Even if I were a theist I should refuse to see in God a being omniscient

and omnipotent, who puts us into this world without our volition, leaves

us to struggle through it unequally pitted against an almost omnipotent

and super-subtle Devil; and who, if we fail, finally drops us out of

this world into Hell-fire, where a legion of inferior devils finds

constant and never-ending employment in inventing fresh tortures for us;

our crime being, that we have not succeeded where success was rendered

impossible. No high thinkings are developed by the doctrine of Devils

and damnation. If a potent faith, it degrades to imbecility alike the

teacher and the taught, by its abhorrent mercilessness; and if mere form

instead of a faith, then is the Devil doctrine a misleading sham.

WERE ADAM AND EVE OUR FIRST PARENTS?

THIS question, Were Adam and Eve our first parents? is indeed one of

vital importance. A negative answer is a denial of the whole Christian

scheme. The Christian theory is that Adam, the common father of the

whole human race, sinned, and by his sin dragged down all his posterity

to a state from which redemption was needed, and that Jesus is, and was,

the Redeemer, by whom all mankind are, and were, saved from the

consequences of the fall of Adam. If Adam therefore be not the first

man, if it is not to Adam the various races of mankind are indebted for

their origin, then the whole hypothesis of fall and redemption fails.

It is impossible in the space of this pamphlet to give any statement and

analysis of the various hypotheses as to the origin of the human race;

that I have done at some length in my volume on "Genesis: its Authorship

and Authenticity." Personally I incline to favor the doctrine of a

plurality of sources for the various types of the human race. That

wherever the conditions for life have been, there also has been the

degree of life resultant on those conditions. My purpose here is not to

demonstrate the correctness of my own thinking, but rather to illustrate

the incorrectness of the Genesaical teaching. Were Adam and Eve our

first parents? On the one hand, an affirmative answer can be obtained

from the Bible, which, though in Genesis v, 2, using Adam as a

race-name, specifically asserts (ii, 22) Adam and Eve to be the first

man and woman made by God, and in the authorised version fixes the date

of their making about 6,000 years, little more or less, from the present

time. On the other hand, science emphatically declares man to have

existed on the earth for a far more extended period, affirms that as far

as we can trace man historically, we find him in isolated groups,

diverse in type, till we lose him in the ante-historic period; and with

nearly equal distinctness denies that the various existing races find

their common parentage in one pair. It is only on the first point that I

attack the Bible chronology of man's existence. I am aware that

calculations based upon the authorised version of the Old Testament

Scriptures are open to objection, and that while from the Hebrew 1,656

years represent the period from Adam to the Deluge generally

acknowledged, the Samaritan Pentateuch only yields for the same period

1,307 years, while the Septuagint version furnishes 2,242 years; but a

most erudite Egyptologist, states a fatal objection to the Septuagint

chronology--i.e., that it makes Methuselah outlive the Flood.[17] The

Deluge occurred, according to the Septuagint, in the year of the world

2,242, and by adding up the generations previous to his (Methuselah's)

birth--Adam, 230; Seth, 205; Enos, 190; Cainan, 170; Mahaleel, 165;

Jared, 162; Enoch, 165; = 1,287--Methuselah was born in the year of the

world 1287. He lived 969 years, and therefore died in 2256. But this is

fourteen years after the Deluge.

[17] "Harmony of the Four Evangelists, and Harmony of the Old

Testament."

The Rev. Dr. Lightfoot, who wrote about 1644, fixes the month of

creation at September, 5,572 years preceding the date of his book, and

says that Adam was expelled from Eden on the day on which he was

created.[18] In my volume on Genesis (pp. 29-36) the reader will find

the chronology of Genesis carefully examined. For our immediate purpose

we will take the ordinary English Bible, which gives the following

result: From Adam to Abraham (Genesis v and xi), 2,008; Abraham to Isaac

(Genesis xxi, 5), 100; Isaac to Jacob (Genesis xxv, 26), 60; Jacob going

into Egypt (Genesis xlvii, 9), 130; Sojourn in Egypt (Exodus xii, 41),

430; Duration of Moses' leadership (Exodus vii, 7; xxxi, 2), 40; thence

to David, about 400; from David to Captivity, 14 generations (27), about

22 reigns, 473; Captivity to Jesus, 14 generations, about 5,934 = 234;

less disputed 230 years of sojourn in Egypt, 230 = 4,004.

[18] Munks' "Palestine," p.231

These dates follow the Bible statement, and there is no portion of the

orthodox text, except the period of the Judges, which will admit any

considerable extension of the ordinary Oxford chronology.

The Book of Judges is not a book of history. Everything in it is

recounted without chronological order. It will suffice to say that the

cyphers which we find in the Book of Judges and in the First Book of

Samuel yield us, from the death of Joshua to the commencement of the

reign of Saul, the sum-total of 500 years, which would make, since the

exodus from Egypt, 565 years; whereas the First Book of Kings counts but

480 years, from the going out of Egypt down to the foundation of the

temple under Solomon. According to this we must suppose that several of

the judges governed simultaneously.(19)

Alfred Maury, in his profound essay on the classification of tongues,

traces back some of the ancient Greek mythologies to a Sanscrit source.

He has the following remark, worthy of earnest attention: "The God of

heaven, or the sky, is called by the Greek _Zeus Pater_; and let us have

notice that the pronunciation of Z resembles very much that of D,

inasmuch as the word Zeus becomes in the genitive (Dios). The Latins

termed the same God, _Dies-piter_, or Jupiter. Now in the Veda, the God

of heaven is called Dyashpitai." What is this but the original of our

own Christian God the father, the _Jeue_ pater of the Old Testament? The

Hebrew Records, whether or not God-inspired, are certainly not the most

antique. Neither is it true that the Hebrew mythology is the most

ancient, nor the Hebrew language the most primitive; on the contrary,

the mythology is clearly derived, and the language in a secondary or

tertiary state.

The word Adam is first written as a proper name in Genesis ii, 19, but

the word written Adam is and this is found in Genesis i, 26, and in

several other verses. In i, 27, the word is used as if it meant not one

man only, but "male and female;" indeed v. 2, says, "male and female

created he them and blessed them and called their name Adam." Genesis

ii, 18, treats the man as alone, and 19 his name as Adam.

What is the value of this Book of Genesis, the sole authority for the

hypothesis that Adam and Eve, about 6,000 years ago, were the sole

founders of the peoples now living on the face of the earth? Written we

know not by whom, we know not when, and we know not in what language.

Eusebius, Chrysostom, and Clemens Alexandrinus alike agree that the name

of Moses should not stand at the head of Genesis as the author of the

book. Origen did not hesitate to declare the contents of the first and

second chapters of Genesis to be purely figurative. Our translation of

it has been severely criticised by the learned and pious Bellamy, and by

the more learned and less pious Sir William Drummond. It has been

amended and revised in our own day. Errors almost innumerable have been

pointed out, the correctness of the Hebrew text itself questioned, and

yet this book is claimed as an unerring guide to the students of

ethnology. They may do anything, everything, except stray out of the

beaten track. We have, on the one hand, an anonymous book, which, for

the development of the diversities of the human family, does not even

take us back so much as 6,000 years. At least 1,600 years must be

deducted for the alleged Noachian deluge, when the world's inhabitants

were again reduced to one family, one race, one type. On the other hand,

we have now existing Esquimaux men, of the Arctic realm--Chinamen, of

the Asiatic realm--Englishmen, of the European realm--Sahara negroes, of

the African realm--Fuegians, of the American realm--New Zealanders, of

the Polynesian realm--the Malay, representative of the realm which bears

his name--the Tasmanian, of the Australian realm--with other families of

each realm, too numerous for mention here; dark and fair; black-skinned

and 'white-skinned; woolly-haired and straight-haired; low forehead,

high forehead; Hottentot limb, Negro limb, Caucasian limb. Do all these

different and differing structures and colors trace their origin to one

pair? To Adam and Eve, or rather to Noah and his family? Or are they

(the various races) indigenous to their native soils, and climates? And

are these various types naturally resultant, with all their differences,

from the differing conditions for life persistent to and consistent with

them?

The question is really this--Have the different races of man all found

their common parent in Noah, about 4,300 years ago? Assuming the unity

of the races or species of men now existing, there are but three

suppositions on which the diversity now seen can be accounted for:--

"1st. A miracle or direct act of the Almighty, in changing one type into

another.

"2nd. The gradual action of physical causes, such as climate, food, mode

of life, etc.

"3rd. Congenital or accidental varieties."[20]

[20] "Types of Mankind," Dr. Nott, p. 57.

We may fairly dismiss entirely the question of miracle. Such a miracle

is nowhere recorded in the Bible, and it lies upon anyone hardy enough

to assert that the present diversity has a miraculous origin, to show

some kind of reasons for his faith, some kind of evidence to warrant our

conviction. Until this is done we need not dwell on the first

hypothesis.

Of the durability of type under its own life conditions we have

overwhelming proof in the statue of an ancient Egyptian scribe, taken

from a tomb of the fifth dynasty, 5,000 years old, and precisely

corresponding to the Fellah of the present day.[21] The sand had

preserved the color of the statuette, which, from its portraitlike

beauty, marks a long era of art-progress preceding its production. It

antedates the orthodox era of the Flood, carries us back to a time when,

if the Bible were true, Adam was yet alive, and still we find before it

kings reigning and ruling in mighty Egypt. Can the reader wonder that

these facts are held to impeach the orthodox faith?

[21] M. Pulzsky on Iconography--"Indigenous Races," p. 111.

On the second point Dr. Nott writes: "It is a commonly received error

that the influence of a hot climate is gradually exerted on successive

generations, until one species of mankind is completely changed into

another This idea is proven to be false.... A sunburnt cheek is never

handed down to succeeding generations. The exposed parts of the body are

alone tanned by the sun, and the children of the white-skinned Europeans

in New Orleans, Mobile, and the West Indies are born as fair as their

ancestors, and would remain so if carried back to a colder climate.[22]

Pure negroes and negresses, transported from Central Africa to England,

and marrying among themselves, would never acquire the characteristics

of the Caucasian races; nor would pure Englishmen and Englishwomen,

emigrating to Central Africa, and in like manner intermarrying, ever

become negroes or negresses. The fact is, that while you don't bleach

the color out of the darkskinned African by placing him in London, you

bleach the life out of him; and vice versa with the Englishman.[23] For

a long time there has been ascribed to man the faculty of adapting

himself to every climate. The following facts will show the ascription a

most erroneous one, though human adaptability is very great: "In Egypt

the austral negroes are, and the Caucasian Memlooks were, unable to

raise up even a third generation; in Corsica French families vanish

beneath Italian summers. Where are the descendants of the Romans, the

Vandals, or the Greeks in Africa? In Modern Arabia, after Mahomed Ali

had got clear of the Morea War, 18,000 Arnaots (Albanians) were soon

reduced to some 400 men. At Gibraltar, in 1817, a negro regiment was

almost annihilated by consumption. In 1814, during the three weeks on

the Niger, 130 Europeans out of 145 caught African fever, and 40 died;

out of 158 negro sailors only eleven were affected, and not one died. In

1809 the British expedition to Welchereen failed in the Netherlands

through marsh fever. About the same time, in St. Domingo, about 15,000

French soldiers died from malaria. Of 30,000 Frenchmen, only 8,000

survived exposure to that Antillian island; while the Dominicanised

African negro, Toussaint l'Overture, retransported to Europe, was

perishing from the chill of his prison in France."

