the servants were protected in all their personal, social and religious rights, equally with their masters &c.  All remaining, after these ample reservations, would be small temptation, either to the lust of power or of lucre; a profitable “possession” and “inheritance,” truly!  What if our American slaves were all placed in just such a condition Alas, for that soft, melodious circumlocution, “Our PECULIAR species of property!” Verily, emphasis would be cadence, and euphony and irony meet together!  What eager snatches at mere words, and bald technics, irrespective of connection, principles of construction, Bible usages, or limitations of meaning by other passages—­and all to eke out such a sense as sanctifies existing usages, thus making God pander for lust.  The words nahal and nahala, inherit and inheritance by no means necessarily signify articles of property.  “The people answered the king and said, we have none inheritance in the son of Jesse.” 2 Chron. x. 16.  Did they moan gravely to disclaim the holding of their kin; as an article of property?  “Children are an heritage (inheritance) of the Lord.”  Ps. cxxvii. 3.  “Pardon our iniquity, and take us for thine inheritance.”  Ex. xxxiv. 9.  When God pardons his enemies, and adopts them as children, does he make them articles of property?  Are forgiveness, and chattel-making, synonymes?  “Thy testimonies have I taken as a heritage” (inheritance.) Ps. cxix. 111. “I am their inheritance.”  Ezek. xliv. 28.  “I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance.”  Ps. ii. 8.  “For the Lord will not cast off his people, neither will he forsake his inheritance.”  Ps. xciv 14. see also Deut. iv. 20; Josh. xiii. 33; Ps. lxxxii. 8; lxxviii. 62, 71; Prov. xiv. 8.  The question whether the servants were a PROPERTY-"possession,” has been already discussed—­pp. 37-46—­we need add in this place but a word, ahuzza rendered “possession.”  “And Joseph placed his father and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt.”  Gen. xlii. 11.  In what sense was Goshen the possession of the Israelites?  Answer, in the sense of having it to live in.  In what sense were the Israelites to possess these nations, and take them as an inheritance for their children?  Answer, they possessed them as a permanent source of supply for domestic or household servants.  And this relation to these nations was to go down to posterity as a standing regulation, having the certainty and regularity of a descent by inheritance.  The sense of the whole regulation may be given thus:  “Thy permanent domestics, which thou shalt have, shall be of the nations that are round about you, of them shall ye get male and female domestics.”  “Moreover of the children of the foreigners that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye get, and of their families that are with you, which