Long afterwards, Saul slew some of them, and God sent upon Israel a three years' famine for it. David inquired of the Gibeonites, "What shall I do for you, and wherewith shall I make the atonement?" At their demand, he delivered up to them, seven of Saul's descendants. 2 Sam. xxi. 1-9. The whole transaction was a formal recognition of the Gibeonites as a distinct people. There is no intimation that they served families, or individuals of the Israelites, but only the "house of God," or the Tabernacle. This was established first at Gilgal, a day's journey from their cities; and then at Shiloh, nearly two day's journey from them; where it continued about 350 years. During this period, the Gibeonites inhabited their ancient cities and territory. Only a few, comparatively, could have been absent at any one time in attendance on the Tabernacle. Wherever allusion is made to them in the history, the main body are spoken of as at home. It is preposterous to suppose that all the inhabitants of these four cities could find employment at the Tabernacle. One of them "was a great city, as one of the royal cities;" so large, that a confederacy of five kings, apparently the most powerful in the land, was deemed necessary for its destruction. It is probable that the men were divided into classes, ministering in rotation-each class a few days or weeks at a time. This service was their national tribute to the Israelites, for the privilege of residence and protection under their government. No service seems to have been required of the females. As these Gibeonites were Canaanites, and as they had greatly exasperated the Israelites by impudent imposition, and lying, we might assuredly expect that they would reduce them to the condition of chattels if there was any case in which God permitted them to do so.

IV. Throughout the Mosaic system, God warns the Israelites against holding their servants in such a condition as they were held in by the Egyptians. How often are they pointed back to the grindings of their prison-house! What motives to the exercise of justice and kindness towards their servants, are held out to their fears in threatened judgments; to their hopes in promised good; and to all within them that could feel, by those oft repeated words of tenderness and terror! "For ye were bondmen in the land of Egypt"-waking anew the memory of tears and anguish, and of the wrath that avenged them.

God's denunciations against the bondage of Egypt make it incumbent on us to ascertain, of what rights the Israelites were plundered, and what they retained.

not tents.

(4.) They owned

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EGYPTIAN BONDAGE ANALYZED. (1.) The Israelites were not dispersed among the families of Egypt,* but formed a separate community. Gen. xlvi. 35. Ex. viii. 22, 24; ix. 26; x. 23; xi. 7; ii. 9; xvi. 22; xvii. 5. (2,) They had the exclusive possession of the land of Goshen.f Gen. xlv. 18; xlvii. 6, 11, 27. Ex. xii. 4, 19, 22, 23, 27. (3.) They lived in permanent dwellings. These were houses, In Ex. xii. 6, 22, the two side posts, and the upper door posts, and the lintel of the houses are mentioned. Each family seems to have occupied a house by itself,-Acts vii. 20. Ex. xii. 4and judging from the regulation about the eating of the Passover, they could hardly have been small ones, Ex. xii. 4, probably contained separate apartments, and places for concealment. Ex. ii. 2, 3; Acts vii. 20. They appear to have been well apparelled. Ex. xii. 11. To have had their own burial grounds. Ex. xiii. 19, and xiv. 11. mixed multitude of flocks and herds," and 66 very much cattle." Ex. xii. 32, 37, 38. (5.) They had their own form of government, and preserved their tribe and family divisions, and their internal organization throughout, though still a province of Egypt, and tributary to it. Ex. ii. 1; xii. 19, 21; vi. 14, 25; v. 19; iii. 16, 18. (6.) They seem to have had in a considerable measure, the disposal of their own time,-Ex. xxiii. 4; iii. 16, 18, xii. 6; ii. 9; and iv. 27, 29—31. And to have practiced the fine arts. Ex. xxxii. 4; xxxv. 22—35. (7.) They were all armed. Ex. xxxii. 27. (8.) They held their possessions independently, and the Egyptians seem to have regarded them as inviolable. No intimation is given that the Egyptians dispossessed them of their habitations, or took away their flocks, or herds, or crops, or implements of agriculture, or any article of property. (9.) All the females seem to have known something of domestic refinements; they were familiar with instruments of music, and skilled in the working of fine fabrics. Ex. xv. 20; xxxv. 25,26. (10.) Service seems to have been exacted from none but adult males. Nothing is said from which the bond service of females could be in

*The Egyptians evidently had domestic servants living in their families; these may have been slaves; allusion is made to them in Ex. ix. 14, 20, 21.

