The Bible against slavery : an inquiry into the patriarchal and Mosaic systems on the subject of human rights

0

t

THE 6»

ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER.

THE

BIBLE AGAINST SLAVERY.

AN INQUIRY INTO THE

PATRIARCHAL AND MOSAIC SYSTEMS

ON THE SUBJECT OP

HUMAN RIGHTS.

jFourtf) Utlftfon— Hnlatvjefc.

N E W YORK:

PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY,

NO. 143 NASSAU STREET.

1838.

This No. contains 7 sheets — Posc?>

?c, under 100 mil».s, 10J rents; over 100 miles, 14 cents.

O^T Plea

se read and Circulate. jr$

Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2014

https://archive.org/details/bibleagainstslavOOweld_0

CONTENTS.

page.

DEFINITION OF SLAVERY, 5—9

Negative, ... 6

Affirmative, 8

Legal, 9

THE MORAL LAW AGAINST SLAVERY, .... 10—11

" thou shalt not steal," 10

"Thou shalt not covet," 11

MAN-STEALING— EXAMINATION OF EX. xxi. 16, . . . 11—17

Separation of man from brutes and things, ... 15

IMPORT OF " BUY" AND « BOUGHT WITH MONEY," . . 17—23

Servants sold themselves, 22

RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES SECURED BY LAW TO SER-
VANTS, 23—28

SERVANTS WERE VOLUNTARY, . . . ... 28—38

Runaway Servants not to be delivered to their Masters, 29

SERVANTS WERE PAID WAGES, 39—47

MASTERS NOT « OWNERS," . . ' 47—64

Servants not subjected to the uses of property, . . 47
Servants expressly distinguished from property, ... 49
Examination of Gen. xii. 5. — " The souls that they had

gotten," &c. . 50

Social equality of Servants and Masters, .... 51
Condition of the Gibeonites as subjects of the Hebrew

Commonwealth, 54

Egyptian Bondage contrasted with American Slavery, . 55 — 63

Condition of American Slaves, 58 — 63

• III fed, . 58

III clothed, .60

Over-worked, 60

Their dwelling unfit for human beings, .... 61

Moral condition — "Heathens," ...... 61

CONTENTS.

OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.

" CURSED BE CAANAN," &c — EXAMINATION OF GEN. ix. 25, 66—68

» FOR HE IS HIS MONEY," &c— EXAMINATION OF EX.

xxi. 20, 21 68—71

EXAMINATION OF LEV. xxv. 44—46, 71—78

"Both thy BONDMEN, &c, shall be of the heathen," 72

" Of them shall te BUY," 73

" They shall be your bondmen FOREVER," ... 74

" Ye shall take them as an INHERITANCE," &c. 76

EXAMINATION OF LEV. xxv. 39, 40.-THE FREEHOLDER

NOT TO « SERVE AS A BOND SERVANT," . 78—88

Difference between Hired and Bought Servants, . . 79

Bought Servants the most favored and honored class, . 80

Israelites and Strangers belonged to both classes, . 83

Israelites, Servants to the Strangers, 84

Reasons for the release of the Israelitish Servants w the

seventh year, 84

Reasons for assigning the Strangers to a longer service, . 84

Reasons for calling them the Servants, .... 84
Different kinds of service assigned to the Israelites and

Strangers, 85

REVIEW OF ALL THE CLASSES OF SERVANTS WITH THE

MODIFICATIONS OF EACH, .... 88—91
Political disabilities of the Strangers, .... 89

EXAMINATION OF EX. xxi. 2— 6.— « IF THOU BUY AN HE

BREW SERVANT," &c 90

THE CANAANITES NOT SENTENCED TO UNCONDITIONAL

EXTERMINATION, 91—98

THE

BIBLE AGAINST SLAVERY .

The spirit of slavery never seeks refuge in the Bible of its own ac-
cord. The horns of the altar- are its last resort — seized only in despe-
ration, as it rushes from the terror of the avenger's arm. Like other
unclean spirits, it " hateth the light, neither cometh to the light,
lest its deeds should be reproved." Goaded to phrenzy in its conflicts
with conscience and common sense, denied all quarter, and hunted from
every covert, it vaults over the sacred inclosure and courses up and
down the Bible, " seeking rest, and finding none." The law of love,
glowing on every page, flashes around it an omnipresent anguish and
despair. It shrinks from the hated light, and howls under the consum-
ing touch, as demons quailed before the Son of God, and shrieked,
" Torment us not." At last, it slinks away under the types of the
Mosaic system, and seeks to burrow out of sight among their shadows.
Vain hope ! Its asylum is its sepulchre ; its city of refuge, the city of
destruction. It flies from light into the sun ; from heat, into devour-
ing fire ; and from the voice of God into the thickest of His
thunders.

DEFINITION OF SLAVERY.

If we would know whether the Bible sanctions slavery, we must de-
termine what slavery is. An element, is one thing ; a relation, another ;
an appendage, another. Relations and appendages presuppose other
things to which they belong. To regard them as the things them-
selves, or as constituent parts of them, leads to endless fallacies.

6

Mere political disabilities are often confounded with slavery ; so are
many relations, and tenures, indispensible to the social state. We will
specify some of these.

1. Privation of suffrage. Then minors are slaves.

2. Ineligibility to office. Then females are slaves.

3. Taxation without representation. Then slaveholders in the
District of Columbia are slaves.

4. Privation of one's oath in law. Then atheists are slaves.

5. Privation of trial by jury. Then all in France are slaves.

6. Being required to support a particular religion. Then
the people of England are slaves.

7. Apprenticeship. The rights and duties of master and appren-
tice are correlative. The claim of each upon the other results from
his obligation to the other. Apprenticeship is based on the principle
of equivalent for value received. The rights of the apprentice are
secured, equally with those of the master. Indeed while the law is
just to the former it is benevolent to the latter ; its main design being
rather to benefit the apprentice than the master. To the master it
secures a mere compensation — to the apprentice, both a compensation
and a virtual gratuity in addition, he being of the two the greatest
gainer. The law not only recognizes the right of the apprentice to a
reward for his labor, but appoints the wages, and enforces the pay-
ment. The master's claim covers only the services of the apprentice.
The apprentice's claim covers equally the services of the master.
Neither can hold the other as property ; but each holds property in
the services of the other, and both equally. Is this slavery 1

3. Filial subordination and parental claims. Both are nature's
dictates, and intrinsic elements of the social state : the natural affections
which blend parent and child in one, excite each to discharge those
offices incidental to the relation, and are a shield for mutual protection.
The parent's legal claim to the child's services, is a slight return for
the care and toil of his rearing, exclusively of outlays for support and
education. This provision is, with the mass of mankind, indispensable
to the preservation of the family state. The child, in helping his
parents, helps himself — increases a common stock, in which he has a
share ; while his most faithful services do but acknowledge a debt that
money cannot cancel.

i>. Claims of government on subjects." Governments owe their
subjects protection ; subjects owe just governments allegiance and
support. The obligations of both are reciprocal, and the benefits
received by both are mutual, equal, and voluntarily rendered.

7

10. Bondage for crime. Must innocence be punished because
guiit suffers penalties ? True, the criminal works for the government
without pay ; and well he may. He owes the government. A cen-
tury's work would not pay its drafts on him. He will die a public
defaulter. Because laws make men pay their debts, shall those be
forced to pay who owe nothing ? The law makes no criminal, pro-
perty. It restrains his liberty, and makes him pay something, a
mere penny in the pound, of his debt to the government ; but it does
not make him a chattel. Test it. To own property, is to own its
product. Are children born of convicts, government property ?
Besides, can property be guilty ? Can chattels deserve punish-
ment ?

11. Restraints upon freedom. Children are restrained by parents,
pupils, by teachers, patients, by physicians, corporations, by charters,
and legislatures, by constitutions. Embargoes, tariffs, quarantine, and
all other laws, keep men from doing as they please. Restraints are the
web of civilized society, warp and woof. Are they slavery ? then a
government of law, is the climax of slavery !

12. Involuntary or compulsory service. A juryman is empan-
nelled against his will, and sit he must. A sheriff orders his posse ;
bystanders must turn in. Men are compelled to remove nuisances,
pay fines and taxes, support their families, and " turn to the right
as the law directs," however much against their wills. Are they
therefore slaves ? To confound slavery with involuntary service is ab-
surd. Slavery is a condition. The slave's feelings toward it cannot
alter its nature. Whether he desires or detests it, the condition re-
mains the same. The slave's willingness to be a slave is no palliation
of the slaveholder's guiit. Suppose he should really believe himself a
chattel, and consent to be so regarded by others, would that make him
a chattel, or make those guiltless who hold him as such ? I may be
sick of life, and I tell the assassin so that stabs me ; is he any the less
a murderer ? Does my consent to his crime, atone for it ? my part-
nership in his guilt, blot out his part of it ? The slave's willingness to
be a slave, so far from lessening the guilt of his "owner," aggravates
it. If slavery has so palsied his mind that he looks upon himself
as a chattel, and consents to be one, actually to hold him as such, falls
in with his delusion, and confirms the impious falsehood. These very
feelings and convictions of the slave, (if such were possible) increase
a hundred fold the guilt of the master, and call upon him in thunder,
immediately to recognize him as a man, and thus break the sorcery

8

that cheats him out of his birthright — the consciousness of his worth
and destiny.

Many of the foregoing conditions are appendages of slavery, but
no one, nor all of them together, constitute its intrinsic unchanging
element.

Enslaving men is reducing them to articles of property —
making free agents, chattels — converting persons into things — sinking
immortality into merchandize. A slave is one held in this condition.
In law, " he owns nothing, and can acquire nothing." His right to him-
self is abrogated. If he say my hands, my body, my mind, isiYself, they are
figures of speech. To use himself for his own good, is a crime. To
keep what he earns, is stealing. To take his body into his own keep-
ing, is insurrection. In a word, the profit of his master is made
the end of his being, and he, a mere means to that end — a mere
means to an end into which his interests do not enter, of which they
constitute no portion.* Man, sunk to a thing! the intrinsic element,
the principle of slavery ; men, bartered, leased, mortgaged, bequeath-
ed, invoiced, shipped in cargoes, stored as goods, taken on executions,
and knocked off at a public outcry ! Their rights, another's conve-
niences ; their interests, wares on sale ; their happiness, a household
utensil ; their personal inalienable ownership, a servicable article or
a plaything, as best suits the humour of the hour; their deathless
nature, conscience, social affections, sympathies, hopes — marketable
commodities ! We repeat it, the reduction of persons to things !
Not robbing a man of privileges, but of himself; not loading him with
burdens, but making him a beast of burden ; not restraining liberty, but

* To deprive human nature of any of its rights is oppression ; to take away
the foundation of its rights is slavery. In other words, whatever sinks man
from an e:;d to a mere means, just so far makes him a slave. Hence West-
India apprenticeship retained the cardinal principle of slavery. The appren-
tice, during three-fourths of his time, was forced to labor, and robbed of his
earnings ; just so far forth he was a mere means, a slave. True in other re-
spects slavery was abolished in the British W est Indies August, 1S34. Its bloodi-
est features were blotted out — but the meanest and most despicable of all — forc-
ing the poor to work for the rich without pay three fourths of their time, with a
legal officer to flog them if they demurred at the outrage, was one of the provi-
sions of the " Emancipation Act !" For the glories of that luminary, abolition-
ists thanked God, while they mourned that it rose behind clouds and shone
through nn eclipse.

[Wcsi InflSra apprenticeship is now (August 1838) abolished. On the first of
the pres-nt mcvuh, every slave in every British island and colony stood up a
freeman ! — Note to fourth edition.]

9

subverting it ; not curtailing rights, but abolishing them ; not inflicting

personal cruelty, but annihilating personality ; not exacting involuntary
labor, but sinking man into an implement of labor ; not abridging
human comforts, but abrogating human nature ; not depriving an ani-
mal of immunities, but despoiling a rational being of attributes — un-
creating a man, to make room for a thing !

That this is American slavery, is shown by the laws of slave states.
Judge Stroud, in his " Sketch of the Laws relating to Slavery," says,
" The cardinal principle of slavery, that the slave is not to be ranked
among sentient beings, but among things — obtains as undoubted law in
all of these [the slave] states." The law of South Carolina says,
" Slaves shall be deemed, held, taken, reputed, and adjudged in law to
be chattels personal in the hands of their owners and possessors, and
their executors, administrators, and assigns, to all intents, construc-
tions, and purposes whatsoever." Brev. Dig., 229. In Louisiana,
" A slave is one who is in the power of a master to whom he belongs ;
the master may sell him, dispose of his person, his industry, and his
labor ; he can do nothing, possess nothing, nor acquire any thing, but
what must belong to his master." — Civ. Code, Art. 35.

This is American slavery. The eternal distinction between a per-
son and a thing, trampled under foot — the crowning distinction of all
others — alike the source, the test, and the measure of their value — the
rational, immortal principle, consecrated by God to universal homage
in a baptism of glory and honor, by the gift of his Son, his Spirit, his
word, his presence, providence, and power ; his shield, and staff, and
sheltering wing ; his opening heavens, and angels ministering, and
chariots of fire, and songs of morning stars, and a great voice in heav-
en proclaiming eternal sanctions, and confirming the word with signs
following.

Having stated the principle of American slavery, we ask, Does the
Bible sanction such a principle ?* " To the law and the testimony T 9

* The Bible record of actions is no comment on their moral character. It
vouches for them as facts, not as virtues. It records without rebuke, Noah's
drunkenness, Lot's incest, and the lies of Jacob and his mother — not only single
acts, but usages, such as polygamy and concubinage, are entered on the record
without censure. Is that silent entry God's endorsement % Because the Bible
in its catalogue of human actions, does not stamp on every crime its name and
number, and write against it, this is a crime — does that wash out its guilt, and
bleach it into a virtue 1

2

10

THE MORAL LAW AGAINST SLAVERY.

Just after the Israelites were emancipated from their bondage in
Egypt, while they stood before Sinai to receive the law, as the trumpet
waxed louder, and the mount quaked and blazed, God spake the ten
commandments from the midst of clouds and thunderings. Two of
those commandments deal death to slavery. "Thou shalt not steal,"
or, " thou shalt not take from another what belongs to him." All
man's powers are God's gift to him. Each of them is a part of him-
self, and all of them together constitute himself. All else that belongs
to man, is acquired by the use of these powers. The interest belongs
to him, because the principal does ; the product is his, because he is
the producer. Ownership of any thing, is ownership of its use. The
right to use according to will, is itself ownership. The eighth com-
mandment presupposes and assumes the right of every man to mV
powers, and their product. Slavery robs of both. A man's right to
himself, is the only right absolutely original and intrinsic — his right to
anything else is merely relative to this, is derived from it, and held
only by virtue of it. Self-right is the foundation right — the post in
the middle, to which all other rights are fastened. Slaveholders, when
talking about their right to their slaves, always assume their own right
to themselves. What slave-holder ever undertook to prove his right
to himself? He knows it to be a self-evident proposition, that a man
belongs to himself — that the right is intrinsic and absolute. In making
out his own title, he makes out the title of every human being. As the fact
of being a man is itself the title, the whole human family have one com-
mon title deed. If one man's title is valid, all are valid. If one is
worthless, all are. To deny the validity of the slave's title is to deny
the validity of his own ; and yet in the act of making a man a slave,
the slaveholder asserts the validity of his own title, while he seizes him
as his property who has the sa?ne title. Further, in making him a
slave, he does not merely disfranchise of humanity one individual, but
universal man. He destroys the foundations. He annihilates all
rights. He attacks not only the human race, but universal being, and
rushes upon Jehovah. For rights are rights ; God's are no more —
man's are no less.

The eighth commandment forbids the taking of any part of that
which belongs to another. Slavery takes the tchole. Does the same
Bible which prohibits the taking of any thing from him, sanction the
taking of every thing 1 Does it thunder wrath against the man who robs

11

his neighbor of a cent, yet commission him to rob his neighbour of
himself 1 Slaveholding is the highest possible violation of the eight
commandment. To take from a man his earnings, is theft. But to
take the earner, is a compound, life-long theft — supreme robbery that
vaults up the climax at a leap — the dread, terrific, giant robbery, that
towers among other robberies a solitary horror. The eight command-
ment forbids the taking away, and the tenth adds, " Thou shalt not co-
vet any thing that is thy neighbor's thus guarding every man's right
to himself and property, by making not only the actual taking away a
sin, but even that state of mind which would tempt to it. Who ever
made human beings slaves, without coveting them ? Why take from
them their time, labor, liberty, right of self-preservation and improve-
ment, their right to acquire property, to worship according to conscience,
to search the Scriptures, to live with their families, and their right to
their own bodies, if they do not desire them 1 They covet them for
purposes of gain, convenience, lust of dominion, of sensual gratification,
of pride and ostentation. They break the tenth commandment, and
pluck down upon their heads the plagues that are written in the book.
Ten commandments constitute the brief compend of human duty. Two
of these brand slavery as sin.

MANSTEALING-EXAMINATION OF EX. XXI. 16.

The giving of the law at Sinai, immediately preceded the promul-
gation of that body of laws called the "Mosaic system." Over the
gateway of that system, fearful words were written by the finger of
God — "He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he

BE FOUND IN HIS HAND, HE SHALL SURELY BE PUT TO DEATH.*"

Ex. xxi. 16.

The oppression of the Israelites in Egypt, and the wonders wrought
for their deliverence, proclaim the reason for such a law at such a time.
They had just been emancipated. The tragedies of their house of bond-
age were the realities of yesterday, and peopled their memories with

* A writer in the American Quarterly Review, commenting on this passage,
thus blasphemes. * On this passage an impression has gone abroad that slave-
owners are necessarily menstealers; how hastily, any one will perceive who
consults the passage in its connection. Being found in the chapter which au-
thorizes this species of property among the Hebrews, it must ol course relate to
its full protection from the danger of being enticed away from its rightful owner."
—Am. Quart. Review for June, 1833. Article " Negro slavery."

12

thronging horrors. They had just witnessed God's testimony against
oppression in the plagues of Egypt — the burning blains on man and
beast ; the dust quickened into loathsome life, and swarming upon eve-
ry living thing ; the streets, the palaces, the temples, and every house
heaped up with the carcases of things abhorred ; the kneeding troughs
and ovens, the secret chambers and the couches, reeking and dissolv-
ing with the putrid death ; the pestilence walking in darkness at noon-
day, the devouring locusts, and hail mingled with fire, the first-born
death-struck, and the waters blood ; and last of all, that dread high hand
and stretched-out arm, that whelmed the monarch and his hosts, and
strewed their corpses on the sea. All this their eyes had looked upon ;
earth's proudest city, wasted and thunder-scarred, lying in desolation,
and the doom of oppressors traced on her ruins in the hand-writing of
God, glaring in letters of fire mingled with blood — a blackened monu-
ment of wrath to the uttermost against the stealers of men. No won-
der that God, in a code of laws prepared for such a people at such a
time, should uproar on its foreground a blazing beacon to flash terror
on slaveholders. " He that steahth a man and selleth hurt, or if he be
found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death." Ex. xxi. 16. Deut.
xxiv, 7.* God's cherubim and flaming sword guarding the entrance
to the Mosaic system !

The word Gcinabh here rendered steahth, means, the taking of what
belongs to another, whether by violence or fraud ; the same word
is used in the eight commandment, and prohibits both robbery and
theft.

The crime specified, is that of depriving somebody of the ownership
of a man. Is this somebody a master ? and is the crime that of depriv-
ing a master of his servant ? Then it would have been " he that steal-
etlv'a servant, not "he that stealeth a man" if the crime had been the
taking of an individual from another, then the term used would have
been expressive of that relation, and most expecially if it was the re-
lation of property and proprietor !

The crime is stated in a three-fold form — man stealing, selling, and

* Jarchi, the most eminent of the Jewish Commentators, who wrote seven
hundred years ago, in his comment on this stealing and making merchandize of
men, gives the meaning thus : — " Using a man against his will, as a servant
lawfully purchased; yea, though he should use his services ever so little, only
s alue of a farthing, or use but his arm to lean on to support him, if he be
forced so to act as a servant, the person compelling him but once to do so, shall
die as a thief, whether he has sold him or not.

