Three Prize Essays on American SlaveryThurston, R. B. (Richard Bowers)
Religion
Three Prize Essays on American Slavery
Thurston, R. B. (Richard Bowers)
Slavery -- United States; Slavery and the church -- United States
It will enhance the force of this argument to remember that this
universal right of property is one of what may be called a sacred
trinity of paradisaical institutions. These institutions are the
Sabbath, appointed in regard for our relations to God as moral beings;
marriage, ordained for our welfare as members of a successive race; and
the right of property, conferred to meet our necessities as dwellers on
this material globe. These three are the world's inheritance from lost
Eden. They were received by the first father in behalf of all his
posterity. They were designed for all men as men. It is demonstrable
that they are indispensable, that the world may become Paradise
Regained. "Property, marriage, and religion have been called the pillars
of society;" and the first is of equal importance with the other two;
for all progress in domestic felicity and in religious culture depends
on property, and also on the equitable distribution or possession of
property, as one of its essential conditions. Property lies in the
foundation of every happy home, however humble; and property gilds the
pinnacle of every consecrated temple. The wise and impartial Disposer,
therefore, makes the endowments of his creatures equal with their
responsibilities: to all those on whom he lays the obligations of
religion and of the family state, he gives the right of holding the
property on which the dwelling and the sanctuary must be founded. It is
a sacred right, a divine investiture, bearing the date of the creation
and the seal of the Creator.
The blessing of this institution, like that of the Sabbath and of the
family, has indeed been shattered by the fall of man; but when God said
to Noah and his sons, concerning the inferior creatures, "Into your hand
are they delivered; even as the green herb have I given you all things,"
it was reëstablished and consecrated anew. The Psalmist repeated the
assurance to the world when he wrote, "Thou madest him to have dominion
over the works of thy hand; thou hast put all things under his feet."
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