injury, and paid the legal fine. Ex.
xxii. 3. But _masters_ seem to have had no power to sell their
_servants_--the reason is obvious. To give the master a _right_ to sell
his servant, would annihilate the servant's right of choice in his own
disposal; but says the objector, To give the master a right to _buy_ a
servant, equally annihilates the servant's _right of choice_. Answer. It
is one thing to have a right to buy a man, and a very different thing to
have a right to buy him of _another_ man.

Though there is no instance of a servant being bought of his, or her
master, yet there are instances of young females being bought of their
_fathers_. But their purchase as _servants_ was their betrothal as
WIVES. Exodus xxi. 7, 8. "_If a man sell his daughter to be a
maid-servant, she shall not go out as the men-servants do. If she please
not her master_ WHO HATH BETROTHED HER TO HIMSELF, _he shall let her be
redeemed_[A]."

[Footnote A: The comment of Maimonides on this passage is as follows: "A
Hebrew handmaid might not be sold but to one who laid himself under
obligations, to espouse her to himself or to his son, when she was fit
to be betrothed."--_Maimonides--Hilcoth--Obedim_, Ch. IV. Sec. XI.

Jarchi, on the same passage, says, "He is bound to espouse her and take
her to be his wife for the _money of her purchase_ is the money of her
_espousals_." ]

7. _We infer that the Hebrew servant was voluntary in_ COMMENCING _his
service, because he was pre-eminently so_ IN CONTINUING _it_. If, at the
year of release, it was the servant's _choice_ to remain with his
master, so did the law guard his free will, that it required his ear to
be bored by the judges of the land, thus making it impossible for the
servant to be held in an involuntary condition. Yea, so far was his
_free choice_ protected, that his master was compelled to keep him,
however much he might wish to get rid of him.

8. _The method prescribed for procuring servants, recognized their
choice, and was an appeal to it_. The Israelites were commanded to offer
them a suitable _inducement_, and then leave them to decide. They might
neither seize by _force_, nor frighten them by _threats_, nor wheedle
them by false pretenses, nor _borrow_ them, nor _beg_ them; but they
were commanded to BUY them[A]; that is, they were to recognize the
_right_ of the individuals to their own services--their right to
_dispose_ of them, and their right to _refuse all offers_. They mi