natione towards female captives taken in war, can surely appreciate the humanizina influence which the injunction in this paragraph was intended to exert. The law her; laid down may or may not be abstractly the best; but if it was the best that the peoplo could bear: if it would certainly lift up the people a step hi,,her in their regard for womanly honour: if, moreover, it would have the effect of enforci;g a restraint upon the passions of men at that most perilous of all times, even that of war,-then the hallowed influence which was shaping Hebrew legislation becomes clearly manifest. A woman taken captive as a prisoner of war was not to be a plaything of passion, but was to be dealt with honourably; to feel that she might part with the symbols of slavery, enter into relation with the covenant people, become inve5ted with the rights of a daughter of Israel, and learn to worship, love, and glorify Israel's God! (For details, seo the Exposition, and also valuable remarks in Keil and Jameson.) And if, in the issue, there was no true and proper home for her, she was to have that most precious of blessings-liberty! In opening up the theme suggested here-Divine care for woman's safety and honour-some seven or eight lines of thought may be taken up and worked out by the preacher. 1. Here is a Divine protest against the tendency of men to make woman a mere tool of passion. This book is the charter of woman'~ honour and happiness. 2. Our God would aim at bringing about the true nobility of woman, by means of educating the people up to the standard at which it shall be a point of honour with them to insist upon it. 3. To secure this end, State laws should be stringently framed. 4. Not even in war-time, nor in connection with our soldiery, is it ever to be tolerated that woman should be at the mercy of the stronger sex. 6. The right place of woman is in the love and protection of one to whom she is dearer than his own soul; and no more honourable place need she desire than that assigned her by Solomon in his description of" a virtuous woman." Many of the holy women of Scripture illustrate this. 6. Under the gospel, woman's position is yet more strikingly asserted. "In Christ Jesus there is ... neither male nor female." In religious relationship man and woman are, cmteris paribus, on an equal footing. 7. While, in the home, the wives are to be in subjection to their own husbands, yet the sway of the husband is to be with a love pure and tender, like that of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it is only where the purifying and love-creating power of the gospel is known, that woman rises to her right position in the home, the family, the social circle, and the nation. The legislation on her behalf, which Moses began, has been going on under Judaism and Christianity for long ages, with what results we know in our happy homes. But how much we are indebted for these happy homes to the influence of Jewish and Christian law, can best be told by those who know the dark places of the earth, still "full of the habitations of crnelty." Vers. 15-17,:_Home partialities n~ver to warp hom~ :jwtice. This paragraph indicates deep insight into human nature, and a far-seeing wisdom which surely indicates its superhuman origin. It is designed to restrict the action of the father with reference to the inheritance of the children, in cases where there were two families, not, apparently, by two wives living at the same time (as if the passage favoured polygamy), but rather by two of whom the second became the wife after the death of the first (comp. Jameson and Keil). It would probably, nay, almost certainly, occur, that one of the two would be thought more of than the other; the influence of the second wife, being later and withal continuous, might be exerted with the husband in favour of her own children, to the detriment of his by the former wife. And thus a son who was the father's firstborn might be put at a disau.vantage through later preferences coming athwart his proper claims. Moses here teaches that he may not be dispossessed of the right of the firstborn, even though another should come on the scene who should be the firstborn in a second family. The principle on which this is based is indicated in the title of this Homily-" Home partiulieies never to warp home fustice." The following lines of thought may serve as a plan on which to enforce this principle. I. It is an acknowledged duty of parents to care for the tempornl weal of their children (see 2 Cor. xii. 14). There is indeed, on the part of some, a consuming ,lesire to lea.ve largo fortunes to their families-a desire so great as to be inconsistent with faith in God's care, '!'his is to he avoided on the OWi hand, while at the same time the opposite extreme ill to be shunned on tho othe!', 342 'l'Ht BOOK OF' DEUTERONOM~. tcrr. XXI, 1--~8.
IJ. Tl1crc are certain rights which belong to tlie children, supposing their father is posscssc<l of an inheritance which he can leave them. Of course, if he hRS none, this 1 araf':rnph in detail docs not apply. Even in such a case, however, a parent owes it to 1
l1is family to leave them the best of all heritages-a holy example, God's blessing, and 11 father's prnyers i If he leaves them this, they will not want. 111. It is not impossible, nor even improbable, that circumstances may occur giving rise to partialities in a parent, which may lead him to consult the interest of some of bis children to the detriment of that of olhcrs. Cases like that named in this parngraph are notoriously fraught with peril in this respect. And where such is the case there should be a special guard. 1V. These p11rtialities are dangerous. They arc so even during the father's life-time, but the results thereof after his dcnth are likely to be serious and even disastrous. It is not pMsible to calculate the mischief wrought upon children, when the earthly name which should ever stand to them dearest in affect.ion and highest in honour, is associated with an inequality by which some are advantaged and others wronged. :No bitterness of feeling can surpass that which 1s thus engendered. It will wrap in shade an otherwise most venerated name. V. God would tcach_us that lie is ever watchful over the right in families, in every respect. The same Bemg who says to the children, "Honour your parents" 1 says also to the parents," Honour your children." As he would guard the heads of the house from being trifled with by the sons, so would be guard the sons from any injustice on the part of their parents. A wrong on either side towards the other is a sin against God. And so largely does the observance of the right iu the family concerning money and property, affect the well-being of the State, that it is here made a part of the civil code of the "commonwealth of Israel," that no parent shall be at liberty, whatever his preferences, to ignore the standing claims of his children.