The Ecclesiastical Disruption of 1861 [pp. 321-351]

348 THE ECCLESIASTICAL DISRUPTION OF iS6i. [Apnl,
There is not a church nor a people anywhere to be found in
~hnstendom, save the church and people in the Southern portion of the United States, among whom such sentiments as the
-foregoing are held; and yet Dr. Palmer, now the foremost man
among them all, and spe~king for them all, says: "Just what
we were from i86o to I~65, we have also been from 1865 to
1875, and shall continue to be until we go to the judgment."
And with most surprising boldness, the Southern Assembly of
i865 declares of slavery, as vindicated in the Address of i86i
NVe here reaffirm its whole doctrine to be that of Scripture
and reason; it is the old doctrine of the church;" when the
challenge may be safely made to show what branch of the
church, in any age of the world, ever held the sentiments, concerning slavery, set forth by the Southern Church and its leading men, until they were proclaimed by them within a very few
years immediately preceding the war. ~~e challenge any one
to show that the doctrine, that slavery is an " ordinance of
God" was" the old doctrine of the church." More particularly,
whoever taught that the negro slavery of the South was" a
school of virtue," until Dr. Thornwell preached it in his Fastday sermon, Nov. 21, 1860? ~Vho ever put that system into
"the same category with marriage and civil government," before the publication of Dr. Ross in 1857? Following Dr. Ross,
who ever put it so pointedly that "these four great relations of
human life (the civil, matrimonial, parental, and servile) stand
side by side, equally approved of God, and equally rightful
among men," and that "the Saviour himself, apostles, saints,"
etc., "all accepted slavery as being equally of God with civil
government, marriage, or the parental relation," as Dr. Stuart
Robinson, in the Tr~ic Prcsbytc~ Ia ii, published in Louisville,
Ky., during the war? NVho ever preached from the pulpit,
Ihat to "preserve and transmit" the system to posterity was
a "divine trust" committed to the Southern people, till Dr.
?almer made the remarkable discovery in his sermon of Nov.
29, i86o? NVhere ever was the doctrine proclaimed, following
the lead of Dr. Palmer, that "it is the peculiar mission of the
Southern Church to conserve the institution of slavery," until
the Southern Assembly uttered it in 1864? Who ever published
a defense of slavery, declaring that the reader "will at once
recognize in these provisions of the Mosaic law, the same fun