6th. The laws, to which you refer on the sixty-eighth page of your book, tend to prove, and, so far as your admission of the necessity of them goes, do prove, that the relation of slaveholder and slave does not deserve a place, in the class of innocent and proper relations. You there say, that the writings of "such great and good men as Wesley, Edwards, Porteus, Paley, Horsley, Scott, Clark, Wilberforce, Sharp, Clarkson, Fox, Johnson, and a host of as good if not equally great, men of later date," have made it necessary for the safety of the institution of slavery, to pass laws, forbidding millions of our countrymen to read. You should have, also, mentioned the horrid sanctions of these laws—stripes, imprisonment, and death. Now, these laws disable the persons on whom they bear, from fulfilling God's commandments, and, especially, His commandment to "search the Scriptures." They are, therefore, wicked. What then, in its moral character, must be a relation, which, to sustain it, requires the aid of wicked laws?—and, how entirely out of place must it be, when you class it with those just relations of life, that, certainly, require none of the support, which, you admit, is indispensable to the preservation of the relation of slaveholder and slave! It is true, that you attempt to justify the enactment of the laws in question, by the occasions which you say led to it. But, every law forbidding what God requires, is a wicked law—under whatever pretexts, or for whatever purposes, it may have been enacted. Let the occasions which lead to a wicked measure be what they may, the wickedness of the measure is still sufficient to condemn it.

In the case before us, we see how differently different persons are affected by the same fact. Whilst the stand taken against slavery by Wesley, Edwards, and the other choice spirits you enumerate, serves but to inspire you with concern for its safety, it would, of itself, and without knowing their reasons for it, be well nigh enough to destroy my confidence in the institution. Let me ask you, Sir, whether it would not be more reasonable for those, who are so industriously engaged in insulating the system of American slavery, and shrouding it with darkness, to find less fault with the bright and burning light which the writings of the wisest and best men pour upon it, and more with the system which "hateth the light, neither cometh to the light."

You would have your readers believe, that the blessings of education are to be withheld from your slaves—only "until the storm shall be overblown," and that you hope that "Satan's being let loose will be but for a little season." I say nothing more about the last expression, than that I most sincerely desire you may penitently regret having attributed the present holy excitement against slavery to the influences of Satan. By "the storm" you, doubtless, mean the excitement produced by the publications and efforts of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Now, I will not suppose that you meant to deceive your readers on this point. You are, nevertheless, inexcusable for using language so strikingly calculated to lead them into error. It is not yet three years since that Society was organized: but the statute books of some of the slave States contain laws, forbidding the instruction of slaves in reading, which were enacted long before you and I were born. As long ago as the year 1740, South Carolina passed a law, forbidding to teach slaves to write. Georgia did so in 1770. In the year 1800, thirty-three years before "the storm" of the Anti-Slavery Society began to blow, South Carolina passed a law, forbidding "assemblies of slaves, free negroes, &c., for the purpose of mental instruction." In the Revised Code of Virginia of 1819, is a law similar to that last mentioned. In the year 1818, the city of Savannah forbade by an ordinance, the instruction of all persons of color, either free or bond, in reading and writing. I need not specify any more of these man-crushing, soul-killing, God-defying laws;—nor need I refer again to the shocking penalties annexed to the violation of most of them. I conclude my remarks under this head, with the advice, that, in the next edition of your book, you do not assign the anti-slavery excitement, which is now spreading over our land, as the occasion of the passage of the laws in question.

7th. The only other reason I will mention for believing, that the slavery modification of servitude is not approved of God, is, that it has never been known to work well—never been known to promote man's happiness or God's glory. Wickedness and wretchedness are, so uniformly, the product of slavery, that they must be looked upon, not as its abuses, but as its legitimate fruits. Whilst all admit, that the relations of the family state are, notwithstanding their frequent perversions, full of blessings to the world; and that, but for them, the world would be nothing better than one scene of pollution and wo;—to what history of slavery will you refer me, for proof of its beneficent operation? Will it be to the Bible history of Egyptian slavery? No—for that informs us of the exceeding wickedness and wretchedness of Egyptian slavery. Will it be to the history of Greek and Roman slavery? No—for your own book acknowledges its unutterable horrors and abominations. Will you refer me to the history of the West Indies for proofs of the happy fruits of slavery? Not until the earth is no more, will its polluted and bloody pages cease to testify against slavery. And, when we have come down to American slavery, you will not even open the book which records such facts, as that its subjects are forbidden to be joined in wedlock, and to read the Bible. No—you will not presume to look for a single evidence of the benign influences of a system, where, by the admission of your own ecclesiastical bodies, it has turned millions of men into heathen. I say nothing now of your beautiful and harmless theories of slavery:—but this I say, that when you look upon slavery as it has existed, or now exists, either amidst the darkness of Mahommedanism or the light of Christianity, you dare not, as you hope for the Divine favor, say that it is a Heaven-descended institution; and that, notwithstanding it is like Ezekiel's roll, "written within and without with lamentations and mourning and wo," it, nevertheless, bears the mark of being a boon from God to man.

Having disposed of your "strong reasons" for the position, that the New Testament authorizes slavery, I proceed to consider your remaining reasons for it.

Because it does not appear, that our Saviour and the Apostle Peter told certain centurions, who, for the sake of the argument, I will admit were slaveholders, that slaveholding is sinful, you argue, and most confidently too, that it is not sinful. But, it does not appear, that the Saviour and the Apostle charged any sinful practices upon them. Then, by your logic, all their other practices, as well as their slaveholding, were innocent, and these Roman soldiers were literally perfect.—Again; how do you know that the Saviour and the Apostle did not tell them, on the occasion you refer to, that they were sinners for being slaveholders? The fact, that the Bible does not inform us that they told them so, does not prove that they did not; much less does it prove, that they did not tell them so subsequently to their first interview with them. And again, the admission that they did not specifically attack slavery, at any of their interviews with the centurions, or on any other occasions whatever, would not justify the inference, that it is sinless. I need not repeat the reasoning which makes the truth of this remark apparent.

You refer to the Saviour's declaration of the unequaled faith of one of these centurions, with the view of making it appear that a person of so great faith could not be a great sinner. But, how long had he exercised this, or, indeed, any Christian faith? That he was on good terms with the Jews, and had built them a synagogue, is quite as strong evidence, that he had not, as that he had, previously to that time, believed in Jesus:—and, if he had not, then his faith, however strong, and his conversion, however decided, are nothing towards proving that slavery is sinless.

It is evident, that the Apostle was sent to Cornelius for the single purpose of inculcating the doctrine of the remission of sin, through faith in Christ.

I proceed to examine another of your arguments. From Paul's declaration to the Elders at Miletus, "I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God," taken in connexion with the fact, that the Bible does not inform us that he spoke to them of slaveholding, you confidently and exultingly infer that it is innocent. Here, again, you prove too much, and therefore, prove nothing. It does not appear that he specified a hundredth part of their duties. If he did not tell them to abstain from slaveholding, neither did he tell them to abstain from games and theatres. But, his silence about slaveholding proves to your mind its sinlessness: equally then should his silence about games and theatres satisfy you of their innocence. Two radical errors run through a great part of your book. They are, that the Apostle gave specific instructions concerning all duties, and that the Bible contains these instructions. But, for these errors, your book would be far less objectionable than it is. I might, perhaps, rather say, that but for these, you could not have made up your book.

And now, since Paul's address to the Elders has been employed by you in behalf of slavery, allow me to try its virtue against slavery: and, if it should turn out that you are slain with your own weapon, it will not be the first time that temerity has met with such a fate. I admit, that the Apostle does not tell the Elders of any wrong thing which they had done; but there are some wrong things from which he had himself abstained, and some right things which he had himself done, of which he does tell them. He tells them, for instance, that he had not been guilty of coveting what was another's, and also, that with his own hands he had ministered to his own necessities and those of others: and he further tells them, that they ought to copy his example, and labor, as he had done, "to support the weak." Think you, sir, from this language that Paul was a slaveholder—and, that his example was such, as to keep lazy, luxurious slaveholders in countenance? The slaveholder is guilty of coveting, not only all a man has, but even the man himself. The slaveholder will not only not labor with his hands to supply the wants of others, and "to support the weak;" but he makes others labor to supply his wants:—yes, makes them labor unpaid—night and day—in storm, as well as in sunshine—under the lash—bleeding—groaning—dying—and all this, not to minister to his actual needs, but to his luxuriousness and sensuality.

