servant expressly named; thus proving that, though her actual rank was subordinate, though her duties were distinct, she was as carefully and tenderly provided for as the daughters of a family themselves. Even in the eating of holy things, which some might suppose a privilege only granted to the heirs of households, she was associated. No man could rejoice before the Lord by himself; sons, daughters, widows, fatherless, menservants, and MAID-SERVANTS, all were included, and so distinctly enumerated, that not one could be omitted without a decided breach of law. The twenty-first chapter of Exodus and fifteenth chapter of Deuteronomy treat powerfully on the protection and kindness demanded towards male and female domestics. The simple words, " they shall not go out as men-servants do," reveal the loving care for their protection, that they should not be exposed to all the rougher labour of the field and out-door service incumbent on the males. To sell her to a strange nation, which would be the natural desire of the injurer and the deceiver, to conceal his sin, no man had power; for, if he did so, she could not regain her freedom at the end of seven years, and be restored to her family, as was the law in Israel. If he betrothed her to his son, she was to become even as a daughter; and if, as was the custom of the East, another wife were taken, her food, her raiment, her duty of marriage, he had no power to diminish. If he failed in either, she was free and spotless, alike in the sight of God and man. These beautiful laws appear, not only pretty convincing of the equality of female servants with their male brethren in the same class, but rather a startling manifestation of the falsity of the

charge, that wives in Israel are degraded and abased. If even a female slave, when raised to become the wife of her master's son, was to be regarded as a daughter, to retain her every privilege as first-selected wife, however the capricious heart of her husband might select another of his own rank, we rather imagine that every grade of Hebrew wives was equally protected by the Lord, and that no man whatever had power to degrade them.

All injury committed on a female servant exposed her master to punishment of equal severity as the injury of a male. He dared do her no hurt, for if he did, whether through predetermination, or momentary passion, she was his slave no longer. She had power to appeal from him to the representatives of her God, His priests, and she knew justice would be done her, for to do it was the ordinance of God. And, even without injury, the term of servitude was over in the seventh year. The extremity of destitution might have compelled a parent to sell, or rather to devote, his child to servitude; or reasons less imperative might urge his doing so, knowing that his children, even though they worked, would be better provided for, and perhaps more easily enabled to keep every ordinance of the Lord, in the family of their master, than struggling on for a scanty subsistence, nominally free. The poor were not to cease out of the land, that the people might obey the words of their God, in which He bade them, "Open thine hand wide unto thy poor brother, to thy poor and to thy needy in thy land;" and then, as a practical illustration of how the hand is to be opened wide, we are told that when our brother a Hebrew man, or a

Hebrew woman, has been sold, and served in a family six years, we were not only to let him, or her, go free, which, did we act according to the finite judgment of man, there would be many to think sufficient; but they were to be furnished liberally out of the flock and the floor (i.e. barn, meaning corn), and out of the winepress; of all wherewith the Lord had blessed us we were to give unto them. And not satisfied with having already mentioned the Hebrew woman, as included with the Hebrew man, in these laws, the law again enforces the equal rights of both, by repeating, " and also unto thy maid-servant thou shalt do likewise;" adding, with that exquisite spirit of love infused through every law, "It shall not seem hard unto thee, when thou sendest him away free from thee, for he has been worth a double hired servant, in serving thee six years, and the Lord thy God shall bless thee in all thou doest." Now, had there been no other mention of woman, these beautiful laws would have been sufficient to prove her equality with man in the sight of the Eternal. The illustration of these laws was given before the precept, in the Most High's dealings with Hagar, as we have already seen; as a bond-slave, and one not even of His chosen, He had compassion and love for her; and that His people should endeavour as strongly as lay in their power to follow in His own paths, He laid down statutes, the obedience to which would make every maid-servant as much the object of her master's care, tenderness, and liberality, as Hagar had been to Him.

The command relative to the maid-servant's attendance at the feast of holy things, on every sabbath, festival, etc., is rather convincing of religion being

as incumbent on her as on man; nay, that her master himself was liable to punishment if he neglected to associate her, as well as every other of his household, in his religious exercises.

Some over-refined natures are horrified at the idea of being sold to service of the very term slave (the Hebrew word, by the way, signifies servant or domestic also); and, taking up the position that the law of Moses countenanced similar traffic as the slave trade in all its modern horrors, make it the grand objection to regarding the religion as the revelation of God. Yet no one who really studies the Word of God, can entertain an idea so erroneous for a moment. Perpetual slavery-that awful sacrifice of all home affections, all human emotions, that horrible system which permitted man to regard his brother man as a beast of the field, to be bought and sold, live and die at his will-was utterly unknown in Israel. The term "selling" a son or daughter, simply signified the receiving beforehand the price of six years' labour, in which six years the slave (so called) was equal to his master in every thing but actual labour. He was to share in every feast, every rejoicing, sit at his master's table, listen to the law, accept every covenant of God, be clothed, fed, and cared for, and at the term of his release be so liberally treated individually, as to enable him, if he pleased, to quit service, and enter into independent business for himself, or remain, from pure affection or voluntary relinquishment of freedom, for ever with his master. This was the actual state of slavery in Israel, productive of a three-fold good. It saved many a parent from beholding the utter destitution of his children; gave him the means of working for himself by the price

received for their six years' labour, assured him of their temporal and spiritual welfare, and of their being cared for, on their release, far better than he could for them, much as he loved them; prevented all those horrible incentives to crime and misery produced by the abject destitution of many a Gentile land; united master and servant in the sweet and holy ties of brotherhood, alike of religion, tribe, and land; subject to one law, worshipping one God, caring for the helpless and the weak, and making every household where the laws of God were obeyed one of heavenly harmony and love. In Israel there was no surplus of hands for work; none of those fearful temptations to sin in being thrown out of employ, in the inability to meet the heavy taxes and other drains upon the poor. The law in its every item spoke of God, and revealed Him as a God of love. He alone could have framed statutes entering into every man's household, guiding his conduct from his parents to his very servants; shielding, compassionating, loving every individual in Israel, from the high priest to the lowest slave.

Having now regarded all the laws instituted expressly for woman, in her several positions of mother, wife, widow, daughter, and maid-servant, we have but to throw together all the remaining statutes relating to her generally. In every offering, be it of trespass, of thanksgiving, or of purification, we find in Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, woman was so emphatically included as to be the subject of laws set apart for herself. The ordinances were binding on both man and woman, and care expressly taken to mark the guiding line of obedience for