13

holding. All are put on a level, and whelmed under one penalty —
DEATH.* This somebody deprived of the ownership of a man, is the
man himself, robbed of personal ownership. Joseph said, " Indeed 1
was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews." Gen. xl. 15^
How stolen ? His brethren sold him as an article of merchandize.
Contrast this penalty for man-stealing with that for property-stealing,
Ex. xxii. 14. If a man had stolen an ox and killed or sold it, he was
to restore five oxen ; if he had neither sold nor killed it, two oxen.
But in the case of stealing a man, the first act drew down the utmost
power of punishment ; however often repeated or aggravated the crime,
human penalty could do no more. The fact that the penalty for man-steal -
ing was death, and the penalty for property-stealing, the mere restoration
of double, shows that the two cases were adjudicated on totally different
principles. The man stolen might be diseased or totally past labor, con-
sequently instead of being profitable to the thief, he would be a tax
upon him, yet death was still the penalty, though not a cent's worth of
property -value was taken. The penalty for stealing property was a
mere property-penalty. However large the theft, the payment of
double wiped out the score. It might have a greater money value than
a thousand men, yet death was not the penalty, nor maiming, nor
branding, nor even stripes, but double of the same kind. Why was
not the rule uniform ? When a man was stolen why was not the thief
required to restore double of the same kind — two men, or if he had
sold him, five men ? Do you say that the man-thief might not have
them ? So the ox-thief might not have two oxen, or if he had killed it,
five. But if God permitted men to hold men as property, equally
with oxen, the man-thief, could get men with whom to pay the penalty,
as well as the ox-thief, oxen. Further, when property was stolen, the
legal penalty was a compensation to the person injured. But when
a man was stolen, no property compensation was offered. To tender
money as an equivalent, would have been to repeat the outrage with
intolerable aggravations. Compute the value of a man in money !
Throw dust into the scale against immortality ! The law recoiled
from such supreme insult and impiety. To have permitted the man-
thief to expiate his crime by restoring double, would have been making
the repetition of crime its atonement. But the infliction of death for
man-stealing exacted the utmost possibility of reparation. It wrung
from the guilty wretch as he gave up the ghost, the testimony of blood,

* Those are men-slealers who abduct, keep, sell, or buy slaves or freemen."
Grotius.

14

and death-groans, to the infinite dignity and worth of man, — a procla-
mation to the universe, voiced in mortal agony, " man is inviolable."
— a confession shrieked in phrenzy at the grave's mouth — " I die ac-
cursed, and God is just."

If God permitted man to hold man as property, why did he punish
for stealing that kind of property infinitely more than for stealing any
other kind of property 1 Why punish with death for stealing a very
little of that sort of property, and make a mere fine the penalty for
stealing a thousand times as much, of any other sort of property — es-
pecially if by his own act, God had annihilated the dirTerence between
man and property, by putting him on a level with it ?

The guilt of a crime, depends much upon the nature, character, and
condition of the victim. To steal is a crime, whoever the thief, or
whatever the plunder. To steal bread from a full man, is theft ; to
steal it from a starving man, is both theft and murder. If I steal my
neighbor's property, the crime consists not in altering the nature of the
article, but in taking as mine what is his. But when I take my neigh-
bor himself, and first make him property, and then my property, the
latter act, which was the sole crime in the former case, dwindles to
nothing. The sin in stealing a man, is not the transfer from its owner
to another of that which is already property, but the turning of person-
ality into property. True, the attributes of man remain, but the rights
and immunities which grow out of them are annihilated. It is the
first law both of reason and revelation, to regard things and beings as
they are ; and the sum of religion, to feel and act toward them accord-
ing to their value. Knowingly to treat them otherwise is sin ; and
the degree of violence done to their nature, relations, and value, mea-
sures its guilt. When things are sundered which God has indisso-
lubly joined, or confounded in one, which he has separated by infinite
extremes ; when sacred and eternal distinctions, which he has garnish-
ed with glory, are derided and set at nought, then, if ever, sin reddens
to its " scarlet dye." The sin specified in the passage, is that of
doing violence to the nature of a man — to his instrinsic value as a ra-
tional being. In the verse preceding the one under consideration, and
in that which follows, the same principle is laid down. Verse 15,
" He that smiteth his father or his mother shall surely be put to
death." Verse. 17, * He that curseth his father or his mother, shall sure-
ly be put to death." If a Jew smote his neighbor, the law merely
smote him in return ; but if the blow was given to a parent, it struck
the smiter dead. The parental relation is the centre of human society.
God guards it with peculiar care. To violate that, is to violate all.

15

Whoever tramples on that, shows that no relation has any sacredness
in his eyes — that he is unfit to move among human relations who vio-
lates one so sacred and tender. Therefore, the Mosaic law uplifted
his bleeding corpse, and brandished the ghastly terror around the pa-
rental relation to guard it from impious inroads.

Why such a difference in penalties, for the same act? Answer. 1.
The relation violated was obvious — the distinction between parents and
others self-evident, dictated by a law of nature. 2. The act was vio-
lence to nature — a suicide on constitutional susceptibilities. 3. The
parental relation then, as now, was the focal point of the social sys-
tem, and required powerful safe-guards. " Honor thy father and
thy mother," stands at the head of those commands which prescribe the
duties of man to man ; and throughout the Bible, the parental state is
God's favorite illustration of his own relations to the human family.
In this case, death was to be inflicted not for smiting a man, but a
parent — a distinction made sacred by God, and fortified by a bulwark
of defence. In the next verse, " He that stealeth a man," &c, the
same principle is wrought out in still stronger relief. The crime to
be punished with death was not the taking of property from its owner,
but violence to an immortal nature, the blotting out of a sacred distinc.
tion — making men " chattels."

The incessant pains taken in the Old Testament to separate human
beings from brutes and things, shows God's regard for this, his own distinc-
tion. " In the beginning" he proclaimed it to the universe as it rose
into being. Creation stood up at the instant of its birth, to do it hom-
age. It paused in adoration while God ushered forth its crowning work.
Why that dread pause and that creating arm held back in mid career
and that high conference in the godhead ? " Let us make man in our
image after our likeness, and let him have dominion over the fish of
the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle and over all
the earth." Then while every living thing, with land, and sea, and
firmament, and marshalled worlds, waited to swell the shout of morning
stars — then God created man in his own image ; in the image of
God created he him." This solves the problem, IN THE IMAGE
OF GOD, CREATED HE HIM. This distinction is often repeated
and always with great solemnity. In Gen. i. 26-28, it is expressed in
various forms. In Gen. v. 1, we find it again, " in the likeness of
God made he him." In Gen. ix. 6, again. After giving license to shed
the blood of " every moving thing that liveth," it is added, "Whoso
sheddeth marHs blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of
God made he man." As though it had been said, " All these creatures

16

are your property, designed for your use — they have the likeness of
earth, and their spirits go downward ; but this other being, man, has
my own likeness : in the image of God made I man ; an intelligent,
moral, immortal agent, invited to all that I can give and he can be. So
in Lev. xxiv. 17, 18, 21, " He that killeth any man shall surely be put
to death ; and he that killeth a beast shall make it good, beast for beast ;
and he that killeth a man he shall be put to death." So in Ps. viii. 5.
6, we have an enumeration of particulars, each separating infinitely
men from brutes and things ! 1. " Thou hast made him a little lower
than the angels." Slavery drags him down among brutes. 2. " And
hast crowned him with glory and honor" Slavery tears off his crown,
and puts on a yoke. 3. " Thou madest him to have dominion* over the
works of thy hands." Slavery breaks his sceptre, and cast him down
among those works — yea, beneath them. 4. " Thou hast put all things
under his feet." Slavery puts him under the feet of an " owner."
Who, but an impious scorner, dare thus strive with his Maker, and
mutilate his image, and blaspheme the Holy One, who saith, " Inas-
much as ye did it unto one of the least of these, ye did it unto me."

In further prosecuting this inquiry, the Patriarchal and Mosaic sys-
tems will be considered together, as each reflects light upon the other,
and as many regulations of the latter are mere legal forms of Divine
institutions previously existing. As a system, the latter alone is of
Divine authority. Whatever were the usages of the patriarchs, God
has not made them our exemplars. f The question to be settled by us,

* " Thou madest him to have dominion." In Gen. i. 28, God says to man,
11 Have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air and over
every living tiling that moveth upon the earth," thus vesting in every human
being the right of ownership over the earth, its products and animal life, and in
each human being the same right. By so doing God prohibited the exercise of
ownership by man over man ; for the grant to all men of equal ownership, for
ever shut out the possibility of their exercising ownership over each other, as
whoever is the owner of a man, is the owner of his right of property — in other
words, when one man becomes the property of another his rights become such
too, his right of property is transferred to his :( owner," and thus as far as himself
is concerned, is annihilated. Finally, by originally vesting all men with
dominion or ownership over property, God proclaimed the right of all to ex-
ercise it, and pronounced every man who takes it away a robber of the highest
grade. Such is every slaveholder.

t Those who insist that the patriarchs held slaves, and sit with such delight
under their shadow, hymning the praises of "those good old slaveholders and
patriarchs," might at small cost greatly augment their numbers. A single stanza
celebrating patriarchal concubinage, winding off with a chorus in honor of pa-
triarchal drunkenness, would be a trumpet-call, summoning from brothels, bush

17

is not what were Jewish customs, but what were the rules that God gave

for the regulation of those customs.

Before entering upon an analysis of the condition of servants under
these two states of society, we will consider the import of certain terms
which describe the mode of procuring them. .

IMPORT OF "BUY," AND "BOUGHT WITH MONEY."

As the Israelites were commanded to " buy " their servants, and as
Abraham had servants "bought with money," it is argued that servants
were articles of property ! The sole ground for this belief is the terms
themselves! How much might be saved, if in discussion, the thing to
be proved were always assumed / To beg the question in debate, is
vast economy of midnight oil, and a wholesale forestaller of
wrinkles and gray hairs. Instead of protracted investigation into
Scripture usage, painfully collating passages, to settle the meaning of
terms, let every man interpret the oldest book in the world by the usag-
es of his own time and place, and the work is done. And then instead
of one revelation, they might be multiplied as the drops of the morning,
and every man have an infallible clue to the mind of the Spirit, in the
dialect of his own neighborhood ! What a Babel-jargon, to take it for
granted that the sense in which words are now used, is the inspired
sense. David says, " I prevented the dawning of the morning, and cried."
What, stop the earth in its revolution ! Two hundred years ago, pre-
vent was used in its strict Latin sense, to come before, or anticipate. It
is always used in this sense in the Old and New Testaments. David's
expression, in the English of the nineteenth century, would be " Before
the dawning of the morning I cried." In almost every chapter of the
Bible, words are used in a sense now nearly, or quite obsolete, and
sometimes in a sense totally opposite to their present meaning. A few
examples follow : "I purposed to come to you, but was let (hindered)
hitherto." " And the four beads (living ones) fell down and worship-
ed God," — " Whosoever shall offend (cause to sin) one of these little
ones," — " Go out into the highways and compel (urge) them to come
in," — Only let your conversation (habitual conduct) be as becometh the
Gospel," — " The Lord Jesus Christ who shall judge the quick (living)
and the dead," — " They that seek me early (earnestly) shall find me,"

and brake, highway and hedge, and sheltering fence, a brotherhood of kindred
affinities, each claiming Abraham or Noah as his patron saint, and shouting,
" My name is legion." A myriad choir and thunderous song!
3

18

So when tribulation or persecution ariseth by-and-by (immediately) they

are offended." Nothing is more mutable than language. Words, like
bodies, are always throwing off seme particles and absorbing oihers.
So long as they are mere representatives, elected by the whims of uni-
versal suffrage, their meaning will be a perfect volatile, and to cork it
up for the next century is an employment sufficiently silly (to speak
within bounds) for a modern Bible-Dictionary maker. There never
was a shallower conceit than that of establishing the sense attached to
a word centuries ago, by showing what it means now. Pity that fash-
ionable mantuamakers were not a little quicker at taking hints from
some Doctors of Divinity. How easily they might save their pious
customers all qualms of conscience about the weekly shiftings of fashion,
by proving that the last importation of Parisian indecency now "show-
ing off" on promenade, was the very style of dress in which the modest
and pious Sarah kneaded cakes for the angels. Since such a fashion
flaunts along Broadway now, it must have trailed over Canaan four
thousand years ago !

The inference that the word buy, used to describe the procuring of
servants, means procuring them as chattels, seems based upon the fal-
lacy, that whatever costs money is money ; that whatever or whoever
you pay money for, is an article of property, and the fact of your pay-
ing for it, proves it property. 1. The children of Israel were required
to purchase their first-born from under the obligations of the priest-
hood, Num. xviii. 15, 16; hi. 45 — 51; Ex. xiii. 13; xxxiv. 20. This
custom still exists among the Jews, and the word buy is still used to de-
scribe the transaction. Does this prove that their first-born were, or
are, held as property ? They were bought as really as were servants.
2. The Israelites were required to pay money for their own souls.
This is called sometimes a ransom, sometimes an atonement. Were
their souls therefore marketable commodities 1 3. When the Israelites
set apart themselves or their children to the Lord by vow, for the per-
formance of some service, an express statute provided that a price
should be set upon the "persons," and it prescribed the manner and
terms of the " estimation" or valuation, by the payment of which, the
persons might be bought off from the service vowed. The price for
males from one month old to five years, was five shekels, for females,
three ; from five years old to twenty, for males, twenty shekels, for fe-
males, ten ; from twenty years old to sixty, for males, fifty shekels, for
females, thirty; above sixty years old, for males, fifteen shekels, for fe-
males, ten, Lev. xxvii. 2 — 8. What egregious folly to contend that all
these descriptions of persons were goods and chattels because they

19

were bought and their prices regulated by law! 4. Bible saints bought
their wives. Boaz bought Ruth. " Moreover Ruth the Moabitess, the
wife of Mahlon, have I purchased (bought) to be my wife." Ruth iv.
10.* Hosea bought his wife. "So I bought her to me for fifteen
pieces of silver, and for an homer of Barley, and an half homer of
barley." Hosea iii. 22. Jacob bought his wives Rachael and Leah,
and not having money, paid for them in labor — seven years a piece.
Gen. xxix. 15 — 23. Moses probably bought his wife in the same way,
and paid for her by his labor, as the servant of her father.f Exod. ii.
21. Shechem, when negotiating with Jacob and his sons for Dinah,
says, " Ask me never so much dowry and gift, and I will give accord-
ing as ye shall say unto me," Gen. xxxiv. 11, 12. David purchased
Michael, and Othniel, Achsah, by performing perilous services for the
fathers of the damsels. 1 Sam. xviii. 25-27 ; Judg. i. 12, 13. That
the purchase of wives, either with money or by service, was the gene-
ral practice, is plain from such passages as Ex. xxii. 17, and 1 Sam.
xviii. 25. Among the modern Jews this usage exists, though now a
mere form, there being no real purchase. Yet among their marriage
ceremonies, is one called "marrying by the penny." The similiarity
in the methods of procuring wives and servants, in the terms employed
in describing the transactions, and in the prices paid for each, are
worthy of notice. The highest price of wives (virgins) and servants
was the same. Comp. Deut, xxii. 28, 29, and Ex. xxii. 17, with Lev.
xxvii. 2-8. The medium price of wives and servants was the same.
Comp. H >s. iii. 2, with Ex. xxi. 32. Hosea seems to have paid one
half in money and the other half in grain. Further, the Israelitish
female bought-servants were wives, their husbands and masters being
the same persons. Ex. xxi. 8, Judg. xix. 3, 27. If buying servants
prove > them property, buying wives proves them property. Why not
contend that the wives of the ancient fathers of the faithful were their
" chattels," and used as ready change at a pinch ; and thence deduce

* In the verse preceding, Boaz says, " I have bought all that was Elimelech's#
* * * of the hand of Naomi." In the original, the same word (kana) is
used in both verses. In the 9th, " a parcel of land" is '* bought," in the 10th a
" wife" is <: bought." If the Israelites had been as profound at inferences as
our modern Commentators, they would have put such a fact as this to the
rack till they had tortured out of it a divine warrant for holding their wives
as property and speculating in the article whenever it happened to be scarce.

t This cus:om still prevails in some eastern countries. The Crim T \
who are poor, serve an apprenticeship for their wives, during which they live
under the same roof with them and atthe close of it are adopted into the family.

20

the rights of modern husbands ? Alas ! Patriarchs and prophets are
followed afar off! When will pious husbands live up to their Bible
privileges, and become partakers with Old Testament worthies in the
blessedness of a husband's rightful immunities ! Refusing so 10 do, is
questioning the morality of those " good old slaveholders and patriarchs,
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."

This use of the word buy, is not peculiar to t\ie Hebrew. In the
Syriac, the common expression for "the espoused," is " the bought."
Even so late as the 16th century, the common record of marriages in
the old German Chronicles was, " A bought B."

The word translated buy, is, like other words, modified by the nature
of the subject to which it is applied. Eve said, " I have gotten (bought)
a man from the Lord." She named him Cain, that is bought. "He
that heareth reproof, getteth (buyeth) understanding," Prov. xv 32.
So in Isa. xi. 11. " The Lord shall set his hand again to recover (to
buy) the remnant of his people " So Ps. lxxviii. 54. " He brought
them to his mountain which his right hand had purchased" (gotten.)
Neh. v. 8. " We of our ability have redeemed (bought) our brethren
the Jews, that were sold unto the heathen." Here " bought" is not
applied to persons reduced to servitude, but to those taken out of it.
Prov. viii. 22. " The Lord possessed (bought) me in the beginning of
his way." Prov. xix. 8. " He that getteth (buyeth) wisdom loveth
his own soul." Finally, to buy is a secondary meaning of the Hebrew
word kdnd.

Even at this day the word buy is used to describe the procuring of
servants, where slavery is abolished. In the British West Indies,
where slaves became apprentices in 1834, they are still, (1837.)
"bought." This is the current word in West India newspapers. Ten
years since servants were " bought" in New York, and still are in New
Jersey, as really as in Virginia, yet the different senses in which the
word is used in these states, puts no man in a quandary. Under the
system of legal indenture in Illinois, servants now are "bought."*
Until recently immigrants to this country were " bought" in great
numbers. By voluntary contract they engaged to work a given time
to pay for their passage. This class of persons, called " redemptioners,"

* The following statute is now in force in the free state of Illinois—" No ne-
gro, mulatto, or InHiajn, shall at ; ny time purchase any servant other than of

: .... [ lezion : and il any of the persons aforesaid shall presume to

purchase a white servant, such servant shall immediately become free, and shall
be so held, deemed and taken.5'

21

consisted at one time of thousands. Multitudes are " bought" out of
slavery by themselves or others. Under the same roof with the writer
is a "servant bought with money." A few weeks since, she was a
slave ; when " bought," she was a slave no longer. Alas ! for our
leading politicians if " buying" men makes them " chattels." The
Whigs say, that Calhoun has been " bought" by the administration ;
and the other party, that Clay and Webster have been " bought" by
the Bank. The histories of the revolution tell us that Benedict Arnold
was " bought" by British gold, and that Williams, Paulding, and Van
Wert, could not be " bought" by Major Andre. When a . northern
clergyman marries a rich southern widow, country gossip thus hits off
the indecency, "The cotton bags bought him." Sir Robert Walpole
said, " Every man has his price, and whoever will pay it, can buy him,"
and John Randolph said, " The northern delegation is in the market ;
give me money enough, and I can buy them." The temperance pub-
lications tell us that candidates for office buy men with whiskey ; and
the oracles of street tattle, that the court, district attorney, and jury,
in the late trial of Robinson were bought, yet we have no floating
visions of " chattels personal," man-auctions, or coffles.

In Connecticut, town paupers are " bought " by individuals, who, for
a stipulated sum become responsible to the town for their comfortable
support for one year. If these " bought" persons perform any labor
for those who " buy" them, it is wholly voluntary. It is hardly neces-
sary to add that they are in no sense the " property " of their pur-
chasers.*

The transaction between Joseph and the Egyptians gives a clue to
the use of "buy" and " bought with money." Gen. xlvii. 18 — 26.
, Tne Egyptians proposed to Joseph to become servants. When the
bargain was closed, Joseph said, " Behold I have bought you this day,"
and yet it is plain that neither party regarded the persons bought as
articles of property, but merely as bound to labor on certain condi-
tions, to pay for their support during the famine. The idea attached

* " The select-men" of each town annually give notice, that at such a time and
place, they will proceed to sell the poor of said town. The persons thus "sold"
are "bought" by such persons, approved by the "select-men," as engage to fur-
nish them with sufficient wholesome food, adequate clothing, shelter, medicine,
&c . for such a sum as the parties ma y 2gree u pon. The Connecticut papers fre-
\y. com in rid v -rt i^ements like the ollowing:

"NOTICE— The poor of the town of Chatham will be SOLD on the first
Monday in April, 1837, at the house of F. Penfield, Esq., at 9 o'clock in the
forenoon."— [Middletown Sentinel, Feb. 3, 1837.

22

by both parties to "buy us," and "behold I have bought you," was
merely that of service voluntarily offered, and secured by contract, in
return, for value received, and not at all that the Egyptians were bereft
of their personal ownership, and made articles of property. And this
buying of services (in this case it was but one-fifth part) is called in
Scripture usage, buying the 'persons. This case claims special notice,
as it is the only one where the whole transaction of buying servants is
detailed — the preliminaries, the process, the mutual acquiescence, and
the permanent relation resulting therefrom. In all other instances, the
mere fact is stated without particulars. In this case, the whole process
is laid open. 1. The persons "bought," sold themselves, and of their
own accord. 2. Paying for the permanent service of persons, or even a
portion of it, is called " buying " those persons ; just as paying for the
use of land or houses for a number of years in succession is called
in Scripture usage buying them. See Lev. xxv. 28, 33, and xxvii. 24.
The objector, at the outset, takes it for granted, that servants were
bought of third persons ; and thence infers that they were articles of
property. Both the alleged fact and the inference are sheer as-
sumptions. No instance is recorded, under the Mosaic system, in
which a master sold his servant.

