BOOK II. EXODUS
The title, 'Second Book of Moses,' is an interpolation, forming no part of the text. The remark on page four, as to titles and headings, applies to the whole of the Bible.
Chapter 1., vv. 6 and 7. 'Joseph died and his brethren, and all that generation and the children of Israel were fruitful, * * * and the land was filled with them.' If these words mean anything, they mean that in the duration of a little more than one generation, the children of one man multiplied so as to fill the whole of the land of Egypt, and to become exceedingly mighty. Devout believers can only wonder that this numerous and exceedingly mighty people allowed the Egyptians so to maltreat and oppress them; or that this fruitful and abundantly increasing people wno filled all the land, had only two midwives to attend them. The believers may also wonder why God made houses for those midwives to live in, when if the Israelites were so exceedingly fruitful and numerous, the midwives could have but little time to live in their own houses, but must have been always employed in their professional avocations. Admirers of God's truthfulness may likewise wonder why he rewarded the midwives for telling Pharaoh a lie, when by his power he might have saved them the necessity.
Chapter ii., vv. 16, 17, 18. From these verses it would seem that the name of the father-in-law of Moses was Reuel, but according to chap. iii., v. 1, chap, iv., v. 18, chap, xviii., vv. 1, 2, 5, 6, and 12, his name was not Reuel, but Jethro, while according to Numbers, chap, x., v. 29, his name was neither Reuel nor Jethro, but was Raguel. On reference to the Hebrew text, I find the same word [ – ] is carelessly anglicised as Reuel and Raguel; this will not, however, explain the third name, Jethro, and if we treat Moses as the author, it will be difficult to understand how he could be mistaken in the correct name of his own father-in-law.
Verses 23 and 24. These verses imply that until the cries and groanings came up to God, he had forgotten his chosen Israelites, and his solemn covenant, oath, and promise. This view is confirmed by the Douay translation of verse 25, which adds, 'And the Lord looked upon the children of Israel, and he knew them.' As though he had refreshed his memory by so looking on them.
Chapter iii., v. 2. The Douay says that 'the Lord appeared,' instead of the angel. The picture of the Omnipotent and: Eternal God appearing as a flame of fire in the middle of a bush, which burns, but is not burnt, and desiring Moses to take his shoes off, is scarcely calculated to arouse a reverential feeling in our minds.
Verse 6. In Genesis, chap, xxxv., v. 10, God said of Jacob, 'Thy name shall not be any more called Jacob, Israel is thy name,' yet we find he calls himself 'the God of Jacob,' and uses the name 'Jacob' no fewer than eight times in the book of Exodus alone. Verse 22. This mode of 'borrowing' seems very much like stealing, and the translators of the Breeches Bible in a note say that this example is not to be followed generally.
Chapter iv., v. 14. The anger of the Lord kindled, and why? Because Moses tells him that ne is not a good speaker, and that he (Moses) therefore desired the Lord to choose somebody else to represent his wishes to Pharaoh and the Jews. But why should the Lord be angry? he must have himself foreknown and foreordained that Moses should be reluctant to go.
Verse 21. What are the miracles which are previously mentioned but so many incidents in a solemn farce, if God had already determined that Pharaoh should pay no attention to them? The serpent, rod, and the leprous hand, not being intended by God to move Pharaoh, of what use are they? In the third chapter, God tells Moses to use subterfuge to Pharaoh, by pretending that the Jewish nation only wanted to go three days' journey to sacrifice in the wilderness, and at the same time God says that he is 'sure the King of Egypt will not let you go.' If God is the ruler and ordainer of all things, he must have ruled and ordained that his chosen people should be ill-treated by Pharaoh, whom God must have created for that very purpose. Can anything be more inconsistent and less calculated to enable us to admire the character of a just and merciful Deity?
Verse 26. What does this mean? If the Lord sought to kill Moses, what hindered him from carrying out his desire? It is strange that he should seek to kill the very man whom he had selected to lead his chosen people out of Egypt. The circumcision of the son of Moses seems connected with the story, but not very clearly. The abrupt transition from the message to Pharaoh, to the seeking to kill Moses, shows that something has been lost from the original text. The verses 22 to 27 read as they stand are absurd. In our version we are told that after the Lord let Moses go, Zipporah said 'A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision.' In the Douay we find that Zipporah used these words before the Lord let Moses go.
