They were, it is true, a part of Ham’s posterity; but to call them “the posterity of Ham,” is to speak as though he had no other child than Canaan.  The fifteenth to nineteenth verses of the tenth chapter of Genesis teach us, beyond all question, that Canaan’s descendants inhabited the land of Canaan and adjacent territory, and that this land is identical with the country afterwards occupied by the Jews, and known, in modern times, by the name of Palestine, or the Holy Land.  Therefore, however true it may be, that a portion of Ham’s posterity settled in Africa, we not only have no evidence that it was the portion cursed, but we have conclusive evidence that it was not.

But, was it a state of slavery to which Canaanites were doomed?  I will suppose, for a moment, that it was:  and, then, how does it appear right to enslave them?  The curse in question is prophecy.  Now prophecy does not say what ought to come to pass:  nor does it say, that they who have an agency in the production of the foretold event, will be innocent in that agency.  If the prediction of an event justifies those who are instrumental in producing it, then was Judas innocent in betraying our Saviour.  “It must needs be that offences come, but wo to that man by whom the offence cometh.”  Prophecy simply tells what will come to pass.  The question, whether it was proper to enslave Canaanites, depends for its solution not on the curse or prophecy in question.  If the measure were in conformity with the general morality of the Bible, then it was proper.  Was it in conformity with it?  It was not.  The justice, equity and mercy which were, agreeable to the Divine command, to characterize the dealings of the Jews with each other, are in such conformity, and these are all violated by slavery.  If those dealings were all based on the general morality of the Bible, as they certainly were, then slavery, which, in its moral character, is completely opposite to them, cannot rest on that morality.  If that morality did not permit the Jews to enslave Canaanites, how came they to enslave them?  You will say, that they had special authority from God to do so, in the words, “Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are around about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids.”  Well, I will admit that God did in one instance, and that He may have done so in others, give special authority to the Jews to do that, which, without such authority, would have been palpably and grossly immoral.  He required them to exterminate some of the tribes of the Canaanites.  He may have required them to bring other Heathens under a form of servitude violative of the general morality of his word.—­Of course, no blame attaches to the execution of such commands.  When He specially deputes us to kill for Him, we are as innocent in the agency, notwithstanding the general law, “thou shalt not kill,” as is the earthquake or thunderbolt, when commissioned to destroy.  Samuel was as innocent