bountiful and constant friend, and none will more warmly testify to his goodness than persons of this description. To his acquaintances in their afflictions he was the first and readiest of consolers, and the most prompt visitor in illness. It was not enough for him to contribute his money, but in cases of distress he invoked the aid of other benefactors; he found work for those who were out of employment; he spent his valuable time in counsel to those who sought it; he took the sick or the distressed into his house; in short, his activity in benevolence was as large as in the literary undertakings and the official employments which were the immediate business of his life.

I will only add, that he was always ready to converse on religious topics; not merely on theological opinions, or the meaning of scripture, or the operations of Christian benevolence, but on those spiritual truths which touch the heart, and on the inner life itself. He slid readily and willingly into these subjects. He showed that they were daily near and familiar. The reserve which is so habitual to many of the best men upon these deepest of subjects, had worn away from his mind; they were great realities, in his judgment to be dwelt upon and spoken of as much as any other.

In endeavoring thus to estimate the life and character of Dr. Goodrich, I am naturally brought back to those words which stood at the head of this discourse: "Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord, (or seizing the opportunity ;) rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer; distributing to the necessities of saints; given to hospitality." Has not this whole discourse been an illustration of one or another of these practical Christian virtues; of untiring and sleepless industry and activity upon Christian principles; of ardor in doing good which took up God's cause as if it were his own; of a promptness and efficiency which had already planned and sometimes accomplished, while other men were thinking of setting out; of a radiant, trustful, hopeful piety; of prayerfulness in daily life; of a stream of charities and sympathies towards the servants and the cause of Christ, and those distressed ones whom Christ

made his own by pitying them? There is yet one of these pencil-touches of the Apostle, which I have not noticed"patient in tribulation." One son was taken away from him in childhood. Two bright-faced daughters graced his family, until they were given in marriage to young men of worth and promise. But in the very morning of their married life the mower's scythe cut them down in their new homes, and in the case of one of them without the father being near to see her die. This, though they died in hope, was tribulation, but it was tribulation patiently borne, and he surrendered submissively the gifts and the hopes which God had lent him.

To those survivors of his family whose turn has come to mourn for him, I need not attempt to act the part of a consoler which he has sustained towards me and towards so many. There is consolation, or rather joy, suggested by his life and his death. That he lived to that epoch of old age beyond which life begins to be labor and sorrow, and just there passed away by no painful death, that he had spent a life full of accomplishment and results, that he had walked with God in near and nearer intimacy, these things surely are what, if any. thing, can take away sadness and gloom from death.

To the College, to its religious interests especially, his loss is exceedingly great, and as its oldest officer, I have felt it to be appropriate for me, once his pupil, then his colleague, and brought into near relations to him, to express on my own part, on that of my colleagues, and on that of the students, upon whom his hold was strong and close, our sense of the loss. Who shall fill the breach? What more earnest spirit of survivors, what new zeal of another and kindness like his own can perpetuate his influence? May God, who loves his own cause better than his servants love it, and has the resources of boundless wisdom, help where man fails.

ARTICLE IV.-HEBREW SERVITUDE.

ALL institutions are organic. They grow, and are the product of previous and present circumstances. At each period of their life, they embody the results of all their preceding history. Their character is like the flavor of fruit-dependent on germ, soil, climate and culture; and in order fully to understand, and correctly to estimate an institution, we must know its history; we must know the character of the original germ planted, the people among whom it grew to maturity, the religion, polity, and manners of that people, and the specific enactments pertaining to the particular institution under consideration. This is eminently true of slavery, not only because it has a history, but because, next to the domestic relations, the servile are the most intimate and influential. Next to the bond which unites husband and wife; which ties parent to child; the bond of bondage binds together the largest number of reciprocal influences. While, therefore, this intense reciprocity enables us to form a more correct estimate of the servile institutions found in each nation of past or present history, it becomes a fruitful source of error, in reasoning from the servile institution of one nation, to the servile institution of another. Slavery has been practiced by all the nations of the globe, but it would be very unsafe to infer that its character was as uniform as its prevalence has been universal. It would be as if a man should infer from the universality of marriage, that the practice in Eden corresponded with the practice in Utah: a mistake as vicious in logic as it would be pernicious in ethics. In discussing, therefore, the character of Hebrew servitude, we shall not seek for light or illustrations in the dark and heathen systems of Greece or Rome-full and accurate as is our knowledge of those systems;-neither shall we refer to American slavery, though it is a legally defined system and claims to be scriptural. For, save in the single abstract relation of servant and master, there is hardly a feature common to both-not

