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ILLUSTRATIONS OF SCRIPTURE EVIDENCES.

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and at the same time opening a new channel, by re

ILLUSTRATIONS OF SCRIPTURE EVIDENCES. moving with his foot or with a mattock the earth

THE MONUMENTS OF EGYPT.

BY THE REV. JAMES TAYLOR, GLASGOW.

We are told (Gen. xii. 10) that "there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there"-a circumstance which proves that even at that early period Egypt was, what it has continued to the present day, the granary of the neighbouring nations, who in all their exigencies and deficiencies look to the Valley of the Nile as the source whence a supply of corn may be derived. Hence, agriculture was in Egypt reckoned of peculiar importance, and appears to have been taken under the protection of priests and kings. The fertility of the Egyptian soil depended not on local rains, but on the annual inundation of the Nile, which renders the soil richly productive, even in seasons when the harvests fail in the neighbouring countries from continued

drought. On this account the most important part of the labours of an Egyptian husbandman was to make the overflowings of the river available for the purposes of irrigation. It is to this peculiarity in the

cultivation of land in Egypt that Moses alludes when,

comparing it with the promised land, he says: "The land whither thou goest in to possess it, is not as the land of Egypt, from whence ye came out, where thou sowedst thy seed, and wateredst it with thy foot, as a garden of herbs: but the land, whither ye go to possess it, is a land of hills and valleys, and drinketh water of the rain of heaven: a land which the Lord

thy God careth for: the eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year"*—a statement which shows that the author was intimately acquainted with

the peculiar mode of irrigation practised in Egypt. The ground required to be watered regularly throughout the year at stated intervals. According to Prokesch, it was the custom to water the fields in winter once in fourteen days; in the spring, if the dew falls sufficiently, once in twelve days; but in the summer once in eight days. The water for this purpose is obtained either from the Nile itself, or from cisterns which were filled during the inundation. Hence engines of various kinds for raising water are placed all along the Nile, and also at the cisterns in which the water is reserved. Philo, who lived in Egypt, describes one of these machines which was used by the peasantry in his time, as being worked by the feet; that is, so far as his account may be understood, the machine was worked by the men ascending revolving steps-something on the principle

of the tread-mill. Niebuhr also mentions such a machine as used in Cairo, where it was called "sâkieh tedûr bir rijl-a watering machine that turns by the foot." Then, when the water is raised, by whatever machine, it is directed in its course by channels cut in the ground, which convey the water to those places where it is wanted; and when one part of the ground is sufficiently watered, a person closes that channel by turning the earth against it with his foot,

* Deut. xi. 10-12. Pictorial Bible, vol. i., p. 473. 4to.

with which its entrance had been closed.

The severity of the labour of irrigation is attested by all travellers; and it must have been a great satisfaction to the Israelites to learn that no such labour applicable to that country. The whole passage, as it would be required in Canaan, or was, indeed, at all has been justly said, transfers us, in a manner inimitable by a modern writer, to the time in which the Israelites were stationed mid-way between Egypt and Canaan, yet full of the advantages which they had enjoyed in the former land, and in want of counterpoise to the longing desire for that which they had lost.

Among the agricultural implements depicted on the monuments is the plough, which was long a source of perplexity to archaeologists. Some imagined that it was intended to represent the mystic legs of the ibis; while others averred that it was a type of the three dominant castes-the royal, the priestly, and the warrior. Rosellini first showed that it was a handplough, and that it was also occasionally used as a pick-axe. Some of the Hebrew slaves, in the sketch clay with these hand-ploughs, for the purpose of of "the brickmakers," are represented as digging making bricks for Pharaoh. One of these instruments, in a perfect state, is to be seen in the Egyptian room in the British Museum-perhaps one of the very implements which the Jewish bondsmen used in the time of Moses.