Verses 28, 29, and 30. Aaron who wrought the signs, and spoke the words to the people, did so without any direct communication from God. He must have been more credulous than Moses, for he seems to have readily undertaken, upon the mere representation of his brother, that which his brother had hesitated to do, although personally commanded by God.
In chap, v, we find that Moses complains to God that the Jews are worse off since his message, and he expresses himself in a manner which implies doubt as to whether God really intend to deliver his people.
Chapter vi., v. 3 (see also page 38 of this work), Here is a positive statement that God was known unto Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, by the name [ – ] (Bal Shadi, translated, God Almighty), but not by the name [ – ] (yeue, anglicised as Jehovah). This statement, professedly from the lips of God himself, is absolutely contradicted by the book of Genesis, in which the name [ – ] occurs no less than 130 times. In the Douay it reads, 'and my name Adonai I did not show them,' and in a foot-note we are told that the name Adonai is substituted for the four letters [ – ], because the Jews out of reverence never pronounce "this word. This is not true: the Jews simply do not pronounce the word, because without points it is unpronounceable. 'The nearest approach to the exact utterance or pronunciation of this word will be produced by suspending the action of all the organs of articulation, and making only that convulsive heave of the larynx, by which the bronchial vessels discharge the accumulated phlegm; it is enunciated with the most eloquent propriety in the act of vomiting? (Vide Taylor's 'Diegesis,' chap. 22.)
Verses 12 and 30. The fear expressed by Moses that Pharaoh will not listen to him, because he (Moses) has not been circumcised, is strongly corroborative of Voltaire's criticism given on page 35 of this work.
Verses 26 and 27 could never have been written by Moses, but must have been written long after, by some one who wished to identify the Aaron and Moses of the genealogy with the Aaron and Moses to whom the Lord spoke.
Chapter vii., v. 1. What is meant by the words 'I have made thee a God to Pharaoh?' In what sense could Moses be considered as Pharaoh's God? He was not worshipped by Pharaoh, nor did he rule Pharaoh.
Verses 10, 11, and 12. Is it necessary to argue in the middle of the nineteenth century that the whole account of these miracles are unreasonable as well as impossible? unreasonable, because even the most pious Theist, if he claimed for God the power to turn a rod into a serpent, would hardly concede the same power to the sorcerers and magicians of Egypt. The throwing down the rod by Aaron, its change into a serpent, and the swallowing the other rods, form a display without purpose or utility, because God has already predestined that they should produce no effect whatever upon Pharaoh.
Verses 19, 20, and 21. These verses, if they mean anything, mean that the whole of the water in Egypt was turned to blood; if so, the twenty-second verse would be incorrect in stating that the magicians did the same, because, if all the water were already turned to blood by Aaron, there would not be any left for the magicians to operate upon. We are told that this plague was throughout the whole of the land of Egypt; if so, the Jews must have suffered equally with the Egyptians. This for seven days in a warm country would have been a terrible plague. The same remarks apply to the following plague of frogs.
Chapter viii., w. 17 and 18. It is scarcely a matter for wonder that the magicians could not turn the dust into lice, when we are told that all the dust had been previously changed bv Aaron.
Verses 22 and 23. It is evident from these verses that the Jews had been equal participators in all the evils attaching to the previous plagues.
Chapter ix., v. 10. What beasts could the boils break out on, when all were killed by murrain in verse 6? Verses 19, 20, 21, and 25. Either the cattle which were dead in verse 6 had been restored to life, of which we have no account, or these verses are positively absurd as well as false.
Chapter xi., v. 3. 'And the Lord gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians.' The Douay reads, 'And the Lord will give favour to his people.' Our version is evidently incorrect, because the Egyptians afterwards suffered another plague, which would have been unnecessary. 'And the man Moses was very great in the land.' Moses can scarcely be supposed to have written this.
