Jews to enslave the heathen around them, saying, "they should be their
bondmen forever;" but he has given no such command to other nations. The
threatenings and reproofs uttered against Israel, throughout the old
Testament, on the subject of slavery, refer to their oppressing and keeping
in slavery their own countrymen. Never is there the slightest imputation of
sin, as far as I can see, conveyed against them for holding in bondage the
children of heathen nations.

Yet do the Scriptures evidently permit slavery, even to the present time.
The curse on the serpent, ("And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because
thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle and above every beast
of the field,") uttered more than sixteen hundred years before the curse of
Noah upon Ham and his race, has lost nothing of its force and true meaning.
"Cursed is the ground for thy sake: in sorrow shalt thou eat of it, all the
days of thy life," said the Supreme Being. Has this curse failed or been
removed?

Remember the threatened curses of God upon the whole Jewish tribe if they
forsook his worship. Have not they been fulfilled?

However inexplicable may be the fact that God would appoint the curse of
continual servitude on a portion of his creatures, will any one _dare_,
with the Bible open in his hands, to say the fact does not exist? It is not
ours to decide _why_ the Supreme Being acts! We may observe his dealings
with man, but we may not ask, until he reveals it, Why hast thou thus done?

"Cursed is every one who loves not the Lord Jesus Christ." Are not all
these curses recorded, and will they not all be fulfilled? God has
permitted slavery to exist in every age and in almost every nation of the
earth. It was only commanded to the Jews, and it was with them restricted