Mosaic code for the kind treatment of strangers (Ex. 22: 21, and Lev. 19: 33, 34) the law of Moses forbade the delivering up of a foreign slave to his master (Deut. 23: 15, 16); both the general and the specific provision, being founded upon the principle that the foreigner, free or slave, should be encouraged to take refuge among the worshippers of the true God in order to redeem him from heathenism. The use which the modern partisan expounders of God's Word make of this and similar texts as authority for their refusal to deliver up a fugitive slave to his Southern master fails in two essential particulars: first, in assuming that the religion of the Northern States is the direct revelation of Jehovah; and secondly, in assuming that the religion of the Southern States is undoubtedly heathenism. Any honest student of Scripture must perceive at once the ethical inconsistency of applying this enactment of the Mosaic code to the case of a slave escaping from one tribe (or State) of the commonwealth of Israel to the other.*

"Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped." The Hebrew doctors understand this of a servant of another nation who was become a Jew; while they understand it also of a servant that fled from his master out of any of the countries of the Gentiles into the land of Israel, which was to be a safe refuge to him. Pat., Com. Deut. 23: 15.

The land of Israel is here made a sanctuary or city of refuge for servants that were wronged by their masters, and fled thither for shelter from the neighboring nations."

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Supposing him willing to embrace their religion, they must give him all the encouragement that might be to settle among them. Thus would he soon find a comfortable difference between the land of Israel and all other lands, and would choose it to be his rest forever." Henry, Com. Deut. 23: 15.

"The Jewish writers generally understand it of the servants of idolaters fleeing for the sake of religion." Gill, Com. Deut. 23: 15.

“That is, the servant, not of a Hebrew, but of an alien and for eigner, Bishop Kidder.

5. That this holding of slaves under the civil law was not deemed inconsistent with the highest obligations of religion and the holiness symbolized in the ritual law, is manifest from the fact, that when thirty-two thousand captive slaves were taken with other spoils from Midian (Num. 31: 28), Moses, by special command of Jehovah, took three hundred and fifty-two of the "persons," and turned them over to Eliezer, the High Priest, as the "Lord's tribute;"* and from the further fact that the priests were assumed to be slaveholders, as appears from Lev. 22: 10, 11, where it is said of the priests' portion of the sacrificial victim, "No stranger shall eat of the holy thing: a sojourner of the priest, or an hired servant, shall not eat of the holy thing. But if the priest buy any soul with his money, he shall eat of it, and he that is born in his house: they shall eat of his meat."

6. It may be added, as a proof of the distinction kept up between the personal rights of the freeborn and the slave, that while a violation of the seventh commandment with "a betrothed damsel that is a virgin" was punishable with death by stoning (Deut. 22: 23-27), yet in case

*"How is it possible "-Colenso asks, Pent. part 1, page 210 -"How is it possible to quote the Bible as in any way condemning slavery when we read here (Num. 31: 40) of Jehovah's tribute of slaves, thirty-two persons?

The question has a tremendous significancy to that whole class of thinkers who have made up their minds, under the teachings of a political and philanthropistic naturalism, that the Bible must come to them rather than they come to the Bible to settle questions of ethics. Under the same sort of training in religion that Colenso's " very intelligent native African" had received beforehand, it is not surprising that he and all such should have been shocked at reading, “He is his money." But should not "intelligent" Britons and Americans excel the "intelligent" native enough in sense, to perceive whither they are tending, at hearing such a question by way of proving the want of inspiration in Moses, shouted back to them from a British bishop who has travelled along the same road and simply got in advance of them?

of a like crime with "a woman that is a bondmaid, betrothed to an husband, and, not at all redeemed, nor freedom given to her: she shall be scourged. They shall not be put to death because she was not free" (Levit. 19: 20, 21).

Those who have any acquaintance with the slave-laws of the American Southern States, from practical observation. rather than from the singular caricatures of them in the credulous or wilful falsehoods of cotemporary fanaticism, will at once recognize in these provisions of the Mosaic law the same fundamental provisions which characterize the slave-codes of the Southern States.