[22] "Types of Mankind," p. 58.

[23] "Indigenous Races of the Earth," p. 458. The alleged discovery of

whiteskinned negroes in Western Africa does not affect this

question; it is not only to the color of the skin but also to the

general negro characteristics that the above remarks apply.

On the third point, again quoting Dr. Nott:--

"The only argument left, then, is that of congenital varieties or

peculiarities, which are said to spring up and be transmitted from

parent to child, so as to form new races. Let us pause for a moment to

illustrate this fanciful idea. The negroes of Africa, for example, are

admitted not to be offsets from some other race which have been

gradually blackened and changed in a moral and physical type by the

action of climate; but it is asserted that 'once, in the flight of ages'

some genuine little negro, or rather many such, were born of Caucasian,

Mongol, or other light-skinned parents, and then have turned about and

changed the type of the inhabitants of a whole continent. So in America,

the countless aborigines found on this continent, who we have reason to

believe were building mounds before the time of Abraham, are the

offspring of a race changed by accidental or congenital varieties. Thus,

too, old China, India, Australia, Oceana, etc., all owe their types,

physical and mental, to congenital and accidental varieties, and are

descended from Adam and Eve! Can human credulity go farther, or human

ingenuity invent any argument more absurd?"[24]

[24] Nott and Gliddon, "Indigenous Races," p. 587.

But even supposing these objections to the second and third suppositions

set aside, there are two other propositions which, if affirmed, as I

believe they may be, entirely overthrow the orthodox assertion: "That

Adam and Eve, six thousand years ago, were the first pair; and that all

diversities now existing must find their common source in Noah--less

than four thousand three hundred years from the present time." These two

are as follows:

1. That man may be traced back on the earth long prior to the alleged

Adamic era.

2. That there are diversities traceable as existing amongst the human

race four thousand five hundred years ago, as marked as in the present

day.

To illustrate the position that man may be traced back to a period long

prior to the Adamic era, we refer our readers to the chronology of the

late Baron Bunsen, who, while allowing about

22,000 years for man's existence on earth, fixes the following dates

after a patient examination of the Nilotic antiquities:

Egyptians under a republican form................. 10,000 B.C.

Ascension of Bytis, the Theban, 1st Priest King.... 9,085

Elective Kings in Egypt............................ 7,230

Hereditary Kings in Upper and Lower Egypt,

a double empire form............................... 5,143

The assertion of such an antiquity for Egypt is no modern hypothesis.

Plato puts language into the mouth of an Egyptian, first claiming in

that day an antecedent of 10,000 years for painting and sculpture in

Egypt. This has long been regarded as fabulous, because it was contrary

to the Hebrew chronology.

There are few who now pretend that the whole _creation_ (?) took place

6,000 years ago, although, if it be true that God made all in six days,

and man on the sixth, then the universe would only be more ancient than

Adam by some five days. To state the age of the earth at 6,000 years is

simply preposterous when it is estimated that it would require about

4,000,000 of years for the formation of the fossiliferous rocks alone,

and 15,000,000 of years have been stated as a moderate estimate for the

antiquity of our globe. The deltas of the great rivers of Hindustan

afford corroboration as to man's antiquity. In Egypt the delta of the

Nile, formed by immense quantities of sedimentary matter, which in like

manner is still carried down and deposited, has not perceptibly

increased during the last 3,000 years. "In the days of the earliest

Pharaohs, the delta, as it now exists, was covered with ancient cities

and filled with a dense population, whose civilisation must have

required a period going back far beyond any date that has yet been

assigned to the deluge of Noah, or even to the creation of the

world."[25]

[25] Gliddon's "Types of Mankind," p. 335.

From borings which have been made at New Orleans to the depth of 600

feet, from excavations for public works, and from examinations in parts

of Louisiana, where the range between high and low water is much greater

than it is at New Orleans, no less than ten distinct cypress forests,

divided from each other by eras of aquatic plants, etc., have been

traced, arranged vertically above each other, and from these and other

data it is estimated by Dr. Benet Dowler that the age of the delta is at

least about 158,000 years, and in the excavations above referred to,

human remains, have been found below the further forest level, making it

appear that the human race existed in the delta of the Mississippi more

than 57,000 years ago.[26]

[26] "Types," p. 336 to 369.

It is further urged by the same competent writer that human bones

discovered on the coast of Brazil, near Santas, and on the borders of a

lake called Lagoa Santa, by Captain Elliott and Dr. Lund, thoroughly

incorporated with a very hard breccia, every one in a fossil state,

demonstrate that aboriginal man in America antedates the Mississippi

alluvia, and that he can even boast a geological antiquity, because

numerous species of animals have become extinct since American

humanity's first appearance.[27]

[27] "Types," pages 350 and 357.

With reference to the possibility of tracing back the diversities of the

human race to an antediluvian date, it is amply sufficient to point on

the one side to the remains of the American Indian disentombed from the

Mississippi forests, and on the other to the Egyptian monuments, tombs,

pyramids, and stuccoes, revealing to us Caucasian men and Negro men,

their diversities as marked as in the present day. Sir William Jones in

his day, claimed for Sanscrit literature a vast antiquity, and asserted

the existence of the religions of Egypt, Greece, India, and Italy, prior

to the Mosaic Era. So far as Egypt is concerned the researches of

Lepsius, Bunsen, Champollion, Lenormant, Gliddon, and others have fully

verified the position of the learned president of the Asiatic Society.

In "Genesis: its Authorship and Authenticity," pp. 88-21, I have

collected other testimony on this point.

We have Egyptian statues of the third dynasty, going back far beyond the

4,300 years which would give the orthodox era of the deluge, and taking

us over the 4,500 years fixed by our second proposition. The fourth

dynasty is rich in pyramids, tombs, and statues; and according to

Lepsius, this dynasty commenced 3,426 B.C., or about 5,287 years from

the present date.

Works on the orthodox side constantly assume that the long chronologists

must be in error, because their views do not coincide with orthodox

teachings. Orthodox authors treat their heterodox brethren as unworthy

of credit, because of their heterodoxy. One writer asserts,[28] that the

earliest reference to Negro tribes is in the era of the 12th dynasty.

Supposing for a moment this to be correct, what even then will be the

state of the argument? The 12th dynasty, according to Lepsius ends about

4,000 years ago. The orthodox chronology fixes the deluge about 300

years earlier. Will any sane man argue that there was sufficient lapse

of time in three centuries for the development of Caucasian and Negro

man from one family?

[28] "Archaia," p. 406.

We trace back the various types of man now known, not to one centre, not

to one country, not to one family, not to one pair, but we trace them to

different centres, to distinct countries, to separate families, probably

to many pairs. Wherever the conditions for life are found, there are

living beings also. The conditions of climate, soil, etc., of Central

Africa differ from those of Europe. The indigenous races of Central

Africa differ from those of Europe. Geology has helped us very little as

to the prehistoric types of man, but its aid has nevertheless been

sufficient to far outdate the one man Adam of 6,000 years ago.

I challenge the ordinary orthodox assertion of Adamic unity of origin

accompanied as it is by threats of pains and penalties if rejected; I am

yet ready to examine it, if it can be presented to me associated with

facts, and divested of those future hell-fire torments and present

societarian persecutions which now form its chief, if not sole,

supports.

The rejection of the Bible account of the peopling of the world involves

also the rejection of the entire scheme of Christianity. According to

the orthodox rendering of both New and Old Testament teaching, all men

are involved in the curse which followed Adam's sin. But if the account

of the Fall be mythical, not historical; if Adam and Eve--supposing them

to have ever existed--were preceded on the earth by many nations and

empires, what becomes of the doctrine that Jesus came to redeem mankind

from a sin committed by one who was not the common father of all

humanity?

Reject Adam, and you cannot accept Jesus. Refuse to believe Genesis, and

you cannot give credence to Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and Paul. The Old

and New Testaments are so connected together, that to dissolve the union

is to destroy the system. The account of the Creation and Fall of Man is

the foundation-stone of the Christian Church--if this stone be rotten,

the superstructure cannot be stable.

NEW LIFE OF ABRAHAM

MOST undoubtedly father Abraham is a personage whose history should

command attention, if only because he figures as the founder of the

Jewish race--a race which, having been promised protection and favor by

Deity, appear in the large majority of cases to have experienced little

else besides the sufferance of misfortune and misery themselves, or its

infliction upon others. Men are taught to believe that God, following

out a solemn covenant made with Abraham, suspended the course of nature

to aggrandise the Jews; that he promised always to bless and favor them

if they adhered to his worship and obeyed the priests. The promised

blessings were usually: political authority, individual happiness and

sexual power, long life, and great wealth; the threatened curses for

idolatry or disobedience: disease, loss of property and children,

mutilation, death. Amongst the blessings: the right to kill, plunder,

and ravish their enemies, with protection, whilst pious, against any

subjection to retaliatory measures. And all this because they were

Abraham's children!

Abraham is especially an important personage to the orthodox

Church-going Christian. Without Abraham, no Jesus, no Christianity, no

Church of England, no bishops, no tithes, no church-rates. But for

Abraham, England would have lost all these blessings. Abraham was the

great-grandfather of Judah, the head of the tribe to which God's

mother's husband, Joseph, belonged.

In gathering materials for a short biographical sketch, we are at once

comforted and dismayed by the fact that the only reliable account of

Abraham's career is that furnished by the book of Genesis, supplemented

by a few brief references in other parts of the Bible, and that, outside

"God's perfect and infallible revelation to man," there is no reliable

account of Abraham's existence at all. We are comforted by the thought

that, despite the new edition of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," Genesis

is unquestioned by the faithful, and is at present protected by Church

and State against heretic assaults; but we are dismayed when we think

that, if Infidelity, encouraged by Colenso, Kalisch, Professor Robertson

Smith, and Professor Wellhausen, upsets Genesis, Abraham will have

little historical support. The Talmudical notices of Abraham are too

wonderful for irreverent criticism. Some philologists have asserted that

Brama and Abraham are alike corruptions of Abba Rama, or Abrama, and

that Sarah is identical with Sarasvati. Abram, is a Chaldean compound,

meaning father of the elevated, or exalted father. [--Hebrew--] is a

compound of Chaldee and Arabic, signifying father of a multitude. In

part v. of his work, Colenso mentions that Adonis was formerly

identified with Abram, "high father," Adonis being the personified sun.

Leaving incomprehensible problems in philology for the ordinary

authorised version of our Bibles, we find that Abraham was the son of

Terah. The Talmud[29] says that Abraham's mother was Amathlai, the

daughter of Karnebo (Bava Bathra, fol. 1, col. 1.) The text does not

expressly state where Abraham was born, and I cannot therefore describe

his birth-place with that accuracy of detail which a true believer might

desire, but he "dwelt in old time on the other side of the flood"

(Joshua xxiv, 2 and 3). Abraham was born when Terah, his father, was

seventy years of age; and, according to Genesis, Terah and his family

came forth out of Ur of the Chaldees, and went to Haran and dwelt there.

