IV. HEIRSHIP.—Servants frequently inherited their master's property; especially if he had no sons, or if they had dishonored the family. Eliezer, the servant of Abraham, Gen. xv. 23; Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth; Jarha, the servant of Sheshan, who married his daughter, and thus became his heir, he having no sons, and the husbandmen who said of their master's son, "this is the HEIR, let us kill him, and the INHERITANCE WILL BE OURS," are illustrations; also Prov. xxx. 23, an handmaid (or maid-servant,) that is heir to her mistress; also Prov. xvii. 2—"A wise servant shall have rule over a son that causeth shame, and SHALL HAVE PART OF THE INHERITANCE AMONG THE BRETHREN." This passage gives servants precedence as heirs, even over the wives and daughters of their masters. Did masters hold by force, and plunder of earnings, a class of persons, from which, in frequent contingencies, they selected both heirs for their property, and husbands for their daughters?

V. ALL WERE REQUIRED TO PRESENT OFFERINGS AND SACRIFICES. Deut. xvi. 16, 17; 2 Chron. xv. 9-11; Numb. ix. 13, 14. Beside this, "every man" from twenty years old and above, was required to pay a tax of half a shekel at the taking of the census; this is called "an offering unto the Lord to make an atonement for their souls." Ex. xxx. 12-16. See also Ex. xxxiv. 20. Servants must have had permanently the means of acquiring property to meet these expenditures.

VI. SERVANTS WHO WENT OUT AT THE SEVENTH YEAR, WERE "FURNISHED LIBERALLY." Deut. xv. 10-14. "Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy wine press, of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee, thou shalt give him."[A] If it be said that the servants from the Strangers did not receive a like bountiful supply, we answer, neither did the most honorable class of Israelitish servants, the free-holders; and for the same reason, they did not go out in the seventh year, but continued until the jubilee. If the fact that the Gentile servants did not receive such a gratuity proves that they were robbed of their earnings, it proves that the most valued class of Hebrew servants were robbed of theirs also; a conclusion too stubborn for even pro-slavery masticators, however unscrupulous.

[Footnote A: The comment of Maimonides on this passage is as follows—"'Thou shalt furnish him liberally,' &c. That is to say, 'Loading, ye shall load him,' likewise every one of his family with as much as he can take with him—abundant benefits. And if it be avariciously asked, 'How much must I give him?' I say unto you, not less than thirty shekels, which is the valuation of a servant, as declared in Ex. xxi. 32."—Maimonides, Hilcoth Obedim, Chap. ii. Sec. 3.]

VII. SERVANTS WERE BOUGHT. In other words, they received compensation in advance.[A] Having shown, under a previous head, that servants sold themselves, and of course received the compensation for themselves, except in cases where parents hired out the time of their children till they became of age,[B] a mere reference to the fact is all that is required for the purposes of this argument. As all the strangers in the land were required to pay an annual tribute to the government, the Israelites might often "buy" them as family servants, by stipulating with them to pay their annual tribute. This assumption of their obligations to the government might cover the whole of the servant's time of service, or a part of it, at the pleasure of the parties.

[Footnote A: But, says the objector, if servants received their pay in advance, and if the Israelites were forbidden to surrender the fugitive to his master, it would operate practically as a bounty offered to all servants who would leave their master's service encouraging them to make contracts, get their pay in advance and then run away, thus cheating their masters out of their money as well as their own services.—We answer, the prohibition, Deut xxiii. 15. 16, "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master," &c., sets the servant free from his authority and of course, from all those liabilities of injury, to which as his servant, he was subjected, but not from the obligation of legal contracts. If the servant had received pay in advance, and had not rendered an equivalent for this "value received," he was not absolved from his obligation to do so, but he was absolved from all obligations to pay his master in that particular way, that is, by working for him as his servant.]

[Footnote B: Among the Israelites, girls became of age at twelve, and boys at thirteen years.]

VIII. THE RIGHT OF SERVANTS TO COMPENSATION IS RECOGNISED IN Ex. xxi. 27. "And if he smite out his man-servant's, or his maid-servant's tooth, he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake." This regulation is manifestly based upon the right of the servant to the use of himself and all this powers, faculties and personal conveniences, and consequently his just claim for remuneration, upon him, who should however unintentionally, deprive him of the use even of the least of them. If the servant had a right to his tooth and the use of it, upon the same principle, he had a right to the rest of his body and the use of it. If he had a right to the fraction, and if it was his to hold, to use, and to have pay for; he had a right to the sum total, and it was his to hold, to use, and to have pay for.

IX. WE FIND MASTERS AT ONE TIME HAVING A LARGE NUMBER OF SERVANTS, AND AFTERWARDS NONE, WITH NO INTIMATION IN ANY CASE THAT THEY WERE SOLD. The wages of servants would enable them to set up in business for themselves. Jacob, after being Laban's servant for twenty-one years, became thus an independent herdsman, and had many servants. Gen. xxx. 43; xxxii. 16. But all these servants had left him before he went down into Egypt, having doubtless acquired enough to commence business for themselves. Gen. xlv. 10, 11; xlvi. 1-7, 32. The case of Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth, who had twenty servants, has been already mentioned.

X. GOD'S TESTIMONY TO THE CHARACTER OF ABRAHAM. Gen. xviii. 19. "For I know him that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep THE WAY OF THE LORD TO DO JUSTICE AND JUDGMENT." God here testifies that Abraham taught his servants "the way of the Lord." What was the "way of the Lord" respecting the payment of wages where service was rendered? "Wo unto him that useth this neighbor's service WITHOUT WAGES!" Jer. xxii. 13. "Masters, give unto your servants that which is JUST AND EQUAL." Col. iv. 1. "Render unto all their DUES." Rom. xiii. 7. "The laborer is WORTHY of HIS HIRE." Luke x. 7. How did Abraham teach his servants to "do justice" to others? By doing injustice to them? Did he exhort them to "render to all their dues" by keeping back their own? Did he teach them that "the laborer was worthy of his hire" by robbing them of theirs? Did he beget in them a reverence for honesty by pilfering all their time and labor? Did he teach them "not to defraud" others "in any matter" by denying them "what was just and equal?" If each of Abraham's pupils under such a catechism did not become a very Aristides in justice, then illustrious examples, patriarchal dignity, and practical lessons, can make but slow headway against human perverseness!

XI. SPECIFIC PRECEPTS OF THE MOSAIC LAW ENFORCING GENERAL PRINCIPLES. Out of many, we select the following: (1.) "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn." Deut. xxv. 4. Here is a general principle applied to a familiar case. The ox representing all domestic animals. Isa. xxx. 24. A particular kind of service, all kinds; and a law requiring an abundant provision for the wants of an animal ministering to man in a certain way,—a general principle of treatment covering all times, modes, and instrumentalities of service. The object of the law was; not merely to enjoin tenderness towards brutes, but to inculcate the duty of rewarding those who serve us; and if such care be enjoined, by God, both for the ample sustenance and present enjoyment of a brute, what would be a meet return for the services of man?—MAN with his varied wants, exalted nature and immortal destiny! Paul says expressly, that this principle lies at the bottom of the statute. 1 Cor. ix. 9, 10, "For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? Or saith he it altogether for OUR sakes? that he that ploweth should plow in HOPE, and that he that thresheth in hope should be PARTAKER OF HIS HOPE." In the context, Paul innumerates the four grand divisions of labor among the Jews in illustration of the principle that the laborer, whatever may be the service he performs, is entitled to a reward. The priests, Levites and all engaged in sacred things—the military, those who tended flocks and herds, and those who cultivated the soil. As the latter employment engaged the great body of the Israelites, the Apostle amplifies his illustration under that head by much detail—and enumerates the five great departments of agricultural labor among the Jews—vine-dressing, plowing, sowing, reaping and threshing, as the representatives of universal labor. In his epistle to Timothy. 1 Tim. v. 18. Paul quotes again this precept of the Mosaic law, and connects with it the declaration of our Lord. Luke x. 7. "The laborer is worthy of his hire,"—as both inculcating the same doctrine, that he who labors, whatever the employment, or whoever the laborer, is entitled to a reward. The Apostle thus declares the principle of right respecting the performance of service for others, and the rule of duty towards those who perform it, to be the same under both dispensations. (2.) "If thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee, then thou shalt relieve him, YEA THOUGH HE BE A STRANGER or a SOJOURNER that he may live with thee. Take thou no usury of him, or increase, but fear thy God. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase." Lev. xxv. 35-37. Now, we ask, by what process of pro-slavery legerdemain, this regulation can be made to harmonize with the doctrine of WORK WITHOUT PAY? Did God declare the poor stranger entitled to RELIEF, and in the same breath, authorize them to "use his service without wages;" force him to work and ROB HIM OF HIS EARNINGS?



IV.—WERE MASTERS THE PROPRIETORS OF SERVANTS AS LEGAL PROPERTY?

This topic has been unavoidably somewhat anticipated, in the foregoing discussion, but a variety of additional considerations remain to be noticed.