That servants who were "bought," sold themselves, is a fair infer-
ence from various passages of Scripture.* In Leviticus xxv. 47, the

* Those who insist that the servants which the Israelites were commanded to
buy of "the heathen which were roundabout" them, were to be bought of third per-
sons, virtually charge God with the inconsistency of recognizing and affirming
the right of those very persons to freedom, upon whom, say they, he pronounced
the doom of slavery. For they tell us, that the sentence of death uttered against
those heathen was commuted into slavery, which punishment God denounced
against them. Now if " the heathen round about" were doomed to slavery, the
sellers were doomed as well as the sold. Where, we ask, did the sellers get their
right to sell 1 God by commanding the Israelites to buy, affirmed the right of
somebody to sell, and that the ownership of what was sold existed somewhere. ; which
right and ownership he commanded them to recognize and respect. We repeat
the question, where did the heathen sellers get their right to sell, since they were
dispossessed of their right to themselves, and doomed to slavery equally with those
whom they sold. Did God's decree vest in them a right to others while it an-
nulled their right to themselves ? If, as the objector's argument assumes, one part
of " the heathen round about" were already held as slaves by the other part, such
of course were not doomed to slavery, for they were already slaves. So also, if
those heathen who held them as slaves had a right to hold them, which right
God commanded the Israelites to buy out, thus requiring them to recognize it
as a right, and on no account to procure its transfer to themselves without paying
to the holders an equivalent, surely, these slaveholders were not doomed by God
to be slaves, for according to the objector, God had himself affirmed their right
to hold others as slaves, and commanded his people to respect it.

23

case of the Israelite, who became the servant of the stranger, the
words are, "If he sell himself unto the stranger." Yet the 5lst
verse informs us that this servant was "bought" and that the
price of his purchase was paid to himself. The same word, and the
same form of the word, which, in verse 47, is rendered sell himself is
in verse 39 of the same chapter, rendered be sold ; in Deut. xxviii. 68,
the same word is rendered " be sold." "And there ye shall be sold
unto your enemies for bond-men and bond-women and no man shall
buy you." How could they " be sold" without being bought! Our
translation makes it nonsense. The word Makar rendered " be sold"
is used here in Hithpael conjugation, which is generally reflexive in
its force, and like the middle voice in Greek, represents what an indi-
vidual does for himself, and should manifestly have been rendered " ye
shall offer yourselves for sale, and there shall be no purchaser." For
a clue to Scripture usage on this point, see 1 Kings xxi. 20. 25. —
" Thou hast sold thyself to work evil. " There was none like unto
Ahab which did sell" himself to work wickedness." — 2 Kings xvii. 17.
" They used divination and enchantments, and sold themselves to do
evil." — Isa. 1. 1. "For your iniquities have ye sold yourselves."
Isa. lii. 3, " Ye have sold yourselves for nought, and ye shall be re-
deemed without money." See also, Jer. xxxiv. 14 ; Rom. vii. 14, vi.
16; John, viii. 34, and the case of Joseph and the Egyptians, already
quoted. In the purchase of wives, though spoken of rarely, it is gene-
rally stated that they were bought of third persons. If servants were
bought of third persons, it is strange that no instance of it is on
record.

We now proceed to inquire into the condition of servants under the
patriarchal and Mosaic systems.

I. THE RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES OF SERVANTS.

The leading design of the laws defining the relations of master and
servant, was the good of both parties — more especially the good of the
servants. While the master's interests were guarded from injury,
those of the servants were promoted. These laws made a merciful
provision for the poorer classes, both of the Israelites and Strangers,
not laying on burdens, but lightening them — they were a grant of
privileges and favors.

i. Buying servants was regarded as a kindness to the per-
sons bought, and as establishing between them and their purchasers
a bond of affection and confidence. This is plain from the frequent

24

use of it to illustrate the love and care of God for his chosen people.
Deut. xxxii. 6 ; Ex. xv. 16 ; Ps. lxxiv. 2 ; Prov. viii. 22.

ii. No Stranger could join the family of an Israelite with-
out becoming a'proselyte. Compliance with this condition was the
price of the 'privilege, Gen. xvii. 9 — 14, 23, 27. In other words, to
become a servant was virtually to become an Israelite.* In the light
of this fact, look at the relation sustained by a proselyted servant to
his master. Was it a sentence consigning to punishment, or a ticket
of admission to privileges ?

in. Expulsion from the family was the deprivation of a privi-
lege if not a punishment. When Sarah took umbrage at the con-
duct of Hagar and Ishmael, her servants, " She said unto Abraham
cast out this bond-woman and her son." * * And Abraham rose
up early in the morning and took bread and a bottle of water and gave
it unto Hagar and the child, and sent her away. Gen. xxi. 10, 14;
in Luke xvi. 1 — 8, our Lord tells us of the steward or head-servant of
a rich man" who defrauded his master, and was, in consequence, ex-
cluded from his household. The servant anticipating such a punish-
ment, says, " I am resolved what to do, that when I am put out of the
stewardship, they may receive me into their houses." The case of
Gehazi, the servant of Elisha, appears to be a similar one. He was
guilty of fraud in procuring a large sum of money from Naaman, and
of deliberate lying to his master, on account of which Elisha seems
to have discarded him. 2 Kings v. 20 — 27. In this connection we
may add that if a servant neglected the observance of any ceremonial
rite, and was on that account excommunicated from the congregation
of Israel, such excommunication excluded him also from the family
of an Israelite. In other words he could be a servant no longer
than he was an Israelite. To forfeit the latter distinction involved the
forfeiture of the former privilege — which proves that it was a privilege.

iv. The Hebrew servant could compel his master to keep him.

* The rites by which a stranger became a proselyte transformed him into a
Jew. Compare 1 Chron. ii. 17, with 2 Sam. xvii 25. In Esther viii. 17, it is
said " Many of the people of the land became Jews." In the Septuagirit, the pas-
sage is thus rendered, "Many of the heathen were circumcised and became
Jews." 1 he intimate union an ! incorporation of the proselytes with the He-
brews is shown by such passages as Isa. Ivi. 6, 7, 8 ; Eph. ii. 11, 22; Num. x.29-
32. Caimet, Art. Proselyte, says '« They were admitted to all the prerogatives
of the people of the Lord." Mahommed doubdess borrowed from the laws and
usages of ihe Jews, his well known regulation for admitting to all civil and re-
ligious privileges, all proselytes of whatever nation or religion.

25

When the six years' contract had expired, if the servant demanded it,
the law obliged the master to retain him permanently, however little
he might need his services. Deut. xv. 12 — 17; Ex. xxi. 2 — 6.
This shows that the system was framed to advance the interest and
gratify the wishes of the servant quite as much as those of the
master.

v. Servants were admitted into covenant with God. Deut.
xxix. 10—13.

vi. They were guests at all national and family festivals.
Ex. xii. 43—44; Deut xii. 12, 18, xvi. 10—16.

vii. They were statedly instructed in morality and religion.
Deut. xxxi. 10—13; Josh. viii. 33 — 35; 2 Chron. xvii. 8 — 9, xxxv.
3, and xxxiv. 30. Neh. viii. 7. 8.

viii. They were released from their regular labor nearly
one half of the whole time. During which they had their entire
support, and the same instruction that was provided for the other mem-
bers of the Hebrew community. The Law secured to them,

1. Every seventh year; Lev. xxv. 3 — 6; thus giving to those who
were servants during the entire period between the jubilees, eight
whole years, (including the jubilee year,) of unbroken rest.

2. Every seventh day. This in forty-two years, the eight being
subtracted from the fifty, would amount to just six years.

3. The three annual festivals. Ex. xxiii. 17, xxxiv. 23. The Pass,
over, which commenced on the 15th of the 1^ month, and lasted seven
days, Deut. xvi. 3, 8. The Pentecost or Feast of Weeks, which
began on the 6th day of the 3d rnont^, and lasted seven days. Deut.
xvi. 10, 11. The Feast of Tabernacles, which commenced on the
15th of the 7th month, and last*** eight days. Deut. xvi 13. 15 ; Lev.
xxiii. 34 — 39. As all met «d one place, much time would be spent on
the journey. Cumbered caravans move slowly. After their arrival,
a day or two would be requisite for divers preparations before the
celebration, besides- some time at the close of it, in preparations for re-
turn. If we assign three weeks to each festival — including the time
spent on the journeys, and the delays before and after the celebration,
together with the festival week, it will be a small allowance for the
cessation of their regular labor. As there were three festivals in the
vear, the main body of the servants would be absent from their stated
employments at least nine weeks annually, which would amount in
forty-two years, subtracting the sabbaths, to six years and eighty-four
days.

4. The new moons. The Jewish year had twelve ; Josephus says

4

26

that the Jews always kept two days for the new moon. See Calmet
on the Jewish Calendar, and Home's Introduction; also 1 Sam. xx
18, 19, 27. This, in forty-two years, would be two years 280
days.

5. TJie feast of trumpets. On the first day of the seventh month,
and of the civil year. Lev. xxiii. 24, 25.

6. The atonement day. On the tenth of the seventh month Lev.
xxiii. 27.

These two feasts would consume not less than sixty-five days not
reckoned above.

Thus it appears that those who continued servants during the peri-
od between the jubilees, were by law released from their labor, twen-
ty-three YEARS AND SIXTY-FOUR DAYS, OUT OF FIFTY YEARS, and those

who remained a less time, in nearly the same proportion. In this cal-
culation, besides making a donation of all the fractions to the objector,
we have left out those numerous local festivals to which frequent allu-
sion is made, Judg. xxi. 19 ; 1 Sam. ix 12. 22. etc., and the various
family festivals, such as at the weaning of children ; at marriages ; at
sheep shearings ; at circumcisions ; at the making of covenants, &c,
to which reference is often made, as in 1 Sam, xx. 6. 28. 29. Nei-
ther have we included the festivals instituted at a later period of the
Jewish history — the feast of Purim, Esth. ix. 28, 29; and of the
Dedication, which lasted eight days John x. 22 ; 1 Mac. iv. 59.

Finally, the Mosaic system secured to servants, an amount of time
which, if distributed, wouVl be almost one half of the days in each
year. Meanwhile, they wei° supported, and furnished with opportu-
nities of instruction. If this tin^ were distributed over every day, the
servants would have to themselves nearly one half of each day.

The service of those Strangers who were national servants or trib-
utaries, was regulated upon the same benevolent principle, and secured
to them two-thirds of the whole year. " A. month thev were in

Lebanon, and two months they were at home.' l Kings, v. 13 15.

Compared with 2 Chron. 11. 17 — 19, viii. 7—9 ; i Kings, ix 20. 22.
The regulations under which the inhabitants of Gibcon, Chephirah,
Beeroth and Kirjath-jearim, (afterwards called Nethinim*) performed
service for the Israelites, must have secured to them nearly the whole of
their time. If, as is probable, they served in courses corresponding
to those of their priests whom they assisted, they were in actual ser-
vice less than one month annually.

ix. The servant was protected by law equally with the
other members of the community.

27

Proof. — "Judge righteously between every man and his brother

and THE STRANGER THAT IS WITH HIM." "Ye shall not RESPECT PER-

sons in judgment, but ye shall hear the small as well as the great."
Deut. i. 16, 19. Also Lev. xix. 15. xxiv. 22. "Ye shall have one
manner of law as well for the stranger, as for one of your own coun-
try." So Num. xv. 29. " Ye shall have one law for him that sinneth
through ignorance, both for him that is born among the children of
Israel and for the stranger that sojourneth among them." Deut.
xxvii. 19. "Cursed be he that perverteth the judgment of the
stranger."* Deut. xxvii. 19.

x. The Mosaic system enjoined the greatest affection and

XIXDXESS TOWARDS SERVANTS, FOREIGN AS WELL AS JEWISH.

" The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born
among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself." Lev. xix. 34.
" For the Lord your God * * regardeth not persons. He doth
execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and loveth the
stranger, in giving him food and raiment, love ye therefore the
stranger." Deut. x. 17, 19. " Thou shalt neither vex a stranger
nor oppress him " Ex. xxii. 21. "Thou shalt not oppress a
stranger, for ye know the heart of a stranger." Ex. xxiii. 9.
" If thy brother be waxen poor 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. Lev. xxv. 35, 36.
Could this same stranger be taken by one that feared his God, and
held as a slave, and robbed of time, earnings, and all his rights ?

xi. Servants were placed upon a level with their masters in
all civil and religious rights. Num. xv. 15, 16, 29 ; ix. 14 ;
Deut. i. 16, 17 ; Lev. xxiv. 22. To these may be added that nume-
rous class of passages which represents God as regarding alike the na-
tural rights of all men, and making for all an equal provision. Such

* In a work entitled, " Instruction in the Mosaic Religion" by Professor
Jholson, of the Jewish seminary at Frankfort-on-the-Main, translated into Eng-
lish by Rabbi Leeser, we find the following. — Sec. 165.

" Question. Does holy writ any where make a difference between the Israel-
ite and the other who is no Israelite, in those laws and prohibitions which for-
bid us the committal of any thing against our fellow men ?"

" Answer. No where we do find a trace of such a difference. See Lev. xix.
33—36.

" Gjd says thou shalt not murder, steal, cheat, &c. In every place the action
itself is prohibited as being an abomination to God without respect to the persons
against wh.om it is committed.'"

28

as, 2 Chron. xix. 7 ; Prov. xxiv. 23, xxviii. 21 ; Job. xxxiv. 19 ;
2 Sam. xiv. 14 : Acts x. 35 ; Eph. vi. 9.

Finally — With such watchful jealousy did the Mosaic Institutes
guard the rights of servants, as to make the mere fact of a servant's
escape from his master presumptive evidence that his master had op-
pressed him ; and on that presumption, annulled his master's authority
over him, gave him license to go wherever he pleased, and commanded
all to protect him. Deut. xxiii. 15, 16. As this regulation will be ex-
amined uuder a subsequent head, where its full discussion more appro-
priately belongs, we notice it here merely to point out its bearings on
the topic under consideration.

These are regulations of that Mosaic system which is claim-
ed BY SLAVEHOLDERS AS THE PROTOTYPE OF AMERICAN SLAVERY.

II. WERE PERSONS MADE SERVANTS AGAINST
THEIR WILLS !

We argue that they became servants of their own accord, because,
L To become a servant was to become a proselyte. Whoever
of the strangers became a servant, he was required to abjure idolatry,
to enter into covenant with God,* be circumcised in token of it, be
bound to keep the Sabbath, the Passover, the Pentecost, and the Feast

* Maimonides, a contemporary with Jarchi, and who stands with him at the
head of Jewish writers, gives the following testimony on this point :

•• Whether a servant be born in the power of an Israelite, or whether he be
purchased from the heathen, the master is to bring them both into the covenant.

': But he that is in the house is entered on the eighth day, and he that is
bought with money, on the day on which hi?: master receives him, unless the
slave be unwilling. For if the master receive a grown slave, and he beunicil-
ling, his master is to bear with him, to seek to win him over by instruction,
and by love and kindness, for one year. After which, should he refuse so long,
it is forbidden to keep him longer than a year. And the master must send him
back to the strangers from whence he came. For the God of Jacob will not ac-
cept any other than the worship of a icilling heart." — Maimon. Hilcoth Miloth,
Chap. 15 Sec. 8.

The ancient Jewish Doctors assert that the servant from the Strangers who at
the close of his probationary year, refused to adopt the Jewish religion and was
cn that account sent back to his own people, received a full compensation for his
services, besides the payment of his expenses. But that postponeimnt of the cir-
cumcision of the foreign servant for a year {or even at all after he had entered
the family of an Israelite) of which the Mishnic doctors speak, seems to have been
a mere usage. We find nothing of it in the regulations of the Mosaic system.
Circumcision was manifestly a rite strictly initiatory. Whether it was a rite
merely national or spiritual, or botht comes not within the scope of this inquiry.

29

of Tabernacles, and to receive instruction in the moral and ceremonial
law. Were, the servants forced through all these processes? Was
the renunciation of idolatry compulsory 1 Were they dragged into
covenant with God ? Were they seized and circumscised by main
strength ? Were they compelled mechanically to chew and swallow
the flesh of the Paschal lamb, while they abhorred the institution,
spurned the laws that enjoined it, detested its author and its execu-
tors, and instead of rejoicing in the deliverance which it commemorated,
bewailed it as a calamity, and cursed the day of its consummation ?
Were they driven from all parts of the land three times in the year to
the annual festivals ? Were they drugged with instruction which they
nauseated ? Were they goaded through a round of ceremonies, to
them senseless and disgusting mummeries : and drilled into the tactics
of a creed rank with loathed abominations ? We repeat it, to be-
come a servant, was to become a proselyte. Did God authorize his
people to make proselytes at the point of the bayonet ? by the terror of
pains and penalties ?" by converting men into merchandise ? Were pro-
selyte and chattel synonymes in the Divine vocabulary ? Must a man
be sunk to a thing before taken into covenant with God ? Was this
the stipulated condition of adoption ? the sure and sacred passport to
the communion of the saints ?

ii. The surrender of fugitive servants to their masters
was prohibited. " Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the ser-
vant which is escaped from his master unto thee. He shall dwell with
thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose, in one of
thy gates where itlikethhim best ; thou shalt not oppress him," Deut.
xxiii. 15, 16.

As though God had said, " To deliver him up would be to recognize
the right of the master to hold him ; his fleeing shows his choice, pro-
claims his wrongs and his title to protection ; you shall not force him
back and thus recognize the right of the master to hold him in such
a condition as induces him to flee to others for protection." It may
be said that this command referred only to the servants of heathen
masters in the surrounding nations. We answer : the terms of the
command are unlimited. But the objection, if valid, would merely
shift the pressure of the difficulty to another point. Did God re-
quire them to protect the free choice of a single servant from the hea-
then, and yet authorize the same persons, to crush the free choice of
thousands of servants from the heathen? Suppose a case. A foreign
servant escapes to the Israelites; God says, "He shall dwell with
thee, in that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates where it

30

liketh him best." Now, suppose this same servant, instead of coming
into Israel of his own accord, had been dragged in by some kidnapper,
who bought him of his master, arid forced him into a condition
against his will ; would He who forbade such treatment of the strang-
er, who voluntarily came into the land, sanction the same treatment
of the same person, provided in addition tov this last outrage, the
previous one had been committed of forcing him into the nation
against his will ? To commit violence on the free choice of a foreign
servant is forsooth a horrible enormity, provided you begin the vio-
lence after he has come among you. But if you commit the first act
an the other side of the line ; if you begin the outrage by buying him
from a third person against his will, and then tear him from home,
drag him across the line into the land of Israel, and hold him as a
slave — ah! that alters the case, and you may perpetrate the violence
now with impunity ! Would greater favor have been shown to this
new comer than to the old residents — those who had been servants in
Jewish families perhaps for a generation? Were the Israelites com-
manded to exercise towards him, uncircumcised and out of the cove-
nant, a justice and kindness denied to the multitudes who were cir-
cumcised, and within the covenant ? But, the objector finds small
gain to his argument on the supposition that the covenant respected
merely the fugi'dves from the surrounding nations, while it left the
servants of the Iraelites in a condition against their wills. In that
case, the surrounding nations would adopt retaliatory measures, and
become so many asylums for Jewish fugitives. As these nations
were not only on every side of them, but in their midst, such a
proclamation would have been an effectual lure to men whose condi-
tion was a constant counteraction of will. Besides, the same command
which protected the servant from the power of his foreign master,
protected him equally from the power of an Israelite. It was not,
merely " Thou shalt not deliver him unto his master," but " he shall
dwell with thee, in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates
where it liketh him best." Every Israelite was forbidden to put him
in any condition against his will. What was this but a proclamation,
that all who chose to live in the land and obey the laws, were left to
their own free will, to dispose of their services at such a rate, to such
persons, and in such places as they pleased? Besides, grant that this
command prohibited the sending back of foreign servants only, there
was no law requiring the return of servants who had escaped from
the Israelites. Property lost, and cattle escaped, they were required
to return, but not escaped servants. These verses contain, 1st, a com-

31

mand, " Thou shalt not deliver," &c, 2d, a declaration of the fugi-
tive's right of free choice, and of God's will that he should exercise it
at his own discretion ; and 3d, a command guarding this right, namely,
"Thou shalt not oppress him," as though God had said, "If you re-
strain him from exercising his own choice, as to the place and condition
of his residence, it is oppression, and shall not be tolerated."*

in. The servants had peculiar opportunities and facilities for
escape. Three times every year, all the males over twelve years,
were required to attend the national feasts. They were thus absent
from their homes not less than three weeks at each time, making nine
weeks annually. As these caravans moved over the country, were
there military scouts lining the way, to intercept deserters ? — a corpo-
ral's guard at each pass of the mountains, sentinels pacing the hill-
tops, and light-horse scouring the denies ? The Israelites must have
had some safe contrivance for taking their " slaves" three times in a
year to Jerusalem and back. When a body of slaves is moved any
distance in our republic, they are handcuffed and chained together, to
keep them from running away, or beating their drivers' brains out.
Was this the Mosaic plan, or an improvement introduced by Samuel,
or was it left for the wisdom of Solomon? The usage, doubtless,
claims a paternity not less venerable and biblical ! Perhaps they were
lashed upon camels, and transported in bundles, or caged up and trun-
dled on wheels to and fro, and while at the Holy City, " lodged in jail
for safe keeping," the Sanhedrim appointing special religious services
for their benefit, and their "drivers " officiating at " oral instruction."
Meanwhile, what became of the sturdy handmaids left at home ? What
hindred them from stalking off in a body? Perhaps the Israelitish
matrons stood sentry in rotation round the kitchens, while the young
ladies scoured the country, as mounted rangers, picking up stragglers
by day, and patrolled the streets, keeping a sharp look-out at night !

