An Interpolation of St. Paul Epistle to the Corinthians.
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher yesterday morning prefaced his sermon by reading the 12th chapter of First Corinthians, the thirteenth verse which is as follows: ‘For by one spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one spirit,’. Pausing at the words, ‘bond or free’, the reverend gentleman said: ‘How is this? Paul surely could not have said this; it must be an interpolation. It certainly cannot mean that a man with African blood in his veins, and held as an African slave, oppressed by his master, despoiled of his rights, and outlawed by our courts, is baptized into the same spirit with the white man. It cannot mean that a slave is equal to a freeman in the sight of God — a black man to a white one. Yet it certainly seems so; it certainly reads so; and it would appear from this, unless we call it an interpolation, that we are all children of one common Father, entitled to the same rights, governed by the same principles, alike immortal and precious in his sight. It must be an interpolation.’ — N. Y. Evening Post
(Liberator, May 8, 1857, pg 4)
