These two last feasts would consume not less than sixty-five days of time not otherwise reckoned.

Thus it appears that those persons who continued servants during the whole period between the jubilees, were by law released from their labor, TWENTY-THREE YEARS AND SIXTY-FOUR DAYS, OUT OF FIFTY YEARS, and those who remained a less time, in nearly the same proportion.  In the foregoing calculation, besides making a generous donation of all the fractions to the objector, we have left out of the account, those numerous local festivals to which frequent allusion is made, as in Judges xxi. 19; 1 Sam. 9th chapter.  And the various family festivals, such as at the weaning of children; at marriages; at sheep shearings; at the making of covenants, &c., to which reference is often made, as in 1st Sam. xx. 28, 29.  Neither have we included those memorable festivals instituted at a later period of the Jewish history.  The feast of Purim, Esther, ix. 28, 29; and the feast of the Dedication, which lasted eight days.  John x. 22; 1 Mac. iv. 59.

Finally, the Mosaic system secured to servants, an amount of time, which, if distributed, would on an average be almost ONE HALF OF THE DAYS IN EACH YEAR.  Meanwhile, they and their families were supported, and furnished with opportunities of instruction.  If this amount of time were distributed over every day, the servants would have to themselves, all but a fraction of ONE HALF OF EACH DAY, and would labor for their masters the remaining fraction and the other half of the day.

THIS REGULATION IS A PART OF THAT MOSAIC SYSTEM WHICH IS CLAIMED BY SLAVEHOLDERS AS THE GREAT PROTOTYPE OF AMERICAN SLAVERY.

5. The servant was protected by law equally with the other members of the community.

Proof—­“Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his neighbor, and THE STRANGER THAT IS WITH HIM.” “Ye shall not RESPECT PERSONS in judgment, but ye shall hear the SMALL as well as the great.”  Deut. i. 16, 17.  Also in Lev. xxiv. 22. “Ye shall have one manner of law as well for the stranger, as for one of your own country, for I am the Lord your God.”  So Numbers xv. 29. “Ye shall have ONE LAW for him that sinneth through ignorance, both for him that is born among the children of Israel, and for the STRANGER that sojourneth among them.”  Deut. xxvii. 19. “Cursed be he that PERVERTETH THE JUDGMENT OF THE STRANGER, the fatherless and the widow.”

6. The Mosaic system enjoined upon the Israelites the greatest affection and kindness toward their servants, foreign as well as Jewish.