"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; moreover 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 begat in your lands, and they shall be your possession, 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."

"And if a sojourner, or stranger wax rich by thee, and thy brother that dwelleth by him wax poor, and sell himself unto the stranger or sojourner by thee, or to the stock of the stranger's family, after that he is sold he may be redeemed again, one of his brethren may redeem him, &c. ; and if he be not redeemed in these years, then he shall go out in the year of jubilee, both he and his children with him."

"If a thief be found breaking up, and be smitten that he die, there shall no blood be shed for him, for he should make full restitution; if he have nothing, then shall he be sold for the theft."

"If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve, and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing; if he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him; if his master have given him a wife, and she have born him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself; and if the servant should say, I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go out free, then his master shall bring him to the door, or unto the door-post, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him for ever."

(I may here remark, that this last mentioned law was abrogated when God, at a later period, extended the

term of servitude from seven years to forty-nine years. If any one affirms that it was not abrogated, then, in a system of divine legislation, he affirms there is the following absurdity, namely-Two laws in operation at once, without any distinguishing clause to show which of the two laws were to operate, and under what circumstances they were to operate, an anomaly which would not be permitted in human legislation, much less in divine legislation !)

"And if a man sell his daughter to be a maid servant, she shall not go out as the man servants do. If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed. To sell her unto a strange nation he shall have no power, seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her. And if he have betrothed her unto his son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters. If he take him another wife, her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish; and if he do not these three unto her, then shall she go out free without money."

And thou shalt number seven sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times seven years; and the space of the seven sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years. Then shalt thou cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month. In the day of atonement shall ye make the trumpet sound throughout all the land. 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 into his possession, and ye shall return every man into his family.

The laws relating to the treatment of hired servants and bondmen :— "And if a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall be surely punished; notwithstanding if he continue for a

slavery; a new system of religion was to be given to the world, which was to be the ultimate substitute for all the laws and institutions of men.

If any man reads the testimonies of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, he will not find Christ acting as a political or social legislator, but as the founder and teacher of a divine system of laws, working by pure and lofty motives; not by ghastly fear, but holy love. The reader's surprise may be excited by this fact, because he knows that the world then groaned under four gigantic evils-Despotism, Inordinate Taxation, Polygamy, and Slavery; and if he looks into the letters of the Apostles, he will there find them exhorting the Primitive Christians to endure all these existing evils.

To those groaning under tyranny, Peter, the missionary of the Lord, says, "Honour the King;" and again, "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers," &c. for rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil, wilt thou not be afraid of the power ? Do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same. Wherefore ye need be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience' sake.

With regard to the oppressive taxes enacted, he says, "For this cause (viz. for conscience' sake), pay ye tribute also; for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render, therefore, to all their dues-tribute to whom tribute is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honour to whom honour."

Christ himself paid tribute, and exhorted others to do it. "Render unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar's," &c.

With regard to polygamy, a vice so much practised, and so injurious in its consequences, he gives no direct laws; but says, "If a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good

blameless, the husband of ONE wife, &c. One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity; for if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the Church of Christ ?"

With respect to slavery, he says : "Exhort servants (or slaves) to be obedient to their masters, and to please them well in all things, not answering again, not purloining, but showing all good fidelity, that they may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in all things."

We shall proceed to examine the reasons for this strange proceeding, and shall gather lessons for ourselves by so doing. Paul, with that deep insight into human nature which always characterized him, knew that, in the infancy of the Christian system, he and his colleagues would have a sufficiently arduous work in combating the ignorance and passions of mankind, without taking into account the power and malice of the Pagan priesthood-a view no less profound than true, and which the succeeding events verified; for the priesthood, by their influence, caused the Christians to endure no less than ten sanguinary persecutions. Can any one blame Paul for so doing? If he do, he has small knowledge of the power of Christianity. Paul knew that Christianity would ultimately sweep away despotism and all other evils, and therefore he avoided exerting any needless prejudice. idea of Paul's has been verified, for in a Protestant country despotism cannot exist, and political freedom exists only in proportion to the Christian knowledge of the people. We now see why Paul said "Honor the King." By avoiding any resistance to constituted authority, he escaped for a long period the watchful jealousy of the royal power, otherwise he and the rest of his brethren would have encountered an additional enemy,

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who would have opposed the system they advocated. Those conversant with the state policy of Rome will never cease to admire the wisdom of Paul, as contained in the exhortation, "Honor the King;" but will any one charge Paul with authorizing despotism? We think not. There was another evil afflicting the world: this evil was polygamy. Some persons of the present day may very likely say, "Paul ought to have denounced it." They would do well to strive to attain a similar practical knowledge of human nature. Paul knew that lust and cruelty were twin occupants of the human heart; therefore, by assailing polygamy in a direct manner, he would cause its abettors to shut their ears against the divine system of Christian morals which he preached, and would also have raised up millions of sanguinary and energetic enemies. But he acted in a different manner; he did not command disciples to put away all their wives but ONE. No. But when he is declaring what qualifications are requisite for the bishopric, a "good work," and an office of high honor, he casts a stigma upon polygamy, by saying that a bishop must be the husband of ONE wife, one that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity." Now, the history of every age showed Paul that a plurality of wives was antagonistic to that state of personal holiness requisite for the man who is to be "blameless ;" and history and the philosophy of human nature showed him that, where there was a plurality of wives, household peace could no longer exist. Each wife would strive that she and her offspring (if she had any) should hold the first place in the husband's affections. Jealousy and hatred would animate all, and the children of the different wives would regard each other with distrust and hate. The whole of Asiatic history declares this fact; it has been the principal cause

