eparted _for a season_, that thou shouldest
receive him _forever_." This verse is thus paraphrased by Macknight: "To
mitigate thy resentment, consider, that _perhaps also for this reason he
was separated_ from thee _for a little while_, (so [Greek: pros horan]
signified, 1 Thess. ii. 17, note 2,) _that thou mightest have him_ thy
slave _for life_." Dr. Macknight also adds, in a footnote: "By telling
Philemon that he would now have Onesimus forever, the apostle intimates
to him his firm persuasion that Onesimus would never any more run away
from him." Such seems to be the plain, obvious import of the apostle's
argument. No one, it is believed, who had no set purpose to subserve, or
no foregone conclusion to support, would view this argument in any other
light. Perhaps he was separated for a while as a slave, that "thou
mightest have him forever," or for life. How have him? Surely, one
would think, as a slave, or in the same capacity from which he was
separated for a while. The argument requires this; the opposition of the
words, and the force of the passage, imperatively require it. But yet,
if we may believe Mr. Barnes, the meaning of St. Paul is, that perhaps
Onesimus was separated for a while _as a servant_, that Philemon might
never receive him again as a servant, but forever as a Christian
brother! Lest we should be suspected of misrepresentation, we shall give
his own words. "The meaning is," says he, "that it was possible that
this was permitted in the providence of God, _in order_ that Onesimus
might be brought under the influence of the gospel, and be far more
serviceable to Philemon as a Christian than he could have been in his
former relation to him."

In the twelfth verse of the epistle, St. Paul says: "Whom I have sent
again," or, as Macknight more accurately renders the words, "Him I have
sent back," ([Greek: hon anepempsa].) Here we see the great apostle
_actually sending back a fugitive slave to his master_. That act of St.
Paul is not, and cannot be, denied. The words are too plain for denial.
Onesimus "_I have sent back_." Surely it cannot be otherwise than a most
unpleasant spectacle to abolitionist eyes thus to see Paul, the
aged--perhaps the most venerable and glorious hero whose life is upon
record--assume such an attitude toward the institution of slavery. Had
he dealt with slavery as he always dealt with every thing which he
regarded as sin; had he assumed toward it an attitude of stern and
uncomp