him,
longer than a year. And the master must send him back to the strangers
from whence he came. For the God of Jacob will not accept any other than
the worship of a _willing_ heart."--Maimon, Hilcoth, Miloth, Chap. 1st,
Sec. 8th.

The ancient Jewish Doctors agree in the testimony, that the servant from
the strangers who at the close of his probationary year still refused to
adopt the religion of the Mosaic system, and was on that account cut off
from the family, and sent back to his own people, received a _full
compensation_ for his services, besides the payment of his expenses. But
that _postponement_ of the circumcision of the foreign servant for a
year (_or even at all_ after he had entered the family of an Israelite)
of which the Mishnic doctors speak, seems to have been _a mere usage_.
We find nothing of it in the regulations of the Mosaic system.
Circumcision was manifestly a rite strictly _initiatory_. Whether it was
a rite merely _national_ or _spiritual_, or _both_, comes not within the
scope of this inquiry. Nor does it at all affect the argument. ]

Were the servants _forced_ through all these processes? Was the
renunciation of idolatry _compulsory_? Were they _dragged_ into covenant
with God? Were they seized and circumcised by _main strength_? Were they
_compelled_ mechanically to chew, and swallow, the flesh of the Paschal
lamb, while they abhorred the institution, despised its ceremonies,
spurned the law which enjoined it, detested its author and executors,
and instead of rejoicing in the deliverance which it commemmorated,
bewailed it as a calamity, and cursed the day of its consummation? Were
they _driven_ from all parts of the land three times in the year up to
the annual festivals? Were they drugged with instruction which they
nauseated? Were they goaded through a round of ceremonies, to them
senseless and disgusting mummeries; and drilled into the tactics of a
creed rank with loathed abominations?

We repeat it, to become a _servant_, was to become a _proselyte_. And
how did God authorize his people to make proselytes? At the point of the
sword? By the terror of pains and penalties? By converting men into
_merchandise_? Were _proselyte_ and _chattel_ synonymes, in the Divine
vocabulary? Must a man be sunk to a _thing_ before taken into covenant
with God? Was this the stipulated condition of adoption, and the sole
passport to the communion of the saints?

2. We argue the voluntariness of servant