" "Then duty is a dream,"
said a third, "and conscience a delusion; and responsibility a fiction;
and virtue and vice are alike unworthy of either praise or blame, reward
or punishment." "A tree is not responsible," said the Necessitarian,
"yet we cut it down, if it bears no fruit; and we cut off the natural
branches, and insert new scions, if its fruit is not to our liking. A
musquito is irresponsible, yet we kill it when it gives us pain. A horse
is irresponsible, yet we caress it when it gives us pleasure." "So man
is no more than a tree, a musquito, or a horse! And selfishness is the
measure of our duty! We caress or kill as we are pleased or pained." And
so the conversation ran on in one party.
In another the Bible is the subject of conversation. But here all are
agreed on the principal point. No one regards it as of supernatural
origin, or of Divine authority. The question is, whether the
Anti-Slavery Society shall acknowledge that the clergy are right in
saying that the Bible sanctions Slavery. "That it does sanction Slavery
is certain," says one. "Abraham was a slave-holder, a slave-trader, and
a slave-breeder. Isaac inherited his slave property. Jacob had slaves,
and had offspring by two of them. Moses allows the Jews to buy up the
nations round about them, and to hold them as slaves, as a _possession_,
and to transmit them as an inheritance to their children for ever.
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