We turn to the map to look for Ur of the Chaldees, anxious to discover

it as possibly Abraham's place of nativity, but find that the

translators of God's inspired word have taken a slight liberty with the

text by substituting "Ur of the Chaldees" for "Aur Kasdim," the latter

being, in plain English, _the light of the magi, or conjurors, or

astrologers_ is stated by Kalisch to have been made the basis for many

extraordinary legends, as to Abraham's rescue from the flames. In the

Talmud P'sachim, fol. 118, col. 1, it is written that "At the time when

Nimrod the wicked had cast our Father Abraham into the fiery furnace,

Gabriel stood forth in the presence of the Holy one--blessed be He!--and

said, 'Lord of the universe, let me, I pray thee, go down and cool the

furnace, and deliver that righteous one from it.'"

[29] The quotations are taken from Hershon's Talmudical Miscellany.

Abraham, being born--according to Hebrew chronology, 2,083 years after

the creation, and according to the Septuagint 3,549 years after that

event--when his father was seventy, grew so slowly that when his father

reached the good old age of 205 years, Abraham had only arrived at 75

years, having, apparently, lost no less than 60 years' growth during his

father's fife-time. St. Augustine and St. Jerome gave this up as a

difficulty inexplicable. Calmet endeavors to explain it, and makes it

worse. It is surely impossible Abraham could have lived 135 years, and

yet be only 75 years of age?

"The Lord" spoke to Abraham, and promised to make of him a great nation,

to bless those who blessed Abraham, and to curse those who cursed him. I

do not know precisely which Lord it was that spake unto Abraham, the

Hebrew says it was Jeue, or, as our translators call it, Jehovah, but as

God said (Exodus vi, 2) that by the name "Jehovah was I not known" to

either Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob, either the omniscient Deity had

forgotten the matter, or a counterfeit Lord had assumed the name. The

word Jehovah, which the book of Exodus says Abraham did not know, is

nearly always the name by which Abraham addresses, or speaks of, the

Jewish Deity.

Abraham having been promised protection by the God of Truth, initiated

his public career with a diplomacy of statement worthy Talleyrand. He

represented his wife Sarah as his sister, which, if true, is a sad

reproach to the marriage. The Talmud, when Abram came into Egypt, asks:

"Where was Sarah? He confined her in a chest, into which he locked her,

lest anyone should gaze on her beauty. When he came to the receipt of

custom, he was summoned to open the chest, but declined, and offered

payment of the duty. The officers said: 'Thou carryest garments;' and he

offered duty for garments. 'Nay, it is gold thou carriest;' and he

offered the impost laid on gold. Then they said: 'It is costly silks,

belike pearls, thou concealest;' and he offered the custom on such

articles. At length the Egyptian officers insisted, and he opened the

box. And when he did so, all the land of Egypt was illumined by her

beauty" (Bereshith Rabba, chap. 40). The ruling Pharaoh, hearing the

beauty of Sarah commended, took her into his house, she being at that

time a fair Jewish dame, between 60 and 70 years of age, and he

entreated Abraham well for her sake, and he had sheep and oxen, asses

and servants, and camels. We do not read that Abraham objected in any

way to the loss of his wife. The Lord, who is all-just, finding out that

Pharaoh had done wrong, not only punished the king, but also punished

the king's household, who could hardly have interfered with his

misdoings. Abraham got his wife back, and went away much richer by the

transaction. Whether the conduct of father Abraham in pocketing quietly

the price of the insult--or honor--offered to his wife, is worthy modern

imitation, is a question only within the competence of episcopal

authority. After this Abraham was very rich in "silver and gold." So was

the Duke of Marlborough after the Duke of York had taken his sister in

similar manner into his house. In Gen. xii, 19, there is a curious

mistranslation in our version. The text is: "It is for that I had taken

her for my wife;" our version has: "I _might have taken_ her." The Douay

so translates as to take a middle phrase, leaving it doubtful whether or

not Pharaoh actually took Sarah as his wife. In any case, the Egyptian

king acted far the better of the twain. Abraham plays the part of a

timorous, contemptible hypocrite. Strong enough to have fought for his

wife, he sold her. Yet Abraham is blessed, and his conduct is our

pattern!

Despite his timorousness in the matter of his wife, Abraham was a man of

wonderful courage and warlike ability. To rescue his relative, Lot--with

whom he could not live on the same land without quarrelling, both being

religious--he armed 318 servants, and fought with four powerful kings,

defeating them and recovering the spoil. Abraham's victory was so

decisive, that the King of Sodom, who fled and fell (xiv, 10) in a

previous encounter, now met Abraham alive (see verse 17), to

congratulate him on his victory. Abraham was also offered bread and wine

by Melchisedek, King of Salem, priest of the Most High God. Where was

Salem? Some identify it with Jerusalem, which it cannot be, as Jebus was

not so named until after the time of the Judges (Judges xix, 10). How

does this King of this unknown Salem, never heard of before or after,

come to be priest of the Most High God? These are queries for

divines--orthodox disciples believe without inquiring. Melchisedek was

most unique as far as genealogy is concerned. He had no father. He was

without mother also; he had no beginning of days or end of life, and

must be therefore at the present time an extremely old gentleman, who

would be an invaluable acquisition to any antiquarian Bible Evidence

Association fortunate enough to cultivate his acquaintance. God having

promised. Abraham a numerous family, and the promise not having been in

any part fulfilled, the patriarch grew uneasy, and remonstrated with the

Lord, who explained the matter thoroughly to Abraham when the latter was

in a deep sleep, and a dense darkness prevailed. Religious explanations

come with greater force under these or similar conditions. Natural or

artificial light and clear-sightedness are always detrimental to

spiritual manifestations.

Abraham's wife had a maid named Hagar, and she bore to Abraham a child

named Ishmael; at the time Ishmael was born, Abraham was 86 years of

age. Just before Ishmael's birth Hagar was so badly treated that she ran

away. As she was only a slave, God persuaded Hagar to return and humble

herself to her mistress. Thirteen years afterwards God appeared to

Abraham, and instituted the rite of circumcision--which rite had been

practised long before by other nations--and again renewed the promise.

The rite of circumcision was not only practised by nations long anterior

to that of the Jews, but appears in many cases not even to have been

pretended as a religious rite (See Kalisch, Genesis, p. 386; Cahen,

Genese, p. 43). After God had "left off talking with him, God went up

from Abraham." As God is infinite, he did not, of course, go up; but

still the Bible says God went up, and it is the duty of the people to

believe that he did so, especially as the infinite Deity then and now

resides habitually in "heaven" wherever that may be. Again the Lord

appeared to Abraham, either as three men or angels or as one of the

three, and Abraham, hospitably inclined, invited the three to wash their

feet and to rest under the tree, and gave butter and milk and dressed

calf, tender and good, to them, and they did eat; and after the enquiry

as to where Sarah then was, the promise of a son is repeated.

Sarah--then by her own admission an old woman, stricken in

years--laughed when she heard this, and the Lord said: "Wherefore did

Sarah laugh?" and Sarah denied it; but the Lord said: "Nay, but thou

didst laugh." The three men then went toward Sodom, and Abraham with

them as a guide; and the Lord explained to Abraham that some sad reports

had reached him about Sodom and Gomorrah, and that he was then going to

find out whether the report was reliable. God is omnipresent, and was

always therefore at Sodom and Gomorrah, but had apparently been

temporarily absent; he is omniscient, and therefore knew everything

which was happening at Sodom and Gomorrah, but he did not know whether

or not the people were as wicked they had been represented to him. God,

Job tells us, "put no trust in his servants, and his angels he charged

with folly." Between the rogues and the fools, therefore, the allwise

and all-powerful God seems to be liable to be misled by the reports made

to him. Two of the three men or angels went on to Sodom, and left the

Lord with Abraham, who began to remonstrate with Deity on the wholesale

destruction contemplated, and asked him to spare the city if fifty

righteous should be found within it. God said: "If I find fifty

righteous within the city, then will I spare the place for their sakes."

God, being all-wise, knew there were not fifty in Sodom, and was

deceiving Abraham. By dint of hard bargaining in thorough Hebrew fashion

Abraham, whose faith seemed to be tempered by distrust, got the

stipulated number reduced to ten, and then "the Lord went his way."

Jacob Ben Chajim, in his introduction to the Rabbinical Bible (p. 28),

tells us that the Hebrew text used to read in verse 22: "And Jehovah

still stood before Abraham;" but the scribes altered it, and made

Abraham stand before the Lord, thinking the original text offensive to

Deity.

Genesis xviii has given plenty of work to the divines. Augustine

contended that God can take food, though he does not require it. Justin

compared "the eating of God with the devouring power of the fire."

Kalisch sorrows over the holy fathers "who have taxed all their

ingenuity to make the act of eating compatible with the attributes of

Deity."

In the Epistle to the Romans Abraham's faith is greatly praised. We are

told (iv, 19 and 20) that: "Being not weak in faith, he considered not

his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither

yet the deadness of Sarah's womb. He staggered not at the promise of God

through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God." Yet, so

far from Abraham giving God glory, Genesis xvii, 17, says that: "Abraham

fell upon his face and laughed, and said in his heart, Shall a child be

born unto him that is an hundred years old? and shall Sarah, that is

ninety years old, bear?" The Rev. Mr. Boutell says that "the declaration

which caused Sarah to 'laugh' shows the wonderful familiarity which was

then permitted to Abraham in his communications with God."

After the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, Abraham journeyed south and

sojourned in Gerar, and, either untaught or too well taught by his

previous experience, again represented his wife as his sister, and

Abimelech, king of Gerar, sent and took Sarah. As before, we find

neither remonstrance nor resistance recorded on the part of Abraham.

This time God punished the women in Abimelech's house for an offence

they did not commit, and Sarah was again restored to her husband, with

sheep, oxen, men-servants, women-servants, and money. Infidels object

that the Bible says Sarah "was old and well stricken in age;" that "it

had ceased to be with her after the manner of women;" that she was more

than 90 years of age; and that it is not likely King Abimelech would

fall in love with an ugly old woman; but if Genesis be true, it is clear

that Sarah had not ceased to be attractive, as God resorted to especial

means to protect her from Abimelech. At length Isaac was born, and his

mother Sarah urged Abraham to expel Hagar and her son, "and the thing

was very grievous in Abraham's sight because of his son;" the mother

being only a bondwoman does not seem to have troubled him. God, however,

approving Sarah's notion, Hagar was expelled, "and she departed and

wandered in the wilderness, and the water was spent in the bottle, and

she cast the child under one of the shrubs." She had apparently carried

the child, who--being at least more than 14, and according to some

calculations as much as 17 years of age--must have been a heavy child to

carry in a warm climate.

The Talmud says: "On the day when Isaac was weaned Abraham made a great

feast, to which he invited all the people of the land. Not all of those

who came to enjoy the feast believed in the alleged occasion of its

celebration, for some said contemptuously, 'This old couple have adopted

a foundling, and provided a feast to persuade us to believe that the

child is their own offspring.' What did Abraham do? He invited all the

great men of the day, and Sarah invited their wives, who brought their

infants, but not their nurses, along with them. On this occasion Sarah's

breasts became like two fountains, for she supplied, of her own body,

nourishment to all the children. Still some were unconvinced, and said,

'Shall a child be born to one that is a hundred years old, and shall

Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear?' (Gen. xvii, 17). Whereupon, to

silence this objection, Isaac's face was changed, so that it became the

very picture of Abraham's; then one and all exclaimed, 'Abraham begat

Isaac'" (Bara Metzia, fol. 87, col. 1).