You ridicule the idea of the abolition of slavery, because it would make the slaveholder "so poor, as to oblige him to take hold of the maul and wedge himself—he must catch, curry, and saddle his own horse—he must black his own brogans (for he will not be able to buy boots)—his wife must go herself to the wash-tub—take hold of the scrubbing broom, wash the pots, and cook all that she and her rail-mauler will eat." If Paul were, as you judge he was, opposed to the abolition of slavery, it is at least certain, from what he says of the character of his life in his address to the Elders, that his opposition did not spring from such considerations as array you against it. In his estimation, manual labor was honorable. In a slaveholding community, it is degrading. It is so in your own judgment, or you would not hold up to ridicule those humble employments, which reflect disgrace, only where the moral atmosphere is tainted by slavery. That the pernicious influences of slavery in this respect are felt more or less, in every part of this guilty nation, is but too true. I put it to your candor, sir, whether the obvious fact, that slavery makes the honest labor of the hands disreputable, is not a weighty argument against the supposition that God approves it? I put it to your candor, sir, whether the fact, which you, at least, cannot gain-say, that slavery makes even ministers of the gospel despise the employments of seven-eighths of the human family, and, consequently, the humble classes, who labor in them—I put it to your candor, whether the institution, which breeds such contempt of your fellow-men and fellow Christians, must not be offensive to Him, who commands us to "Honor all men, and love the brotherhood?"

In another argument, you attempt to show, that Paul's letter to Philemon justifies slaveholding, and also the apprehension and return of fugitive slaves. After having recited the Resolution of the Chilicothe Presbytery—"that to apprehend a slave who is endeavoring to escape from slavery, with a view to restore him to his master, is a direct violation of the Divine law, and, when committed by a member of the church, ought to subject him to censure"—you undertake to make your readers believe, that Paul's sending Onesimus to Philemon, is a case coming fairly within the purview of the resolution. Let us see if it does. A man by the name of Onesimus was converted to Christianity, under Paul's ministry at Rome. Paul learnt that he had formerly been a servant—say a slave—of Philemon, who was a "dearly beloved" Christian: and believing that his return to his old master would promote the cause of Christ, and beautifully exemplify its power, he advised him to return to him. He followed the Apostle's advice and returned. Now, from this example, you attempt to derive a justification for "a member of a Church" to be engaged in forcibly apprehending and restoring fugitive slaves. I say forcibly—as the apprehension and return, referred to in the Resolution, are clearly forcible. I cannot refrain, sir, from saying, that you greatly wrong the memory of that blessed Apostle of the Lord Jesus, in construing his writings to authorize such violence upon the persons and rights of men. And greatly, also, do you wrong the Resolution in question, by your endeavor to array the Bible against it. The Resolution is right; it is noble—it denotes in the source whence it emanated, a proper sense of the rights and dignity of man. It is all the better for being marked with an honorable contempt of wicked and heaven-daring laws. May I, having the suspicion, or even the certain knowledge, that my fellow man was once held in slavery, and is still legally a slave, seize upon him and reduce him again to slavery? May I thus deal with a guiltless and unaccused brother? Human laws may, it is true, bear me out in this man-stealing, which is not less flagrant than that committed on the coast of Africa:—but, says the Great Law-giver, "The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day:"—and, it is a part of this "word," that "he that stealeth a man shall surely be put to death." In that last day, the mayors, recorders, sheriffs, and others, who have been engaged, whether in their official or individual capacity, in slave-catching and man-stealing, will find human laws but a flimsy protection against the wrath of Him, who judges his creatures by his own and not by human laws. In that "last day," all who have had a part, and have not repented of it, in the sin of treating man as property; all, I say, whether slaveholders or their official or unofficial assistants, the drivers upon their plantations, or their drivers in the free States—all, who have been guilty of throwing God's "image" into the same class with the brutes of the field—will find, that He is the avenger of his poorest, meanest ones—and that the crime of transmuting His image into property, is but aggravated by the fact and the plea that it was committed under the sanction of human laws.

But, to return—wherein does the letter of Paul to Philemon justify slaveholding? What evidence does it contain, that Philemon was a slaveholder at the time it was written? He, who had been his slave "in time past," had, very probably, escaped before Philemon's conversion to Christ. This "time past," may have been a long "time past." The word in the original, which is translated "in time past," does not forbid the supposition. Indeed, it is the same word, which the Apostle uses in the thirteenth verse of the first chapter of Galatians; and there it denotes a long "time past"—as much as from fifteen to eighteen years. Besides, Onesimus' escape and return both favor the supposition, that it was between the two events that Philemon's conversion took place. On the one hand, he fled to escape from the cruelties of an unconverted master; on the other, he was encouraged to follow the Apostle's advice, by the consideration, that on his return to Philemon he should not have to encounter again the unreasonableness and rage of a heathen, but that he should meet with the justice and tenderness of a Christian—qualities, with the existence and value of which, he had now come to an experimental acquaintance. Again, to show that the letter in question does not justify slaveholding—in what character was it, that Paul sent Onesimus to Philemon? Was it in that of a slave? Far from it. It was, in that of "a brother beloved," as is evident from his injunction to Philemon to "receive him forever—not now as a slave, but above a slave—a brother beloved."

It is worthy of remark, that Paul's message to Philemon, shows, not only that he himself was not in favor of slaveholding, but, that he believed the gospel had wrought such an entire change on this subject, in the heart of Philemon, that Onesimus would find on his return to him, the tyrant and the slaveholder sunk in the brother and the Christian.

Paul's course in relation to Onesimus was such, as an abolitionist would deem it proper to adopt, under the like circumstances. If a fugitive slave, who had become a dear child of God, were near me, and, if I knew that his once cruel master had also become a "dearly beloved" Christian; and if, therefore, I had reason to believe, as Paul had, in the case of Philemon, that he would "receive him forever—not now as a slave, but above a slave, a brother beloved," I would advise him to revisit his old master, provided he could do so, without interference and violence from others. Such interference and violence did not threaten Onesimus in his return to Philemon. He was not in danger of being taken up, imprisoned, and sold for his jail fees, as a returning Onesimus would be in parts of this nation.

On the 72d page of your book, you utter sentiments, which, I trust, all your readers will agree, are unworthy of a man, a republican, and a Christian. You there endeavor again to make it appear, that it is not the relation of master and slave, but only the abuse of it, which is to be objected to.—You say: "Independence is a charming idea, especially to Americans: but what gives it the charm? Is it the thing in itself? or is it because it is a release from the control of a bad master? Had Great Britain been a kind master, our ancestors were willing to remain her slaves." In reply to this I would say, that it must be a base spirit which does not prize "independence" for its own sake, whatever privation and suffering may attend it; and much more base must be that spirit, which can exchange that "independence" for a state of slavish subjection—even though that state abound in all sensual gratifications. To talk of "a kind master" is to talk of a blessing for a dog, but not for a man, who is made to "call no man master." Were the people of this nation like yourself, they would soon exchange their blood-bought liberties for subjection to any despot who would promise them enough to eat, drink, and wear. But, I trust, that we at the North are "made of sterner stuff." They, who make slaves of others, can more easily become slaves themselves: for, in their aggressions upon others, they have despised and trampled under foot those great, eternal principles of right, which not only constitute the bulwark of the general freedom; but his respect for which is indispensable to every man's valuation and protection of his individual liberties. This train of thought associates with itself in my mind, the following passage in an admirable speech delivered by the celebrated William Pinckney, in the Maryland House of Delegates in 1789. Such a speech, made at the present time in a slave State, would probably cost the life of him who should make it; nor could it be delivered in a free States at any less sacrifice, certainly, than that of the reputation of the orator. What a retrograde movement has liberty made in this country in the last fifty years!

"Whilst a majority of your citizens are accustomed to rule with the authority of despots, within particular limits—while your youths are reared in the habit of thinking that the great rights of human nature are not so sacred, but they may with innocence be trampled on, can it be expected, that the public mind should glow with that generous ardor in the cause of freedom, which can alone save a government, like ours, from the lurking demon of usurpation? Do you not dread the contamination of principle? Have you no alarms for the continuance of that spirit, which once conducted us to victory and independence, when the talons of power were unclasped for our destruction? Have you no apprehension left, that when the votaries of freedom sacrifice also at the gloomy altars of slavery, they will, at length, become apostates from them for ever? For my own part, I have no hope, that the stream of general liberty will flow for ever, unpolluted, through the foul mire of partial bondage, or that they, who have been habituated to lord it over others, will not be base enough, in time, to let others lord it over them. If they resist, it will be the struggle of pride and selfishness, not of principle."

