HIBRARY OF CONGRESS. I 
 
 UNItED states op AMERICA. 
 
 ■m 
 
Bible View of Slavery. 
 
Bible View of Slavery. 
 
 ;2l ?Diacoursc, 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE JEWISH STNAQOGDE, " UN AI JESHUBUM," NEW TOKK, OM 
 THE DAY OF THE NATIOXAI, FAST, JAN. 4, 1861. 
 
 yhY THE 
 
 REV. M. J. RAPHALL, M.A., Ph. Dr. 
 
 BABBI PREACHER, AT TUB SYNAGOGUE, ORF.ENE STREET, NEW TOBK. 
 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 RuDD k. Carleton, 130 Grand Street, 
 
 BROOKS BUILDING, COR. OF BROADWAY. 
 
 M DCCC I.XI. 
 
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PEEFATOIIY EEMAEKS. 
 
 WiiEX the discourse which is now placed before 
 the public in pamphlet Ibrm, was iirst delivered, I 
 little anticipated that it would attract and occupy 
 ])nblic attention in the manner and to the extent 
 which it has done. The subject had not been 
 chosen by myself; I was called upon to expose a 
 jiernicious fallacy. Under a strong sense of duty I 
 did it ; not by any reasoning of my own, but by a 
 statement of facts, supported by the authority of 
 J^ciipture. That such a sober statement, and the 
 inferences to be deduced therefroin, should ])rove 
 very unpalatable to men of extreme opinions, and 
 that they should do their utmost to refute my dis- 
 course, was naturally to be expected. Accord- 
 ingly they have tried their best, from newspaper 
 paragraphs of a few lines up to elaborate articles 
 of many columns. With what success, it is for 
 public opinion to decide. It seejns, however, that 
 the public, like myself, thinks " that tacts are facts." 
 So long as the one great tact is not produced — the 
 
 TEXT OF SCKIPTUKE WHICH DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY 
 DEXOUXOES SLAVEHOLDING AS A SIX SO long aS this 
 
 has not been clone, my statements remain incontro- 
 vertible. As that text has not been quoted, Avhich 
 it never can be, sixce it does not exist, all the 
 llery attacks and declamations against me are but 
 " leather and prunella." 
 
 It is true that the attempt has been made to find 
 such a text ; and that Matt. vii. 12 : "All things 
 v/hatsoever you would that men should do to you, do 
 
via TREFATOUY REMARKS. 
 
 you even so to them," has been quoted. I might 
 answer that this great precept, the practical explica- 
 tion of the command, " Thou shalt love thy neigh- 
 bour like thyself," was not only known to the 
 ancient Hebrews and even to heathen Greeks, full 
 four hundred years before the sermon on the Mount, 
 but likewise to all Christian nations upwards of 1800 
 years after that sermon ; but that by ancients and 
 moderns it never was brought to bear on slavehold- 
 ing till within the last (comparatively) lew years. 
 But I j)refei- to take my answer irom the New Tes- 
 tament. The writer of the "Epistle to Piiilemon" 
 had, before his conversion, been the disciple of 
 Gamaliel, a descendant of that Hebrew sage, Avho, 
 in the Talmud (tr Sabbath fo. 31), declares that the 
 rule " whatsoever is hateful to thee do not unto 
 others" is the sum and substance of the Law. After 
 liis conversion he became one of the principal teach- 
 ers of Christianity. But though he must have 
 entered into the spirit of the sermon on the Mount 
 far more fully and truly than the writers in the 
 " Tribune" can do — and perhaps for that very 
 reason, he sent back the fugitive slave, Onesimus, 
 to his owner. Proof sufficient on the authority of 
 Paul of Tarsus, that the text, Matt. vii. 12, has no 
 special application to slaveholding. 
 
 The long tirade in the " Tribune" of this day 
 must go for what it is worth. It is before the pub- 
 lic ; so is my discourse. Each of the two must 
 stand or fall on its own merits. But I am con- 
 vinced my discourse will not fall, for it embodies "the 
 word of our God, which standeth good for ever.'' 
 
 M. J. R. 
 
 New York, Jan. 15th, 1861. 
 
Sermon 
 
BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 " The people of Nineveh believed in God, proclaimed a fast, 
 and put on sackcloth from the greatest of tiiem even to the least 
 of them. For the matter reached the King of Nineveh, and ho 
 arose from his throne, laid aside his robe, covered himself with 
 sackcloth, and seated himself in ashes. And ho caused it to bo 
 proclaimed and published through Nineveh, by decree of the 
 King and his magnates, saj-ingfLet neither man nor beast, herd 
 nor Hock, taste anything; led tliem not feed nor drink any water. 
 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry with 
 all their strength unto God; and let them turn ever}^ individual 
 from his evil way and from the violence that is in their hands. 
 "Who knoweth but God may turn and* relent; yea, turn away 
 from his fierce anger, that we perish not. And God saw their 
 work-s, that they turned from their evil way : and God relented 
 of the evil which he had said that he would inflict upon them ; 
 and he did it not." — Jonah iii. 5-10. 
 