God never did tempt any man at any time, but he "did tempt Abraham" to

kill Isaac by offering him as a burnt offering. The doctrine of human

sacrifice is one of the holy mysteries of Christianity, as taught in the

Old and New Testament. Of course, judged from a religious or Biblical

stand-point, it cannot be wrong, as, if it were, God would not have

permitted Jephtha to sacrifice his daughter by offering her as a burnt

offering, nor have tempted Abraham to sacrifice his son, nor have said

in Leviticus, "None devoted, which shall be devoted of men, shall be

redeemed; but shall surely be put to death" (xxvii, 29), nor have in the

New Testament worked out the monstrous sacrifice of his only son Jesus,

at the same time son and begetting father.

Abraham did not seem to be entirely satisfied with his own conduct when

about to kill Isaac, for he not only concealed from his servants his

intent, but positively stated that which was not true, saying, "I and

the lad will go yonder and worship, and come again to you." If he meant

that he and Isaac would come again to them, then he knew that the

sacrifice would not take place. Nay, Abraham even deceived his own son,

who asked him where was the lamb for the burnt offering? But we learn

from the New Testament that Abraham acted in this and other matters "by

faith," so his falsehoods and evasions, being results and aids of faith,

must be dealt with in an entirely different manner from transactions of

every day life. Just as Abraham stretched forth his hand to slay his

son, the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven, and prevented the

murder, saying, "Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not

withheld thy son." This conveys the impression that up to that moment

the angel of the Lord was not quite certain upon the subject.

In Genesis xiii God says to Abraham, "Lift up now thine eyes, and look

from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward,

and westward. For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it,

and to thy seed for ever. Arise, walk through the land, in the length of

it, and in the breadth of it, for I will give it unto thee." Yet, as is

admitted by the Rev. Charles Boutell, in his "Bible Dictionary," "The

only portion of territory in that land of promise, of which Abraham

became possessed," was a graveyard, which he had bought and paid for.

Although Abraham was too old to have children before the birth of Isaac,

he had many children after Isaac [was] born. He lived to "a good old

age" and died "full of years," but was yet younger than any of those who

preceded him, and whose ages are given in the Bible history, except

Nahor.

According to the Talmud, as Abraham was very pious so were his very

camels, for they would not enter into a place where there were idols

(Avoth d' Rabbi Nathan, chap. 8).

Abraham gave "all that he had to Isaac," but appears to have distributed

the rest of the property amongst his other children, who were sent to

enjoy it somewhere down East.

According to the New Testament, Abraham is now in Paradise, but Abraham

in heaven is scarcely an improvement upon Abraham on earth. When he was

entreated by an unfortunate in hell for a drop of water to cool his

tongue, father Abraham replied: "Son, remember that in thy lifetime thou

receivedst thy good things, and now thou art tormented," as if the

reminiscence of past good would alleviate present and future continuity

of evil.

Rabbi Levi says that Abraham sits at the gate of hell and does not

permit any circumcised Israelite to enter (Yalkut Shimoni, fol. 33, col.

2, sec. 18).

The Talmud declares that "Abraham was a giant of giants; his height was

as that of _seventy-four_ men put together. His food, his drink, and his

strength were in the proportion of seventy-four men's to one man's. He

built an iron city for the abode of his seventeen children by Keturah,

the walls of which were so lofty that the sun never penetrated them; he

gave them a bowl full of precious stones, the brilliancy of which

supplied them with light in the absence of the sun." (Sophrim, chap.

21).

NEW LIFE OF JACOB

IT ought to be pleasant work to present sketches of God's chosen people.

More especially should it be an agreeable task to recapitulate the

interesting events occurring during the life of a man whom God has

loved. Jacob was the son of Isaac; the grandson of Abraham. These three

men were so free from fault, their lives so unobjectionable, that the

God of the Bible delighted to be called the "God of Abraham, the God of

Isaac, and the God of Jacob." It is true that Abraham owned slaves, was

not always exact to the truth, and, on one occasion, turned his wife and

child out to the mercies of a sandy desert; that Isaac in some sort

followed his father's example and disingenuous practices; and that Jacob

was without manly feeling, a sordid, selfish, unfraternal cozener, a

cowardly trickster, a cunning knave; but they must nevertheless have

been good men, for God was "the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and

the God of Jacob." The name Jacob is not inappropriate. Kalisch

says--"This appellation, if taken in its obvious etymological meaning,

implies a deep ignominy: for the root from which it is derived signifies

_to deceive, to defraud_, and in such a despicable meaning the same form

of the word is indeed used elsewhere" (Jeremiah ix, 3.). Jacob would,

therefore, be nothing else but the crafty _impostor_; in this sense

Esau, in the heat of his animosity, in fact clearly explains the word,

"justly is his name called Jacob (cheat) because he has cheated me

twice." (Genesis xxvii, 36.) Pious Jews in the formula for blessing the

new moon are taught in the Kabbalah "to meditate on the initials of the

four divine epithets which form Jacob." According to the ordinary

orthodox Bible chronology, Jacob was born about 1836 or 1837 B.C., that

is, about 2168 years from "in the beginning," his father Isaac being

then sixty years of age. There is a difficulty connected with Holy

Scripture chronology which would be insuperable were it not that we have

the advantage of spiritual aids in elucidation of the text. This

difficulty arises from the fact that the chronology of the Bible, in

this respect, like the major portion of Bible history, is utterly

unreliable. But we do not look to the Old or New Testament for mere

common-place, every-day facts--if we do, severe will be the

disappointment of the truth-seeker--we look there for mysteries,

miracles, paradoxes, and perplexities, and have no difficulty in

[finding] the objects of our search. Jacob was born, together with his

twin brother, Esau, in consequence of special entreaty addressed by

Isaac to the Lord on behalf of Re-bekah, to whom he had been married

about nineteen years, and who was yet childless. Infidel physiologists

(and it is a not unaccountable fact, that all who are physiologists are

also in so far infidel) assert that prayer would do little to repair the

consequence of such disease, or such abnormal organic structure, as had

compelled sterility. But our able clergy are agreed that the Bible was

not intended to teach us science; or, at any rate, we have learned that

its attempts in that direction are most miserable failures. Its mission

is to teach the unteachable: to enable us to comprehend the

incomprehensible. Before Jacob was born God decreed that he and his

descendants should obtain the mastery over Esau and his descendants:

"the elder shall serve the younger." (Gen. xxv, 23) The God of the Bible

is a just God, but it is hard for weak flesh to discover the justice of

this proemial decree, which so sentenced to servitude the children of

Esau before their father's birth. Jacob came into the world holding by

his brother's heel, like some cowardly knave in the battle of life, who,

not daring to break a gap in the hedge of conventional prejudice, which

bars his path, is yet ready enough to follow some bolder warrior, and to

gather the fruits of his courage. "And the boys grew: and Esau was a

cunning hunter, a man of the field: and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling

in tents." One day, Esau returned from his hunting, faint and wearied to

the very point of death. He was hungry, and came to Jacob, his twin and

only brother, saying, "Feed me, I pray thee" (Ibid., xxv, 30) "for I am

exceedingly faint." (Douay Version) In a like case would not any man so

entreated immediately offer to the other the best at his command, the

more especially when that other is his only brother, born at the same

time, from the same womb, suckled at the same breast, fed under the same

roof? But Jacob was not merely a man and a brother, he was one of God's

chosen people, and one who had been honored by God's prenatal selection.

"If a man come unto me and hate not his brother, he cannot be my

disciple." So taught Jesus the Jew, in after time, and in this earlier

age Jacob the Jew, in practice, anticipated the later doctrine. It is

one of the misfortunes of theology, if not its crime, that profession of

love to God is often accompanied with bitter and active hate of man.

Jacob was one of the founders of the Jewish race, and even in this their

prehistoric age, the instinct for driving a hard bargain seems strongly

developed. "Jacob said" to Esau, "Sell me this day thy birthright." The

famished man vainly expostulated, and the birthright was sold for a mess

of pottage. If to-day one man should so meanly and cruelly take

advantage of his brother's necessities to rob him of his birthright, all

good and honest men would shun him as an un-brotherly scoundrel, and

most contemptible knave; yet, less than

4,000 years ago, a very different standard of morality must have

prevailed. Indeed, if God is unchangeable, divine notions of honor and

honesty must to-day be widely different from those of our highest men.

God approved and endorsed Jacob's conduct. His approval is shown by his

love, afterwards expressed for Jacob; his endorsement by his subsequent

attention to Jacob's welfare. We may learn from this tale, so pregnant

with instruction, that any deed which to the worldly and sensible man

appears like knavery while understood literally becomes to the devout

and prayerful man an act of piety when understood spiritually. Pious

preachers and clever commentators declare that Esau despised his

birthright. I do not deny that they might back their declaration by

scripture quotations, but I do deny that the narrative ought to convey

any such impression. Esau's words were, "Behold I am at the point to

die: and what profit shall this birthright be to me?"

Bereshith Rabba, cap. 95, says that "wherever Jacob resided, he studied

the law as his fathers did," and it adds, "How is this, seeing that the

law had not yet been given?" There is no record that Esau also studied

the law, and there is no mention of any legal proceedings to set aside

this very questionable birthright transfer.

Isaac growing old, and fearing from his physical infirmities the near

approach of death, was anxious to bless Esau before he died, and

directed him to take quiver and bow and go out in the field to hunt some

venison for a savory meat, such as old Isaac loved. Esau departed, but

when he had left his father's presence in order to fulfil his request,

Jacob appeared on the scene. Instigated by his mother, he, by an abject

stratagem, passed himself off as Esau. With a savory meat prepared by

Rebekah, he came into his father's presence, and Isaac said, "Who art

thou, my son?" Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord. The Lord loved

Jacob, yet Jacob lied to his old blind father, saying, "I am Esau thy

firstborn." Isaac had some doubts: these are manifested by his inquiring

how it was that the game was killed so quickly. Jacob, whom God loved,

in a spirit of shameless blasphemy replied, "Because the Lord thy God

brought it to me." Isaac still hesitated, fancying that he recognised

the voice to be the voice of Jacob, and again questioned him, saying,

"Art thou my very son Esau?" God is the God of truth and loved Jacob,

yet Jacob said, "I am." Then Isaac blessed Jacob, believing that he was

blessing Esau and God permitted the fraud to be successful, and himself

also blessed Jacob. In that extraordinary composition known as the

Epistle to the Hebrews, we are told that by faith Isaac blessed Jacob.

