had taken root among the people, and the legislator could only modify, not destroy them. We may refer for some examples to the laws relating to Divorce, the Blood-avenger, and the Levirate. On the one hand, then, Moses, acting upon a new people, could mould them to new institutions, and, what is more, to new principles, new habits, new manners. On the other hand, he will often be obliged to struggle against old ideas, and connect his institutions with the established customs of the people, of their ancestors, or of their neighbors. "Accordingly," says Cellerier," we must not always expect to find in the Mosaic code absolute laws, laws, which can be separated from all the previous customs of the Hebrews. We shall find many institutions required, and hence explained by those customs. It is only by the light of the antecedent history, that we can come at any just view of the institutions themselves. Deprived of this light, we should run the risk of falling into many errors, and to our eye some parts of the fabric would remain forever in the dark. How many questions, then, are there, which we shall never be able to answer! How many problems, which we shall in vain strive to solve! How many cavils easy to be raised, and difficult to be removed, only because we must confess ourselves ignorant of the fact, the custom, or the tradition, an acquaintance with which would instantly refute them! Now when we consider all this, are we reasonable in demanding of the interpreters of Moses, rigorous and precise demonstrations, answers always satisfactory, a light never obscure? Is Homer always clear, Homer, who wrote so long after Moses, — Homer, the object of the world's apotheosis, is he, I repeat, always clear, and have his commentators left nothing further to be said? To judge the Pentateuch by an absolute rule, is to violate both justice and common sense. "It is, then, equally a violation of justice and common sense, to apply the Mosaic laws in an absolute manner, by wishing to impose them upon all mankind. Let us not transform an alphabet of laws into the supreme code of Christians, an alphabet divine, it is true, but yet prepared for semi-barbarous Hebrews." Vol. I. pp. 14, 15. 2. The Hebrews were an oriental people. They inherited the moral and intellectual traits of the oriental character, as all their history shows. Now, what are the essential elements of that character? They are three, a propensity to sensual pleasures, an ardent imagination, and a remarkable tenaci - - which the le It will offer He will find it ty of habits. Such is the oriental character to gislator will be constrained to conform his laws. some facilities, and some obstacles to his work. necessary to make numerous concessions to the sensual propensities of his people, and at the same time to confine them within strong barriers. When he cannot extirpate them all at once, he will bring indirect influences to bear upon them. He will resort to moral remedies, never, when he can avoid it, to violence and constraint. Again, he will often appeal to the excitable imagination of the Hebrews. He will make free use of figurative speech and anthropomorphitical representations of the Deity, that they may the better comprehend and retain his spiritual ideas. He will lead them by motives of gratitude, and the still mightier influence of terror; and, on the other hand, he will aim to prevent all the vicious extravagancies of fancy, by positive laws, and multiplied restraints. He will also turn to advantage the tenacious habits of his people, in the hands of a skilful legislator one of the most powerful means of influence. He will train them to daily and familiar habits, of a nature to bind them to the law, and imprint upon them a complete character in harmony with his sublime views. His law will follow them into the retreats of private life; it will surround them in the solitude of the night, and by the fire-sides of home; it will guard and control them, as a second conscience and a second nature. 3. The Hebrews were a nomadic people. Their father, Abraham, was a wandering shepherd. His family after him were wandering shepherds; and so were their descendants down to the sojourn in the desert. Now, the course of the legislation must have been essentially affected by the previous nomadic habits of the people. What then are the general characteristics of the nomadic life, inquires our author, and proceeds to draw a highly graphic picture of a nomadic tribe, as it existed in the early ages of the world. The wandering shepherd is averse to all customs and all institutions, that indicate a settled abode, or would confine him to one spot, and accordingly is far removed from all social improvements, and all true civilization. His home is a tent. He lives wandering from place to place, in search of pasturage for his flocks, or a climate more congenial to his taste. This is his happiness and his glory. It gratifies that wild, but sweet passion for freedom and independence, which he drinks in with his mother's milk. Agriculture might lead the way to civilization, but agriculture he abhors. To his eye, a sedentary life is slavery; manual labor, a degradation; social ties, an inglorious tyranny; a settled home, a prison. How can his free and proud soul submit to social restraints? He feels himself to be lord of the regions he traverses, of the air he breathes, of the plains where his flocks herd, of the wild schemes of his roving fancy, of the distant countries, whither to-morrow he may chance to wind his way. To bend under the yoke of agricultural life and the laws of society, he must abjure his native independence, and renounce the dignity of a freeman. - Such was the nature of the people, whom Moses was to transform into quiet husbandmen,— a work it would seem, too great for human strength. But the Hebrews could not live in the nomadic state, and accomplish their destinies. It was necessary that all their old ideas, their old tastes, their old habits should be radically changed, from their accustomed food and clothing, to their laws and worship. The restless passion for independence was to be rooted out, and in its place substituted the tastes proper to agriculture, the taste for property, for social improvements, for dull and uniform labors. The wild rover of the desert was to content himself with a fixed home, a limited horizon, and a monotonous life. A transformation like this would have been impossible all at once. Doubtless the aversion of this nomadic race to agriculture must have been considerably weakened by the sojourn of Abraham and Isaac in the land of Canaan, and that of their descendants in the land of Egypt. These two periods of their history must have begun and carried forward the legislator's work. Perhaps the sufferings of the desert, too, which made the Hebrews sigh after the Promised Land, predisposed them, when settled there, to become quiet and orderly husbandmen; but all this was far from sufficient to bring about the change required. 