Chapter xii., v. 29. In this verse is related the horrible consummation of a series of plagues which God had caused to fall on the Egyptians. And why all this punishment? Was it because the Egyptians as a nation had oppressed the Israelites? If so, the cattle, the trees, and the green herbs were sharers in the punishment although not in the offence, and the Egyptians could never have oppressed the Israelites if it had not been permitted by the Omnipotent Deity who had sworn to protect and cherish them. Was the punishment because Pharaoh would not let the Children of Israel go? If so, what had the first-born of the 'maid-servant in the mill and of the captive in the dungeon' to do with his offence? But even Pharaoh was specially controlled by God; in chap, iv., v. 21, chap, vii., v. 3, chap, ix., v. 12, chap, x., vv. 1, 20, and 27, chap, xi., v. 10, and chap, xiv., v. 4, we have distinct repetitions of the statement that God himself hardened Pharaoh's heart and prevented him from allowing the Children of Israel to go. Then, why all this punishment? In chap, ix., v. 16, chap, x., v. 2, and chap. xiv. v. 4, we are told that God raised Pharaoh up for the very purpose of smiting him and his people, so that the name of God might be declared throughout all the earth, that the Israelites might worship the Lord, and that the name of God might be honoured amongst the Egyptians; and to attain this result, God plagues and torments the Egyptian nation with most painful and destructive plagues, killing the first-born in every family, from him that sat on the throne to the captive in the dungeon, and ending by drowning Pharaoh and his army in the Red Sea. The religious thinker who attempts to contemplate this horrible picture, and who might, perhaps, be tempted to blaspheme by questioning God's justice and goodness, will be saved from this dilemma by a consciousness of the falsity of the whole tale, which is manifested in a most ridiculous manner. According to chap, ix., vv. 3 and 6, all the cattle of the Egyptians, their horses, asses, camels, oxen, and sheep, were killed by the murrain; by verse 10 of the same chapter, a boil breaking forth with blains is sent upon the same cattle; by verse 19 the Egyptians are cautioned to gather in their already dead cattle lest they should again die from the effects of the hail, and those who feared the Lord amongst the servants of Pharaoh made his dead cattle flee into the house lest they should be killed again, and those who did not fear the Lord had their cattle killed a second time by the hail; in chap, x., v. 25, Moses asks Pharaoh to give him some of his twice killed cattle that he may kill them a third time as sacrifices to the Lord; in chap. xii., v. 29, God, in the night, kills the first-born of all the cattle, some of which must have been thrice killed; yet, despite all this (notwithstanding they had all been killed by the murrain, nearly killed over again by the boils and blains, killed another time by the hail, and the first-born destroyed in the night-time by the Lord) we find Pharaoh with an army of chariots, horses, and Horsemen, who are finally and irreversably got rid of by being drowned in the Red Sea. In Thomas Paine's 'Essay on Dreams,' he makes some very severe remarks upon the contemptible picture which Old Testament writers give of their God in relation to these plagues upon the Egyptians.
Chapter xii., vv. 35 and 36. This is clearly nothing but robbery. The Egyptians simply lent because they could not avoid doing so; it was quite a Russian loan, raised by force. After saying that the Lord gave the people favour in the sight of the Egyptians, the expression, 'And they spoiled the Egyptians,' reads with a curious meaning.
Verses 40 and 41 have been noticed on page 32 of this work. Stephen, in Acts, chap, vii., v. 6, says it was four hundred years. Dr. John Pye Smith, with all his orthodoxy, felt that there was a great difficulty to encounter, and writes as follows: —
'Many comprehend in this reckoning the time from the communication to Abraham (Genesis, chap, xv., v. 13) or his entrance into Canaan ten years earlier. This will leave only two hundred and fifteen years for the sojourn in Egypt. Yet, during that period, the population increased to what would give 603,550 warriors, men above twenty years old, not including the tribe of Levi (Numbers, chap, i., v. 46). Hence, it is scarcely imaginable that the whole number of the nation could be less than two millions; an increase from seventy-two, which is quite impossible. Supposing that they doubled themselves every fourteen years, the number would have been less than half a million. But if four hundred and thirty years be taken, the increase is probable. We see, also, that the males of the whole family of Kohath were 8,600 (Numbers, chap, iii., v. 28); yet Kohath had only four sons (Exodus, chap, vi., v. 18), from whom the grandsons mentioned are eight in number, none being mentioned from Hebron, who, perhaps, died childless. Also, that the father of Moses should have married the daughter of Levi, appears impossible. Surely, then, one or more generations have fallen out from the table (Exodus, chap, vi., vv. 17 and 18).'
By this extract from Dr. John Pye Smith's 'First Lines of Christian Theology,' my reader will see the manner in which orthodox divines overcome difficulties in the text. Finding that it is impossible to receive this part as true, it is suggested that one or more generations may have fallen out of the table, and that it was impossible that the father of Moses could have married the daughter of Levi. Exodus, chap, vi., v. 20, is precise on this point; but taking Dr. Smith's explanation, how can we place reliance on a book as a revelation from God, which is admitted to be imperfect and untruthful in any part? If fallible in matter of detail, it is probably the same in matters of doctrine.