+ Perhaps it may be objected that this view of Deut. xxiii. 15, 16, makes non-
sense of Ex. xxi. 27, which provides that if a man strikes out his servant's tooth,
he shall let him go free. Small favor indeed if the servant might set himself
free whenever he pleased ! Answer — The former passage might remove the
servant from the master's authority, without annulling the master's legal claims
upon the servant, if he had paid him in advance and had not received from him
an equivalent, and this equally, whether his master were a Jew or a Gentile.
The latter passage, <! He shall let him go free for his tooth's sake," not only freed
the servant from the master's authority, but also from any pecuniary claim which
the master might have on account of having paid his wages in advance ; and this
as a compensation for the loss of a tooth.

32

rv. Wilful neglect of ceremonial rites dissolved the rela-
tion.

Suppose the' servants from the heathen had, upon entering Jewish
families, refused circumcision ; if slaves, how simple the process of
emancipation ! Their refusal did the job. Or, suppose they had re-
fused to attend the annual feasts, or had eaten » leavened bread during
the Passover, or compounded the ingredients of the annointing oil, or
had touched a dead body, a bone, or a grave, or in any way had con-
tracted ceremonial uncleanness, and refused to be cleansed with the
" water of separation," they would have been "cut off from the peo-
ple ;" excommunicated. Ex. xii. 19 ; xxx, 33 ; Num. xix. 16.

v. Servants of the patriarchs necessarily voluntary.
Abraham's servants are an illustration. At one time he had three
hundred and eighteen young men " born in his house," and many more
not born in his house. His servants of all ages were probably many
thousands. How did Abraham and Sarah contrive to hold fast so
many thousand servants against their wills ? The most natural sup-
position is that the Patriarch and his wife " took turns" in surrounding
them ! The neighboring tribes, instead of constituting a picket
guard to hem in his servants, would have been far more likely to
sweep them and him into captivity, as they did Lot and his household.
Besides, there was neither " constitution" nor " compact," to send
back Abraham's fugitives, nor a truckling police to pounce upon them,
nor gentlemen-kidnappers, suing for his patronage, volunteering to
howl on their track, boasting their blood-hound scent, and pledging
their honour to hunt down and deliver up, provided they had a descrip-
tion of the " flesh-marks," and were suitably stimulated by pieces of
silver.* Abraham seems also to have been sadly deficient in all the

* The following is a standing newspaper advertisement of one of these pro-
fessional man-catchers, a member of the New York bar, who coolly plies his
trade in the commercial emporium, sustained by the complacent greetings and
courtesies of " honorable men !"

" Important to the South. — F. H. Pettis, native of Orange County, Va.,
being located in the city of New York, in the practice of law, announces to his
friends and the public in general, that he has been engaged as Counsel and Ad-
viser in General for a party whose business it is in the northern cities to arrest
and secure runaway slaves. He has been thus engaged for several years, and
as the act of Congress alone governs now in this city, in business of this sort,
which renders it easy for the recovery of such property, he invites post paid com-
munications to him, inclosing a fee of $20 jn eacn casej an(j a power of Attor-

33

auxiliaries of family government, such as stocks, hand-cuffs, foot-chains,
yokes, gags, and thumb-screws. His destitution of these patriarchal
indispensables is the more afflicting, since he faithfully trained " his
household to do justice and judgment," though so deplorably destitute
of the needful aids.

Probably Job had even more servants than Abraham. See Job. i. 3,
14-19, and xlii. 12. That his thousands of servants staid with him
entirely of their own accord, is proved by the fact of their staying with
him. Suppose they had wished to quit his service, and so the whole
army had filed off before him in full retreat, how could the patriarch
have brought them to halt ? Doubtless with his wife, seven sons, and
three daughters for allies, he would have soon out-flanked the fugitive
host and dragged each of them back to his wonted chain and staple.

But the impossibility of Job's servants being held against their wills,
is not the only proof of their voluntary condition. We have his own
explicit testimony that he had not " withheld from the poor their de-
sire." Job. xxxi. 16. Of course he could hardly have made them live
with him, and forced them to work for him against their desire."

When Isaac sojourned in the country of the Philistines he "had
great store of servants." And we have his testimony that the Philis-
tines hated him, added to that of inspiration that they " envied" him.
Of course they would hardly volunteer to organize patroles and com-
mittees of vigilance to keep his servants from running away, and to
drive back all who were found beyond the limits of his plantation with-
out a " pass !" If the thousands of Isaac's servants were held against
their wills, who held them t '

The servants of the Jews, during the building of the wall of Jeru-
salem, under Nehemiah, may be included under this head. That they
remained with their masters of their own accord, we argue from the fact,
that the circumstances of the Jews made it impossible for them to compel
their residence and service. They were few in number, without resources,
defensive fortifications, or munitions of war, and surrounded withal by a
host of foes, scoffing at their feebleness and inviting desertion from their
ranks. Yet so far from the Jews attempting in any way to restrain their

ney minutely descriptive of the party absconded, and if in the northern region,
he, or she will soon be had.

" Mr. Pettis will attend promptly to all law business confided to him.

" N. B. New York City is estimated to contain 5,000 Runaway Slaves.

" PETTIS."

5

34

servants, or resorting to precautions to prevent escape, they put arms into
their hands, and enrolled them as a night-guard, for the defence of the
city. By cheerfully engaging in this service and in labor by day, when
with entire ease they might all have left their masters, marched over to
the enemy, and been received with shoutings, the servants testified that
their condition was one of their own clwice, and that they regarded their
own interests as inseparably identified with those of their masters.
Neh. iv. 23.

VI. No INSTANCES OF ISR AELITISH MASTERS SELLING SERVANTS.

Neither Abraham nor Isaac seem ever to have sold one, though they
had " great store of servants." Jacob was himself a servant in the fa-
mily of Laban twenty-one years. He had afterward a large number of
servants. Joseph invited him to come into Egypt, and to bring all that
he had with him — f thou and thy children, and thy children's children,
and thy flocks and thy herds, and all that thou hast." Gen xlv.
10, Jacob took his flocks and herds but no servants. Yet we are told that
Jacob " took his journey with all that he had." Gen. xlvi. i. And after
his arrival in Egypt, Joseph said to Pharaoh " my father, and my brethen,
and their flocks, and their herds and all that they have, are come." Gen.
xlvii. 1. The servants doubtless, served under their own contracts,
and when Jacob went into Egypt, they chose to stay in their own country.

The government might sell thieves, if they had no property, until
their services had made good the injury, and paid the legal fine. Ex. xxii.
3. . <ut masters seem to have had no power to sell their servants. To
give the master a right to sell his servant, would annihilate the servant's
right of choice in his own disposal ; but says the objector, " to give the
master a right to buy a servant, equally annihilates the servant's right
of choice." Answer. It is one thing to have a right to buy a man,
and a quite another thing to have a right to buy him of another man.*

Though servants were not bought of their masters, \et young fe-
males were bought of their fathers. But their purchase as servants
was their betrothal as wives. Ex. xxi. 7, 8. " If a man sell his daugh-
ter to be a maid-servant, she shall not go out as the men-servants do.
If she please not her master who hath betrothed her to himself, he
shall let her be redeemed.

* There is no evidence that masters had the power to dispose of even the
services of their servants, as men hire out. their laborers whom they employ by
the ve^v. b-it whether they ha<l or not, nffee's not the argument.

t The comment of Maimonides on this passage is as follows: — " A Hebrew
handmaid might not be sold but to one who laid himself under obligations, to

35

vn. Voluntary servants from the strangers.

We infer that all the servants from the Strangers were voluntary in
becoming such, since we have direct testimony that some of them were
so. " Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy,
whether he be of thy brethren, or of thy strangers that are in thy land
within thy gates." Deut. xxiv. 14. We learn from this that some of the
servants, which the Israelites obtained from the strangers were procured
by presenting the inducement of wages to their free choice, thus recog-
nizing their right to sell their services to others, or not, at their own
pleasure. Did the Israelites, when they went among the heathen to
procure servants, take money in one hand and ropes in the other ? Did
they ask one man to engage in their service, and drag along with them
the next that they met, in spite of his struggles. Did they knock for ad-
mission at one door and break down the next ? Did they go through one
village with friendly salutations and respectful demeanor, and with the
air of those soliciting favors, offer wages to the inhabitants as an in-
ducement to engage in their service — while they sent on their agents to
prowl through the next, with a kidnapping posse at their heels, to tear
from their homes as many as they could get within their clutches ?

viii. Hebrew servants voluntary. We infer that the Hebrew
servant was voluntary in commencing his service, because he was pre-
eminently so in continuing it. If, at the year of release, it was the
servant's choice to remain with his master, the law required his ear to be
bored by the judges of the land, thus making it impossible for him to be
held against his will. Yea more, his master was compelled to keep him,
however much he might wish to get rid of him.

ix. The manner of procuring servants, an appeal to choice.
The Israelites were commanded to offer them a suitable inducement,
and then leave them to decide. They might neither seize them by
force, nor frighten them by threats, nor wheedle them by false pre-
tences, nor borrow them, nor beg them ; but they were commanded to
buy them* — that is, they were to recognize the right of the indivi-
duals to dispose of their own services, and their right to refuse all offers,

espouse her to himself or to his son, when she was fit to be betrothed." — Maimo-
nides — Hilcoth — Obedim, Ch. IV. Sec. XI. Jarchi, on the same passage, says,
" He is bound to espouse her to be his wife, for the money of her purchase is the
money of her espousal.

* The case of thieves, whose services were sold until they had earned
enough to make restitution to the person wronged, and to pay the legal penalty,
stands by itself, and has nothing to do with the condition of servants.

and thus oblige those who made them, to do their own work. Suppose
all, with one accord, had refused to become servants, what provision
did the Mosaic law make for such an emergency ? None.

x. Incidental corroboratives. Various incidental expressions
corroborate the idea that servants became such by their own contract.
Job. xli. 4, is an illustration, " Will he (Leviathan) make a covenant
with thee ? wilt thou take him for a servant forever ?" Isa. xiv. 1, 2
is also an illustration. " The strangers shall be joined with them (the
Israelites) and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob, and the house of
Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord, for servants and
handmaids."

The transaction which made me Egyptians the servants of
pharaoh was voluntary throughout. See Gen. xlvii. 18 — 26. Of
their own accord they came to Joseph and said, " There is not aught
left but our bodies and our lands ; buy us ;" then in the 25th verse,
" We will be Pharaoh's servants." To these it may be added, that the
sacrifices and offerings which all were required to present, were to
be made voluntarily. Lev. i. 2. 3.

The pertinence and point of our Lord's declaration in Luke xvi. 13,
is destroyed on the supposition that servants did not become such by
their own choice. "No servant can serve two masters : for either he
will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one
and despise the other." Let it be kept in mind, that our Lord was a
Jew. The lost sheep of the house of Israel were his flock. Wherever
he went, they were around him : whenever he spake, they were his
auditors. His public preaching and his private teaching and conver-
sation, were full of references to their own institutions, laws and usages,
and of illustrations drawn from them. In the verse quoted, he illus-
trates the impossibility of their making choice of God as their portion,
and becoming his servants, while they chose the world, and were its
servants. To make this clear, he refers to one of their own institu-
tions, that of domestic service, with which, in all its relations, incidents
and usages, they were perfectly familiar. He reminds them of the
well-known impossibility of any person being the servant of two mas-
ters, and declares the sole ground of that impossibility to be, the fact
that the servant chooses the service of the one, and spurns that of the
other. "He shall hold to the one and despise (reject) the other." As
though our Lord had said, " No one can become the servant of an-
other, when his will revolts from his service, and when the conditions
of it tend to make him hate the man." Since the fact that the servant
spurns one of two masters, makes it impossible for him to serve iliat one.

87

if he spurned both it would make it impossible for him to serve either.
So, also, if the fact that an individual did not " hold to" or choose the
service of another, proves that he could not become his servant, then
the question, whether or not he should become the servant of another
was suspended on his own will. Further, the phraseology of the pas-
sage shows that the choice of the servant decided the question. " He
will hold to the one," — hence there is no difficulty in the way of his
serving him ; but " no servant can serve" a master whom he does not
" hold to" or cleave to, whose service he does not choose. This is the
sole ground of the impossibility asserted by our Lord.

The last clause of the verse furnishes an application of the princi-
ple asserted in the former part, " Ye cannot serve God and mammon."
Now in what does the impossibility of serving both God and the
world consist ? Solely in the fact that the will which chooses the one
refuses the other, and the affections which " hold to" the one, reject
the other. Thus the question, Which of the two is to be served, is
suspended alone updn the choice of the individual.

xi. Rich strangers did not become servants. Indeed, so far were
they from becoming servants themselves, that they bought and held
Jewish servants. Lev. xxv. 47. Since rich strangers did not be-
come servants to the Israelites, we infer that those who did, became
such not because they were strangers, but because they were poor, — not
because, on account of their being heathen, they were compelled by force
to become servants, but because, on account of their poverty, they chose
to become servants to better their condition.

xii. Instances of voluntary servants. Mention is often made
of persons becoming servants who were manifestly voluntary.
As the Prophet Elisha. 1 Kings xix. 21 ; 2 Kings iii. 1 1. Elijah
was his master. 2 Kings ii. 5. The word translated master, is the
same that is so rendered in almost every instance where masters are
spoken of under the Mosaic and patriarchal systems. Moses was the
servant of Jethro. Ex. iii 1 ; iv. 10. Joshua was the servant of
Moses. Ex. xxxiii. 11. Num. xi. 28. Jacob was the servant of La-
ban. Gen. xxix. 18 — 27. See also the case of the Gibeonites who
voluntarily became servants to the Israelites and afterwards performed
service for the " house of God" throughout the subsequent Jewish his-
tory, were incorporate with the Israelites, registered in the genealogies,
and manifestly of their own accord remained with them, and " clave"
to them. Neh. x. 28. 29 ; xi. 3 ; Ez vii. 7.

Finally, in all the regulations respecting servants and their service,
no form of expression is employed from which it could be inferred, that

38

sonants were made such, and held in that condition by force. Add to
this the entire absence of all the machinery, appurtenances and inci-
dents of compulsion.

Voluntary service on the part of servants would have been in keep,
ing w ith regulations which abounded in the Mosaic system and sustain-'
ed by a multitude of analogies. Compulsory service on the other
hand, could have harmonized with nothing, and would have been the
solitary disturbing force, marring its design, counteracting its tenden-
cies, and confusing and falsifying its types. The directions given to
regulate the performance of service for the public, lay great stress on the
u-i/Iingness of those employed to perform it. For the spirit and usages
that obtained under the Mosaic system in this respect, see 1 Chron.
xxviii. 21 ; Ex. xxxv. 5. 21, 22. 29 ; 1 Chron. xxix. 5. 6. 9. 14. 17 ;
Ex. xxv. 2 ; Judges v. 2 ; Lev. xxii. 29 ; 2 Chron. xxxv. 8 ; Ezrai. 6 ;
Ex. xxxv ; Neh. xi. 2 *

Again, the voluntariness of servants is a natural inference from
the fact that the Hebrew word ebtdh, uniformly rendered servant, is
applied to a great variety of classes and descriptions of persons under
the patriarchal and Jewish dispensations, all of whom were voluntary
and most of them eminently so. For instance, it is applied to persons
rendering acts of worship about seventy times, whereas it is applied to
servants not more than half that number of times.

To this we may add, that the illustrations drawn from the condition
and service of servants and the ideas which the term servant is employed
to convey when applied figuratively to moral subjects would, in most
instances, lose all their force, and often become absurdities if the will
of the servant resisted his service, and he performed it only by com-
pulsion. Many passages will at once occur to those who are familiar
with the Bible. We give a single example. " To who?n ye yield
yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey.^ Rom,
vi. 16. It would hardly be possible to assert the voluntariness of ser-
vants more strongly in a direct proposition than it is here asserted by
implication.

* We should naturally infer that the directions which regulated the rendering
of service to individuals, would proceed upon the same principle in this respect
with those which regulated the rendering of service to the public. Otherwise
the Mosaic system, instead of constituting in its different parts a harmonious
whole, would be divided against itself; its principles counteracting and nullify-
ing each other.

39

III. WERE SERVANTS FORCED TO WORK WITHOUT

PAY?

As the servants became and continued such of their own accord, it
would be no small marvel if they chose to work without pay. Their
becoming servants, pre-supposes compensation as a motive. That they
were paid for their labor, we argue.

i. Because God rebuked the using of service without
wages. " Wo unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness,
and his chambers by wrong; that useth his neighbor's service
without wages, and giveth him not for his work." Jer. xxii.
13. The Hebrew word red, translated neighbor, means any one
with whom we have to do — all descriptions of persons, even those who
prosecute us in lawsuits, and enemies while in the act of fighting us —
" As when a man riseth against his neighbor and siayeth him."
Deut. xxii. 26. " Go not forth hastily to strive, lest thou know not what
to do in the end thereof, when thy neighbor hath put thee to shame."
Prov. xxv. 8. " Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neigh-
bor." Ex. xx. 16. If a man come presumptuously upon his
neighbor to slay him with guile." Ex. xxi. 14, &c. The doctrine
plainly inculcated in this passage is, that every man's labor, or " ser-
vice," being his own property, he is entitled to the profit of it, and that
for another to " use" it without paying him the value of it, is " unright-
eousness." The last clause of the verse, " and giveth him not for his
work," reaffirms the same principle, that every man is to be paid for
" his work." In the context, the prophet contrasts the unrighteousness
of those who used the labor of others without pay, with the justice and
equity practiced by their patriarchal ancestor toward the poor. " Did
not thy father eat and drink and do judgment and justice, and then it
was well with him. He judged the cause of the poor and needy ; then it
was well with him. But thine eyes and thine heart are not but for thy
eovetousness, and for to shed innocent blood, and for oppression, and for
violence to do it." Jer. xxii. 15, 16, J 7.*

* Paul lays down the same principle in the form of a precept " Masters
give unto your servants that which is just and equal." Col. iv. 1. Thus
not only asserting the right of the servant to an equivalent for his labor, and
the duty of the master to render it, but condemning all those relations be-
tween master and servant which were not founded upon justice and equality
of rights The apostle James enforces the same principle. " Behold, the
hire of the laborers, who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back
by fraud, crieth." James v 4. As though he had said, "wages are the
the right of laborers ; those who work for you have a just claim on you for
pay ; this you refuse to render, and thus defraud them by keeping from
them what belongs to them;" See also Mai. iii. 5.