enough to make out even a family resemblance. The fruit of the two kinds, as we shall see, differing as much in form and flavor, as the pungent and woody crab-apple differs from the mild and luscious Baldwin or Belmont. There are analogies in the villenage of the middle ages, and in the serfdom of Russia, to Hebrew servitude; but neither with them shall we institute comparisons in order to arrive at a correct estimate of Hebrew servitude. All the materials necessary to its discussion and understanding, are within a small and accessible compass. The system is one legally defined and punctiliously regulated by inspiration. Its character, the circumstances of its origin, so far as these influenced the system, are bound up in the same volume, and everything requisite or legitimate to the discussion is confined to the Old Testament-we had almost said, to the Pentateuch.

What we need, to understand the subject, is not a knowledge of this institution among other people, but a knowledge of the facts among the Hebrews. To settle this question we need bring nothing to the Bible. The facts are all recorded there already, and are recorded by divine authority. We need simply to come with unprejudiced minds, unperverted associations, and an honest purpose to know the truth. All moral questions, among a Christian people, come finally back to the Bible-this is the divine constitution. The word of God is the last reason of the church. Find out the meaning of the Spirit, and then, among Christians, there will be an end of all controversy. With a view to the better understanding of Hebrew servitude, as it was constituted and approved by Jehovah, it will be necessary to revert briefly to the two most characteristic periods of its preliminary history-the patriarchal, and the Egyptian-periods of a little more than two hundred years each. Bible history is very explicit, as to the fact of servitude among the patriarchs. Abraham brought it with him out of the heathenism beyond the Euphrates. He took with him "Sarah his wife, Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran." (Gen. xii, 5.) And it is probable, that he held these "souls" by the same tenure, by which others, in

Mesopotamia, held them. Among the presents, which he brought with him from his sojourn in Egypt, were "men servants and maid servants." (Gen. xii, 16.) Among the possessions of Isaac, are enumerated "possession of flocks, and possession of herds, and great store of servants.” (Gen. xxvi, 14.) In the greeting, which Jacob authorizes the messengers to give to Esau, he says, "And I have oxen and asses, flocks and men-servants and women-servants." (Gen. xxxii, 5.) The fact, therefore, of patriarchal servitude, is clear; but the character of the relation is not so clear. It may, however, be safely affirmed, that the free spirit and free life of a nomadic people is incompatible with grinding bondage. So unnatural is the state of bondage, and so purely the creature of positive law, that chattel slavery, as a system, is unknown to savages and nomads. The very existence of the institution is evidence of that stage of civilization, in which might legally rules over right. The fact that Abraham armed three hundred and eighteen of his servants to rescue his nephew, (Gen. xiv, 14,) proves that they were bound to him more by affection than by power, and were not so much slaves as faithful retainers. In 2 Sam. ix, 9, 10, we have an illustration of the relation sustained at least by some servants,-they were liegemen. Then, too, it is nowhere recorded that the servants of the patriarchs were owned in fee-simple; and from the apparently careful manner in which "servants criminated from "cattle and money," in those passages where wealth is summed up, as compared with those where greatness is described, it is a legitimate inference that servants were never "chattels," but were menials, hirelings and clans-men.* But however indistinct the notion of patri

* Gen. xiii, 2. “And Abraham was very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold.” Comp. with Gen. xii, 16, "And he had (lit. there was to him) sheep, and oxen, and he-asses, and men-servants, and maid-servants, and she-asses, and camels."

Gen. xxvi, 13, 14. "And the man (Isaac) waxed great, and went forward and grew until he became very great: for he had (there was to him) possession of flocks, possession of herds, and ("possession" is not repeated) great store of servants."

Gen. xxx, 43. "And the man (Jacob) increased exceedingly, and bad (there was to him) much cattle, and maid-servants, and men-servants, and camels, and