Verse 44. This is one of the verses on which the slaveholders of America rely. I shall deal with the question more fully hereafter.
Chapter xiii., v. 2. By this and several other texts, it appears that the first-born, both of man and beast, were devoted to the Lord. It is quite clear that the beasts were slaughtered as sacrifices, but it is not so clear as to the fate of the human beings. There are special regulations for their redemption, by the payment of cattle, but the unredeemed are not mentioned. It is apparent from Leviticus, chap, xxvii, w. 27 and 28, the history of Jephtha's daughter, Judges, chap, xii., that human sacrifices were parcel of the Jewish religious rites; a portion of their prisoners seem to have been sacrificed to the Lord after each victory, as in other idolatrous nations; and in Jephtha's case, we find these remarkable words after the account of the sacrifice, 'And it was a custom in Israel.'
Verses 17 and 18. Even a devout believer might be sadly puzzled by these verses. Was God afraid lest the people should repent? and did he express that fear to his confidant, Moses, or in what manner, and to whom did God speak? Did God lead his chosen people into Egypt to avoid all wars? if so, how comes it that we almost immediately hear of the battle with the Amalekites? (vide chap. 17). God's fears seem ill-founded, for the Jews although they had a very hard fight with the Amalekites, even with God's aid, never talked of returning to Egypt, in consequence of that fight.
Chapter xiv., vv. 24 and 25. Our authorised translation reads, 'The Lord looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians, and took off their chariot wheels that they drave them heavily.' In the Douay it is, 'The Lord, looking upon the Egyptian army through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, slew their host and overthrew the wheels of their chariots, and they were carried into the deep.'
Verse 31. The Israelites' belief in the Lord and in his servant Moses was of a very unstable nature, notwithstanding all the mighty miracles alleged to have been wrought in their presence. If the Israelites doubted Moses and disbelieved in God, with the terrible series of plagues fresh in their recollection, can it be wondered that we, to whom they are related in so incoherent a style, at this distance of time, should also have misgivings as to their truth?
Chapter xv., v. 3. This expression, 'The Lord is a man of war,' is hardly calculated to inspire us with that love of God it is alleged to be so necessary to our salvation.
Verse 8. 'Nostrils.' This, we are told, is to be read as figurative. How unfortunate that in a revelation words are used which are to be understood as meaning something different from the real signification.
Verse 11. Who are the Gods? In the Douay the phrase is translated, 'Who is like unto thee amongst the strong, O Lord?' The Roman Catholics wished to avoid the suspicion of polytheism. Verse 12. Poetic licence is used here; it was not the earth, but the water, which swallowed the Egyptians.
Chanter xvi., v. 3. If we may judge by the Israelites' own account, starvation was not one of the phases of oppression suffered by them in Egypt.
Verse 4. It is clear that the Deity of Moses was not an Omniscient Deity, for he says, 'I will rain bread from heaven for you, etc., that I may prove them whether they will walk in my law or no;' so that God did not know until he had proved them whether they would obey or disobey, and yet we are taught that he is the Infinite and Omnipotent ordainer of all things.
Verse 8. This verse must be misplaced, as Moses had not yet been informed that God intended to give the Israelites flesh. See verses 4 and 12.
Verse 15. The children of Israel did not call the bread from heaven manna, but they said when they saw it, [ – ] (Man eua), i.e., What is this?
Verses 20 to 24. By these verses it appears that while the manna invariably putrified if kept till the second day on six days of the week, yet, if the second day happened to be the seventh, then no putrefaction took place. This corresponds with what I have heard as to some Scotch cities, in which the Sabbath is so strictly observed, that if salts or jalap happened to be taken as medicine on Saturday night, they refused to work during the whole of Sunday.
Verse 35 has been noticed on page 6.
Verse 36 must have been written when the omer had become obsolete as a measure amongst the Jews, or the verse would be unnecessary.
Chapter xvii., w. 5 and 6. This striking the rock for water is a miracle; a devout man may believe in it; I confess I do not understand the process, although I admit it would be very useful in the desert, if practicable.
