the Mosaic system was a great compound type, made up of
innumerable fractional ones, each rife with meaning in doctrine and
duty; the practical power of the whole, depended upon the exact
observance of those distinctions and relations which constituted its
significancy. Hence, the care everywhere shown to preserve inviolate the
distinction between a _descendant of Abraham_ and a _Stranger_, even
when the Stranger was a proselyte, had gone through the initiatory
ordinances, entered the congregation, and become incorporated with the
Israelites by family alliance. The regulation laid down in Exodus xxi.
2-6, is an illustration, _"If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years
shall he serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If
he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself: if he were married,
then, his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a
wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters; the wife and her
children shall be her master's, and he shall go out by himself. And if
the servant should plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my
children, I will not go out free: then his master shall bring him unto
the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door-post;
and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall
serve him forever."_ In this case, the Israelitish servant, whose term
expired in six years, married one of his master's _permanent female
domestics_; but the fact of her marriage, did not release her master
from _his_ part of the contract for her whole term of service, nor
absolve him from his legal obligation to support and educate her
children. Nor could it do away that distinction, which marked her
national descent by a specific _grade_ and _term_ of service. Her
marriage did not impair her obligation to fulfil _her_ part of the
contract. Her relations as a permanent domestic grew out of a
distinction guarded with great care throughout the Mosaic system. To
permit this to be rendered void, would have been to divide the system
against itself. This God would not tolerate. Nor, on the other hand,
would he permit the master, to throw off the responsibility of
instructing her children, nor the care and expense of their helpless
infancy and rearing. He was bound to support and educate them, and all
her children born afterwards during her term of service. The whole
arrangement beautifully illustrates that wise and tender regard for the
interests o