONS of Africans left exposed to the debasing influence of this hellish practice. And if the Colonization Society did nothing more than stop or check this torrent of infernal iniquity, it ought to render its friends and advocates immortal, and make those blush (_if blush they could_) who vilify and slander them. CHAPTER IV. THE ERRORS OF THE QUARTERLY ANTI-SLAVERY MAGAZINE, FOR APRIL, 1837, RESPECTING THE SCRIPTURAL WORDS "_Servant_"--"_Property_"--"_Buy_," &C., BRIEFLY NOTICED. There is no argument more frequently used by Abolitionists than that the Scriptures prohibit the purchase, or sale of men, or holding any man as property--and as the above Magazine has no doubt contributed much, by the talent, learning, and _ingenuity_, (I don't like to say sophistry) of its editor (Mr. Elizur Wright, jun.,) to build up this most preposterous assertion, I shall take leave to investigate a few of the arguments adopted therein. There is a great difference between a man going to the Bible to find sanction for an opinion which he has _already_ formed, and a man going to the Bible, for its opinion. The one first forms his own ideas of things, of what is, and what is not, right or wrong, and then goes to the Scriptures to sanction or corroborate those ideas; the other forms no opinion whatever, until he searches the sacred oracles of truth to ascertain what _they_ say on the subject. Now it appears to me evident that the editor of this periodical acted on the former principle--he first came to the conclusion, that "_to own_," "_to buy_," or "_to sell_," a human being, was wrong and unscriptural; and then went to the Bible to _make_ it prove that his opinions were correct. And so far has he been carried away with his preconceived opinions, and so much did he labour under the "_spell_" of Abolitionism, that he frequently confounds the act of purchasing a man, with the act of stealing a man! using synonymously the terms "purchasing" and "stealing!" Thus when he attempts to prove that purchasing a man is unscriptural, and that all slave-holders ought to be put to death, he refers to the twenty-first chapter of Exodus and sixteenth verse! (See said Magazine, page 247-249). But how does this read, "He that STEALETH a man, and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death." It does _not_ read, "he that stealeth, OR selleth:" no, no! the whole and only crime condemned here was, "STEALING the man;" but retaining or not retaining him, or selling him, did not exculpate the thief!