I. SERVANTS WERE NOT SUBJECTED TO THE USES NOR LIABLE TO THE CONTINGENCIES OF PROPERTY. 1 They were never taken in payment for their masters' debts. Children were sometimes taken (without legal authority) for the debts of a father. 2 Kings iv. 1; Job xxiv. 9; Isa. l. 1; Matt. xviii. 25. Creditors took from debtors property of all kinds, to satisfy their demands. Job xxiv. 3, cattle are taken; Prov. xxii. 27, household furniture; Lev. xxv. 25-28, the productions of the soil; Lev. xxv. 27-30, houses; Ex. xxii. 26, 27; Deut. xxiv. 10-13; Matt. v. 40, clothing; but servants were taken in no instance. 2. Servants were never given as pledges. Property of all sorts was pledged for value received; household furniture, clothing, cattle, money, signets, personal ornaments, &c., but no servants. 3. Servants were not put into the hands of others, or consigned to their keeping. The precept giving directions how to proceed in a case where property that has life is delivered to another "to keep," and "it die or be hurt or driven away," enumerates oxen, asses, sheep or "any beast," but not "servants." Ex. xxii. 10. 4. All lost property was to be restored. Oxen, asses, sheep, raiment, and "all lost things," are specified—servants not. Deut. xxii 1-3. Besides, the Israelites were forbidden to return the runaway servant. Deut. xxiii, 15. 5. Servants were not sold. When by flagrant misconduct, unfaithfulness or from whatever cause, they had justly forfeited their privilege of membership in an Israelitish family, they were not sold, but expelled from the household. Luke xvi. 2-4; 2 Kings v. 20, 27; Gen. xxi. 14. 6 The Israelites never received servants as tribute. At different times all the nations round about them were their tributaries and paid them annually large amounts. They received property of all kinds in payment of tribute. Gold, silver, brass, iron, precious stone, and vessels, armor, spices, raiment, harness, horses, mules, sheep, goats, &c., are in various places enumerated, but servants, never. 7. The Israelites never gave away their servants as presents. They made costly presents, of great variety. Lands, houses, all kinds of domestic animals, beds, merchandize, family utensils, precious metals, grain, honey, butter, cheese, fruits, oil, wine, raiment, armor, &c., are among their recorded gifts. Giving presents to superiors and persons of rank, was a standing usage. 1 Sam. x. 27; xvi. 20; 2 Chron. xvii. 5. Abraham to Abimelech, Gen. xxi. 27; Jacob to the viceroy of Egypt, Gen. xliii. 11; Joseph to his brethren and father, Gen. xlv. 22, 23; Benhadad to Elisha, 2 Kings viii. 8, 9; Ahaz to Tiglath Pilezer, 2 Kings vi. 8; Solomon to the Queen of Sheba, 1 Kings x. 13; Jeroboam to Ahijah, 1 Kings xiv. 3; Asa to Benhadad, 1 Kings xv. 18, 19. Abigail the wife of Nabal to David, 1 Sam. xxv. 18. David to the elders of Judah, 1 Sam. xxx. 26. Jehoshaphat to his sons, 2. Chron. xxi. 3. The Israelites to David, 1. Chron. xii. 39, 40. Shobi Machir and Barzillai to David, 2 Sam. xvii. 28, 29. But no servants were given as presents, though it was a prevailing fashion in the surrounding nations. Gen. xii. 16, xx. 14. In the last passage we are told that Abimelech king of the Philistines "took sheep and oxen and men servants and women servants and gave them unto Abraham." Not long after this Abraham made Abimelech a present, the same kind with that which he had received from him except that he gave him no servants. "And Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them unto Abimelech." Gen. xxi. 27. It may be objected that Laban "GAVE" handmaids to his daughters, Jacob's wives. Without enlarging on the nature of the polygamy then prevalent, suffice it to say that the handmaids of wives were regarded as wives, though of inferior dignity and authority. That Jacob so regarded his handmaids, is proved by his curse upon Reuben, Gen. xlix. 4, and 1 Chron. v. 1; also by the equality of their children with those of Rachel and Leah. But had it been otherwise—had Laban given them as articles of property, then, indeed, the example of this "good old slaveholder and patriarch," Saint Laban, would have been a forecloser to all argument. Ah! we remember his jealousy for religion—his holy indignation when he found that his "GODS" were stolen! How he mustered his clan, and plunged over the desert in hot pursuit seven days by forced marches; how he ransacked a whole caravan, sifting the contents of every tent, little heeding such small matters as domestic privacy, or female seclusion, for lo! the zeal of his "IMAGES" had eaten him up! No wonder that slavery, in its Bible-navigation, drifting dismantled before the free gusts, should scud under the lee of such a pious worthy to haul up and refit; invoking his protection, and the benediction, of his "GODS!" Again, it may be objected that, servants were enumerated in inventories of property. If that proves servants property, it proves wives property. "Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shall not covet thy neighbor's WIFE, nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's." Ex. xx. 17. In inventories of mere property, if servants are included, it is in such a way as to show that they are not regarded as property. Eccl. ii. 7, 8. But when the design is to show, not merely the wealth, but the greatness and power of any one, servants are spoken of, as well as property. In a word, if riches alone are spoken of, no mention is made of servants; if greatness, servants and property. Gen. xiii. 2, 5. "And Abraham was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold." Yet we are told, in the verse preceding, that he came up out of Egypt "with all that he had." "And Lot also had flocks, and herds, and tents." In the seventh verse servants are mentioned, "And there was a strife between the HERDMEN of Abraham's cattle and the HERDMEN of Lot's cattle." It is said of Isaac. "And the man waxed great, and went forward, and grew until he became very great. For he had possession of flocks, and possession of herds, and great store of servants." In immediate connection with this we find Abimelech the king of the Philistines saying to him. "Thou art much mightier than we." Shortly after this avowal, Isaac is waited upon by a deputation consisting of Abimelech, Phicol the chief captain of his army, and Ahuzzath, who says to him "Let there be now an oath betwixt us and thee, and let us make a covenant with thee, that thou wilt do us no hurt." Gen. xxvi. 13, 14, 16, 26, 28, 29.—A plain concession of the power which Isaac had both for aggression and defence in his "great store of servants;" that is, of willing and affectionate adherents to him as a just and benevolent prince. When Hamor and Shechem speak to the Hivites of the riches of Abraham and his sons, they say, "Shall not their cattle and their substance and every beast of theirs be ours?" Gen. xxxiv. 23. See also Josh. xxii. 8; Gen. xxxiv. 23; Job. xlii. 12; 2 Chron. xxi. 3; xxxii. 27-29; Job. i. 3-5; Deut. viii. 12-17; Gen. xxiv. 35; xxvi. 13; xxx. 43. Jacob's wives say to him, "All the riches which God has taken from our father that is ours and our children's." Then follows an inventory of property—"All his cattle," "all his goods," "the cattle of his getting." His numerous servants are not included with his property. Comp. Gen. xxx. 43, with Gen. xxxi. 16-18. When Jacob sent messengers to Esau, wishing to impress him with an idea of his state and sway, he bade them tell him not only of his RICHES, but of his GREATNESS; that he had "oxen, and asses, and flocks, and men-servants, and maid-servants." Gen. xxxii. 4, 5. Yet in the present which he sent, there were no servants; though he manifestly selected the most valuable kinds of property. Gen. xxxii. 14, 15; see also Gen. xxxvi. 6, 7; xxxiv. 23. As flocks and herds were the staples of wealth, a large number of servants presupposed large possessions of cattle, which would require many herdsmen. When Jacob and his sons went down into Egypt it is repeatedly asserted that they took all that they had. "Their cattle and their goods which they had gotten in the land of Canaan," "Their flocks and their herds" are mentioned, but no servants. And as we have besides a full catalogue of the household, we know that he took with him no servants. That Jacob had many servants before his migration into Egypt, we learn from Gen, xxx. 43; xxxii. 5, 16, 19. That he was not the proprietor of these servants as his property is a probable inference from the fact that he did not take them with him, since we are expressly told that he did take all his property. Gen. xlv. 10; xlvi. 1, 32; xlvii. 1. When servants are spoken of in connection with mere property, the terms used to express the latter do not include the former. The Hebrew word mikne, is an illustration. It is derived from kana, to procure, to buy, and its meaning is, a possession, wealth, riches. It occurs more than forty times in the Old Testament, and is applied always to mere property, generally to domestic animals, but never to servants. In some instances, servants are mentioned in distinction from the mikne. "And Abraham took Sarah his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their SUBSTANCE that they had gathered; and the souls that they had gotten in Haran, and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan." Gen. xii. 5. Many will have it, that these souls were a part of Abraham's substance (notwithstanding the pains here taken to separate them from it)—that they were slaves taken with him in his migration as a part of his family effects. Who but slaveholders, either actually or in heart, would torture into the principle and practice of slavery, such a harmless phrase as "the souls that they had gotten?" Until the African slave trade breathed its haze into the eyes of the church and smote her with palsy and decay, commentators saw no slavery in, "The souls that they had gotten." In the Targum of Onkelos[A] it is rendered, "The souls whom they had brought to obey the law in Haran." In the Targum of Jonathan, "The souls whom they had made proselytes in Haran." In the Targum of Jerusalem, "The souls proselyted in Haran." Jarchi, the prince of Jewish commentators, "The souls whom they had brought under the Divine wings." Jerome, one of the most learned of the Christian fathers, "The persons whom they had proselyted." The Persian version, the Vulgate, the Syriac, the Arabic, and the Samaritan all render it, "All the wealth which they had gathered, and the souls which they had made in Haran." Menochius, a commentator who wrote before our present translation of the Bible, renders it, "Quas de idolatraria converterant." "Those whom they had converted from idolatry." Paulus Fagius,[B] "Quas instituerant in religione." "Those whom they had established in religion." Luke Francke, a German commentator who lived two centuries ago, "Quas legi subjicerant."—"Those whom they had brought to obey the law." The same distinction is made between persons and property, in the enumeration of Esau's household and the inventory of his effects. "And Esau took his wives and his sons and his daughters, and all the persons of his house, and his cattle, and all his beasts, and all his substance which he had got in the land of Canaan, and went into the country from the face of his brother Jacob. For their riches were more than that they might dwell together; and the land could not bear them because of their cattle." Gen. xxxvi. 6, 7.

