s of piety
joined with the oppression of the poor, they held up to universal
scorn and execration, as the dregs of hypocrisy. They warned the
creature of such professions, that he could escape the wrath of
Jehovah only by heart-felt repentance. And yet, according to the
ecclesiastics with whom we have to do, the Lord of these prophets
passed by in silence just such enormities as he commanded them to
expose and denounce! Every where, he came in contact with slavery in
its worst forms--"horrible cruelties" forced themselves upon his
notice; but not a word of rebuke or warning did he utter. He saw
"a boy given for a harlot, and a girl sold for wine, that they might
drink,"[8] without the slightest feeling of displeasure, or any mark
of disapprobation! To such disgusting and horrible conclusions, do
the arguings which, from the haunts of sacred literature, are
inflicted on our churches, lead us! According to them, Jesus Christ,
instead of shining as the light of the world, extinguished the
torches which his own prophets had kindled, and plunged mankind into
the palpable darkness of a starless midnight! O savior, in pity to
thy suffering people, let thy temple be no longer used as a
"den of thieves!"

[Footnote 6: Jeremiah, xxii. 13.]

[Footnote 7: Isaiah, lviii. 6, 7.]

[Footnote 8: Joel, iii. 3.]

"THOU THOUGHTEST THAT I WAS ALTOGETHER SUCH AN ONE AS THYSELF."

In passing by the worst forms of slavery, with which he every where
came in contact among the Jews, the Savior must have been
inconsistent with himself. He was commissioned to preach glad
tidings to the poor; to heal the broken-hearted; to preach
deliverance to the captives; to set at liberty them that are bruised;
to preach the year of Jubilee. In accordance with this commission,
he bound himself, from the earliest date of his incarnation, to the
poor, by the strongest ties; himself "had not where to lay his head;"
he exposed himself to misrepresentation and abuse for his
affectionate intercourse with the outcasts of society; he stood up
as the advocate of the widow, denouncing and dooming the heartless
ecclesiastics, who had made her bereavement a source of gain; and in
describing the scenes of the final judgment, he selected the very
personification of poverty, disease and oppression, as the test by
which our regard for him should be determined. To the poor and
wretched; to the degraded and despised, his arms were ever open.
They had his tenderest s