 1. My Friend.s — We meet here tbis clay under 
 circuMistances not unlike those described in my 
 text. Not many weeks ago, on the invitation of 
 the Governor of this State, we joined in thanks- 
 giving for the manifold mercies the Lord had 
 
12 BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 vouchsafed to bestow upon us during the past 
 year. But "coming events cast their shadows 
 before," and our thanks were tinctured by the 
 foreboding of danger impending over our countr3^ 
 The evil we then dreaded has now come home to' 
 us. As the cry of the prophet, " Yet forty days 
 and Nineveh shall be overthrown," alarmed that 
 people, so the proclamation, " the Union is dis- 
 solved," has startled the inhabitants of the United 
 States. The President — the chief officer placed 
 at the helm to guide the vessel of the common- 
 wealth on its course — stands aghast at the signs 
 of the times. He sees the black clouds gathering- 
 overhead, he hears the fierce howl of the tornado, 
 and the hoarse roar of the breakers all around 
 him. An aged man, his great experience has 
 taught him that " man's extremity is God's oppor- 
 tunity;" and conscious of his own inability to 
 weather the storm without help from on high, he 
 calls upon every individual " to feel a personal 
 responsibility towa,rds God," even as the King 
 of Nineveh desired all persons " to cry unto God 
 with all their strength " — and it is in compliance 
 
BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 13 
 
 •witli this call of the Chief Magistrate of these 
 United States that we, like the many millions of 
 our fellow-citizens, devote this day to public 
 prayer and humiliation. The President, more 
 polished, though less plain-spoken than the King 
 of Nineveh, does not in direct terms require every 
 one to turn from his " evil way, and from the 
 violence that is in their hands." But to me these 
 two expressions seem in a most signal manner 
 to describe our difficulty, and to apply to the 
 actual condition of things both North and South. 
 The "violence in their hands" is the grl^t 
 reproach we must address to the sturdy fire-eater 
 who in the hearing of an indignant world pro- 
 claims " Cotton is King." King indeed, and a 
 most righteous and merciful one, no doubt, in 
 his own conceit ; since he only tars and feathers 
 the wretches who fall in his power, and whom he 
 suspects of not being sufficiently loyal and obedi- 
 ent to his sovereignty. And the " evil of his 
 ways" is the reproach we must address to the 
 sleek rhetorician who in the hearing of a God- 
 fearing world declares " Thought is King." King 
 
14 BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 indeed, and a most mighty and magnanimous 
 one — no doubt — in his own conceit ; all-powerful 
 to foment and augment the strife, though power- 
 less to allay it. Of all the fallacies coined in 
 the north, the arrogant assertion that " Thought 
 is King" is the very last with which, at this 
 present crisis, the patience of a reflecting people 
 should have been abused. For in fact, the 
 material greatness of the United States seems 
 to have completely outgrown the grasp of our 
 most gifted minds ; so that urgent as is our need, 
 pi^ssing as is the occasion, no man or set of men 
 have yet come forward capable of rising above 
 the narrow horizon of sectional influences and 
 prejudices, and with views enlightened, just, and 
 beneficent, to embrace the entirety of the Union 
 and to secure its prosperity and preservation, 
 No, my friends, " Cotton" is not King, and 
 " Human thought " is not King. Adonai Meleck. 
 The Lord alone is J^ing! Umalkootho haJcol 
 mashala, and His royalty rcigneth over all. This 
 very day of humiliation and of prayer — what is it 
 but the recognition of His supremacy, the confes- 
 
BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 15 
 
 sion of His power and of our own weakness, the 
 supplications which our distress addresses to Ilis 
 mercy ? But in order that these suppHcations 
 may be graciously received, that His supreme 
 protection may be vouchsafed unto our Country, 
 it is necessary that we should begin as the people 
 of Nineveh did ; we must " believe in God." — 
 And when I say " we," I do not mean merely us 
 handful of peaceable Union-loving Hebrews, but 
 I mean the whole of the people throughout the 
 United States : the President and his Cabinet, 
 the President elect and his advisers, the leaders 
 of public opinion, North and South, If they 
 truly and honestly desire to save our country, let 
 them believe in God and in His Holy Word ; and 
 then when the authority of the Constitution is to 
 be set aside for a higher Law, they will be able 
 to appeal to the highest Law of all, the revealed 
 Law and Word of God, which affords its supreme 
 sanction to the Constitution. There can iJe no 
 doubt, my friends, that however much of per- 
 sonal ambition, selfishness, pride, and obstinacy, 
 there may enter into the present unhappy quarrel 
 