[Footnote A: The Targums are Chaldee paraphrases of parts of the Old Testament. The Targum of Onkelos is, for the most part, a very accurate and faithful translation of the original, and was probably made at about the commencement of the Christian era. The Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel, bears about the same date. The Targum of Jerusalem was probably about five hundred years later. The Israelites, during their captivity in Babylon, lost, as a body, their own language. These translations into the Chaldee, the language which they acquired in Babylon, were thus called for by the necessity of the case.]

[Footnote B: This eminent Hebrew scholar was invited to England to superintend the translation of the Bible into English, under the patronage of Henry the Eighth. He had hardly commenced the work when he died. This was nearly a century before the date of our present translation.]

II. THE CONDITION AND SOCIAL ESTIMATION OF SERVANTS MAKE THE DOCTRINE THAT THEY WERE COMMODITIES, AN ABSURDITY. As the head of a Jewish family possessed the same power over his wife, children, and grandchildren (if they were in his family) as over his servants, if the latter were articles of property, the former were equally such. If there were nothing else in the Mosaic Institutes or history establishing the social equality of the servants with their masters and their master's wives and children, those precepts which required that they should be guests at all the public feasts, and equal participants in the family and social rejoicings, would be quite sufficient to settle the question. Deut. xii. 12, 18; xvi. 10, 11, 13, 14. Ex. xii. 43, 44. St. Paul's testimony in Gal. iv. 1, shows the condition of servants: "Now I say unto you, that the heir, so long as he is a child, DIFFERETH NOTHING FROM A SERVANT, though he be lord of all." That the interests of Abraham's servants were identified with those of their master's family, and that the utmost confidence was reposed in them, is shown in their being armed. Gen. xiv. 14, 15. When Abraham's servant went to Padanaram, the young Princess Rebecca did not disdain to say to him. "Drink, MY LORD," as "she hasted and let down her pitcher upon her hand, and gave him drink." Laban, the brother of Rebecca, "ungirded his camels, and brought him water to wash his feet, and the men's feet that were with him!" In the arrangements of Jacob's household on his journey from Padanaram to Canaan, we find his two maid servants treated in the same manner and provided with the same accommodations as Rachel and Leah. Each of them had a separate tent appropriated to her use. Gen. xxxi. 33. The social equality of servants with their masters and other members of their master's families, is an obvious deduction from Ex. xxi. 7, 10, from which we learn that the sale of a young Jewish female as a servant, was also betrothed as a wife, either to her master, or to one of his sons. In 1 Sam. ix. is an account of a festival in the city of Zuph, at which Samuel presided. None but those bidden, sat down at the feast, and only "about thirty persons" were invited. Quite a select party!—the elite of the city. Saul and his servant had just arrived at Zuph, and both of them, at Samuel's solicitation, accompany him as invited guests. "And Samuel took Saul and his SERVANT, and brought THEM into the PARLOR (!) and made THEM sit in the CHIEFEST SEATS among those that were bidden." A servant invited by the chief judge, ruler, and prophet in Israel, to dine publicly with a select party, in company with his master, who was at the same time anointed King of Israel! and this servant introduced by Samuel into the PARLOR, and assigned, with his master, to the chiefest seat at the table! This was "one of the servants" of Kish, Saul's father; not the steward or the chief of them—not at all a picked man, but "one of the servants;" any one that could be most easily spared, as no endowments specially rare would be likely to find scope in looking after asses. David seems to have been for a time in all respects a servant in Saul's family. He "stood before him." "And Saul sent to Jesse, saying, let David, I pray thee, stand before me." He was Saul's personal servant, went on his errands, played on the harp for his amusement, bore his armor for him, and when he wished to visit his parents, asked permission of Jonathan, Saul's son. Saul also calls him "my servant." 1 Sam. xvi. 21-23; xviii. 5; xx. 5, 6; xxii. 8. Yet David sat with the king at meat, married his daughter, and lived on terms of the closest intimacy with the heir apparent of the throne. Abimelech, who was first elected king of Shechem, and afterwards reigned over all Israel, was the son of a MAID-SERVANT. His mother's family seems to have been of much note in the city of Shechem, where her brothers manifestly held great sway. Judg. ix. 1-6, 18. Jarha, an Egyptian, the servant of Sheshan, married his daughter. Tobiah, "the servant" and an Ammonite married the daughter of Shecaniah one of the chief men among the Jews in Jerusalem and was the intimate associate of Sanballat the governor of the Samaritans. We find Elah, the King of Israel, at a festive entertainment, in the house of Arza, his steward, or head servant, with whom he seems to have been on terms of familiarity. 1 Kings xvi. 8, 9. See also the intercourse between Gideon and his servants. Judg. vi. 27, and vii. 10, 11. The Levite of Mount Ephraim and his servant. Judg. xx. 3, 9, 11, 13, 19, 21, 22. King Saul and his servant Doeg, one of his herdmen. 1 Sam. xx. 1, 7; xxii. 9, 18, 22. King David and Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth. 2 Sam. xvi. 1-4. Jonathan and his servant. 1 Sam. xiv. 1-14. Elisha and his servant, Gehazi. 2 Kings iv. v. vi. Also between Joram king of Israel and the servant of Elisha. 2 Kings viii. 4, 5, and between Naaman "the Captain of the host of the king of Syria" and the same person. 2 Kings v. 21-23. The fact stated under a previous head that servants were always invited guests at public and social festivals, is in perfect keeping with the foregoing exemplifications of the prevalent estimation in which servants were held by the Israelites.

Probably no one of the Old Testament patriarchs had more servants than Job; "This man was the greatest man of all the men of the east." Job, i. 3. We are not left in the dark as to the condition of his servants. After asserting his integrity, his strict justice, honesty, and equity, in his dealings with his fellow men, and declaring "I delivered the poor," "I was eyes to the blind and feet was I to the lame," "I was a father to the poor, and the cause which I knew not I searched out," * * * he says "If I did despise the cause of my man-servant or my maid-servant when they CONTENDED with me * * * then let mine arm fall from the shoulder blade, and mine arm be broken from the bone." Job. xxix. 12, 15, 16; xxxi. 13, 22. The language employed in this passage is the phraseology applied in judicial proceedings to those who implead one another, and whether it be understood literally or figuratively, shows that whatever difference existed between Job and his servants in other respects, so far as rights are concerned, they were on equal ground with him, and that in the matter of daily intercourse, there was not the least restraint on their free speech in calling in question all his transactions with them, and that the relations and claims of both parties were adjudicated on the principles of equity and reciprocal right. "If I despised the cause of my man-servant," &c. In other words, if I treated it lightly, as though servants were not men, had not rights, and had not a claim for just dues and just estimation as human beings. "When they contended with me," that is, when they plead their rights, claimed what was due to them, or questioned the justice of any of my dealings with them.

In the context Job virtually affirms as the ground of his just and equitable treatment of his servants, that they had the same rights as he had, and were, as human beings, entitled to equal consideration with himself. By what language could he more forcibly utter his conviction of the oneness of their common origin and of the identity of their common nature, necessities, attribute and rights? As soon as he has said, "If I did despise the cause of my man-servant," &c., he follows it up with "What then shall I do when God raiseth up? and when he visiteth, what shall I answer him? Did not he that made me in the womb, make him? and did not one fashion us in the womb." In the next verse Job glories in the fact that he has not "withheld from the poor their desire." Is it the "desire" of the poor to be compelled by the rich to work for them, and without pay?

III. THE CASE OF THE GIBEONITES. The condition of the inhabitants of Gibeon, Chephirah, Beeroth, and Kirjathjearim, under the Hebrew commonwealth, is quoted in triumph by the advocates of slavery; and truly they are right welcome to all the crumbs that can be gleaned from it. Milton's devils made desperate snatches at fruit that turned to ashes on their lips. The spirit of slavery raves under tormenting gnawings, and casts about in blind phrenzy for something to ease, or even to mock them. But for this, it would never have clutched at the Gibeonites, for even the incantations of the demon cauldron could not extract from their case enough to tantalize starvation's self. But to the question. What was the condition of the Gibeonites under the Israelites? 1. It was voluntary. Their own proposition to Joshua was to become servants. Josh. ix. 8, 11. It was accepted, but the kind of service which they should perform, was not specified until their gross imposition came to light; they were then assigned to menial offices in the Tabernacle. 2. They were not domestic servants in the families of the Israelites. They still resided in their own cities, cultivated their own fields, tended their flocks and herds, and exercised the functions of a distinct, though not independent community. They were subject to the Jewish nation as tributaries. So far from being distributed among the Israelites and their internal organization as a distinct people abolished, they remained a separate, and, in some respects, an independent community for many centuries. When attacked by the Amorites, they applied to the Israelites as confederates for aid—it was rendered, their enemies routed, and themselves left unmolested in their cities. Josh. x. 6-18. Long afterwards, Saul slew some of them, and God sent upon Israel a three years' famine for it. David inquired of the Gibeonites, "What shall I do for you, and wherewith shall I make the atonement?" At their demand, he delivered up to them seven of Saul's descendants. 2 Sam. xxi. 1-9. The whole transaction was a formal recognition of the Gibeonites as a distinct people. There is no intimation that they served either families or individuals of the Israelites, but only the "house of God," or the Tabernacle. This was established first at Gilgal, a days' journey from their cities; and then at Shiloh, nearly two days' journey from them; where it continued about 350 years. During this period the Gibeonites inhabited their ancient cities and territory. Only a few, comparatively, could have been absent at any one time in attendance on the Tabernacle. Wherever allusion is made to them in the history, the main body are spoken of as at home. It is preposterous to suppose that all the inhabitants of these four cities could find employment at the Tabernacle. One of them "was a great city, as one of the royal cities;" so large, that a confederacy of five kings, apparently the most powerful in the land, was deemed necessary for its destruction. It is probable that the men were divided into classes, ministering in rotation—each class a few days or weeks at a time. As the priests whose assistants they were, served by courses in rotation a week at a time; it is not improbable that their periods of service were so arranged as to correspond. This service was their national tribute to the Israelites, for the privilege of residence and protection under their government. No service seems to have been required of the females. As these Gibeonites were Canaanites, and as they had greatly exasperated the Israelites by impudent imposition and lying, we might assuredly expect that they would reduce them to the condition of chattels, if there was any case in which God permitted them to do so.

