our faith in revelation,
if you are an abolitionist.

"The Hebrews were allowed to sell their servants to other people.

"Thus they traded in flesh and blood. This was prohibited in the case of
a Hebrew maid-servant, whom a man had bought and had made her his
concubine. If she did not please him, it was said that--'to sell her
unto a strange nation he shall have no power.' The inference is that
they sold their Gentile slaves, if they pleased, 'to a strange nation.'
Again. When a father or mother became poor, their creditor could take
their children for servants. Thus you read: 'Now there cried a certain
woman of the wives of the sons of the prophets unto Elisha saying, Thy
servant my husband is dead, and thou knowest that thy servant did fear
the Lord; and the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be
bondmen.' This was according to the law of Moses, in the twenty-fifth of
Leviticus; 'bondmen,' however, meaning here a servant for a term of
years. See also the New Testament parable of the unforgiving servant.

"This was hard, it will seem to you and to all of us, that if one became
poor in Israel, his children could be attached. Thus the idea of
involuntary servitude, where no crime was, prevailed in the Theocracy.

"But we come now to something which draws harder upon our faith.

"We find the Most High prescribing, Exodus xxi. 20, 21, that a master
who kills his servant under chastisement shall be punished (but not put
to death); and if the servant survives a day or two, the master shall
not even be 'punished' for the death of his slave!

"The reason which the Most High gives is this: '_For he is his money_'!

"A human being, 'money'! An immortal soul, 'money'! God's image,
'money'! And this the reasoning, these the very words of my Maker! Is it
not astonishing, if your principles are correct, that there has been no
controversy for ages against this? and that the Bible, with such
passages in it should have retained its hold on the human mind? 'He is
his money'! It would have been no different had it read: 'He is his
cotton.' You see that the Most High recognized 'ownership,' 'property in
man.' Why is it said, 'He is his money'? Poole (Synopsis) says,--'that
is, his possession bought with money; and therefore 1. Had a power to
chastise him according to his merit, which might be very great. 2. Is
sufficiently punished with his own loss. 3. May be presumed not to have
done this purposely or maliciously.'