Eliezer the Pattern Servant

The French have established a diligence that starts from the sea-coast at Beyrout, and now climbing the steeps and now winding through the picturesque valleys of Lebanon, descends after a ‘long day’s journey on the city of Damascus. This city is a point of interest to every traveller who visits the Holy Land; nor any wonder, since there are points, not a few, in which it claims pre-eminence over any other place in the world.

Akin to the veneration with which the men of his day regarded Methusaleh, hoar with the snows of nine hundred sixty and nine years; with which we ourselves should gaze on the oldest living man; which I felt on looking even on the ruins of a decayed but living yew, that, a sapling at the date of David’s battle with Goliah, was a great tree, mantled in the mists or white with the snows of our hills, that winter night the Saviour was born — akin to this is the feeling with which an intelligent and thoughtful traveller must tread the streets of Damascus. Said by Josephus to have been founded by a great-grandson of Noah, and certainly spreading along the banks of Abana at the time Abraham entered the land of Canaan, Damascus is the oldest existing inhabited city of the world. Of all those that were coeval with it, it only stands. The hand of Time, committing its ravages less suddenly but no less surely than the flood that swept away Enoch, the first city, as it did Eden, the first garden in the world, has left no other memorial of these than their names in the page of history, or some desolate and lonely ruin. It is not so with Damascus. Long anterior to the building either of Athens or of Rome it was a busy city; and, sole survivor of a remote antiquity, it is a busy city still. How great its age! It boasts of streets along which the tide of human life has ebbed and flowed for nearly four thousand years. Were the title one which could be properly applied to any place but heaven, not Rome, but Damascus, should be called ‘‘ The Eternal City.”

-Singularly interesting to antiquaries on account of its extreme antiquity, this city presents also features of peculiar interest to men engaged in the pursuits of trade; whether they be the arts of peace or war they cultivate. Famous during long ages for its silk manufactures, it gives its own name to a fabric which is esteemed of superior richness and value — damask being called so from the circumstance that it was invented in Damascus, and first woven in its looms. Its weapons of steel were even more famous than its webs of silk. Happy the man in battle who carried a Damascus blade; no other place forging swords of such exquisite temper. I know not, but probably the Bible alludes to the superior excellence of these where it says, ‘‘ Shall iron break the northern iron and the steel?” I once happened to see this steel put to the test. It was in France, and in the chemistry class of the Sorbonne. In the course of a lecture on iron, Thenard, the professor, produced a Damascus blade, stating that he believed that these swords owed their remarkable temper to the iron of which they were made being smelted by the charcoal of a thorn-bush that grew in the desert. To put it to the trial, he placed the sword in the hand of a very powerful man, his assistant; desiring him to strike it with all his might against a bar of iron. With the arm of a giant the assistant sent the blade flashing around his head, and then down on the iron block, into which, when I expected to see it shivered like glass, it embedded itself, quivering but uninjured; giving, besides a remarkable proof of the trustworthiness of the sword, new force to the proverb, 7rwe as steel.

But Damascus, which her poets dignify with the title of ‘Pearl of the East,” presents attractive charms to travellers that have no stake in trade, and feel no interest in antiquarian studies; for, besides being the oldest, it is in some of its aspects the most beautiful of cities. With its white towers and minarets shooting up through groves of green palms into the transparent air, it lies within sight cf the snow-crowned Hermon; reposing at the feet of a grand mountain range, and encircled by a zone of gardens and of orchards of variously tinted foliage and the finest fruits. Its plain is watered by Abana and Pharpar. These rivers, reckoned by the Syrian leper better than all the waters of Israel, rush forth from their mountain gorges to be parted into a thousand streams, foaming onward in their course, dance and sparkle in bright sunshine, and cover the soil on their banks with a carpet of — flowery verdure. No city in the world is more,

- perhaps none is so worthy of the encomium which the pride and patriotism of the Jews pronounced on their Jerusalem, ‘ Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth.” Travellers have used the most glowing terms and exhausted the powers of language in their attempts to describe its charms; but no expression can give us so vivid an idea of them as the part Mahomet acted, when, a camel driver traversing the neighboring mountains, he stood in the gorge where the city first burst on his view. Rapt for a while in astonishment, he gazed on the wondrous scene, but -by-and-by recovered himself; and fearing, should he venture down into the city, that its charms would seduce him into forgetting the vast schemes of his life, he turned aside, and passed on, saying, with a self-denial and determination of purpose Christians would do well to imitate, Wan can have but one paradise, and mine ts fixed above.

Legends also cling to Damascus and the places around, which invest them with no ordinary interest. The origin and foundation of the city are lost in the mists of ages, but there is a common belief that he who looks on its lovely plain sees the cradle of the human race; and that it was from its red clay soil that God formed the first man, and also gave him his name of Adam — which is, being interpreted, red clay. If this is true, it imparts an air of probability to another of their legends, this, namely, that it was near Damascus that Abel fell a victim to his brother’s envy, and his blood went up to heaven for vengeance on earth’s first, if not worst, murderer. Here, on one of the mountain heights to the west of the city, is

° the place, it is said, where Abraham stood on that eventful day, when, following with anxious eye the setting course of star, and moon, and sun, he abandoned their worship for that of the true God; and there, down on the plain in yonder vast mound, is the sepulchre of Nimrod — that mighty hunter before the Lord, who, as the founder of Babel, looms so large through the mists of four thousand years, the first of earth’s old great monarchs.