40

ii. God testifies that in our duty to our fellow men, all

THE LAW AND THE PROPHETS HANG UPON THIS COMMAND, " THOU

shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Our Savior, in giving this
command, quoted verbatim one of the laws of the Mosaic system.
Lev. xix. 18. In the 34th verse of the same chapter, Moses applies this
law to the treatment of strangers, " The stranger that dwelleth with
you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love
him as thyself." If it be loving others as ourselves, to make them
work for us without pay ; to rob them of food and clothing also,
would be a stronger illustration still of the law of love ! Super-dis-
interested benevolence ! And if it be doing unto others as we would
have them do to us, to make them work for our oion good alone, Paul
should be called to order for his hard sayings against human nature,
especially for that libellous matter in Eph. v. 29, " No man ever yet
hated his own flesh, but nourisheth it and cherisheth it."

in. Servants were often wealthy. As persons became servants
from poverty, we argue that they were compensated, since they fre-
quently owned property, and sometimes a large amount. Ziba, the
servant of Mephibosheth, gave David Two hundred loaves of bread,
and a hundred bunches of raisins, and a hundred of summer fruits, and
a bottle of wine." 2 Sam. xvi. 1. The extent of his possessions can
be inferred from the fact, that though the father of fifteen sons, he had
twenty servants. In Lev. xxv. 47 — 49, where a servant, reduced to
poverty, sold himself, it is declared that he may be redeemed, cither by
his kindred, or by himself. Having been forced to sell himself from
poverty, he must have acquired considerable property after he became
a servant. If it had not been common for servants to acquire property
over which they had the control, the servant of Elisha would hardly
have ventured to take a large sum of money, (nearly $3000*) from
Naaman, 2 Kings v. 22, 23. As it was procured by deceit, he wished
to conceal the means used in getting it ; but if servants could * own
nothing, nor acquire any thing," to embark in such an enterprise would
have been consummate stupidity. The fact of having in his possession
two talents of silver, would of itself convict him of theft.f But since it

* Though we have not sufficient data to decide upon the relative value of that
sum, then and now, yet we have enough to warrant us in saying that two talents
of silver, had far more value then than three thousand dollars have now.

t Whoever heard of the slaves in our southern states stealing a large amount
of money 1 They " know how to take care of themselves" quite too well for that.
When they steal, they are careful to do it on such a small scale, or in the tak-

41

was common for servants to own property, he might have it, and invest
or use it, without attracting special attention, and that consideration
alone would have been a strong motive to the act. His master,
though he rebuked him for using such means to get the money, not
only does not take it from him, but seems to expect that he would in-
vest it in real estate, and cattle, and would procure servants with it.
2 Kings v. 26. We find the servant of Saul having money, and re-
lieving his master in an emergency. 1 Sam. ix. 8. Arza, the ser-
vant of Elah, was the owner of a house. That it was somewhat mag-
nificent, would be a natural inference from its being a resort of the
king. 1 Kings xvi. 9. When Jacob became the servant of Laban, it
was evidently from poverty, yet Laban said to him, Tell me " what
shall thy wages be V* After Jacob had been his servant for ten years,
he proposed to set up for himself, but Laban said " Appoint me thy
wages and I will give it," and he paid him his price. During the
twenty years that Jacob was a servant, he always worked for wages
and at his own price". Gen. xxix. 15, 18 ; xxx. 28 — 33. The case
of the Gibeonites, who, after becoming servants, still occupied their
cities, and remained in many respects, a distinct people for centuries ;*
and that of the 150,000 Canaanites, the servants of Solomon, who
worked out their M tribute of bond-service" in levies, periodically re-

ing of such things as will make detection difficult. No doubt they steal now
and then, and a gaping marvel would it be if they did not. Why should they
not follow in the footsteps of their masters and mistresses 1 Dull scholars in-
deed ! if, after so many lessons from proficients in the art, who drive the busi-
ness by wholesale, they should not occasionally copy their betters, fall into the
fashion, and try their hand in a small way, at a practice which is the only per-
manent and universal business carried on around them ! Ignoble truly ! never
to feel the stirrings of high impulse, prompting to imitate the eminent pattern
set before them in the daily vocation of " Honorables" and " Excellencies," and
to emulate the illustrious examples of Doctors of Divinity, and Bight and Very
Reverends ! Hear President Jefferson's testimony. In his Notes on Virginia,
pp. 207-8, speaking of slaves, he says, " That disposition to theft with which
they have been branded, must be ascribed to their situation, and not to any
special depravity of the moral sense. It is a problem which I give the master
to solve, whether the religious precepts against the violation of property were
not framed for him as well as for his slave— and whether the slave may not
as justifiably take a little from one who has taken ALL from him, as he may
slay one who would slay him ?"

* The Nethinims, which name was afterwards given to the Gibeonites on ac-
count of their being set apart for the service of the tabernacle, had their own
houses and cities and " dwelt every one in his own possession." Neh. xi. 3. 21 ;
Ezra ii. 70; 1 Chron. ix. 2.

6

v2

lieving each other, are additional illustrations of independence in the
acquisition and ownership of property.

Again. The Israelites often hired servants from the strangers.
Deut. xxiv. 17.

Since then it is certain that they gave wages to a part of their Canaan-
itish servants, thus recognizing their right to a reward for their labjr,
we infer that they did not rob the rest of their earnings.

If God gave them a license to make the strangers work for them
without pay — if this was good and acceptable in His sight, and right
and just in itself, they must have been great fools to have wasted their
money by paying wages when they could have saved it, by making the
strangers do all their work for nothing! Besides, by refusing to avail
themselves of this " Divine license," they despised the blessing and
cast contempt on the giver ! Bjt far be it from us to do the Israelites
injustice ; perhaps they seized all the Canaanites they could lay their
hands on, and forced them to work without pay, but not being able to
catch enough to do their work, were obliged to offer wages in order to
eke out the supply !

The parable of oui Lord, contained in Mat. xviii. 23 — 34, not only de-
rives its significance from the fact, tha* servants can both own and owe
and earn property, over which they had the control, but would be made
a medley of contradictions on any other supposition. — 1. Their lord
at a set time proceeded to "take account" and "reckon" with his ser-
vants ; the phraseology itself showing that the relations between the
parties, were those of debt and credit. 2. As the reckoning went on,
one of his servants was found to owe him ten thousand talents. From
the fact that the servant owed this to his master, we naturally infer, that
he must have been at some time, and in some way, the responsible
owner of that amount, or of its substantial equivalent. Not that he had
had that amount put into his hands to invest, or disburse, in his master's
name, merely as his agent, for in that case no claim of debt for value
received would lie, but, that having sustained the responsibilities of legal
proprietorship, he was under the liabilities resulting therefrom. 3. Not
having on hand wherewith to pay, he says to his master " have patience
with me and I will pay thee all.,y If the servant had been his master's
property, his time and earnings belonged to the master as a matter of
course, hence the promise to earn and pay over that amount, was vir-
tually saying to his master, " I will take money out of your pocket
with which to pay my debt to you," thus adding insult to injury. The
promise of the servant to pay the debt on condition that the time for
payment should be postponed, not only proceeds upon the fact that his

48

time was his own, that he was constantly earning property or in cir-
cumstances that enabled him to earn it, and that he was the proprietor of
his earnings, but that his master had full knowledge of that fact. — In a
word, the supposition that the master was the owner of the servant,
would annihilate all legal claim upon him for value received, and that
the servant was the property of the master, would absolve him from all
obligations of debt, or rather would always jorestall such obligations — for
the relations of owner and creditor in such case, would annihilate each
other, as would those of property and debtor. The fact that the same
servant was the creditor of one of his fellow servants, who owed him
a considerable sum, and that at last he was imprisoned until he should
pay all that was due to his master, are additional corroborations of the
same pjint.

iv. Heirship. — Servants frequently inherited their master's proper-
ty ; especially if he had no sons, or if they had dishonored the family.
El it zer, the servant ot Abraham, Gen. xv. 23 ; Ziba, the servant of
Mephib >.-heth ; Jarna, the servant of Sheshan. who married his daugh-
ter, 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 h 'u 'maid (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 breth-
ren." This passage gives servants precedence as heirs, even over the
w ves and daughters of their masters. Did masters hold by force, and
plunder of earnings, a class of persons, from which, in frequent con-
tingences, 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 per-
manently the means of acquiring property to meet these expenditures.

vi. Servants who went out at the seventh year, were " fur-
nished liberally " Deut. xv. 10 — 14. "Thou shalt furnish him libe-
rally 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."*

* The comment of Maimonides on this passage is as follows — " ' Thou dMrtt

44

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
Israetitish 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.

vii. Servants were bought. In other words, they received com-
pensation in advance.* 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,f 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 on 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 obliga-
tions 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.

vin. The right of servants to compensation is recognised in
Ex. xxi. 27. "And if he smite out his man-servant's, or his maid-ser-
vant's tooth, he shall let him go free for his tooth's sake." " This regu-
lation is manifestly based upon the right of the servant to the use of

furnish him. liberally,' &c. That is to say, ' Loading, ye shall had him' like-
wise 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 V 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.

*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 ope-
rate practically as a bounty offered to all servants who would leave their mas-
ter'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 xxiri. 15. 16, " Thou shall 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 ab-
solved from all obligations to pay his master in that particular ivay, that is,
by working for him as his servant.

t Among the Israelites, girls became of age at twelve, and boys at thirteen
years.

45

himself and all his 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 ser-
vants, AXD 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 ser-
vants "the way of the Lord." What was the "way of the Lord" re-
specting the payment of wages where service was rendered ? " Wo
unto him that useth his 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 Abra-
ham teach his servants to " do justice" to others? By doing injustice
to them ? Did he exhort them to " render to all their dues" by keep-
ing back their own ? Did he teach them that " the laborer was worthy
of his hire" by robbing them of theirs 1 Did he beget in them a reve-
rence for honesty by pilfering all their time and labor ? Did he teacii
them " not to defraud" others " in any matter" by denying them11 what
was just and equal?" If each of Abraham's pupils under such a cate-
chism did not become a very Aristides in justice, then illustrious ex-
amples, patriarchal dignity, and practical lessons, can make but slow
headway against human perversencss !

xi. Specific precepts of the Mosaic law enforcing general
principles. Out of many, we select the following: (l.)"Thou
shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn." Deut. xxv. 4.

46

Here is a general principle applied to a familiar case. The ox repre-
senting all domestic animals. Isa. xxx. 24. A particular kind of ser-
vice, 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 tender-
ness 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 1 — 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 ? Cr saith he
it altogether for our sakes 1 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, what-
ever 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 en-
titled 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 so-
journer 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 regu-
lation can be made to harmonize with the doctrine of work without
pay ? Did God declare the poor stranger entitled to relief, and in

47

the same breath, authorize them to " use his service without wages ;"
faroe him to work and rob him of his earnings ?

IV.— WERE MASTERS THE PROPRIETORS OF SER-
VANTS AS LEGAL PROPERTY ?

This topic has been unavoidably somewhat anticipated, in the fore-
going 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 pay-
ment 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. I. 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 — ] 6 ; 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, dec, but no servants. 3. Servants were not
p^t 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 flag-
rant misconduct, unfaithfulness or from whatever cause, they had justly
forfeited their privilege of membership in an Isra^litish 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 ser-
vants 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 stones, 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

48

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. 1 3 ;
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. Chon. 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 na-
tions. Gen. xii. 16, xx. 14. In the last passage we are told that Abi-
melech 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 enlargingon the nature of the poly-
gamy 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 mat-
ters as domestic privacy, or female seclusion, for io ! 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 pro-
tection, and the benediction, of his " gods ! " Again, it may be object-
ed that, servants were enumerated in inventories of property. If that
proves servants property, it proves wives property. " Thou shall not

49

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 great-
ness, 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 affec-
tionate adherents to him as a just and benevolent prince. When
Hamor and Sheckem 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.
j. 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 pro-
perty— " 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 messen-
gers 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-ser-
vants, and maid-servants." Gen. xxxii. 4, 5. Yet in the present which
he sent, there were no servants ; though he manifestly selected the

50

most valuable, kinds of property. Gen. xxxii. 14,15; see also Gen.

xxxvi. 6, 7 ; xxxiv 23. As flacks and herds were the staples of
wealth, a large number of servants presupposed large possessions of
cattle, which would require many herdsmen. When Jacob ai.d 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 4H ;
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. I, 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 hand, 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 Oukelos*

* 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 tr?nsb-
tion of the original, and was prob: bly made at about the commencement of the
Cnristian era. The Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel, bears about the same
d >te The Targum of Jerusalem was probably about five hundred years later.
The Israelites, during their captivity in B;;bylon, lost, as a body, their own lan-
guage. These translations into the Chaldee, the language which they acquired
in Babylon, were thus called for by the necessity of the case.

51

it is rendered, " The souls whom they had brought to obey the law
in Har«*n." 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 gather-
ed, and the souls which they had made in Haran." JVlenochius, a com-
mentator who wrote before our present translation of the Bible, ren-
ders it, "Quas de idolatraria converterant." "Those whom they had
converted from idolatry." Paulus Fagius,* "Quas instituerant in re-
ligione." "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 objy the law."
The same distinction is made between persons and property, in the enu-
meration of Esau's household and the inventory of his effects. " And
Esau took his wives and his sons and iiis 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.

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 grandchilcren (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, II, 13, 14. Ex xii. 43,44. St. Paul's tes-
timony 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

* Thi> eminent Hebrew scholar was invited to England to superintend the
transition of 'he Bible in;o English, under ;he patron geof Henry 'he Eig'nh.
He had hard!)' commenced the work when he died. This was nearly a
century before the date of our present translation.

52

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 Pada-
naram, 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, "ungird-
cd 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 ser-
vants treated in the same manner and provided with the same accom-
modations as Rachel and Leah. Each of them had a separate tent
appropriated to her use. Gen. xxxi. 33. The social -equality of ser-
vants 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 Sa-
muel'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 chief-
est seat at the table ! This was: " one of the servants" of Kish, Saul's
lather ; 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 ser-
vant 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.

53

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,
H 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. Jud. 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 ser-
vants 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 deliv-
ered 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 em-
ployed in this passage is the phraseology applied in judicial proceedings
to those who implead one another, and whether it be understood lite-
rally 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 call-
ing in question all his transactions with them, and that the relations

54

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 fur just dues and just estima-
tion as human beings. When they contended with me," that is, when
they plead tiieir 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 him-
self. 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 ?

m. 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 hps. 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 Israel-
ites? 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 abol-

56

ished, they remained a separate, and, m 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 fe-
males. As these Gibeonites were Caraanites, and as they had greatly
exasperated the Israelites b}^ impudent imposition and lying, we might
assuredly expect that they would reduce them to the condition of chat-
tels, 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 con-
dition 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

56

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 re-
tain?

1. They were not dispersed among the families of Egypt,* but formed a
separate community. Gen. xlvL 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 exclu-
sive possession of the land of Goshen,~\ " 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 doorposts,
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 conceal-
ment. 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 tnat
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 Egyptians evidently had domestic servants living in their families ;
these may have been slaves ; allusion is made to them in Ex. ix. 14, 20, 21, and
xi. 5.

t The land of Goshen was a large tract of country, east of the Pelusian arm
of the Nile, and between it and the head of the Red Sea, and the lower border of
Palestine. The probable centre of that portion, occupied by the Israelites, could
hardly have been less than sixty miles from the city. The border of Goshen
nearest to Egypt must have been many miles distant. See " Exodus of the Is-
raelites out of Egypt," an able article by Professor Robinson, in the Biblical
Repository for October, 1832.

57

" 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 mil-
lions and a half. Flocks and herds to " suffice" all these for food, might
surely be called " very much cattle." 5. T hey had their oum form of
government, and preserved their tribe and family divisions, and their in-
ternal organization throughout, though still a province of Egypt, and tri-
butary 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 oum time. Ex.
iii. 16, 18 ; xii. 6 ; ii. 9 ; and iv. 27, 29 — 81. They seem to have prac-
tised 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 in-
struments 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 in-
ferred ; 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. T heir food was abundant and of great
variety. So far from being fed -upon a fixed allowance of a single arti-
cle, 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 im.
mense 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
8

1

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 tribu-
taries, 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 anyone time. The adult
males of the Israelites were probably divided into companies, which re-
lieved 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 purt of the proceeds of their labor was required of the Israel-
ites in common with the Egyptians. Gen. xlvii. 24, 26. Instead of
taking it from their crops, (Goshen being better for pasturage) they ex-
acted 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 out-
rage ? 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 un-
der 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 inces-
sant toil of American slaves ; the robbery of all their time and earn-
ings, and even the " power to own any thing, or acquire any thing ?"
a ¥ quart of corn a-day," the legal allowance of food !* their only

* See law of North Caro'ina, Haywood's Manual 524-5. To snow 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

59

clothing for one half the year, '* one shirt and one pair of panta-

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 com a week, or the like measure of rice, is the ordinary quantity
of provision for a hard-working save; to which a small quantity of meat is
occasionally, though rarely, added."

The Gradual Emancipation Society of North Carolina, in their Report for
1533, 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
fjr the: r sustenance, so that a great pari of them go half naked and half starved
much of the time." See Minutes of the American Convention, convened in
Bal.imore, Oct. 25, 1826.

Riv. John Rankin, a native of Tennessee, and for many years a preacher in
slave states, says of t.ie food of .slaves, " It often happens that what will barely
keep them alive, is 1 that a cruel avarice will allow them. Hence, in some
instances, their allowance has been reduced to a sing'e pv.t of corn each, during
the day and night. And some have no better a'lowance thau a sma'l por ion of
cottonseed; whi e 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 gnaw-
ings 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 r ailed hominy, or baked into corn bread.
The other six mouths, they are fed upon the sweet potatoe. Meat, when given,
is only by way of indulgence or favor" See " Refutation of the Calumnies cir-
culated aga'-nst 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,
rt 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 p'antations, 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, 1 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 w th 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 mem-

loons!"* two hours and a half only, for rest and refreshment in the
twenty-four !f — their dwellings, hovels, unfit for human residence,

ber of Congress, from Virg;nia, and a large slaveholder, said, " The plan of our
opponents seems to be to confine the slave population to the southern sta'es,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, ycu doom them to scarcity and hunger. Is it not
obvious that the way to render their situation m ire comfortable is to allow
them to be taken where there is not the same motive to force the slave to inces-
sant toil that there is in the country where cotton, sugar, and tobacco are
raised for exportation. It is proposed to hem in the blac ks where ihcy 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, vf Va., Jan. 28, 1820.]— See National
Intelligencer.

* See law of Louisiana, Martin's Digest 6,10. Mr. Bouldin, a Virginia slave-
holder, 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 wea-
ther." Mr. B. adds, " they are clad in a flimsy fabric that wi.l turn neither
V ind nor water."

Rev. John Rankin says, in his Letters on slavery, page 57, " In every slave-
holding state, many slaves sufftr extremely, both while they labor and wThile they
sleep, for want of clothing (o 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 ichile they slumber.'"

t 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 thai
they have not svfficient lime 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 who'e
period." See page 81. On the 87th page of the same work, the writer s:ys,
" 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 roll-
ing of sugars !" The work abounds in eulogies of slavery.

In the " History of South Carolina and Georgia," vol. 1, p. 120, is the fol-
lowing: " So laborious is the task of raising, beating, and cleaning ripe, that

61

with but one apartment, where both sexes and all ages herd promis-
cuously at night, like the beasts of the field.* Add to this, the igno-
rance, and degradation ;f the daily sunderings of kindred, the revelries

had it been possible to obtain European servants in sufficient numbers, thou-
sands and tens of thousands must have perished."

In an article on the agriculture of Louisiana, published in the second num-
ber 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
plowbn's, who must feed and rest their horses, do not leave the field till
dark in the evening."

Mr. Sto e, in his letter from Natchez, an extract of which was given above,
says, " It is a general ru'e on all regular plantations, that the slaves rise in sea-
son 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, except-
ing time to eat twice during the day."

Hon. R. J. Turnbull, a South Carolina slaveholder, already quoted, speak-
ing of the hirvesting of cotton, says: " All the pregnant women even, on the
plantation, and weak and sickly negroes incapable of other labor, are then in
requ^ition." * * * See ' Refutation of the Calumnies circulated against
the Southern and Western States," by a South Carolinian.

* 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 cloth-
ing, 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 bsen 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 se-
paration 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.

t Rev. C.C Jones, late of Georgia, now Professor in the Theological Semi-
nary at Columbia, South Carolina, made a report before the presbyiery of

62

of lust, the lacerations and baptisms of blood, sanctioned by law, and
patronized by public sentiment. What was the bondage of Egypt

Georgia, in 1833, on the moral condition of the slave population, which re-
port was published under the direction of the presbytery. In that report Mr.
Jones says, " They, the slaves, are shut out from our sympathies and effort^ 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 hea-
then in our very midst." " What have we done for our poor negioes 1 "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 v sion around your very doors." " We withhold t.ie Bible from our servants
and keep them in ignorance of it, while we roil' not use the means to have it
read and explained to them." Jones' Sermon, pp.7, 9.

An official repoit of the Presbyterian Synod of South Carolina and Georgia,
adopted at its session in Columbia, S. C, and published in the Charleston Ob-
server of March 22, 1834, speaking of the slaves, says, " There are over two
ml lions of human beings, in the condition of heathen, and, in some respects, in
a worst condition !" * * * " From long continued and close obs.-rvation,
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 compa-
rison with heathen in any country in the world." * * * The negroes are des-
titute of the privileges of ihe gospel, and ever will be under the present state cf
things." R-port, &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 wil-
derness is seen, over which tne soul sickens— the heart of Christian sympathy
bleeds Here nothing is presented but a moral waste, as extensive as our ivfiu
ence, as appalling as the valley of death."

The following is an extract of a letter from Bishop Andrew of the Metho-
dist Episcopal Church, to Messrs. Garrir 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 planta-
tions, and the ministers of Christ especially are debtors to the whole slave
population. I fear a cry goes up to heaven on this subject agaimt 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
the'.rsnds to perish, say when they go with them to the judgment of the great
day V

" The Kentucky Union for the moral and religious improvement of the co-
lored race," — an association composed of some of the most influential minister*

03

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 peo-
ple be thought worthy, who cloak with religion a system, in compari-
son with which the bondage of Egypt dwindles to nothing ? Let

and laymen of Kentucky, says in a general circular to the relig;ous public,
u 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 withoutthe
pale of Christendom. That such a state of s jciety should exist in a Christian
nation, without calling forth any par icu'.ar attention to its existence, though
ever before our eyes and in our families, is a moral phenomenon at once unac-
countable and disgraceful."

