alth, various hints in the New Testament render
probable.[F] Yet how do we find him and his sons, while prosecuting
their appropriate business? In the midst of the hired servants, "in the
ship mending their nets."[G]

[Footnote A: Acts xviii. 1-3.]

[Footnote B: Henry on Acts xviii, 1-3.]

[Footnote C: Kuinoel on Acts.]

[Footnote D: Heinrichs on Acts.]

[Footnote E: Acts xx. 34, 35; 1 Thess. iv. 11]

[Footnote F: See Kuinoel's Prolegom. to the Gospel of John.]

[Footnote G: Mark i. 19, 20.]

Slavery among a people who, from the highest to the lowest, were used to
manual labor! What occasion for slavery there? And how could it be
maintained? No place can be found for slavery among a people generally
inured to useful industry. With such, especially if men of learning,
wealth, and station "labor, working with their hands," such labor must
be honorable. On this subject, let Jewish maxims and Jewish habits be
adopted at the South, and the "peculiar institution" would vanish like a
ghost at daybreak.

5. Another hint, here deserving particular attention, is furnished in
the allusions of the New Testament to the lowest casts and most servile
employments among the Jews. With profligates, _publicans_ were joined as
depraved and contemptible. The outcasts of society were described, not
as fit to herd with slaves, but as deserving a place among Samaritans
and publicans. They were "_hired servants_," whom Zebedee employed. In
the parable of the prodigal son we have a wealthy Jewish family. Here
servants seem to have abounded. The prodigal, bitterly bewailing his
wretchedness and folly, described their condition as greatly superior to
his own. How happy the change which should place him by their side! His
remorse, and shame, and penitence made him willing to embrace the lot of
the lowest of them all. But these--what was their condition? They were
HIRED SERVANTS. "Make me as one of thy hired servants." Such he refers
to as the lowest menials known in Jewish life.

Lay such hints as have now been suggested together; let it be
remembered, that slavery was inconsistent with the Mosaic economy; that
John the Baptist in preparing the way for the Messiah makes no reference
"to the yoke" which, had it been before him, he would, like Isaiah, have
condemned; that the Savior, while he took the part of the poor and
sympathized with the oppressed; was evidently spared the pain of
witnessing within the sphere of his ministry, the pre