Slater (or Slatyer), William, a learned English divine and poet, was born in Somersetshire in 1587, en- tered St. Mary's Hall, Oxford, in 1(500, removed to Brasc- nose College in 1607, took his degree of Bachelor of Arts the following year, and was chosen to a fellowship. In 1611 he entered holy orders, and was beneficed. In 1623 he took his degrees in divinity, and had acquired considerable reputation as a poet. He died in Otterden, Kent, where he was beneficed, October (or November), 1647. His works are, Threnodia, sive Pandimdnm, be- ing elegies and epitaphs on queen Anne of Denmark, to whom he had been chaplain: — Palm- Albion, or His- tory of Great Britain (Loud. 1621, fol.) : — Genethliadon, sive Stemma Regis Jacobi (ibid. 1630, fol.) : — The Psalms of David, in Foure Languages — Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and English (1652, 16mo), in four parts, set to music, etc. See Burnej', Hist, of Music; Chalmers, Biog. Diet. s. V.
Slaughter, Dkvereaux J. C, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was born in Din- widdle County, Va., Nov. 8, 1817. He was converted Aug. 16, 1835, joined the Church INIay, 1836, was licensed to preach Sept. 25, and received on trial into the Vir- ginia Conference in November, 1842. He received deacon's orders in November, 1844, and elder's in No- vember, 1846. He was effective and verj' useful un- til 1862, when, because of ill-health, he obtained a su- pernumerary relation, which he retained until his death, Nov. 6, 1870. See Minutes nf Annual Corfereiiees of M. E. Church, South, 1870, p. 403.
Slavery, Biblical. ( In the discussion of this question we make use of whatever appropriate matter we find in the dictionaries of Kitto, Smith, and Fair- bairn.)
I. Terms Em-ployed to Designate this Condition. — The word "slavery" does not occur in the English Bible, and the word " slave" is but rarely used, once (in italics)
to supply a noun to the adj. phrase P'^a ^1*^^% yelid beyth, "home-born" (Jer. ii, 14, "servant" having been already used in the former clause) ; once (Kev. xviii, 13) by way of paraphrase for the peculiar use o{ aHjfiajbody, i. e. person; and four times in the Apocrypha (Judith v, 11; xiv, 13, 18; 1 Mace, iii, 41) for Coi^Xog, which is the appropriate classical word. The Heb. and (Jreek terms designating servitude are, for the male, 13S, ebed, CovXoq; for the female, !T3Ni, amah, or nnSTT, shiph- kdh, SovXi], usually rendered "bondman," "servant," etc., which our translators have instinctively felt were more euphonious and appropriate words. Indeed, the regular term for bondman in the Hebrew tongue, ^'ri'?. (ebed), is used in a far greater variety of applica- tions than our word sla?.-e ; and collateral circumstances are always needed to determine the nature and extent of the service which it denotes. The term is used to describe individuals viewed as the servants of God, as when David and Daniel, speaking of themselves in prayer to the Most High, say, "Put not away thy ser- vant in auger" (Psa. xxvii, 9) ; " Now, therefore, O our God, hear the prayer of thy servant" (Dan. ix, 17). It is also applied to the relation of men to one another who occupied high positions, as to Eliezer, who had a place in Abraham's household something similar to that of a prime-minister at court (Gen. xv, 2; xxiv, 2), and to Jacob with reference to his brother Esau (xxxiii, 5). See the Bibl. Sac. xii, 740-743 ; Gesenius, Thesaur. p. 978, 979.
It thus appears that the term slavery, though fre- quently applied to the Jewish system of servitude, is not wholly appropriate. Among the Greeks and Ro- mans it properly expressed the legal condition of cap- tives taken in war, or the victims of the existing slave- trade and the offspring of female slaves. Those slaves were held to be the absolute property of their masters, and their slavery was regarded as perpetual and heredi- tarj'. Nor does Jewish servitude bear any resemblance to modern slavery, which, however it may differ from the Greek and Roman in some of its minor incidents, resembles it in its essential principles. If under the Roman law slaves were held "pro nullis, pro mortuis, pro quadrupedibus," so, until lately, under the laws of several of the United States, they were adjudged to be chattels personal in the hand of their owners, to all in- tents, constructions, and purposes whatsoever; and their slaverj', like that of the ancient Romans, was, as a nec- essary consequence, perpetual and hereditary.
In the heat of modern controversy, indeed, some writ- ers have been led to deny that the Hebrew and Greek words noticed above necessarily, or in point of fact ever do, designate a condition of absolute bondage ; but what- ever ma\' be said of "I33-', it is certain that SovXoq, both from its etymological signification (from S'tw, to bind), and its classical usage, is the prevalent and appropriate word for slave in the current acceptation of the term. See Servitude.
II. Forms of Scriptural Slavery. — It is difficult to trace the origin of slavery. It may have existed before the Deluge, when violence filled the earth, and drew upon it the vengeance of (Jod. But the first direct ref- erence to slavery, or rather slave-trading, in the Bible is found in the history of Joseph, who was sold by his brethren to the Ishmaelites (Gen. xxxvii, 27, 28). In Ezek. xxvii, 12, 13 we find a reference to the slave-trade carried on with Tyre by Javan, Tubal, and Meshech. In the Apocal3'pse we find enumerated in the merchandise of pagan Rome (the mystic Babylon) slaves {aw^ara) and the souls of men (Rev. xviii, 13). The sacred his- torians refer to various kinds of bondage ;