This case is so fatal to the theory of all Abolitionists who admit the canonical authority of the Epistle, that desperate efforts are made to pervert its meaning. Mr. Albert Barnes, Coryphæus of these expository sophists, says in one of his comments, that it does not appear from the Epistle that Paul really sent Onesimus back to his master at all! "There is not the slightest evidence that he _compelled_, or even urged him to go. The language is just such as would have been used on the supposition, either that he _suggested_ to him to go and bear a letter to Colosse, or that Onesimus desired to go, and that Paul sent him agreeably to his request. Compare Philip. ii. 25, Col. iv. 7, 8. But Epaphroditus and Tychicus were not sent against their own will; nor is there any more reason to think that Onesimus was." Mr. Barnes then adds the notable reason, that Paul had no sheriff or constable to send Onesimus by; so that if he did not choose to return, he could not compel him. But the stubborn fact is, that Onesimus went; and it must be accounted for. This author's account is, that he probably found he had not mended his condition by running away, and so, desired to return to regain his comfortable home; whereupon Paul availed himself of the occasion to write to his friend. This solution is not particularly honourable to the religious character of either party: we shall neither insult the apostle by adopting, nor the understanding of readers by refuting it. As to Paul's 'sending' of Epaphroditus to Phillippi, and Tychicus to Colosse, we note that the word is not the same with the one used of Onesimus. This is ανεπεμψα; and it is expressly defined by Robinson's Lexicon as an authoritative sending up, or remitting to a higher tribunal, such as the sending of Paul by Festus to Cæsar, Acts xxv. 21. Further, Paul did 'send' these two brethren, not indeed as slaves are sent, but by his apostolic authority, to which they doubtless cheerfully responded. Paul had no physical force by which to drive Onesimus all the way from Rome to Colosse; but there is such a thing as moral power, and the fact that the conscience of the sent freely seconds the righteous authority of the sender, surely does not prove this authority to be naught. How perverse must he be, who can see in the words, "whom I (Paul) have sent," nothing but that Onesimus sent himself! Is not this the state of facts, plain to any honest mind: that Paul instructed him it was his duty to return to his lawful master, and as his spiritual teacher told him to do so? And this injunction the converted Onesimus cheerfully obeyed.