How do
you reconcile this with the justice and goodness of God?"
I said to her, "To make the case fully appear, before we converse upon
it, hear this passage, Leviticus XXV. 44-46:--'Both thy bondmen, and thy
bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round
about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids.' So, in the next
verses, 'The children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of
them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they
begat in your land; and they shall be your possession: And ye shall take
them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for
a possession; they shall be your bondmen forever; but over your
brethren, the children of Israel, ye shall not rule one over another
with rigor.'
"Here, and in all the divine legislation on this subject, a distinction
is made between Hebrews who became slaves, and slaves who were
foreigners, or of foreign extraction, though resident in Israel. Slaves
of Hebrew extraction might go free after six years, and upon the death
of the owner; and in every jubilee year they must all return to freedom,
and be free from every disability by reason of bondage, except where the
ear was bored.
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