These traditions, however interesting, may possibly be mere fancies; although in a sackful of such legends there are almost always some grains of truth. But though these were ranked with the ‘“‘ Arabian Nights’ Entertainments,” there are facts associated with Damascus which, after Bethlehem and Jerusalem, invest it with greater sacredness than any other spot on earth. It is interesting as the home of Naaman the Syrian; him who, advised by a captive girl that had compassion on -her master, repaired to Israel, and lost both his pride and leprosy in the waters of the Jordan. It is interesting as the city from whose gates the proud armies marched forth, over which God wrought some of his greatest triumphs on behalf of his ancient people; striking that host of a sudden with blindness, and this with such a panic, that with Benhadad at their head, and two-and-thirty allied princes swelling the rout, they fled like sheep before a handful of the warriors of Israel. It is interesting to the students of Scripture through its association with the two greatest of the prophets. Probably Elijah, but certainly Elisha, walked its streets. God had sent him there: and there he unveiled such a future of crime and cruelty before Hazael, that, hardened sinner as the soldier was, he started in horror from his own image, exclaiming, ‘Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?’ But what especially makes Damascus interesting and “holy ground” is that it formed the scene of an event which, in its influence on the world, takes rank next to the birth and death of the Son of God. It was nigh to this city the great Apostle of the Gentiles was converted. And what man occupies such a place in sacred history as he; did so much in his lifetime, or has done so much by his writings, to proclaim and propagate the Gospel? This “chief of sinners,” as he humbly, penitently called himself, was unquestionably the chief of Apostles; in writings, as in labors and in trials, more abundant thanthem all. Next to Jesus Christ, whose “name is as ointment poured forth,” and than whose there is no other name given under heaven whereby we can be saved, no name on earth, in the homes of the godly, is such a ‘‘household word” as Paul’s; and in heaven, next to our Redeemer, I can believe him to be regarded with more universal interest ’ than any one else in glory. How many have his pleadings moved; how many hearts have the arrows from his quiver pierced; to how many have his words brought life and comfort; and how many saints strengthened thereby have entered the dark valley singing his own grand song, ‘‘O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law: but thanks be to God who giveth me the victory through my Lord Jesus Christ”? There, the light shone that paled a noonday sun, and the darkness fell that issued in quenchless light, and Jesus last visited our world to convert his greatest persecutor into his greatest preacher. For these reasons Damascus will ever be among the sacred places which a Christian would like to visit.

The reputed birthplace of Adam, and certainly the spiritual birthplace of Paul, perhaps the. greatest of his sons, this city gave birth to another - man, of whom, and of whose remarkable virtues, it has no reason to be ashamed. Domestic servants form a very large, a very useful, and a very important class in society; and it can boast of having given birth to one who occupies a place of as great pre-eminence among them as Paul perhaps did in the Apostleship of the Church. And so, appreciating the higher virtues, however humble the sphere be which they adorn, more than for its beauty of situation, more than for its famous fabrics, more than for its hoar antiquity, I regard Damascus with interest as the birthplace of him whose name stands at the head of this chapter — the steward of Abraham’s house, as his own master calls him, ‘“‘ This Eliezer of Damascus.”

Consider his position in life — — He was a servant.

He belonged to a class which the Bible highly honors, and by which it should be highly honored in return. Gratitude for the estimation in which it holds those whom many despise, and for the elevation to which it has raised them it found treated as slaves and trodden in the dust, requires that. The oldest, truest, and best of books, this Book, for the rules it supplies for this life and the hopes it presents of a better one, is adapted to all classes of society; and should be equally valued by all. This was well expressed by two very different, but both impressive, scenes. There, in yonder palace where a royal lady, about to leave our shores and rise in time to the position of a queen, receives a deputation. They have come to offer her, in the name of the women of our country, a parting marriage gift. It is no costly ornament, fashioned of gold and flashing with precious gems — diamords from Indian mines, or pearls from the deep, such as the wealth and willingness of the donors could have purchased. A healthy sign of the age, anda noble testimony to its religious character, the gift is a copy of the Holy Scriptures — this, as in long centuries hence it will be told, was the marriage gift it was thought worthy of a Christian nation to bestow, and worthy of a royal princess to receive. And there also, on yon stormy shore, where, amid the wreck the night had wrought, and the waves, still thundering as they sullenly retire, had left on the beach, lies the naked form of a drowned sailo boy. He had stripped for one last, brave fight for life; and wears nought but a handkerchief bound round his cold breast. Insensible to pity, and unawed by the presence of death, those who sought the wreck, as vultures swoop down on their prey, rushed on the body, and tore away the handkerchief: tore it open, certain that it held within its folds gold; his little fortune; something very valuable for a man in such an hour to say, I’ll sink or swim with it. They were right. But it was not gold. It was the poor lad’s Bible — also a parting gift, and the more precious that it was a mother’s.

