IX.  WE FIND MASTERS AT ONE TIME HAVING A LARGE NUMBER OF SERVANTS, AND AFTERWARDS NONE, WITH NO INTIMATION IN ANY CASE THAT THEY WERE SOLD.  The wages of servants would enable them to set up in business for themselves.  Jacob, after being Laban’s servant for twenty-one years, became thus an independent herdsman, and had many servants.  Gen. xxx. 43; xxxii. 16.  But all these servants had left him before he went down into Egypt, having doubtless acquired enough to commence business for themselves.  Gen. xlv. 10, 11; xlvi. 1-7, 32.  The case of Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth, who had twenty servants, has been already mentioned.

X. GOD’S TESTIMONY TO THE CHARACTER OF ABRAHAM.  Gen. xviii. 19.  “For I know him that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep THE WAY OF THE LORD TO DO JUSTICE AND JUDGMENT.”  God here testifies that Abraham taught his servants “the way of the Lord.”  What was the “way of the Lord” respecting the payment of wages where service was rendered?  “Wo unto him that useth this neighbor’s service WITHOUT WAGES!” Jer. xxii. 13.  “Masters, give unto your servants that which is JUST AND EQUAL.”  Col. iv. 1.  “Render unto all their DUES.”  Rom. xiii. 7.  “The laborer is WORTHY of HIS HIRE.”  Luke x. 7.  How did Abraham teach his servants to “do justice” to others?  By doing injustice to them?  Did he exhort them to “render to all their dues” by keeping back their own?  Did he teach them that “the laborer was worthy of his hire” by robbing them of theirs?  Did he beget in them a reverence for honesty by pilfering all their time and labor?  Did he teach them “not to defraud” others “in any matter” by denying them “what was just and equal?” If each of Abraham’s pupils under such a catechism did not become a very Aristides in justice, then illustrious examples, patriarchal dignity, and practical lessons, can make but slow headway against human perverseness!

XI.  SPECIFIC PRECEPTS OF THE MOSAIC LAW ENFORCING GENERAL PRINCIPLES.  Out of many, we select the following:  (1.) “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox when he treadeth out the corn.”  Deut. xxv. 4.  Here is a general principle applied to a familiar case.  The ox representing all domestic animals.  Isa. xxx. 24.  A particular kind of service, all kinds; and a law requiring an abundant provision for the wants of an animal ministering to man in a certain way,—­a general principle of treatment covering all times, modes, and instrumentalities of service.  The object of the law was; not merely to enjoin tenderness towards brutes, but to inculcate the duty of rewarding those who serve us; and if such care be enjoined, by God, both for the ample sustenance and present enjoyment of a brute, what would be a meet return for the services of man?—­MAN with his varied wants, exalted nature and immortal destiny!  Paul says expressly, that this principle lies at the