16 BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 between the two great sections of the Common- 
 wealth — I say it is certain that the origin of the 
 quarrel itself is the difference of opinion respecting 
 slave-holding, which the one section denounces 
 as sinful — aye, as the most heinous of sins — while 
 the other section upholds it as perfectly lawful. 
 It is the province of statesmen to examine the 
 circumstances under which the Constitution of 
 the United States recognises the legality of slave- 
 holding ; and under what circumstances, if any, 
 it becomes a crime against the law of the land* 
 But the question whether slave-holding is a sin 
 before God, is one that belongs to the theologian. 
 I have been requested by prominent citizens of 
 other denominations, that I should on this day 
 examine the Bible view of slavery, as the reli- 
 gious mind of the country requires to be enlight- 
 ened on the subject. 
 
 In compliance with that request, and after 
 humbl}^ praying that the Father of Truth and of 
 Mercy may enlighten my mind, and direct my 
 ^Yords for good, I am about to solicit your earnest 
 attention, my friends, to this serious subject. My 
 
BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 17 
 
 discourse will, I fear, take up more of your time 
 than I am in the habit of exacting from you ; 
 but this is a day of penitence, and the having to 
 listen to a long and sober discourse must be 
 accounted as a penitential infliction. 
 
 The subject of my investigation falls into three 
 parts : — 
 
 First, How far back can we trace the existence 
 of slavery ? 
 
 Secondly, Is slavcholding condemned as a siu 
 in sacred Scripture? 
 
 Thirdly, What was the condition of the slave 
 in Biblical times, and among the Hebrews ; and 
 saying with our Father Jacob, " for Thy help, 
 I hope, O Lord!" I proceed to examine the ques- 
 tion, how far back can we trace the existence of 
 slavery ? • 
 
 I. It is generally admitted, that slavery had 
 its origin in war, public or private. The victor 
 having it in his power to take the life of his van- 
 quished enemy, prefers to let him live, and 
 reduces him to bondage. The life he has spared, 
 the body he might have mutilated or destroyed. 
 
18 BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVEEY, 
 
 become his absolute property. He may dispose 
 of it in any way he pleases. Such was, and 
 through a great part of the world still is, the 
 brutal law of force. When this state of things 
 first began, it is next to impossible to decide. If 
 we consult Sacred Scripture, the oldest and most 
 truthful collection of records now or at any time 
 in existence, we find the word Ngebed " slave," 
 which the English version renders " servant," 
 first used by Noah, who, in Grenesis ix. 25, curses 
 the descendants of his son Ham, by saying they 
 should be Ngebed Ngabadim, the " meanest of 
 slaves," or as the English version has it " servant 
 of servants." The question naturally arises how 
 came Noah to use the expression ? How came 
 he to know anything of slavery ? There existed 
 not at that time any human being on e^th except 
 Noah and his family of three sons, apparently by 
 one mother, born free and equal, with their wives 
 and children. Noah had no slaves. From tlie 
 time that he quitted the ark he could have 
 none. It therefore becomes evident that Noah's 
 acquaintance with the w^ord slave and the nature 
 
BIBLE VIKW OF SLAVERY. • 19 
 
 of slavery must date from before the Flood, and 
 existed in his memory only until the crime of 
 Ham called it forth. You and I may regret that 
 in his anger Noah should from beneath the waters 
 of wrath again have fished up the idea and prac- 
 tice of slavery ; but that he did so is a fact which 
 rests on the authority of Scripture. I am there- 
 fore justified when tracing slavery as far back as 
 it can be traced, I arrive at the conclusion, that 
 next to the domestic relations of husband and 
 wife, parents and children, the oldest relation of 
 society with which we are acquainted is that of 
 master and slave. 
 
 Let us for an instant stop at this curse by 
 Noah with which slavery after the Flood is 
 recalled into existence. Among the many pro- 
 phecies contained in the Bible and having refer- 
 ence to particular times, persons, and events, 
 there are three singular predictions referring to 
 three distinct races or peoples, which seem to be 
 intended for all times, and accordingly rcmoin in 
 full force to this day. The first of these is the 
 doom of Ham's descendants, the African race, 
 