But what faith had Isaac? Faith that Jacob was Esau? His belief was

produced by deceptive appearances. His faith resulted from false

representations. And there are very many men in the world who have no

better foundation for their religious faith than had Isaac when he

blessed Jacob, believing him to be Esau. In the Douay Bible I find the

following note on this remarkable narrative: "St. Augustine (_L. contra

mendacium_, c. 10), treating at large upon this place, excuseth Jacob

from a lie, because this whole passage was mysterious, as relating to

the preference which was afterwards to be given to the Gentiles before

the carnal Jews, which Jacob, by prophetic light, might understand. So

far it is certain that the first birthright, both by divine election and

by Esau's free cession, belonged to Jacob; so that if there were any lie

in the case, it would be no more than an officious and venial one." How

glorious to be a patriarch, and to have a real saint laboring years

after your death to twist your lies into truth by aid of prophetic

light! Lying is at all times most disreputable, but at the deathbed the

crime is rendered more heinous. The death hour would have awed many men

into speaking the truth, but it had little effect on Jacob. Although

Isaac was about to die, this greedy knave cared not, so that he got from

the dying man the sought-for prize. God is said to love righteousness

and hate iniquity, yet he loved the iniquitous Jacob, and hated the

honest Esau. All knaves are tinged more or less with cowardice. Jacob

was no exception to the rule. His brother, enraged at the deception

practised upon Isaac, threatened to kill Jacob. Jacob was warned by his

mother and fled. Induced by Rebekah, Isaac charged Jacob to marry one of

Laban's daughters. On the way to Haran, where Laban dwelt, Jacob rested

and slept. While sleeping he dreamed; ordinarily, dreams have little

significance, but in the Bible they are more important. Some of the most

weighty and vital facts of the Bible are communicated in dreams; and

rightly so; if the men had been wideawake they would have probably

rejected the revelation as absurd. So much does that prince of darkness,

the devil, influence mankind against the Bible in the day time, that it

is when all is dark, and our eyes are closed, and the senses dormant,

that God's mysteries are most clearly seen and understood. Jacob "saw in

his sleep a ladder standing upon the earth, and the top thereof touching

heaven; the angels also, of God ascending and descending by it, and the

Lord leaning upon the ladder (Gen. xxviii, 12 and 13, Douay Version). In

the ancient temples of India, and in the mysteries of Mithra, the

seven-stepped ladder by which the spirits ascended to heaven is a

prominent feature, and one of probably far higher antiquity than the age

of Jacob. Did paganism furnish the groundwork for the patriarch's dream?

"No man hath seen God at anytime." God is "invisible." Yet Jacob saw the

invisible God, whom no man hath seen or can see, either standing above a

ladder or leaning upon it. True, it was all a dream. Yet God spoke to

Jacob, but perhaps that was a delusion too. We find by scripture that

God threatens to send to some "strong delusions that they might believe

a lie and be damned." Poor Jacob was much frightened; as any one might

be, to dream of God leaning on so long a ladder. What if it had broken,

and the dreamer underneath it? Jacob's fears were not so powerful but

that his shrewdness and avarice had full scope in a sort of half-vow,

halfcontract, made in the morning. Jacob said, "If God will be with me

and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat,

and raiment to put on, so that I shall come again to my father's house

in peace, then shall the Lord be my God." The inference deducible from

this conditional statement is, that if God failed to complete the items

enumerated by Jacob, then the latter would have nothing to do with him.

Jacob was a shrewd Jew, who would have laughed to scorn the preaching

"Take no thought, saying, what shall we eat? or, what shall we drink?

or, wherewithal shall we be clothed?"

After this contract Jacob went on his journey, and reached the house of

his mother's brother, Laban, into whose service he entered. "Diamond cut

diamond" would be an appropriate heading to the tale which gives the

transactions between Jacob the Jew and Laban the son of Nahor. Laban had

two daughters. Rachel, the youngest, was "beautiful and well-favored;"

Leah, the elder, was "blear-eyed." Jacob served for the pretty one; but

on the wedding day Laban made a feast, and when evening came gave Jacob

the ugly Leah instead of the pretty Rachel. Jacob being (according to

Josephus) both in drink and in the dark, it was morning ere he

discovered his error. After this Jacob served for Rachel also, and then

the remainder of the chapter of Jacob's servitude to Laban is but the

recital of a series of frauds and trickeries. Jacob embezzled Laban's

property, and Laban misappropriated and changed Jacob's wages. In fact,

if Jacob had not possessed the advantage of divine aid, he would

probably have failed in the endeavor to cheat his master, but God, who

says "thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, nor anything that is

thy neighbor's," encouraged Jacob in his career of covetous criminalty.

At last Jacob, having amassed a large quantity of property, determined

to abscond from his employment, and taking advantage of his uncle's

absence at sheepshearing "he stole away unawares," taking with him his

wives, his children, flocks, herds, and goods. To crown the whole,

Rachel, worthy wife of a husband so fraudulent, stole her father's gods.

But in those days God's ways were not as our ways. God came to Laban in

a dream and compounded the felony, saying, "Take heed thou speak not

anything harshly against Jacob."[30] This would probably prevent Laban

giving evidence in a police court against Jacob, and thus save him from

transportation or penal servitude. After a reconciliation and treaty had

been effected between Jacob and Laban, the former went on his way "and

the angels of God met him." Balaam's ass, at a later period, shared the

good fortune which was the lot of Jacob, for that animal also had a

meeting with an angel. Jacob was the grandson of the faithful Abraham to

whom angels also appeared. It is somewhat extraordinary that Jacob

should have manifested no surprise at meeting a host of angels. Still

more worthy of note is it that our good translators elevate the same

words into "angels" in verse 1, which they degrade into "messengers" in

verse 3. John Bellamy, in his translation, says the "angels" were not

immortal angels, and it is very probable John Bellamy was right. Jacob

sent messengers before him to Esau, and heard that the latter was coming

to meet him followed by 400 men. Jacob, a timorous knave at best, became

terribly afraid. He, doubtless, remembered the wrongs inflicted upon

Esau, the cruel extortion of the birthright, and the fraudulent

obtainment of the dying Isaac's blessing. He, therefore, sent forward to

his brother Esau a large present as a peace offering. He also divided

the remainder of his flocks, herds, and goods, into two divisions, that

if one were smitten, the other might escape; sending these on, he was

left alone. While alone he wrestled with either a man, or an angel, or

God. The text says "a man," the heading to the chapter says "an angel"

and Jacob himself says that he has "seen God face to face." Whether God,

angel, or man, it was not a fair wrestle, and were the present editor of

Bell's Life referee, he would, unquestionably, declare it to be most

unfair to touch "the hollow of Jacob's thigh" so as to put it "out of

joint," and consequently, award the result of the match to Jacob. Jacob,

notwithstanding the injury, still kept his grip, and the apocryphal

wrestler, finding himself no match at fair struggling, and that foul

play was unavailing, now tried entreaty, and said, "Let me go, for the

day breaketh." Spirits never appear in the day time, when if they did

appear, they could be seen and examined; they are often more visible in

the twilight, in the darkness, and in dreams. Jacob would not let go:

his life's instinct for bargaining prevailed, and probably, because he

could get nothing else, he insisted on his opponent's blessing, before

he let him go. In the Roman Catholic version of the Bible there is the

following note:--"Chap. xxxii, v. 24. _A man, etc_.This was an angel in

human shape, as we learn from _Osee_ (c. xii, v. 4). He is called God

(xv, 28 and 30), because he represented the son of God. This wrestling,

in which Jacob, assisted by God, was a match for an angel, was so

ordered (v. 28) that he might learn by this experiment of the divine

assistance, that neither Esau, nor any other man, should have power to

hurt him." How elevating it must be to the true believer to conceive God

helping Jacob to wrestle with his own representative. On the morrow

Jacob met Esau.

[30] Genesis, xxxi, v. 24, Douay version.

"And Esau ran to meet him, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and

kissed[31] him; and they wept."

[31] The Talmud says: "Read not 'and he kissed him,' but read 'and he

bit him'" (Pirke d'Rab Eliezer, chap. 36); and Rabbi Yanai says:

"Esau did not come to kiss him, but to bite him; only the neck of

Jacob our father became as hard as marble, and this blunted the

teeth of the wicked one. And what is taught by the expression 'And

they wept?' 'The one wept for his neck, and the other for his

teeth" ("Midrash Rabbah," c. 68). Aben Ezra says that this

exposition is only fit for children.

"And he said, What meanest thou by all this drove which I met? And he

said, These are to find grace in the sight of my lord." "And Esau said,

I have enough, my brother; keep that thou hast unto thyself."

"The last portion of the history of Jacob and Esau", writes G. J.

Holyoake, "is very instructive. The coward fear of Jacob to meet his

brother is well delineated. He is subdued by a sense of his treacherous

guilt. The noble forgiveness of Esau invests his memory with more

respect than all the wealth Jacob won, and all the blessings of the Lord

he received. Could I change my name from Jacob to Esau, I would do it in

honor of him. The whole incident has a dramatic interest. There is

nothing in the Old or New Testament equal to it. The simple magnanimity

of Esau is scarcely surpassed by anything in Plutarch. In the conduct of

Esau, we see the triumph of time, of filial affection, and generosity

over a deep sense of execrable treachery, unprovoked and irrevocable

injury." Was not Esau a merciful, noble, generous man? Yet God hated

him, and shut him out of all share in the promised land. Was not Jacob a

mean, prevaricating knave: a crafty, abject cheat? Yet God loved and

rewarded him. How great are the mysteries in this Bible representation

of an all-good and all-loving God, thus hating good, and loving evil! At

the time of the wrestling a promise was made, which is afterwards

repeated by God to Jacob, that the latter should not be any more called

Jacob, but Israel. This promise was not strictly kept; the name "Jacob"

being used repeatedly, mingled with that of Israel in the after part of

Jacob's history. Jacob had a large family; his sons are reputedly the

heads of the twelve Jewish tribes. Joseph, who was much loved by his

father, was sold by his brethren into slavery. This transaction does not

seem to have called for any special reproval from God. Joseph, who from

early life was skilled in dreams, succeeded by interpreting the visions

of Pharaoh in obtaining a sort of premiership in Egypt; while filling

which office he, like more modern Prime Ministers, "placed his father

and his brethren, and gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in

the best of the land." Joseph not only gave his own family the best

place in the land, but he also, by a trick of statecraft, obtained the

land for the king, made slaves of the people, and made it a law over the

land of Egypt that the king should be entitled to one-fifth of the

produce, always, of course, excepting and saving the rights of the

priest. Judah, another brother, sought to have burned a woman by whom he

had a child. A third, named Reuben, was guilty of the grossest vice,

equalled only by that of Absalom the son of David; of Simeon and Levi,

two more of Jacob's sons, it is said that "instruments of cruelty were

in their habitations;" their conduct, as detailed in the 34th chapter of

Genesis, alike shocks by its treachery and its mercilessness. After

Jacob had heard that his son Joseph was governor in Egypt, but before he

had journeyed farther than Beersheba, God spake unto him in the visions

of the night, and probably forgetting that he had given him a new name,

or being more accustomed to the old one, said, "Jacob, Jacob," and then

told him to go down into Egypt; where Jacob died after a residence of

about seventeen years, when 147 years of age.[32] Before Jacob died he

blessed first the sons of Joseph, and then his own children, and at the

termination of his blessing to Ephraim and Manasseh, we find the

following speech addressed to Joseph, "Moreover I have given to thee one

portion above thy brethren, which I took out of the hand of the Amorite

with my sword and with my bow." This speech implies warlike pursuits on

the part of Jacob, of which the Bible gives no record, and which seem

incompatible with his recorded life. The sword of craft and the bow of

cunning are the only weapons in the use of which he was skilled. When

his sons murdered and robbed the Hivites, fear seems to have been

Jacob's most prominent characteristic.