Had Edmund Burke known slaveholders as well as Mr. Pinckney knew them, he would not have pronounced his celebrated eulogium on their love of liberty;—he would not have ascribed to them any love of liberty, but the spurious kind which the other orator, impliedly, ascribes to them—that which "pride and selfishness" beget and foster. Genuine love of liberty, as Mr. Pinckney clearly saw, springs from "principle," and is found no where but in the hearts of those who respect the liberties and the rights of others.

I had reason, in a former part of this communication, to charge some of the sentiments of Professor Hodge with being alike reproachful to the memory of our fathers, and pernicious to the cause of civil liberty. There are sentiments on the 72d page of your book, obnoxious to the like charge. If political "independence"—if a free government—be the poor thing—the illusive image of an American brain—which you sneeringly represent it, we owe little thanks to those who purchased it for us, even though they purchased it with their blood; and little pains need we take in that case to preserve it. When will the people of the Northern States see, that the doctrines now put forth so industriously to maintain slavery, are rapidly undermining liberty?

On the 43d page of your book you also evince your low estimate of man's rights and dues. You there say, "the fact that the planters of Mississippi and Louisiana, even while they have to pay from twenty to twenty-five dollars per barrel for pork the present season, afford to their slaves from three to four and a half pounds per week, does not show, that they are neglectful in rendering to their slaves that which is just and equal." If men had only an animal, and not a spiritual and immortal nature also, it might do for you to represent them as well provided for, if but pork enough were flung to them. How preposterous to tell us, that God approves a system which brings a man, as slavery seems to have brought you, to regard his fellow man as a mere animal!

I am happy to find that you are not all wrong. You are no "gradualist." You are not inconsistent, like those who admit that slavery is sinful, and yet refuse to treat it as sinful. I hope our Northern "gradualists" will profit by the following passage in your book: "If I were convinced by that word (the Bible) that slavery is itself a sin, I trust that, let it cost what it would, I should be an abolitionist, because there is no truth, more clear to my mind, than that the gospel requires an immediate abandonment of sin."

You have no doubt of your right to hold your fellow men, as slaves. I wish you had given your readers more fully your views of the origin of this right. I judge from what you say, that you trace it back to the curse pronounced by Noah upon Canaan. But was that curse to know no end? Were Canaan's posterity to endure the entailment of its disabilities and woes, until the end of time? Was Divine mercy never to stay the desolating waves of this curse? Was their harsh and angry roar to reach, even into the gospel dispensation, and to mingle discordantly with the songs of "peace on earth and good will to men?" Was the captivity of Canaan's race to be even stronger than He, who came "to bind up the broken-hearted, and proclaim liberty to the captives?" But who were Canaan and his descendants? You speak of them, and with singular unfairness, I think, as "the posterity of Ham, from whom, it is supposed, sprang the Africans." They were, it is true, a part of Ham's posterity; but to call them "the posterity of Ham," is to speak as though he had no other child than Canaan. The fifteenth to nineteenth verses of the tenth chapter of Genesis teach us, beyond all question, that Canaan's descendants inhabited the land of Canaan and adjacent territory, and that this land is identical with the country afterwards occupied by the Jews, and known, in modern times, by the name of Palestine, or the Holy Land. Therefore, however true it may be, that a portion of Ham's posterity settled in Africa, we not only have no evidence that it was the portion cursed, but we have conclusive evidence that it was not.

But, was it a state of slavery to which Canaanites were doomed? I will suppose, for a moment, that it was: and, then, how does it appear right to enslave them? The curse in question is prophecy. Now prophecy does not say what ought to come to pass: nor does it say, that they who have an agency in the production of the foretold event, will be innocent in that agency. If the prediction of an event justifies those who are instrumental in producing it, then was Judas innocent in betraying our Saviour. "It must needs be that offences come, but wo to that man by whom the offence cometh." Prophecy simply tells what will come to pass. The question, whether it was proper to enslave Canaanites, depends for its solution not on the curse or prophecy in question. If the measure were in conformity with the general morality of the Bible, then it was proper. Was it in conformity with it? It was not. The justice, equity and mercy which were, agreeable to the Divine command, to characterize the dealings of the Jews with each other, are in such conformity, and these are all violated by slavery. If those dealings were all based on the general morality of the Bible, as they certainly were, then slavery, which, in its moral character, is completely opposite to them, cannot rest on that morality. If that morality did not permit the Jews to enslave Canaanites, how came they to enslave them? You will say, that they had special authority from God to do so, in the words, "Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are around about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids." Well, I will admit that God did in one instance, and that He may have done so in others, give special authority to the Jews to do that, which, without such authority, would have been palpably and grossly immoral. He required them to exterminate some of the tribes of the Canaanites. He may have required them to bring other Heathens under a form of servitude violative of the general morality of his word.—Of course, no blame attaches to the execution of such commands. When He specially deputes us to kill for Him, we are as innocent in the agency, notwithstanding the general law, "thou shalt not kill," as is the earthquake or thunderbolt, when commissioned to destroy. Samuel was as innocent in hewing "Agag in pieces," as is the tree that falls upon the traveler. It may be remarked, in this connexion, that the fact that God gave a special statute to destroy some of the tribes of the Canaanites, argues the contrariety of the thing required to the morality of the Bible. It argues, that this morality would not have secured the accomplishment of what was required by the statute. Indeed, it is probable that it was, sometimes, under the influence of the tenderness and mercy inculcated by this morality, that the Jews were guilty of going counter to the special statute in question, and sparing the devoted Canaanites, as in the instance when they "spared Agag." We might reason, similarly to show that a special statute, if indeed there were such a one, authorizing the Jews to compel the Heathen to serve them, argues that compulsory service is contrary to fundamental morality. We will suppose that God did; in the special statute referred to, clothe the Jews with power to enslave Heathens, and now let me ask you, whether it is by this same statute to enslave, that you justify your neighbors and yourself for enslaving your fellow men? But this is a special statute, conferring a power on the Jews only—a power too, not to enslave whomsoever they could; but only a specified portion of the human family, and this portion, as we have seen, of a stock, other than that from which you have obtained your slaves. If the special statutes, by which God clothed the Jews with peculiar powers, may be construed to clothe you with similar powers, then, inasmuch as they were authorized and required to kill Canaanites, you may hunt up for destruction the straggling descendants of such of the devoted ones, as escaped the sword of the Jews. Or, to make a different interpretation of your rights, under this supposition; since the statute in question authorized and required the Jews to kill the heathen, within the borders of what was properly the Jews' country, then you are also authorized and required to kill the heathens within the limits of your country:—and these are not wanting, if the testimony of your ecclesiastical bodies, before referred to, can be relied on; and, if it be as they say, that the millions of the poor colored brethren in the midst of you are made heathens by the operation of the system, to which, with unparalleled wickedness, they are subjected.

If then, neither Noah's curse, nor the special statute in question, authorize you to enslave your fellow men, there is, probably, but one ground on which you will contend for authority to do so—and this is the ground of the general morality of the Christian religion—of the general principles of right and duty, in the word of God. Do you find your authority on this ground? If you do, then, manifestly, you have a right to enslave me, and I a right to enslave you, and every man has a right to enslave whomsoever he can;—a right as perfect, as is the right to do good to one another. Indeed, the enslavement of each other would, under this construction of duty, be the doing of good to one another. Think you, sir, that the universal exercise of this right would promote the fulfilment of the "new commandment that ye love one another?" Think you, it would be the harbinger of millenial peace and blessedness? Or, think you not, rather, that it would fully and frightfully realize the prophet's declaration: "They all lie in wait for blood: they hunt every man his neighbor with a net."

If any people have a right to enslave their fellow men, it must be the Jews, if they once had it. But if they ever had it, it ceased, when all their peculiar rights ceased. In respect to rights from the Most High, they are now on the same footing with other races of men. When "the vail of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom," then that distinction from the Gentile, in which the Jew had gloried, ceased, and the partition wall between them was prostrate for ever. The Jew, as well as the Gentile, was never more to depart from the general morality of the Bible. He was never again to be under any special statutes, whose requirements should bring him into collision with that morality: He was no more to confine his sympathies and friendships within the narrow range of the twelve tribes: but every son and daughter of Adam were thenceforth entitled to claim from him the heart and hand of a brother. "Under the glorious dispensation of the gospel," says the immortal Granville Sharp, "we are absolutely bound to consider ourselves as citizens of the world; every man whatever, without any partial distinction of nation, distance, or complexion, must necessarily be esteemed our neighbor and our brother; and we are absolutely bound, in Christian duty, to entertain a disposition towards all mankind, as charitable and benevolent, at least, as that which was required of the Jews under the law towards their brethren; and, consequently, it is absolutely unlawful for those who call themselves Christians, to exact of their brethren (I mean their brethren of the universe) a more burthensome service, than that to which the Jews were limited with respect to their brethren of the house of Israel; and the slavery or involuntary bondage of a brother Israelite was absolutely forbid."

