particular age is to be sought from a knowledge of the kind of servitude which then actually prevailed. We can ascertain the meaning of the word from the facts in the case; not the nature of the facts from the use of the word. If the kind of servitude existed which does now in England, and to which the word servant is applied, it would accurately express that; if the kind which existed under the feudal system, it would express that; if the kind which exists in Russia, it would express that; and if such a kind as exists in the Southern states of this Union, it would express that. (3.) The word might, therefore, denote slavery, if slavery at any time existed. The Hebrews would not have been under a necessity of forming a new word to denote that relation, but the term in actual use would have covered the whole ground, and would easily adapt itself to the actual state of things. But (4.) it did not necessarily denote that, and that signification is not to be given to it in any case unless it is clear, from other sources than from the use of the word, that slavery was intended. It might mean many other things, and it is not a correct method of interpretation to infer that because this word is used, that therefore slavery existed.

It follows from this, that the mere use of the word in the time of the patriarchs, determines nothing in the issue before us. It does not prove either that slavery existed then, or that it is lawful. For any thing that can be learned from the mere use of the word, the kind of servitude then existing may have had none of the essential elements of slavery.

This inquiry into the meaning of the word will be of use through the whole discussion, for it is important to bear in remembrance that this use of the term nowhere in the Scrip-tures of necessity implies slavery.

(3.) Some of the servants held by the patriarchs were bought with money.' Much reliance is laid on this by the advocates of slavery, in justifying the purchase, and consequently, as they seem to reason, the sale of slaves now; and it is, therefore, of importance to inquire how far the fact

stated is a justification of slavery as it exists at present. But one instance occurs in the case of the patriarchs, where it is said that servants were bought with money.' This is the case of Abraham, Gen. xvii. 12, 13: “And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man. child in your generations; he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed; he that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised." Comp. vs. 23, 27. This is the only instance in which there is mention of the fact that any one of the patriarchs had persons in their employment who were bought with money. The only other case which occurs at that period of the world is that of the sale of Joseph, first to the Ishmaelites, and then to the Egyptians -a case which, it is believed, has too close a resemblance to slavery as it exists in our own country, ever to be referred to with much satisfaction by the advocates of the system. In the case, moreover, of Abraham, it should be remembered that it is the record of a mere fact. There is no command to buy servants or to sell them, or to hold them as property -any more than there was a command to the brethren of Joseph to enter into a negotiation for the sale of their brother. Nor is there any approbation expressed of the fact that they were bought; unless the command given to Abraham to affix to them the seal of the covenant, and to recognise them as brethren in the faith which he held, should be construed as such evidence of approval.

The inquiry then presents itself, whether the fact that they were bought determines any thing with certainty in regard to the nature of the servitude, or to the propriety of slavery as practised now. The Hebrew in the passages referred to in Genesis is, the born in thy house, and the purchase of silver,' app-miknath keseph-not incorrectly rendered, 'those bought with money. The verb ặp, kânâ, from which the noun here is derived, and which is commonly used in the Scriptures when the purchase of slaves

is referred to, means to set upright, or erect, to found or create, Gen. xiv. 19, 22, Deut. xxxii. 6; to get for oneself, to gain or acquire, Prov. iv. 7, xv. 32; to obtain, Gen. iv. 1; and to buy or purchase, Gen. xxv. 10, xlvii. 22. In this latter sense it is often used, and with the same latitude of signification as the word buy or purchase is with us. It is most commonly rendered by the words buy and purchase in the Scriptures. See Gen. xxv. 10, xlvii. 22; xlix. 30, 1. 13; Josh. xxiv. 32; 2 Sam. xii. 3; Ps. lxxviii. 54; Deut. xxxii. 6; Lev. xxvii. 24, and very often else. where. It is applied to the purchase of fields; of cattle; of men; and of every thing which was or could be regarded as property. As there is express mention of silver or money in the passage before us respecting the servants of Abraham, there is no doubt that the expression means that he paid a price for a part of his servants. A part of them were "born in his house;" a part had been "bought with money" from 'strangers,' or were foreigners.