IV. EGYPTIAN BONDAGE ANALYZED. Throughout the Mosaic system, God warns the Israelites against holding their servants in such a condition as they were held in by the Egyptians. How often are they pointed back to the grindings of their prison-house! What motives to the exercise of justice and kindness towards their servants, are held out to their fears in threatened judgments; to their hopes in promised good; and to all within them that could feel, by those oft repeated words of tenderness and terror! "For ye were bondmen in the land of Egypt"—waking anew the memory of tears and anguish, and of the wrath that avenged them. But what was the bondage of the Israelites in Egypt? Of what rights were they plundered and what did they retain?

1. They were not dispersed among the families of Egypt,[A] but formed a separate community. Gen. xlvi. 34. Ex. viii. 22, 24; ix. 26; x. 23; xi. 7; iv. 29; ii. 9; xvi. 22; xvii. 5; vi. 14. 2. They had the exclusive possession of the land of Goshen,[B] "the best part of the land" of Egypt. Gen. xlv. 18; xlvii. 6, 11, 27; Ex. viii. 22; ix. 26; xii. 4. Goshen must have been at a considerable distance from those parts of Egypt inhabited by the Egyptians; so far at least as to prevent their contact with the Israelites, since the reason assigned for locating them in Goshen was, that shepherds were "an abomination to the Egyptians;" besides, their employments would naturally lead them out of the settled parts of Egypt to find a free range of pasturage for their immense flocks and herds. 3. They lived in permanent dwellings. These were houses, not tents. In Ex. xii. 7, 22, the two side posts, and the upper door posts, and the lintel of the houses are mentioned. Each family seems to have occupied a house by itself. Acts vii. 20. Ex. xii. 4—and judging from the regulation about the eating of the Passover, they could hardly have been small ones, Ex. xii. 4; probably contained separate apartments, as the entertainment of sojourners seems to have been a common usage. Ex. iii. 23; and also places for concealment. Ex. ii. 2, 3; Acts vii. 20. They appear to have been well apparelled. Ex. xii. 11. 4. They owned "flocks and herds," and "very much cattle." Ex. xii. 4, 6, 32, 37, 38. From the fact that "every man" was commanded to kill either a lamb or a kid, one year old, for the Passover, before the people left Egypt, we infer that even the poorest of the Israelites owned a flock either of sheep or goats. Further, the immense multitude of their flocks and herds may be judged of from the expostulation of Moses with Jehovah. Num. xii. 21, 22. "The people among whom I am are six hundred thousand footmen, and thou hast said I will give them flesh that they may eat a whole month; shall the flocks and the herds be slain for them to suffice them." As these six hundred thousand were only the men "from twenty years old and upward, that were able to go forth to war," Ex. i. 45, 46; the whole number of the Israelites could not have been less than three millions and a half. Flocks and herds to "suffice" all these for food, might surely be called "very much cattle." 5. They had their own form of government, and preserved their tribe and family divisions, and their internal organization throughout, though still a province of Egypt, and tributary to it. Ex. ii. 1; xii. 19, 21; vi. 14, 25; v. 19; iii. 16, 18. 6. They had in a considerable measure, the disposal of their own time. Ex. iii. 16, 18; xii. 6; ii. 9; and iv. 27, 29-31. They seem to have practised the fine arts. Ex. xxxii. 4; xxxv. 22, 35. 7. They were all armed. Ex. xxxii. 27. 8. They held their possessions independently, and the Egyptians seem to have regarded them as inviolable. No intimation is given that the Egyptians dispossessed them of their habitations, or took away their flocks, or herds, or crops, or implements of agriculture, or any article of property. 9. All the females seem to have known something of domestic refinements. They were familiar with instruments of music, and skilled in the working of fine fabrics. Ex. xv. 20; xxxv. 25, 26; and both males and females were able to read and write. Deut. xi. 18-20; xvii. 19; xxvii. 3. 10. Service seems to have been exacted from none but adult males. Nothing is said from which the bond service of females could be inferred; the hiding of Moses three months by his mother, and the payment of wages to her by Pharaoh's daughter, go against such a supposition. Ex. ii. 29. 11. Their food was abundant and of great variety. So far from being fed upon a fixed allowance of a single article, and hastily prepared, "they sat by the flesh-pots," and "did eat bread to the full." Ex. xvi. 3; and their bread was prepared with leaven. Ex. xii. 15, 39. They ate "the fish freely, the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic." Num. xi. 4, 5; xx. 5. Probably but a small portion of the people were in the service of the Egyptians at any one time. The extent and variety of their own possessions, together with such a cultivation of their crops as would provide them with bread, and such care of their immense flocks and herds, as would secure their profitable increase, must have kept at home the main body of the nation. During the plague of darkness, God informs us that "ALL the children of Israel had light in their dwellings." We infer that they were there to enjoy it. See also Ex. ix. 26. It seems improbable that the making of brick, the only service named during the latter part of their sojourn in Egypt, could have furnished permanent employment for the bulk of the nation. See also Ex. iv. 29-31. Besides, when Eastern nations employed tributaries, it was as now, in the use of the levy, requiring them to furnish a given quota, drafted off periodically, so that comparatively but a small portion of the nation would be absent at any one time. The adult males of the Israelites were probably divided into companies, which relieved each other at stated intervals of weeks or months. It might have been during one of these periodical furloughs from service that Aaron performed the journey to Horeb. Ex. iv. 27. At the least calculation this journey must have consumed eight weeks. Probably one-fifth part of the proceeds of their labor was required of the Israelites in common with the Egyptians. Gen. xlvii. 24, 26. Instead of taking it from their crops, (Goshen being better for pasturage) they exacted it of them in brick making; and labor might have been exacted only from the poorer Israelites, the wealthy being able to pay their tribute in money. The fact that all the elders of Israel seem to have controlled their own time, (See Ex. iv. 29; iii. 16; v. 20,) favors the supposition. Ex. iv. 27, 31. Contrast this bondage of Egypt with American slavery. Have our slaves "flocks and herds even very much cattle?" Do they live in commodious houses of their own, "sit by the flesh-pots," "eat fish freely," and "eat bread to the full"? Do they live in a separate community, in their distinct tribes, under their own rulers, in the exclusive occupation of an extensive tract of country for the culture of their crops, and for rearing immense herds of their own cattle—and all these held inviolable by their masters? Are our female slaves free from exactions of labor and liabilities of outrage? or when employed, are they paid wages, as was the Israelitish woman by the king's daughter? Have they the disposal of their own time, and the means for cultivating social refinements, for practising the fine arts, and for personal improvement? THE ISRAELITES UNDER THE BONDAGE OF EGYPT, ENJOYED ALL THESE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. True, "all the service wherein they made them serve was with rigor." But what was this when compared with the incessant toil of American slaves; the robbery of all their time and earnings, and even the "power to own any thing, or acquire any thing?" a "quart of corn a-day," the legal allowance of food![C] their only clothing for one half the year, "one shirt and one pair of pantaloons!"[D]two hours and a half only, for rest and refreshment in the twenty-four![E]—their dwellings, hovels, unfit for human residence, with but one apartment, where both sexes and all ages herd promiscuously at night, like the beasts of the field.[F] Add to this, the ignorance, and degradation;[G] the daily sunderings of kindred, the revelries of lust, the lacerations and baptisms of blood, sanctioned by law, and patronized by public sentiment. What was the bondage of Egypt when compared with this? And yet for her oppression of the poor, God smote her with plagues, and trampled her as the mire, till she passed away in his wrath, and the place that knew her in her pride, knew her no more. Ah! "I have seen the afflictions of my people, and I have heard their groanings, and am come down to deliver them." HE DID COME, and Egypt sank a ruinous heap, and her blood closed over her. If such was God's retribution for the oppression of heathen Egypt, of how much sorer punishment shall a Christian people be thought worthy, who cloak with religion a system, in comparison with which the bondage of Egypt dwindles to nothing? Let those believe who can, that God commissioned his people to rob others of all their rights, while he denounced against them wrath to the uttermost, if they practised the far lighter oppression of Egypt—which robbed its victims of only the least and cheapest of their rights, and left the females unplundered even of these. What! Is God divided against himself? When He had just turned Egypt into a funeral pile; while his curse yet blazed upon her unburied dead, and his bolts still hissed amidst her slaughter, and the smoke of her torment went upwards because she had "ROBBED THE POOR," did He license the VICTIMS of robbery to rob the poor of ALL? As Lawgiver, did he create a system tenfold more grinding than that for which he had just hurled Pharaoh headlong, and overwhelmed his princes and his hosts, till "hell was moved to meet them at their coming?"

[Footnote C: See law of North Carolina, Haywood's Manual 524-5. To show that slaveholders are not better than their laws. We give a few testimonies. Rev. Thomas Clay, of Georgia, (a slaveholder,) in an address before the Georgia presbytery, in 1834, speaking of the slave's allowance of food, says:—"The quantity allowed by custom is a peck of corn a week." The Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser of May 30, 1788, says, "a single peck of corn a week, or the like measure of rice, is the ordinary quantity of provision for a hard-working slave; to which a small quantity of meat is occasionally, though rarely, added."

