ious rights, equally with their
masters. All remaining, after these ample reservations, would be small
temptation, either to the lust of power or of lucre; a profitable
"possession" and "inheritance," truly! What if our American slaves were
all placed in _just such a condition_! Alas, for that soft, melodious
circumlocution, "OUR PECULIAR species of property!" Verily, emphasis
would be cadence, and euphony and irony meet together! What eager
snatches at mere words, and bald technics, irrespective of connection,
principles of construction, Bible usages, or limitations of meaning by
other passages--and all to eke out such a sense as sanctifies existing
usages, thus making God pander for lust. The words _nahal_ and _nahala_,
inherit and inheritance, by no means necessarily signify _articles of
property_. "The people answered the king and said, "we have none
_inheritance_ in the son of Jesse." 2 Chron. x. 16. Did they mean
gravely to disclaim the holding of their king as an article of
_property_? "Children are an _heritage_ (inheritance) of the Lord." Ps.
cxxvii. 3. "Pardon our iniquity, and take us for thine _inheritance_."
Ex. xxxiv. 9. When God pardons his enemies, and adopts them as children,
does he make them _articles of property_? Are forgiveness, and
chattel-making, synonymes? "_I_ am their _inheritance_." Ezek. xliv. 28.
"I shall give thee the heathen for thine _inheritance_." Ps. ii. 18. See
also Deut. iv. 20; Josh. xiii. 33; Ps. lxxxii. 8; lxxviii. 62, 71; Prov.
xiv. 18.

The question whether the servants were a PROPERTY-"_possession_," has
been already discussed, pp. 47-64, we need add in this place but a word.
As an illustration of the condition of servants from the heathen that
were the "possession" of Israelitish families, and of the way in which
they became servants, the reader is referred to Isa. xiv. 1, 2. "For the
Lord will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them
in their own land; and the strangers will be _joined_ with them, and
_they shall CLEAVE to the house of Jacob_. And the people shall take
them and bring them to their place, and the house of Israel shall
_possess_ them in the land of the Lord for servants and handmaids; and
they shall take them captives, whose captives they were; and they shall
rule over the oppressors."

We learn from these verses, 1st. That these servants which were to be
"_possessed_" by the Israelites, were to be "joined with them," i.e.,
become prosel