20 • BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 pronounced upwards of -4,000 years ago. The 
 second is the character of the descendants of 
 Ishmael, the Arabs, pronounced nearly 4,000 
 years ago ; and the third and last is the promise 
 of continued and indestructible nationality pro- 
 mised to us, Israelites, full 2500 years ago. It 
 has been said that the knowledge that a parti- 
 cular prophecy exists, helps to work out its ful- 
 filment, and I am quite willing to allow that 
 with us, Israelites, such is the fact. The know- 
 ledge we have of God's gracious promises renders 
 us imperishable, even though the greatest and most 
 powerful nations of the olden time have utterly 
 perished. It may be doubted whether the fanatic 
 Arab of the desert ever heard of the prophecy 
 that he is to be a " wild man, his hand against 
 every man, and every man's hand against him," 
 (Gen, xvi, 12.) But you and I, and all men of 
 ordinary education, know that this prediction at 
 all times has been, and is now, literally fulfilled, 
 and that it has never been interrupted. Not 
 even when the followers of Mahomet rushed 
 forth to spread his doctrines, the Koran in one 
 
BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 21 
 
 hand and the sword in the other, and when Arab 
 conquest rendered the fairest portion of the Old 
 World subject to the empire of their Caliph, did 
 the descendants of Ishmael renounce their charac- 
 teristics. Even the boasted civilization of the 
 present century, and frequent intercourse with 
 Western travellers, still leave the Arab a wild 
 man, "his hand against everybody, and every 
 man's hand against him," a most convincing and 
 durable proof that the Word of God is true, 
 and that the prophecies of the Bible were dictated 
 by the Spirit of the Most High. But though, in 
 the case of the Arab, it is barely possible that 
 he may be acquainted with the prediction made 
 to Hagar, yet we may be sure that the fetish- 
 serving benighted African has no knowledge of 
 Noah's prediction; which, however, is nowhere 
 more fully or more atrociously carried out than 
 in the native home of the African. Yv^itness the 
 horrid fact, that the King of Dahomy is, at*his 
 very time, filling a large and deep trench with 
 human blood, sufficient to float a good-sized 
 boat ; that the victims arc innocent men, murdered 
 
22 BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 to satisfy some freak of what he calls his religion ; 
 and that this monstrous and most fiendish act has 
 met with no opposition, either from the pious 
 indignation of Great Britain, or from the zealous 
 humanity of our country. 
 
 Now I am well aware that the Biblical critics 
 called Eationalists, who deny the possibility of 
 prophecy, have taken upon themselves to assert, 
 that the prediction of which I have spoken was 
 never uttered by IsToah, but was made up many 
 centuries after him by the Hebrew writer of the 
 Bible, in order to smoothe over the extermina- 
 tion of the Canaanites, whose land was*conquered 
 by the Israelites. With superhuman knowledge 
 like that of the Eationalists, who claim to sit in 
 judgment on the Word of God, I do not think it 
 worth while to argue. But I would ask you 
 how is it that a prediction, manufactured for a 
 purpose — a fraud in short, and that a most base 
 ancbunholy one, should nevertheless continue in 
 force, and be carried out during four, or three, or 
 even two thousand years; for a thousand years 
 more or less can here make no difference. Noah, 
 
BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 23 
 
 on the occasion in question, bestows on his son 
 Shem a spiritual blessing: "Blessed be the Lord, 
 the God of Shem," and to this day it remains a 
 fact which cannot be denied, that whatever know- 
 ledge of God and of religious truth is possessed 
 by the human race, has been promulgated by the 
 descendants of Shem. Noah bestows on his son 
 Japheth a blessing, chiefly temporal, but par- 
 taking also of spiritual good. " May God enlarge 
 Japheth, and may he dwell in the tents of Shem," 
 and to this day it remains a fact which cannot be 
 denied, that the descendants of Japheth (Euro- 
 peans and their offspring) have been enlarged 
 so that they possess dominion in every part of 
 the earth ; while, at the same time, they share in 
 that knowledge of religious truth which the 
 descendants of Shem were the first to promul- 
 gate. Noah did not bestow any blessing on his 
 son Ham, but uttered a bitter curse against his 
 descendants, and to this day it remains a fact 
 which cannot be gainsaid that in his own native 
 home, and generally throughout the world, the 
 "unfortunate negro is indeed the meanest of slaves. 
 
24 BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 Mucli has been said respecting the inferiority of 
 his intellectual powers, and that no man of his 
 race has ever inscribed his name on the Pantheon 
 of human excellence, either mental or moral. 
 But this is a subject I will not discuss. I do 
 not attempt to build up a theory, nor yet to 
 defend the moral government of Providence. I 
 state facts; and having done so, I remind you 
 that our own fathers were slaves in Egypt, and 
 afflicted four hundred years ; and then I bid you 
 reflect on the words of inspired Isaiah (Iv. 8.), 
 '' My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither 
 are your ways my ways, saith the Lord." 
 
