[Footnote B:  Whoever heard of the slaves in our southern states stealing a large amount of money?  They “know how to take care of themselves” quite too well for that.  When they steal, they are careful to do it on such a small scale, or in the taking of such things as will make detection difficult.  No doubt they steal now and then a little, and a gaping marvel would it be if they did not.  Why should they not follow in the footsteps of their masters and mistresses?  Dull scholars indeed! if, after so many lessons from proficients in the art, who drive the business by wholesale, they should not occasionally copy their betters, fall into the fashion, and try their hand in a small way, at a practice which is the only permanent and universal business carried on around them!  Ignoble truly! never to feel the stirrings of high impulse, prompting to imitate the eminent pattern set before them in the daily vocation of “Honorables” and “Excellences,” and to emulate the illustrious examples of Doctors of Divinity, and Right and Very Reverends!  Hear President Jefferson’s testimony.  In his Notes on Virginia, pp. 207-8, speaking of slaves, he says, “That disposition to theft with which they have been branded, must be ascribed to their situation, and not to any special depravity of the moral sense.  It is a problem which I give the master to solve, whether the religious precepts against the violation of property were not framed for HIM as well as for his slave—­and whether the slave may not as justifiably take a little from one who has taken ALL from him, as he may slay one who would slay him?”]

IV.  Heirship.—­Servants frequently inherited their master’s property; especially if he had no sons, or if they had dishonored the family.  Eliezer, the servant of Abraham; Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth, Jarha the servant of Sheshan, and the husbandmen who said of their master’s son, “this is the HEIR, let us kill him, and the INHERITANCE WILL BE OURS,” are illustrations; also Prov. xvii. 2—­“A wise servant shall have rule over a son that causeth shame, and SHALL HAVE PART OF THE INHERITANCE AMONG THE BRETHREN.”  This passage gives servants precedence as heirs, even over the wives and daughters of their masters.  Did masters hold by force, and plunder of earnings, a class of persons, from which, in frequent contingencies, they selected both heirs for their property, and husbands for their daughters?

V. ALL were required to present offerings and sacrifices.  Deut. xvi. 15, 17, 2 Chron. xv. 9-11.  Numb. ix. 13.  Servants must have had permanently, the means of acquiring property to meet these expenditures.