CONTRAST.-Among the Hebrews art was at its lowest ebb. They doubtless wove their clothing from the wool of their sheep and the hair of their goats; and wrought the skins of these animals and the wild beasts, which abounded among them, into garments and some sort of sandals or shoes.

Minerals they had none. They depended for any tools of iron or brass, and for whatever trinkets, ornaments, enriched articles of dress, for every Babylonian fabric, for every article of linen, upon traffic with the passing caravans; and as they could pay only in raw produce they could not purchase much.

They probably, like other troglodytes, made further excavations and alterations in, and additions to, the natural caverns and fissures in the rocks, for the accommodation or protection of themselves and their cattle. But there is not a trace of their applying to them any æsthetic adornments, or giving any elegance to their form.

Their god resided in a tent. Compare with their rude holes in the rocks the magnificent temples of Ellora, and Egypt, and Petra the superb, carved out of the mountain sides.

They do not appear even to have built any so simple a town as Jericho, of which the sides of the houses formed the walls, with an upper chamber or flat roof. They do not appear to have built any thing equal even to the Shechemite temple of Baal-berith, or the tower of Thebez, which had an upper storey, although it appears to have been to a great extent constructed of wood.

Their residences were caverns, huts, or tents, except the few towns which they found ready built by the peoples with whom they mingled, or whom the dispossessed.

David, after taking Zion, occupied a house of cedar or fir, of which he was very proud.

indebted to the king of Tyre. After Zion was taken David

build.

For the erection of this he was
His god still dwelt in a tent.

and his richer subjects began to

A collection of habitations, surrounded with a wall, and having a gate with bars, was a grand city.

Perhaps the nearest representative of a Hebrew city was a Kaffir encampment or a Central African village-a collection of huts of various dimensions, intermingled with granaries and cattle-sheds, the whole surrounded by a thick hedge or a mud wall. They had not a temple, beyond a tent or a hut for their god, or palladium, until one was built for them by Tyrian artisans.

Their arms were the spear, the sword, and the sling. In the time of Saul they are said by a text in Samuel, cited from Jasher, to have begun to learn the use of the bow.

Whatever weapons, or parts of weapons, they had of iron or other metal must have been purchased from foreigners. And whatever metallic armour they had must have been obtained from that source.

Monuments. They had not a single monument with an ornament or word

upon it.

They sometimes set up a large stone, as the evidence of a treaty, a boundary, or a memorial of victory; and this they sometimes sanctified by anointing it with a little oil. They had not sufficient skill to make it monumental by inscription, so, like other ignorant races of that country, by this anointment they made it (a bætule)

divine.

They erected or took possession of a dozen such stones in the plain of Jericho, and constituted it for awhile their national gathering-place and shrine. This, according to Joshua, must have borne about the same proportion in dimensions and architecture to the druidical Stonehenge, as a barn preaching-house bears to St. Paul's.

The inscription of the laws on whitewashed stones, prescribed in long subsequent ages by the pentateuch, and said to have been performed by Joshua, will come under consideration in a future page.

It is impossible that a people who had resided for centuries in Egypt, and of whom many are described as having been employed in work upon the highly-ornamented structures of that country, should have left descendants in the first generation so utterly deficient in art.

It is incredible that engravers on precious stones, even on diamonds, the most refractory and defiant of modern skill, should have been unable to chisel a letter or a rune upon a limestone rock.

The divine command in the pentateuch to confine themselves to the use of rough stones, and the divine prohibition of images, were -as were the directions to inscribe their laws on whitewashed surfaces, which would soon be washed away-introduced to obviate the disproof of the fictitious character of the book.

As soon as they could find competent artisans they covered the temple of their god with imagery, and overshadowed his ark with figures of Phoenician myths.

VOL. I.

Z

Civil Institutions. Some account has already been given of the classes of the Hebrews and early Palestinians.

The pre-Hebraic towns appear to have been almost independent communities under their melechs or lords, occasionally confederated, and sometimes subject to a superior chief, emir, or leader in war.

The early Hebrews do not appear to have occupied such aggregations of buildings as may be properly designated towns. Their cities and villages have been already partially described.

The early Hebrews appear, as already observed, to have occasionally entered into confederations of septs or cities of a tribe, sometimes of several tribes. But there is no indication of a general council or of a sovereign prince until the time of Saul. The Gilgal and Mizpeh were places of occasional convention of some of their tribes. But there was no place of annual or other regular assembly, no such place as is indicated in the pentateuch for the assembly of the people, or of the males, or of the franklins, elders, or princes, thrice or even once in the year.

