It is worthy of remark, in this place, that the term servant, in our language, when applied to apostles, prophets, or workers for Christ, is never misthetos, because they were not hirelings, or free servants: they were the Lord's bondmen, and are, therefore, called douloi, or oixetai. They held no property in themselves; they were, while free in one sense, the Lord's bondmen in another. But we return to the moral law and Jewish dispensation, for Biblical and rudimental ideas of the subject of servitude.

The last precept of the decalogue, and the first precept of the judicial or political code, must be compared, in order to decide the proper interpretation of both. We shall, therefore, place them in juxtaposition, side by side, that they may reciprocally define and illustrate one another. They read as follows: "Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house; thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his man servant, nor his maid servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's."-Ex. xx. 17. "If thou buy a Hebrew servant, (gehved,) six years he shall serve, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. If he come in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons and daughters, the wife and children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go out free, then his master shall bring him to the magistrates; he shall also bring him to the door, or to the door post, and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him forever."

Here, then, commences the institution of servitude among the Jews, under a theocracy. I need not say that the sun gives light. As little need to say, that the law of servitude was holy, just, and good." This is Hebrew servitude, and neither Greek nor Roman, neither Anglican nor American slavery. The Hebrew servant, here rendered by the SEVENTY into Greek, by paida (from pais, a boy) was likely a young man. Being, it is presumed, a minor, he is sold for six years. Meantime, he falls in love with one of his master's female servants, and is constitutionally married while yet a gehveda bond servant. The day of his freedom arrives! What a dilemma! He has a wife and children; his by nature, and his master's by right—by a jure divino. Which shall he choose-freedom or slavery?

A modern Abolitionist would say, "Runaway, my good sir, and take your dear wife and children with you. God has made all men

free and equal. Your master took the advantage of you, and now, heartless tyrant that he is, he will keep your wife and your dear babes in perpetual slavery, which, I am sure, you love as much as he loves his. There is no moral wrong in this. You were not of mature age and reason when you got married, as very few such slaves as you are. Take up your couch, sir, and walk. You are getting no wages here: you will be a slave all your days. Can you have your ears bored to the door post, and carry to your grave the brand of your cowardice and infamy! Will you make yourself a If bored, your doom is fixed."

slave forever!

His master having treated him with all humanity, being one that feared God and wrought righteousness, he thanked his new friend for his benevolence, and said, “I cannot leave my wife; she was given me by her master, and he has done well for her, for me, and for our children. I cannot leave him-I cannot leave them." His ear was bored with as little pain as a lady suffers for the admission of a golden ring, and he and his offspring became servants "forever." Such was the first statute of the political code of the commonwealth of Israel, enacted Anno Mundi 2513; before Christ, 1492. And such is the first commentary on the tenth commandment-the first law of the new constitution, under which God placed the elect nation of Israel.

Such will be called the bright side of the picture. There is, however, no picture of one color: that is physically and morally impossible. Nor is there any picture without shade. And such is the present picture of all society-the best that exists on the earth.

It will be said, and said with truth, that this is a case of voluntary servitude. But only as I have presented it. It is, indeed, a choice of evils.

Suppose this said slave had been married the first year after his master bought him to a young female servant, the property of his master, and that he was a forward, energetic, independent, and noble-minded slave. What then! He asks his wife and children at the commencement of the Sabbatical year. His master refuses to give him his wife and children. Too hard, indeed-tyrannical, cruel! Is it not? Yes, say A, B and C. But, responds his master, his wife was mine, and I cannot part with her. Her mistress loves her, and cannot do without her. I cannot afford it. His labor has not countervailed my expenditures upon him and her, and their children. I do no wrong, either on the score of humanity or of justice. God enacted the law. He made me master, and him my bondservant. I can do better for him and them than they can do SERIES IV.-VOL. I.

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for themselves, and serve myself, too, better than without them. We are all happier together than we could be apart. I am the slave, he the freeman. I have to care for him; he has no care for himself, his wife, or children. If he were able to compensate me, I might give him his wife and his children; and if he chooses to do so, he will sooner obtain the means under my direction, and by my capital, than he could otherwise do. It is a benevolent and a just law, and I will abide by it. Such was the first law of the kingdom of Israel under the theocracy, and such would be a rational and moral view of it. Other statutes on this subject, found in that law, will prepare our minds for the consideration and comprehension of the Christian law, the higher law, and the Fugitive Slave Law of the present crisis.