The Gradual Emancipation Society of North Carolina, in their Report for 1836, signed Moses Swaim, President, and William Swaim, Secretary, says, in describing the condition of slaves in the Eastern part of that State, "The master puts the unfortunate wretches upon short allowances, scarcely sufficient for their sustenance, so that a great part of them go half naked and half starved much of the time." See Minutes of the American Convention, convened in Baltimore, Oct. 25, 1826.

Rev. John Rankin, a native of Tennessee, and for many years a preacher in slave states, says of the food of slaves, "It often happens that what will barely keep them alive, is all that a cruel avarice will allow them. Hence, in some instances, their allowance has been reduced to a single pint of corn each, during the day and night. And some have no better allowance than a small portion of cotton seed; while perhaps they are not permitted to taste meat so much as once in the course of seven years. Thousands of them are pressed with the gnawings of cruel hunger during their whole lives." Rankin's Letters on Slavery, pp. 57, 58.

Hon. Robert J. Turnbull, of Charleston, S.C., a slaveholder, says, "The subsistence of the slaves consists, from March until August, of corn ground into grits, or meal, made into what is called hominy, or baked into corn bread. The other six months, they are fed upon the sweet potatoe. Meat, when given, is only by way of indulgence or favor." See "Refutation of the Calumnies circulated against the Southern and Western States," by a South Carolinian. Charleston, 1822.

Asa A. Stone, a theological student, residing at Natchez, Mississippi, wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Evangelist in 1835, in which he says, "On almost every plantation, the hands suffer more or less from hunger at some seasons of almost every year. There is always a good deal of suffering from hunger. On many plantations, and particularly in Louisiana, the slaves are in a condition of almost utter famishment during a great portion of the year."

At the commencement of his letter, Mr. S. says, "Intending, as I do, that my statements shall be relied on, and knowing that, should you think fit to publish this communication, they will come to this country, where their correctness may be tested by comparison with real life, I make them with the utmost care and precaution."

President Edwards, the younger, in a sermon preached half a century ago, at New Haven, Conn., says, speaking of the allowance of food given to slaves—"They are supplied with barely enough to keep them from starving."

In the debate on the Missouri question in the U.S. Congress, 1819-20, the admission of Missouri to the Union, as a slave state, was urged, among other grounds as a measure of humanity to the slaves of the south. Mr. Smyth, a member of Congress, from Virginia, and a large slaveholder, said, "The plan of our opponents seems to be to confine the slave population to the southern states, to the countries where sugar, cotton, and tobacco are cultivated. But, sir, by confining the slaves to a part of the country where crops are raised for exportation, and the bread and meat are purchased, you doom them to scarcity and hunger. Is it not obvious that the way to render their situation more comfortable is to allow them to be taken where there is not the same motive to force the slave to INCESSANT TOIL that there is in the country where cotton, sugar, and tobacco are raised for exportation. It is proposed to hem in the blacks where they are HARD WORKED and ILL FED, that they may be rendered unproductive and the race be prevented from increasing. * * * The proposed measure would be EXTREME CRUELTY to the blacks. * * * You would * * * doom them to SCARCITY and HARD LABOR."—[Speech of Mr. Smyth, of Va., Jan. 28, 1820.]—See National Intelligencer. ]

[Footnote D: See law of Louisiana, Martin's Digest, 6, 10. Mr. Bouldin, a Virginia slaveholder, in a speech in Congress, Feb. 16, 1835, (see National Intelligencer of that date,) said "he knew that many negroes had died from exposure to weather." Mr. B. adds, "they are clad in a flimsy fabric that will turn neither wind nor water." Rev. John Rankin says, in his Letters on slavery, page 57, "In every slaveholding state, many slaves suffer extremely, both while they labor and while they sleep, for want of clothing to keep them warm. Often they are driven through frost and snow without either stocking or shoe, until the path they tread is died with their blood. And when they return to their miserable huts at night, they find not there the means of comfortable rest; but on the cold ground they must lie without covering, and shiver while they slumber." ]

[Footnote E: See law of Louisiana, act of July 7, 1806, Martin's Digest, 6, 10-12. The law of South Carolina permits the master to compel his slaves to work fifteen hours in the twenty-four, in summer, and fourteen in the winter—which would be in winter, from daybreak in the morning until four hours after sunset!—See 2 Brevard's Digest, 243. The preamble of this law commences thus: "Whereas, many owners of slaves do confine them so closely to hard labor that they have not sufficient time for natural rest: be it therefore enacted," &c. In a work entitled "Travels in Louisiana in 1802," translated from the French, by John Davis, is the following testimony under this head:—

"The labor of Slaves in Louisiana is not severe, unless it be at the rolling of sugars, an interval of from two to three months, then they work both night and day. Abridged of their sleep, they scarce retire to rest during the whole period." See page 81. On the 87th page of the same work, the writer says, "Both in summer and winter the slaves must be in the field by the first dawn of day." And yet he says, "the labor of the slave is not severe, except at the rolling of sugars!" The work abounds in eulogies of slavery.

In the "History of South Carolina and Georgia," vol. 1, p. 120, is the following: "So laborious is the task of raising, beating, and cleaning rice, that had it been possible to obtain European servants in sufficient numbers, thousands and tens of thousands MUST HAVE PERISHED."

In an article on the agriculture of Louisiana, published in the second number of the "Western Review" is the following:—"The work is admitted to be severe for the hands, (slaves) requiring, when the process of making sugar is commenced, TO BE PRESSED NIGHT AND DAY."

Mr. Philemon Bliss, of Ohio, in his letters from Florida, in 1835, says, "The negroes commence labor by daylight in the morning, and excepting the plowboys, who must feed and rest their horses, do not leave the field till dark in the evening."

Mr. Stone, in his letter from Natchez, an extract of which was given above, says, "It is a general rule on all regular plantations, that the slaves rise in season in the morning, to be in the field as soon as it is light enough for them to see to work, and remain there until it is so dark that they cannot see. This is the case at all seasons of the year."

President Edwards, in the sermon already extracted from, says, "The slaves are kept at hard labor from five o'clock in the morning till nine at night, excepting time to eat twice during the day."

Hon. R.J. Turnbull, a South Carolina slaveholder, already quoted, speaking of the harvesting of cotton, says: "All the pregnant women even, on the plantation, and weak and sickly negroes incapable of other labor, are then in requisition." * * * See "Refutation of the Calumnies circulated against the Southern and Western States," by a South Carolinian. ]

[Footnote F: A late number of the "Western Medical Reformer" contains a dissertation by a Kentucky physician, on Cachexia Africana, or African consumption, in which the writer says—

"This form of disease deserves more attention from the medical profession than it has heretofore elicited. Among the causes may be named the mode and manner in which the negroes live. They are crowded together in a small hut, sometimes having an imperfect, and sometimes no floor—and seldom raised from the ground, illy ventilated, and surrounded with filth. Their diet and clothing, are also causes which might be enumerated as exciting agents. They live on a coarse, crude and unwholesome diet, and are imperfectly clothed, both summer and winter; sleeping upon filthy and frequently damp beds."

Hon. R.J. Turnbull, of South Carolina, whose testimony on another point has been given above, says of the slaves, that they live in "clay cabins, with clay chimneys," &c. Mr. Clay, a Georgia slaveholder, from whom an extract has been given already, says, speaking of the dwellings of the slaves, "Too many individuals of both sexes are crowded into one house, and the proper separation of apartments cannot be observed. That the slaves are insensible to the evils arising from it, does not in the least lessen the unhappy consequences." Clay's Address before the Presbytery of Georgia.—P. 13. ]

[Footnote G: Rev. C.C. Jones, late of Georgia, now Professor in the Theological Seminary at Columbia, South Carolina, made a report before the presbytery of Georgia, in 1833, on the moral condition of the slave population, which report was published under the direction of the presbytery. In that report Mr. Jones says, "They, the slaves, are shut out from our sympathies and efforts as immortal beings, and are educated and disciplined as creatures of profit, and of profit only, for this world." In a sermon preached by Mr. Jones, before two associations of planters, in Georgia, in 1831, speaking of the slaves he says, "They are a nation of HEATHEN in our very midst." "What have we done for our poor negroes? With shame we must confess that we have done NOTHING!" "How can you pray for Christ's kingdom to come while you are neglecting a people perishing for lack of vision around your very doors." "We withhold the Bible from our servants and keep them in ignorance of it, while we will not use the means to have it read and explained to them." Jones' Sermon, pp. 7, 9.

An official report of the Presbyterian Synod of South Carolina and Georgia, adopted at its session in Columbia, S.C., and published in the Charleston Observer of March 22, 1834, speaking of the slaves, says, "There are over two millions of human beings, in the condition of HEATHEN, and, in some respects, in a worse condition!" * * * "From long continued and close observation, we believe that their moral and religious condition is such, as that they may justly be considered the heathen of this Christian country, and will bear comparison with heathen in any country in the world." * * * "The negroes are destitute of the privileges of the gospel, and ever will be under the present state of things." Report, &c., p. 4.

A writer in the Church Advocate, published in Lexington, Ky., says, "The poor negroes are left in the ways of spiritual darkness, no efforts are being made for their enlightenment, no seed is being sown, nothing but a moral wilderness is seen, over which the soul sickens—the heart of Christian sympathy bleeds. Here nothing is presented but a moral waste, as extensive as our influence, as appalling as the valley of death."

The following is an extract of a letter from Bishop Andrew of the Methodist Episcopal Church, to Messrs. Garrit and Maffit, editors of the "Western Methodist," then published at Nashville, Tennessee.

