not deliver unto his master,
the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee--he shall dwell
with thee, even in that place which he shall choose, in one of thy
gates, where it liketh him best; thou shalt not oppress him."

This my distinguished correspondent says, "forever puts the question at
rest." My reader, I hope, will ask himself what question it puts to
rest. He will please to remember, that it is brought to put this
question to rest, "Is slavery sinful in the sight of God?" the Bible
being judge--or "did God ever allow one man to hold property in
another?"

My correspondent admits this to be the question at issue. He asks, "What
is slavery?" And thus answers: "It is the principle involved in holding
man as property." "This," he says: "is the point at issue." He says, "if
it be right to hold man as property, it is right to treat him as
property," etc. Now, conceding all in the argument, that can be demanded
for this law about run-away slaves, yet it does not prove that slavery
or holding property in man is sinful--because it is a part and parcel of
the Mosaic law, given to Israel in the wilderness by the same God, who
in the same wilderness enacted "that of the heathen that were round
about them, they should buy bond-men and bond-women--also of the
strangers that dwelt among them should they buy, and they should pass as
an inheritance to their children after them, to possess them as bond-men
forever."--Levit. xxv: 44.

How can I admit that a prohibition to deliver up a run-away slave, under
the law of Moses, is proof that there was no slavery allowed under that
law? Here is the law from God himself,--Levit. xxv: 44, authorizing the
Israelites to buy slaves and transmit them and their increase as a
possession to their posterity forever--and to make slaves of their
captives taken in war.--Deut. xx: 10-15. Suppose, for argument's sake, I
admit that God prohibited the delivery back of one of _these slaves_,
when he fled from his master--would that prove that he was not a slave
before he fled? Would that prove that he did not remain legally a slave
in the sight of God, according to his own law, until he fled? The
passage proves the very reverse of that which it is brought to prove. It
proves that the slave is recognized by God himself as a slave, until he
fled to the Israelites. My correspondent's exposition of this law seems
based upon the idea that God, who had held fellowship with slavery among
his people