In the description given in the Sacred Narrative of the calamities inflicted by the plague of hail, we have an enumeration of the several varieties of grain

which were cultivated in Egypt (Exod. ix. 31, 32)— flax, barley, wheat, and rye; and on the monuments we have not only a representation of these productions, but all the processes of ploughing, sowing, aries and grinding it in the mill, are brought under reaping, threshing out the corn, storing it in granreview. The Egyptians usually sowed in November, and the harvest was ripe in April. Barley was harvested in about four, and wheat in about five months after sowing-a circumstance which corroborates the statement of Moses, that "the flax and the barley were smitten (by the plague of hail); for the barley was in the ear, and the flax was bolled. But the wheat and the rye were not smitten; for they were not shape of which bears a considerable resemblance to grown up." The corn was cut with a sickle, the that used at the present day. It appears from the monuments that the reapers cut the grain a little below the ear-straw being of comparatively little value in Egypt, as the cattle and horses seem generally not to have been stabled.* This fact throws considerable light on the conduct imputed to the

*Some of the cattle appear to have been occasionally fed in sheds. One instance of stall-fed oxen is given by Wilkinson in his account of the farm-yard of the Egyptians. This fact explains the apparent contradiction of the destruction of "all the cattle of Egypt" by the murrain, and the subsequent destruction of the cattle by hail (Exod. ix. 6-19, et seq.), those which "were in the field" alone having suffered from the previous plague, and those in the stalls or "houses

having been preserved."

Israelites, when the tyrannical Pharaoh commanded the task-masters of the people and their officers, saying, "Ye shall no more give the people straw to make brick as heretofore; let them go and gather straw for themselves"-" So the people were scattered abroad throughout all the land of Egypt to gather stubble instead of straw." By stubble here is evidently meant the stalks that remained from last year's harvest. These were plucked up by the hand, for the purpose of being employed in the composition of bricks; and as this was both a tedious and toilsome employment, it strikingly illustrates the injustice of Pharaoh when he prohibited the supply of straw to the Hebrew brickmakers, and yet commanded that they should "deliver the tale of bricks." The straw was mixed with the clay, in order to bind it more compactly together, and the bricks, when properly moulded, were carried out and dried in the sun. It is worthy of notice, that bricks have been found mixed with straw, precisely as described by Moses; and, according to Wilkinson, more bricks bearing the name of Thothmes III. (whom he supposes to have been king of Egypt at the time of the Exodus) have been discovered than of any other period. It is almost incredible that any individual should venture to attack the Pentateuch, on the ground that brick was not used for building in Egypt; and yet Von Bohlen says, that "the author comes under strong suspicion of having transferred to the Valley of the Nile many things from Upper Asia, as the Egyptians were accustomed to build with hewn stone, and the great buildings of brick spoken of, Exod. i. 14, instead of being Egyptian, seem rather to have been borrowed from Babylonia." In answer to this assertion, which is the result of consummate ignorance and presumption, we may adduce the testimony of Rosellini, who says: "Ruins of great brick buildings are found in all parts of Egypt, walls of astonishing height and thickness are preserved to the present time, as also whole pyramids, and a great number of the ruins of monuments, both great and small." Wilkinson says: "The use of crude brick baked in the sun was universal in Upper and Lower Egypt, both for public and private buildings. Enclosures of gardens, and granaries, sacred circuits encompassing the courts of temples, walls of fortifications, and town dwelling-houses, and tombs-in short, all but the temples themselves, were of crude brick."

When the Egyptians had cut down their corn, they did not generally bind it into sheaves, but carried the ears in rope or wicker baskets to the threshingfloor. The threshing-floor was a level plot of ground, of a circular shape, generally about fifty feet in diameter, prepared for use by beating down the earth till it became like a marble slab. So important were these places, that we find threshing-floors mentioned in Scripture as geographical points of equal importance with the cities. Thus, in the account of the burial of Jacob, the "very great company, both chariots and horsemen," which formed the funeral procession, is represented as halting at a threshingfloor, the name of which was changed in consequence of the grievous mourning by which the patriarch's loss was deplored: "And they came to the threshing-floor of Atad, which is beyond Jordan, and there

they mourned with a great and very sore lamentation: and he made a mourning for his father seven days. And when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning in the floor of Atad, they said, This is a grievous mourning to the Egyptians: wherefore the name of it was called Abelmizraim, which is beyond Jordan."-Gen. 1. 10, 11.

