by the unjust and oppressive laws which forbid their instruction, even in a Sabbath school? This the laws of Louisiana do under the penalty of five hundred dollars fine for the first offence, and death for the second!

10. Love thy neighbor as thyself. Do those who violently withhold their neighbors' liberty from them, love their neighbor as themselves? And how near do those come to the fulfilling of this command, who sell husbands and part them forever from their wives? who sell children and part them forever from their parents? Do those love their neighbors as themselves, who take the avails of their labor without paying them for it?

11. Thou shalt relieve him. No class of men in the known world suffer a greater amount of evils than the slaves of this country; but from what part of these evils the slaveholders or their apologists are now endeavoring to relieve them, it is not very easy to determine. See Chapters one and

six.

12. Thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant. No Hebrew could be compelled to serve his master more than six years; but a bond-servant, that is, one who was not an Hebrew, might be compelled to serve till the year of jubilee. A Hebrew might be retained in servitude till the year of jubilee, if it was his own choice, not otherwise. See Ex. xxi, 5-6. Nor, indeed, could a Hebrew, nor any stranger, be retained in servitude any time after he was abused and treated with unjustifiable severity by his master. See Ex. xxi, 26 Are all slaves in this land set free as soon as they are maimed by their masters or drivers?

27.

Every seventh day among the Jews was a Sabbath, or day of rest; every seventh year was also a Sabbath year, during which the land and the people rested, and all Hebrew servants were at liberty to go free from their masters. And then every

See Chap.

fiftieth year was termed a jubilee, beyond which time no servant could be held to the service of his master. iv, 11.

13. Of them shall ye buy bond-men and bond-maids. The word used here by our translators is bondmen, but in the original Hebrew it is the same that is commonly translated servants, and it is not easy to see why the translators changed the word. As it is, this is the great proof-text of the slaveholder, to which he always retreats as his final strong hold. It would not answer his purpose half so well if it had been translated servants, as it is in other places. But let us examine it a little. This text is said to authorize both buying slaves as merchandize, and holding men in perpetual, and hereditary slavery. But in the first place, it nowhere authorizes the enslaving of children born of these bondmen. It is one mistake of the slave-holder, in supposing that the Israelites were allowed to hold such children in slavery. On the contrary, they were required by the Abrahamic covenant to be circumcised the eighth day, and thus enrolled among God's visible people. It is another mistake in supposing that these bondmen were purchased in a slave-market, as slaves are purchased in this country. The laws that prohibited manstealing, and the delivering up of fugitive servants are totally inconsistent with the idea that there could be slave-markets in the nation of Israel. And as to the supposition that they were permitted to go out as soul drivers, on a voyage of speculation, into the surrounding heathen nations, to buy up slaves, it is too forbidding to be believed without evidence. How then were they to acquire these bondmen? If we observe the language of scripture carefully, it will set us right on this point. Read two or three of the succeeding verses:

"And if a sojourner or a stranger wax rich by thee, and thy brother that dwelleth by him wax poor, and sell himself

unto the stranger or sojourner by thee, or to the stock of the stranger's family after that he is sold he may be redeemed again; one of his brethren may redeem him."

Here you see how they became bondmen. They sold themselves; that is, they made a contract of service, it may be for a term of years, or for life, or indefinitely, but it was a contract of their own. And if it was indefinite, or whatever it might be, the year of jubilee put an end to it, and proclaimed liberty to all.

It is understood by some that the word forever, in the fortysixth verse, refers not to the duration of the servitude at all, (though if it did, the jubilee would terminate it) but to the duration of the law; and then the meaning would be, that you shall forever obtain your bondmen from the surrounding nations.[Rev. James H. Dickey.]

And it should always be borne in mind, in the examination of this subject, that, though the ancient Hebrews were permitted to buy servants and keep them for a limited time, yet they were never authorized to steal them, or to buy or keep those who had been stolen, and not only so, but those who were bought sold themselves, as may be seen by consulting the forty-seventh verse of this chapter, and also 1 Kings xxi, 20; 2 Kings vii, 17; and Gen, xlvii, 24.

14. Ye shall be remembered. Here God promised the Jews success, when they went to war against those that oppressed them; would not the same principles of his government lead him to favor the oppressed in this land, in an attempt to gain their freedom? At the same time, no Christian, who is opposed to slavery, would, or could for one moment, either propose or encourage such an attempt, otherwise than in the use of moral means. The true friends of the enslaved in this land, do not believe it would be right for the oppressed to use any violence, (not even the whips with which their own

backs have been so often lacerated) for the purpose of obtaining their rights. Yet, should the slaves ever attempt this by any means, says the immortal Jefferson, "The Almighty has no attribute which could take sides with us in such a contest.

15. Thou shalt not steal. This commandment would certainly have prevented all slave-holding among the Jews, had it not been for the express permission of God; just the same as the command which says, Thou shalt not kill, would have prevented the nearest of kin, among the Jews, from killing the murderer of his friend, without a process at law, if God had not given them his permission to do this.

Now, here is a man who holds in his possession the liberty of one of his species; it is the liberty of a slave, who was born in his own house; this slave never gave this master his liberty, he never sold it to him, nor has he ever forfeited it by crime, but yet the master has got it in his possession, and he holds it fast. How came this master by the liberty of this man? He never bought it of the slave, and the slave could not have sold it, if he would; nor has he bought it of a third person, for it never was possessed by a third person. How came he by it, if he did not steal it? We know indeed, it may be said, that the laws gave the master a title to this man's liberty; but who made those laws? Why, slave-holders, to be sure! And where did slave-holders obtain their authority to make laws, which controvene the law of the infinite God, which says, Thou shalt not steal? The truth is, they have no such authority, they never had, and they never can have; and hence every man who holds the person of a human being as his property, does so in violation of the eighth commandment, which says, Thou shalt not steal!

But suppose again, that the liberty of this slave is sold to a third person; is the man's title to the liberty of this enslaved human being any better than his who sells it? Does not the purchaser know, as every man in this nation knows, that this

man has been robbed of his liberty, that he never has been, and that he never can be paid an equivalent for it? And yet, he buys and holds in his possession that which he knows has which he cannot have, in the nature of Now let the reader suppose a case, if he can, of one slave in this land whose liberty has not been stolen, and which is not now withheld by an act of fraud and theft, similar to that stated above.

been stolen, and to things, any just title!

Neither shalt thou covet anything that is thy neighbor's. And how can one withhold from his neighbor, his personal LIBERTY, his wife, his children, and keep back the fruit of his labor, and not break this command of God? And yet, I once heard this very precept quoted in the Theological Seminary at Andover, to prove that slavery must continue to exist to the end of time, or this commandment, it was supposed, could not be fa'filled! So persecution must continue to the end of the world, or Christians cannot have the privilege of praying for their persecutors ! And human intelligencies must always continue in a course of sin, or the Deity will not have the glory of forgiving them!

18. And it be sin unto thee. And think you not, reader, that there are a few Christian enslavers in this land who need to have these and the foregoing cautions repeated in their hearing? Mark how strictly the Jews were commanded to remember and pity the poor, the fatherless, and widows; and give them sufficient for their need, in that which they might want for their souls and their bodies. And is the great God less merciful, less just, less jealous now, for the welfare of the poor slave?

19. Thou shalt surely give him, — and thy heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him. We not unfrequently hear of the liberal gifts which many enslavers bestow for the advancement of some particular objects; but