It is clear that slavery receives no sanction from the curse pronounced upon Canaan, from patriarchal servitude, from the law of Moses, nor from the law of Christ. In the light of the divine word it appears a gigantic barbarism, full of hate to the human brotherhood. It annuls the law of God respecting the family and society. It obstructs the progress of education and religion. It is condemned by the whole spirit of revealed religion. Only a devil could pray for its perpetuation and extension. It is not only a sin, but a combination of stupendous sins--"the sum of all villainies," in the language of Wesley, "an enormity and a crime, for which perdition has scarcely an adequate punishment," in the language of Clarke. "Slavery," said the celebrated Jabez Bunting, "is always wrong, essentially, eternally, incurably wrong." CHAPTER XI. American Churches and Slavery. THE POSITION THEY OCCUPY. The christian church ought to be a faithful exponent of the benevolent spirit and doctrines of Jesus Christ. Liberty, truth and humanity, though insulted, betrayed and proscribed every where else, should find within its sacred enclosures a welcome, a refuge and a stronghold. Its watchmen ought to be faithful men, uninfluenced by flattery, uncorrupted by gold, unawed by the popular will. The church ought to be the most independent body on earth. Standing as it does upon the Eternal Rock, holding the promise of successful resistance against the "gates of hell," and of certain triumph over all the powers of darkness, the oppressor ought to know that he could not intimidate it by menace, silence its witnesses, win its smiles, or by any means be permitted to set his unhallowed feet within its pale. The church ought to be a terror to slaveholders; and although usage, prejudice, pride, passion, wealth, literature, and the selfish interests of men should all be combined against the oppressed, they should be certain of an unswerving and powerful friend and advocate in the church. We say such should be the acknowledged and indisputable character and conduct of that body popularly known as the church, because then it would be a faithful exponent of the divine philanthropy of Jesus, of his "good will to men,"--then it would be precisely what the church was when it acknowledged no law superior to the will of God.