But the assertion that God requires men to be slaves is a wicked assertion. It charges God with folly and inconsistency. He desires the elevation of man, but slavery brutalizes him. He encourages the enlightenment of the mind and the expansion of the understanding, but slavery darkens the mind and enchains the understanding. God cannot be pleased with the ignorance, stupor, injustice and servile wretchedness which are necessary to the very existence of slavery, and hence he can not make it the duty of any man to be a slave, for this would be the same as to make it his duty to be stupid, ignorant and wretched. No, God does not will that any man or woman should be a slave. Man was made in the image of God's independence and sovereignty. The instinct of freedom is strong in his bosom. It has resisted oppression in all ages, and it will resist it, with God on its side, until it shall triumph! We will now inquire whether the apostolic addresses to masters authorize some men to sustain the relation of _slaveholders_. It should be observed that there are but two places in the New Testament in which the duties of masters are pointed out. Permit us to repeat those duties. "And ye masters do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening, knowing that your master also is in heaven." "Masters give unto your servants that which is just and equal, knowing that ye also have a master in heaven." Is it possible that from these words men will take license to seize their fellows and convert them into _property_; despoil them of all their rights; deny them an education; banish them from courts of justice; break up their homes; take their wages without compensation; drive them in chain-gangs from state to state, and whip, beat, and abuse them until they perish from the earth? Yes, it is possible. This has been done. "Was there ever," said Dr. Wayland, "such a moral superstructure raised on such a foundation? * * If the religion of Christ allows such a license from such precepts as these, the New Testament would be the greatest curse that ever was inflicted on our race." We remark 1. In these directions there is not the slightest intimation that the masters addressed were _slaveholders_ and that the servants in their employ were slaves. The term slaveholders (_andrapodistais_,) is not used in the above passages, and this term is only once found in the apostolic writings.[12] It is found in the following text: "Knowing this that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for the unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers, for whoremongers, for them that defile themselves with mankind, for _andrapodistais_, (slaveholders or menstealers) for liars, etc." 1st Tim. 1: 9, 10.