It occurs to me, that after all which has been said to satisfy you, that compulsory servitude, if such there were among the Jews, cannot properly be pleaded in justification of yours; a question may still be floating in your mind whether, if God directed his chosen people to enslave the Heathen, slavery should not be regarded as a good system of servitude? Just as pertinently may you ask, whether that is not a good system of servitude, which is found in some of our state prisons. Punishment probably—certainly not labor—is the leading object in the one case as well as the other: and the labor of the bondman in the one, as well as of the convict in the other, constitutes but a subordinate consideration. To suppose that God would, with every consideration out of view, but that of having the best relation of employer and laborer, make choice of slavery—to suppose that He believes that this state of servitude operates most beneficially, both for the master and the servant—is a high impeachment of the Divine wisdom and goodness. But thus guilty are you, if you are unwilling to believe, that, if He chose the severe servitude in question, He chose it for the punishment of his enemies, or from some consideration, other than its suitableness for the ordinary purposes of the relation of master and servant.

But it has been for the sake of argument only, that I have admitted that God authorized the Jews to enslave the heathen. I now totally deny that He did so. You will, of course, consent that if He did so, it was in a special statute, as was the case when He authorized them to exterminate other heathen: and you will as readily consent that He enacted the statutes, in both instances, with the view of punishing his enemies. Now, in killing the Canaanites, the Jew was constituted, not the owner of his devoted fellow man, but simply the executioner of God's vengeance: and evidently, such and no other was his character when he was reducing the Canaanite to involuntary servitude—that he did so reduce him, and was commissioned by God to do so, is the supposition we make for the sake of argument. Had the Jews been authorized by God to shut up in dungeons for life those of the heathen, whom they were directed to have for bondmen and bondmaids, you would not claim, that they, any more than sheriffs and jailers in our day, are to be considered in the light of owners of the persons in their charge. Much less then, can the Jews be considered as the owners of any person whom they held in servitude: for, however severe the type of that servitude, the liberty of its subject was not restricted, as was that of the prisoners in question:—most certainly, the power asserted over him is not to be compared in extent with that asserted by the Jew over the Canaanite, whom he slew;—a case in which he was, indisputably, but the executioner of the Divine wrath. The Canaanite, whether devoted to a violent death or to an involuntary servitude, still remained the property of God: and God no more gave him up to be the property of the executioner of his wrath, than the people of the State of New York give up the offender against public justice to be the property of the ministers of that justice. God never suspends the accountability of his rational creatures to himself: and his rights to them, He never transfers to others. He could not do so consistently with his attributes, and his indissoluble relations to man. But slavery claims, that its subjects are the property of man. It claims to turn them into mere chattels, and to make them as void of responsibility to God, as other chattels. Slavery, in a word, claims to push from his throne the Supreme Being, who declares, "all souls are mine." That it does not succeed in getting its victim out of God's hand, and in unmanning and chattelizing him—that God's hold upon him remains unbroken, and that those upward tendencies of the soul, which distinguish man from the brute, are not yet entirely crushed in him—is no evidence in favor of its nature:—it simply proves, that its power is not equal to its purposes. We see, then, that the Jews—if it be true that they reduced their fellow men to involuntary servitude, and did so as the Heaven-appointed ministers of God's justice,—are not to be charged with slaveholding for it. There may be involuntary servitude where there is no slavery. The essential and distinguishing feature of slavery is its reduction of man to property—to a thing. A tenant of one of our state prisons is under a sentence of "hard labor for life." But he is not a slave. That is, he is not the thing which slavery would mark its subject. He is still a man. Offended justice has placed him in his present circumstances, because he is a man: and, it is because he is a man and not a thing—a responsible, and not an irresponsible being, that he must continue in his present trials and sufferings.

God's commandments to the Jews, respecting servants and strangers, show that He not only did not authorize them to set up the claim of property in their fellow men, but that He most carefully guarded against such exercises of power, as might lead to the assumption of a claim so wrongful to Himself. Some of these commandments I will bring to your notice. They show that whatever was the form of servitude under which God allowed the Jews to hold the heathen, it was not slavery. Indeed, if all of the Word of God which bears on this point were cited and duly explained, it would, perhaps, appear that He allowed no involuntary servitude whatever amongst the Jews. I give no opinion whether he allowed it or not. There are strong arguments which go to show, that He did not allow it; and with these arguments the public will soon be made more extensively acquainted. It is understood, that the next number of the Anti-Slavery Examiner will be filled with them.

1st. So galling are the bonds of Southern slavery, that it could not live a year under the operation of a law forbidding the restoration of fugitive servants to their masters. How few of the discontented subjects of this oppressive servitude would agree with Hamlet, that it is better to

—"bear those ills we have, Than fly to others that we know not of."

What a running there would be from the slave States to the free!—from one slave State to another!—from one plantation to another! Now, such a law—a solemn commandment of God—many writers on slavery are of the opinion, perhaps too confident opinion, was in force in the Jewish nation (Deut. xxiii, 15); and yet the system of servitude on which it bore, and which you cite as the pattern and authority for your own, lived in spite of it. How could it? Manifestly, because its genius was wholly unlike that of Southern slavery; and because its rigors and wrongs, if rigors and wrongs there were in it, bear no comparison to those which characterize Southern slavery; and which would impel nine-tenths of its adult subjects to fly from their homes, did they but know that they would not be obliged to return to them. When Southern slaveholders shall cease to scour the land for fugitive servants, and to hunt them with guns and dogs, and to imprison, and scourge, and kill them;—when, in a word, they shall subject to the bearing of such a law as that referred to their system of servitude, then we shall begin to think that they are sincere in likening it to the systems which existed among the Jews. The law, enacted in Virginia in 1705, authorizing any two justices of the peace "by proclamation to outlaw runaways, who might thereafter be killed and destroyed by any person whatsoever, by such ways and means as he might think fit, without accusation or impeachment of any crime for so doing," besides that it justifies what I have just said about hunting fugitive servants, shows, 1st. That the American Anti-Slavery Society is of too recent an origin to be the occasion, as slaveholders and their apologists would have us believe, of all the cruel laws enacted at the South. 2d. That Southern slaveholders would be very unwilling to have their system come under the operation of such a law as that which allowed the Jewish servant to change his master. 3d. That they are monsters, indeed, into which men may be turned by their possession of absolute power.

You, perhaps, suppose, (and I frankly admit to you, that there is some room for the supposition,) that the servants referred to in the 15th and 16th verses of the 23d chapter of Deuteronomy, were such as had escaped from foreign countries to the country of the Jews. But, would this view of the matter help you? By taking it, would you not expose yourself to be most pertinently and embarrassingly asked, for what purpose these servants fled to a strange and most odious people?—and would not your candid reply necessarily be, that it was to escape from the galling chains of slavery, to a far-famed milder type of servitude?—from Gentile oppression, to a land in which human rights were protected by Divine laws? But, as I have previously intimated, I have not the strongest confidence in the anti-slavery argument, so frequently drawn from this passage of the Bible. I am not sure that a Jewish servant is referred to: nor that on the supposition of his being a foreigner, the servant came under any form of servitude when entering the land of the Jews. Before leaving the topic, however, let me remark, that the passage, under any construction of it, makes against Southern slavery. Admit that the fugitive servant was a foreigner, and that he was not reduced to servitude on coming among the Jews, let me ask you whether the law in question, under this view of it, would be tolerated by the spirit of Southern slavery?—and whether, before obedience would be rendered to it, you would not need to have a different type of servitude, in the place of slavery? You would—I know you would—for you have been put to the trial. When, by a happy providence, a vessel was driven, the last year, to a West India island, and the chains of the poor slaves with which it was filled fell from around them, under freedom's magic power, the exasperated South was ready to go to war with Great Britain. Then, the law against delivering up foreign servants to their masters was not relished by you. The given case comes most strikingly within the supposed policy of this law. The Gentile was to be permitted to remain in the land to which he had fled, and where he would have advantages for becoming acquainted with the God of the Bible. Such advantages are they enjoying who escaped from the confessed heathenism of Southern slavery to the island in question. They are now taught to read that "Book of life," which before, they were forbidden to read. But again, suppose a slave were to escape from a West India island into the Southern States—would you, with your "domestic institutions," of which you are so jealous, render obedience to this Divine law? No; you would subject him for ever to a servitude more severe than that, from which he had escaped. Indeed, if a freeman come within a certain portion of our Southern country, and be so unhappy as to bear a physical resemblance to the slave, he will be punished for that resemblance, by imprisonment, and even by a reduction to slavery.

