, except
for a limited time; their servants were taken from the heathen nations
around them. See Leviticus, 25th Chapter, from the 39th to the 55th
verses inclusive. Mention is frequently made of servants throughout
the Old Testament. Men women and children were held in bondage by
patriarchs, prophets, kings, and others. Moses delivered various laws
to the children of Israel, for the guidance and regulation of both
masters and servants. The holding of slaves is nowhere denounced as
sinful in the Old Testament; on the contrary, the Hebrews were
_permitted_ to buy slaves from the surrounding heathen nations.
Masters were commanded in the Old as well as in the New Testament, to
treat servants with kindness and humanity. Inhumanity, cruelty, and
oppression being every where forbidden in the Bible.

Having briefly alluded to the revealed will of God tinder the old
dispensation, we will now hastily glance at the position occupied by
Christ and his apostles in relation to this institution, and at their
instructions and admonitions to masters and servants.

It is clearly and indisputably true that their course with reference
to masters and servants, and the doctrine which they taught, give no
countenance to the wild and visionary views of the faction, known in
the United States by the name of abolitionists. I cannot, however,
stop here to draw fully the contrast, but it will be found in other
parts of this work.

Christ came to preach the gospel, and not abolitionism. Christ came to
preach peace, and not to foment strife. He and his apostles taught
servants to love and obey their masters, to serve them freely and
cheerfully, and not to run away from them. No! No! They never incited
servants to murder their masters, nor to murmur at their service; nor
yet to steal all they could get, and then leave then. But there are
those among us who have been guilty of all these things; and yet,
notwithstanding, they have the audacity to tell us, at least those who
have not embraced the views of Tom Paine, that they are Christians.
The more consistent ones, I believe, are open infidels.

Our Saviour said nothing that could be construed into a condemnation
of the institution of slavery; nor yet did he invest his apostles with
any authority to interfere with it. It was no part of their
commission. Our Saviour preached the gospel of peace and glad tidings
to the bond and the free, to masters and servants, to the poor, the
maimed, the halt