 II. Iwtving thus, on the authority of the sacred 
 Scripture, traced slavery back to the remotest 
 period, I next request your attention to the ques- 
 tion, "Is slaveholding condemned as a sin in 
 sacred Scripture ?" How this question can at all 
 arise in the mind of any man that has received a 
 religious education, and is acquainted with the 
 history of the Bible, is a phenomenon I cannot 
 explain to myself, and which fifty j^ears ago no 
 man dreamed of. But we live in times when we 
 
BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 2o 
 
 must not be surprised at anything. Last Sunday 
 an eminent preacher is reported to have declared 
 from the pulpit, " That the Old Testament require- 
 ments served their purpose during the physical 
 and social development of mankind, and were 
 rendered no longer necessary now when we were 
 to be guided by the superior doctrines of the New 
 in the moral instruction of the race." I had 
 always thought that in the " moral instruction of 
 the race," the requirements of Jewish Scriptures 
 and Christian Scriptures were identically the same ; 
 that to abstain from murder, theft, adultery, that 
 " to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk hum- 
 bly with God," were '' requirements" equally 
 imperative in the one course of instruction as in 
 the other. But it appears I was mistaken. "We 
 have altered all that now," says this eminent divine, 
 in happy imitation of Molicre's physician, whose 
 new theory removed the heart from the left side of 
 the human body to the right. But when I remem- 
 ber that the "now" refers to a period of which you 
 all, though no very aged men, witnessed the rise ; 
 when, moreover, I remember that the "we" the 
 
26 BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 reverend preaclier speaks of, is limited to a few im- 
 pulsive declaimers, gifted with great zeal, but little 
 knowledge ; more eloquent than learned ; better 
 able to excite our passions than to satisfy our 
 reason ; and when, lastly, I remember the scorn 
 with which sacred Scripture (Deut. xxxii. 18) 
 speaks of " newfangled notions, lately sprung up, 
 which your fathers esteemed not;" when I con- 
 sider all this, I think you and I had rather continue 
 to take our "requirements for moral instruction" 
 from Moses and the Prophets than from the elo- 
 quent preacher of Brooklyn, But as that reve- 
 rend gentleman takes a lead among those who most 
 loudly and most vehemently denounce slavehold- 
 ing as a sin, I wished to convince myself whether 
 he had any Scripture warranty for so doing ; and 
 whether such denunciation was one of those 
 " requirements for moral instruction" advanced 
 by the New Testament. I have accordingly 
 examined the various books of Christian Scrip- 
 ture, and find that they afford the reverend gen- 
 tleman and his compeers no authority whatever for 
 his and their declamations. The New Testament 
 
BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 27 
 
 nowhere, directly or indirectl}^, condemns slave- 
 holding, which, indeed, is proved by the universal 
 practice of all Christian nations during many cen- 
 turies. Receiving slavery as one of the condi- 
 tions of society, the New Testament nowhere 
 interferes with or contradicts the slave code of 
 Moses ; it even preserves a letter written by one 
 of the most eminent Christian teachers to a slave- 
 owner on sending back to him his runaway slave. 
 And when we next refer to the history and 
 " requirements" of our own sacred Scriptures, we 
 find that on the most solemn occasion therein 
 recorded, when God gave the Ten Command- 
 ments on Mount Sinai — 
 
 There where His linger scorched, the tablet shone; 
 There where His shadow on his people shone 
 His glory, shrouded in its garb of fire, 
 Himself no eye might see and not expire. 
 
 Even on that most solemn .and most holy occa- 
 sion, slaveholding is not only recognised and 
 sanctioned as an integral part of the social struc- 
 ture, when it is commanded that the Sabbath of 
 
28 BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 the Lord is to bring rest to Ngabdecna ve Ama- 
 ihecka^ " Thy male slave and thy female slave" 
 (Exod. XX. 10 ; Deut. v. 14). But the property 
 in slaves is placed under the same protection as 
 any other species of lawful property, when it is 
 said, " Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, 
 or his field, or his male slave, or his female slave, 
 or his ox, or his ass, or aught that belongeth to 
 thy neighbor" (Ibid. xx. 17; v. 21). That the 
 male slave and female slave here spoken of do 
 not designate the Hebrew bondman, but the 
 heathen slave, I shall presently show you. That 
 the Ten Commandments are the word of God, and 
 as such, of the very highest authority, is acknow- 
 ledged by Christians as well as by Jews. I would 
 therefore ask the reverend gentleman of Brook- 
 lyn and his compeers — How dare you, in the 
 face of the sanction and protection afforded to 
 slave property in the Ten Commandments — how 
 dare you denounce slaveholding as a sin? When 
 you remember that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Job 
 — the men with whom the Almighty conversed, 
 with whose names he emphatically connects his 
 
BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 29 
 
 own most holy name, and to whom He vouchsafed 
 to give the character of " perfect, upright, fearing 
 God and eschewing evil" (Job i. 8) — that all these 
 men were slaveholders, does it not strike you that 
 you are guilty of something very little short of 
 blasphemy? And if you answer me, "Oh, in 
 their time slaveholding was lawful, but now it has 
 become a sin," I in my turn ask you, " When 
 and by what authority you draw the line ?" Tell 
 us the precise time when slaveholding ceased to 
 be permitted, and became sinful?" When we 
 remember the mischief which this inventing a new 
 sin, not known to the Bible, is causing ; how it 
 has exasperated the feelings of the South, and 
 alarmed the conscience of the North, to a degree 
 that men who should be brothers are on the point 
 of embruing their hands in each other's blood, 
 are we not entitled to ask the reverend preacher of 
 Brooklyn, " What right have you to insult and 
 exasperate thousands of God-fearing, law-abiding 
 citizens, whose moral worth and patriotism, whose 
 purity of conscience and of life, are fully equal 
 to your own? What right have you to place 
 
30 BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 yonder grey-headed philanthropist on a level with 
 a murderer, or yonder virtuous mother of a family 
 on a line with an adulteress, or yonder honorable 
 and honest man in one rank with a thief, and all 
 this solely because they exercise a right which 
 your own fathers and progenitors, during many 
 generations, held and exercised without reproach 
 or compunction. You profess to frame j^our 
 " moral instruction of the race" according to the 
 " requirements" of the New Testament — but tell 
 us where and by whom it was said, " "Whosoever 
 shall say to his neighbor, Raca (worthless sinner), 
 shall be in danger of the council ; but whosoever 
 shall say, thou fool, shall be in danger of the judg- 
 ment." My friends, I find, and I am sorry to 
 find, that I am delivering a pro-slavery discourse. 
 I am no friend to slavery in the abstract, and 
 still less friendly to the practical working of slav- 
 ery. But I stand here as a teacher in Israel ; 
 not to place before you my own feelings and 
 opinions, but to propound to you the word of 
 God, the Bible view of slavery. With a due 
 sense of my responsibility, I must state to you 
 
BIBLE VIKW OF SLAVERY. 31 
 
 tlie truth and nothing but the truth, however 
 unpalatable or unpopular that truth may be. 
 
 III. It remains for me now to examine what 
 was the condition of the slave in Biblical times 
 and among the Hebrews, And here at once we 
 must distinguish between the Hebrew bondman 
 and the heathen slave. The former could only be 
 reduced to bondage from two causes. If he had 
 committed theft and had not wherewithal to make 
 full restitution, he was " sold for his theft." 
 (Exod. xxii. 3.) Or if he became so miserably 
 poor that he could not sustain life except by 
 begging, he had permission to " sell" or bind him- 
 self in servitude. (Levit. xxv. 39 et seq.) But 
 in either case his servitude was limited in duration 
 and character. " Six years shall he serve, and in 
 the seventh he shall go out free for nothing" 
 (Exod, xxi. 2). And if even the bondman pre- 
 ferred bondage to freedom, he could not, under 
 any circumstances, be held to servitude longer 
 than the jubilee then next coming. At that 
 period the estate which had originally belonged 
 to his father, or remoter ancestor, reverted to his 
 
32 BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 possession, so that he went forth at once a freeman 
 and a landed proprietor. As his privilege of 
 Hebrew citizen was thus only suspended, and the 
 law, in permitting him to be sold, contemplated 
 his restoration to his full rights, it took care that 
 during his servitude his mind should not be 
 crushed to the abject and cringing condition of a 
 slave. " Ye shall not rule over one another with 
 rigor," is the provision of the law. (Lev. xxv. 
 46.) Thus he is fenced round with protection 
 against any abuse of power on the part of his 
 employer ; and tradition so strictly interpreted the 
 letter of the law in his favor, that it was a com- 
 mon saying of Biblical times and homes, which 
 Maimonides has preserved to us, that " he who 
 buys an Hebrew bondman gets himself a master." 
 Though in servitude, this Hebrew was in nowise 
 exempt from his religious duties. Therefore it is 
 not for him or his that the Ten Commandments 
 stipulated for rest on Xhe Sabbath of the Lord ; 
 for his employer could not compel him to work 
 on that day; and if he did work of his own 
 accord, he became guilty of death, like any other 
 
BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 33 
 
 Sabbath-breaker. Neither does the prohibition, 
 thou shalt not covet the property of thy neigh- 
 bor," apply to him, for he was not the property of 
 his employer. In fact, between the Hebrew 
 bondman and the Southern slave there is no 
 point of resemblance. There were, however, 
 slaves among the Hebrews, whose general condi- 
 tion was analogous to that of their Southern fellow 
 sufferers. That was the heathen slave, who was 
 to be bought " from the heathens that were round 
 about the land of Israel, or from the heathen 
 strangers that sojourned in the land ; they should 
 be a possession, to be bequeathed as an inheritance 
 to the owner's children, after his death, for ever" 
 (Levit. XXV. 44-46.) Over these heathen slaves 
 the owner's property was absolute; he could put 
 them to hard labor, to the utmost extent of their 
 physical strength ; he could inflict on them any 
 degree of chastisement short of injury to life 
 and limb. If his heathen slave ran away or 
 strayed from home, every Israelite was bound 
 to bring or send him back, as he would have 
 
 to do with any other portion of his neighbor's 
 2- 
 
34 BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 property that bad been lost or strayed. (Deut. 
 xxii. 3.) 
 
 Now, you ma}^, perhaps, ask me how I can 
 reconcile this statement with the text of Scripture 
 so frequently quoted against the Fugitive Slave 
 Law, " Thou shalt not surrender unto his master 
 the slave who has escaped from his master unto 
 thee" (Deut. xxiii. 16). I answer you that, 
 according to all legists, this text applies to a 
 heathen slave, who, from any foreign country 
 escapes from his master, even though that master 
 be an Hebrew, residing out of the land of Israel. 
 Such a slave — but such a slave only — is to find a 
 permanent asylum in any part of the country he 
 may choose. This interpretation is fully borne 
 out by the words of the precept. The pronoun 
 "thou," is not here used in the same sense as in 
 the Ten Commandments. There it designates 
 every soul in Israel individually; since every 
 one has it in his power, and is in duty bound to 
 obey the commandments. But as the se'curity 
 and protection to be bestowed on the runaway 
 slaves are beyond the power of any individual, and 
 
BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 35 
 
 require the consent and concurrence of the whole 
 communitv, the pronoun "thou" here means the 
 whole of the people, and not one portion in oppo- 
 sition to any other portion of the people. And 
 as the expression remains the same thronghout 
 the precept, "With thee he shall dwell, even 
 among je, in the place he shall choose in one of 
 thy gates where it liketh him best," it plainly 
 shows that the whole of the land was open to 
 him, and the whole of the people were to protect 
 the fugitive, which could not have been carried 
 out if it had applied to the slave who escaped 
 from one tribe into the territory of another. Had 
 the precept been expounded in any other than its 
 strictly literal sense, it would have caused great 
 confusion, since it would have nullified two other 
 precepts of God's law ; that which directs that 
 "slaves, like lands and houses, were to be inhe- 
 rited for ever," and that which commands "pro- 
 pert}^, lost or strayed, to be restored to the 
 owner." Any other interpretation would, more- 
 over, have caused heartburning and strife between 
 the tribes, for men were as tenacious of their 
 
36 BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 riglits and property in those days as they are 
 now. But no second opinion was ever enter- 
 tained ; the slave who ran away from Dan to 
 Beersheba had to be given up, even as the run- 
 away from South Carolina has to be given up by 
 Massachusetts ; whilst the runaway from Edora, 
 or from Syria, found an asylum in the land of 
 Israel, as the runaway slave from Cuba or Brazil 
 would find in New York. Accordingly, Shimei 
 reclaimed and recovered his runaway slaves from 
 Achish, king of Gath, at that time a vassal of 
 Israel (Kings ii. 39, 40). And Saul of Tarsus 
 sent back the runaway slave, Onesimus, unto his 
 owner Philemon. But to surrender to a ruthless, 
 lawless heathen, the wretched slave who had 
 escaped from his cruelty, would have been to 
 give up the fugitive to certain death, or at least 
 to tortures repugnant to the spirit of God's law, 
 the tender care of which protected the bird in its 
 nest, the beast at the plough, and the slave in his 
 degradation. Accordingly, the ex-tradition was 
 not permitted in Palestine any more than it is in 
 Canada. While thus the owner possessed full 
 
BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 37 
 
 right over and security for his property, the exer- 
 cise of that power was confined within certain 
 limits which he could not outstep. His female 
 slave was not to be the tool or castaway toy of 
 his sensuality, nor could he sell her, but was 
 bound to "let her go free," "because he had 
 humbled her" (Deut. xxi. 1-i). His male slave 
 was protected against excessive punishment ; for 
 if the master in any way mutilated his slave, 
 even to knock a single tooth out of his head, the 
 slave became free (Exod. xxi. 26, 27). And 
 while thus two of the worst passions of human 
 nature, lust and cruelty, were kept under due 
 restraint, the third bad passion, cupidity, was not 
 permitted free scope ; for the law of God secured 
 to the slave his Sabbaths and days of rest ; while 
 public opinion, which in a country so densely 
 peopled as Palestine must have been all-powerful, 
 would not allow any slave-owner to impose 
 heavier tasks on his slaves, or to feed them worse 
 than his neighbors did. This, indeed, is the great 
 distinction which the Bible view of slavery 
 derives from its divine source. The slave is a 
 
