Note A — No. 4. THE ANTI-SLAVERY EXAMINER. THE BIBLE AGAINST SLAVERY. AN INQUIRY INTO THE PATRIARCHAL AND MOSAIC SYSTEMS ON THE SUBJECT OF HUMAN RIGHTS. Third Edition—Revised.

I. Because to become a servant in the family of an Israelite, was to abjure idolatry, to enter into covenant with GodA, be circumcised in token of it, bound to keep the Sabbath, the Passover, the Pentecost, and the Feast of Tabernacles, and to receive instruction in the moral and ceremonial law. Were the servants forced through all these processes? Was the renunciation of idolatry compulsory? Were they dragged into covenant with God? Were they seized and circumcised by main strength? Were they compelled mechanically to chew, and swallow the flesh of the Paschal lamb, while they abhorred the institution, spurned the laws that enjoined it, detested its author and its executors, and instead of rejoicing in the deliverance which it commemorated, bewailed it as a calamity, and cursed the day of its consummation? Were they driven from all parts of the land three times in the year to the annual festivals? Were they drugged with instruction which they nauseated? Goaded through a round of ceremonies, to them senseless and disgusting mummeries; and drilled into the tactics of a creed rank with loathed abominations? We repeat it, to became a servant, was to become a proselyte. And did God authorize his people to make proselytes, at the point of the sword? by the terror of pains and penalties? by converting men into merchandise? Were proselyte and chattel synonymes, in the Divine vocabulary? Must a man be sunk to a thing before taken into covenant with God? Was this the stipulated condition of adoption, and the sole passport to the communion of the saints?