Equally suited for a royal princess and a cabin-boy, and all indeed upward from the broad base to the apex of the social pyramid, the Bible deserves to be held in higher esteem by no class than by servants. There is none in the world on which it bestows a higher honor; to whom indeed it addresses a call so high and noble — it being to servants, or rather, for such were most of those whom he addressed, to slaves, the Apostle says, ‘“Adorn the doctrine of God your Saviour.” He who so orders his life and conversation as to bring no dishonor or reproach on religion, who gives no occasion to its enemies to blaspheme, nor by his falls and inconsistencies furnishes scandals to be told in Gath and published in the streets of Ashkelon, does well. He may thank God that, amid life’s slippery paths he has prayed, nor prayed in vain, ‘“‘Hold up my goings that my footsteps slip not.” He does better still in whose life religion presents itself, less in a negative and more in a positive form. For, while it is well to depart from evil, it is better to do good; nor does he live in vain who exemplifies by his daily life and conversation the pure, and virtuous, and holy, and beneficent, and sublime, and saving doctrines of God his Saviour. The first is good: the second is better: but the last is best of all. So to live as to be beautiful as well as living epistles of Jesus Christ, seen and read of all men — so to live as to recommend the truth to the admiration and love of others — so to live as to constrain them to say, What a good and blessed thing is true religion ! — as in some measure to win the encomium of her, who, looking on Jesus, exclaimed, “Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps that gave thee suck!” — so to live, in fact, as to resemble those books which, in addition to their proper contents, are bound in gold, are illuminated, and illustrated with paintings: or those pillars which, while like their plainer neighbors supporting the superstructure, are also its ornaments, rising gracefully from the floor in fluted columns, and crowned with wreaths of flowers, — this is best of all.

A Christian can aspire no higher. And let it be remembered that for a work so sacred Paul singles out servants. It is not kings on their thrones, nor lords in their castles, nor high dignitaries of Church or State, but these, the humble denizens of the kitchen, the sun-browned laborers of the cottage and fields, whom he calls, not merely to exemplify or illustrate, but to adorn the doctrine of God their Saviour. Let others respect them; any way, let servants respect themselves. Such honors have not all his saints. Ample compensation this for what the world regards as their humble position — as it were to the lark, could she be dissatisfied with her grassy nest, to think that though no singing bird has such a lowly home, none soar so high as she, or sing so near to the gates of heaven. Eliezer belonged to this class; and is a grand pattern to all servants who are seeking through grace to fulfil their high calling and adorn the doctrine of God their Saviour. It will be my aim to set him forth in this light as we proceed. Meanwhile I go on to show that his condition in life was below even that of a servant, as we understand the term. My object in this is not to detract from, but rather add to, our admiration of the man, such a circumstance being calculated to bring out his merits all the more plainly, as the dark cloud on which they are painted does the colors of a rainbow, or its foil the brilliancy of a precious gem.

Servants, in our sense of the term, are those whose skill, time, and labor are their own property. Disposing of these for a longer or shorter period at their own free will, and as they judge most to their advantage, they belong to themselves; and need call no man master, unless they choose, and as they choose. The few excepted who, having inherited or acquired a fortune, are independent of the gains of labor, there is hardly any class that enjoys such an amount of freedom as domestic servants. Few, on the whole, are so well off: and, did servants sufficiently appreciate the advantages they enjoy under a kind, Christian roof, none have more occasion, from a sense of gratitude to God, so to demean themselves, and discharge the duties of their calling, as to “adorn the doctrine of God their Saviour.” With wages adequate to their present, and, unless wasted on vanity, to their prospective wants, found in food and many of the comforts of life, they enjoy freedom from cares that press on the heads of the house, and may sing at their work like birds who have their wants supplied, though they neither sow nor reap. Their business binds down many other classes to one spot, as their roots do the trees to the soil; but servants enjoy a freedom approaching that of the denizens of the air — ‘‘ The world is all before them, where to choose.”;

The fisherman is bound to the sea-shore; the shepherd to the lonely hills; the ploughman to the glebe; the merchant to the busy town; lawyers to the neighborhood of courts; shopkeepers are nailed to their counters; pastors have to move, as they should shine, within the orbits of their congregations; and thousands of our artizans, panting to breathe fresh air and glad their eyes with green fields, have to live amid the smoke of furnaces and the ceaseless roar of machinery. Many are, but many more may be called, slaves to business. So unlike slavery, however, is the condition of our servants, that numbers of them acquire the restless habits of the nomade races, of gypsies or Tartars. They roam from one situation to another, shifting with every shifting term — an abuse of their liberty much to be regretted. Reducing the value of character, and leading to license of life and manners, this habit proves most unfavorable both to their moral and material interests; presenting in a class in whose welfare all should take a kind and Christian interest, too many illustrations of the proverb — ‘ A rolling stone gathers no moss.”

Eliezer had no such opportunities of abusing liberty. He was not a servant in our sense of the term. As Abraham’s other servants, and indeed almost all servants in those days were, he was a slave — and that such was the true condition of the patriarch’s servants is plainly indicated by what is told us of the three hundred armed followers whom he summoned to his standard on hastening to the rescue of Lot — this, namely, that they “were born in his own house.” It proves nothing to the contrary that this man, holding a high place in his master’s house, was one whom Abraham trusted with his confidence, whom he employed in importtant domestic affairs, and whom, indeed, he at one time probably intended to constitute his heir. It was not an uncommon thing in those days, when slavery was a comparatively mild and gentle servitude, for such as had been bought and sold to rise in the changes of fortune from the bottom to the very top of her wheel. Witness Esther’s romantic and splendid history. And to take a case in some respects parallel to that of Eliezer, we know that he did not hold a more respectable and responsible office in the house of Abraham than Joseph held in that of Potiphar. ‘‘ Behold,” he said, in answer to the solicitations of the temptress, ‘“‘my master wotteth not what is with me in the house, and hath committed all that he hath to my hand. There is none greater in his house than I: neither hath he kept back anything from me but thee, because thou art his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?” Still Joseph, this paragon of virtue, the man who has associated his name with the highest recorded example of untarnished purity and truest honor, was a slave; nor is there any reason to suppose that Eliezer occupied in Abraham’s household a better position than he did in Potiphar’s, who was bought of the Ishmaelites, and, shame to say it, had been bought by them of his own brothers.