2d. Southern slaveholders, who, by their laws, own men as absolutely as they own cattle, would have it believed, that Jewish masters thus owned their fellow-men. If they did, why was there so wide a difference between the commandment respecting the stray man, and that respecting the stray ox or ass? The man was not, but the beasts were, to be returned; and that too, even though their owner was the enemy of him who met them. (Ex. 23. 4.) I repeat the question;—why this difference? The only answer is, because God made the brute to be the property of man; but He never gave us our noble nature for such degradation. Man's title deed, in the eighth Psalm, extends his right of property to the inanimate and brute creation only—not to the flesh and bones and spirit of his fellow-man.

3d. The very different penalties annexed to the crime of stealing a man, and to that of stealing a thing, shows the eternal and infinite difference which God has established between a man and property. The stealing of a man was surely to be punished with death; whilst mere property was allowed to atone for the offence of stealing property.

4th. Who, if not the slave, can be said to be vexed and oppressed! But God's command to his people was, that they should neither "vex a stranger, nor oppress him."

5th. Such is the nature of American slavery, that not even its warmest friends would claim that it could recover itself after such a "year of jubilee" as God appointed. One such general delivery of its victims would be for ever fatal to it. I am aware that you deny that all the servants of the Jews shared in the blessings of the "year of jubilee." But let me ask you, whether if one third or one half of your servants were discharged from servitude every fiftieth year—and still more, whether if a considerable proportion of them were thus discharged every sixth year—the remainder would not be fearfully discontented? Southern masters believe, that their only safety consists in keeping down the discontent of their servants. Hence their anxious care to withhold from them the knowledge of human rights. Hence the abolitionist who is caught in a slave state, must be whipped or put to death. If there were a class of servants amongst the Jews, who could bear to see all their fellow servants go free, whilst they themselves were retained in bondage, then that bondage was of a kind very different from what you suppose it to have been. Had its subjects worn the galling chains of American slavery, they would have struggled with bloody desperation for the deliverance which they saw accorded to others.

I scarcely need say, that the Hebrew words rendered "bondmen" and "bondmaids," do not, in themselves considered, and independently of the connexion in which they are used, any more than the Greek words doulos and doule, denote a particular kind of servant. If the servant was a slave, because he was called by the Hebrew word rendered "bondman," then was Jacob a slave also:—and even still greater absurdities could be deduced from the position.

I promised, in a former part of this communication, to give you my reasons for denying that you are at liberty to plead in behalf of slavery, the example of any compulsory servitude in which Jews may have held foreigners. My promise is now fulfilled, and I trust that the reasons are such as not to admit of an answer.

Driven, as you now are, from every other conceivable defence of slaveholding it may be (though I must hope better things of you), that you will fly to the ground taken by the wicked multitude—that there is authority in the laws of man for being a slaveholder. But, not only is the sin of your holding slaves undiminished by the consideration, that they are held under human laws; but, your claiming to hold them under such laws, makes you guilty of an additional sin, which, if measured by its pernicious consequences to others, is by no means inconsiderable. The truth of these two positions is apparent from the following considerations.

1st. There is no valid excuse to be found, either in man's laws or any where else, for transgressing God's laws. Whatever may be thought, or said to the contrary, it still remains, and for ever will remain true, that under all circumstances, "sin is the transgression of the (Divine) law."

2d. In every instance in which a commandment of God is transgressed, under the cover and plea of a human law, purporting to permit what that commandment forbids, there is, in proportion to the authority and influence of the transgressor, a fresh sanction imparted to that law; and consequently, in the same proportion the public habit of setting up a false standard of right and wrong is promoted. It is this habit—this habit of graduating our morality by the laws of the land in which we live—that makes the "mischief framed by a law" so much more pernicious than that which has no law to countenance it, and to commend it to the conscience. Who is unaware, that nothing tends so powerfully to keep the traffic in strong drink from becoming universally odious, as the fact, that this body and soul destroying business finds a sanction in human laws? Who has not seen the man, authorized by these laws to distribute the poison amongst his tippling neighbors, proof against all the shafts of truth, under the self-pleasing and self-satisfying consideration, that his is a lawful business.

This habit of setting up man's law, instead of God's law, as the standard of conduct, is strikingly manifested in the fact, that on the ground, that the Federal Constitution binds the citizens of the United States to perpetuate slavery, or at least, not to meddle with it, we are, both at the North and the South, called on to forbear from all efforts to abolish it. The exertions made to discover in that instrument, authority for slavery, and authority against endeavors to abolish it, are as great, anxious, and unwearied, as if they who made them, thought that the fortunate discovery would settle for ever the great question which agitates our country—would nullify all the laws of God against slavery—and make the oppression of our colored brethren, as long as time shall last, justifiable and praiseworthy. But this discovery will never be made; for the Constitution is not on the side of the slaveholder. If it were, however, it would clothe him with no moral right to act in opposition to the paramount law of God. It is not at all necessary to the support of my views, in this communication, to show that the Constitution was not designed to favor slavery; and yet, a few words to this end may not be out of place.

A treaty between Great Britain and Turkey, by the terms of which the latter should be prohibited from allowing slaves to be brought within her dominions, after twenty years from its date, would, all will admit, redound greatly to the credit of Great Britain. To be sure, she would not have done as much for the cause of humanity, as if she had succeeded in bringing the further indulgence of the sin within the limits of a briefer period, and incomparably less than if she had succeeded in reconciling the Sublime Porte to her glorious and emphatically English doctrines of immediate emancipation. But still she would deserve some praise—much more than if she had done nothing in this respect. Now, for my present purpose, and many of our statesmen say, for nearly all purposes, the Federal Constitution is to be regarded as a treaty between sovereign States. But how much more does this treaty do for the abolition of slavery, than that on which we were, a moment since, bestowing our praise! It imposes a prohibition similar to that in the supposed treaty between Great Britain and Turkey, so that no slaves have been allowed to be introduced into the United States since the year 1808. It goes further, and makes ample provision for the abolition and prevention of slavery in every part of the nation, save these States; so that the District of Columbia and the national territories can be cleared forever of slavery, whenever a majority of the parties, bound by the treaty, shall desire it. And it goes still farther, and clothes this majority with the power of regulating commerce between the States, and consequently, of prohibiting their mutual traffic in "the bodies and souls of men." Had this treaty gone but one step farther, and made an exception, as it should have done, in behalf of slaves, in the clause making necessary provision for the return of fugitives held to service in the States from which they flee, none but those who think it is fairly held responsible for the twenty years indulgence of the unholy traffic, would have claimed any thing more from it in relation to slavery. Now, this instrument, which contains nothing more, bearing on the subject of slavery, than what I have referred to, and whose pages are not once polluted with the words "slave" and "slavery," is abundantly and triumphantly cited, as conclusive authority in favor of slavery, and against endeavors to abolish it. Whilst we regret, that the true-hearted sons of freedom in the Convention which formed it, could obtain no more concessions from the advocates of slavery, let us honor their sacred memory, and thank God for those they did obtain.

I have supposed it possible, that you might number yourself with those, who defend slavery on the ground of its alleged conformity with human laws. It occurs to me, that you may, also, take hope, that slavery is defensible in the supposed fact, that a considerable share of the professing Christians, in the free States, are in favor of it. "Let God be true, but every man a liar." If all professing Christians were for slavery, yet, if God is against it, that is reason enough why you also should be against it. It is not true, however, that a considerable share of our professing Christians are on the side of slavery. Indeed, until I read Professor Hodge's article, I had not supposed that any of them denied its sinfulness. It is true, that a large proportion of them refuse to take a stand against it. Let them justify to their consciences, and to their God, as they can, the equivocal silence and still more equivocal action on this subject, by which they have left their Southern brethren to infer, that Northern piety sanctions slavery. It is the doctrine of expediency, so prevalent and corrupting in the American Church, which has deceived you into the belief, that a large share of the professing Christians in the free States, think slavery to be sinless. This share, which you have in your eye, is, as well as the remainder, convinced that slavery is sinful—only they think it inexpedient to say so. In relation to other sins, they are satisfied with God's way of immediate abandonment. But, in relation to slavery, they flatter themselves that they have discovered "a more excellent way"—that of leaving the sin untouched, and simply hoping for its cessation, at some indefinite period in the distant future. I say hoping, instead of praying, as prayer for an object is found to be accompanied by corresponding efforts. But for this vile doctrine of expediency, which gives to our ecclesiastical bodies, whenever the subject of such a giant and popular sin as slavery is broached in them, the complexion of a political caucus steeped in unprincipled policy, rather than that of a company of the Saviour's disciples, inquiring "in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom," the way of the Lord;—but for this doctrine, I say, you would, long ago, have heard the testimony of Northern Christians against Southern slavery;—and not only so, but you would long ago have seen this Dagon fall before the power of that testimony. I trust, however, that this testimony will not long be withheld; and that Northern Christians will soon perceive, that, in relation to slavery, as well as every other sin, it is the safest and wisest, as well as the holiest course, to drop all carnal policy—to "trust in the Lord with all thine heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding."