Reference is made in the law of Moses to the treading out of the grain by oxen, which were humanely forbidden to be muzzled while engaged in this operation. The monuments corroborate these references of the Sacred History, by various representations of oxen driven in a circle, or rather in all directions, over the threshing-floor. "They make a great heap of ears," says Rosellini, "in the midst of the threshing-floor, and cause them to be trodden out by six oxen, which are kept in constant motion by a man who goes behind with a whip." While superintending the animals employed for this purpose, the Egyp tian peasant, as usual, both in ancient and modern times, relieved his labours by singing. In a subterranean apartment at Eilethya, which belongs to the reign of Rameses Meiamoun, who lived about 1500 B.C., there is a representation of the treading out of the grain by oxen; and over the engraving may be read in hieroglyphics the song which the overseer sings while threshing. It is thus interpreted by Champollion :

"Tread ye out for yourselves,
Tread ye out for yourselves,

O oxen!

Tread ye out for yourselves,
Tread ye out for yourselves-
The straw;

For men, who are your masters—
The grain."

After the grain was trodden out, it was tossed up against the wind with a fork, by which the broken straw and chaff were dispersed, and the grain fell to the ground. To this the Psalmist alludes when he says: "The ungodly are like the chaff which the wind driveth away."- Ps. i. 4. The grain afterwards passed through a sieve to separate unthreshed ears, clods of earth, and other impurities. After this it underwent a still further purification, by being once more tossed up against the wind by a wooden scoop or short-handed shovel, which, in our translation of the Scriptures, is termed "a fan." To these two processes the Prophet Isaiah (xxx. 24) refers, when he says: "The oxen likewise, and the asses that plough the ground, shall eat clean provender, which hath been winnowed with the shovel and with the fan." In allusion to the fact that the fan was considered the more perfect winnowing implement, John the Baptist, describing the coming of Christ, says: "Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."-Matt. iii. 12.*

The winnowed corn was carried to the granary in sacks, each containing a fixed quantity, to facilitate the keeping of a proper account. The corn was stored away in granaries, which appear to have been public buildings, and are depicted on the monu

Bible Illustrated, &c., p. 40. Biblic. Cyclop., article Agriculture.

"REFUGES OF LIES."

ments as of vast extent, quite sufficient to contain the immense stores of grain which Joseph is represented as having laid up during the seven plenteous years. As a great portion of the revenues of the monarch was derived from a corn-rent, a royal officer is always present, with his pen and tablet, taking account of the sacks as they were carried up into the granary. According to Wilkinson, sometimes two scribes were present-one to write down the number of measures taken from the heap of corn, and the other to check them, by entering the quantity removed to the granary. This practice, which is called numbering, is referred to in the narrative of the precautions which Joseph took against the seven years of famine. "And he gathered up all the food of the seven years which were in the land of Egypt, and laid up the food in the cities: the food of the field, which was round about every city, laid he up in the same. And Joseph gathered corn as the sand of the sea, very much, until he left numbering; for it was without number."-Gen. xli. 48, 49. The careful precautions thus taken, lest any part of the produce of the soil should escape taxation, show the desire of the people to evade the payment of the royal impost, and account for the absence on the monuments of any trace of a "harvest home." Harvest must indeed have been anything but a joyous season to the agricultural labourer. It was remarked by the memDers of the French Commission, that there was a great similarity between the joyless looks of the husbandmen on the monuments, and the sombre countenances of the modern Fellahs, whose toil is so wretchedly remunerated.*

In the account given of Pharaoh's dream (Gen. xli. 2) it is said: "And, behold, there came up out of the river seven well favoured kine and fatfleshed; and they fed in a meadow." The word here rendered "meadow," is, in Job viii. 11, translated "flag." "Can the rush grow up without mire? can the flag grow without water?" It denotes a succulent aquatic plant-in all probability the lotus, the cultivation of which, as well as of other aquatic plants, was peculiar to the agriculture of Egypt. The mention here made of this plant, therefore, shows that the writer was well acquainted with the mode of cultivation practised in the Valley of the Nile. The monuments contain delineations of the lotus in its natural colours, with its stalk and fruit; and on one of the royal sepulchres there is a representation of the lotus harvest. Contrary to the Egyptian mode of reaping

wheat, the stems of the lotus were cut off close to the root; and from the great care shown in binding the sheaves, and carrying them to the granary, it is evident that the reed was looked upon as far more valuable than straw. The seed is still used as an article of food by the inhabitants; and that it was so also in ancient times, we know from the testimony of Herodotus. "The customs of those who reside in the marshes," says he, "do not differ from those of the other Egyptians; but they have devised the following inventions for procuring an easy supply of food: When the river attains its height, and the

plains are inundated, there springs up in the water a vast number of lilies, to which the Egyptians give Bible Illustrated, &c., p. 38.

