Read it through once

Prior to the Mosaic dispensation, we read that Abraham held servants, and that when Sarai treated her maid-servant unkindly, and she fled from her face, the angel of the Lord said unto her, "Return to thy mistress, and subject thyself under her hands." It is a notable fact, that when the law was delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai, he received from the hands of God Almighty the following words: "In it," (the Sabbath,) "thou shalt not do any work; thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant nor thy maid-servant." It appears that the Hebrews under peculiar circumstances became servants; and they were released, or went free on the seventh year. If, however, they preferred to remain with their masters, they then became servants forever. The Hebrews were not suffered to enslave each other, except for a limited time; their servants were taken from the heathen nations around them. See Leviticus, 25th Chapter, from the 39th to the 55th verses inclusive. Mention is frequently made of servants throughout the Old Testament. Men women and children were held in bondage by patriarchs, prophets, kings, and others. Moses delivered various laws to the children of Israel, for the guidance and regulation of both masters and servants. The holding of slaves is nowhere denounced as sinful in the Old Testament; on the contrary, the Hebrews were _permitted_ to buy slaves from the surrounding heathen nations. Masters were commanded in the Old as well as in the New Testament, to treat servants with kindness and humanity. Inhumanity, cruelty, and oppression being every where forbidden in the Bible.