Sin is, in its own nature, a disturber and disorganizer. It debases before it destroys. It is disobedience to God, and adherence to the devil:-as manifested by our first parents.

The sin of Ham, that of dishonoring his father, was aggravated in the highest degree by the relation which Noah held to the future of our fallen race. He was the head of humanity on earth. He was prophet, priest, and king. He represented the judgment and the mercy of God and man. He embodied, in his experience and wisdom, the laws, precepts, and knowledge which were to guide his posterity in the better way.

It is no excuse for Ham to say that his father had done wrong; that he had debased himself by drunkenness.

We do not seek to palliate the transgression of Noah. In yielding the reins to appetite, and thus dethroning reason, he had committed a grievous sin against the natural laws of God. Was he not most grievously punished for his fault when "he awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son had done unto him?"

Think of the old man, the loving father, who had seen the world of transgressors swept from off the earth because of their wicked lusts and corrupt imaginations: and then to find the poison of the same polluting depravity in his own family—the little group spared from the general destruction.

What was the anguish of the Roman Brutus, passing sentence of death on his own sons for treason against the State, compared with the sorrow of Noah, dooming his "younger son," for treason against nature and rebellion against God, to that condition of perpetual inferiority which, like a brand of shame, would mark a portion of his (Noah's) descendants forever!

As in the case of Adam and Eve, it was sin that brought the curse and the punishment. The sentence is proof of the guilt of the sinner. The doom was not from Noah, but from the justice of a righteous God.

Ham had shown, by his conduct, that he loved iniquity. His sin was more wicked in its inception, more polluting in its nature than the fratricide of Cain. The brother struck at the natural life of his brother; the son claimed to overthrow and destroy the moral life of mankind by the dishonor of his father. Had Ham's sin gone unpunished, all fear and love of God, all reverence and obedience for His laws, must have perished, because only through and by the parental relation was religious duty then taught and exemplified.

He who commits sin is the servant of sin. Ham had, by his own wicked carnality, sold himself to the power of evil; he was in the bonds of corruption. The penalty of his awful crime was

death! There was only misery and destruction before him and his till the sentence was pronounced.

Then we see how mercy preponderated. Ham was reprieved from direct personal punishment, and only one of his four sons was subjected to the penalty of servitude. Even to Canaan there was mercy shown. He was to live and not die. His brethren were his keepers, his task-masters, and in the special promises made them and their posterity he and his were included.

Why was Canaan, the youngest son of Ham, singled out for this doom of servitude? Commentators and expounders of scripture have conjectured that this son was with his father and joined him in mocking Noah. But what God has not revealed concerning this transaction, human reason can never discover.

We know, however, if we believe the Bible to be divine revelation, that "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. (Ps., 10: 9.) We know that "the curse causeless shall not come. (Prov., 26: 2.)

There is no recognition of any original inequality between the three brothers, causing the differences in their destinies. It was the natural propensities, exhibited in this transaction, which decided their condition.

Had the brothers of Ham listened greedily when he "mocked at his father," had they yielded to his wicked temptation of dishonoring him by indulging in pithy imaginations concerning their father, they, too, would have been accursed. Their chaste reverence and filial obedience were accepted and rewarded, and thus the good gained its first great triumph over the evil in our fallen world.

"Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. "Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. "God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant."-Genesis, chap. 9, verses 25-6-7.

Has not this announcement of the destiny of the three tribes or races of men, descended from Noah, come true, according to the WORD?

Does not history, secular as well as sacred, confirm the truth of this prophecy in the past?

Is it not true at this moment that the posterity of Japheth dwell in the tents of Shem, and that the posterity of Canaan are in servitude to the posterity of Japheth?

We have not time now to spare to go into details here, or to quote authorities; but no person acquainted with ancient annals can deny that one race, the black, a branch of the Hametic stock,

has, so far as is known, always been in a state of servitude, either to tyrants of their own color, or to masters of the other two

races.

The hieroglyphical records of the oldest monuments of old Egypt show the black man then a slave. Nearly the whole continent of Africa is now a place of black slaves. If some few of these men, as rulers, have liberty to destroy or sell others of their own race, the women, one-half the population, are without exception slaves to the physical force and brutal lusts of the male descendants of Ham. From the ferocious king of the Ashantees, whose ornaments and monuments are the skulls and bones of his slave victims; to the Yorubas of Central Africa, whose government is a "perfect despotism," and on to the Makololos of the South, described by Rev. Dr. Livingstone, where the negro man is supported by the labor of his slave wives, we find two conditions of life, polygamy and slavery, everywhere. Till the first is overcome it is in vain to talk of freedom or improvement for the black race.

The whole negro population of Africa, some eighty or a hundred millions, with the exception of those belonging to Liberia, and, perhaps, some few tribes improved a little under British rule at Sierra Leone, now manifest in their low animal propensities, the same utter lack of reverence for duty, the disregard of decency, and the insensibility to shame, which characterized the conduct of Ham towards his father Noah, more than four thousand years ago.

These sensual propensities, when predominating, mark the lowest type of human beings, whatever may be the color, or in whatever caste, country, or condition they may be found.