"Augusta, Jan. 29, 1835.

"The Christians of the South owe a heavy debt to slaves on their plantations, and the ministers of Christ especially are debtors to the whole slave population. I fear a cry goes up to heaven on this subject against us; and how, I ask, shall the scores who have left the ministry of the Word, that they may make corn and cotton, and buy and sell, and get gain, meet this cry at the bar of God? and what shall the hundreds of money-making and money-loving masters, who have grown rich by the toil and sweat of their slaves, and left their souls to perish, say when they go with them to the judgment of the great day?"

"The Kentucky Union for the moral and religious improvement of the colored race,"—an association composed of some of the most influential ministers and laymen of Kentucky, says in a general circular to the religious public, "To the female character among the black population, we cannot allude but with feelings of the bitterest shame. A similar condition of moral pollution, and utter disregard of a pure and virtuous reputation, is to be found only without the pale of Christendom. That such a state of society should exist in a Christian nation, without calling forth any particular attention to its existence, though ever before our eyes and in our families, is a moral phenomenon at once unaccountable and disgraceful."

Rev. James A. Thome, a native of Kentucky, and still residing there, said in a speech in New York, May 1834, speaking of licentiousness among the slaves, "I would not have you fail to understand that this is a general evil. Sir, what I now say, I say from deliberate conviction of its truth; that the slave states are Sodoms, and almost every village family is a brothel. (In this, I refer to the inmates of the kitchen, and not to the whites.)"

A writer in the "Western Luminary," published in Lexington, Ky., made the following declaration to the same point in the number of that paper for May 7, 1835: "There is one topic to which I will allude, which will serve to establish the heathenism of this population. I allude to the UNIVERSAL LICENTIOUSNESS which prevails. Chastity is no virtue among them—its violation neither injures female character in their own estimation, or that of their master or mistress—no instruction is ever given, no censure pronounced. I speak not of the world. I SPEAK OF CHRISTIAN FAMILIES GENERALLY."

Rev. Mr. Converse, long a resident of Virginia, and agent of the Colonization Society, said, in a sermon before the Vt. C.S.—"Almost nothing is done to instruct the slaves in the principles and duties of the Christian religion. * * * The majority are emphatically heathens. * * Pious masters (with some honorable exceptions) are criminally negligent of giving religious instruction to their slaves. * * * They can and do instruct their own children, and perhaps their house servants; while those called "field hands" live, and labor, and die, without being told by their pious masters (?) that Jesus Christ died to save sinners."

The page is already so loaded with references that we forbear. For testimony from the mouths of slaveholders to the terrible lacerations and other nameless outrages inflicted on the slaves, the reader is referred to the number of the Anti-Slavery Record for Jan. 1837. ]

We now proceed to examine the various objections which will doubtless be set in array against all the foregoing conclusions.



OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.

The advocates of slavery find themselves at their wit's end in pressing the Bible into their service. Every movement shows them hard pushed. Their ever-varying shifts, their forced constructions and blind guesswork, proclaim both their cause desperate, and themselves. Meanwhile their invocations for help to "those good old slaveholders and patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,"[A] sent up without ceasing from the midst of their convulsions, avail as little as did the screams and lacerations of the prophets of Baal to bring an answer of fire. The Bible defences thrown around slavery by the professed ministers of the Gospel, do so torture common sense, Scripture, and historical facts it were hard to tell whether absurdity, fatuity, ignorance, or blasphemy, predominates, in the compound; each strives so lustily for the mastery, it may be set down a drawn battle. How often has it been bruited that the color of the negro is the Cain-mark, propagated downward. Cain's posterity started an opposition to the ark, forsooth, and rode out the flood with flying streamers! How could miracle be more worthily employed, or better vindicate the ways of God to man than by pointing such an argument, and filling out for slaveholders a Divine title-deed!

[Footnote A: The Presbytery of Harmony, South Carolina, at their meeting in Wainsborough, S.C., Oct. 28, 1836, appointed a special committee to report on slavery. The following resolution is a part of the report adopted by the Presbytery. "Resolved, That slavery has existed from the days of those GOOD OLD SLAVEHOLDERS AND PATRIARCHS, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who are now in the kingdom of Heaven."

Abraham receives abundant honor at the hands of slave-holding divines. Not because he was the "father of the faithful," forsook home and country for the truth's sake, was the most eminent preacher and practiser of righteousness in his day; nay, verily, for all this he gets faint praise; but then he had "SERVANTS BOUGHT WITH MONEY!!!" This is the finishing touch of his character, and its effect on slaveholders is electrical. Prose fledges into poetry, cold compliments warm into praise, eulogy rarifies into panegyric and goes off in rhapsody. In their ecstasies over Abraham, Isaac's paramount claims to their homage are lamentably lost sight of. It is quite unaccountable, that in their manifold oglings over Abraham's "servants bought with money," no slaveholder is ever caught casting loving side-glances at Gen. xxvii. 29, 37, where Isaac, addressing Jacob, says, "Be lord over thy brethren and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee." And afterwards, addressing Esau, he says, speaking of the birth-right immunities confirmed to Jacob, "Behold I have made him thy Lord and all his brethren have I GIVEN TO HIM FOR SERVANTS!"

Here is a charter for slaveholding, under the sign manual of that "good old slaveholder and patriarch, Isaac." Yea, more—a "Divine Warrant" for a father holding his children as slaves and bequeathing them as property to his heirs! Better still, it proves that the favorite practice amongst our slaveholders of bequeathing their colored children to those of a different hue, was a "Divine institution," for Isaac "gave" Esau, who was "red all over," to Jacob, "as a servant." Now gentlemen, "honor to whom honor." Let Isaac no longer be stinted of the glory that is his due as the great prototype of that "peculiar domestic institution," of which you are eminent patrons, that nice discrimination, by which a father, in his will, makes part of his children property, and the rest, their proprietors, whenever the propriety of such a disposition is indicated, as in the case of Jacob and Esau, by the decisive tokens of COLOR and HAIR, (for, to show that Esau was Jacob's rightful property after he was "given to him" by Isaac "for a servant," the difference in hair as well as color, is expressly stated by inspiration!)

One prominent feature of patriarchal example has been quite overlooked by slaveholders. We mean the special care of Isaac to inform Jacob that those "given to him as servants" were "HIS BRETHREN," (twice repeated.) The deep veneration of slaveholders for every thing patriarchal, clears them from all suspicion of designedly neglecting this authoritative precedent, and their admirable zeal to perpetuate patriarchal fashions, proves this seeming neglect, a mere oversight: and is an all-sufficient guarantee that henceforward they will religiously illustrate in their own practice, the beauty of this hitherto neglected patriarchal usage. True, it would be an odd codicil to a will, for a slaveholder, after bequeathing to some of his children, all his slaves, to add a supplement, informing them that such and such and such of them were their brothers and sisters. Doubtless it would be at first a sore trial also, but what pious slaveholder would not be sustained under it by the reflection that he was humbly following in the footsteps of his illustrious patriarchal predecessors!

Great reformers must make great sacrifices, and if the world is to be brought back to the purity of patriarchal times, upon whom will the ends of the earth come, to whom will all trembling hearts and failing eyes spontaneously turn as leaders to conduct the forlorn hope through the wilderness to that promised land, if not to slaveholders, those disinterested pioneers whose self-denying labors have founded far and wide the "patriarchal institution" of concubinage, and through evil report and good report, have faithfully stamped their own image and superscription, in variegated hues, upon the faces of a swarming progeny from generation to generation. ]

OBJECTION I. "Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren." Gen. ix. 25.

