“’But we will suppose, with my brother, that the laws which God ordained for slavery should prevail under Christianity, if slavery is to exist.  Let every Phrygian, then, a fellow-countryman who has lost his liberty, go free at the end of six years; and at every fiftieth year, whether six years be completed or not, since the last seventh year of release, let all such go free.  This, for argument’s sake, we approve.  But we must take the whole code.  Every foreigner who becomes a slave, and the child of every such slave, was to be an “inheritance forever.”  Husbands, who are Phrygians, must choose, in certain cases, whether to go out free by themselves, or remain in perpetual bondage with their wives and their offspring.  Paul knew the Jewish laws with regard to slavery; he knew how favorably they compared with our code; but he says not a word on that score, and simply sends Onesimus back to his bondage.

“’Yet see how beautifully the spirit of Christ works itself into the relation of master and slave, and into Paul’s views and feelings with regard to it.  In his letter to our Church, he expressly names Onesimus as one of the bearers of the epistle.  He speaks of him as “one of you,” a resident with us; and he calls this slave “a faithful and beloved brother.”  He speaks to Philemon about him as “my son Onesimus whom I have begotten in my bonds;” “thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels.”  “Not now as a servant, but above a servant, a brother beloved, specially to me, but how much more unto thee, both in the flesh and in the Lord.”  “If thou count me, therefore, a partner, receive him as myself.”

“’What a comment is this on the words:  “In Christ Jesus there is neither bond nor free.”  Not that there shall be “no bond,” according to the brother’s interpretation; for then it would be equally right to interpret the other part of the passage literally,—­there is no Jew, no Greek, and none free!  How perfectly does the relation become absorbed by that state of heart which makes it proper for Paul to say:  “Art thou called being a servant, care not for it; but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather.”  Notwithstanding this advice, he sends back this man-servant.

“’Paul might have manumitted Onesimus by his authority as an apostle; this, however, would have been rebellion against government, for our laws recognize slavery.

“’My brother says that the Hebrew law forbade the surrender of a fugitive slave.  Yes, if the slave fled into Israel from a heathen master, he must not be sent back to heathenism; but’—­

“‘But,’ said the brother from Laodicea, ’there is no limitation of that kind.  I insist that it was of universal application to slaves of all kinds.’

“‘Find the passage, if you please (in Deut. xxiii.),’ said the Colossian speaker.

“The passage was found by the pastor, and was read, as already quoted:  ’Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant that is escaped from his master unto thee.  He shall dwell with thee even among you, in that place which he shall choose in one of thy gates where it liketh him best; thou shalt not oppress him.’  Deut. xxiii. 10, 15.