tions limited to the welfare of its citizens, its own representatives passed their decision. Every tribe had its own ruler or judge; and was consequently a little Commonwealth. In addition to all such tribal legislation there were questions of larger importance that demanded and called into being a national assembly.

Thus the three governments, municipal, tribal and national, were all established under the Mosaic code; corresponding to the several functions of our own governments in this Republic. While Jefferson is said to have found the principles of our Constitution in the workings of a Christian church, it must yet be more truly said that the government he shaped took upon itself the form that had been tested in the experiment made three thousand years before.

Perhaps the parallel between ancient and modern history can nowhere be more plainly seen than in the civil war that resulted from the nullification of the tribe of Benjamin as narrated in the nineteenth and twentieth chapters of the book of Judges. It was the rebellion of a tribe that professed its own sovereignty, twice defeating the national army before the nullifying tribe could be brought back into the national union. We can

almost read the history of our great rebellion in the methods there taken.

Hardly yet have the advocates of despotism, mere echoes of Voltaire's spirit, ceased to speak of the "detestable polity" of our republican nation, but the polity in its underlying principles is divine.

The Old Testament has by no means lost its force. It may be, and often is, asserted that the Mosaic records are out of date; but they can never die. They have been often misinterpreted and misjudged. The fathers of Connecticut trod in the path of safety when they voted to govern themselves by the laws of Moses until they could frame those that should be better suited to their circumstances. Compare our recent fugitive slave laws with those of Moses and the advantage is against the modern law makers. Says Dr. Peabody: "The fugitive-slave law of the Hebrews, as compared with that which cost our country its millions of precious lives, throws the Congress of the United States back into barbarism." The tenderness and beauty of the Hebrew "poor laws" transcend those of any other nation in ancient or modern times. A great threatening evil of modern times, the monopolizing of the land by the few, was rendered impossible under the statutes of Moses.

It is as we might expect; the foresight of God must be seen in the very framework of such a constitution. They who look no further than Moses, denying any divine part in such laws, cannot in such a code deny the greatness of the mind that could produce them. It was the beginning of all known written laws; Sinai the golden milestone of the world's civilization. The presence of Moses has made Sinai famous; Pisgah has become immortal because on its heights the great leader gave his farewell to the people, whose fields in the Promised Land he could not tread. The whole Mohammedan and Christian world linger together in the valley where God buried him; but his majesty of character is undimmed.

All nations have felt and still feel his power. The principles he codified are immortal. He was the first great Puritan - God's nobleman; he was a master in learning; the world's first historian; the model liberator of the oppressed; the peerless leader; but above all these functions he holds his sublime place in the history of nations the Hebrew law-giver recognized as the law-giver of the world. It has come to pass in the opinions of the profoundest jurists, that Moses is the predecessor of Blackstone; the wiser than Solon; the

prophet whose majesty best fitted him to represent the One who, though greater than he, fulfilled what Moses had taught. It was Michaelis who said, "Anything that a Grecian could call ancient, is extremely modern compared to the books of Moses;" but these oldest books are fresh for modern days; a guide to the wisest; an authority in the discussion of all problems of practical life.

VII.

THE BOOK AND LEARNING.

IN A. D. 642, Alexandria the seat of the world's most famous library-surrendered to the Saracens. Its conqueror had compelled the allegiance of Syria with its proud city Damascus ; at the bloody battle of Termuk he had defeated the Greeks; and only five years before he had hung the crescent over Jerusalem. To such a conqueror, more than to Mohammed himself, has been accorded the advance of Islamism.

In the library, venerable with the nine centuries of its history, were the literary works of all nations, even of earliest dates. Many treasures of Egypt, Phoenicia, Persia, Palestine, Greece and Rome were in its silent alcoves. Its power lay not in spear or shield. Its silent names raised no cry against the invading hosts. The entreaty for its safety was made by the populace in their frantic despair. Tradition says that the caliph's chief