SECTION IV.

This system of perpetual slavery continued to exist in the Mosaic Church, under the Mosaic civil law, till the close of the Old Testament inspiration; and during the interval between the close of the Old and the opening of the New Testament, vast numbers of Jews as well as of other peoples had been sold into slavery in all parts of the Roman Empire.

IN the subsequent history of the outworking of the Mosaic civil law and constitutional system, there are few allusions to the existence of slavery; just as, in like manner, there are few allusions to the law of the Sabbath, and few even to the ritual of the tabernacle, or of the sacred festivals. Still there are allusions sufficient to show that slavery continued to exist among them, and that the provisions of the slave-code continued in use. Thus we have the illustration of the popular contempt for runaway

slaves in the insult of the churlish Nabal offered to David's guerilla scouts, when they applied in David's name for a contribution to his commissary stores (1 Sam. 25: 10), "Who is David? And who is the son of Jesse? There be many servants (slaves) now-a-days, that break away, every man from his master." So we find David saying to the Egyptian (1 Sam. 30: 13, 15), To whom belongest thou? and swearing that he will "neither kill him, nor deliver him into the hands of his master," as he might lawfully swear in accordance with the law of Moses. In 1 Kings 2: 39, 40, we have the instance of Shimei, who had cursed David, paroled within the limits of the city by Solomon, but breaking his parole, and losing his life in consequence of hearing that his runaway slaves were at Gath, and in thoughtless eagerness hasting off to recover his property.

So from Solomon's account of himself, getting servants and maidens, and having servants (slaves) born in the "house" (Ecclesiastes 2: 7), we trace the existence of slavery in Israel to the later times of the commonwealth. From the prophecy of Ezekiel against Tyre, in the immediate vicinity of Israel, we gather that the trade in slaves was actively carried on till his age; for, in his splendid recital of the universal commerce of Tyre, he describes the trade "with Javan Tubal and Mesheck, who traded the persons of men and vessels of brass in thy market " (Ezek. 27: 13); and this mentioned in the same matter-of-course manner in which he alludes to all other commerce.

During the captivity of the Jews in Babylon and Assyria, as before during their bondage in Egypt, we know that they were still slaveholders; for, as we see from the rolls of those who returned to rebuild Jerusalem and the temple under Ezra, the slaves among the returned captives were in the proportion of one to six of the free population (Ezra 2: 64, 65, and Nehem. 7: 66). "The whole congre

gation was forty-two thousand, and three hundred and threescore, besides their servants (slaves) and their maids, of whom there were seven thousand three hundred and thirty and seven." And, by the way, it is interesting to observe, from this record in Ezra, how the fundamental purpose of the Mosaic constitution had been accomplished, in preserving the family genealogies distinct for near one thousand years (Ez. 2: 58, 59 and 61-63); it is in confirmation of the correctness of the reason already assigned why a Hebrew, after seven years' servitude, must go back "to the possession of his fathers."

Having thus traced the existence of slavery under the Mosaic constitution down to the era of the restoration and the close of the Old Testament history, it may be well, before proceeding to the New Testament history, to refer to the important fact, predicted by Joel and other prophets, and verified as history by the Maccabees and Josephus, that vast numbers of Jews, anterior to the advent of Christ, had been sold as slaves throughout the Grecian and Roman Empires. For, unlike the Babylonish and Assyrian conquerors of Israel, who deported the entire people of countries conquered by them, freemen and slaves alike, and filled their places by people of other countries, the Grecian, and especially the Roman commanders, took captive and sold into personal slavery the peoples whose countries they overran. Thus, for instance, we find Joel charging it against Tyre and Sidon prophetically. "The children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye might remove them from their border" (Joel 3: 6). Accordingly, we have the account, in the history of the Maccabees, of the boastful style of the Grecian warfare, that when Antiochus sent his mighty army into Judea, "The merchants of the country hearing the fame of them, took silver and gold very much, with