We defend no slavery: but abhor all kinds of it, be it domestic, political, ecclesiastical, or spiritual. May God break every yoke! Yet be it observed that while Eliezer was in a condition of servitude, his, that of patriarchal times, was no such servitude as in our days has produced the most revolting cruelties and unutterable crimes. Then, as is manifest to any one who reads the books of Moses, the system of bondage — not established by God, but only tolerated among his ancient people — had the usual severities of slavery so ameliorated, had the abuses it is liable to so carefully restrained, and had its term in ordinary circumstances so limited, that, to quote it either as a sanction or defence of modern slavery is wickedly to confound things that widely differ. At the same time, I may remark that while God, so to speak, winked at slavery — as at a plurality of wives, and other customs opposed to the spirit of the Gospel — in these early times, we see in the very infancy of the system evidences of its essentially vicious character. Hercules is said to have strangled serpents; but it strangled virtue in its cradle. Among those quiet pastoral scenes. where Jacob’s sons, steeling their hearts against his cries and entreaties, sell their brother; and in those tented homes, far from the pollution and bare-faced vice of cities, where Sarah, and Leah, and Rachel dispose, as if they were cattle, of the bodies of their handmaids, we see the cropping out of a system which has everywhere blighted, and biasted, and rudely trampled on the freedom of man and the virtue of woman. It has been fully developed since then. Look at it under the most favorable circumstances! Examine the fruits it -has borne even in what might be called a Christian soil! See fathers selling their children, and worse still, debauching their own daughters; women tied naked to the whipping-post, and while they writhe under the bloody lash, filling the air and Heaven itself with their agonizing cries; virgiiu modesty openly scorned; all female virtue and manly respect crushed out of humanity; the black man degraded into a brute, and the white man changed into a monster? And was not a system which thus, deepening the degradation and aggravating the curse of the Fall, defeated the blessed ends for which God’s Son descended on a ruined world, well named by Wesley, the sum of all villanies? It was next to blaspheming the name of God for its apologists and abettors — some of them, alas! ministers of the Gospel — to pretend that it had any sanction in the Bible, or speak of Eliezer’s gentle, noble, virtuous, generous, and saintly master as that ‘‘ good old slaveholder, Abraham.” Happily there is no ‘temptation now to call sweet bitter, and bitter sweet; good evil, and evil good. We and our brethren in America are done with this great crime; but unhappily neither of us, it would seem, with its consequences, though we paid a heavy penalty, and they a heavier — the stain that dimmed the lustre of their banner-stars not being washed out but in a sea of blood.

In making these remarks, which have been suggested by the case of Eliezer, I freely admit that there were cases, not a few cases perhaps, where the natural results of slavery were much modified, if not altogether neutralized: — cases where masters, deploring the existence of what they did not establish and could not abolish, ruled with a gentle hand; and, holding themselves responsible to God for the duties of their position, won the regards and reigned in the hearts of their slaves. And ruling like Abraham, such men found amang that despised and down-trodden race, whom some of our so-called philosophers regard, and it is no breach of charity to believe would, had they the power, treat, as little i

better than brutes — examples of affection to their master and of fidelity to their trust not inferior to that of Eliezer of Damascus. Before I proceed to his character, I would give one example, asking those who read it to consider if kindness, sympathy with their circumstances, forbearance with their faults, interest in their welfare, and courteous and

~Christian treatment, could produce such a noble

character out of negro slaves, how many such might they not produce among our domestic servants? On the deck of a foundering vessel stood a negro slave. The last man left on board, he was about to step into the life-boat. She was already laden almost to the gunwale, to the water-edge. Bearing in his arms what seemed a heavy bundle, the boat’s crew, who with difficulty kept her afloat in the roaring sea, refused to receive him. If he came, it must be unencumbered and alone. On that they insisted. He must either leave that bundle and leap in, or throw it in and stay to perish. Pressing it to his bosom, he opened its folds; and there, warmly wrapped, lay two little children, whom their father had committed to his care. He kissed them; and bade the sailors carry his affectionate farewell to his master, telling him how faithfully he had fulfilled his charge. Then lowering the children into the boat, which pushed off, the dark in an stood alone on the deck, to go down with the sinking ship, a noble example of bravery, and true fidelity, and the “love that seeketh not its own.”

