SOME people say, that to speak of being a servant savors of bondage. I feel, if it is it is a blessed bondage. How could it be bondage to serve Jesus? or to follow in His steps who became a servant. A yoke that is easy, and a burthen declared light by our Master, cannot be bondage. He was both Son and servant, and so are we, and we are blessed in both, and have blessings attached to both relationships. There is a great difference, to my mind, between these two people I am going to mention. A person, now dead, took a poor orphan child and reared her for a few years, until she got strength to work, and then said to her one day, “Now, Jane, I’m going to ask you a question. Will you be my little servant?” “Servant, ma’am?” Jane replied; “Is it for payment?” “Yes,” said her mistress, “and I will give you your board, and lodging, and clothes, but no wages, until I prove your faithfulness.” [Her mistress kept a small shop.] “Oh! ma’am,” said little Jane, putting her arms round her mistress’s neck, “I’ll serve you while I live, but I’ll never take payment. I would have been lost but for you.”
Jane became a servant in the place of trust. Her mistress hired a servant (one she had also taken pity on), and said, “As long as you serve me faithfully, I will retain and pay you wages; when you are unfaithful, I will discharge you.” She had six such servants while I knew her, but Jane became unto her as her own child, and, though she never received any wages, she inherited all her mistress’s wealth. Now, is not Jane a very correct picture of a redeemed slave, desiring to be spent in the service of the Redeemer, rejecting the idea of serving for wages or earning an inheritance, but glad to be clad, fed, and housed-all wants supplied by one she knew was a friend, and would be her friend for life? How different was the service rendered by the others. They did not feel redeemed from anything; they labored as slaves, and sought no inheritance, except their wages―a selfish servitude.