Verses 9 to 13. Can any man believe that if Napoleon had stood on an eminence near the scene at Waterloo, and had held up his hand, this would have influenced the success of either party? Why should a man believe that in relation to Moses to which he would refuse credence in the present day? and if God was really on the side of the Israelites, why did he allow his aid to depend upon whether Moses could hold up his hand?
Verses 14 and 16. Why was Amalek to be so punished? God the Creator must have created both Amalekites and Israelites, yet he favours the latter and declares war against the former from generation to generation. What a strange idea to convey in relation to an Omnipotent Deity – strife between the Infinite God and his weak and puny creature. By the expression 'the Lord hath sworn that the Lord will have war with Amalek from generation to generation,' true believers may learn that God predetermined to make war upon unborn generations of Amalekites, whom he created for the purpose of exterminating.
Chapter xviii., vv. 1 to 6. Some part of the previous history must be lost, as we have no account of Moses sending his wife back; on the contrary, in chap, iv., v. 20, we are told that he took both her and his two sons into Egypt.
Jethro gave his son-in-law very sensible advice, and the only matter of surprise is that Moses listened to it. Usually, priests of different religions snarl at one another like angry, half-fed curs, growling over a solitary bone, and if a priest of one sect (out of the ordinary course) offered good advice to another sect, it would probably be treated with neglect and contempt.
Chapter xix., w. 9, 11, 12, 13, 16, 18, and 19. In these verses we have an account of the meeting of Moses and God. If this had been in the book of Mormon or in the Koran, some Christian critic would have at once exclaimed, 'Why, this is all imposture! for these reasons – the man who led the people, and who wished to pretend that he was to have an interview with God, took very great pains to keep the people at a sufficient distance to prevent detection of his schemes; the trumpet sounding, the darkness, the thunder and lightning, are so many scenic appliances to give effect to the delusion. Perhaps the mount was a volcanic one, in which case the addition of the trumpet soundings completed the scene; and the secrecy observed as to all the transactions on the mount protected the man from exposure. How careful are the directions given to prevent any inquisitive straggler from getting sufficiently near to make a fatal discovery! But no man in his senses will believe that God blew a trumpet, or caused a trumpet to be blown, to announce his coming, and that he descended upon Sinai surrounded by fire and smoke. In all fabulous relations we find such things, but it is absurd to suppose that this refers to an Almighty and Infinite Deity. We are told in verse 20, 'The Lord came down upon Mount Sinai on the top of the mount, and the Lord called Moses up to the top of the mount, and Moses went up.' Can you require stronger evidence of the mythological character of your book? Your Omnipresent and Infinite Deity is pictured as standing on the top of a mountain, and calling to Moses, who was down below, to come up to him.
Verse 15. This is one of the verses which no amount of commentary can make intelligible: 'Come not at your wives.' Why not?
Chapter xx. The second verse of this chapter begins in the first person, 'I am the Lord,' and continues in the first person to verse 6, where it merges into the third person. Verse 5 is contradicted by Ezekiel, chap, xviii., v. 20, 2 Kings, chap, xiv., v. 6, and Deuteronomy, chap, xxiv., v. 16. This is as positive and distinct a specimen of contradiction as can be found anywhere. In the third commandment we are told that God is a jealous God, visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generations. In the other three texts, we are told that the child shall not be put to death for the father, but every man for his own sin. By the following contrast of the Fourth Commandment, as given in the second and fifth books of the Pentateuch, biblical students may judge how far they may rely on the reasons for closing the museums, mechanics' institutes and crystal palaces, and opening churches, chapels, and gin palaces on the seventh day, Chap. xx., vv. 8, 9, 10, 11.
8. – Remember the Sabbath-day to keep it holy.
9. – Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:
10. – But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy gates:
11. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the seventh day, and hallowed it.
DEUT. Chap, v., w. 12, 13, 14, 15.
12. – Keep the Sabbath-day to sanctify it, as the Lord thy God hath commanded thee.
13. – Six days thou shalt labour, and do all thy work:
14. – But the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thine ox, nor thine ass, nor any of thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy gates; that thy man-servant and thy maid-servant may rest as well as thou.
15. – And remember that thou wast a servant in the land of Egypt, and that the Lord thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched out arm: therefore the Lord thy God commanded thee to keep the Sabbath-day.
Which is the correct reason for sanctifying the Sabbath-day?