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the name of lotus. They carefully gather these, and dry them in the sun; and then, squeezing out what is contained in the pods of the lotus, resembling poppy-seed, they make it into loaves, which they bake over the fire. The root also of this lotus, which is roundish, and of the size of an apple, is eatable: its flavour is moderately sweet."

"LET THERE BE LIGHT."

BY JAMES MONTGOMERY.

"LET there be light!" thus spake the WordThe Word was God; "and there was light!". Still the creative voice is heard;

A day is born from every night.

And every night shall turn to day,
While months, and years, and ages roll
But we have seen a brighter ray

Dawn on the chaos of the soul.

Nor we alone: its wakening smiles

Have broke the gloom of Pagan sleepThe Word hath reached the utmost isles: God's Spirit moves upon the deep. Already, from the dust of death, Man in his Maker's image stands; Once more he draws immortal breath, And stretches forth to heaven his hands.

From day to day, before our eyes,

Glows and extends the work begun.
When shall the new creation rise
On every land beneath the sun?

When, in the Sabbath of his love,

Shall God amidst his labours rest; And, bending from his throne above, Again pronounce his creatures blest? Soon the redeemed, in every clime,

Yea, all that breathe, and move, and live, To Christ, through every age of time, Shall kingdom, power, and glory give.

"REFUGES OF LIES."

SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS.

SOME rely upon their own righteousness, and the merit of their own good works. They doubt not but if God would set their good against their bad, they would stand upright in judgment; and think that, take one with another, God hath been no loser by them. If, at one time, they have provoked him, at another they have appeased him; if they have him by duties. Foolish creatures! who think to wronged him by sins, they have again recompensed discharge debts by duties, and satisfy God's justice with that which they owe to his sovereignty. This is but robbing one of God's attributes to pay another.

Let me ask you, to what purpose is it that you keep up something of religion? to what purpose

that you frequent public ordinances ?-that you force your ears to hear that Word which yet prophesieth no good concerning you, and task your lips to say over those prayers in which yet you find no relish

Is it not the secret thought of many men's hearts, that hereby they shall buy off guilt and escape condemnation? If this be your hope, let me tell you it is no better than a spider's web; and when the besom of destruction comes, it will sweep down such cobweb hopes as these are, and such as settle in them, into perdition. For those very duties and works, which many trust unto to save them, may, at this day, for the slight and hypocritical performance of them, be reckoned up against them as so many sins; so far from being expiations, that they may rather be their faults. There will be no setting the good against the bad, for the manner of performing that which is good turns it into filth and abomination in the sight of God; and all they do is either sin in itself or sinful: and, therefore, to plead your own righteousness and your own good works is but to plead that the defects and hypocrisy of which will be brought in against you to condemn you.

COMPARATIVE RIGHTEOUSNESS.

Many rely upon a comparative righteousness. They glory, with the bragging Pharisee, that they are not extortioners, unjust, adulterers, as other men; and, therefore, they hope that as they have not lived the same lives, so they shall not partake of the same condemnation. But, alas! God will not judge thee by comparing thee with other men, but with his law. Thou fallest far short of the holiness and perfection of that, even in those very actions wherein thou dost far transcend other men. It may be there is no comparison between thee and others, but then there is no comparison between thee and the law. Thy very excellences may, at this day, be judged deficiencies; and thyself, a surpasser of others, wilt be then judged as a transgressor against God.

THE MERCY OF GOD.

Many most presumptuously rely upon the merciful and gracious disposition of God, and bottom their hopes of safety in that great day only upon this presumption. In spite of Scripture, and threatenings, and judgments, they will not believe but that the world is only scared out of its wits, by representing

God more terrible and severe than indeed he is. What though the Law hath threatened death to transgressors, and the Gospel to unbelievers-and they are both; yet they will think that God hath still reserved in his hands a power to relax this rigorous sentence, and to dispense with and pardon whom he pleaseth; and they hope they shall be of that number. Strange sinners these! who are resolved upon it, that God shall show them mercy, though he himself hath protested the contrary; and will not be beaten from it, but that their souls are dearer to God than his own truth. No! this is the acceptable time; this is the day of salvation. As soon as this life is expired, the time of believing and repenting is expired too, and the time of mercy and pardon with it. When Christ shall sit as judge, it will then be too late to cry: "Mercy! mercy!" Mercy hath been already tendered, and proudly rejected. Sinners! why was it not embraced while you lived upon the earth-while you were entreated and beseeched to accept it? It is now in vain to call, or cry, or strive. God hath sworn in his wrath that not one of them shall enter into his rest.

