master was the owner of the servant, would annihilate all legal claim upon him for value received, and that the servant was the property of the master, would absolve him from all obligations of debt, or rather would always forestall such obligations—­for the relations of owner and creditor in such case, would annihilate each other, as would those of property and debtor.  The fact that the same servant was the creditor of one of his fellow servants, who owed him a considerable sum, and that at last he was imprisoned until he should pay all that was due to his master, are additional corroborations of the same point.

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, Gen. xv. 23; Ziba, the servant of Mephibosheth; Jarha, the servant of Sheshan, who married his daughter, and thus became his heir, he having no sons, 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. xxx. 23, an handmaid (or maid-servant,) that is heir to her mistress; 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. 16, 17; 2 Chron. xv. 9-11; Numb. ix. 13, 14.  Beside this, “every man” from twenty years old and above, was required to pay a tax of half a shekel at the taking of the census; this is called “an offering unto the Lord to make an atonement for their souls.”  Ex. xxx. 12-16.  See also Ex. xxxiv. 20.  Servants must have had permanently the means of acquiring property to meet these expenditures.

VI.  SERVANTS WHO WENT OUT AT THE SEVENTH YEAR, WERE “FURNISHED LIBERALLY.”  Deut. xv. 10-14.  “Thou shalt furnish him liberally out of thy flock, and out of thy floor, and out of thy wine press, of that wherewith the Lord thy God hath blessed thee, thou shalt give him."[A] If it be said that the servants from the Strangers did not receive a like bountiful supply, we answer, neither did the most honorable class of Israelitish servants, the free-holders; and for the same reason, they did not go out in the seventh year, but continued until the jubilee.  If the fact that the Gentile servants did not receive such a gratuity proves that they were robbed of their earnings, it proves that the most valued class of Hebrew servants were robbed of theirs also; a conclusion too stubborn for even pro-slavery masticators, however unscrupulous.