“The conclusion which we reach from this examination of the words _buy_ and _bought_ as applied to the case of Abraham is, that the use of the word determines nothing in regard to the tenure by which his servants were held. They may have been purchased from those who had taken them as captives in war, and the purchase may have been regarded by themselves as a species of redemption, or a most desirable rescue from the fate which usually attends such captives—perchance from death. The property which it was understood that he had in them may have been merely property in their _time_, and not in their persons; or the purchase may have amounted in fact to every thing that is desirable in emancipation; and, from any thing implied in the _word_, their subsequent service in the family of Abraham may have been entirely voluntary. It is a very material circumstance, also, that _there is not the slightest evidence that either Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob ever sold a slave, or offered one for sale, or regarded them as liable to be sold_. There is no evidence that their servants even descended as a part of an inheritance from father to son. So far, indeed, as the accounts in the Scriptures go, it would be impossible to _prove_ that they would not have been at liberty at any time to leave their masters, if they had chosen to do so. The passage, therefore, which says that Abraham had ‘servants _bought_ with money,’ cannot be adduced to justify slavery as it exists now—even if this were all that we know about it. But (4.) servitude in the days of Abraham must have existed in a very mild form, and have had features which slavery by no means has now. Almost the only transaction which is mentioned in regard to the servants of Abraham, is one which could never occur in the slave-holding parts of our country. A marauding expedition of petty kings came from the north and east, and laid waste the country around the vale of Siddim, near to which Abraham lived, and, among other spoils of battle, they carried away Lot and his possessions. Abraham, it is said, then ‘armed his trained servants, born in his own house, three hundred and eighteen, and pursued them unto Dan,’ and rescued the family of Lot and his goods. _Gen._ xiv. This narrative is one that must for ever show that servitude, as it existed in the family of Abraham, was a very different thing from what it is in the United States. The number was large, and it does not appear that any persons but his servants accompanied Abraham. They all were armed. They were led off on a distant expedition, where there could have been no power in Abraham to preserve his life, if they had chosen to rise up against him, and no power to recover them, if they had chosen to set themselves free. Yet he felt himself entirely safe when accompanied with this band of armed men, and when far away from his family and his home. What must have been the nature of servitude, where the master was willing to arm such a company,