[32] Bava Bathra, fol. 17, col. 1, says: "Over six the angel of death

had no dominion and these were: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, Moses,

Aaron, and Miriam," and it also says that these and Benjamin, the

son of Jacob, "are seven who are not consumed by the worm in the

grave."

The Talmud says: "The sons of Esau, of Ishmael, and of Keturah, went on

purpose to dispute the burial (of Jacob); but when they saw that Joseph

had placed his crown upon the coffin, they did the same with theirs."

There were _thirty-six_ crowns in all, tradition says. "And they mourned

with a great and very sore lamentation." Even the very horses and asses

joined in it, we are told. On arriving at the cave of Machpelah, Esau

once more protested, and said, "Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac

and Rebekah, are all buried here. Jacob disposed of his share when he

buried Leah in it, and the remaining one belongs to me." "But thou didst

sell thy share with thy birthright," remonstrated the sons of Jacob.

"Nay," rejoined Esau, "that did not include my share in the burial

place." "Indeed it did," they argued, "for our father, just before he

died, said (Gen. i, 5), 'In my grave which I have bought for myself.'"

"Where are the title-deeds?" demanded Esau. "In Egypt," was the answer.

And immediately the swiftfooted Naphthali started for the records ("So

light of foot was he," says the Book of Jasher, "that he could go upon

the ears of corn without crushing them"). Hushim, the son of Dan, being

deaf, asked what was the cause of the commotion. On being told what it

was, he snatched up a club and smote Esau so hard that his eyes dropped

out and fell upon the feet of Jacob, at which Jacob opened his eyes and

grimly smiled (Soteh, fol. 13, col. 1).

NEW LIFE OF MOSES

THE "Life of Abraham" was presented to our readers, because, as the

nominal founder of the Jewish race, his position entitled him to that

honour. The "Life of David," because, as one of the worst men and worst

kings ever known, his history might afford matter for reflection to

admirers of monarchical institutions and matter for comment to the

advocates of a republican form of government. The "Life of Jacob" served

to show how basely mean and contemptibly deceitful a man might become,

and yet enjoy God's love. Having given thus a brief outline of the

career of the patriarch, the king, and the knave, the life of a priest

naturally presents itself as the most fitting to complement the present

quadrifid series.

Moses, the great grandson of Levi, was born in Egypt, not far distant

from the banks of the Nile, a river world-famous for its inundations,

made familiar to ordinary readers by the travellers who have journeyed

to discover its source, and held in bad repute by strangers, especially

on account of the carnivorous Saurians who infest its waters. The mother

and father of our hero were both of the tribe of Levi, and were named

Jochebed and Amram. The infant Moses was, at the age of three months,

placed in an ark of bulrushes by the river's brink. This was done in

order to avoid the decree of extermination propounded by the reigning

Pharaoh against the male Jewish children. The daughter of Pharaoh,

coming down to the river to bathe, found the child and took compassion

upon him, adopting him as her son. Of the early life of Moses we have

but scanty record. We are told in the New Testament that he was learned

in the wisdom of the Egyptians (Acts vii, 21), and that "when he was

come to years he refused" by faith (Hebrews, xi, 24) "to be called the

son of Pharaoh's daughter." Perhaps the record from which the New

Testament writers quoted has been lost; it is certain that the present

version of the Old Testament does not contain those statements. The

record which is lost may have been God's original revelation to man, and

of which our Bible may be an incomplete version. I am little grieved by

the supposition that a revelation may have been lost, being, for my own

part, more inclined to think that no revelation has ever been made.

Josephus says that, when quite a baby, Moses trod contemptuously on the

crown of Egypt. The Egyptian monuments and Exodus are both silent on

this point. Josephus also tells us that Moses led the Egyptians in war

against the Ethiopians, and married Tharbis, the daughter of the

Ethiopian monarch. This also is omitted both in Egyptian history and in

the sacred record. When Moses was grown, according to the Old Testament,

or when he was 40 years of age according to the New, "it came into his

heart to visit his brethren the children of Israel," "And he spied an

Egyptian smiting an Hebrew;" "And he looked this way and that way, and

when he saw that there was no man, he slew the Egyptian, and hid him in

the sand." The New Testament says that he did it, "for he supposed that

his brethren would understand how that God, by his hand, would deliver

them." (Acts vii, 25) But this is open to the following objections:--The

Old Testament says nothing of the kind;--there was no man to see the

homicide, and as Moses hid the body, it is hard to conceive how he could

expect the Israelites to understand a matter of which they not only had

no knowledge whatever, but which he himself did not think was known to

them;--if there were really no man present, the story of the after

accusation against Moses needs explanation;--it might be further

objected that it does not appear that Moses at that time did even

himself conceive that he had any mission from God to deliver his people.

Moses fled from the wrath of Pharaoh, and dwelt in Midian, where he

married the daughter of one Reuel or Raguel, or Jethro. This name is not

of much importance, but it is strange that if Moses wrote the books of

the Pentateuch he was not more exact in designating so near a relation.

While acting as shepherd to his father-in-law, "he led the flock to the

back side of the desert," and "the angel of the Lord appeared to him in

a flame of fire:" that is, the angel was either a flame, or was the

object which was burning, for this angel appeared in the midst of a bush

which burned with fire, but was not consumed. This flame appears to have

been a luminous one, for it was a "great sight," and attracted Moses,

who turned aside to see it. But the luminosity would depend on substance

ignited and rendered incandescent. Is the angel of the Lord a substance

susceptible of ignition and incandesence? Who knoweth? If so, will the

fallen angels ignite and burn in hell? God called unto Moses out of the

midst of the bush. It is hard to conceive an infinite God in the middle

of a bush, yet as the law of England says that we must not "deny the

Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be of divine authority,"

in order not to break the law, I advise all to believe that, in addition

to being in the middle of a bush, the infinite and all-powerful God also

sat on the top of a box, dwelt sometimes in a tent, afterwards in a

temple; although invisible, appeared occasionally; and, being a spirit

without body or parts, was hypostatically incarnate as a man. Moses,

when spoken to by God, "hid his face, for he was afraid to look upon

God." If Moses had known that God was _invisible_, he would have escaped

this fear. God told Moses that the cry of the children of Israel had

reached him, and that he had _come down_ to deliver them, and that Moses

was to lead them out of Egypt. Moses does not seem to have placed entire

confidence in the phlegomic divine communication, and asked, when the

Jews should question him on the name of the Deity, what answer should he

make? It does not appear from this that the Jews, if they had so

completely forgotten God's name, had much preserved the recollection of

the promise comparatively so recently made to Abraham, to Isaac, and to

Jacob. The answer given according to our version is, "I am that I am;"

according to the Douay, "I am who am." God, in addition, told Moses that

the Jews should spoil the Egyptians of their wealth; but even this

promise of plunder, so congenial to the nature of a bill-discounting Jew

of the Bible type, did not avail to overcome the scruples of Moses. God

therefore taught him to throw his rod on the ground, and thus transform

it into a serpent, from which pseudo-serpent Moses at first fled in

fear, but on his taking it by the tail it resumed its original shape.

Moses, with even other wonders at command, still hesitated; he had an

impediment in his speech. God cured this by the appointment of Aaron,

who was eloquent, to aid his brother. God directed Moses to return to

Egypt, but his parting words must somewhat have damped the future

legislator's hope of any speedy or successful ending to his mission. God

said, "I will harden Pharaoh's heart that he shall not let the people

go." On the journey back to Egypt God met Moses "by the way in the inn,

and sought to kill him." I am ignorant as to the causes which prevented

the omnipotent Deity from carrying out his intention; the text does not

explain the matter, and I am not a bishop or a D.D., and I do not

therefore feel justified in putting my assumptions in place of God's

revelation. Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh, and asked that the Jews

might be permitted to go three days' journey in the wilderness; but the

King of Egypt not only refused their request, but gave them additional

tasks, and in consequence Moses and Aaron went again to the Lord, who

told them, "I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by the

name of God Almighty; but by my name Jehovah was I not known unto them."

Whether God had forgotten that the name Jehovah was known to Abraham, or

whether he was here deceiving Moses and Aaron, are points the solution

of which I leave to the faithful referring them to the fact that Abraham

called a place (Genesis xxii, 14) Jehovah-Jireh. After this Moses and

Aaron again went to Pharaoh and worked wonderfully in his presence.

Thaumaturgy is coming into fashion again, but the exploits of Moses far

exceeded any of those performed by Mr. Home or the Davenport Brothers.

Aaron flung down his rod, and it became a serpent; the Egyptian

magicians flung down their rods, which became serpents also; but the rod

of Aaron, as though it had been a Jew money-lender or a tithe collecting

parson, swallowed up these miraculous competitors, and the Jewish

leaders could afford to laugh at their defeated rival conjurors. Moses

and Aaron carried on the miracle-working for some time. All the water of

the land of Egypt was turned by them into blood, but the magicians did

so with their enchantments, and it had no effect on Pharaoh. Then

showers of frogs, at the instance of Aaron, covered the land of Egypt;

but the Egyptians did so with their enchantments, and frogs abounded

still more plentifully. The Jews next tried their hands at the

production of lice, and here--to the glory of God be it said--the

infidel Egyptians failed to imitate them. It is written that

"cleanliness is next to godliness," but we cannot help thinking that

godliness must have been far from cleanliness when the former so soon

resulted in lice. The magicians were now entirely discomfited. The

preceding wonders seem to have affected all the land of Egypt; but in

the next miracle the swarms of flies sent were confined to Egyptians

only, and were not extended to Goshen, in which the Israelites dwelt.

The next plague in connection with the ministration of Moses and Aaron

was that "all the cattle of Egypt died." After "all the cattle" were

dead, a boil was sent, breaking forth with blains upon man and beast.

This failing in effect, Moses afterwards stretched forth his hand and

smote "both man and beast" with hail, then covered the land with

locusts, and followed this with a thick darkness throughout the land--a

darkness which _might_ have been felt. Whether it was felt is a matter

on which I am unable to pass an opinion. After this, the Egyptians being

terrified by the destruction of their first-born children, the Jews, at

the instance of Moses, borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver,

jewels of gold, and raiment; and they spoiled the Egyptians. The fact

is, that the Egyptians were in the same position as the payers of church

rates, tithes, vicars' rates, and Easter dues: they lent to the Lord's

people, who are good borrowers, but slow when repayment is required.