I lately turned to the census of 1851 (that of 1861 not being at hand), to see what light it would throw on my remark, that servants are not only a very important but also a very numerous class of the community. For this purpose I turned to the details, which are classified under the head of occupations, to find these, though appearing at first sight but a dry list of figures, full of interest. In 1851, for instance, Great Britain had of boot and shoe makers, 274,451; of tailors, 152,672; of cloth manufacturers, 137,814. And who can read the numbers of these and other workmen without being impressed with the importance of securing such a secular, and also religious, education to all classes of the community as shall make good citizens ot all? Neither for their interests, nor for her own, can society afford to neglect such formidable masses; especially since they have learned the art of banding together, and acting through their unions with the weight and momentum of a single body. Would that our rulers, in the measures they adopted to secure the good order and peace of the country, put more faith in the Acts of the Apostles than in Acts of Parliament, in Bibles than in bayonets, in teachers than in policemen, in schools than in jails and courts of justice!

Here again appears not so much an evil to be guarded against, as a great running sore to be - healed — a deformity and a danger both. In that same year of 1851 there were within our shores no fewer than 21,047 vagrants in barns, tents, and fields. Wandering hordes, these went to no church; their children were taught in no school; begging and thieving formed their chief means of livelihood; a terror to the timid and a burden to the industrious, they were savages in a civilized, and heathens in a Christian, land. Recalling the saying of Defoe, “begging is a shame to any country — a shame that real objects of charity should be compelled, and that those who are not so should be allowed, to beg,” this army of vagrants is surely a disgrace to our nation — a monstrous evil which the government and churches of the country should combine their efforts to put down.

The number of printers, amounting to 26,024. presents another and happier feature; one calculated to make us thankful to God for those blessings of knowledge, both secular and religious, which our country so pre-eminently enjoys. What floods of light stream from the presses where her thousands of printers work! With exceptions not worth mentioning, ours is a pure literature; opening up paths to virtue, happiness, and usefulness in this world, and lighting the steps of many a Christian pilgrim to his heavenly home in the next.

Another and yet more sacred influence for good is the pulpit. I have seen a calculation of the extraordinary machine and steam powers of Great Britain: and it may gratify more than the curiosity of Christian readers to see its pulpit power as set forth in the following table:

Leaving out of account a few Unitarians, some threescore Jewish, and above 1,000 Roman Catholic priests, here were not less than 27,252 ministers of religion, of whom the great mass were engaged every Lord’s day in preaching ‘‘ Christ and Him crucified.” Verily, our eyes see our teachers. There is no famine of the bread of life in this happy land; nor nowadays “is the sound of archers heard at the place of the drawing of water.” All the more to our shame, however, that with such a vast amount of evangelizing power, our cities should present moral wastes, where thousands are living, and sinning, and dying without God or hope in the world. One great cause of this lies undoubtedly in denominational jealousies; in those who, as servants of the same Master, should combine for good, as do others for evil, standing aloof, and askance. How might the wilderness be turned into Eden, were each minister, with his congregation, to take a section of the outlying field, and apply to it all the powers of a spiritual husbandry? Thus — nor is it possible otherwise — might our heathen districts be evangelized. No doubt the result of such a plan would be to make one district assume an Episcopalian, another a Presbyterian, a third an Independent, a fourth a Wesleyan character; but made Christian — sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in their right mind — what of that ?> — what though the coat our cities wore were like Joseph’s, one of many colors? The statistics which suggested these thoughts, while I ran over their columns in search of domestic servants, fully warrant what I said of their numbers. With the exception of agricultural out-door laborers, who amounted in 1851 to 1,077,627, there is no class so numerous. The tables, which, not excepting her Majesty from their lists, give I queen, give 3,000,000 and more, of servants, as follows:

ss

Servants, Domestic (general).................. 754, 926 WORGD TAT te ne arenas RTRs oi eee csce Schusean 7,579 WO GH Na en teen oe ial rs, netic hai acs oe 48,806 “ERs USCS npg a enc ae eR 5,052 CROOMMIEN eb Remey ttoae, se rie Aree te ee 16,194 EFOUSDROGHOR Sc Rise & fas Roles Oe re kk eo 50,574. PAQUBOIAIG sere SNe wore tineale acs haus beds aca 55,935 INTER OMe ates eine ort a) dejsieniees cise ca Sewicin oe ce 39,139 PUIACENAL Doe acre cece cee eo tk at 60,586

1,038,791

In the light of this prodigious number, of the fact that within Great Britain there were in 1851 more than ONE MILLION of domestic servants — a mass certainly not diminished but increased during the last fifteen years — the subject of this chapter assumes an aspect of immense importance. In this view, the pattern of a good servant presents an object, if not of higher, of wider and much more general interest than even that of a good sovereign. And such a pattern we have, as I now proceed to set forth, in Abraham’s steward; as his master called him, in “‘ this Eliezer of Damascus.”

Other stones besides the key-stone go to form an arch; but without it, though formed of solid granite, they are useless: no better, be they two or two hundred, than as many cobwebs, to sustain a building or to span a roaring river. Locking all the rest together, it is the key-stone that gives their value to the others. Now such is the virtue which we assign to fidelity among the qualifications that form a good servant, and fit any one, whether filling a public or private sphere, for a position of trust. The truthfulness that scorns to resort to an equivocation or tell a lie, the honesty that would not defraud another of the value of a pin, the fidelity, in one word, that, with a single eye to a master’s interest, is as diligent and dutiful out of his sight as in it, behind his back as before his face, this is the first and greatest property of a good servant — one, indeed, that in the judgment of every reasonable and considerate master will make amends for many faults, and be like the “charity that covereth a multitude of sins.”

