Camy, I think historically, an attendee of Hannibal First Presbyterian Church of 1847-53 would have been prone to consider such a lie a sin. Slavery was a punishment designed by God for the descendants of Ham. Slaves were property. God intended slaves to obey their masters. Thus Huck, within that context, would have offended God by protecting a slave. The lie would have aided in the theft of a slave -- a runaway slave steals himself from his master, thus breaking one of the commandments. Huck's clear moral obligation was to instruct Jim to return to his master. I think Twain did not agree with these propositions as an adult -- certainly not when he wrote Huck. However, the churches of his youth did. Some eternal truths seem to change with time. Terrell Dempsey