he must die! Glorious argument for slaveholders and slave-catchers! It is also said this refers to Hebrews, not strangers. Let God answer. Lev. 24:22, "Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger as for one of your own country; for I am the Lord your God." This is his interpretation of the breadth of the law given in the preceding verse, "He that killeth a man, he shall be put to death." The law, therefore, is unrestricted and universal; Hebrew or heathen, he that killeth a man and he that stealeth a man shall alike die; thus putting slavery and murder on the same footing, as equally criminal. Now, if God sanctioned slavery, why did he make such an inconsistent law as this forbidding it?

Second. The law concerning fugitives.—Deut. 23:15, 16, "Thou shalt not deliver to 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."

There is no equivocation here; "thou shalt not deliver unto his master." It is imperative; they were to receive him among them as a citizen, and, if need be, protect him from his master; mark, not a "heathen" or "Hebrew," servant, but the "servant," heathen or Hebrew, whoever should fly from the ill treatment or injustice of a hard master. Compare for a moment the Hebrew and American fugitive laws. The Hebrew says, "Thou shalt not deliver to his master the servant that is escaped." The American says, "Thou shalt deliver him up to his master, or be fined one thousand dollars, and suffer six months' imprisonment." The Hebrew says, "He shall dwell with thee ... thou shalt not oppress him." The American law says, "The commissioner who tries the case shall get five dollars if he fails, and ten if he succeeds in 'delivering to his master' the fugitive, on the simple affidavit of the former that he is his slave."

What are the deductions from this law of Moses? The return of stray property is expressly commanded in Deut. 22:1-3; the return of servants is expressly forbidden here; the servant could leave a hard master at any time, and the state could not compel him to return: it did not recognize the condition of forced, but only voluntary servitude, and thus rendered the existence of chattelism impossible.

The third great protective law was that of the Jubilee.—Lev. 25:10-55, "And ye shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof; it shall be a jubilee unto you, and ye shall return every man unto his possession, and ye shall return every man to his family." ... Here the expression is emphatic, no reservations are made, no restrictions allowed. As the sound of יוֹבֵל, יוֹבֵל, Yovāl, Yovāl, sounded through the land, and was echoed back from hill and village, from hamlet and town, the cry was taken up, and borne along by the laboring thousands of Israel, many of whom had been toiling under contract for years, by the

unfortunate debtor, and those whom poverty had compelled to part with "the old house at home," all returned, all were free. "Liberty, liberty!"

It is vain to assume that the benefits of the Jubilee were restricted to a particular class. To what class? Not the six years' servants; they were freed in the seventh. Not to debtors; there was no law compelling them to serve at all; therefore they could only serve voluntarily to pay their debts. Not to thieves; they could only be compelled to make restitution of the thing stolen, or its value; that paid, they were free. The only other classes to whom the law could apply were "all the inhabitants of the land" who served the longest time, the Hebrew "for ever" servants, and the heathen servants, thus preventing the possibility of the rise and growth of a servile class, the curse of any country. In this way only can we account for the fact that Jewish history never mentions the existence of a large servile class, or a servile insurrection in Israel, so common and disastrous an occurrence in the history of ancient slaveholding communities.

Some object here, that the term "inhabitants" implies "all the Hebrews," and excludes the strangers, Canaanites, &c.; but by admitting that "all the Hebrews" were freed at the Jubilee, they admit that those who, in Ex. 21:6, are servants "for ever," are also freed, and thus to serve "for ever" only implies till the Jubilee. If, then, "for ever" means only till the Jubilee in one case, it means no more in the other. And if we show that the strangers and Canaanites were considered "inhabitants of the land," then the Jubilee referred to Hebrew and stranger alike, and both were free. In Ex. 34:12, 15, "Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest;" and Lev. 18:25; Num. 33:52-55, Moses calls the heathen "the inhabitants of the land;" and as he was likely to understand the meaning of the term pretty well, he either refers in the Jubilee law to Hebrews, Canaanites, and all, or he meant Canaanites and heathen alone, which is still more decisive. Again, in 2 Sam. 11:2-27; 23:39, we find one of these strangers, Uriah the Hittite, not only an "inhabitant" of Jerusalem, but one of David's best officers, and his wife becoming queen of Israel and mother of Solomon; and in 2 Sam. 24:18-25, another, Araunah

the Jebusite is a householder, and more, is praised as acting like a king toward king David, who bought property of him whereon to build an altar; and yet, forsooth, they were not inhabitants!

But, as if to prevent equivocation, Moses defines the phrase "all the inhabitants;" "Ye shall return every man to his possession, and ye shall return every man to his family." Not every Hebrew, but every man, the same generic term as in the law against killing or stealing "a man;" it is unqualified and universal. Thus with one blow this noble law strikes down the two principal sources of social oppression—monopoly of land and monopoly of labor. All who had by poverty been compelled to part with the old farm and homestead received it back; all claims of service against any person, however mean and humble, were canceled; and the land and its inhabitants were again free as God had made them.

These accumulated arguments, each separately weighty and forcible, but collectively insurmountable, we think prove conclusively that the form of servitude among the Israelites was not chattel slavery, and that there is no sanction or authority for it in the Mosaic laws and regulations.

Thus in Jewish history we see the Israelites groaning under Egyptian bondage, and God's arm outstretched to rescue them when fugitives, and punish their pursuers—a warning to all such thereafter; we see laws enacted to prevent the existence of chattelism among them, by restricting the master's power, and securing the servant's freedom at regular intervals, and the opposite doctrine of equality among men asserted; we see the Israelites disobeying these commands, and adopting, with the idolatry of their neighbors, their slavery also, and God's fiery wrath denounced on them for it by Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and fulfilled by Nebuchadnezzar in the destruction and captivity of the state.

NEW TESTAMENT.

Teachings of Christ.

Ages pass, the Jews are restored to their land, but the Roman eagle overshadows it and all the civilized world. Despotism is enthroned; and the idea that the world and