3. The same thing is indicated by the fact that God has, by statute, provided expressly for the protection and freedom of an escaped slave; but not for the recovery of such a fugitive by his master. "Thou shalt not deliver unto his master, the servant which is escaped from his master unto thee: he shall dwell with thee, even among you in that place which he shall choose.... Thou shalt not oppress him." Now be it, if you will, that this statute had reference only to servants who should escape into the land of Israel from Gentile masters; does it not indicate a strong bias, in the mind of God, to the side of freedom, rather than that of slavery? And does it not establish the point, that, in God's estimation, one man cannot rightfully be deemed the property of another man? Were it otherwise, would not the Jew have been required to restore a runaway to his pursuing master, just as he was to restore any other lost thing which its owner should come in search of? Or, to say the least, would not the Israelites have been allowed to reduce to servitude among themselves the escaped slave of a heathen master? But how unlike all this are the actual requirements of the statute. God's people must neither deliver up the fugitive nor enslave him themselves; but allow him to dwell among them as a FREEMAN, just "where it liketh him best." And, in this connection, how significant a fact is it, that the Bible nowhere empowers the master from whom a slave had escaped to pursue, seize, and drag back to bondage that escaped slave.