Page:Does the Bible sanction American slavery?.djvu/88

76 which he prescribes it, his general penalties for secondary offences being fines and corporal punishment: and (4) he absolutely forbids the lending of money upon usury to a brother in want, the source of the debts which crushed the Attic and Roman peasantry, and caused them and their families to become slaves. “If thou lend money to any of My people that is poor by thee, thou shalt not be to him as an usurer, neither shalt thou lay upon him usury.” “And if thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen in decay with thee; then thou shalt relieve him: yea, though he be a stranger, or a sojourner; that he may live with thee. Take thou no usury of him, or increase: but fear thy God; that thy brother may live with thee. Thou shalt not give him thy money upon usury, nor lend him thy victuals for increase. I am the Lord your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.” Laws against usury are absurd in the present state of society. But in the state of society with which the Hebrew Lawgiver had to deal, they might, as we learn from the example of Greece and Rome, be the salvation of the people.

The first step towards the enslaving of the peasant’s person at Rome and Athens was the mortgaging and forfeiture of his little plot of land. Against this likewise the Hebrew lawgiver guards. “The land shall not be sold for ever: for the land is Mine; for ye are strangers and sojourners with Me. And in all the land of your possession ye shall grant a redemption for the land. If thy brother be waxen poor, and hath sold away