s to
nothing. The sin in stealing a man, is not the transfer from its owner
to another of that which is _already property,_ but the turning of
_personality_ into _property_. True, the attributes of man remain, but
the rights and immunities which grow out of them are attributed. It is
the first law both of reason and revelation to regard things and beings
as they are; and the sum of religion, to feel and act towards them
according to their value. Knowingly to treat them otherwise is sin; and
the degree of violence done to their nature, religions, and value,
measures its guilt. When things are sundered which God has indissolubly
joined, or confounded in one, which he has separated by infinite
extremes; when sacred and eternal distinctions, which he has garnished
with glory, are derided and set at nought, then, if ever, sin reddens to
its "scarlet dye." The sin specified in the passage, is that of doing
violence to the _nature_ of a man--to his intrinsic value as a rational
being, and blotting out the exalted distinction stamped upon him by his
Maker. In the verse preceding, and in that which follows, the same
principle is laid down. Verse 15, "He that smiteth his father or his
mother shall surely be put to death." V. 17, "He that curseth his father
or his mother, shall surely be put to death." If a Jew smote his
neighbor, the law merely smote him in return; but if the blow was given
to a _parent,_ it struck the smiter dead. The parental relation is the
_centre_ of human society. God guards it with peculiar care. To violate
that, is to violate all. Whoever trampled on that, showed that _no_
relation had any sacredness in his eyes--that he was unfit to move among
human relations who had violated one so sacred and tender. Therefore,
the Mosaic law uplifted his bleeding corpse, and brandished the ghastly
terror around the parental relation to guard it from impious inroads.

Why such a difference in penalties, for the same act? Answer. (1.) The
relation violated was obvious--the distinction between parents and
others manifest, dictated by natural affection--a law of the
constitution. (2.) The act was violence to nature--a suicide on
constitutional susceptibilities. (3.) The parental relation then, as
now, was the focal point of the social system, and required powerful
safeguards. "_Honor thy father and thy mother_," stands at the head of
those commands which prescribe the duties of man to man; and, throughout
the Bible, the pa