Page:The Bible Against Slavery (Weld, 1838).djvu/27

25 of Israel' and for the  that sojourneth among them." Deut. xxvii. 19. "Cursed be he that ."

VI. The Mosaic system enjoined the greatest affection and kindness toward servants, foreign as well as Jewish.

Lev. xix. 34. "The stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself." Also Deut. x. 17, 19. "For the Lord your God * * . He doth execute the judgment of the fatherless and widow, and, in giving him food and raiment, ." So Ex. xxii. 21. "Thou shalt neither vex a nor oppress him." Ex. xxiii. 9. "Thou shalt not oppress a, for ye know the heart of a stranger." Lev. xxv. 35, 36. "If thy brother be waxen poor thou shalt relieve him, yea, though he be a or a sojourner, that he may live with thee, take thou no usury of him or increase, but fear thy God." Could this same stranger be taken by one that feared his God, and held as a slave, and robbed of time, earnings, and all his rights!

VII. Servants were placed upon a level with their masters in all civil and religious rights. Num. xv. 15, 16, 29; ix. 14. Deut. i. 16, 17. Lev. xxiv. 22.

We argue that they became servants of their own accord.

I. Because to become a servant in the family of an Israelite, was to abjure idolatry, to enter into covenant with God, be circumcised in