They prefer promising you a crown of glory to paying you at once five

shillings in silver. Moses led the Jews through the Red Sea, which

proved a ready means of escape, as may be easily read in Exodus, which

says that the Lord "made the sea dry land" for the Israelites, and

afterwards not only overwhelmed in it the Egyptians who sought to follow

them, but, as Josephus tells us, the current of the sea actually carried

to the camp of the Hebrews the arms of the Egyptians, so that the

wandering Jews might not be destitute of weapons. After this the

Israelites were led by Moses into Shur, where they were without water

for three days, and the water they afterwards found was too bitter to

drink until a tree had been cast into the well. The Israelites were then

fed with manna, which, when gathered on Friday, kept for the Sabbath,

but rotted if kept from one week day to another. The people grew tired

of eating manna, and complained, and God sent fire amongst them and

burned them up in the uttermost parts of the camp; and after this the

people wept and said, "Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the

fish we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers and the melons and the

leeks and the onions and the garlic; but now there is nothing at all

beside this manna before our eyes." This angered the Lord, and he gave

them a feast of quails, and while the flesh was yet between their teeth,

ere it was chewed, the anger of the Lord was kindled, and he smote the

Jewish people with a very great plague (Numbers, ix). The people again

in Rephidim were without water, and Moses therefore smote the Rock of

Horeb with his rod, and water came out of the rock. At Rephidim the

Amalekites and the Jews fought together, and while they fought Moses,

like a prudent general, went to the top of a hill, accompanied by Aaron

and Hur, and it came to pass that when Moses held up his hands Israel

prevailed, and when he let down his hands Amalek prevailed. But Moses'

hands were heavy, and they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat

thereon, and Aaron and Hur stayed up his hands, the one on the one side

and the other on the other side, and his hands were steady until the

going down of the sun, and Joshua discomfited Amalek, and his people

with the edge of the sword. How the true believer ought to rejoice that

the stone was so convenient, as otherwise the Jews might have been

slaughtered, and there might have been no royal line of David, no Jesus,

no Christianity. That stone should be more valued than the precious

black stone of the Moslem; it is the corner-stone of the system, the

stone which supported the Mosaic rule. God is everywhere, but Moses went

up unto him, and the Lord called to him out of a mountain and came to

him in a thick cloud, and descended on Mount Sinai in a fire, in

consequence of which the mountain smoked, and the Lord came down upon

the top of the mountain and called Moses up to him; and then the Lord

gave Moses the Ten Commandments, and also those precepts which follow,

in which Jews are permitted to buy their fellow-countrymen for six

years, and in which it is provided that, if the slave-master shall give

his six-year slave a wife, and she bear him sons or daughters, that the

wife and the children shall be the property of her master. In these

precepts it is also permitted that a man may sell his own daughter for

the most base purposes. Also that a master may beat his slave, so that

if he do not die until a few days after the ill-treatment, the master

shall escape justice because the slave is his money. Also that Jews may

buy strangers and keep them as slaves for ever. While Moses was up in

the mount the people clamoured for Aaron to make them gods. Moses had

stopped away so long that the people gave him up for lost. Aaron, whose

duty it was to have pacified and restrained them, and to have kept them

in the right faith, did nothing of the kind. He induced them to bring

all their gold, and then made it into a calf, before which he built an

altar, and then proclaimed a feast. Manners and customs change. In those

days the Jews did see the God that Aaron took their gold for, but now

the priests take the people's gold, and the poor contributors do not

even see a calf for their pains, unless indeed they are near a mirror at

the time when they are making their voluntary contributions. And the

Lord told Moses what happened, and said, "I have seen this people, and

behold it is a stiffnecked people. Now, therefore, let me alone that my

wrath may wax hot against them, and that I may consume them." Moses

would not comply with God's request, but remonstrated, and expostulated,

and begged him not to afford the Egyptians an opportunity of speaking

against him. Moses succeeded in changing the unchangeable, and the Lord

repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his people.

Although Moses would not let God's "wrath wax hot" his own "anger waxed

hot," and he broke, in his rage, the two tables of stone which God had

given him, and on which the Lord had graven and written with his own

finger. We have now no means of knowing in what language God wrote, or

whether Moses afterwards took any pains to rivet together the broken

pieces. It is almost to be wondered at that the Christian Evidence

Societies have not sent missionaries to search for these pieces of the

tables, which may even yet remain beneath the mount. Moses took the calf

which they had made and burned it with fire and ground it to powder, and

strewed it upon water and made the children of Israel drink of it. After

this Moses armed the priests and killed 3,000 Jews, "and the Lord

plagued the people because they had made the calf which Aaron had made."

(Exodus xxxii, 35) Moses afterwards pitched the tabernacle without the

camp; and the cloudy pillar in which the Lord went, descended and stood

at the door of the tabernacle; and the Lord talked to Moses "face to

face, as a man would to his friend." (Exodus xxxiii, 11) And the Lord

then told Moses, "Thou canst not see my face, for there shall no man see

me and live." (Exodus xxxiii, 20) Before this Moses and Aaron and Nadab

and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel, "saw the God of Israel,

and there was under his feet, as it were, a paved work of sapphire

stone,.. and upon the nobles of the children of Israel he laid not his

hand; also they saw God, and did eat and drink." (Exodus xxix, 9)

Aaron, the brother of Moses, died under very strange circumstances. The

Lord said unto Moses, "Strip Aaron of his garments and put them upon

Eleazar, his son, and Aaron shall be gathered unto his people and shall

die there." And Moses did as the Lord commanded, and Aaron died there on

the top of the mount, where Moses had taken him. There does not appear

to have been any coroner's inquest in the time of Aaron, and the

suspicious circumstances of the death of the brother of Moses have been

passed over by the faithful.

When Moses was leading the Israelites near Moab, Balak the King of the

Moabites sent to Balaam in order to get Balaam to curse the Jews. When

Balak's messengers were with Balaam, God came to Balaam also, and asked

what men they were. Of course God knew, but he inquired for his own wise

purposes, and Balaam told him truthfully. God ordered Balaam not to

curse the Jews, and therefore the latter refused, and sent the Moabitish

messengers away. Then Balak sent again high and mighty princes under

whose influence Balaam went mounted on an ass, and God's anger was

kindled against Balaam, and he sent an angel to stop him by the way; but

the angel did not understand his business well, and the ass first ran

into a field, and then close against the wall, and it was not until the

angel removed to a narrower place that he succeeded in stopping the

donkey; and when the ass saw the angel she fell down. Balaam did not see

the angel at first; and, indeed, we may take it as a fact of history

that asses have always been the most ready to perceive angels.

Moses may have been a great author, but we have little means of

ascertaining what he wrote in the present day. Divines talk of Genesis

to Deuteronomy as the five books of Moses, but Eusebius, in the fourth

century, attributed them to Ezra, and Saint Chrysostom says that the

name of Moses has been affixed to the books without authority, by

persons living long after him. It is quite certain that if Moses lived

3,300 years ago, he did not write in square letter Hebrew, and this

because the character has not existed so long. It is indeed doubtful if

it can be carried back 2,000 years. The ancient Hebrew character, though

probably older than this, yet is comparatively modern amongst the

ancient languages of the earth.

It is urged by orthodox chronologists that Moses was born about 1450

B.C., and that the Exodus took place about 1491 B.C. Unfortunately

"there are no recorded dates in the Jewish Scriptures that are

trustworthy." Moses, or the Hebrews, not being mentioned upon Egyptian

monuments from the twelfth to the seventeenth century B.C. inclusive,

and never being alluded to by any extant writer who lived prior to the

Septuagint translation at Alexandria (commencing in the third century

B.C.), there are no extraneous aids, from sources alien to the Jewish

Books, through which any information, worthy of historical acceptance,

can be gathered elsewhere about him or them.[33]

[33] G.R. Gliddon's Types of Mankind: Mankind's Chronology, p 711

Moses died in the land of Moab when he was 120 years of age. The Lord

buried Moses in a valley of Moab, over against Bethpeor, but no man

knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day. Josephus says that "a cloud came

over him on the sudden and he disappeared in a certain valley." The

devil disputed about the body of Moses, contending with the Archangel

Michael (Jude, 9); but whether the devil or the angel had the best of

the discussion, the Bible does not tell us.

De Beauvoir Priaulx,[34] looking at Moses as a counsellor, leader, and

legislator, says:--"Invested with this high authority, he announced to

the Jews their future religion, and announced it to them as a state

religion, and as framed for a particular state, and that state only. He

gave this religion, moreover, a creed so narrow and negative--he limited

it to objects so purely temporal, he crowded it with observances so

entirely ceremonial or national--that we find it difficult to determine

whether Moses merely established this religion in order that by a

community of worship he might induce in the tribe-divided Israelites

that community of sentiment which would constitute them a nation; or,

whether he only roused them to a sense of their national dignity, in the

hope that they might then more faithfully perform the duties of priests

and servants of Jehovah. In other words, we hesitate to decide whether

in the mind of Moses the state was subservient to the purposes of

religion, or religion to the purposes of state."

[34] Questiones Mosaicae, p. 438.

The same writer observes[35] that, according to the Jewish writings,

Moses "is the friend and favourite of the Deity. He is one whose prayers

and wishes, the Deity hastens to fulfil, one to whom the Deity makes

known his designs. The relations between God and the prophet are most

intimate. God does not disdain to answer the questions of Moses, to

remove his doubts, and even occasionally to receive his suggestions, and

to act upon them even in opposition to his own pre-determined decrees."

[35] p. 418.

NEW LIFE OF DAVID

IN compiling a biographical account of any ancient personage,

impediments often arise from the uncertainty, party bias, and prejudiced

coloring of the various traditions out of which, the biography is

collected. Here no such obstacle is met with, no such bias can be

imagined, for, in giving the life of David, we extract it from an

all-wise God's perfect and infallible revelation to man, and thus are

enabled to present it to our readers free from any doubt, uncertainty,

or difficulty. There is perhaps the fear that the manner of this brief

sketch may be adjudged to be within the operation of such common law as

wisely protects the career of the saints from mere sinful common-sense

criticism; but as the matter is derived from the authorised version for

which England is indebted to James, of royal and pious memory, this new

life of David may be safely left to the impartial judgment of Mr.

Justice North, aided by the charitable and pious counsel of Sir Hardinge

Giffard. The latter, who has had more than one criminal client for whom

he has most ably pleaded, might be relied on to make out a strong, if

not a good, case for punishing any one who is unfair to the man after

God's own heart. Mr. Justice Stephen has furnished me with some slight

guide in his notice of Voltaire's play called "David:"--

"It constitutes, perhaps, the bitterest attack on David's character ever

devised by the wit of man, but the effect is produced almost exclusively

by the juxtaposition, with hardly any alteration, of a number of texts

from different parts of David's history. It would be a practical

impossibility to charge a jury in such a case, so as to embody Lord

Coleridge's view of the law. The judge would have to say: 'It is lawful

to say that David was a murderer, an adulterer, a treacherous tyrant who

passed his last moments in giving directions for assassinations; but you

must observe the decencies of controversy. You must not arrange your

facts in such a way as to mix ridicule with indignation, or to convey

too striking a contrast between the solemn character of the documents

from which the extracts are made, and the nature of the extracts

themselves, and of the facts to which they relate.'"

It is in the spirit of this paragraph that I have penned the present

life.

The father of David was Jesse, an Ephrathite of Bethlehem Judah, who had

either eight sons, (1 Samuel xvi, 10-11, and xvii, 12), or only seven (1

Chronicles, ii, 13-15), and David was either the eighth son or the

seventh. Some may think this a difficulty, but such persons will only be

those who rely on their own intellectual faculties, or who have been

misled by arithmetic. If you are in any doubt, consult some qualified

divine, and he will explain to you that there is really no difference

between eight and seven when rightly understood with prayer and faith,

by the help of the spirit. Arithmetic is an utterly infidel acquirement,

and one which all true believers should eschew. The proposition that

three times one are one is a fundamental article of the Christian faith.

