Yet on this subject the
difference is not great, and so far as humanity (in the abolition sense
of it) is concerned, is in favor of the Roman law.

The laws of each made slaves to be property, and allowed them to be
bought and sold. See Gibbon's Rome, vol. i: pp. 25, 26, and Levit. xxv:
44, 45, 46. The laws of each allowed prisoners taken in war to be
enslaved. See Gibbon as above, and Deut. xx: 10-15. The difference was
this: the Roman law allowed _men_ taken in battle to be enslaved--the
Jewish law required the _men_ taken in battle to be put to death, and to
enslave their wives and children. In the case of the Midianites, the
mercy of enslaving some of the women was denied them because they had
enticed the Israelites into sin, and subjected them to a heavy judgment
under Balaam's counsel, and for a reason not assigned, the mercy of
slavery was denied to the male children in this special case. See
Numbers xxxi: 15, 16, 17.

The first letter to Timothy, while at Ephesus, if rightly understood,
would do much to stay the hands of men, who have more zeal than
knowledge on this subject. See again what I have written in my first
essay on this letter. In addition to what I have there said, I would
state, that the "_other doctrine_," 1 Tim. i: 3, which Paul says, must
not be taught, I take to be a principle tantamount to this, that Jesus
Christ proposed to subordinate the civil to ecclesiastical authority.

The doctrine which was "_according to godliness_," 1 Tim, vi: 3, I take
to be a principle which subordinated the church, or Christ in his
members, to civil governments, or "the powers that be." One principle
was seditious, and when consummated must end in the man of sin. The
other principle was practically a quiet submission to government, as an
ordinance of God in the hands of men.

The abolitionists, at Ephesus, in attempting to interfere with the
relations of slavery, and to unsettle the rights of property, acted upon
a principle, which statesmen must see, would in the end, subject the
whole frame-work of government to the supervision of the church, and
terminate in the man of sin, or a pretended successor of Christ, sitting
in the temple of God, and claiming a right to reign over, and control
the civil governments of the world. The Apostle, therefore, chapter ii:
1, to render the doctrine of subordination to the State a very prominent
doctrine, and to cause the knowledge of it to spread among all who
attended thei