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appointed as a punishment for these perverse and iniquitous heathen. Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids which thou shalt have shall be of the heathen that are round about you, of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. and ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession. They shall be your bondmen for ever;3 but over your brethren the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another with rigour.4

In every case when a command of the Almighty is characterized by its severity, we may regard it as only of local or temporary application, and as arising out of the occasions which call for it as a punishment. Whenever his laws are of universal obligation, they are marked by a merciful purpose, and are directed to the obvious good of his creatures. The authority given to the Israelites to enslave in protracted bondage the heathen around them, can no more be construed into a warrant for the same treatment of strangers and heathens in our own times, than the peremptory command to show no

That is, to the next jubilee, when liberty was proclaimed throughout the land to ALL the inhabitants thereof. Lev. xxv. 10. 4 Lev. xxv. 44-46.

mercy, and to save nothing alive that breatheth among the foul and abominable nations of Canaan, will justify in a Christian the wanton murder of an untaught and unenlightened

savage.

The brother of the Israelite was one of his own nation, but the Christian is to regard every individual of the whole human race as his neighbour. If the law of the Israelites in respect to slavery is to guide a Christian people, it can only be the law which enforces kindness towards a brother in bondage.

There were many mitigations of slavery among the Israelites. The penal code of the Jews guarded the person of the servant and the slave as well as of the freeman. The injunction, whosoever smiteth a man that he die, shall surely be put to death, equally protected all. If by an extreme severity of chastisement, the master caused the death of his slave, he was surely to be punished." If the violence offered maimed the servant, even so slightly as by theloss of a single tooth, he was to be recompensed by obtaining immediate freedom." The chastity of female slaves was guarded by strict regulations, and no Jew could be a slave for longer than seven years; and at the end of

5 Exod. xxi. 12.

6 Ver. 20.

7

Ver. 27.

go

that period the law enjoined, when thou sendest him out from thee, thou shalt not let him away empty. Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy wine-press: of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee, thou shalt give unto him." - Greaves on the Pentateuch.

Even the fugitive slave was protected by an especial enactment. Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee. He shall dwell with thee, even among you, in that place which he shall choose, in one of thy gates where it liketh him best. Thou shalt not oppress him."

It is worthy of remark, that even the Mahommedan laws secure to the slave the right of

purchasing his freedom. "Unto such of your

slaves as desire a written instrument, allowing them to redeem themselves on paying a certain sum, write one if ye find good in them, (that is, have reason to believe that they will perform their engagement,) and give them of the riches of God, which he hath given you.”—Sale's Koran, chap. 24.

8 'Deut. xv. 13-15.

9 Deut. xxiii. 15, 16.

"The introduction of Christianity (into Great Britain) contributed not a little both to alleviate the weight of servitude, and diminish the number of slaves. By the canons of the church, which were in those times incorporated with the laws of the land, and of the same authority, Christians were commanded to allow their slaves certain portions of time to work for their own benefit, by which they acquired property; the bishops had authority to regulate the quantity of work to be done by slaves, and to take care that no man used his slave harshly, but as a fellow Christian. The bishops and clergy recommended the manumission of slaves as a most charitable and meritorious action; and in order to set the example, they procured a law to be made, that all the English slaves of every bishop should be set at liberty at his death, and that every other bishop and abbot in the kingdom should set three slaves at liberty."Henry's Great Britain, b. ii. c. 3. sec. 2. p. 323.

P.-Page 139.

I have confined myself in the lecture to the religious obligation of granting freedom to the

slave whenever it can be equitably purchased by him. I may be allowed in a note to enter more fully on the subject, and to notice some of the leading objections which have been made to a measure apparently so just and reasonable.

It is said that the master's interest will be impaired by the withdrawal of a slave whose services he will often be unable to replace at the price at which he is sold.

There is no just reason for this assertion. The value of a slave will in every case be estimated by the market price, and this market price will be high or low in proportion to the demand for agricultural or other labour in the colony. Besides, there is nothing to prevent the master from hiring the manumitted slave, and paying him wages equivalent to his services on the estate.

It is also said that the master, from a personal regard for the slave, or from a more accurate knowledge of his worth, will estimate him far above the market price.

If he really has a regard for him, this regard can in no way be better shown than in his affording every facility towards his obtaining his freedom. His real worth will always be calculated in his appraisement. If the master