The very long period, to apply these remarks to Eliezer, during which he held the important office of steward in Abraham’s house, proves that he possessed this quality in an eminent degree. Though frequent change of place, in some instances, may be more a servant’s misfortune than his fault, it is not without reason that a long period of service is regarded as the best proof of fitness and fidelity: for though mere talent, or a happy stroke of fortune, may raise a man or woman to a position of trust, it is only by trustworthiness that they can keep it. Some shift at almost every term — floating about in society like seaweed, the wrack of ocean, that changes its place on the shore at every tide; but Eliezer grew gray in the same house, and held the same office for at least fifty years. He was steward before Isaac was born, and still steward when Isaac was married — two events separated by nearly half a century. In this point of view he should be regarded as a pattern servant; a model, it were as much for the interests of servants as of their masters, they more frequently copied. True to his earthly, as we all should be to our heavenly Master, Eliezer was a ‘good and fazthful servant:” and this, which his long possession of office demonstrates, is beautifully illustrated by an interesting chapter in Abraham’s history.

No man in the Bible plays a more high-minded and honorable part than Eliezer — though a servant, and in one sense a slave. Fully to comprehend that, and appreciate his fidelity, it must be remembered that the birth of Isaac, though a happy event to Abraham and Sarah, was far otherwise, in a worldly point of view, to him. It inflicted a blow on Eliezer, which it needed uncommon magnanimity and piety to bear. Till Isaac appeared, this man had good hopes of succeeding to his master’s fortune. Such is the way I read, and the meaning I attach to, these words of Abraham: “I go childless, and the steward of my house is this Eliezer of Damascus. Behold, to me thou hast given no seed: and lo, one born in my house is mine heir’ — this Eliezer, one of my slaves, or a child of his. This, no doubt, supposes that in lack of offspring by Sarah, Abraham intended to set aside Lot, his nephew, and also his relatives in Mesopotamia — a resolution which, to those who are ignorant of Eastern habits, may seem unlikely, almost incredible. But it was not so in Abraham’s age; nor is it so still in those regions of the world where he lived, and where events are frequently occurring to produce a strong impression of the fact that it is God who setteth up one and putteth down another. There, the revolutions of the wheel of fortune are as strange as sudden; raising, as we read in the book of Esther, a beautiful slave to share his bed and throne with the King of Persia, and taking a man from the gate where he was a porter, and even from the foot of a gallows, to make him the first minister of state. In illustration of that, hear what Forbes says : — ‘‘It is still the custom in India, especially among the Mahometans, that in default of children, and sometimes where there are lineal descendants, the master of a family adopts a slave, frequently a half-Abyssinian of the darkest hue, for his heir. He educates him agreeably to his wishes, and marries him to one of his daughters. As the reward of superior merit, or to suit the caprice of an arbitrary despot, this honor is also conferred on a slave recently purchased, or already grown up in the family; and to him he bequeaths his wealth in preference to his nephews, or any collateral branches. This is a custom of great antiquity in the East, and prevalent among the most refined and civilized nations.”

But the bright prospects which this custom, and the future, opened to Eliezer, vanished at the birth of Isaac. We cannot doubt that he bore his disappointment nobly; and for his dear master’s sake welcomed and even loved the boy who had come between him and a splendid fortune. And yet one hope may still have lingered, and risen sometimes unbidden, in his bosom. Might not Isaac choose to live unwedded? and die, leaving no heir behind? But this expectation, if he ever cherished it, was also to be extinguished; and it was surely no small trial to his fidelity when, commissioned to seek a wife for Isaaz, Eliezer had, with his own hand, to quench his last hope of rising in the world — of exchanging poverty for affluence, and a state of servitude for freedom. In such circumstances most people would have intrusted the office to another agent. Committing it into the hands of one who had strong temptation to play his master false, Abraham, more than by any language, expressed his confidence in the fidelity of his servant; and that he believed this Eliezer of Damascus to be true as its famous steel. What a pattern of faithfulness the servant in whom his master could repose such faith! He was an honor to his class; and not to his class only, but to our common nature. The case recalls a circumstance that happened in our own country, and deserved the admiration with which I read it. A lawsuit, breeding its usual passions, had sprung up between two neighbors. When the time approached for its being heard in court, one of the parties called on the other to say that he did not think it necessary both should lose their time, going each to state his case before the judge; such faith, he said, have I in your integrity, and that you will do as much justice to my claims as to your own, that I will commit my cause into your hands, leaving you, after having stated the arguments on your side, to state them on mine. What rare and great faith to putinany man! Yet the event justified it; he in whose integrity the other reposed such confidence, stating the case so fairly that he lost his own cause, and won his opponent’s.