Not only are Northern Christians, with very rare exceptions, convinced of the sin of slavery; but even your slaveholders were formerly accustomed, with nearly as great unanimity, to admit, that they themselves thought it to be sinful. It is only recently, and since they have found that their system must be tested by the Bible, thoroughly and in earnest—not merely for the purpose, as formerly, of determining without any practical consequences of the determination, what is the moral character of slavery—but, for the purpose of settling the point, whether the institution shall stand or fall,—it is only, I say, since the civilized world has been fast coming to claim that it shall be decided by the Bible, and by no lower standard, whether slavery shall or shall not exist—that your slaveholders have found it expedient to take the ground, that slavery is not sin.

It probably has not occurred to you, how fairly and fully you might have been stopped, upon the very threshold of your defence of slavery. The only witness you have called to the stand to sustain your sinking cause, is the Bible. But this is a witness, which slavery has itself impeached, and of which, therefore, it is not entitled to avail itself. It is a good rule in our civil courts, that a party is not permitted to impeach his own witness; and it is but an inconsiderable variation of the letter of this rule, and obviously no violation of its spirit and policy to say, that no party is permitted to attempt to benefit his cause by a witness whom he has himself impeached. Now, the slaveholder palpably violates this rule, when he presumes to offer the Bible as a witness for his cause:—for he has previously impeached it, by declaring, in his slave system, that it is not to be believed—that its requirements are not to be obeyed—that they are not even to be read (though the Bible expressly directs that they shall be)—that concubinage shall be substituted for the marriage it enjoins—and that its other provisions for the happiness, and even the existence, of the social relations, shall be trampled under foot. The scene, in which a lawyer should ask the jury to believe what his witness is saying at one moment, and to reject what he is saying at another, would be ludicrous enough. But what more absurdity is there in it than that which the pro-slavery party are guilty of, when they would have us deaf, whilst their witness is testifying in favor of marriage and searching the Scriptures; and, all ears, whilst that same witness is testifying, as they construe it, in favor of slavery! No—before it will be competent for the American slaveholder to appeal to the Bible for justification of his system, that system must be so modified, as no longer to make open, shameless war upon the Bible. I would recommend to slaveholders, that, rather than make so unhallowed a use of the Bible as to attempt to bolster up their hard beset cause with it, they should take the ground, which a very distinguished slaveholding gentleman of the city of Washington took, in a conversation with myself on the subject of slavery. Feeling himself uncomfortably plied by quotations from the word of God, he said with much emphasis, "Stop, Sir, with that, if you please—SLAVERY IS A SUBJECT, WHICH HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE BIBLE."

This practice of attempting to put the boldest and most flagrant sins under the wing and sanction of the Bible, is chargeable on others as well as on the advocates of slavery. Not to speak of other instances of it—it is sought to justify by this blessed book the most despotic forms of civil government, and the drinking of intoxicating liquors. There are two evils so great, which arise from this perversion of the word of God, that I cannot forbear to notice them. One is, that the consciences of men are quieted, when they imagine that they have found a justification in the Bible for the sins of which they are guilty. The other is, that infidels are multiplied by this perversion. A respectable gentleman, who edits a newspaper in this neighborhood, and who, unhappily, is not established in the Christian faith, was asked, a few months since, to attend a meeting of a Bible Society. "I am not willing," said he, in reply, "to favor the circulation of a volume, which many of its friends claim to be on the side of slavery." Rely on it, Sir, that wherever your book produces the conviction that the Bible justifies slavery, it there weakens whatever of respect for that blessed volume previously existed. Whoever is brought to associate slavery with the Bible, may, it is true, think better of slavery; but he will surely think worse of the Bible. I hope, therefore, in mercy to yourself and the world, that the success of your undertaking will be small.

But oftentimes the same providence has a bright, as well as a gloomy, aspect. It is so in the case before us. The common attempt, in our day, to intrench great sins in the authority of the Bible, is a consoling and cheering evidence, that this volume is recognised as the public standard of right and wrong; and that, whatever may be their private opinions of it who are guilty of these sins, they cannot hope to justify themselves before the world, unless their lives are, apparently, at least, conformed, in some good degree, to this standard. We may add, too, that, as surely as the Bible is against slavery, every pro-slavery writer, who like yourself appeals to it as the infallible and only admissible standard of right and wrong, will contribute to the overthrow of the iniquitous system. His writings may not, uniformly, tend to this happy result. In some instances, he may strengthen confidence in the system of slavery by producing conviction, that the Bible sanctions it;—and then his success will be, as before remarked, at the expense of the claims and authority of the Bible:—but these instances of the pernicious effects of his writings will be very rare, quite too rare we may hope, to counterbalance the more generally useful tendency of writings on the subject of slavery, which recognise the paramount authority of God's law.

Having completed the examination of your book, I wish to hold up to you, in a single view, the substance of what you have done. You have come forth, the unblushing advocate of American slavery;—a system which, whether we study its nature in the deliberate and horrid enactments of its code, or in the heathenism and pollution and sweat and tears and blood, which prove, but too well, the agreement of its practical character with its theory—is, beyond all doubt, more oppressive and wicked than any other, which the avaricious, sensual, cruel heart of man ever devised. You have come forth, the unblushing advocate of a system under which parents are daily selling their children; brothers and sisters, their brothers and sisters; members of the Church of Christ, their fellow-members—under which, in a word, immortal man, made "in the image of God," is more unfeelingly and cruelly dealt with, than the brute. I know that you intimate that this system would work well, were it in the hands of none but good men. But with equal propriety might you say, that the gaming-house or the brothel would work well in such hands. You have attempted to sustain this system by the testimony of the Bible. The system, a part only of the crimes of which, most of the nations of Christendom have declared to be piracy;—against which, the common sense, the philosophy, the humanity, the conscience of the world, are arrayed;—this system, so execrable and infamous, you have had the presumption to attempt to vindicate by that blessed book, whose Author "is of purer eyes than to behold evil, and (who) cannot look upon iniquity"—and who "has magnified his word above all his name."

And now, Sir, let me solemnly inquire of you, whether it is right to do what you have done?—whether it is befitting a man, a Christian, and a minister of the gospel?—and let me, further, ask you, whether you have any cheering testimony in your heart that it is God's work you have been doing? That you and I may, in every future work of our hands, have the happiness to know, that the approbation of our employer comes from the upper, and not from the under world, is the sincere desire of



Your friend,

GERRIT SMITH.



No. 4



THE

ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER.



THE

BIBLE AGAINST SLAVERY.



AN INQUIRY

INTO THE

PATRIARCHAL AND MOSAIC SYSTEMS

ON THE SUBJECT OF HUMAN RIGHTS.

NEW-YORK:

PUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY,

NO. 143 NASSAU STREET.

1837.

POSTAGE—This periodical contains five and a half sheets. Postage under 100 miles, 8-1/2 cts over 100 miles, 14 cents.

Please read and circulate.

PIERCY & REED. PRINTERS,

7 Theatre Alley.



CONTENTS.

Definition of Slavery

Man-stealing—Examination of Ex. xxi. 16

Import of "Bought with money," etc.

Rights and privileges of servants

No involuntary servitude under the Mosaic system

Servants were paid wages

Masters, not owners

Servants distinguished from property

Social equality of servants with their masters

Condition of the Gibeonites, as subjects of the Hebrew Commonwealth

Egyptian bondage analyzed

OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED.

"Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be," etc. Gen. ix. 25

"For he is his money," Examination of, Ex. xxi. 20, 21

"Bondmen and bondmaids" bought of the heathen. Lev. xxv. 44-46

"They shall be your bondmen forever." Lev. xxv. 46

"Ye shall take them as an inheritance," etc. Lev. xxv. 46

The Israelite to serve as a hired servant. Lev. xxv. 39, 40

Difference between bought and hired servants

Bought servants the most privileged class

Summary of the different classes of servants

Disabilities of the servants from the heathen

Examination of Exodus xxi. 2-6

The Canaanites not sentenced to unconditional extermination



INQUIRY, &c.

* * * * *

The spirit of slavery never takes refuge in the Bible of its own accord. The horns of the altar are its last resort. It seizes them, if at all, only in desperation—rushing 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 breaks at last into the sacred enclosure, and courses up and down the Bible, "seeking rest, and finding none." THE LAW OF LOVE, streaming from every page, flashes around it an omnipresent anguish and despair. It shrinks from the hated light, and howls under the consuming touch, as demons recoiled from the Son of God, and shrieked, "Torment us not." At last, it slinks away among the shadows of the Mosaic system, and thinks to burrow out of sight among its types and shadows. Vain hope! Its asylum is its sepulchre; its city of refuge, the city of destruction. It rushes from light into the sun; from heat, into devouring fire; and from the voice of God into the thickest of His thunders.

DEFINITION OF SLAVERY.

If we would know whether the Bible is the charter of slavery, we must first determine just what slavery is. The thing itself must be separated from its appendages. A constituent element is one thing; a relation another; an appendage another. Relations and appendages presuppose other things, of which there are relations and appendages. To regard them as the things to which they pertain, or as constituent parts of them, leads to endless fallacies. A great variety of conditions, relations, and tenures, indispensable to the social state, are confounded with slavery; and thus slaveholding is deemed quite harmless, if not virtuous. We will specify some of the things which are often confounded with slavery.

1. Privation of the right of suffrage. Then minors are slaves.

2. Ineligibility to office. Then females are slaves.

3. Taxation without representation. Then three-fourths of the people of Rhode Island are slaves, and all in the District of Columbia.

4. Privation of one's oath in law. Then the free colored people of Ohio are slaves. So are disbelievers in a future retribution, generally.

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

6. Being required to support a particular religion. Then the people of England are slaves. [To the preceding may be added all other disabilities, merely political.]

7. Cruelty and oppression. Wives are often cruelly treated; hired domestics are often oppressed; but these forms of oppression are not slavery.

8. Apprenticeship. The rights and duties of master and apprentice are correlative and reciprocal. The claim of each upon the other results from the obligation of each to the other. Apprenticeship is based on the principle of equivalent for value received. The rights of the apprentice are secured, and his interests are promoted equally with those of the master. Indeed, while the law of apprenticeship is just to the master, it is benevolent to the apprentice. Its main design is rather to benefit the apprentice than the master. It promotes the interests of the former, while it guards from injury those of the latter in doing it. It secures to the master a mere legal compensation, while it secures to the apprentice both a legal compensation, and a virtual gratuity in addition, the apprentice being of the two decidedly 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 payment. The master's claim covers only the services of the apprentice. The apprentice's claim covers equally the services of the master. The master cannot hold the apprentice as property, nor the apprentice the master; but each holds property in the services of the other, and BOTH EQUALLY. Is this slavery?

9. Filial subordination and parental claims. Both are nature's dictates, and indispensable to the existence of the social state; their design the promotion of mutual welfare; and the means, those natural affections created by the relation of parent and child, and blending them in one by irrepressible affinities; and thus, while exciting each to discharge those offices incidental to the relation, they constitute a shield for mutual protection. The parent's legal claim to the services of his children, while minors, is a slight boon for the care and toil of their rearing, to say nothing of outlays for support and education. This provision for the good of the whole, is, with the greater part 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.

10. Bondage for crime, or governmental claims on criminals. Must innocence be punished because guilt suffers penalties? True, the criminal works for the government without pay; and well he may. He owes the government. A century's work would not pay its drafts on him. He is a public defaulter, and will die so. Because laws make men pay their debts, shall those be forced to pay who owe nothing? Besides, the law makes no criminal, PROPERTY. It restrains his liberty; it 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? Are chattels punished?

11. Restrictions upon freedom. Children are restrained by parents, wards by guardians, pupils by teachers, patients by physicians and nurses, corporations by charters, and legislators 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 civilized society is a mammoth slave—a government of LAW, the climax of slavery, and its executive a king among slaveholders.

12. Involuntary or compulsory service. A juryman is empannelled 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 absurd. Slavery is a condition. The slave's feelings toward it, are one thing; the condition itself, the object of these feelings, is another thing; his feelings cannot alter the nature of that condition. Whether he desire or detest it, the condition remains the same. The slave's willingness to be a slave is no palliation of his master's guilt in holding him. Suppose the slave verily thinks himself a chattel, and consents that others may so regard him, does 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 because I consent to be made a corpse? Does my partnership in his guilt blot out his part of it? If the slave were willing to be a slave, his voluntariness, so far from lessening the guilt of the "owner," aggravates it. If slavery has so palsied his mind and 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 in holding him as property, and call upon him in thunder, immediately to recognize him as a MAN, and thus break the sorcery that binds his soul, cheating it of its birth-right, and the consciousness of its worth and destiny.

Many of the foregoing conditions and relations are appendages of slavery, and some of them inseparable from it. But no one, nor all of them together, constitute its intrinsic unchanging element.

We proceed to state affirmatively that,

ENSLAVING MEN IS REDUCING THEM TO ARTICLES OF PROPERTY, making free agents chattels, converting persons into things, sinking intelligence, accountability, immortality, into merchandise. A slave is one held in this condition. He is a mere tool for another's use and benefit. In law "he owns nothing, and can acquire nothing." His right to himself is abrogated. He is another's property. If he say my hands, my feet, my body, my mind, MYself; 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 keeping is insurrection. In a word, the> profit of his master is 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[A]. MAN sunk to a thing! the intrinsic element, the principle of slavery; MEN sold, bartered, leased, mortgaged, bequeathed, invoiced, shipped in cargoes, stored as goods, taken on executions, and knocked off at public outcry! Their rights another's conveniences, their interests, wares on sale, their happiness, a household utensil; their personal inalienable ownership, a serviceable article, or plaything, as best suits the humor 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 with burdens, but making him a beast of burden; not restraining liberty, but subverting it; not curtailing rights, but abolishing them; not inflicting personal cruelty, but annihilating personality; not exacting involuntary labor, but sinking him into an implement of labor; not abridging his human comforts, but abrogating his human nature; not depriving an animal of immunities, but despoiling a rational being of attributes, uncreating a MAN to make room for a thing!

[Footnote A: Whatever system sinks man from an END to a means, or in other words, whatever transforms him from an object of instrumentality into a mere instrumentality to an object, just so far makes him a slave. Hence West India apprenticeship retains in one particular the cardinal principle of slavery. The apprentice, during three-fourths of his time, is still forced to labor, and robbed of his earnings; just so far forth he is a mere means, a slave. True, in all other respects slavery is abolished in the British West Indies. Its bloodiest features are blotted out—but the meanest and most despicable of all—forcing the poor to work for the rich without pay three-fourths of their time, with a legal officer to flog them if they demur at the outrage, is one of the provisions of the "Emancipation Act!" For the glories of that luminary, abolitionists thank God, while they mourn that it rose behind clouds, and shines through an eclipse.]

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—is an article of property, a chattel personal, obtains as undoubted law in all of these states," (the slave states.) The law of South Carolina thus lays down the principle, "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, CONSTRUCTIONS, AND PURPOSES WHATSOEVER." Brevard's Digest, 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." Civil Code of Louisiana, Art. 35.

This is American slavery. The eternal distinction between a person and a thing, trampled under foot—the crowning distinction of all others—their centre and circumference—the source, the test, and the measure of their value—the rational, immortal principle, embalmed by God in everlasting remembrance, consecrated 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 protecting shield, upholding staff, and sheltering wing; His opening heavens, and angels ministering, and chariots of fire, and songs of morning stars, and a great voice in heaven, 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?[A][A]? To the law and the testimony. First, the moral law, or the ten commandments. 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. Look at the eighth, "Thou shall not steal," or, thou shalt not take from another what belongs to him. All man's powers of body and mind are God's gift to him. That they are his own, and that he has a right to them, is proved from the fact that God has given them to him alone, that each of them is a part of himself, 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 commandment presupposes and assumes the right of every man to his 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 whatever else that belongs to him is merely relative to his right to himself—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, the world over, when talking about their RIGHT to their slaves, always assume their own right to themselves. What slaveholder ever undertook to prove his own 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. The slaveholder, in making out his own title to himself, makes out the title of every human being to himself. As the fact of being a man is itself the title, the whole human family have one common 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 him a slave, the slaveholder asserts the validity of his own title, while he seizes him as his property who has the same title. Further, in making him a slave, he does not merely unhumanize 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.

