The crime specified is that of _depriving_ SOMEBODY _of the ownership of a man_. Is this somebody a master? and is the crime that of depriving a _master_ of his _servant_? Then it would have been "he that stealeth" a _servant, not_ "he that stealeth a _man_." If the crime had been the taking of an individual from _another_, then the _term_ used would have been _expressive of that relation_, and _most especially_ if it was the relation of property and _proprietor_! The crime, as stated in the passage, is three-fold--man _stealing_, _selling_ and _holding_. All are put on a level, and whelmed under one penalty--DEATH. This _somebody_ deprived of the ownership of man, is the _man himself_, robbed of personal ownership. Joseph said to the servants of Pharoah, "Indeed I was _stolen_ away out of the land of the Hebrews." Gen. xl. 15. How _stolen_? His brethren took him and sold him as an _article of merchandize_. Contrast this penalty for _man_-stealing with that for _property_-stealing. Exod. xxii. If a man stole an _ox_ and killed or sold it, he was to restore five oxen; if he had neither sold nor killed it, the penalty was two oxen. The selling or the killing being virtually a deliberate repetition of the crime, the penalty was more than doubled. But in the case of stealing a _man_, the first act drew down the utmost power of punishment; however often repeated, or however aggravated the crime, human penalty could do no more. The fact that the penalty for _man_-stealing was death, and the penalty for _property_-stealing, the mere _restoration of double_, shows that the two cases were adjudicated on totally different principles. The man stolen might be past labor, and his support a _burden_, yet death was the penalty, though not a cent's worth of _property value_ was taken. The penalty for stealing _property_ was a mere _property penalty_. However large the amount stolen, the payment of _double_ wiped out the score. It might have a greater _money_ value than a _thousand_ men, yet _death_ was never the penalty, nor maiming, nor branding, nor even _stripes_. Whatever the kind, or the amount stolen, the unvarying penalty was double of _the same kind_. Why was not the rule uniform? When a _man_ was stolen why not require the thief to restore _double of the same kind--two men_, or if he had sold him, _five_ men? Do you say that the man-thief might not _have_ them? So the _ox_-thief might not have two _oxen_, or if he had killed it, _five_. But if God permitted men to hold _men_ as property, equally with _oxen_, the _man_-thief could get _men_ with whom to pay the penalty, as well as the _ox_-thief, _oxen_.