Still more trying were the circumstances in nhich Eliezer justified Abraham’s confidence; nobly justified it. Left to manage the affair as he deemed best, he selected for presents some costly and splendid ornaments; and attended by a retinue that indicated both the rank of his master and the importance of his mission, this faithful servant bidding a long farewell to all his own hopes of greatness, set out for Mesopotamia. Brown with the dust, and scorched with the heat, and worn out with the toils of a longsome journey, he at length arrives within sight of Nahor; and descends to water his camels at a well outside the city. It was about the evening hour — the time when the sun in these hot countries, shining with tempered rays or kindling the west with his dying glories, invites people to walk abroad, and the world, like a candle which blazes up before it expires, for a brief period resumes its activity ere it sinks into the repose of night. At this hour the women of the city were wont to go forth to draw water; even those of rank in these simple and early days preferring work to ennuz or idleness, deeming it no more dishonor to bake bread than to eat it, to make a dress than to wear it, to draw water than to drink it — in short, thinking it no shame to engage in what we call, and many despise as, menial occupations. Knowing this, and that she whom God intends for Isaac’s bride may be among the women who shall soon come trooping to the well, Eliezer, like a faithful servant who thinks more of his master’s business than of his own ease, immediately seeks direction ‘from God. He casts himself on providence, saying, ‘“O Lord God of my master Abraham, I pray thee, send me good speed this day, and show kindness unto my master Abraham... And let it come to pass, that the damsel to whom I shall say, Let down thy pitcher, I pray thee, that I may drink; and she shall say, Drink, and I will give thy camels drink also: let the same be she that thou hast appointed for thy servant Isaac; and thereby shall

ELIEZER THE PATTERN SERVANT. regs

1 know that thou hast showed kindness unto my master.” What an unselfish, noble regard to his master breathes out in this prayer; and what wisdom also in seeking one for Isaac who, by her bearing to himself, should prove herself not high-minded, but humble; not idle, but industrious; not rude, but courteous; not cold, but kind.

The book of Daniel relates a remarkable instance of immediate answer to prayer. ‘‘Whiles I was speaking,” says the prophet, “and praying, and confessing my sin and the sin of my people Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God for the holy mountain of my God; yea, whiles I was speaking in prayer, even the man Gabriel, whom I had seen in the vision at the beginning, being caused to fly swiftly, touched me

. and said, O Daniel ... at the beginning of thy supplications the commandment came forth, and Iam come to show thee; for thou art greatly beloved.” ‘Greatly beloved” I can believe Eliezer also to have been; for God has no respect of persons — honoring men, whether they be servants or sovereigns, as the spectators do actors on the stage, not for the part they play, but for the way they play it. His prayer was also promptly answered. “‘ Before he had done speaking,” as the Bible says, ere the prayer he offered, with his eyes on the city gates, had left his lips, a woman comes out; and, with form graceful and erect, elastic step, atid 4 water-pitcher poised on her shoulder, makes straight for the well. Her attire is such as virgins wore; and her countenance, which beams with the graces that nor time, nor wrinkles, nor disease can efface, is exceeding beautiful, — a woman this to grace Isaac’s house, and tenderly recall to his ‘ather’s memory the charms that lay mouldering in Machpelah’s cave. Can this lovely vision be God’s answer to his prayer? He will try; put it to the test he has arranged. Accosting the maiden as she leaves the well, he said, ‘Let me, I pray thee, drink a little water?” Her gracious reply shows that his arrow has hit the mark. It is she; Nahor’s daughter. Nor does He who here, as often, proves himself forward to answer prayer, however backward we may be to make it, fail still further to give Eliezer ‘‘ good speed.” Isaac’s proxy, he woos and wins the maid, — left, as all women should be in a matter of such unspeakable importance, to her own free choice. Giving her heart with her hand, her ready answer to Laban’s question, ‘‘ Wilt thou go with this man?” is “I will go.” Eliezer has executed his commission. And when in the form of a bride, who drops her veil to conceal her blushes, he presents Isaac with one of the fairest flowers of the East, and not needing marriage revels to drown the recollection of his own disappointment, forgets it in the happiness of his master, how does he justify the confidence of Abraham; and prove himself worthy, in a subordinate sense, of the eulogium that shall crown the labors of every Christian’s life, “Well done, good and faithful servant!”

Eliezer’s dz/igence as a servant is almost as conspicuous as his fidelity in that beautiful history which, opening to us many interesting glimpses of Eastern and ancient manners, relates how Isaac got his wife. There are servants who are honest enough, but lazy. They frequently postpone, as alas! too many do in the important affairs of salvation, present duties to what they call a more convenient season. ‘‘Slothful in business,” they go about their work without pith or energy. But Eliezer went to his with a will, as they say; nor, to use a common proverb, did he Jet the grass grow at his heels. On entering Laban’s house, he finds a grateful change from the toil and hardships of his journey. Servants, summoned to the rites of hospitality, hasten to undo his sandals and wash his feet; luxurious couches invite him to repose; weary and worn, gladly would he rest; and poorly sustained on the pulse and dried fruits that formed the fare of the long journey, nature turns with keen appetite to the smoking board that invites him to sit down and eat. But, pattern to all of us in the highest matters, and to servants in their daily and ordinary avocations, he sets the claims of duty before all things else. What his hand finds to do, this man will do now, and do with all his might. He could have found a hundred excuses for delay, but listens to none. He rushes on business. As it every nour and moment were too precious to be lost, he proceeds at once to the matter in hand, and says, waving away the feast, ‘I will not eat till I have told my errand.” It was his meat and drink to do his master’s will. Let it be ours, as it was Christ’s, our great exemplar, to do the will of our Father in Heaven.