But still, this use of the word in itself determines nothing in regard to the tenure by which they were held, or the nature of the servitude to which they were subjected. It does not prove that they were regarded as property in the sense in which the slave is now regarded as a chattel; nor does it demonstrate that the one who was bought ceased to be regarded altogether as a man; or that it was regarded as right to sell him again. The fact that he was to be circumcised as one of the family of Abraham, certainly does not look as if he ceased to be regarded as

a man.

The word rendered buy or purchase in the Scriptures, is applied to so many kinds of purchases, that no safe argument can be founded on its use in regard to the kind of servitude which existed in the time of Abraham. A reference to a few cases where this word is used, will show that nothing is determined by it respecting the tenure by which the thing purchased was held. (1.) It is used

in the common sense of the word purchase as applied to inanimate things, where the property would be absolute. Gen. xlii. 2, 7, xliii. 20, xlvii. 19, xxx. 19. (2.) It is applied to the purchase of cattle, where the property may be supposed to be as absolute. See Gen. xlvi. 22, 24,

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iv. 20; Job xxxvi. 33; Deut. iii. 19; and often. (3.) God is represented as having bought his people; that is, as having ransomed them with a price, or purchased them to himself. Deut. xxxii. 6, “Is not he thy Father that hath bought thee?"-P-kânēkhá thy purchaser. Ex. xv. 16, "By the greatness of thine arm they shall be still as a stone, till thy people pass over; till the people pass over which thou hast purchased."-p, kânithâ. See Psalm lxxiv. 2. Comp. Isa. xliii. 3, "I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee." But though the word purchase is used in relation to the redemption of the people of God-the very word which is used respecting the servants of Abraham-no one will maintain that they were held as slaves, or regarded as property. Who can tell but what Abraham purchased his servants in some such way, by redeeming them from galling captivity? May they not have been prisoners in war, to whom he did an inestimable service in rescuing them from a condition of grievous and hopeless bondage? May they not have been slaves in the strict and proper sense, and may not his act of purchasing them have been, in fact, a species of emancipation in a way similar to that in which God emancipates his people from the galling servitude of sin? The mere act of paying a price for them no more implies that he continued to hold them as slaves, than it does now when a man purchases his wife or child who have been held as slaves, or than the fact that God has redeemed his people by a price implies that he regards them as slaves. (4.) Among the Hebrews a man might sell himself, and this transaction on the part of him to whom he sold himself would be represented by the word bought. Thus

in Lev. xxv. 47, 48, "And if a sojourner or a stranger wax rich by thee, and thy brother that dwelleth by him wax poor, and sell himself unto the stranger or sojourner by thee, or to the stock of the stranger's family, after that he is sold, he may be redeemed again." This transaction is represented as a purchase. Ver. 50, "And he shall reckon with him that bought him, (Heb. his purchaser, p konaihu,) from the year that he was sold unto the year of jubilee," &c. This was a mere purchase of time or service. It gave no right to sell the man again, or to retain him in any event beyond a certain period, or to retain him at all, if his friends chose to interpose and redeem him. It gave no right of property in the man, any more than the purchase of the unexpired time of an apprentice, or the purchase' of the poor in the state of Connecticut does. In no proper sense of the word could this be called slavery. (5.) The word buy or purchase was sometimes applied to the manner in which a wife was procured. Thus Boaz is represented as saying that he had bought Ruth. "Moreover, Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased (p-kânithi) to be my wife." Here the word which is applied to the manner in which Abraham became possessed of his servants, is applied to the manner in which a wife was procured. So Hosea says, (ch. iii. 2,) "So I bought her to me (another word however being used in the Hebrew, a kárá) for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley." Jacob purchased his wives, Leah and Rachel, not indeed by the payment of money, but by labour. Gen. xxix. 15–23. That the practice of purchasing a wife, or paying a 'dowry' for her was common, is apparent from Ex. xxii. 17; 1 Sam. xviii. 25. Comp. Judges i. 12, 13. Yet it will not be maintained that the wife, among the Hebrews, was in any proper sense a slave, or that she was regarded as subject to the laws which regulate property, or that the husband had a right to sell her again. In a large sense, indeed,