38 BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 jyerson m whom the dignity of human nature is 
 to be respected ; he has rights. "Whereas, the 
 heathen view of slavery which prevailed at Rome, 
 and which, I am sorry to say, is adopted in the 
 South, reduces the slave to a thing, and a thing 
 can have no rights. The result to which the 
 Bible view of slavery leads us, is — 1st. That 
 slavery has existed since the earliest time ; 2d. 
 That slaveholding is no sin, and that slave pro- 
 perty is expressly placed under the protection of 
 the Ten Commandments; 3d. That the slave is a 
 person, and has rights not conflicting with the 
 lawful exercise of the rights of his owner. If our 
 Northern fellow-citizens, content with following 
 the word of God, would not insist on being 
 "righteous overmuch," or denouncing "sin" 
 which the Bible knows not, but which is plainly 
 taught by the precepts of men — they would 
 entertain more equity and less ill feeling 
 towards their Southern brethren. And if our 
 Southern follow-citizcns would adopt the Bible 
 view of slavery, and discard that heathen slave 
 code, which permits a feW bad men to indulge in 
 
BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVEIIY. 39 
 
 an abuse of power that throws a stigma and dis- 
 grace on the whole body of slaveholders — if both 
 North and South would do what is right, then 
 " God would see their works and that they turned 
 from the evil of their ways ;" and in their case, as 
 in that of the people of Nineveh, would mercifully 
 avert the impending evil, for with Ilim alone is 
 the power to do so. Therefore let us pray. 
 
 Almighty and merciful God, we approach Thee 
 this day, our hearts heavy with the weight of our 
 sins, our looks downcast under the sense of our 
 ingratitude, national and individual. Thou, Father 
 all-bounteous, hast in Thine abundant goodness 
 plentifully bestowed upon us every good and 
 every blessing, spiritual, mental, temporal, that in 
 the present state of the world men can desire. 
 But we have perverted and abused Thy gifts; in 
 our arrogance and selfishness we have contrived 
 to extract poison from Thy most precious boons ; 
 the spiritual have degenerated into unloving self- 
 righteousness; the mental have rendered us vain- 
 glorious and conceited; and the temporal have 
 degraded us into Mammon-worshipping slaves of 
 
•10 BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 
 
 avarice. Intoxicated with our prosperity, we 
 have forgotten Thee ; drunken with pride, we reel 
 on towards the precipice of disunion and ruin. 
 What hand can stay us if it be not Thine, God ! 
 Thou who art long-suffering as Thou art almighty, 
 to Thee we turn in the hour of our utmost need. 
 Hear us, Father, for on Thee our hopes are fixed. 
 Help us, Father, for thou alone canst do it. 
 Punish us not according to our arrogance ; afflict 
 us not according to our deserts. Remove from 
 our breasts the heart of stone, and from our 
 minds the obstinacy of self-willed pride. Extend 
 thy grace unto us, that we may acknowledge our 
 own transgressions. Open our eyes that we may 
 behold and renounce the wrong we inflict on our 
 neighbors. God of justice and of mercy, suffer 
 not despots to rejoice at our dissensions, nor 
 tyrants to triumph over our fall. Let them not 
 point at us the finger of scorn, or sa,j, "Look 
 there at the fruits of freedom and self-government 
 — of equal rights and popular sovereignty — strife 
 without any real cause — destruction without any 
 sufficient motive." Oh, let not them who trust in 
 
BIBLE VIEW OF SLAVERY. 41 
 
 Thee be put to shame, or those who seek Thee be 
 disgraced. Ahiiighty God, extend thy gracious 
 protection to the United States. Pour out over 
 the citizens thereof, and those whom they have 
 elected to be their rulers, the spirit of grace and 
 of supplication, the spirit of wisdom and brotherly 
 love, so that henceforth, even as hitherto, they 
 may know that union is strength, and that it is 
 good and pleasant for brethren to dwell together 
 in unity. And above all things. Lord merciful 
 and gracious, avert the calamity of civil war from 
 our midst. If in Thy supreme wisdom Thou 
 bast decreed that this vast commonwealth, which 
 has risen under Thy protection, and prospered 
 under Thy blessing, shall now be separated, then 
 we beseech Thee let that separation be peaceable ; 
 that no human blood may be shed, but that the 
 canopy of Thy peace may still remain spread 
 over all the land. May we address our prayers to 
 Thee, Lord, at an acceptable time; maycst 
 Thou, O God, in Thy abundant mercy, answer us 
 with the truth of Thy salvation. Amen. 
 THE END. 
 
REJDT rniS ll^EEK. 
 
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