4. The Hebrews were an ignorant people. This was the natural result of their nomadic state. A nomadic are essentially a barbarous, and therefore an ignorant people. The sphere of their experience is singularly narrow. Their habits of observation are superficial and irregular. Their ideas are few and scanty. Without agriculture, without commerce, without social institutions, they have no means of intellectual culNow this nomadic ignorance was a serious obstacle in the way of the legislator, especially when combined with their sensual, imaginative, obstinate character. In the absence ture. of cultivated and refined tastes, sensuality became more difficult to combat. There was danger lest the imagination of the people, uncontrolled, should lead them astray into the dark regions of debasing superstition, and a sanguinary idolatry; and the native disposition to cling to old habits would be likely to run into a stupid obstinacy. Perhaps their sojourn in Egypt, helped to enlarge the sphere of their ideas, to elevate them somewhat above the ignorance of the nomadic state, and to prepare their minds for still further cultivation and progress; and yet hardly enough, it would seem, to counterbalance the ancient and settled influences of the pastoral life. As long as the Hebrews were free in Egypt, they lived by themselves, occupied with their flocks in the land of Goshen; and when in the course of events they came to be mixed up with the Egyptians, they were persecuted slaves. Neither of these two periods could have proved very favorable to their intellectual culture. Besides, among the Egyptians themselves, the mass of the people were very ignorant. Knowledge was confined to the holy place, veiled in unintelligible hieroglyphics, while the profane vulgar had to take up with gross errors and weak superstitions. The knowledge of the people at best was mere skill in the mechanical arts; and to this the Hebrews, some of them at least, must have been trained in slavery; and yet all such knowledge was but a poor resource for the development and education of the mind, — a poor resource for bringing shepherds of the East into a condition to be the depositories of a spiritual religion, to comprehend abstract theism, to worship one Infinite Spirit, in whose likeness it was a crime to make images! 3 -- 5. The Hebrews were a people brought up in Egypt. There they had lived four hundred and thirty years, part of the time isolated, and part of the time as slaves; and this long sojourn there could not have been without an important influence upon a new and ignorant people. It must inevitably have given them some new prejudices; it must have accustomed them to peculiar associations of ideas; it must have left a decided impress upon their character. Of the influences of this sojourn in Egypt we can clearly point out three at least: a tendency to idolatry, false and narrow views of worship, and an extreme reverence for the priesthood. To the priests and the initiated, the Theology of Egypt was probably nothing more than the ancient and hallowed veil of a religious mysticism; but with - the people it led to the most degrading Fetichism. What an impression, then, must have been made upon the Hebrews, who had constantly before their eyes the mysterious festivals, and the unnumbered Divinities of Egypt! Upon that ignorant and oriental people, who already were but too easily disposed to extravagant superstitions! At the very foot of Sinai, with the second commandment yet sounding in their ears, if they are left to themselves only forty days, you will see them demanding a visible God, and clothing him with the attributes of an Apis. Will not a multitude of miracles, rigorous punishments, and all the power of terror be necessary to root out this passion for idolatry? The Hebrews, incapable as they were of abstraction, had been accustomed in Egypt to associate together as inseparable what they had never seen separated,— the worship of the Divinity with certain customary observances in the manner of worshipping. In their minds, particular forms of the temples or of the altars, certain emblems and ceremonies were intimately associated with all the ideas they had of God. Now, to break up this vicious association of ideas, the legislator will need much time and much skill; perhaps he will be obliged to resort to severe punishments. At all hazards, he must prevent its leading his people to Egyptian idolatry; and in the mean time, he may perhaps preserve in his own worship some of those forms, which have acquired an influence over their mind. But what a singular precedence, what a superior wisdom will he need to shun the dangerous shoals around him! In Egypt the sacerdotal caste enjoyed distinguished privileges. To them alone belonged all the science and the learning, covered with a thick veil, which they were careful never to remove. According to Herodotus, a third part of the lands was the property of the priests; and so far from complaining of these monopolies, the submissive people looked upon all the splendor and opulence of the priests, as a right inherent in their order. Now, the descendants of Abraham are eye-witnesses of this order of things, - themselves slaves, and trained from the beginning to the like oppression; and will not they too be ready to submit to the same yoke, if Moses is pleased to fasten it upon them? And what course will he take? He belongs to the race chosen to give priests to Israel; he may, if he chooses, be the High Priest himself; his children too may become priests. Here the prejudices of the people, perhaps his own, are in harmony with his interest. Still more, he may deem priestly - |