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of the dreadful bloodshed so common among the noble and regal families of the East. Such being the case, it was impossible for a Christian to rule over such a divided house; and as he would naturally love the children of that wife he most loved, the others, thinking themselves injured, would not regard him with reverence, and would also question his right to obedience, seeing that he denied to them the parental love which was their right. Hence we find that polygamy, in process of time, became discreditable, as contrary to the dictates of nature and reason, and in Christian communities has totally ceased. We still think that Paul acted wisely in not condemning it in a direct manner.

With regard to slavery, Paul acted with his usual wisdom We find that he preached the gospel nearly forty years. If he had preached the freedom of slaves, we very much doubt whether he would have been allowed to live forty days. If he had attacked the rights of property, as then constituted, (and slaves were then regarded as the most remunerative branch of it) he would have armed the whole world against him, and the system he preached: he therefore exhorted Christian slaves to be "obedient unto their own masters, to please them well in all things, not answering again:" and the reason Paul gives is, not that their masters had any right to hold them, but that they might "adorn the doctrines of God our Saviour in all things." Disobedience and dishonesty being the chief vices of slaves, a Christian slave, who was exempt from these vices, would naturally excite the curiosity of a heathen master, who would seek for the cause of so great a change of conduct, and on the discovery of the cause, from the conduct of the disciple, would often be induced to adore the same master.

Again, a Christian master, who held a Christian brother in bondage,

would regard him, "Not now as a slave, but above a slave, as a brother beloved," and would very likely give that slave his freedom, as a token of his love. This is the tendency it would have in every generous mind: indeed, we know that our beloved brother, Alexander Campbell, has actually bought slaves from slaveholders, at the earnest request of the slaves themselves, and after educating them, and fitting them for civilized society, has given them their freedom! Christianity gradually destroyed slavery in Europe, as it has done despotism and polygamy. No advocate of slavery can now say with truth, that slavery is authorised in the New Testament if he do say that Paul authorised it, he must of necessity say that Paul authorised despotism, and also polygamy, except in the case of a bishop in a Christian church, and thereby sanctions three institutions the most injurious that can afflict mankind.

No institution appointed by God ever injured tie land and nation to which it was given. For instance, the Jewish system of slavery did not injure the land. The land was for a very long period the most beautiful and fertile in the universe.

Let us hear the effects of slavery in America, as described by our brother Alexander Campbell, and no one will deny his competency to judge of its effects :-" We conclude that slavery has proved no juster blessing to the far south, than it has done to Virginia. It has exhausted whatever of natural fertility has been originally in the soil, and South Carolina seems to have once had a reasonable proportion of fruitful territory. It has superinduced the worst system of agriculture which one could easily imagine, and it has imposed on the whole community views, feelings, and habits exceedingly inimical to the resuscitation of the soil, and the agricultural improvement and advancement of the state."

Again he says, "I am convinced that more than half the whole population of the Carolinas and Georgia are an age behind the same class in the west and north of our national patrimony; and still worse, I am of opinion that their condition can never be improved under the institutions of those regions. It is of the essence and of the tendency of those institutions to concentrate all power, wealth, learning, and respectability into the hands of an elect few, peers of the realm, princes and nobles of the land, 'lords of the fowl and the brute."

Such being the testimony of a faithful witness with regard to the slave system of the present day, it is evident that it is not an institution of God, but an invention of man.

J. G. L.

[The above remarks are appropriate and to the point. If neither Paul, nor any of the disciples of Jesus, devoted their time to preaching against despotism, polygamy, or slavery— which, from the New Testament, as well as from the preceding article, it is clearly proved they did not-ought not the disciples of Christ, in all ages, to tread in the same steps? Seeing, then, that a system of love and mercy now sheds its influence on the world -a system which, if its spirit were properly exhibited in principle, speech and practice, would speedily and for ever, sweep from the earth the remaining relics of those oppressive and demoralizing systems-what a fearful responsibility rests upon the professors of Christianity. Let Christ in his divinity, offices, character, spirit, and institutions be preached to the people, as in primitive apostolic days, and all opposing and corrupt principles would soon be obliterated from the world. Such a course, adopted even by the comparatively few who understand the truth, would be laying the axe to the root of the tree; and elevate to its proper position the original and divine plan for dispelling ignorance and crime from among the