It may,
nevertheless, be well for me to request you to read and read again
Leviticus 25:39-42, until your remaining doubts, on this point, shall
all be put to flight. I am free to admit the probability, that under
some of the forms of servitude, in which Jews were held, the servant was
subjected to a control so extensive as to expose him to suffer great
cruelties. These forms corresponded with the spirit and usages of the
age, in which they existed; entirely unsuited, as they are, to a period
and portion of the world, blessed with the refining and softening
influences of civilization and the gospel. Numerous as were the
statutory regulations for the treatment of the servant, they could not
preclude the large discretion of the master. The apprentice, in our
country, is subjected to an authority, equaling a parent's authority,
but not always tempered in its exercise, with a parent's love. His
condition is, therefore, not unfrequently marked with severity and
suffering. Now, imagine what this condition would be, under the harsh
features of a more barbarous age, and you will have in it, as I
conjecture, no distant resemblance to that of some of the Jewish
servants.
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