Was it because the Lord rested, or because the Lord brought the Israelites out of Egypt on that day? The true believer will devoutly answer, 'The Lord only knows.'
Chapter xxi., vv. 2 to 6. Leviticus, chap, xxv., vv. 44 to 46. In these verses we find slavery acknowledged, and its continuance provided for by the law of God. The offering a slave his liberty on condition that he abandoned his wife whom he loved, and his children who are of his flesh and blood, is a piece of refined cruelty. Perhaps God did not know that a slave was capable of love, perhaps God was not aware that the slave in his hovel may have as true and as warm an affection for his wife and children as the king in his palace, or the noble in his fine mansion. Is a slave a man with a man's passions and feelings, or is he an inferior animal? If the Bible is to be examined before replying to the question, and if we are to govern our mode of answering by the words we find there, it ceases to be a matter for wonder that there are slave States in Christian countries.
It is a beautiful theory this, and worthy of a place in a revelation from an all-wise and all-good God – i. e., that a man may be a religious man and yet keep his brother and sister as male and female slaves, breeding and begetting other slaves. How did this slavery originate? before the flood slaves are not mentioned. If God made all men originally free, how did any become slaves? Verse 6 is contradicted in Leviticus, chap, xxv., w. 39 to 42.
Verses 7 to 11. These verses contain a provision for the sale by a man of his own daughter. And for what purpose? Our translators have endeavoured to hide the real meaning of the text. Verse 7 reads, 'And if a man sell his daughter to be a maid-servant, she shall not go out as the men servants do.'
In the Douay it is, 'If a man sell his daughter to be a servant, she shall not go out as bondwomen are wont to go out.'
The 8th verse in our translation reads – 'If she please not her master, who hath betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed to sell her to a strange nation; he shall have no power seeing he hath dealt deceitfully with her.' In the Douay, 'If she displease the eyes of her master to whom she was delivered, he shall let her go, but he shall have no power to sell her to a foreign nation if he despise her? In the Breeches Bible the whole truth is revealed, for we find the last words of the 8th verse translated, 'seeing he hath deflowered her.'
Lest there should be a mistake, I will further contrast the translation of verse 10. In our version it is, 'If he take him another wife her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage he shall not diminish.'
In the Douay, 'If he take another wife for him, he shall provide her a marriage, and raiment, neither shall he refuse the price of her chastity.'
In the Breeches Bible, 'If he take him another wife, he shall not diminish her food, her raiment, and recompense of her virginity?
Can any man doubt as to the real meaning of these verses? Is it not clear and beyond contradiction that here is a law professedly from a God of truth and purity, rendering it lawful for a man to prostitute his own daughter. Our translators have cleverly glossed the text, partially hiding its disgusting meaning, but still enough was left to excite suspicion. I have investigated it, and now lay the result before you, and ask you one and all is this the Book from which you let your little girls read, and from which you expect them to acquire that knowledge which shall render them happy and virtuous?
I have already remarked upon the recognition of slavery by God. We have seen how Ishmael was not allowed to participate in the promised land, because he was born a slave. But it remained for us to read more of this Bible before we discovered that a just God, who is no respector of persons, who is the father of us all, who loves the whole world, and who looks alike upon king and peasant, could make such a regulation as the following: —
Verses 20 and 21. 'And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue for a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money.' We are here told that if one of God's children, whom God caused to be born free, kills another of God's children, whom God has caused to be born a slave, the murderer shall escape punishment, if (as the Douay quaintly expresses it) the party remain alive a day or two after the infliction of the punishment, which was the primary cause of death. Why is this mercy? is it because God so loves all the world that he does not wish to shed the blood of any man? No: but because the slave killed is the murderer's money. He (the murderer) bought and paid for that slave with bright gold and the power of gold is recognised even in the kingdom of God. To-day the Society for Suppression of Cruelty to Animals would prosecute and obtain the committal to prison of any man, who, on such prosecution, should be found guilty of beating his horse or his dog, so that it died on the second or third day. It would be no defence to urge on the part of the prisoner that he had paid for the ill-used animal. The whole auditory would hiss the advocate who raised such a defence. But in a trial at the last day before the Supreme Judge, when a 'Legree' is accused of the murder of an 'Uncle Tom,' may raise a valid defence with the words, 'He was my money.' The power of gold will open the gates of heaven to the murderer, who can look complacently down into hell upon the murderers who had no money.