The subject for consideration is: If the abolitionists are right in insisting that slave-holding is one of the greatest of all sins,—that it should be immediately and universally abandoned, as a condition of church communion, or of admission into heaven,—how comes it that Christ and his apostles did not pursue this sin _in plain and determined opposition_? How comes it that the teachings of the abolitionists, on the subject of slavery, are so extremely different from those of Jesus Christ and his apostles? The mind is forced to the conclusion that, if the abolitionists are right, Jesus Christ and his apostles are wrong! We agree that, if slave-holding is a sin, it should at once be abandoned. The whole subject is resolved to one single question: _Is slave-holding, in itself, a crime before God?_ The abolitionists say that it is; we assert that it is not; and we look to the conduct of Christ and his apostles to justify our position. Did they shut their eyes to the enormities of a great offence against God and man? Did they temporize with a heinous evil, because it was common and popular? Did they abstain from even exhorting masters to emancipate their slaves, though an imperative duty, from fear of consequences? Was slavery more deeply rooted than idolatry? or more deeply interwoven with the civil institutions? more thoroughly penetrated through every thing human—their prejudices, literature, hopes, and happiness? Was its denunciation, if a sin, attended with consequences more to be dreaded than death by torture, wild beasts, the crucifix, the fagot, and the flame? Did the apostles admit drunkards, liars, fornicators, adulterers, thieves, robbers, murderers, and idolaters to the Christian communion, and call them “dearly beloved and fellow-labourers?” Did the Son of God ever intimate of any such unrepentant man, that he had “not found so great faith, no, not in Israel?” What are we then to think of the intellect of that man who shall affirm that Jesus Christ and his apostles classed the slave-holder with the worst of these characters? Yea, what can such a man think of himself? Did the apostles counsel thieves and robbers how they should advisedly conduct themselves in the practice of these crimes? Were those who had been _robbed_ carefully gathered up and sent back to some known _robber_, to be _robbed_ again? And, on such occasion, did any of the apostles address such _robber_ in the language of affection, saying, “I thank my God, making mention of thee always in my prayers, hearing of thy love and faith, which thou hast towards the Lord Jesus and toward all saints?”