Year: 1861

lourner he shall be With thee, ana snail
serve thee unto the year of jubilee, and then
shall he depart from thee, both he and his
children with him "


SO far, YOU will observe, the law refers
to the children of Israel, who, by reason of
poverty, were reduced to servltude. 1t was
their right to be free at the year Of jubilee
unless they chose to remain in perpetual
bondage, for which case provision is made in
other and distinct enactments. But not so
with slaves of foreign birth. There was no
year of jubilee provided for them. For what
says the law? Read the 44~4G verses Of
the same chapter.


Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids
which thou shalt have shall be of the heather
that are round about you Of them shall
We buy bondmen and bondmaids. More
over, of the children Of the strangers that
do sojourn among you-of them shall ye
buy and of their families that are with you,
which they beget in your land; and they
shall be your possession. And ye shall take
them as an inheritance for your children
after you inherit them as a possession; they
shall be your bondmen forever"


There it is, plainly written in the divine
law. No Legislative enactment, no statute
framed by legal skill was ever more explicit
and incapable of perversion. When the
abolitionist tells me that slavcholding is sin,
in the simplicity Of my faith in the Holy
Scriptures, point him to this sacred record,
and tell him in all candor, as my text does,
that his teaching blasphemes the name Of
God and His doctrine When he begins to
dote about questions and strifes of words,
appealing to the Declaration of Indepen
dence, and asserting that the idea of proper
ty in men is an enormity and a crime, still
hold him to the record, saying, eye shall
take him as an inheritance for your children
after you, to inherit them for possession. )"


When he wakes warm-as he always does
if his opponent quote Scripture (Which is
the great test to try the spirits whether they
be Of God-the very spear of Ithuriel to re-
veal their true character when he gets
angry, and begins to pour out his evil sur
Musings and abuse upon slaveholders--I
obey the precept which says, ''from such
withdraw thyself," comforting myself with
this thought that the wisdom Of God is wiser
than men, and the kindness Of God kinder








never can convince me that God, in the Le
vitical law, or in any other law, sanctioned
sin; and as know from the plain passage
have quoted, and many more like it, that
He did sanction slaveholding ameng his an
cient people, I know, also, by the logic of
that faith which believes the Bible to be
His Word, that slavoholding is not sin.


There are men even among protesting
Christians, and not a few ministers of the
Gospel, who answer this argument from the
from the Old Testament Scriptures by a
simple denial Of their authority. They do
not tell US how God could ever or anywhere
countcnance that which is morally wrong
but they content themselves with saying
that the Levitical law is no rule Of action
for US, and they appeal from its decision to
what they consider the higher tribunal OF
the Gospel. Let US, therefore, join issue
with them before the bar of the New Testa-
mcnt Scriptures. It is a historic truth, ac
knowledged on all hands. that at the advent
of Jesus Christ slavery existed all over the
civilized world, and was intimately inter
woven with its social and civil institutions
In Ju1ea in Asia Minor, in Greece, in all
the countries where the Saviour or his Apos-
ties preached the Gospel, slaveholding was
just as common as it is to-day in South
Carolina:


|. 1t is not alleged by any one, or at least
by any one having any pretensions to schol-
arship or canIor, that the Roman laws regu-
llating slavery were even as mild as the very
worst statutes which have been passed upon
the subject in modern times. 1t will not
be denied by any honest and well-informed
man that modern civilization and the le-
stfaining influences Of the Gospel have shed
ameliorating influences upon the relation
between master and slave. which was utter
| ly unknown at the advent of Christianity
And how did Jesus and his Apostles treat
this subject? Masters and slaves met them
at every step in their missionary work, ana
were even present in every audience to
which they preached. The Roman law
which gave the full power of life and death
into the masters hand was familiar t.s them
and all the evils connected with the system
surrounded them every day us obviously as
the light of heaven and yet it is remark
able fact, which the abolitionist does not
because he cannot. deny, that the New Tes.
lament is utterly Silent in regard to the
alleged sinfulness Of slaveholding.


In all the instructions Of the Saviour-ir
all the reported sermons of the inspired
Apostles-in all the epistlcs they were
moved by the Holy Spirit to write for the
instruction of coming generations-there is
not one distinct aud explicit denunciation Of
slaveholding, nor one precept requiring the
master to emancipate his slaves. Every
acknowledged sin is openly and repeatedly
condemned and in unmeasured TERMS
Drunkenness and adultery, theft and muir
der-all the moral wrongs which ever have
been known to aillict society, are forbidden
by name; and yet, according to the teaching
of abolitionism, this greatest of all sins
this .ssum of all villainies"-is never spolz-
en- Of except III respectable terms, How
can this be accounted for?


Let Dir. WayIand, whose work on moral