This prophecy of Noah is the vade mecum of slaveholders, and they never venture abroad without it; it is a pocket-piece for sudden occasion, a keepsake to dote over, a charm to spell-bind opposition, and a magnet to draw to their standard "whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie." But "cursed be Canaan" is a poor drug to ease a throbbing conscience—a mocking lullaby to unquiet tossings. Those who justify negro slavery by the curse on Canaan, assume as usual all the points in debate. 1. That slavery was prophesied, rather than mere service to others, and individual bondage rather than national subjection and tribute. 2. That the prediction of crime justifies it; or at least absolves those whose crimes fulfil it. How piously the Pharaohs might have quoted the prophecy, "Thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and they shall afflict them four hundred years." And then, what saints were those that crucified the Lord of glory! 3. That the Africans are descended from Canaan. Africa was peopled from Egypt and Ethiopia, which countries were settled by Mizraim and Cush. For the location and boundaries of Canaan's posterity, see Gen. x. 15-19. So a prophecy of evil to one people, is quoted to justify its infliction upon another. Perhaps it may be argued that Canaan includes all Ham's posterity. If so, the prophecy is yet unfulfilled. The other sons of Ham settled Egypt and Assyria, and, conjointly with Shem, Persia, and afterward, to some extent, the Grecian and Roman empires. The history of these nations gives no verification of the prophecy. Whereas, the history of Canaan's descendants for more than three thousand years, is a record of its fulfillment. First, they were put to tribute by the Israelites; then by the Medes and Persians; then by the Macedonians, Grecians and Romans, successively; and finally, were subjected by the Ottoman dynasty, where they yet remain. Thus Canaan has been for ages the servant mainly of Shem and Japhet, and secondarily of the other sons of Ham. It may still be objected, that though Canaan alone is named, yet the 22d and 24th verses show the posterity of Ham in general to be meant. "And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father, and told his two brethren without." "And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his YOUNGER son had done unto him, and said," &c. It is argued that this "younger son" cannot be Canaan, as he was the grandson of Noah, and therefore it must be Ham. We answer, whoever that "younger son" was, Canaan alone was named in the curse. Besides, the Hebrew word Ben, signifies son, grandson, or any one of the posterity of an individual.[A] "Know ye Laban, the SON (grandson) of Nahor?" Gen. xxix. 5. "Mephibosheth the SON (grandson) of Saul." 2 Sam. xix. 24; 2 Sam. ix. 6. "The driving of Jehu the SON (grandson) of Nimshi." 2 Kings ix. 20. See also Ruth iv. 17; 2 Sam. xxi. 6; Gen. xxxi. 55. Shall we forbid the inspired writer to use the same word when speaking of Noah's grandson? Further, Ham was not the "younger son." The order of enumeration makes him the second son. If it be said that Bible usage varies, the order of birth not always being observed in enumerations; the reply is, that, enumeration in that order, is the rule, in any other order the exception. Besides, if a younger member of a family takes precedence of older ones in the family record, it is a mark of pre-eminence, either in endowments, or providential instrumentality. Abraham, though sixty years younger than his eldest brother, stands first in the family genealogy. Nothing in Ham's history shows him pre-eminent; besides, the Hebrew word Hakkatan rendered "the younger," means the little, small. The same word is used in Isa. lx. 22. "A LITTLE ONE shall become a thousand." Isa. xxii. 24. "All vessels of SMALL quantity." Ps. cxv. 13. "He will bless them that fear the Lord both SMALL and great." Ex. xviii, 22. "But every SMALL matter they shall judge." It would be a literal rendering of Gen. ix. 24, if it were translated thus, "when Noah knew what his little son,"[B] or grandson (Beno Hakkatan) "had done unto him, he said cursed be Canaan," &c. Further, even if the Africans were the descendants of Canaan, the assumption that their enslavement fulfils this prophecy, lacks even plausibility, for, only a fraction of the inhabitants of Africa have at any time been the slaves of other nations. If the objector say in reply, that a large majority of the Africans have always been slaves at home, we answer: It is false in point of fact, though zealously bruited often to serve a turn; and if it were true, how does it help the argument? The prophecy was, "Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his BRETHREN.," not unto himself!

[Footnote A: So av, the Hebrew word for father, signifies any ancestor, however remote. 2 Chron. xvii. 3; xxviii. 1; xxxiv. 2; Dan. v. 2.]

[Footnote B: The French follows the same analogy; grandson being petit fils (little son.)]

OBJECTION II.—"If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money." Ex. xxi. 20, 21. What was the design of this regulation? Was it to grant masters an indulgence to beat servants with impunity, and an assurance, that if they beat them to death, the offence should not be capital? This is substantially what commentators tell us. What Deity do such men worship? Some blood-gorged Moloch, enthroned on human hecatombs, and snuffing carnage for incense? Did He who thundered from Sinai's flames, "THOU SHALT NOT KILL," offer a bounty on murder? Whoever analyzes the Mosaic system, will often find a moot court in session, trying law points, settling definitions, or laying down rules of evidence. Num. xxxv. 10-22; Deut. xix. 4-6; Lev. xxiv. 19-22; Ex. xxi. 18, 19, are some of the cases stated, with tests furnished the judges by which to detect the intent, in actions brought before them. Their ignorance of judicial proceedings, laws of evidence, &c., made such instructions necessary. The detail gone into, in the verses quoted, is manifestly to enable them to get at the motive and find out whether the master designed to kill. 1. "If a man smite his servant with a rod."—The instrument used, gives a clue to the intent. See Num. xxxv. 16-18. A rod, not an axe, nor a sword, nor a bludgeon, nor any other death-weapon—hence, from the kind of instrument, no design to kill would be inferred; for intent to kill would hardly have taken a rod for its weapon. But if the servant "die under his hand," then the unfitness of the instrument, is point blank against him; for, striking with a rod so as to cause death, presupposed very many blows and great violence, and this kept up till the death-gasp, showed an intent to kill. Hence "He shall surely be punished." But if he continued a day or two, the length of time that he lived, the kind of instrument used, and the master's pecuniary interest in his life, ("he is his money,") all made a strong case of presumptive evidence, showing that the master did not design to kill. Further, the word nakam, here rendered punished, occurs thirty-five times in the Old Testament, and in almost every place is translated "avenge," in a few, "to take vengeance," or "to revenge," and in this instance ALONE, "punish." As it stands in our translation, the pronoun preceding it, refers to the master, whereas it should refer to the crime, and the word rendered punished, should have been rendered avenged. The meaning is this: If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, IT (the death) shall surely be avenged, or literally, by avenging it shall be avenged; that is, the death of the servant shall be avenged by the death of the master. So in the next verse, "If he continue a day or two," his death is not to be avenged by the death of the master, as in that case the crime was to be adjudged manslaughter, and not murder. In the following verse, another case of personal injury is stated, for which the injurer is to pay a sum of money; and yet our translators employ the same phraseology in both places! One, an instance of deliberate, wanton, killing by piecemeal; the other, an accidental, and comparatively slight injury—of the inflicter, in both cases, they say the same thing! Now, just the discrimination to be looked for where GOD legislates, is marked in the original. In the case of the servant wilfully murdered, He says, "It (the death) shall surely be avenged," that is, the life of the wrong doer shall expiate the crime. The same word is used in the Old Testament, when the greatest wrongs are redressed, by devoting the perpetrators to destruction. In the case of the unintentional injury, in the following verse, God says, "He shall surely be fined, (anash.) "He shall pay as the judges determine." The simple meaning of the word anash, is to lay a fine. It is used in Deut. xxii. 19: "They shall amerce him in one hundred shekels," and in 2 Chron. xxxvi. 3: "He condemned (mulcted) the land in a hundred talents of silver and a talent of gold." That avenging the death of the servant, was neither imprisonment, nor stripes, nor a fine but that it was taking the master's life we infer, 1. From the use of the word nakam. See Gen. iv. 24; Josh. x. 13; Judg. xv. 7; xvi. 28; 1 Sam. xiv. 24; xviii. 25; xxv. 31; 2 Sam. iv. 8; Judg. v. 2; 1 Sam. xxv. 26-33. 2. From the express statute, Lev. xxiv. 17: "He that killeth ANY man shall surely be put to death." Also, Num. xxxv. 30, 31: "Whoso killeth ANY person, the murderer shall be put to death. Moreover, ye shall take NO SATISFACTION for the life of a murderer which is guilty of death, but he shall surely be put to death." 3. The Targum of Jonathan gives the verse thus, "Death by the sword shall surely be adjudged." The Targum of Jerusalem, "Vengeance shall be taken for him to the uttermost." Jarchi, the same. The Samaritan version: "He shall die the death." Again, the clause "for he is his money," is quoted to prove that the servant is his master's property, and therefore, if he died, the master was not to be punished. The assumption is, that the phrase, "HE IS HIS MONEY," proves not only that the servant is worth money to the master, but that he is an article of property. If the advocates of slavery insist upon taking this principle of interpretation into the Bible, and turning it loose, let them stand and draw in self-defence. If they endorse for it at one point, they must stand sponsors all around the circle. It will be too late to cry for quarter when its stroke clears the table, and tilts them among the sweepings beneath. The Bible abounds with such expressions as the following: "This (bread) is my body;" "all they (the Israelites) are brass and tin;" this (water) is the blood of the men who went in jeopardy of their lives;" "the Lord God is a sun;" "the seven good ears are seven years;" "the tree of the field is man's life;" "God is a consuming fire;" "he is his money," &c. A passion for the exact literalities of the Bible is too amiable, not to be gratified in this case. The words in the original are (Kaspo-hu,) "his silver is he." The objector's principle of interpretation is a philosopher's stone! Its miracle touch transmutes five feet eight inches of flesh and bones into solid silver! Quite a permanent servant, if not so nimble withal—reasoning against "forever," is forestalled henceforth, and, Deut. xxiii. 15, quite outwitted. The obvious meaning of the phrase, "He is his money," is, he is worth money to his master, and since, if the master had killed him, it would have taken money out of his pocket, the pecuniary loss, the kind of instrument used, and the fact of his living sometime after the injury, (if the master meant to kill, he would be likely to do it while about it.) all together make a strong case of presumptive evidence clearing the master from intent to kill. But let us look at the objector's inferences. One is, that as the master might dispose of his property as he pleased, he was not to be punished, if he destroyed it. Whether the servant died under the master's hand, or after a day or two, he was equally his property, and the objector admits that in the first case the master is to be "surely punished" for destroying his own property! The other inference is, that since the continuance of a day or two, cleared the master of intent to kill, the loss of the servant would be a sufficient punishment for inflicting the injury which caused his death. This inference makes the Mosaic law false to its own principles. A pecuniary loss was no part of the legal claim, where a person took the life of another. In such case, the law spurned money, whatever the sum. God would not cheapen human life, by balancing it with such a weight. "Ye shall take NO SATISFACTION for the life of a murderer, but he shall surely be put to death." Num. xxxv. 31. Even in excusable homicide, where an axe slipped from the helve and killed a man, no sum of money availed to release from confinement in the city of refuge, until the death of the High Priest. Num. xxxv. 32. The doctrine that the loss of the servant would be a penalty adequate to the desert of the master, admits his guilt and his desert of some punishment, and it prescribes a kind of punishment, rejected by the law, in all cases where man took the life of man, whether with or without intent to kill. In short, the objector annuls an integral part of the system—makes a new law, and coolly metes out such penalty as he thinks fit. Divine legislation revised and improved! The master who struck out his servant's tooth, whether intentionally or not, was required to set him free. The pecuniary loss to the master was the same as though he had killed him. Look at the two cases. A master beats his servant so that he dies of his wounds; another accidentally strikes out his servant's tooth,—the pecuniary loss of both masters is the same. If the loss of the servant's services is punishment sufficient for the crime of killing him, would God command the same punishment for the accidental knocking out of a tooth? Indeed, unless the injury was done inadvertently, the loss of the servant's services was only a part of the punishment—mere reparation to the individual for injury done; the main punishment, that strictly judicial, was reparation to the community. To set the servant free, and thus proclaim his injury, his right to redress, and the measure of it—answered not the ends of public justice. The law made an example of the offender, that "those that remain might hear and fear." "If a man cause a blemish in his neighbor, as he hath done, so shall it be done unto him. Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. Ye shall have one manner of law as well for the STRANGER as for one of your own country." Lev. xxiv. 19, 20, 22. Finally, if a master smote out his servant's tooth, the law smote out his tooth—thus redressing the public wrong; and it cancelled the servant's obligation to the master, thus giving some compensation for the injury done, and exempting him from perilous liabilities in future.



