Let the reader note then, that the type of slavery prevailing where the apostles preached, was, compared with ours, barbarous, cruel, and wicked in many of its customary incidents, as established both by usage and law. Slaves were regarded as having neither rights nor legal remedies. No law protected their life itself against the master. There was no recognized marriage for them, and no established parental or filial relations. The chastity of the female slave was unprotected by law against her master. And the temper of society sanctioned the not infrequent use of these powers, in the ruthless separation of families, inhuman punishments, hard labour, coarse food, maiming, and even murder. Such were the iniquities which history assures us connected themselves only too often with this relation in the apostles' days, and were sanctioned by human laws. But did they provoke these inspired law-givers to condemn the whole institution? By no means. As we have seen, they nowhere pronounce the relation of master and slave an inherent wrong. They everywhere act as though it might be, and when not abused, was, perfectly innocent. And that it might be innocent, they forbade to the members of the Christian church all these abuses of it. Thus they separated between the relation and its abuses. Doubtless, the standard which they had in view, in commanding masters to "render to their servants those things which are just and equal," _was the Mosaic law_. We have seen how far this was in advance of the brutalities permitted by pagan laws, and how it protected the life, limbs, and chastity of servants among the Hebrews. This law, being founded in righteousness, was in its general spirit the rule of the New Testament church also. When this separation is made by the apostles between the relation and its abuses, we find that the former includes, as its essentials, just these elements: a right to the slave's labour for life, coupled with the obligation on the master to use it with justice and clemency, and to recompense the slave with a suitable maintenance; and on the slave's part, the obligation to render this labour with all good fidelity, and with a respectful obedience. Is not this just the definition of slavery with which we set out? § 5. _Slavery no Essential Religious Evil._