for their entertainment and pleasure. (Job xli. 5.)

4th. When Gehazi the servant of Elisha received from Naaman a large amount of money, evidently to appropriate it to his own use, his master chided him for seeking wealth, and for desiring to have "men servants and maid servants" at such a time of calamity, implying that a servant could have servants.

5th. Tobiah the servant is named frequently in Nehemiah with circumstances that are incompatible with the idea of sla

very.

6th. Nehemiah's servants were armed. (Nehemiah iv. 16.)

7th. Even the "Nethenims" and the "children of Solomon's servants who were made tributary in bond service, had for themselves possessions. (Neh. xi. 3 )

8th. Sheshan, a descendant of Judah, gave his daughter for a wife to his servant Jarha, an Egyptian. (1 Chr. ii. 34, 35.)

9th. Add to these foregoing considerations the fact that the Jews were strictly forbidden in their law to be in any way

oppressive, either to their brethren the Jews or to any strangers in their land, and that with frequent appeals to them to remember that they had been bondmen in the land of Egypt, and how the Lord had delivered them.

Having now examined every thing in the Old Testament that the slaveholder or his advocate could possibly suppose favourable to his views and his practice, I cannot but flatter myself that every one who has followed me carefully and candidly, must admit that there is not one word or syllable that can be fairly interpreted to imply God's sanction of slavery. Starting with a false and delusive definition of what slavery is, some may deceive themselves with the idea that slavery existed, and was tolerated and justified with the divine approbation, among the Jews. But when we fully understand what it is we are seeking after, and have a sincere desire for truth, and truth only, it is utterly impossible to fix the mind upon a single passage from the first of Genesis to the

last of Malachi, and feel secure in saying here is slavery with the sanction of Jehovah.

Whatever may be thought of the law of Moses in reference to other subjects, as for instance, war, capital punishment, polygamy, &c., I do not well see how as to the regulations about servants it could be well improved. Even as regards the strangers who became their servants, call them bond servants if you please, I do not think there could have been a more humane arrangement adopted. It is true that if they continued to be idolaters, they were permitted to extend their service to the year of jubilee, but, this service was not allowed to be an oppressive one, neither does it appear to have been permitted to be entered upon involuntarily. It was a service that afforded them protection, gave them support, shielded them from imposition whilst they were aliens, and gave them the best facilities for learning the principles of that religion which the Mosaic law was designed to establish, and the adoption of which would at once

have opened to them all the benefits of the Hebrew government and citizenship.

Suppose a law of this kind should prevail in the United States. No native or naturalized American shall be suffered to remain an apprentice or be a servant longer than six years, unless after the six years he voluntarily renews his engagement; but a foreigner who refuses to give his allegiance to the government, may contract to remain in service so long as he ⚫holds himself an alien, having however the protection of law to which he may appeal when he suffers wrong. Would this be a bad law? It strikes me that so far from its being oppressive, it would be the dictate of a sound policy as a protection to the said alien. Such I conceive to have been the character of the Mosaic law. If the Jews disregarded its spirit, and transgressed its letter, that was another matter. It was their own wickedness; and their transgression of the law ought never to be a justification for another people to violate the rights of man and the laws of Deity.

CHAPTER VI.

EXAMINATION OF THE GOSPELS.

I Now turn to the New Testament. After the most careful examination, I am prepared to affirm without the fear of candid and successful contradiction, that there is not a single instance in which the word servant is used in the sense of slave.

In one place the expression, "servants under the yoke," occurs, but the very fact that the words "under the yoke" are added to qualify the word "servant," shows that without some such qualification, the idea of their real condition would not be conveyed.

In a single place also in the New Tes tament, the word "slaves" occurs, but in a connection by no means favourable to slavery, and where indeed the true signification is bodies, and not slaves. It is in Revelations xviii. 13, "slaves, and souls of men," meaning bodies and souls of men.' It is alluding to the merchandise