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 self-evident, dictated by a law of nature. 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 safe-guards. "_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 parental state is
God's favorite illustration of his own relations to the human family. In
this case, death was to be inflicted not for smiting a _man,_ but a
_parent_--_a distinction_ made sacred by God, and fortified by a bulwark
of defence. In the next verse, "He that stealeth a man," &c., the SAME
PRINCIPLE is wrought out in still stronger relief. The crime to be
punished with death was not the taking of property from its owner, but
violence to an _immortal nature_, the blotting out of a sacred
_distinction_--making MEN "chattels."

The incessant pains taken in the Old Testament to separate human beings
from brutes and things, shows God's regard for this, his own
distinction. "In the beginning" he proclaimed it to the universe as it
rose into being. Creation stood up at the instant of its birth, to do it
homage. It paused in adoration while God ushered forth its crowning
work. Why that dread pause and that creating arm held back in mid career
and that high conference in the godhead? "Let us make man in OUR IMAGE
after OUR LIKENESS, and let him have dominion over the fish of the sea,
and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle and over all the
earth." Then while every living thing, with land, and sea, and
firmament, and marshalled worlds, waited to swell the shout of morning
stars--then God created man IN HIS OWN IMAGE; IN THE IMAGE OF GOD
created he him." This solves the problem, IN THE IMAGE OF GOD, CREATED
HE HIM. This distinction is often repeated and always with great
solemnity. In Gen. i. 26-28, it is expressed in various forms. In Gen.
v. 1, we find it again, "IN THE LIKENESS OF GOD MADE HE HIM." In Gen.
ix. 6, again. After giving license to shed the blood of "every moving
thing that liveth," it is added, "_Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man
shall his blood be shed, for_ IN THE IMAGE OF GOD