Deuteronomy 22:10

Thou shalt not plow with an ox and an ass together.

A law for the ox and the ass

There was a reason for this prohibition. The step of an ox and an ass being different, they could not pull together without causing one another much exertion and weariness. The work would be nearly twice as hard for the ox and the ass as it would be for two oxen or two asses. The law teaches us to consider differences in human beings, and not to yoke those who differ from one another to the same tasks. The law forbidding the people to plough with an ox and an ass applies to children. Injury is done to children when they are treated as though they had precisely the same bodily and mental capabilities. Children are so variously constituted, that what one boy can do with case in school work is to another boy a difficult labour. The sum in arithmetic which is to one a pleasure is to another a torture. The seemingly dull boy is not to be reproached because he cannot do what his bright companion can do. Some day the apparently stupid fellow may awake to intellectual activity, and get a long way before the boy who, for a time, made rapid progress in scholarship. The ass, which could not keep pace with the ox in dragging the plough, has sometimes developed into a steed grand as the war horse described in the Book of Job. Children should not be put to trades Irrespective of their gifts and preferences. The timid, shrinking boy should not be mated with the bold, adventurous type in employments needing a daring spirit. The bold, adventurous boy, whose heart is already on the ship’s deck, and who dreams day and night of voyages over great spaces of ocean to the region of the walrus and white bear, or to the clime of the palm and the tamarind, should not be kept behind a grocer’s counter. What is right for one is not necessarily right for another. Fathers and mothers should honour individuality in their boys and girls, and not fret because their children do not pull together in the same yoke. The law forbidding the Israelites to plough with an ox and an ass applies to young people. They are not to be treated religiously as though they were all in the same condition, and had all to pass through a like process to become disciples of Christ. Hard theologians and unthinking revivalists have done harm to such young people by passing on them a sweeping condemnation, and insisting that there is no true conversion without agonies of repentance and ecstasies of joy. No distinction has been made between them and those guilty of flagrant sins, and they have been cruelly yoked with the very worst of mankind. The law forbidding the Israelites to plough with an ox and an ass applies to men and women. All the members of the Church are not to be expected to manifest their religion precisely in the same way. Some are naturally lively and joyful; before their conversion they were noted for their cheerful disposition. It is as impossible for them to be dull as it is for the sun to be dull when shining in the blue of an unclouded sky. It is as impossible for them to be silent as it is for larks and linnets to be silent when May is kissing the April buds into flower. It would be as bad as yoking the ox and the ass together to insist that they must repress their jubilant feelings and be quiet as Christians whose voices are never heard in religious demonstration. It would be equally cruel to insist that those quiet Christians must break through their natural gravity, and manifest the enthusiasm which is ever pealing out song after song, hallelujah after hallelujah. Violence is not to be done to natural feeling by forcing everyone to the same kind of Christian work. The timid and retiring are not to be compelled to pull in the same yoke with the brave and bold. (J. Marrat.)