annihilate the difference between man and _property_, by putting him
_on a level with it_?

The atrociousness of a crime, depends greatly upon the nature,
character, and condition of the victim. To steal is a crime, whoever the
thief, or whatever the plunder. To steal bread from a _full_ man, is
theft; to steal it from a _starving_ man, is both theft and murder. If I
steal my neighbor's _property_, the crime consists not in the _nature_
of the article, but in _shifting its external relation_ from _him to
me_. But when I take my neighbor _himself_, and first make him
_property_, and then _my_ property, the latter act, which was the sole
crime in the former case, dwindles to a mere appendage. The sin in
stealing a man does not consist in transferring, from its owner to
another, that which is _already property_, but in turning _personality_
into _property_. True, the _attributes_ of man still remain, but the
rights and immunities which grow out of them are _annihilated_. It is
the first law of reason and revelation to regard things and beings as
they are; and the sum of religion, to feel and act toward them according
to their nature and value. Knowingly to treat them otherwise, is _sin_;
and the degree of violence done to their nature, relations, and value,
measures its guilt. When things are sundered which God has indissolubly
joined, or confounded in one, which he has separated by infinite
extremes; when sacred and eternal distinctions, which he has garnished
with glory, are derided and set at nought, then, if ever, _sin_ reddens
in its "scarlet dye." The sin specified in the passage, is that of doing
violence to the _nature_ of a _man_--his _intrinsic value_ and relations
as a rational being, and blotting out the exalted distinction stamped
upon him by his Maker. In the verse preceding, and in that which
follows, the same principle is laid down. Verse 15, "_He then smiteth
his father or his mother shall surely be put to death._" Verse 17, "_He
that curseth his father or his mother, shall surely be put to death._"
If a Jew smote his neighbor, the law merely smote him in return. But if
that same blow were given to a _parent_, the law struck the smiter
_dead_. Why this difference in the punishment of the same act, inflicted
on different persons? Answer--God guards the parental relation with
peculiar care. It is the _centre_ of human relations. To violate that,
is to violate _all_. Whoever trampled on _that_, showed that no