nd village, from hamlet and town, the cry
was taken up, and borne along by the laboring thousands of Israel, many
of whom had been toiling under contract for years, by the unfortunate
debtor, and those whom poverty had compelled to part with "the old house
at home," all returned, all were free. "Liberty, liberty!"

It is vain to assume that the benefits of the Jubilee were restricted to
a particular class. To what class? Not the six years' servants; they
were freed in the seventh. Not to debtors; there _was no law_ compelling
them to serve at all; therefore they could only serve voluntarily to pay
their debts. Not to thieves; they could only be compelled to make
restitution of the thing stolen, or its value; that paid, they were
free. The only other classes to whom the law could apply were "all the
inhabitants of the land" who served the longest time, the Hebrew "for
ever" servants, and the heathen servants, thus preventing the
possibility of the rise and growth of a servile class, the curse of any
country. In this way only can we account for the fact that Jewish
history never mentions the existence of a large servile class, or a
servile insurrection in Israel, so common and disastrous an occurrence
in the history of ancient slaveholding communities.

Some object here, that the term "inhabitants" implies "all the Hebrews,"
and excludes the strangers, Canaanites, &c.; but by admitting that "all
the Hebrews" were freed at the Jubilee, they admit that those who, in
Ex. 21:6, are servants "for ever," are also freed, and thus to serve
"for ever" only implies till the Jubilee. If, then, "for ever" means
only till the Jubilee in one case, it means no more in the other. And if
we show that the strangers and Canaanites _were_ considered "inhabitants
of the land," then the Jubilee referred to Hebrew and stranger alike,
and both were free. In Ex. 34:12, 15, "Take heed to thyself, lest thou
make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest;"
and Lev. 18:25; Num. 33:52-55, Moses calls the heathen "the inhabitants
of the land;" and as he was likely to understand the meaning of the term
pretty well, he either refers in the Jubilee law to Hebrews, Canaanites,
and all, or he meant Canaanites and heathen alone, which is still more
decisive. Again, in 2 Sam. 11:2-27; 23:39, we find one of these
strangers, Uriah the _Hittite_, not only an "inhabitant" of Jerusalem,
but one of David's best officers, and his wife becoming q