WANT OF TIME.

Some may think to allege for their excuse that they wanted time to prepare for eternity. Their employments in the world are such, that they have not leisure to think of their souls' welfare. Providence hath set them in a most cumbersome calling; and the cares and business of this world flow in so fast upon them, that they drink up all their thoughts

and sequester all their time. As the Duke D'Alva, being demanded whether he observed a comet that had lately appeared, "No," said he, "I have so much to do on earth, that I cannot spare time to mind heaven." So it is with many. They are overwhelmed with worldly employments, and have no spare time to think of heaven, and therefore hope that God will not expect so much from them as from others who are better at leisure. But it were happy for these men, if, as they pretend, they cannot spare time to be holy, so they could not spare time to die and to be judged. It is true, men may make their trades and callings too unwieldy for them, and thereby become not masters, but drudges, to their own affairs. However, it is the greatest folly in the world, and can be no excuse at the last day, to grasp so much of earth, as to let go their hold of heaven. It will not be an excuse, but an aggravation, of men's doom at the last day, that they who have lived forty or threescore years in the world could yet find no time for heaven; as if the laying up of a vain and perishing estate here below were of more concern than the laying up treasures in heaven, and a good foundation against the time to

come.

.....

WARNING.

Since, then, no excuse will prevail to keep off the dreadful sentence of judgment, oh! then, let no excuse prevail to keep us from a holy life. Let no excuse keep us from coming to Christ, since no excuse can help us when we come before Christ. When our Saviour invited his guests, they all made excuses could not come. -one had bought a farm, and another oxen, and they sufficient to reject Christ's invitations. But though Poor excuses! but yet anything is

men make excuses when Christ invites them, no excuses shall serve the turn when he summons them.

The ministers of the Gospel, when they knock at

men's hearts, and bid them come to Christ, are turned off with very slight answers; but pray, bethink yourwhen an angel shall come into the grave to you, and selves what excuse, what answer, you will make, judgment. It were well for many, if they could then knock at your coffins, and bid you arise, and come to excuse themselves from appearing, or else, at their appearing, excuse themselves from their guilt and condemnation. But no excuse will then be taken. I beseech you, consider that in that day-and that day is coming-nothing will avail you but faith and obedience; and, as you would plead it then, so be persuaded to practise it now.-Hopkins.

BURMESE CUSTOMS ILLUSTRATIVE OF

SCRIPTURE.

BY JOHN KITTO, D.D.

THE Burmese customs respecting slavery and debt seem to offer some remarkable illustrations of Scripture and of the customs of the Hebrew people. We obtain much more distinct ideas respecting the usages of any nation, by comparing them with the similar usages of another nation, than can be otherwise received; and in such comparison the differences are not less instructive than the resemblances; for where there is a general resemblance, the differences of detail enable us often to apprehend the special objects of the Hebrew law or usage, which might otherwise escape our notice or elude our research.

The sources from which slaves are obtained among the Burmese are-prisoners of war and their de scendants, foreigners by purchase, and debtors. The

BURMESE CUSTOMS ILLUSTRATIVE OF SCRIPTURE.

same classes of slaves existed among the Hebrews, and in nearly the same proportions as among the Burmese.