Rev. James A. Thome, a native of Kentucky, and still res ding 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 broihel. (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 heithenism of this population. I allude to the universal licen-
tiousness which prevails. Chastity is no virtue among them — its violation nei-
ther 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 op Christian families gknerally."

Rev. Mr. Converre, long a resident of Virginia, and agent of the Coloni-
zation 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 reli-
gion. * * * The majority are emphatically heathens. * * P ous masters
(with some honorable exceptions) are criminally negligent of giving religious
instruction to their slaves. * * * They can and do instruct their own chil-
dren, 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 testi-
mony 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.

64

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 tor-
ment went upwards because she had ''robbed the poor," did He
license the victims of robbery to rob the poor of all? As Law-
giver, 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 ?"

We now proceed to examine the various objections which will doubt
less 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,"* sent up without ceas-

* The Presbytery of Harmony, South Carolina, at their meeting in Wains-
borough, S. C, Oct. 28, 1836, appointed a special committee to report on sla-
very. The following resolution is a part of the report adopted by the Pres-
bytery.

" Resolved, That slavery has existed from the days of those good old slave-
holders and patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who are now in the king-
dom 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 practicer of righteousness
in his day ; nay, verily, for all this he gets faint praise ; but then he had " ser-
vants bocght with monky ! ! !" This is the finishing touch of his character,
and its effect en slaveholders is electrical. Prose fledges into poetry, cold com-
pliments warm into praise, eulogy rarifies into panegyric and goes off in rhap-
sody In their ecstacies 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 bouerht with money," no slave-
holder is ever caught casting loving side-g'ances at Gen. xxvii. 29, 37, where
Isaac, addressing Jacob, says, " Be lord over thy brethren and let thy mother's

65

ing 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,

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 slavehold.
ers of bequeathing their colored children to those of a different hue, was a " Di-
vine 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 "pe-
culiar domestic institution," of which you are eminent patrons, that nice discri-
mination, 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 co-
lor, 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 ad-
mirable 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
patriai chal usage. True, it would be an odd codicil to a will, for a slavehold-
er, after bequeathing to some of his children, all his slaves, to add a supple-
men^ informing them that such and such and such of them were their brothers
and sist rs. 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 hum-
bly 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 puiity 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 " patriarch? 1 institution" of concubin-
age, 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.

9

66

predominates, in the compound : each strives so lustily tor the mastery,
it may be set down a drawn battle. How often has is been bruited
that the color of the negro is the Cain-tnark, propagated downward.
Cain's posterity started an opposition to the ark, forsooth, and rode out
the flood with riving streamers ! How could miracle be more worthily
employed, or hotter vindicate the ways of God to man than by pointing
such an argument, and rilling out for slaveholders a Divine title-
deed !

Objection 1. "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 occa-
sion, 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 mockiug 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 Pha-
raohs might have quoted the prophecy. " Thy seed shall be a stranger in
a land that is not theirs, and they shall affliet them four hundred years.*'
And then, what saints were those that crucified the Lord of glory !
8. That the Africans are descended from Canaan. Africa was peo-
pled from Egypt and Ethiopia, which countries were settled by Miz-
raim and Cush. For the location and boundaries of Canaan's pos-
terity, 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 Gre-
cian and Roman empires. The history of these nations gives no veri-
fication of the prophecy. Whereas, the history of Canaan's descend-
ents for more than three thousand years, is a record of its fulfilment.
First, they were put to tribute by the Israelites ; then by the Medes
and Persians ; then by the Macedonians, Grecians and Romans, sue.
cessiveiy : 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 nanu :d, yet the 22d and 24th

67

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 pos-
terity of an individual.* " Know ye Laban, the son (grandson) of
Nahor V Gen. xxix. 5. Mephibosheth the son (grandson) of Saul."
2 Sam. xix. 24 ; 2 Sam. ix. 6. " The driving of Jehu the son (grand-
son) of Nbtishi." 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, enume-
ration in that order, is the rule, in any other order the exception. Be-
sides, 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 endow-
ments, 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 He-
brew word hdkkdtdn rendered " the younger," means the little, small.
The same word is used in Isa. Ix. 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 greato"
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,"* or grandson (Beno hdkkdtdn) " 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. frac-
tion 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 Afri-
cans have always been slaves at home, we answer : It is false in point

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

* The French follows the same analogy ; grandson being petit Jils (little son.)

6^

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!

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. Notwithstand-
ing, 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, en-
throned 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 stat-
ed, with tests furnished the judges by which to detect the intent, in ac-
tions 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.y' — 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, pre-
supposed very many blows and great violence, and this kept up till the
death-gasp, showed an intent to kill. Hence " He shall surely be pun-
ished." 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 nakdm, here rendered punished, occurs thirtv-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 : Jf 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 con-
tinue 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 in-
stance of deliberate, wanton, killing by piecemeal ; the other, an ac-
cidental, and comparatively slight injury — of the inflicter, in both cases,
they say the same thing ! Now, just the discrimination to be looked
for where Gcd 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 he fined, (andsh.) "He shall pay as the judges de-
termine." The simple meaning of the word andsh, 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 aveng-
ing 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 nakdm. 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 Sa-
maritan 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

70

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 be-
neath. 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 lateralities of the Bible is
too amiable, not to be gratified in this case. The words in the origi-
nal are (Kdspo-hu,) "his silver is he." The objector's principle of in-
terpretation 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 " for-
ever" 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,
lie 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 theirs* case the master is to
be " surely punished" for destroying his own property ! The other in-
ference is, that since the continuance of a day or two, cleared the mas-
ter of intent to ME, the loss of the servant would be a sufficient punish-
ment 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 an-
other. 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

71

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 acci-
dental knocking out of a tooth 1 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 ser-
vant'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 shal' 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 posses-
sion. And ye shall ta ke 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, a re 1. The word " Bondmen." 2. "Buy." 3.
" Inheritance and ] possession." 4. "Forever."

72

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

1 m 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' transla-
tors were not inspired, we need stand in no special awe of them. The
word here rendered bondmen is uniformly rendered servants else-
where. The Hebrew word " ebedh," the plural of which is here trans-
lated " bondmen" is often applied to Christ. " Behold my servant
(bondman, slave?) whom I uphold." Isa. xlii. L " 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.
44 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 ser-
vice for individuals or families, about thirty-five times in the Old Tes-
ament. To designate tributaries about twenty-five times. To desig-
nate 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 ar-
ticles 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
pjint 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 u sed in the Old Tes-
tament, that those to whom it was applied rende red service against

73

their will, and without pay, does violence to the seripture 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 dbddh, to serve, answering to the noun ebedh (ser-
vant). 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 Abra-
ham had thousands, and if they abounded under the Mosaic system,
why had their language no word that meant slave 1 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 ? Be
cause there is no such thing. But the objector asks, " Would not the
Israelites use their word ebedh ii they spoke of the slave of a heathen?"
Answer. Their national servants or tributaries, are spoken of frequent-
ly, 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 andusages, proclaimed their liabili-
ties ; their locality made a specific term unnecessary. But if the
Israelites had not only servants, but a multitude of slaves, a word mean-
ing 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

74

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 sei vants, 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 con-
sent 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 noth-
ing 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 *
No such idea is contained in the passage. The word " forever," in-
stead of defining the length of individual service, proclaims the perma-
nence 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, M You shall always get your permanent laborers from
the nations round about you ; your servants shall always be of that

* One would think that the explicit testimony of our Lord should for ever
forestall all cavil on this point. " The servant abidethnot in the house forever,
but the Son, abideth ever." John viii. 35.

75

class of persons " As it stands in the original, it is plain — " Forever
of them shall ye serve yourselves." This is the literal rendering.

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 chil-
dren of Isuael," &c. To say nothing cf the uncertainty of these in-
dividuals surviving those after whom they are to live, the language
used applies more naturally to a body of people, than to individual ser-
vants. Besides perpetual service cannot be argued from the termybr-
ever. The ninth and tenth verses of the same chapter limit it abso-
lutely by the jubilee. " Then thou shalt cause the trumpet of the jubi-
lee to sound * * throughout all your land." "And ye shall
proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants there-
of." It may be objected that "inhabitants" here means Israelitish in-
habitants 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 atone-
ment 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."

To deny that the blessings of the jubilee extended to the servants from
the Gentiles, makes Christianity Judaism,* It not only eclipses the

* So far from the Strangers not being released by the proclamation of liberty
on the morning of the jubilee, they were the only persons who were, as a body%

76

glory of the Gospel, but strikes out its sun. The refusal to release
servants at the jubilee falsified and disannulled a grand leading type of
the atonement, and was a libel on the doctrine of Christ's redemption.
But even if forever did refer to individual service, we have ample pre-
cedents for limiting the term by the jubilee. The same word defines
the length of time which Jewish servants served who did not go out at
the end of their six years' term. And all admit that they went out at
the jubilee. Ex. xxi. 2—6 ; Deut. xv. 12—17. The 23d verse of the
same chapter is quoted to prove that "forever" in the 46th verse ex-
tends beyond the jubilee. " The land shall not be sold forever, for
the land is mine" — since it would hardly be used in different senses in
the same general connection. As forever, in the 46th verse, respects
the general arrangement, and not individual service the objection does
not touch the argument. Besides, in the 46th verse, the word used is
Olam. meaning throughout the period, whatever that may be. Where-
as in the 23d verse, it is Tsemithuth, meaning, a cutting off, or to be cut
off ; and the import of it is, that the owner of an inheritance shall not
forfeit his proprietorship of it ; though it may for a time pass from his
control into the hands of his creditors or others, yet the owner shall
be permitted to redeem it, and even if that be not done, it shall not be
" cut off," but shall revert to him at the jubilee.

3. "Inheritance and possession." "Ye shall take them as an
inheritance for your children after you to inherit them for a posses-
sion. This, as has been already remarked refers to the nations, and
not to the individual servants procured from the senations. The holding
of servants as a possession is discussed at large pp. 47 — 64. To what
is there advanced we here subjoin a few brief considerations. We
have already shown, that servants could not be held as a property.pos-
session, and inheritance ; that they became such of their own accord,
were paid wages, released from their regular labor nearly half the
days in each year, thoroughly instructed and protected in all their personal,
social, and religious rights, equally with their masters. All remaining,
after these ample reservations, would be small temptation, either to the

released by it. The rule regulating the service of Hebrew servants was, " Six
years shall he serve, and in the seventh year he shall go out free." The free
holders who had "fallen into decay," and had in consequence mortgaged their
inheritances to their more prosperous neighbors, and become in some sort their
servants, were released by the jubilee, and again resumed their inheritances.
This was the only class of Jewish servants (and it could not have been numer-
ous,) which was released by the jubilee ; all others went out at the close of
their six years' term.

77

lust of power or of lucre ; a profitable " possession" and " inheritance,"
truly ! What if our American slaves were all placed in just such a
condition ! Alas, for that soft, melodious circumlocution, " Our pecu-
liar species of property !" Verily, emphasis would be cadence, and
euphony and irony meet together ! What eager snatches at mere
words, and bald technics, irrespective of connection, principles of con-
struction, Bible usages, or limitations of meaning by other passages— and
all to eke out such a sense as sanctifies existing usages, thus making
God pander for lust. The words nalial and nahala, inherit and inheri-
tance, by no means necessarily signify articles of property. " The peo-
ple answered the king and said, " we have none inheritance in the son
of Jesse." 2 Chron. x. 16. Did they mean gravely to disclaim the
holding of their king as an article of property ! " Children are an heri-
tage (inheritance) of the Lord." Ps. cxxvii. 3. " Pardon our iniqui-
ty, and take us for thine inheritance ." Ex. xxxiv. 9. When God
pardons his enemies, and adopts them as children, does he make them
articles of property ? Are forgiveness, and chattel-making, syno-
nymes ? " /am their inheritance" Ezek. xliv. 28. " I shall give thee
the heathen for thine inheritance." Ps. ii. 18. See also Deut. iv. 20 ;
Josh. xiii. 33; Ps. lxxxii. 8 ; lxxviii. 62, 71 ; Prov. xiv. 18.

The question whether the servants were a property-4' possession"
has been already discussed, pp. 47 — 64, we need add in this place
but a word. As an illustration of the condition of servants from the
heathen that were the " possession" of Israelitish families, and of the
way in which they became servants, the reader is referred to Isa. xiv.
1, 2. "For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose
Israel, and set them in their own land ; and the strangers will be join-
ed with them, and they shall cleave to the liouse of Jacob. And the
people shall take them and bring them to their place, and the house of
Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord for servants and hand-
maids ; and they shall take them captives, whose captives they were ;
and they shall rule over the oppressors."

We learn from these verses, 1st. That these servants which were to
be "possessed" by the Israelites, were to be "joined with them," i. e.,
become proselytes to their religion. 2d. That they should " cleave to
the house of Jacob," i. e., that they would forsake their own people
voluntarily, attach themselves to the Israelites as servants, and of their
own free choice leave home and friends, to accompany them on their
return, and to take up their permanent abode with them, in the same
manner that Ruth accompanied Naomi from Moab to the land of Israel,
and that the " souls gotten" by Abraham in Padanaram, accompanied him

78

when he left it and went to Canaan. " And the house of Israel shall
possess them for servants," i. e. shall have them for servants.

In the passage under consideration, " they shall be your possession,"
the original word translated " possession" is ahuzza. The same word
is used in Gen. xlvii. 11. "And Joseph placed his father and his
brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt." Gen. xlvii.
11. In what sense was Goshen the possession of the Israelites ? An-
swer, in the sense of having it to live in, not in the sense of having it as
owners. In what sense were the Israelites to possess these nations, and
take them as an inheritance/or their children ? Answer, they possessed
them as a permanent source of supply for domestic or household ser-
vants. And this relation to these nations was to go down to posterity
as a standing regulation, having the certainty and regularity of a de-
scent by inheritance. The sense of the whole regulation may be given
thus : " Thy permanent domestics, which thou shalt have, shall be of
the nations that are round about you, of them shall ye buy male and
iemale domestics." Moreover of the children of the foreigners 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 perma-
nent resource." " And ye shall take them as a perpetual source of
supply to whom your children after you .shall resort for servants.
Always, of them shall ye serve yourselves." The design of the pas-
sage is manifest from its structure. So far from being a permission to
purchase slaves, it was a prohibition to employ Israelites for a certain
term and in a certain grade of service, and to point out the class of per-
sons from which they were to get their supply of servants, and the way
in which they were to get them.*

Objection IV. "If thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor,
and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-
servant, but as an hired-servant, and as a sojourner shall he be
with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee. " Lev. xxv. 39, 40.

* Rabbi Leeser, who translated from the German the work entitled " Instruc-
tion in the Mosaic Religion" by Professor Jholson of the Jewish seminary at
Frankfort-on-the-Main, in his comment on these verses, says, "It must be ob-
served that it was prohibited to subject a Stranger to slavery. The buying of
slaves alone is permitted, but not stealing them."

Now whatever we call that condition in which servants were, whether ser-
vitude or slavery, and whatever we call the persons in that condition, whether
servants or slaves, we have at all events, the testimony that the Israelites were
1 prohibited to subject a Stranger to" that condition, or in other words, the free
choice of the servant was not to be compelled.

79

As only one class is called " hired," it is inferred that servants of
the other class were not paid for their labor. That God, while thun-
dering anathemas against those who " used their neighbor's service
without wages," granted a special indulgence to his chosen people
to force others to work, and rob them of earnings, provided always,
in selecting their victims, they spared " the gentlemen of property
and standing," and pounced only upon the strangers and the common
people. The inference that " hired" is synonymous with paid, and
that those servants not called u hired," were not paid for their labor, is
a mere assumption. The meaning of the English verb to hire, is to
procure for a temporary use at a certain price — to engage a person to
temporary service for wages. That is also the meaning of the He-
brew word " saukar." It is not used when the procurement of per-
manent service is spoken of. Now, we ask, would permanent
servants, those who constituted a stationary part of the family,
have been designated by the same term that marks temporary ser-
vants ? The every-day distinctions in this matter, are familiar
as table-talk. In many families the domestics perform only the re-
gular work. Whatever is occasional merely, as the washing of a
family, is done by persons hired expressly for the purpose. The fa-
miliar distinction between the two classes, is "servants," and " hir-
ed help," (not paid help.) Both classes are paid. One is permament,
and the other occasional and temporary, and therefore in this case
called " hired.' * A variety of particulars are recorded distinguishing
hired from bought servants. 1. Hired servants were paid daily at
the close of their work. Lev. xix. 13 ; Deut. xxiv. 14, 15 ; Job. vii.
2 ; Matt. xx. 8. " Bought" servants were paid in advance, (a reason
for their being called boughU) and those that went out at the seventh

* To suppose a servant robbed of his earnings because he is not called a. hired
servant, is profound induction ! If I employ a man at twelve dollars a moDth
to work my farm, he is my "hired" man, but if I give him such a portion of
the crop, or in other words, if he works my farm " on shares" every
farmer knows that he is no longer called a " hired" man. Vet he works the
same farm, in the same way, at the same times, and with the same teams and
tools ; and does the same amount of work in the year, and perhaps clears twenty
dollars a month, instead of twelve. Now as he is no longer called " hired," and
as he still works my farm, suppose my neighbors sagely infer, that since he is
not my " hired" laborer, I rob him of his earnings, and with all the gravity of
owls, pronounce their oracular decision, and hoot it abroad. My neighbors are
deep divers ! like some theological professors, they go not only to the bottom but
come up covered with the tokens.

year received a gratuity. Deut. xv. 12, 13. 2. The "hired"
were paid in money, the " bought" received their gratuity, at least, in
grain, cattle, and the product of the vintage. Dent. xv. 14.
3. The " hired" lived in their own families, the " bought" were a part
of their masters' families. 4. The " hired" supported their fami-
lies out of their wages ; the 41 bought" and their families were support,
ed by the master beside their wages. 5. Hired servants were expected
to work more constantly, and to have more working hours in the day
than the bought servants. This we infer from the fact, that " a hire-
ling's day," was a sort of proverbial phrase, meaning a full day. No
subtraction of time being made from it. So a hireling's year signifies an
entire year without abatement. Job. vii. 1 ; xiv. 6 ; Isa. xvi. 14 ; xxi. 16.

The " bought" servants, were, as a class, superior to the hired — were
more trust- worthy, were held in higher estimation, had greater
privileges, and occupied a more elevated station in society. 1.
They were intimately incorporated with the family of the master,
were guests at family festivals, and social solemnities, from which
hired servants were excluded. Lev. xxii. 10, 11 ; Ex. xii. 43, 45.
2. Their interests were far more identified with those of their masters7
family. They were often, actually or prospectively, heirs of their
masters' estates, as in the case of Eliezer, of Ziba, and the sons of
Bilhah, and Zilpah. When there were no sons, or when they were
unworthy, bought servants were made heirs. Prov. xvii. 2. We
find traces of this usage in the New Testament. " But when the
husband-men saw him, they reasoned among themselves saying, this
as the heir, come let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours."
Luke xx. 14. In no instance does a hired servant inherit his mas-
ter's estate. 3. Marriages took place between servants and their
master's daughters. " Sheshan had a servant, an Egyptian, whose
name was Jarha. And Sheshan gave his daughter to Jarha his ser-
want to wife." 1 Chron. ii. 34, 35. Then: is no instance of a hired
servant forming such an alliance. 4. Bought servants and their
descendants were treated with the same affection and respect as the
other members of the family.* The treatment of Abraham's servants.
Gen. xxiv. and xviii. 1 — 7 ; the intercourse between Gideon and Phu-

* " For the purchased servant who is an Israelite, or proselyte, shall fare as his
master. The master shall not eat fine bread, and his servant bread of bran. Nor
yet drink old wine, and give his servant new : nor sleep on soft pillows, and bed-
ding, and his servant on straw. I say unto yon, that he that gets a purchased

81

rah, Judg. vii. 10,11; Saul and his servant, 1 Sam. ix. 5,22; Jo.
nathan and his servant, 1 Sam. xiv. 1 — 14, and Elisha and Gehazi are
illustrations. The tenderness exercised towards home-born servants
or the children of handmaids, and the strength of the tie that bound
them to the family, are employed by the Psalmist to illustrate the re-
gard of God for him, his care over him, and his own endearing relation
to him. when in the last extremity he prays, "Save the son of thy
hanimiid." Fs lxxxvi. 16. Sj also in Ps. cxvi. 16. Oh Lord, truly I
am thy servant ; I am thy servant, and the son of thy handmaid. Also,
Jer. ii. 14. Is Israel a servant ? Is he a home-bom T* Why is he
spoiled ? No such tie seems to have existed between hired servants
and their masters. Tiieir untrustworthiness was proverbial. John
x. 12, 13. They were reckoned at but half the value of bought ser-
vants. Deut. xv. 18. None but the lowest class of the people en-
gaged as hired servants, and the kinds of labor assigned to them re-
quired little knowledge and skill. No persons seem to have become
hired servants except such as were forced to it from extreme poverty.
The hired servant is called " poor and needy," and the reason assign-
ed by God why he should be paid as soon as he had finished his work
is, " For he is poor, and setteth his heart upon it." Deut. xxiv. 14,
15. Sec also, 1 Sam. ii. 5. Various passages show the low repute and
trifling character of the class from which they were hired. Judg. ix.
4 ; 1 Sam. ii. 5. The superior condition of bought servants is mani-
fest in the high trust confided to them, and in their dignity and autho-
rity in the household. In no instance is a hired servant thus distin-
guished. The bought servant is manifestly the master's representative
in the family, sometimes with plenipotentiary powers over adult chlidren,
even negotiating marriage for them. Abraham adjured his servant,
not to take a wife for Isaac of the daughters of the Canaanites. The
servant himself selected the individual. Servants exercised discretion-
ary power in the management of their masters' estates, " And the ser-
vant took ten camels of the camels of his master, for all the goods of his
master were in his hand." Gen. xxiv. 10. The reason assigned
is not that such was Abraham's direction, but that the servant
had discretionary control. Servants had also discretionary power

servant does well to make him as his friend, or he will prove to his employer as
if he got himself a master." — Maimonides, in Mishna Kiddushim. Chap. 1,
Sec. 2.