But it is neither my duty nor my inclination to defend it. It is enough to say, that it was God's own enactment, as much as the law of ten commands, but it is not of the same compass nor perpetuity. It was a local and temporary arrangement. Its value to us consists, chiefly, in the recognition of what may, in the judgment of God, be consistent with moral rectitude and the purity of the divine law. The God of the New Testament is the God of the Old. It is a maxim, universally conceded, that "what is just in little, is just in much." That which may be done rightfully for a day, a month, or a year, may be done for a longer period. It is theft to steal one cent, as essentially theft, as to steal ten thousand dollars. A person who can rightfully hold property in a man for one year, or five, may rightfully extend the term indefinitely. Christianity is not more just than Judaism. But it is yet premature, to apply the principle developed in this statute, as it would be to defend it being a divine enactment. We have the whole Bible open, law and gospel, too.

We greatly respect an intelligent, conscientious, and generous philanthropy. We will ever do homage to a pure philanthropist. But there may be a morbid, sickly philanthropy, as well as a rational and sound philanthropy. The religious sometimes become superstitious: the generous are not always just. And professed philanthropists have not unfrequently been more fanatical than benevolent, and more in love with their own opinions than with the rights of man.

But, with the patient and generous charities of my readers, I will endeavor to develop the Christian duties and obligations on the whole premises, now being laid before the public on the higher law, the Fugitive Slave Law, and every other law allied to the present question the great question of the age, so far as our national interests and honor are concerned.

A. C..

THOUGHTFUL HOURS-No. II.

Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts; and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.-Ps. li. 6.

THAT self-examination is a most important duty, is a proposition which is at once admitted by the Christian. With him, indeed, it is much more than a duty, for it has become a fixed habit of his mind, and its exercise is not only, as it were, an indispensable necessity of his being, but an essential element of his happiness and peace. Hence it is not his wish, if it were even within his power, to abandon the practice; nor does he deem it at all possible for him to maintain his character, or enjoy the high privileges of his profession, should he permit himself to cherish desires which he had never subjected to scrutiny, or to perform actions without regard to the motives which induced them. Poor, indeed, must that individual be in faith, and bankrupt in hope, so far as Christianity is concerned, who, in the language of Archdeacon Paley, "cannot afford to keep a conscience."

The necessity for self-examination arises from man's liability to self-deception. It does not spring from his liability to be deceived by others. From deception by others, it is not self-examination that can defend him, but a just view of the character and moving principles of those with whom he has to deal. It is because he is prone to err in regard to the real motives of his own actions, and disposed to place a false estimate upon his own conduct and character, that he is so earnestly entreated to examine himself, in order to prove the sincerity of his faith and the rectitude of his practice. It is because of his own ignorance; his own feebleness; his own sinful nature, that he is urged to watchfulness, and warned against the delusive peace of spiritual insensibility. Nothing, indeed, but the possession of an absolute infallibility, could release any one from the imperative obligation to weigh continually his thoughts, his words, his actions; in short, his whole moral and religious character and conduct, in the accurate balance of eternal truth.

It may be truly said, however, that every man has three distinct and independent characters. One of these is the estimate which, in his own mind, he forms of himself. Another is, the view which other men take of him; and the third is, the light in which he appears before the eye of God. It requires but little discrimination to distinguish which one of these three characters it is most impor

tant for man to consider, and which of them it is that is most likely to be the true one.

It is seldom, if ever, that these three characters correspond. The view which the public take of a particular individual is sometimes more favorable, but often less so than that which he is disposed to take of himself. The humble-minded may place a lower estimate upon his merits than his friends would willingly award to him; but it is far more common to find a man ready "to think more highly of himself than he ought to think"; to exaggerate the good qualities he may possess, and to extenuate or conceal defects of character, which are detected and measured by a reversed rule in the hands of a censorious world. And oh! how different from both of these may be that character which the same individual bears before Him who looks upon the heart, and from whom no secret can be hidden!

This, however, is the character which it is so important for a man to consider, since it is that in which he will appear in the great day of account. It is before the tribunal of an omniscient, righteous, and infallible Judge, where neither the partialities of friends, the prejudices of enemies, nor the infatuations of self-love, can have the slightest influence, that he will be seen and known by an assembled universe, and by himself also, as he is seen and known of God. And he will appear in this character, because it will be his true one, revealing the secret qualities of the heart-the fixed and distinctive lineaments of the soul. Hence, it is this character alone on which it is worth man's while to dwell, since it is this alone which determines his true position here, and fixes his future destiny forever.

But, it may be asked, is it possible for man, in this present life, to ascertain his standing in the sight of God? Most undoubtedly it is, since otherwise, self-examination would be futile, if not impossible; progressive advancement in the divine life impracticable, and Christian perfection wholly unattainable. In that holy revelation which God has given of his own perfections, he has also revealed man to himself, and placed before him those standards of comparison and rules of judgment which enable him, at once, to decide upon his own condition. He, then, who would desire to know his real character, must seek this knowledge through that divine word, which is "quick and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." A glass may present to a man a representation of himself; but this heaven-descended mirror, discloses to man not only