That captives taken in war were detained in bondage, and not, as in modern nations, restored, by exchange or otherwise, to their own country upon the termination of hostilities, is shown by such passages as Gen. xiv.; Deut. xx. 14, xxi. 10, 11; 2 Kings v. 2. That such bondage should be hereditary, seems, at the first view, a peculiarity of the Burmese usage; but there is no doubt that the same was the case among the Hebrews. This fact is implied in the mention of "servants born in one's house," of "the children of maid-servants," and of "the sons or children of the house."-See Gen. xiv. 14, xv. 3, xvii. 23; Ps. lxxxvi. 16, cxvi. 16. This appears still clearer when we come to consider that, even in the case of a Hebrew who became a servant, and was, by the law, liberated after a term of years, although his wife that he had before his bondage commenced, and any children he had by her before or during his period of service, went out with him (Lev. xxv. 41); yet, if the master had given him a wife during his period of service, both the woman, and any children to which she had given birth, remained the property of the master when the man himself went out free.-Exod. xxi. 4. It may be remarked, however, that one class of slavescaptives of war-were not numerous among the Hebrews, whose wars were mostly wars of extermination, so that they seldom had any male captives. They usually spared the unmarried females; and those into whose hands they fell either sold them, or employed them in domestic services. If the master, or his son, married any of these, they ceased to be at his disposal as slaves. If he came to dislike them, or wished to get rid of them, he could not sell them, but was bound to let them go free. Deut. xxi. 14, 15. It seems to have been usually from this class that the master provided wives for his unmarried Hebrew servants, and who, belonging to him as property, remained with him, as well as her children, when the man became free, as already noticed. It was probably as often from a regard to the ties thus formed in his period of bond service as from attachment to his master, that the Hebrew bond servant sometimes declined to go out, where the law would have made him free, but chose rather to contract the obligation of perpetual servitude.Exod. xxi. 5, 6; Deut. xv. 17.

In Burmah the slaves by purchase are not very numerous. "A few are annually introduced through a slave trade habitually carried on along the frontiers. I cannot learn," says Mr Malcolm, "that the Burmans themselves engage in this traffic; but they do not hesitate to purchase. Munniporians and Arracanese are brought into Ava, especially on the Siam frontier, where they are often caught and carried across the ill-defined boundary." Change the names, and this is probably a tolerably accurate state of the case as among the Hebrews also. The law on the subject may be found in Lev. xxv. 44-46: "Both thy bondmen and bondwomen [that is, slaves], which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you: of them shall ye buy bondmen

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and bondwomen. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession, and ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen for ever." This is preceded and followed by a prohibition of the buying and selling of native Israelites. From this text it appears that, as in the case of war captives, the bondage of purchased slaves was entailed on their descendants. In mitigation of the apparent austerity of the law with respect to "sojourners," let it observed that it is especially applied to those who were "born in the land" of Israel, and who were, therefore, descended from those ancient inhabitants of the country whom the Israelites had spared from extermination. These were, in fact, regarded in the light of the descendants of captives of war-as already, in fact, in an inferior, a tributary, and enslaved condition. The right to treat them as such was, indeed, only asserted in practice by Solomon, who, when his great public works created an extraordinary demand for labour, "levied a tribute of bond-service."-1 Kings ix. 21. It is, therefore, not surprising that the law made no distinction, in respect of slavery, between them and the people of neighbouring nations.

Purchased slaves are distinguished from others in Scripture as those "bought with money;" and the presence of such in large establishments is recognised in the earliest periods of Scripture history.--See Gen. xvii. 12, 13, 23, 27; Exod. xii. 44. The sale of Joseph by his own brothers to the Midianitish merchants, who re-sold him in Egypt, is the most striking fact in connection with the subject; and the strong and urgent manner in which the law forbids the selling of Israelites to foreigners in any case, and in particular the stealing of them for the purpose of such sale (which, as in the case of the Burmese, might easily be effected on the frontiers), indicates that very criminal practices, in this respect, had become prevalent before the delivery of the law. Exod. xxi. 16; Deut. xxiv. 7.

More interesting than the details which have been already offered respecting such slaves as were captives of war, and such as were bought with money, are those facts which concern the numerous persons who fell into bondage from poverty or debt. In this matter the analogies between the customs of the Burmese and of the Jews are very striking, and even the differences are illustrative, and suggest useful comparisons.

The Rev. Mr Malcolm states that, in Burmah, "debtor-slaves are most numerous in every part of the country. The king's brother told me that he estimated their proportion to the rest of the population as one to seven or eight. This might be true at Ava, but I think it much more than the general average." What the proportion of such bond servants might be in Israel we have no means of knowing; but that they were very numerous, and greatly exceeded all other classes, is manifest from the extent of legislation concerning them, which all along presumes that great numbers would fall into

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