When young, David tended his father's sheep, and apparently while so

doing he gained a character for being cunning in playing a mighty

valiant man, a man of war and prudent in matters. He obtained his

reputation as a soldier early and wonderfully, for he was "but a youth;"

and God's most holy word asserts that when going to fight with Goliath,

he tried to walk in armor and could not, because he was not accustomed

to it (1 Samuel xvii, 39 _c.f._ Douay version). Samuel shortly prior to

this anointed David, who, while yet a lad, had been selected by the Lord

to be King of the Jews in place and stead of Saul, who had wickedly

disobeyed the commands of the Lord, who in his infinite love and mercy

had said (1 Sam. xv, 3): "Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy

all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman,

infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass." Saul, however,

behaved unrighteously, for he "spared Agag, and the best of the sheep,

and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was

good, and would not utterly destroy them." This not unnaturally

irritated and annoyed the Lord. "Then came the word of the Lord unto

Samuel, saying, It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be King: for

he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my

commandments," and the Lord bid Samuel fill a "horn with oil," and sent

Samuel, who anointed David the son of Jesse in the midst of his

brethren, and the spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day

forward. If a man takes to spirits his life will probably be one of

vice, misery, and misfortune; and if spirits take to him, the result in

the end is nearly the same. Every evil deed which the Bible records as

having been done by David was after the spirit of the Lord had so come

upon him. Saul being King of Israel, an evil spirit from the Lord

troubled him. The devil has, it is said, no love for music, and Saul was

recommended to have David to play on a harp, in order that harmony might

drive this evil spirit back to the Lord who sent it. The Jew's harp was

played successfully, and Saul was often relieved from the evil spirit by

David's ministrations. There is nothing miraculous in this; at the

People's Concerts many a working man has been relieved from the "blue

devils" by a stirring chorus, a merry song, or patriotic anthem; and on

the contrary many evil spirits have been aroused by the most unmusical

performances of the followers of General Booth. David was appointed

armor-bearer to the King; but curiously enough, this office does not

appear to have interfered with his duties as a shepherd; indeed, the

care of his father's sheep took precedence over the care of the king's

armor, and in the time of war he "went and returned to feed his father's

sheep." Perhaps his "prudence in matters" induced him thus to take care

of himself.

A Philistine, one Goliath of Gath (whose height was six cubits and a

span, or about nine feet six inches, at a low computation) had defied

the armies of Israel. This Goliath was (to use the vocabulary of a

reverend sporting correspondent to a certain religious newspaper) a

veritable champion of the heavy weights. He carried in all about two

cwt. of offensive and defensive armor upon his person, and his challenge

had great weight. None dared accept it amongst the soldiers of Saul

until the arrival of David, who brought some food for his brethren.

David volunteered to fight the giant, but Elias, David's brother, having

mocked the presumption of the offer, and Saul objecting that the

venturesome lad was not competent to take part in a conflict so

dangerous, David related how he pursued a lion and a bear, how he caught

him by his beard and slew him. Which animal it was that David thus

bearded the text does not say. The Douay says it was "a lion or a bear."

To those who have chased the king of the forests or studied the habits

of bears, the whole story looks, on an attentive reading, "very like a

whale." David was permitted to fight the giant; his equipment was

simple, a sling and stones, and with these, from a distance, he slew the

giant. Some suggest that the weapon Goliath fell under was the long bow.

This suggestion is rendered probable by the book itself. One verse says

that David slew the Philistine with a stone, another verse says that he

slew him with the giant's own sword, while in 2 Samuel xxi, 19, we are

told that Goliath the Gittite was slain by Elhanan. Our translators, who

have great regard for our faith and more for their pulpits, have kindly

inserted the words "the brother of" before Goliath. This emendation

saves the true believer from the difficulty of understanding how Goliath

of Gath could have been killed by different men at different times.

David was previously well known to Saul, and was much loved and favored

by that monarch. He was also seen by the king before he went forth to do

battle with the gigantic Philistine. Yet (as if to verify the proverb

that kings have short memories for their friends) Saul had forgotten his

own armor-bearer and muchloved harpist, and was obliged to ask Abner who

David was. Abner, captain of the king's host, familiar with the person

of the armor-bearer to the king, of course knew David well; he therefore

answered: "As thy soul liveth, O king, I cannot tell." David, having

made known his parentage, was appointed to high command by Saul; but the

Jewish women over-praised David, and thus displeased the king. One day

the evil spirit from the Lord came upon Saul and he prophesied. Men

often talk great nonsense under the influence of spirits, which they

sometimes regret when sober. It is, however, an interesting fact in

ancient spiritualism to know that Saul prophesied with a devil in him.

Under the joint influence of the devil and prophecy, Saul tried to kill

David with a javelin, and this was repeated, even after David had

married the king's daughter (whose wedding he had secured by the

slaughter of two hundred men). Saul then asked his son and servants to

kill David; but Jonathan, Saul's son, loved David, "And Saul hearkened

unto the voice of Jonathan: and Saul sware, As the Lord liveth, he shall

not be slain." It is interesting as showing the utility of oaths that

after having thus sworn Saul was more determined than ever to kill

David. To save his own life David fled to Naioth, and Saul sent there

messengers to arrest David; but three sets of the king's messengers

having in turn all become prophets, Saul went himself, and the spirit of

the Lord came upon him also, and he stripped off his clothes and

prophesied as hard as the rest, "laying down naked all that day and all

that night."

David lived in exile for some time in godly company, having collected

round him every one that was in distress, and every one that was in

debt, and every one that was discontented. Saul made several fruitless

attempts to effect his capture, with no better result than that he twice

placed himself in the power of David, who twice showed the mercy to a

cruel king which he never conceded to an unoffending people. David

having obtruded himself upon Achish, King of Gath, doubtful of his

safety, feigned madness to cover his retreat. He then lived a precarious

life, sometimes levying a species of black mail upon defenceless

farmers. Having applied to one farmer to make him some compensation for

permitting the farm to go unrobbed, and his demand not having been

complied with, David, who is a man after the heart of God of mercy,

immediately determined to murder the farmer and all his household for

their wicked reluctance in submitting to his extortions. The wife of

farmer Nabal compromised the matter. David "_accepted her person_" and

ten days after Nabal was found dead in his bed. David afterwards went

with 600 men and lived under the protection of Achish, King of Gath, and

while thus residing (being the anointed one of God who says, "Thou shalt

not steal") he robbed the inhabitants of the surrounding places. Being

also obedient to the statute, "Thou shalt do no murder," he slaughtered,

and left neither man nor woman alive to report his robberies to King

Achish; and as he "always walked in the ways" of a God to whom "lying

lips are an abomination," he made false reports to Achish in relation to

his actions. Of course this was all for the glory of God, whose ways are

not as our ways. Soon the Philistines were engaged in another of the

constantly recurring conflicts with the Israelites. Who offered them the

help of himself and hand? Who offered to make war on his own countrymen?

David, the man after God's own heart, who obeyed God's statutes and who

walked in his ways, to do only that which was right in the sight of God.

The Philistines rejected the traitor's aid, and prevented the

consummation of this baseness. While David was making this unpatriotic

proffer of his services to the Philistines, his own city of Ziglag was

captured by the Amalekites, who were doubtless endeavoring to avenge

some of the most unjustifiable robberies and murders perpetrated by

David and his followers in their country. David's own friends evidently

thought that this misfortune was a retribution for David's crimes, for

they spoke of stoning him. The Amalekites had captured and carried off

everything, but they do not seem to have maltreated or killed any of

their enemies. David was less merciful. He pursued them, recaptured the

spoil, and spared not a man of them, save 400 who escaped on camels. In

consequence of the death of Saul, David was elevated to the throne of

Judah, while Ishbosheth, a son of Saul, was made king of Israel. But

Ishbosheth having been assassinated, David slew the assassins, when

they, hoping for reward, brought him the news, and he reigned ultimately

over Israel also.

As religious readers are doubtless aware, the Lord God of Israel, after

the time of Moses, usually dwelt on the top of an ark or box, between

two figures of gold; and on one occasion David made a journey with his

followers to Baal, to bring thence the ark of God. They placed it on a

new cart drawn by oxen. On the journey the oxen stumbled, and

consequently shook the cart. One of the drivers, whose name was Uzzah,

possibly fearing that God might be tumbled to the ground, took hold of

the ark, apparently in order to steady it, and prevent it from

overturning. God, who is a God of love, was much displeased that any one

should presume to do any such act of kindness, and killed Uzzah on the

spot as a punishment for his sin. This shows that if a man sees the

Church of God tumbling down, he should never try to prop it up; if it be

not strong enough to save itself, the sooner it falls the better for

humankind--that is, if they keep away from it while it is falling. David

was much displeased that the Lord had killed Uzzah; in fact, David seems

to have wished for a monopoly of slaughter, and always manifested

displeasure when any killing was done unauthorised by himself. Being

displeased, David would not take the ark to Jerusalem, but left it in

the house of Obed Edom; then, as the Lord proved more kind to Obed Edom

than he had done to Uzzah, David determined to bring the ark away, and

did so, dancing before the ark in a state of semi-nudity, for which he

was reproached by Michal. Lord Campbell's Act is intended to hinder the

publication of indecencies, but the pages of the Book which the law

affirms to be God's most holy word do not come within the scope of the

Act, and lovers of obscene language may therefore have legal

gratification so long as the Bible shall exist. The God of Israel, who

had been leading a wandering life for many years, and who had "walked in

a tent and in a tabernacle," and "from tent to tent," and "from one

tabernacle to another," and "who had not dwelt in any house" since the

time that he brought the Israelites out of Egypt, was offered "an house

for him to dwell in," but he declined to accept it during the lifetime

of David, although he promised to permit the son of David to erect him

such an abode. David being now a powerful monarch, and having many wives

and concubines, saw one day the beautiful wife of one of his soldiers.

To see with this licentious monarch was to crave for the gratification

of his lust. The husband Uriah was fighting for the king, yet David was

base enough to steal his wife's virtue during Uriah's absence in the

field of battle. "Thou shalt not commit adultery" was one of the

commandments, yet we are told by God of this David, that he was one "who

kept my commandments, and who followed me with all his heart to do only

that which was right in mine eyes" (1 Kings, xiv, 8). David having

seduced the wife, sent for her husband, wishing to make him condone his

wife's dishonor. In modern England under a Stuart or a Brunswick, Uriah

might have become a Marquis or a Baron. Some hold that virtue in rags is

less worth than vice when coro-neted. Uriah would not be thus tricked,

and David, the pious David, coolly planned, and without mercy caused to

be executed, the treacherous murder of Uriah. God is all-just; and David

having committed adultery and murder, God punished and killed an

innocent child, which had no part or share in David's crime, and never

chose that it should be born from the womb of Bathsheba. After this king

David was even more cruel and merciless than before. Previously he had

systematically slaughtered the inhabitants of Moab, now he sawed people

with saws, cut them with harrows and axes, and made them pass through

brick-kilns. Yet of this man, God said he "did that which was right in

mine eyes." So bad a king, so treacherous a man, a lover so inconstant,

a husband so adulterous, was of course a bad father, having bad

children. We are little surprised, therefore, to read that his son Amnon

robbed of her virtue his own sister, David's daughter Tamar, and that

Am-non was afterwards slain by his own brother, David's son Absalom, and

we are scarcely astonished that Absalom himself, on the house-top, in

the sight of all Israel, should complete his father's shame by an act

worthy a child of God's select people. Yet these are God's chosen race,

and this is the family of the man "who walked in God's ways all the days

of his life."