+ Our translators in rendering it " Is he a home-born slate," were wise beyond
what is written.

11

82

in the disposal of property. Gen. xxiv. 22, 30, 53. The condition
of Ziba in the house of Mephibosheth, is a case in point. So is Prov.
xvii. 2. Distinct traces of this estimation are to be found in the New
Testament, Matt. xxiv. 45 ; Luke xii. 42, 44. So in the parable of
the talents, the master seems to have set up each of his servants in
trade with a large capital. The unjust steward had large discretionary
power, was "accused of wasting his master's goods," and manifestly
regulated with his debtors the terms of settlement. Luke xvi. 4 — 8.
Such trusts were never reposed in hired servants.

The inferior condition of hired servants, is illustrated in the parable
of the prodigal son. When he came to himself, the memory of his
home, and of the abundance enjoyed by even the lowest class of ser-
vants in his father's household, while he was perishing with hunger
among the swine and husks, so filled him with anguish at the contrast,
that he exclaimed, " How many hired servants of my father, have bread
enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger." His proud heart
broke. " I will arise," he cried, " and go to my father ;" and then to
assure his father of the depth of his humility, resolved to add, " Make
me as one of thy hired servants." li'hired servants were the superior
class — to bespeak the situation, savored little of that sense of unworthi-
ness that seeks the dust with hidden face, and cries " unclean." Un-
humbled nature climbs; or if it falls, clings fast, where rirst it may.
Humility sinks of its own weight, and in the lowest deep, digs lower.
The design of the parable was to illustrate on the one hand, the joy of
God, as he beholds afar off, the returning sinner " seeking an injured
father's face," who runs to clasp and bless him with an phfcbidihg w. |.
come ; and on the other, the contrition of the penitent, turning home-
ward with tears from his wanderings, his stricken spirit breaking with
its ill-desert he sobs aloud, ** The lowest place, the lowest place, I can
abide no other." Or in those inimitable words, u Father I hove sinned
against Heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called
thy son ; make me as one of thy hired servants." The supposition
that hired servants were the highest class, takes from the parable an
element of winning beauty and pathos.

It is manifest to every careful student of the Bible, that one class of
servants, was on terms of equality with the children and other members
of the family. Hence the force of Paul's declaration, Gal. iv. 1, " Now
I say unto you, that the heir, so long as he is a child, differed no.
thing from a servant, though he be lord of all." If this were the
hired class, the prodigal was a sorry specimen of humility. Would
our Lord have put such language upon the lips of one held up by him-

83

self, as a model of gospel humility, to illustrate its deep sense of all ill-
desert ? If this is humility, put it on stilts, and set it a strutting, while
pride takes lessons, and blunders in aping it.

Israelites and Strangers belonged indiscriminately to each class of
the servants, the bouglti and the hired. That those in the former class,
whether Jews or Strangers, rose to honors and authority in the family
circle, which were not conferred on hired servants, has been shown.
It should be added, however, that in the enjoyment of privileges, merely
political, the hired servants from the Israelites, were more favored than
even the bought servants from the Strangers. No one from the Stran-
gers, however wealthy or highly endowed, was eligible to the highest
office, nor could he own the soil. This last disability seems to have
been one reason for the different periods of service required of the two
classes of bought servants. The Israelite was to serve six years —
the Stranger until the jubilee. As the Strangers could not own the
soil, nor houses, except within walled towns, they would naturally at-
tach themselves to Israeli tish families. Those who were wealthy, or
skilled in manufactures, instead of becoming servants would need ser-
vants for their own use, and as inducements for the Strangers to be-
come servants to the Israelites, were greater than persons of their own
nation could hold out to them, these wealthy Strangers would naturally
procure the poorer Israelites for servants. Lev. xxv. 47. In a word,
such was the political condition of the Strangers, that the Jewish polity
offered a virtual bounty, to such as would become permanent servants,
and thus secure those privileges already enumerated, and for their
children in the second generation a permanent inheritance. Ezek.
xlvii. 21 — 23. None but the monied aristocracy would be likely to
decline such offers. On the other hand, the Israelites, owning all the
soil, and an inheritance of land being a sacred possession, to hold it
free of incumbrance was with every Israelite, a delicate point, both of
family honor and personal character. 1 Kings xxj. 3. Hence, to
forego the control of one's inheritance, after the division of the pater-
nal domain, or to be kept out of it after having acceded to it, was a
burden grievous to be borne. To mitigate as much as possible such a
calamity, the law released the Israelitish servant at the end of six*

* Another reason for protracting the service until the seventh year, seems to
have been the coincidence of that period with other arrangements, in the Jew-
ish economy. Its pecuniary responsibilities, social relations, and general inter-
nal structure, were graduated upon a septennial scale. Besides, as those Israel-
ites who had become servants through poverty, would not sell themselves, till

veal's; as, daring tMM time — if of the first class — the partition of the
patrimonial laud might liavo taken place; or, if of tlu* second, enough
money might haw been earned to disencumber his estate, and thus he

might assume his station as a lord of the soil. It" neither contingency
had occurred, then nuVr another six years the opportunitv was again
Offered, and se on, Until the jubilee. So while strong motives urged
the Israelite to discontinue his service as soon as the exigency had
passed wlneh made Mm a servant, e?efy< consideration impelled the
Stranger to prolong his term of service ;* and the sa me kindness which
dictated the law of six years' service lor the Israelite, assigned as the
geiu ral rule, a much longer period to the Gentile servant, who hau
every indueement to protraet the term. It should he borne m mind,
that adult Jews ordinarily became servants, onl\ as a temporary ex-
pedient to relieve themselves from emba rrasMnent. and ceased to be
sueh when that object was effected. The poverty that forced them to
it was a calamity, and their service was either a means of relief, or a
measure of prevention ; not pursued as a permanent business, but re-
sorted to on emergencies — a sort oi episode in the main scope of their
litres* Whereas with the Stringers, it was a permanent empUv/ment,
pursued both as a means of bettering their own condition, and that of
their posterity, and as an end for its own sake, conferring on them
privileges, and a social estimation not otherwise attainable.

We see from the foregoing, win servants purchased from the
heathen, are caPed by way of distinction, the servants, (not bondmen.)
1. They tbllowed it as a permanent business. *2. Their term of ser-
vice was mueh longer titan that of the other class. 8. As a class, they
doubtless greatly outnumbered the Israel itish servants. 4. All the
Strangers that dwelt in the land were tributaries, required to pay an
annual tax to the government, either in money, or in public service,
(called a - tribute of bond -service in Other words, all the Strangers
were national servants, to the Israelites, anil the same Hebrew word
used to designate individual servants, equally designates nation al ser-
vants or tributaries. 2 9am, viii. % t, 14: % t'aron. viii. 7 — 9 ;
Dent, xx. II: 9 Sun. x. 1 1> : I Kings ix. 21,22; I Kings iv. % I ;
lien, xxvii. '29. The same word is applied to the Israelites, w hen they

other expedients to recruit their finances had failed — (Lev. xxv. 35) — their be-
| sm**ft proclaimed sueh a state of their affairs, as demanded the labor
of a mum of years fully to reinstate them.

* The S' ranker had the same indueemeiO to prefer a long term of service that
those have who cannot own land, to prefer a long lease.

65

paid tribute to other nations. 2 Kings xvii. S. ; Judg. iii, 8, 14 ; Gen.
xlix. 15. Another distinction between the Jewish and Gentile bought
servants, was in their kinds of service. The servants from the Stran-
gers were properly the domestics, or household servants, employed in
all family work, in offices of personal attendance, and in such mechan-
ical labor, as was required by increasing wants and needed repairs. The
Jewish bought servants seem almost exclusively agricultural. Besides
being better fitted for it by previous habits, agriculture, and the tend-
ing of cattle, were regarded by the Israelites as the most honorable of
all occupations. After Saul was elected king, and escorted to Gibeah,
the next report of him is, " And behold Saul came after the herd out of
the field" 1 Sam. xi. 5. Elisha " was plowing with twelve yoke of
oxen." 1 Kings xix. 19. King Uzziah " loved husbandry." 2 Chrou.
xxvi. 10. Gideon was "threshing wheat" when called to lead the host
against the Midianites. Judg. vi. 11, The superior honorobleness
of agriculture is shown, in that it was protected and supported by the
fundamental law of the theocracy — God indicating it as the chief prop
of the government. The Israelites were like permanent fixtures on
their soil, so did they cling to it. To be agrculturists on their own
patrimonial inheritances, was with them the grand claim to honorable
estimation. When Ahab proposed to Naboth that he should sell him
his vineyard, king though he was, he might well have anticipated from
an Israelitish freeholder, just such an indignant burst as that which his
proposal drew forth, " And Naboth said to Ahab, the Lord forbid it me
that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee." 1 Kings
xxi 2, 3. Agriculture being pre-eminently a Jewish employment, to
assign a native Israelite to other employments as a business, was to
break up his habits, do violence to cherished predilections, and put him
to a kind of labor in which he had no skill, and which he deemed de-
grading.* In short, it was in the earlier ages of the Mosaic system,
practically to unjew him, a hardship and a rigor grievous to be borne,
as it annihilated a visible distinction between the descendants of Abra-
ham and the Strangers. To guard this and another fundamental distinc-
tion, God instituted the regulation, " If thy brother that dwelleth by
thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him
to serve as a bond-servant." In other words, thou shalt not put him to

* The Babylonish captivity seems to have greatly modified Jewish usage in
this respect. Before that event, their cities were comparatively smr.U, and few
were engaged in mechanical or mercantile employments. Afterward their
cities enlarged apace and trades multiplied.

^6

servant's work — to the business, and into the condition of domestics.

In the Persian version it is translated, " Thou shalt not assign
to him the work of servitude.1* In the Septuagint, " He shall not
serve thee with the service of a. domestic." In the Syriac, "Thou
shalt not employ him after the manner of servants." In the Sa-
maritan, " Thou shalt not require him to serve in the service of a
servant." In the Targum of Onkelos, " He shall not serve thee with
the service of a household servant." In the Targum of Jonathan,
*' Thou shalt not cause him to serve according to the usages of the
servitude of servants."* The meaning of the passage is, thou shalt
ant assign him to the same grade, nor put him to the same service,
with permanent domestics. The remainder of the regulation is —
" But as an hired servant and as a sojourner shall he be with thee."
Hired servants were not incorporated into the families of their mas-
ters ; they still retained their own family organization, without the
surrender of any domestic privilege, honor, or authority ; and this,
even though they resided under the same roof with their master.
The same substantially may be said of the sojourner though he was not
the owner of the land which he cultivated, and of course had not the
control of an inheritance, yet he was not in a condition that implied
subjection to him whose land he tilled, or that demanded the surrender of
any right, or exacted from him any homage, or stamped him with any in-
feriority ; unless it be supposed that a degree of inferiority would na-
turally attach to a state of dependence however qualified. While
bought servants were associated with their master's families at
meals, at the Passover, and at other family festivals, hired servants
and sojourners were not. Ex. xii. 44, 45 ; Lev. xxii. 10, 11. Hired
servants were not subject to the authority of their masters in any such
sense as the master's wife, children, and bought servants. Hence
the only form of oppressing hired servants spoken of in the Scrip-
tures as practicable to masters, is that of keeping back their icages.
To have taken away such privileges in the case under consideration,
would have been pre-eminent "rigor ;" for it was not a servant born in

* Jarchi's comment on " Thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-ser-
vnnt" is, " The Hebrew servant is not to be required to do any thing which is
accounted degrading — such as all offices of personal attendance, as loosing his
master's shoe-latchet, bringing him water to wash his hands and feet, waiting
on him at table, dressing him, carrying things to and from the bath. The He-
brew servant is to work with his master as a son or brother, in the business of
his farm, or other labor, until his legal release."

17

the house of a master, nor a minor, whose minority had been sold by
the father, neither was it one who had not yet acceded to his inheri-
tance ; nor finally, one who had received the assignment of his in-
heritance, but was working off from it an incumbrance, before enter-
ing upon its possession and control. But it was that of the head of a
family, who had known better days, now reduced to poverty, forced
to relinquish the loved inheritance of his fathers, with the compe-
tence and respectful consideration its possession secured to him, and
to be indebted to a neighbor for shelter, sustenance, and employment.
So sad a reverse, might well claim sympathy , but one consolation
cheers him in the house of his pilgrimage ; he is an Israelite — Abra-
ham is his father, and now in his calamity he clings closer than ever,
to the distinction conferred by his birth-right. To rob him of this, were
" the unkindest cut of all." To have assigned him to a grade of ser-
vice filled only by those whose permanent business was serving,
would have been to "rule over him with" peculiar "rigor." "Thou
shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant," or literally, thou shalt
not serve thyself with him, with the service of a servant, guaranties
his political privileges, and a kind and grade of service comporting
with his character and relations as an Israelite. And " as a hired ser-
vant, and as a sojourner shall he be with thee," secures to him his
family organization, the respect and authority due to its head, and the
general consideration resulting from such a station. Being already
in pjsss^iun of his inheritance, and the head of a household, the law
so arranged the conditions of his service as to alleviate as much as
possible the calamity which had reduced him from independence and
authority, to penury and subjection. The import of the command
which concludes this topic in the forty-third verse, (" Thou shalt not
rule over him with rigor,") is manifestly this, you shall not disregard
those differences in previous associations, station, authority, and
political privileges, upon which this regulation is based ; for to hold
this class of servants irrespective of these distinctions, and annihilating
them, is to " rule with rigor." The same command is repeated in the
forty-sixth verse, and applied to the distinction between servants of
Jewish, and those of Gentile extraction, and forbids the overlooking
of distinctive Jewish peculiarities, the disregard of which would be
rigorous in the extreme.* The construction commonly put upon the

* The disabilities of the Strangers, which were distinctions, based on a dif-
ferent national descent, and important to the preservation of nation charneter-
istics, and a national worship, did not at all affect their social estimation. They
were regarded according to their character and worth as persons, irrespective
of their foreign origin, employments and political condition.

8?

phrase "rule with rigor," and the inference drawn from it, have an air
vastly oracular. It is interpreted to mean, " you shall not make him
a chattel, and strip him of legal protection, nor force him to work
without pay." The inference is like unto it, viz., since the com-
mand forbade such outrages upon the Israelites, it permitted and com-
missioned their infliction upon the Strangers. Such impious and
shallow smattering captivates scoffers and libertines ; its flippancy and
blasphemy, and the strong scent of its loose-reined license works
like a charm upon them. What boots it to reason against such ram-
pant affinities ! In Ex. i. 13, it is said that the Egyptians, " made the
children of Israel to serve with rigor." This rigor is affirmed of the
amount of labor extorted and the mode of the exaction. The expres-
sion "serve with rigor," is never applied to the service of servants
under the Mosaic system. The phrase, "thou shalt not rule over
him with rigor," does not prohibit unreasonable exactions of labor,
nor inflictions of cruelty. Such were provided against otherwise.
But it forbids confounding the distinctions between a Jew and a
Stranger, by assigning the former to the same grade of service,
for the same term of time, and under the same political disabilities as
the latter.

We are now prepared to review at a glance, the condition of the dif-
ferent classes of servants, with the modifications peculiar to each.

In the possession of all fundamental rights, all classes of servants
were on an absolute equality, all were equally protected by law in
their persons, character, property and social relations ; all were
voluntary, all were compensated for their labor, and released from it
nearly one half of the days in each year; all were furnished with
stated instruction ; none in either class were in any sense articles of
property, all were regarded as men, with the rights, interests, hopes
and destinies of men. In all these respects, all classes of servants
among the Israelites, formed but one class. The different classes,
and the differences in each class, were, 1. Hired Servants. This class
consisted both of Israelites and Strangers. Their (employments were
different. The Israelite was an agricultural servant. The Stranger
was a domestic and personal servant, and in some instances mechani-
cal ; both were occasional and temporary. Both lived in their own
families, their wages were money, and they were paid when their work
was done. 2. Bought Servants, (including those " born in the house.")
This class also, consisted of Israelites and Strangers, the same dif-
ference in their kinds of employment as noticed before. Both were

H9

paid in advance,* and neither was temporary. The Israelitish servant,
with the exception of the freeholder, completed his term in six years.
The Stranger was a permanent servant, continuing until the jubilee.
A marked distinction obtained also between difierent classes of Jewish
bought servants. Ordinarily, they were merged in their master's
family, and, like his wife and children, subject to his authority ; (and,
like them, protected by law from its abuse.) But the freeholder was
an exception ; his family relations and authority remained unaffected,
nor was he subjected as an inferior to the control of his master, though
dependent on him for employment.

It should be kept in mind, that both classes of servants, the Israelite
and the Stranger, not only enjoyed equal, natural and religious rights,
but all the civil and political privileges enjoyed by those of their own
people who were not servants. They also shared in common with
them the political disabilities which appertained to all Strangers, wheth-
er servants of Jewish masters, or masters of Jewish servants. Further,
the disabilities of the servants from the Strangers were exclusively po-
litical and national. 1. They, in common with all Strangers, could
not own the soil. 2. They were ineligible to civil offices. 3. They
were assigned to employments less honorable than those in which Is-
raelitish servants engaged ; agriculture being regarded as fundamental
to the existence of the state, other employments were in less repute,
and deemed unjewish.

Final!}*, the Strangers, whether servants or masters, were all pro-
tected equally with the descendants of Abraham. In respect to politi-
cal privileges, their condition was much like that of unnaturalized
foreigners in the United States ; whatever their wealth or intelligence,
or moral principle, or love for our institutions, they can neither go to

* The payment in advance, doubtless lessened the price of the purchase ; the
servant thus having the use of the money, and the master assuming all the risks
oflife, and health for labor; at the expiration of the six years' contract, the
master having suffered no loss from the risk incurred at the making of it, was
obliged by law to release the servanf with a liberal gratuity. The reason as-
signed for this is, " he hath been worth a double hired servant unto thee in
serving thee six years," as if it had been said, as you have experienced no loss
from the risks of life, and ability to labor, incurred in the purchase, and which
lessened the price, and as, by being your servant for six years, he has saved
you the time and trouble of looking up and hiring laborers on emergencies,
therefore, " thou shalt furnish him liberally," &c.

This gratuity at the close of the service shews the principle of the relation ;
equivalent for value received.

12

90

the ballot-box, nor own the soil, nor be eligible to office. Let a native
American, be suddenly bereft of these privileges, and loaded with the
disabilities of an alien, and what to the foreigner would be a light mat-
ter, to him, would be the severity of rigor. The recent condition of
the Jews and Catholics in England, is another illustration. Roths-
child, the late banker, though the richest private citizen in the world*
and perhaps master of scores of English servants, who sued for the
smallest crumbs of his favor, was, as a subject of the government, in-
ferior to the lowest among them. Suppose an Englishman of the
Established Church, were by law deprived of power to own the soil^
of eligibility to office and of the electoral franchise, would Englishmen
think it a misapplication of language, if it were said, the government
"rules over him with rigor?" And yet his person, property, reputa-
tion, conscience, all his social relations, the disposal of his time, the
right of locomotion at pleasure, and of natural liberty in all respects,
are just as much protected by law as the Lord Chancellor's.