[Footnote A: 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?]

The eighth commandment forbids the taking of any part of that which belongs to another. Slavery takes the whole. Does the same Bible which forbids the taking of any thing belonging to him, sanction the taking of every thing? Is it such a medley of absurdities as to thunder wrath against him who robs his neighbor of a cent, while it bids God speed to him who robs his neighbor of himself? Slavery is the highest possible violation of the eighth commandment. To take from a man his earnings, is theft. But to take the earner, is compound, superlative, perpetual theft. It is to be a thief by profession. It is a trade, a life of robbery, that vaults through all the gradations of the climax at a leap—the dread, terrific, giant robbery, that towers among other robberies, a solitary horror, monarch of the realm. The eighth commandment forbids the taking away, and the tenth adds, "Thou shalt not COVET any thing that is thy neighbor's;" thus guarding every man's right to himself and his 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, or held them as slaves without coveting them? Why do they take from them their time, their labor, their liberty, their right of self-preservation and improvement, 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? Why do they take them, if they do not desire them? 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.



The giving of the law at Sinai, immediately preceded the promulgation of that body of laws and institutions, 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." See Exodus, xxi. 16.

The oppression of the Israelites in Egypt, and the wonders wrought for their deliverance, proclaim the reason for such a law at such a time—when the body politic became a theocracy, and reverently waited for the will of God. They had just been emancipated. The tragedies of their house of bondage were the realities of yesterday, and peopled their memories with 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 cleaving in swarms to every living thing—the streets, the palaces, the temples, and every house heaped up with the carcasses of things abhorred—even the kneading troughs and ovens, the secret chambers and the couches, reeking and dissolving with the putrid death—the pestilence walking in darkness at noonday, 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 in 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 monument of wrath to the uttermost against the stealers of men.

No wonder that God, in a code of laws prepared for such a people at such a time, should light up on its threshold a blazing beacon to flash terror on slaveholders. "He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall be surely put to death." Ex. xxii. 16. God's cherubim and flaming sword guarding the entrance to the Mosaic system! See also Deut. xxiv. 7[A].

[Footnote A: Jarchi, the most eminent of the Jewish writers, (if we except perhaps the Egyptian Maimonides,) 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 to the value 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."]

The Hebrew word, Gaunab, here rendered stealeth, means the taking from another what belongs to him, whether it be by violence or fraud; the same word is used in the eighth 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 depriving a master of his servant? Then it would have been "he that stealeth" 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 especially if it was the relation of property and proprietor!

The crime, as stated in the passage, is three-fold—man stealing, selling and holding. All are put on a level, and whelmed under one penalty—DEATH. This somebody deprived of the ownership of man, is the man himself, robbed of personal ownership. Joseph said to the servants of Pharoah, "Indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews." Gen. xl. 15. How stolen? His brethren took him and sold him as an article of merchandize. Contrast this penalty for man-stealing with that for property-stealing. Exod. xxii. If a man stole an ox and killed or sold it, he was to restore five oxen; if he had neither sold nor killed it, the penalty was two oxen. The selling or the killing being virtually a deliberate repetition of the crime, the penalty was more than doubled.

But in the case of stealing a man, the first act drew down the utmost power of punishment; however often repeated, or however aggravated the crime, human penalty could do no more. The fact that the penalty for man-stealing 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 past labor, and his support a burden, yet death was 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 amount stolen, the payment of double wiped out the score. It might have a greater money value than a thousand men, yet death was never the penalty, nor maiming, nor branding, nor even stripes. Whatever the kind, or the amount stolen, the unvarying penalty was double of the same kind. Why was not the rule uniform? When a man was stolen why not require the thief 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 whole of 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 the intolerable aggravations of supreme insult and impiety. Compute the value of a MAN in money! Throw dust into the scale against immortality! The law recoiled from such outrage and blasphemy. 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 from the guilty wretch the utmost possibility of reparation. It wrung from him, as he gave up the ghost, a testimony in blood, and death groans, to the infinite dignity and worth of man,—a proclamation to the universe, voiced in mortal agony, that MAN IS INVIOLABLE,—a confession shrieked in phrenzy at the grave's mouth—"I die accursed, 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? Why did he punish with death for stealing a very little, perhaps not a sixpence worth, 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—especially if God did by his own act annihilate the difference between man and property, by putting him on a level with it?

The atrociousness of a crime, depends greatly 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 the nature of the article, but in shifting its external relation from him to me. But when I take my neighbor himself, and first make him property, and then my property, the latter act, which was the sole crime in the former case, dwindles to a mere appendage. The sin in stealing a man does not consist in transferring, from its owner to another, that which is already property, but in turning personality into property. True, the attributes of man still remain, but the rights and immunities which grow out of them are annihilated. It is the first law of reason and revelation to regard things and beings as they are; and the sum of religion, to feel and act toward them according to their nature and value. Knowingly to treat them otherwise, is sin; and the degree of violence done to their nature, relations, and value, measures its guilt. When things are sundered which God has indissolubly joined, or confounded in one, which he has separated by infinite extremes; when sacred and eternal distinctions, which he has garnished with glory, are derided and set at nought, then, if ever, sin reddens in its "scarlet dye." The sin specified in the passage, is that of doing violence to the nature of a man—his intrinsic value and relations as a rational being, and blotting out the exalted distinction stamped upon him by his Maker. In the verse preceding, and in that which follows, the same principle is laid down. Verse 15, "He then smiteth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death." Verse 17, "He that curseth his father or his mother, shall surely be put to death." If a Jew smote his neighbor, the law merely smote him in return. But if that same blow were given to a parent, the law struck the smiter dead. Why this difference in the punishment of the same act, inflicted on different persons? Answer—God guards the parental relation with peculiar care. It is the centre of human relations. To violate that, is to violate all. Whoever trampled on that, showed that no relation had any sacredness in his eyes—that he was unfit to move among human relations who had violated one so sacred and tender.—Therefore, the Mosaic law uplifted his bleeding corpse, and brandished the ghastly terror around the parental relation to guard it from impious inroads.

But why the difference in the penalty since the act was the same? The sin had divers aggravations.

1. The relation violated was obvious—the distinction between parents and others, manifest, dictated by natural affection—a law of the constitution.

2. The act was violence to nature—a suicide on constitutional susceptibilities.

3. The parental relation then, as now, was the centre of the social system, 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 relation is God's favorite illustration, of his own relations to the whole family of man. In this case, death is inflicted not at all for the act of smiting, nor for smiting a man, but a parent—for violating a vital and sacred relation—a distinction cherished by God, and around which, both in the moral and ceremonial law, He threw up 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 here punished with death, is not the mere act of taking property from its owner, but the disregarding of fundamental relations, doing violence to an immortal nature, making war on a sacred distinction of priceless worth. That distinction which is cast headlong by the principle of American slavery; which makes MEN "chattels."

The incessant pains-taking throughout the old Testament, in the separation of human beings from brutes and things, shows God's regard for the sacredness of his own distinction.

"In the beginning" the Lord uttered it in heaven, and proclaimed it to the universe as it rose into being. He arrayed creation at the instant of its birth, to do it reverent homage. It paused in adoration while He 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, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."

Then while every living thing, with land, and sea, and firmament, and marshalled worlds, waited to catch and 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. Well might the sons of God cry all together, "Amen, alleluia"—"Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive blessing and honor"—"For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands; thou hast put all things under his feet. O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth." Psalms viii. 5, 6, 9. The frequent and solemn repetition of this distinction by God proclaims his infinite regard. The 26th, 27th, and 28th verses of the 1st chapter of Genesis are little else than the repetition of it in various forms. In the 5th chapter, 1st verse, we find it again—"In the day that God created man, IN THE LIKENESS of GOD MADE HE MAN." In the 9th chapter, 6th verse, we find it again. After giving license to shed the blood of "every moving thing that liveth," it is added, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for IN THE IMAGE OF GOD MADE HE MAN." As though he had said, "All these other creatures are your property, designed for your use—they have the likeness of earth, they perish with the using, 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 Levit. xxiv. 17, 18, "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 shall be put to death." So in the passage quoted above, Ps. viii. 5, 6. What an enumeration of particulars, each separating infinitely, MEN from brutes and things!