Great Thoughts Exodus 21:2-6 If you buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing.… The following anecdote is furnished by an officer who went through the campaign in Egypt against the French in the time of the first Napoleon. "I am glad," he says, "to recall to my memory the remembrance of a deed done by a brave and faithful servant. While in Egypt, the plague broke out in the 2nd Regiment of Guards. A large tent was immediately set apart as a hospital for the stricken. It was, naturally, regarded with extreme dread by the unfortunate sufferers, who despaired of ever leaving it alive. The surgeon of the Guards, discovering that he had symptoms of the disorder about him, bravely gave himself up as an inmate of the plague tent. His servant, who was greatly attached to him, was in despair. 'At least,' he said, 'let me go with you, and nurse you.' His master, however, made answer that such a step was impossible, since the tent was guarded by sentinels, who had orders to admit no one without a pass. The breach of this rule was punishable with death. The man was silenced for the moment, but at nightfall, regardless of the danger of disease or detection, he crept on hands and knees past the sentinels, and slipping under the cords of the doomed tent, he presented himself at his master's bedside. Here he went through many days of patient and tender nursing of the sick man, till the plague claimed another victim, and the good surgeon died. Then the servant walked quietly out of the tent door, and went through the usual form of disinfection, after that returning to his regiment, where he was received with open arms. To have dared so much for a beloved master raised him to the rank of a hero, both among officers and men. He had shown that love for a fellow-man was stronger even than the love of life in his breast, and those who might not have been brave enough to dare such fearful risks, were noble enough to own their admiration of one who had done so. Such faithful service is registered in heaven," the writer adds. (Great Thoughts.) Parallel Verses KJV: If thou buy an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve: and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. |
    |