And here, the favourite plea of the anti-slavery men fails entirely--that Abraham lived in the dawn of religious light; that the revelation given him was only partial, and that while he possessed the rectitude of conscience which would have made him relinquish all sinful relations, if enlightened as to their true character, the customs of his age misled him to commit things which Christians afterwards taught to be sinful, and that therefore, these things, excusable in him because of his ignorance, would be wickedness in us. There is some truth in these statements, but they have nothing on earth to do with this example; because the circumcision of the slaves was God's act, and not Abraham's. God knows all things. He is perfectly holy and unchangeable. If he had seen that slavery is intrinsically wrong, and had intended at some future day to declare it so, would he at this time have sanctioned it by making it the ground of a solemn ordinance of religion? As we shall see, this cry of the imperfection of the Old Testament revelation is of Socinian origin, and is essentially false, in the sense in which it is uttered. But be it as just as any statement could be, it has no application here; because our whole inference is drawn from the acts of God himself, and not of an Old Testament Saint. § 4. _Hagar remanded to Slavery by God._ Sarah, in a season of desperation at her childless condition, seems to have been tempted to imitate the corrupt expedient which was prevalent among the Canaanites around her, and which still prevails in the East. According to this usage, the chief wife, or wife proper, gives to her husband a concubine from among her slaves, as a sort of substitute for herself; and the offspring of the connexion is regarded as her own child. Abram, misled by evil example, and by the solicitations of his wife--the person who would have had the best right to complain of his act--concurred temporarily in the arrangement, and received his Egyptian slave Hagar as an inferior wife. The favour of her master, and the prospective honour of being the mother of offspring, which has always been exceedingly prized by Oriental women, so inflated the servant with impudence, that she no longer treated her mistress with decent respect. When Sarah bitterly complained of this, Abram replied by reminding her that Hagar was still her slave; and that she was entitled, as a mistress, to compel her to observe a suitable demeanour. When Sarah proceeded to exert this authority, probably administering corporal punishment to Hagar for some instance of impertinence, the latter ran away, and pursued the direction which led to her native country, Egypt. It was then that the angel of the LORD found her "by the fountain in the way to Shur. And he said, Hagar, Sarai's maid, whence camest thou? and whither wilt thou go? And she said, I flee from the face of my mistress Sarai. And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit thyself under