According to the pentateuch, the 600,000 warriors were to make a clean swoop of all the peoples of the promised land; and, under pain of death, not to make any convention with them, not to intermarry with them, but to exterminate them all, to murder every man, woman, and child, to destroy their altars and high-places, to cut down every grove, not to allow a vestige of the ancient worships to remain, and to confine themselves absolutely to the worship of Adoni.

The Israelites are described as exceeding a population of 3,000,000, and, according to the pentateuch, they are empowered and commanded to conquer 7 nations each greater than they. This represents the aborigines as in the aggregate 21,000,000 at least. These were to be driven out gradually, lest the wild beasts should desolate the land. It might be thought that 600,000 warriors, endowed with such powers of conquest, could have protected themselves from the ravages of the wild beasts.

According to the pentateuch they were organized into 12 hereditary tribes, including one devoted to the priestly offices, described as the descendants of Levi, and provided with a grand council of elders, with directions how to elect a king, and directions as to how the king should behave. They were provided, by the pentateuch, with a most minute and complicated codification of laws, and, lest one code should not be enough, they were provided with four, containing various incongruities, of course.

It is provided that the king shall, on his accession, make a copy of the law with his own hand, and study it with great attention. To the time of Saul there was no king to copy it; and there is not the slightest indication that he or any of his successors, even David, ever troubled himself to copy a line of it.

It is commanded that as soon as they should cross Jordan they should set up great stones, and plaster them with plaster, and write upon them all the words of the law.

It is commanded that at the feast of tabernacles, in every 7th year, the law should be read before all Israel.

It is commanded that they should bind words of the law upon their foreheads, and write it upon their doorposts and their gates. It is commanded that they should teach their children the law, and talk about it at all times, at home, and in their walks. The pentateuch commands, under pain of death :—

The circumcision of every male on the 8th day after his birth:
The strict observance of a sabbath every 7th day:

Of a sabbath on every new moon :

Of an annual sabbath and day of atonement:

Of a sabbath every 7th year:

Of a sabbath

50th every

-a
year- jubilee :

The observance of 3 annual festivals, the passover, the pentecost, and the feast of tabernacles, by all the male Israelites

assembled in one place.

We will first give the texts of these mandates, and then inquire whether they, or any, and which of them had been, to any, and what extent, obeyed. Death and the desolation of the nation were the penalties enunciated by the pentateuch for non-observance. If the pentateuch contained the law of the Hebrews, enforced by so jealous and vindictive a god as Adoni, could they have continued to exist for 900 years unless it had been implicitly obeyed?

PENTATEUCHAL LAWS FOR EXTERMINATION OF THE PEOPLES AND THEIR RELIGION.-Numbers xxxiii. 50. And Adoni spake unto Moses in the plains of Moab by Jordan near Jericho, saying, Speak unto the Bene Israel, and say unto them,

51. When ye are passed over Jordan into the land of Canaan; then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before and you, destroy all their pictures, and destroy all their molten images, and quite pluck down all their high places; and ye shall dispossess the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein; for I have given you the land to possess it. And ye shall divide the land by lot for an

inheritance among your families and to the more ye shall give the more inheritance, and to the fewer ye shall give the less inheritance every man's inheritance shall be in the place where his lot falleth; according to the tribes of your fathers ye shall inherit. 55. But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell.

56. Moreover it shall come to pass, that I will do unto you, as I thought to do unto them.

Deuteronomy vii. 1. When Adoni thy god shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, 7 nations greater and mightier than thou; and when Adoni thy god shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt smite them and utterly destroy them; and thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them.

3. Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.

4. For they will turn away thy son from following me, that they may serve other gods; so will the anger of Adoni be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly.

5. But thus shall ye deal with them; ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with fire.

Deuteronomy xii. 2. Ye shall utterly destroy all the places, wherein the nations which ye shall possess served their gods, upon the high mountains, and upon the hills, and under every green tree; and ye shall overthrow their altars, and break their pillars, and burn their groves with fire; and ye shall hew down the graven images of their gods, and destroy the names of them out of that place.

4. Ye shall not do so unto Adoni your god. But unto the place which Adoni your god shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, even unto his habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come: and thither ye shall bring your burnt offerings, and your sacrifices, and your tithes, and heave offerings of your hand, and your vows and your freewill offerings, and the firstlings of your herds and of your flocks.