OBJECTION III. "Both thy bondmen and bondmaids which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you, of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land, and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen forever." Lev. xxv. 44-46.

The points in these verses, urged as proof, that the Mosaic system sanctioned slavery, are 1. The word "BONDMEN." 2. "BUY." 3. "INHERITANCE AND POSSESSION." 4. "FOREVER."

We will now ascertain what sanction to slavery is derivable from these terms.

1. "BONDMEN." The fact that servants from the heathen are called "bondmen," while others are called "servants," is quoted as proof that the former were slaves. As the caprices of King James' translators were not inspired, we need stand in no special awe of them. The word here rendered bondmen is uniformly rendered servants elsewhere. The Hebrew word "ebedh," the plural of which is here translated "bondmen," is often applied to Christ. "Behold my servant (bondman, slave?) whom I uphold." Isa. xlii. 1. "Behold my servant (Christ) shall deal prudently." Isa. lii. 13. "And he said it is a light thing that thou (Christ) shouldst be my servant." Isa. xlix. 6. "To a servant of rulers." Isa. xlix. 7. "By his knowledge shall my righteous servant (Christ) justify many." Is. liii. 11. "Behold I will bring forth my servant the BRANCH." Zech. iii. 8. In 1 Kings xii. 6, 7, it is applied to King Rehoboam. "And they spake unto him, saying if thou wilt be a servant unto this people, then they will be thy servants forever." In 2 Chron. xii. 7, 8, 9, 13, to the king and all the nation. The word is used to designate those who perform service for individuals or families, about thirty-five times in the Old Testament. To designate tributaries about twenty-five times. To designate the subjects of government, about thirty-three times. To designate the worshippers both of the true God, and of false gods, about seventy times. It is also used in salutations and courteous addresses nearly one hundred times. In fine, the word is applied to all persons doing service for others, and that merely to designate them as the performers of such service, whatever it might be, or whatever the ground on which it might be rendered. To argue from the fact, of this word being used to designate domestic servants, that they were made servants by force, worked without pay, and held as articles of property, is such a gross assumption and absurdity as to make formal refutation ridiculous. We repeat what has been shown above, that the word rendered bondmen in Lev. xxv. 44, is used to point out persons rendering service for others, totally irrespective of the principle on which that service was rendered; as is manifest from the fact that it is applied indiscriminately to tributaries, to domestics, to all the subjects of governments, to magistrates, to all governmental officers, to younger sons—defining their relation to the first born, who is called lord and ruler—to prophets, to kings, and to the Messiah. To argue from the meaning of the word ebedh as used in the Old Testament, that those to whom it was applied rendered service against their will, and without pay, does violence to the scripture use of the term, sets at nought all rules of interpretation, and outrages common sense. If any inference as to the meaning of the term is to be drawn from the condition and relations of the various classes of persons, to whom it is applied, the only legitimate one would seem to be, that the term designates a person who renders service to another in return for something of value received from him. The same remark applies to the Hebrew verb abadh, to serve, answering to the noun ebedh (servant). It is used in the Old Testament to describe the serving of tributaries, of worshippers, of domestics, of Levites, of sons to a father, of younger brothers to the elder, of subjects to a ruler, of hirelings, of soldiers, of public officers to the government, of a host to his guests, &c. Of these it is used to describe the serving of worshippers more than forty times, of tributaries, about thirty five, and of servants or domestics, about ten.

If the Israelites not only held slaves, but multitudes of them, if Abraham had thousands, and if they abounded under the Mosaic system, why had their language no word that meant slave? That language must be wofully poverty-stricken, which has no signs to represent the most common and familiar objects and conditions. To represent by the same word, and without figure, property, and the owner of that property, is a solecism. Ziba was an "ebedh," yet he "owned" (!) twenty ebedhs! In our language, we have both servant and slave. Why? Because we have both the things, and need signs for them. If the tongue had a sheath, as swords have scabbards, we should have some name for it: but our dictionaries give us none. Why? Because there is no such thing. But the objector asks, "Would not the Israelites use their word ebedh if they spoke of the slave of a heathen?" Answer. Their national servants or tributaries, are spoken of frequently, but domestics servants so rarely, that no necessity existed, even if they were slaves, for coining a new word. Besides, the fact of their being domestics, under heathen laws and usages, proclaimed their liabilities; their locality made a specific term unnecessary. But if the Israelites had not only servants, but a multitude of slaves, a word meaning slave, would have been indispensible for every day convenience. Further, the laws of the Mosaic system were so many sentinels on the outposts to warn off foreign practices. The border ground of Canaan, was quarantine ground, enforcing the strictest non-intercourse in usages between the without and the within.

2. "BUY." The buying of servants, is discussed at length. pp. 17-23. To that discussion the reader is referred. We will add in this place but a single consideration. This regulation requiring the Israelites to "buy" servants of the heathen, prohibited their taking them without buying. Buying supposes two parties: a price demanded by one and paid by the other, and consequently, the consent of both buyer and seller, to the transaction. Of course the command to the Israelites to buy servants of the heathen, prohibited their getting them unless they first got somebody's consent to the transaction, and paid to somebody a fair equivalent. Now, who were these somebodies? This at least is plain, they were not Israelites, but heathen. "Of them shall ye buy." Who then were these somebodies, whose right was so paramount, that their consent must be got and the price paid must go into their pockets? Were they the persons themselves who became servants, or some other persons. "Some other persons to be sure," says the objector, "the countrymen or the neighbors of those who become servants." Ah! this then is the import of the Divine command to the Israelites.

"When you go among the heathen round about to get a man to work for you, I straightly charge you to go first to his neighbors, get their consent that you may have him, settle the terms with them, and pay to them a fair equivalent. If it is not their choice to let him go, I charge you not to take him on your peril. If they consent, and you pay them the full value of his labor, then you may go and catch the man and drag him home with you, and make him work for you, and I will bless you in the work of your hands and you shall eat of the fat of the land. As to the man himself, his choice is nothing, and you need give him nothing for his work: but take care and pay his neighbors well for him, and respect their free choice in taking him, for to deprive a heathen man by force and without pay of the use of himself is well pleasing in my sight, but to deprive his heathen neighbors of the use of him is that abominable thing which my soul hateth."

3. "FOREVER." This is quoted to prove that servants were to serve during their life time, and their posterity from generation to generation.[A] No such idea is contained in the passage. The word "forever," instead of defining the length of individual service, proclaims the permanence of the regulation laid down in the two verses preceding, namely, that their permanent domestics should be of the Strangers, and not of the Israelites; it declares the duration of that general provision. As if God had said, "You shall always get your permanent laborers from the nations round about you; your servants shall always be of that class of persons." As it stands in the original, it is plain—"Forever of them shall ye serve yourselves." This is the literal rendering.

[Footnote A: One would think that the explicit testimony of our Lord should for ever forestall all cavil on this point. "The servant abideth not in the house FOR EVER, but the Son, abideth ever." John viii. 35.]

That "forever" refers to the permanent relations of a community, rather than to the services of individuals, is a fair inference from the form of the expression, "Both thy bondmen, &c., shall be of the heathen. OF THEM shall ye buy." "They shall be your possession." "THEY shall be your bondmen forever." "But over your brethren the CHILDREN OF ISRAEL," &c. To say nothing of the uncertainty of these individuals surviving those after whom they are to live, the language used applies more naturally to a body of people, than to individual servants. Besides perpetual service cannot be argued from the term forever. The ninth and tenth verses of the same chapter limit it absolutely by the jubilee. "Then thou shalt cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound * * throughout ALL your land." "And ye shall proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto ALL the inhabitants thereof." It may be objected that "inhabitants" here means Israelitish inhabitants alone. The command is, "Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto ALL the inhabitants thereof." Besides, in the sixth verse, there is an enumeration of the different classes of the inhabitants, in which servants and Strangers are included; and in all the regulations of the jubilee, and the sabbatical year, the Strangers are included in the precepts, prohibitions, and promises. Again: the year of jubilee was ushered in by the day of atonement. What did these institutions show forth? The day of atonement prefigured the atonement of Christ, and the year of jubilee, the gospel jubilee. And did they prefigure an atonement and a jubilee to Jews only? Were they types of sins remitted, and of salvation proclaimed to the nation of Israel alone? Is there no redemption for us Gentiles in these ends of the earth, and is our hope presumption and impiety? Did that old partition wall survive the shock that made earth quake, and hid the sun, burst graves and rocks, and rent the temple veil? and did the Gospel only rear it higher to thunder direr perdition from its frowning battlements on all without? No! The God of OUR salvation lives. "Good tidings of great joy shall be to ALL people." One shout shall swell from all the ransomed, "Thou hast redeemed us unto God by thy blood out of EVERY kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation."