A religions contemporary discovered that the _Visiter_ did actually advertise "Jayne's Expectorant," and such an expectoration of pious reprehension as this did call forth! The _Visiter_ denied that the advertisement was immoral, and carried the war into Africa--that old man-stealing Africa--and there took the ground that chattel slavery never did exist among the Jews; that what we now charge upon them as such was a system of bonded servitude; that the contract was originally between master and servant; the consideration of the labor paid to the servant; that in all cases of transfer, the master sold to another that portion of the time and labor of the servant, which were still due; that there was no hint of any man selling a free man into slavery for the benefit of the seller; that the servants bought from "the heathen around about," were bought from themselves, or in part at least, for their benefit, to bring them under general law and into the church; that nothing like American slavery was ever known in the days of Moses, or any other day than that of this great Republic, since our slavery was "the vilest that ever saw the sun," John Wesley being witness. The _Visiter_ cited the purchase by Joseph of the people of Egypt, and Leviticus xxv, xxxix: "If thy brother be waxen poor and sell himself unto thee." The Bible had not then been changed to suit the exigencies of slavery. In later editions, "sell himself" is converted into "be sold," but as the passage then stood it was a sledge-hammer with which one might beat the whole pro-slavery Bible argument into atoms, and while the _Visiter_ used it with all the force it could command, it took the ground that if the Bible did sanction slavery, the Bible must be wrong, since nothing could make slavery right. CHAPTER XXV. FREE SOIL PARTY. The Free Soil or Barnburner party was organized in '48, and nominated Martin Van Buren for President. The _Visiter_ dropped its Birney flag and raised the Van Buren standard. In supporting him the editor of the _Visiter_ was charged with being false to the cause of the slave, and of playing into the hands of the Whigs. All the editor had ever said about that pro-slavery ex-President was cast into its teeth by Democratic, Liberty Party and Garrisonian papers, which, one and all, held that Van Buren was a cunning old fox, as pro-slavery as in those days when, as President of the U.S. Senate, he gave his casting vote for the bill which authorized every Southern post-master to open all the mail which came to his office, search for and destroy any matter that he might think dangerous to Southern institutions. In his present hostility to slavery, he was actuated by personal hatred of Louis Cass, the Democratic candidate, and sought to draw off enough. Democratic votes to defeat him.