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

し

ferred; the hiding of Moses three months by his mother, and the payment of wages to her by Pharaoh's daughter, go against such a supposition. Ex. ii. 29. (11.) So far from being fed upon a given allowance, their food was abundant, and of great variety. "They sat by the flesh-pots," and "did eat bread to the full." Ex. xvi. 3; xxiv. 1; xvii. 5; iv. 29; vi. 14; "they did eat fish freely, and cucumbers, and melons, and leeks, and onions, and garlic." Num. xi. 4, 5; x. 18; xx. 5. (12.) The great body of the people were not in the service of the Egyptians. (a.) The extent and variety of their own possessions, together with such a cultivation of their crops as would provide them with bread, and such care of their immense flocks and herds, as would secure their profitable increase, must have furnished constant employment for the main body of the nation. (b.) During the plague of darkness, God informs us that "ALL the children of Israel had light in their dwellings." We infer that they were there to enjoy it. (c.) It seems improbable that the making of brick, the only service named during the latter part of their sojourn in Egypt, could have furnished permanent employment for the bulk of the nation. See also Ex. iv. 29-31. Besides, when Eastern nations employed tributaries, it was as now, in the use of the levy, requiring them to furnish a given quota, drafted off periodically, so that comparatively but a small portion of the nation would be absent at any one time. Probably one-fifth part of the proceeds of their labor was required of the Israelites in common with the Egyptians. Gen. xlvii. 24, 26. Instead of taking it from their crops, (Goshen being better for pasturage) they exacted it of them in brick making; and it is quite probable that labor was exacted only from the poorer Israelites, the wealthy being able to pay their tribute in money. Ex. iv. 27-31. Contrast this bondage of Egypt with American slavery. Have our slaves "very much cattle," and " a mixed multitude of flocks and herds?" Do they live in commodious houses of their own, "sit by the flesh-pots," ,” “eat fish freely," and "eat bread to the full ?" Do they live in a separate community; in their distinct tribes, under their own rulers, in the exclusive occupation of an extensive tract of country for the culture of their crops, and for rearing immense herds of their own cattle—and all these held inviolable by their masters? Are our female slaves free from exactions of labor and liabilities of outrage? or when employed, are they paid wages, as was the Israelitish

PRIVILEGES.

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woman by the king's daughter? Have they the disposal of their own time, and the means for cultivating social refinements, for practising the fine arts, and for personal improvement? THE ISRAELITES UNDER THE BONDAGE OF EGYPT, ENJOYED ALL THESE RIGHTS AND True, "all the service wherein they made them serve was with rigor." But what was this when compared with the incessant toil of American slaves, the robbery of all their time and earnings, and even the power to own any thing, or acquire any thing?" quart of corn a-day," the legal allowance of food!* their only clothing for one half the year, one shirt and one pair of pantaloons!" two hours and a half only, for rest and refreshment in the twenty-four !-their dwellings, hovels, unfit for human residence, with but one apartment, where both sexes and all ages herd promiscuously at night, like the beasts of the field. Add to this, the ignorance, and degradation; the daily sunderings of kindred, the revelries of lust, the lacerations and baptisms of blood, sanctioned by law, and patronized by public sentiment. What was the bondage of Egypt when compared with this? And yet for her oppression of the poor, God smote her with plagues, and trampled her as the mire, till she passed away in his wrath, and the place that knew her in her pride, knew her no more. Ah! "I have seen the afflictions of my people, and I have heard their groanings, and am come down to deliver them." HE DID COME, and Egypt sank a ruinous heap, and her blood closed over her. If such was God's retribution for the oppression of heathen Egypt, of how much sorer punishment shall a Christian people be thought worthy, who cloak with religion a system, in compari son with which the bondage of Egypt dwindles to nothing? Let those believe who can that God commissioned his people to rob others of all their rights, while he denounced against them wrath to the uttermost, if they practised the far lighter oppression of Egyptwhich robbed its victims of only the least and cheapest of their rights, and left the females unplundered even of these. What! Is God divided against himself? When He had just turned Egypt into a funeral pile; while his curse yet blazed upon her unburied dead, and his bolts still hissed amidst her slaughter, and the smoke of her torment went upwards because she had "ROBBED THE POOR," did He

* Law of N. C. Haywood's Manual 524-5.

Law of La.

Martin's Digest, 610.

Law of La.

Act of July 7, 1806. Martin's Digest, 610-12.

license the VICTIMS of robbery to rob the poor of ALL? As Lawgiver, did he create a system tenfold more grinding than that for which he had just hurled Pharaoh headlong, and overwhelmed his princes, and his hosts, till "hell was moved to meet them at their coming? We now proceed to examine various objections which will doubtless be set in array against all the foregoing conclusions.

The advocates of slavery find themselves at their wits end in pressing the Bible into their service. Every movement shows them hard-pushed. Their ever-varying shifts, their forced constructions, and blind guesswork, proclaim both their cause desperate, and themselves. The Bible defences thrown around slavery by professed ministers of the Gospel, do so torture common sense, Scripture, and historical facts it were hard to tell whether absurdity, fatuity, ignorance, or blasphemy, predominates, in the compound; each strives so lustily for the mastery, it may be set down a drawn battle. How often has it been bruited that the color of the negro is the Cain-mark, propagated downward. Cain's posterity started an opposition to the ark, forsooth, and rode out the flood with flying streamers! Why should not a miracle be wrought to point such an argument, and fill out for slaveholders a Divine title-deed, vindicating the ways of God

to man?

OBJECTION I. "Cursed be Canaan, a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren." Gen. ix. 25.

This prophecy of Noah is the vade mecum of slaveholders, and they never venture abroad without it; it is a pocket-piece for sudden occasion, a keepsake to dote over, a charm to spell-bind opposition, and a magnet to draw around their standard "whatsoever worketh abomination or maketh a lie." But "cursed be Canaan" is a poor drug to ease a throbbing conscience-a mocking lullaby, to unquiet tossings, and vainly crying "Peace be still," where God wakes war, and breaks his thunders. Those who justify negro slavery by the curse on Canaan, assume all the points in debate. (1.) That slavery was prophesied rather than mere service to others, and individual bondage rather than national subjection and tribute. (2.) That the prediction of crime justifies it; at least absolving those whose crimes fulfill it, if not transforming the crimes into virtues. How piously the Pha

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