Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: slaves of Shem and Japheth, as the prophecy says, but the slaves of each other. 4. At the commencement of human society all government was naturally patriarchal. Each family was a little kingdom of itself, relying on its head as the fountain of authority. Abraham seems to have been under the authority of Terah, his father, till he was seventy-five years old. (Genesis xi, 31.) In the year 1921 before Christ, he "took Sarah his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran ; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan." Genesis xii, 5. 11(3 was a prince with regal authority, and his servants were his subjects. He must have been a man of considerable possessions when he had three hundred and eighteen servants born in his house, instructed in the use of arms. He had many not born in his house, and some were given him as a present. These, with the women and children, make a considerable tribe. He possessed many of the rights of sovereignty, in no small degree; and he was even considered as a sovereign prince while dwelling on the territories of others. Ho was confederate with several kings. (Genesis xiv, 13.) He was in alliance with Abimelech and the King of Egypt. It may be proper now to consider how Abraham obtained his servants, and how he employed them. (1.) The first account we have of Abraham's servants is, when he and Lot removed to Canaan from Haran. They took " the souls that they had gotten in Haran." Genesis xii, 5. As Abraham left Haran on account of its idolatry, the souls that he and Lot had gotten, appear to be persons whom he had been the instrument of converting to the knowledge of the true God, and whom he employed in his service as a religious and civil head. This is confir...