Can any man doubt as to the real meaning of these verses? Is it not clear and beyond contradiction that here is a law professedly from a God of truth and purity, rendering it lawful for a man to prostitute his own daughter. Our translators have cleverly glossed the text, partially hiding its disgusting meaning, but still enough was left to excite suspicion. I have investigated it, and now lay the result before you, and ask you one and all is this the Book from which you let your little girls read, and from which you expect them to acquire that knowledge which shall render them happy and virtuous? I have already remarked upon the recognition of slavery by God. We have seen how Ishmael was not allowed to participate in the promised land, because he was born a slave. But it remained for us to read more of this Bible before we discovered that a just God, who is no respector of persons, who is the father of us all, who loves the whole world, and who looks alike upon king and peasant, could make such a regulation as the following:-- Verses 20 and 21. 'And if a man smite his servant, or his maid, with a rod, and he die under his hand, he shall surely be punished. Notwithstanding, if he continue for a day or two, he shall not be punished, for he is his money.' We are here told that if one of God's children, whom God caused to be born free, kills another of God's children, whom God has caused to be born a slave, the murderer shall escape punishment, if (as the Douay quaintly expresses it) the party remain alive a day or two after the infliction of the punishment, which was the primary cause of death. Why is this mercy? is it because {59} God so loves all the world that he does not wish to shed the blood of any man? No: but because the slave killed is the murderer's money. He (the murderer) bought and paid for that slave with bright gold and the power of gold is recognised even in the kingdom of God. To-day the Society for Suppression of Cruelty to Animals would prosecute and obtain the committal to prison of any man, who, on such prosecution, should be found guilty of beating his horse or his dog, so that it died on the second or third day. It would be no defence to urge on the part of the prisoner that he had paid for the ill-used animal. The whole auditory would hiss the advocate who raised such a defence. But in a trial at the last day before the Supreme Judge, when a 'Legree' is accused of the murder of an 'Uncle Tom,' may raise a valid defence with the words, 'He was my money.' The power of gold will open the gates of heaven to the murderer, who can look complacently down into hell upon the murderers who had no money. *Chapter xxii., v. ll. Here oaths are commanded; in Matthew, chap. v., w. 34 to 37, and James, chap, v., v. 12, they are forbidden.