We know that such people never improve when living together, without care or coercion, or both, from persons of better developments. We can understand that such a race must be degraded, would degrade themselves, and that only by divine_miracle, or by the natural means of subjection to, and training by, a higher class of minds, a better organized race, could the lower type be influenced, instructed, and finally improved.

Was it not merciful, as well as righteous, for the wise and good God to place such a race under tutelage or subjection, that they might be saved from themselves?

"A servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren."

Was God's sentence on Canaan, by the mouth of Noah, an unjust judgment? It was the punishment of a great sin, not the arbitrary decree of an offended father; it was from the Lord.

A state of human servitude or slavery is then compatible with

A

divine justice, with the perfect righteousness of God's laws, as surely as the necessity of hard labor in order to gain bread is for man, or the sufferings of women in childbirth and the subjection of the wife to her husband are compatible with His righteous

ness.

The aim of just punishment is to make those that suffer it better, and not worse. When it has the latter effect, it is through the perversion of the law by the criminal himself, or through the sins of other criminals; not by the penalty he suffers.

Now, let us see what were the regulations given in the Bible concerning slavery; let us see if these are not framed so as to make the servitude of the condemned race a blessing, and not a

curse.

Abraham* is the first slaveholder on record; yet from the tenor of the divine history there can be no doubt of the prevalence of slavery among all nations before that era. When the covenant of God was established with the patriarch, all his servants were admitted to the rite of circumcision, all were made members of the church, and thus given the opportunity of knowing and serving the true God.

Was not this a blessed privilege to those born idolators? Was it not better to be a servant or slave of Abraham than a free citizen of Sodom?

From the time of this patriarch till the giving of the law on Mount Sinai, there are few direct allusions to slaves or bond servants among the chosen people.

But let us dwell a moment on the memorable narrative of Joseph's enslavement. His brethren "hated him," seized him by violence, "sold him to the Egyptians." Were they as wicked as murderers? They committed a heinous crime; but was it as "accursed" as the sin they had proposed, when they said:

*It has been urged by those who denounce slavery as sin, that Abraham was drawn into polygamy by having bond women in his household, and that the two institutions are, therefore, coincident and equally iniquitous. No conclusion could be more erroneous. The connection between Abraham and Hagar was not marriage. He never considered the bond woman as his wife, never defended her conduct, never protected her from the anger of her mistress and his wife, Sarah. Hagar was the slave always, and her son was not the true heir, as St. Paul bears witness. The whole history of that miserable attempt to bring about the purposes of divine wisdom by human devices, wicked in their inception, because contrary to God's holy law of marriage— one man with one woman, the twain made one-as established at the creation, shows the folly as well as sinfulness into which those persons who are really seeking to do good will fall, if they set aside the laws of God, or interpret His statutes to suit their own selfish purposes.

Were

"Come, let us slay him?" (Gen., chap. 37, verse 20.) they punished as God punished Cain?-as he punished Ham? Let these questions be well considered before we brand slavery as "the sum of all villanies."

Joseph was sold a slave in Egypt, and his example is a model for all in his condition. He feared God and kept his commandments, and was faithful in all his duties to those whom he served. God blessed Joseph in his bondage; and so will He bless goodness in every condition of life. Did the servile condition of Joseph disgrace him, or prevent his final exaltation? Nay, more: was it not the direct means to his promotion in honor and usefulness? Could a sinful condition have done this?

Did either of his masters suffer because of buying and holding him in slavery? Did not each party, master and servant, gain good by the connection? Could this result have been reached if slavery is sin, like disobedience to parents, murder, aldultery, theft, false witness, covetousness?

The seed of Jacob were destined to become slaves in Egypt. The manner by which they were reduced to servitude was unjust and wicked; their taskmasters were cruel. For this cruelty and injustice the Egyptians were punished.

If slavery is sin, would it not have been rebuked in this instance, because here was a flagrant breach of the law of servi tude for sin, as established in the case of Canaan? The Hebrews were of the race of Shem, consequently were not subjected by that law to the inferior race of Ham. Yet not a word of condemnation against slavery itself is to be found in the Mosaic history; all the denunciations are against its abuses.

Nor were the Hebrews encouraged to seek their own liberation, or permitted to avenge their own wrongs. Even Moses, when he killed the cruel Egyptian tormenter, was severely punished by the ingratitude of those he sought to aid, and by his own selfbanishment for forty years; and his crime brought additional severity of bondage on his brethren in Egypt. God did not instruct His people to "take their liberty at all hazards."

When Moses was sent to free the Hebrews they were not incited to any act of violence, any deed of sin. They were to obey all the laws of God, and through His providence look for deliverance. (Exodus, chapters 3d, 4th, 5th, 7th to 15th.)

Will American abolitionism take this Bible pattern of emancipation for its rule? Will it keep God's laws?

At length Israel was emancipated and brought out from Egypt, not as independent individuals, who had, each one, the "inalienable right to personal liberty," but as servants of Jehovah, the only living and true God; a condition that every son and daugh