In coasting along the newly-discovered shores of New Zealand, Captain Cook, with that sagacity which in the case of John Knox and others was mistaken for prophetic power, remarked that the time might come when these islands would form one of our most valuable colonies, — gems in the

crown of Britain. Struck with the richness of

the foliage and gigantic size of the forest trees, he inferred that that must be a deep rich soil which bore such magnificent timber. Reasoning after this fashion, we might fairly have concluded that the extraordinary virtues of Eliezer must have had their root in a devout and pious heart. Nay, we might have drawn a conclusion favorable to his piety from the very character of his master. Abraham was not less likely than David, and than every good man should be, to regulate his household on these holy principles, ‘‘ Mine eyes shall be upon the faithful of the land, that they may dwell with me: he that walketh in a perfect way, he shall serve me: he that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house: he that telleth lies shall not tarryin my sight.” But Eliezer’s pzety is no more than his fidelity and diligence matter of conjecture. In this story he appears pre-eminent as a man of prayer. He displays an extraordinary confidence in the providence and faithfulness of God. He casts himself on Him whom he loves to call his master’s God, with almost as much faith as his master himself could have done. With the first dawn of success, he bows his head, and worships the Lord. ‘“Blessed,” he cries, ‘‘ be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who hath not left destitute my master of his mercy and his truth.” Not in our judgment only, but in his own, it is not his own skill but the Lord who leads him; it is not good fortune but the Lord who speeds him; and indeed it were difficult to say whether the sentiments he breathes are most fragrant with piety toward God, or with affection to his master. The saying, Like master like man, had never a happier or more beautiful illustration than in the venerable patriarch and his pious steward.

Were there more masters like Abraham there would certainly be more servants like Eliezer — more who would in their honesty, fidelity, and piety show the results of a master or mistress’s holy example; the benefits, by some servants too lightly esteemed, which may be expected from dwelling with a religious family, in a house where the Sabbath is carefully observed and God is daily worshipped. I have heard servants loudly complained of, and unfavorable contrasts drawn between those of our own and of older times. I would not’ conceal their faults. Though with a kind hand, I would rather lay them bare, that they might be amended. Yet, when I have heard some complaining, for example, of the ingratitude of servants, I have been tempted to ask what many of them have to be grateful for. They have feelings to be hurt as well as others; and how have I seen them lacerated and rudely torn! Removed from home and friends, they are peculiarly sensitive to kindness; but its words in many instances never fall on their ear. Affections that, like tendrils torn from their support, would attach themselves, in lack of father or mother, to master or mistress, are left to lie bleeding on the ground; and in many instances are trodden under foot. Far from parental care, no kind eye watches over them, nor kind voice warns them of the snares that beset their feet. Many show no more interest in their servants’ souls than if they had no souls to he saved; and less care is taken to preserve their virtue from seducers than the family-plate from thieves. They may well ask in such cases, ‘‘ What have we to be grateful for?” I do not defend their faults: but, so far as my knowledge and experience go, it is but justice to them to say that, were more regard paid to the feelings of servants, more forbearance shown with their failings, more pains taken to make them happy, to keep them from the paths of vice, to cultivate their virtues and bless their souls, there would be less occasion to complain of their depravity, and of the degeneracy of the times. With more holy we should have many more happy households, presenting, as. in Abraham’s, the beautiful sight of pious servants and pious masters growing gray together.

Let me frankly tell servants, on the other hand, that they often have themselves to blame. They forfeit respect by a miserable aping of the manners of their superiors. They waste on their indulgences or on vain and showy attire the means which would save a parent from the degradation of public charity, and provide for the wants of their own old age. Yielding to the temptation of higher wages, they will leave a Christian house for one where they will see no good, but much bad example; imperilling their precious souls, like Lot, when, less repelled by its sins than allured by its green and well-watered pastures, he “pitched his tent toward Sodom.” If crimes are committed against servants, they are also committed by them. Falsehood and dishonesty are not the worst they may commit; and the guilt of receiving some simple and unsuspicious one into a house to accomplish her ruin, is only equalled by that of a servant who carries vice into a virtuous family, and more wickedly betrays her trust than it were to steal down at midnight with muffled foot, and open the door to thieves. There are many good servants in the world. Who would be so, let them take for their directory and motives these words of St. Paul: ‘‘ Servants, obey in all things your masters according to the flesh; not with eyeservice as menpleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God: and whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not unto men: knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance, for ye serve Christ.” Such God will reward, though they should meet here only cold neglect. But since good servants are as valuable to a good master as he can be to them, they may rest assured that, with the exceptional cases, their virtues will go not unrewarded even of men. With all its faults, there has been no age of the world in which diligence and fidelity, to say nothing of piety, have not been held in high esteem. Not the least interesting of the monuments I saw amid the venerable ruins of Rome was one which held within its broken urn some half-burned bones. They were the ashes of one, who, as appeared from the inscription on the tablet, had belonged to Czsar’s household, and to the memory of whose virtues as a faithful, honest, and devoted servant, the Emperor himself had ordered that marble to be raised. When wandering among the tombstones of a quiet churchyard, nothing has pleased me more than to light on one raised by a family over the grave of some old faithful nurse, or aged retainer of their house; and near by this “‘sray metropolis of the north” there lies a cemetery, where the traveller who goes to meditate among the tombs will find a monumental, stone erected by our own gracious Sovereign to the memory of a faithful servant. Such honors are rare; too rare; too seldom bestowed. Let servants see to it that they are not too seldom deserved; and that, “‘doing all as to the Lord and not to men,” they earn, besides their wages, such a character as his master might have engraven on Eliezer’s tombstone, — -NOT SLOTHFUL IN BUSI-NESS, FERVENT IN SPIRIT, SERVING THE LORD,