sages written in the same law, and apparently about the same thing.
The following is the solution, or, as it appears to the mind of the writer, there is no solution at all to these seemingly contradictory scriptures.
When Moses in the law, and at the 25th division or chapter of the part called Leviticus, had made an end of his remarks and directions about various kinds of servants, with other matters, introduced a new subject (see verse 44), namely, that of unqualified slavery, or of bond servants, which he commences as follows: "Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy, bondmen and bondmaids."
In this passage it is clear, that the law of Moses peremptorily directed, that all their perpetual slaves, or bond servants, should be procured from among the heathen negro race, the very people to whom the curse of Noah referred, and are always referred to as heathens, whether Canaanites, Egyptians, Lybians or Ethiopians, all of whom are referred to as heathen, in the most emphatic sense of the word, in the law.
The terms gentile and heathen, as used in the Scriptures, seems always to be of synonymous import; but in the law of Moses it would appear that the word heathen designated solely the people of Canaan, and the other branches of the negro race. The term gentile is not found in any of the books of the law of Moses, properly so called; for the book of Genesis is not to be numbered as any part of the law or code of that legislator. The law does not properly com-
