5. "They shall be your bondmen forever." In this phrase is supposed to be found a charter for perpetual, hereditary, hopeless bondage. Mr. Jay very justly remarks upon it as follows: "The preconceived opinions of the translators tempted them to give such a color to this sentence as best accorded with their proslavery theory. Hence this strong expression in the text, while in the _margin_ the _literal_ translation is honestly given, "Ye shall serve yourselves with them forever." Not a word about bondmen, but merely an unlimited permission, as to time, to use or employ foreigners or strangers." The proslavery construction renders the permission absurd, because in the first place it would be impossible for any one man literally to be a bondman forever, unless servitude could be continued in heaven or hell. And, in the next place, it could not continue in the same person in Israel beyond the great jubilee. Now when this passage in Leviticus 25, is stripped of all the proslavery glosses of the translators, the following is, as the excellent writer just quoted observes, its plain and obvious meaning:--"You may buy of themselves, for servants, men and women who are natives of the adjoining countries, just as you have already been authorized to buy your own countrymen for servants. You may also buy, for servants, strangers residing among you, and their descendants; and your children after you may do the same. You may always employ them as servants." The servitude permitted by the law of Moses has been most grossly misrepresented, and misunderstood. It was not an institution looking mainly to the advantage of the rich and powerful, while it crushed the poor and defenseless into the dust, disregarding their interests and their sorrows, but it was a benificent arrangement intended to relieve the unfortunate and open a door of hope to the Gentile inquirer of the way to Zion. Now observe carefully the following facts:-- 1. Servants were not kidnapped or stolen from the surrounding nations. The stealing of a man was made a capital offense. He that stealeth a man and (_or_ it should be) selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death. Ex. 21: 16. Now, as all the slaves in America have been stolen, those who stole them, and those who hold them, are worthy of death according to the law of Moses.