they begat in your land, and they shall be your permanent resource.”  “And ye shall take them as a perpetual provision for your children after you, to hold as a constant source of supply.  Always of them shall ye serve yourselves.”  The design of the passage is manifest from its structure.  It was to point out the class of persons from which they were to get their supply of servants, and the way in which they were to get them.

OBJECTION IV.  “If thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a BOND-SERVANT, but as an HIRED-SERVANT, and as a sojourner shall he be with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee.”  Lev. xxv. 39, 40.

As only one class is called “hired,” it is inferred that servants of the other class were not paid for their labor.  That God, with thundering anathemas against those who “used their neighbor’s service without wages,” granted a special indulgence to his chosen people to force others to work, and rob them of earnings, provided always, in selecting their victims, they spared “the gentlemen of property and standing,” and pounced only upon the strangers and the common people.  The inference that “hired” is synonymous with paid, and that those servants not called “hired” were not paid for their labor, is a mere assumption.  The meaning of the English verb to hire, is to procure for a temporary use at a certain price—­to engage a person to temporary service for wages.  That is also the meaning of the Hebrew word “saukar.”  It is not used when the procurement of permanent service is spoken of.  Now, we ask, would permanent servants, those who constituted a stationary part of the family, have been designated by the same term that marks temporary servants?  The every-day distinction on this subject, are familiar as table-talk.  In many families the domestics perform only the regular work.  Whatever is occasional merely, as the washing of a family, is done by persons hired expressly for the purpose.  The familiar distinction between the two classes, is “servants,” and “hired help,” (not paid help.) Both classes are paid.  One is permanent, the other occasional and temporary, and therefore in this case called “hired[A].”

[Footnote A:  To suppose a servant robbed of his earnings because he is not called a hired servant is profound induction!  If I employ a man at twelve dollars a month to work my farm, he is my “hired” man, but if I give him such a portion of the crop, or in other words, if he works my farm “on shares,” every farmer knows that he is no longer called my “hired” man.  Yet he works the same farm, in the same way, at the same time, and with the same teams and tools; and does the same amount of work in the year, and perhaps