The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 1 of 4 eBook

American Anti-Slavery Society
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 888 pages of information about The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 1 of 4.

The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 1 of 4 eBook

American Anti-Slavery Society
This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 888 pages of information about The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 1 of 4.
the right of locomotion at pleasure, and of natural liberty in all respects, are just as much protected by law as the Lord Chancellor’s.  The same was true of all “the strangers within the gates” among the Israelites:  Whether these Strangers were the servants of Israelitish masters, or the masters of Israelitish servants, whether sojourners, or bought servants, or born in the house, or hired, or neither—­all were protected equally with the descendants of Abraham.

Finally—­As the Mosaic system was a great compound type, made up of innumerable fractional ones, each rife with meaning in doctrine and duty; the practical power of the whole, depended upon the exact observance of those distinctions and relations which constituted its significancy.  Hence, the care everywhere shown to preserve inviolate the distinction between a descendant of Abraham and a Stranger, even when the Stranger was a proselyte, had gone through the initiatory ordinances, entered the congregation, and become incorporated with the Israelites by family alliance.  The regulation laid down in Exodus xxi. 2-6, is an illustration, "If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years shall he serve:  and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.  If he came 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 or daughters; the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out by himself.  And if the servant should plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children, I will not go out free:  then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door-post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall serve him forever." In this case, the Israelitish servant, whose term expired in six years, married one of his master’s permanent female domestics; but the fact of her marriage, did not release her master from his part of the contract for her whole term of service, nor absolve him from his legal obligation to support and educate her children.  Nor could it do away that distinction, which marked her national descent by a specific grade and term of service.  Her marriage did not impair her obligation to fulfil her part of the contract.  Her relations as a permanent domestic grew out of a distinction guarded with great care throughout the Mosaic system.  To permit this to be rendered void, would have been to divide the system against itself.  This God would not tolerate.  Nor, on the other hand, would he permit the master, to throw off the responsibility of instructing her children, nor the care and expense of their helpless infancy and rearing.  He was bound to support and educate them, and all her children born afterwards during her term of service.  The whole arrangement beautifully illustrates that wise and tender regard for the interests of all the parties

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The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 1 of 4 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.