Finally. — As the Mosaic system was a great compound type, rife
with meaning in doctrine and duty ; the practical power of the whole,
depended upon the exact observance of those distinctions and relations
which constituted its significancy. Hence, the care to preserve invio-
late the distinction between a descendant of Abraham and a Stranger,
even when the Stranger was a proselyte, had gone through the initia-
tory ordinances, entered the congregation, and become incorporated
with the Israelites by family alliance. The regulation laid down in
Ex. xxi. 2 — 6, is an illustration. In this case, the Israel itish servant,
whose term expired in six years, married one of his master's perma-
nent female domestics ; but her marriage did not release her master
from his part of the contract for her whole term of service, nor from
his legal obligation to support and educate her children. Neither did
it do away that distinction, which marked her national descent by a
specific grade and term of service, nor impair her obligation to fulfil
her part of the contract. Her relations as a permanent domestic grew
out of a distinction guarded with great care throughout the Mosaic sys-
tem. To render it void, would have been to divide the system against
itself. This God would not tolerate. Nor, on the other hand, would
he permit the master to throw off the responsibility of instructing her
children, ror the care and expense of their helpless infancy and rear-
ing. He was bound to support and educate u\em, and all her children
born afterwards during her term of service. The whole arrangement
beautifully illustrates that wise and tender regard for the interests of
all the parties concerned, which arrays the Mosaic system in robes of

91

glory, and causes it to shine as the sun in the kingdom of our Father.*
By this law, the children had secured to them a mother's tender care.
If the husband loved his wife and children, he could compel his master
to keep him, whether he had any occasion for his services or not. If
he did not love them, to be rid of him was a blessing ; and in that case,
the regulation would prove an act for the relief of an afTlicted family.
It is not by any means to be inferred, that the release of the servant
in the seventh year, either absolved him from the obligations of mar-
riage, or shut him out from the society of his family. He could doubt,
less procure a service at no great distance from them, and might often
do it, to get higher wages, or a kind of employment better suited to his
taste and skill. The great number of days on which the law released
servants from regular labor, would enable him to spend much more
time with his family, than can be spent by most of the agents of our
benevolent societies with their families, or by many merchants, editors,
artists. &c, whose daily business is in New York, while their families
reside from ten to one hundred miles in the country.

We conclude this inquiry by touching upon an objection, which,
though not formally stated, has been already set aside by the tenor of
the foregoing argument. It is this, — " The slavery of the Canaanites
by the Israelites, was appointed by God as a commutation of the
punishment of death denounced against them for their sins."f If the
absurdity of a sentence consigning persons to death, and at the same
time to perpetual slavery, did not sufficiently laugh at itself, it would
be small self-denial, in a case so tempting, to make up the deficiency by
a general contribution. Only one statute was ever given respecting the
disposition to be made of the inhabitants of Canaan. If the sentence
of death was pronounced against them, and afterwards commuted,
when ? where ? by whom 1 and in what terms was the commutation,

* Whoever profoundly studies the Mosaic Institutes with a teachable and
reverential spirit, will feel the truth and power of that solemn appeal and in-
terrogatory of God to his people Israel, when he had made an end of setting
before them all his statutes and ordinances. " What nation is there so ^reat,
that hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law which I set before
you this day." Deut. iv. 8.

t In the prophecy, Gen. ix. 25, the subjection of the Canaanites as a con-
quered people rendering tribute to other nations, is foretold by inspiration. The
fulfilment of this prediction, seems to have commenced in the subjection of
the Canaanites to fie Israelites as tributaries. If the Israelites had extermi-
nated them, as the objector asserts they were commanded to do, the prediction
would have been falsified.

92

and where is it recorded? Grant, for argument's sake, that all the
Canaanites were sentenced to unconditional extermination ; how can a
right to enslave them, be drawn from such premises ? ' The punishment
of death is one of the highest recognitions of man's moral nature pos-
sible. It proclaims him rational, accountable, guilty, deserving death
for having done his utmost to cheapen human life, when the proof of
its priceless worth lived in his own nature. But to make him a slave,
cheapens to nothing universal human nature, and instead of healing a
wound, gives a death-stab. What ! repair an injury to rational being
in the robbery of one of its rights, not only by robbing it of all, but
by annihilating their foundation, the everlasting distinction between
persons and things ? To make a man a chattel, is not the punishment,
but the annihilation of a human being, and, so far as it goes, of all
human beings. This commutation of the punishment of death, into
perpetual slavery, what a fortunate discovery ! Alas ! for the honor
of Deity, if commentators had not manned the forlorn hope, and by a
timely movement rescued the Divine character, at the very crisis of its
fate, from the perilous position in which inspiration had carelessly left
it ! Here a question arises of sufficient importance for a separate
dissertation ; but must for the present be disposed of in a few para-
graphs. Were the Canaanites sentenced by God to individual
and unconditional extermination ? As the limits of this inquiry
forbid our giving all the grounds of dissent from commonly received
opinions, the suggestions made, will be thrown out merely as queries,
rather than laid down as doctrines. The directions as to the disposal
of the Canaanites, are mainly in the following passages, Ex. xxiii.
23 — 33 ; xxxiv. 11 ; Deut. vii. 16—24 ; ix. 3 : xxxi. 3—5. In these
verses, the Israelites are commanded to " destroy the Canaanites," to
" drive out," " consume," " utterly overthrow," " put out," " dispossess
them," &c. Did these commands enjoin the unconditional and univer-
sal destruction of the individuals, or merely of the body politic ? The
word hdram, to destroy, signifies national, as well as individual de-
struction ; the destruction of political existence, equally with personal ;
of governmental organization, equally with the lives of the subjects.
Besides, if we interpret the words destroy, consume, overthrow, &c,
to mean personal destruction, what meaning shall we give to the ex-
pressions, " drive out before thee," " cast out before thee," " expel,"
" put out," " dispossess," &c, which are used in the same and in paral-
lel passages ? In addition to those quoted above, see Josh. iii. 10 ;
xvii. 18; xxiii. 5; xxiv. 18; Judg. i. 20, 29 — 35; vi. 9. "I will
destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all

03

thine enemies turn their backs unto thee." Ex. xxiii. 27. Here " alt
their enemies" were to turn their backs, and " all the 'people" to be " de-
stroyed" Does this mean that God would let all their enemies escape,
but kill their friends, or that he would first kill " all the people" and
then make them "turn their backs," an army of runaway corpses?
In Josh. xxiv. 8, God says, speaking of the Amorites, " I destroyed
them from before you." In the 18th verse of the same chapter, it is
said, u The Lord drave out from before us all the people, even the
Amorites which dwelt in the land." In Num. xxxii. 39, we are told
that " the children of Machir the son of Manasseh, went to Gilead, and
took it, and dispossessed the Amorite which was in it." If these com-
mands required the destruction of all the individuals, the Mosaic law
was at war with itself, for directions as to the treatment of native resi-
dents form a large part of it. See Lev. xix. 34 ; xxv. 35, 36 ; xxiv.
22.; Ex. xxiii. 9; xxii. 21; Deut. i. 16, 17; x. 17, 19; xxvii. 19.
We find, also, that provision was made for them in the cities of refuge,
Num. xxxv. 15, — the gleanings of the harvest and vintage were theirs,
Lev. xix. 9, 10; xxiii. 22; — the blessings of the Sabbath, Ex. xx.
10 ; — the privilege of offering sacrifices secured, Lev. xxii. 18 ; and
stated religious instruction provided for them. Deut. xxxi. 9, 12.
Now does this same law require the individual extermination of those
whose lives and interests it thus protects ? These laws were given to
the Israelites, long before they entered Canaan ; and they must have in-
ferred from them, that a multitude of the inhabitants of the land were
to continue in it, under their government. Again Joshua was selected
as the leader of Israel to execute God's threatenings upon Canaan.
He had no discretionary power. God's commands were his official
instructions. Going beyond them would have been usurpation ; refus-
ing to carry them out, rebellion and treason. Saul was rejected from
being king for disobeying God's commands in a single instance. Now if
God commanded the individual destruction of all the Canaanites Joshua
disobeyed him in every instance. For at his death, the Israelites still
" dwelt among them," and each nation is mentioned by name. Judg.
i. 27 — 36, and yet we are told that Joshua " left nothing undone of all
that the Lord commanded Moses;" and that he "took all that land."
Josh. xi. 1 5 — 22. Also, that " there stoofl not a man of all their ene-
mies before them. Josh. xxi. 44. How can this be if the command
to destroy, destroy utterly, &c, enjoined individual extermination, and
the command to drive out, unconditional expulsion from the country, ra-
ther than their expulsion from the possession or owner sh'p of it, as the
lords of the soil ? That the latter is the true sense to be attached to those

terms, we irgue, further from the fact that the same terms are em.
ployed by God to describe tin* punishment which he would inflict upon
the Israelites it they served other Gods. " Ye shall utterly perish,"
M he utterly destroyed," " consumed, w fee. , are some of them. — See
Deut. iv. 20 ; viii. 19, '20.* Josh, xxiii. 12, 13—16 J 1. Sam. xii
25. The Israelites did serve Other Gods, and Jehovah did execute
upon them his threatening— and thus himself interpreted these threat-
lungs. He subverted their government, dispossessed them of their
land, divested them of national power, and made them tributaries-, hut
did not exterminate them. 1 le destroyed them utterly" as an inde-
pendent body politic, but not as individuals." Multitudes of the Ca-
naanites were slain, but not a case can bo found in which one was
either killed or expelled who acquiesced in the transfer of the terri-
tory, and its sovereignty, from the inhabitants of the land to the Israel-
ites. Witness the case of Rahab and her kindred, and that of the
Gibeonites.f The Canaunites knew of the miracles wrought for the

* These two verses are so explicit we quote them entire—" And it shall be if
lllOU do at all (brget the Lout thy God. and walk after other Gods and serve them,
and worship them. I testify auy.it.si you this day ihat ye shall sioely perish, as
the nations which the Lord destroyed before vein flee, ><> shall ye perish." The
following pas>agi - ate. if possible, still nuu e explicit — "The Lord shall send
upon thee cursing, ve>:atu»n, and rebuke in all that ihon settest thine hand
onto for to do, until thou be tU Proved, and until thou peiish quickly." " The
Lord shall make ihe pestilence cleave unto thee until he have consumed thee."
" They (ihe 1 SWOii,"" ' blasting ('&0.) shall pursue thee until thou perish." "Fiom
heaven shall ii come down upon thee until thou be destroyed." " All these
curses shall come upon thee till thou be dtsfroyed.'" " He shall put a yoke of
iron upon thy neck until he have destroyed thee.'' " The Lord shall bring a
nation against thee, a nation of fierce countenance, which shall not regard
the person fth(B old, nor show favor to the young. * * until he have destroyed
thee." All those, with other similar threatenings o( destruction, are contained
in ihe twenty-eighth chapter of Dent. See verses -20—05,45,48,51. In the
Stum chapter God declares that as a punishment for the same trangressions,
•he Israelites shall " be removed into all the kingdoms of the earth," thus show-
ing that the terms employed in the other verses. " destroy," " perish," " perish
quicklv." "consume,'' &e . instead of signifying utter, personal destruction,
doubtless meant their destruction as an independent nation. In Josh. xxiv. 8,
IS. •• destroyed* and " drave out," are used synonymously.

t Perhaps it will be objected, that the preservation of the Gibeonites, and of
Rahab and her kindred, wrs a violation of the command of God. We answer,
if i: had b vn. we mi^ht expect some such intimation. If God had straitly com-
manded them to exterminate all the Cannon ites, their pledge to save them alive,
was neither a repeal of the statute, nor absolution for the breach of it. If uncon-
ditional destruction was the impo-t of the command, would God have permitted
such an act to pass without rebuke 1 Would he have established such a prece-

95

Israelites ; and that their land had been transferred to them as a
judgment for their sins. Josh. ii. 9 — 11; ix. 9, 10, 24. Many of
them were awed by these wonders, and made no resistance. Ohers
defied God and came out to battle. These last occupied the fortified
cities, were the most inveterate heathen — the aristocracy of idolatry,
the kings, the nobility and gentry, the priests, with their crowds of
satellites, and retainers that aided in idolatrous rites, and the military
forces, with the chief profligates of both sexes. Many facts corrobo-
rate the general position. Witness that command (Deut. xxiii. 15, 16,)
which, not only prohibited the surrender of the fugitive servant to his
master, but required the Israelites to receive him with kindness, per-
mit him to dwell where he pleased, and to protect and cherish him.
Whenever any servant, even a Canaanite, fled from his master to the
Israelites, Jehovah, so far from commanding them to kill him, straitly
charged them, " He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that
place which he shall -choose — in one of thy gates where it liketh him
best — thou shalt not oppress him " Deut. xxiii. 16. The Canaan-
itiah servant by thus fleeing to the Israelites, submitted himself as a du-
tiful subject to their national government, and pledged his allegiance.
Suppose all the Canaanites had thus submitted themselves to the Jewish
theocracy, and conformed to the requirements of the Mosaic institutes,
would not all have been spared upon the same principle that one was ?
Again, look at the multitude of tributaries in the midst of Israel, and
that too, after they had " waxed strong," and the uttermost nations
quaked at the terror of their name — the Canaanites, Philistines and
others, who became proselytes — as the Nethenims, Uriah the Hittite —
Rahab, who married one of the princes of Judah — Jether, an Ishma-
elitc, who married Abigail the sister of David and was the father of
Arnasa, the captain of the host of Israel. Comp. 1 Chron. ii. 17, with
2 Sam. xvii. 25. — Ittai — the six hundred Gittites, David's body guard,
2. Sam xv. 18, 21. Obededom the Gittite, adopted into the tribe of
Levi. Comp. 2 Sam. vi. 10 11, with 1 Chron. xv. 18, and xxvi. 4, 5

dent when Israel had hardly passed the threshold of Canaan, and was then strik-
ing the first blow of a half century war 1 What if they had passed their word
to Rahab and the Gibeonitesl Was that more binding than God's command 1
So Saul seems to have passed his word to Agag ; yet Samuel hewed him in
pieces, because in saving his life, Saul had violated God's command. When
Saul sougrhtto slay the Gibeonites in " his zeal for the children of Israel and
Judah," God sent upon Israel a three years' famine for it. When David inquir-
ed of them what atonement he should make, they say, " The man that devised
against us, that we should be destroyed from remaining in any of the coast of
Israel, let seven of his sons be delivered," &c. 2 Sam. xxi. 1 — 6.

96

— Jaziz, and Obil. 1 Chron. xxvii. 30, 31. Jephunneh the Kenezite,
Josh. xiv. 6, and father of Caleb a ruler of the tribe of Judah. Numb,
xiii. 2, 6 — the Kenites registered in the genealogies of the tribe of
Judah, Judg, i. 16 ; 1 Chron. ii. 55, and the one hundred and fifty
thousand Caananites, employed by Solomon in the building of the
Temple.* Besides, the greatest miracle on record, was wrought to
save a portion of those very Canaanites, and for the destruction of those
who would exterminate them. Josh. x. 12 — 14. Further — the terms
employed in the directions regulating the disposal of the Canaanites, such
as " drive out," " put out," "cast out," "expel," "dispossess," &c, seem
used interchangeably with " consume," " destroy," ovethrow," &c , and
thus indicate the sense in which the latter words are used. As an il-
lustration of the meaning generally attached to these and similar
terms, we refer to - the history of the Amalekites. " I will utterly put
out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven. Ex. xvii. 14.
" Thou shalt blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under hea-
ven ; thou shalt not forget it." Deut. xxv. 19. " Smite Amalek and
utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not, but slay both
man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep." 1 Sam. xv. 2,
3. " Saul smote the Amalekites, and he took Agag the king of the
Amalekites, alive and utterly destroyed all the people with
the edge of the sword." Verses 7, 8. In verse 20, Saul says, " i.
have brought Agag, the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the
Amalekites." In 1 Sam. xxx. 1, 2, we find the Amalekites marching
an army into Israel, and sweeping everything before them — and this
in about eighteen years after they had all been "utterly destroy-
ed !" In 1 Kings ii. 15 — 17, is another illustration. We are informed
that Joab remained in Edom six months with all Israel, " until he had
cut off every male" in Edom. In the next verse ^ve learn that Hadad
and "certain Edomites" were not slain. Deut. xx. 16, 17, will proba-
bly be quoted against the preceding view. We argue that the com-
mand in these verses, did not include all the individuals of the Canaan-
itish nations, but only the inhabitants of the cities, (and even those condi-
tionally,) because, only the inhabitants of cities are specified — "of the ci-
ties of these people thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth." Cities
then, as now, were pest-houses of vice, they reeked with abomina-
tions little practised in the country. On this account, their influence

* If the Canaanites were devoted by God to unconditional extermination, to
have employed them in the erection of the temple, — what was it but the climax
of impiety 1 As well might they pollute its altars with swine's flesh or make
their sons pass through the fire to Moloch.

97

would be far more perilous to the Israelites than that of the country.
Besides, they were the centres of idolatry — there were the temples
and altars, and idols, and priests, without number. Even their build-
ings, streets, and public walks were so many visibilities of idolatry.
The reason assigned in the 18th verse for exterminating them,
strengthens the idea — " that they teach you not to do after all the
abominations which they have done unto their gods." This would
be a reason for exterminating all the nations and individuals around
them, as all were idolaters ; but God commanded them, in certain
cases, to spare the inhabitants. Contact with any of them, would be
perilous — with the inhabitants of the cities peculiarly, and of the Ca-
naanitish cities pre-eminently so. The 10th and 11th verses con-
tain the general rule prescribing the method in which cities were to
be summoned to surrender. They were first to receive the offer of
peace — if it was accepted, the inhabitants became tributaries — but if
tiiey came out against Israel in battle, the men were to" be killed, and
the woman and little ones saved alive. The 15th verse restricts this
lenient treatment to the inhabitants of the cities afar off. The 16th
directs as to the disposal of the inhabitants of the Canaanitish cities.
They were to save alive " nothing that breathed." The common
mistake has been, in supposing that the command in the 15th verse
refers to the whole system of directions preceding, commencing with
the 10th, whereas it manifestly refers only to the inflictions specified in
the 12th, 13th, and, 14th, making a distinction between those Canaan-
itish cities that fought, and the cities afar off that fought — in one case
destroying the males and females, and in the other, the males only.
The offer of peace, and the conditional preservation, were as really
guarantied to Canaanitish cities as to others. Their inhabitants were
not to be exterminated unless they came out against Israel in battle.
Whatever be the import of the commands respecting the disposition to
be made of the Canaanites, all admit the fact that the Israelites did
not utterly exterminate them. Now, if entire and unconditional exter-
mination was the command of God, it was never obeyed by the Israel*
ites, consequently the truth of God . stood pledged to consign them to the
same doom which he had pronounced upon the Canaanites, but which
they had refused to visit upon them. " If ye will not drive out all the in-
habitants of the land from before you, then it shall come to pass that
* * I shall do unto you as I thought to do unto them." Num. xxxiii. 55,
56. As the Israelites were not exterminated, we infer that God did
not pronounce that doom upon them ; and as he did pronounce upon
them the same doom, whatever it was, which they should refuse to
13

98

/isit upon the Canaanites, it follows that the doom of unconditional ex-
termination was not pronounced against the Canaanites. But let
us settle this question by the " law and the testimony." " There
s not a city that made peace with the children of Israel save the
vites, the inhabitants of Gibeon ; all others they took in battle,
or' it was of the Lord to harden their hearts, that they should come
jt against Israel in battle, that he might destroy them utterly,
and that they might have no favor, but that he might destroy them,
as the Lord commanded Moses." Josh. xi. 19, 20. That is, if
they had not come out against Israel in battle, they would have had
"favor'' shown them, and would not have been "destroyed utterly."
The great design was to transfer the territory of the Canaanites to
the Israelites, and along with it, absolute sovereignty in every re-
spect ; to annihilate their political organizations, civil polity, and ju-
risprudence, and their system of religion, with all its rights and ap-
pendages ; and to substitute therefor, a pure theocracy, administered by
Jehovah, with the Israelites as His representatives and agents. In a
word the people were to be denationalized, their political existence an-
nihilated, their idol temples, altars, groves, images, pictures, and hea-
then rites destroyed, and themselves put under tribute. Those who
resisted the execution of Jehovah's purpose were to be killed, while
those who quietly submitted to it were to be spared. All had the
choice of these alternatives, either free egress out of the land;* or
acquiescence in the decree, with life and residence as tributaries,
under the protection of the government ; or resistance to the execu-
tion of the decree, with death. " And it shall come to pass, if they
will diligently learn the ways of my people, to swear by my name, the
Lord liveth, as they taught my people to swear by Baal; then shall

THEY BE BUILT IN THE MIDST OF MY PEOPLE."

("The original design of the preceding Inquiry embraced a much wider
range of topics. It was soon found, however, that to fill up the outline
would be to make a volume. Much of the foregoing has therefore been
thrown into a mere series of indices, to trains of thought and classes of
proof, which, however limited or imperfect, may perhaps, afford some
facilities to those who have little leisure for protracted investigation.]

* Suppose all the Canaanitish nations had abandoned their territory at the
tidings of Israel's approach, did God's command require the Israelites to
chase them to ends of the earth, and hunt them out, until every Canaanite was
destroyed 1 It is too preposterous for belief, and yet it follows legitimately from
that constructioo, which interprets the terms " consume," " destroy," "destroy
utterly," &c. to mean unconditional, individual extermination.