13. Thou shalt not bear a grudge against any, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
8. Thou shalt not speak evil of the deaf (thinking that he can not hear thee), nor put an obstacle in the way of the blind.
9. If there be among you a poor man, thou shalt not harden thy heart, nor shut thy hand from thy poor brother, but thou shalt open thy hand wide unto him, and shalt surely lend him sufficient for his need.
14. If thou seest the property of thine enemy threatened with destruction, thou shalt do thy utmost to save it.
15. If thou findest what is not thine own, and the owner is not known to thee, guard it carefully, that thou mayest restore it to its rightful owner.
16. Thou shalt not do evil because many others are doing the same evil.
Bearing grudges, lying, mocking those who (like the deaf and blind) are afflicted with personal defects, appropriating what is found without attempting to discover the owner, seeking to excuse wrong on the plea that many others are guilty of it—all these are forms of moral evil with which children are perfectly familiar, and against which they need to be warned. It is more than strange that such commandments as the sixth and eighth of the Decalogue (the commandment against murder and against adultery, forsooth), which are inapplicable to little children, should be made so much of in primary moral instruction, while those other commandments which do come home to them are often overlooked. The theory here expounded, that moral teaching should keep pace with the experience and intelligence of the child, should save us from such mistakes.
To proceed with the stories, the book of Joshua offers nothing that we can turn to account, nor do the stories of Jael, Deborah, and Gideon contain moral lessons fit for the young. Sour milk is not proper food for children, nor do those stories afford the proper moral food in which, so to speak, the milk of human kindness has turned sour. The labors of Samson, the Hebrew Hercules, are likewise unfit to be used at this stage, at least for the purpose of moral instruction. The story of the daughter of Jephtha, the Hebrew Iphigenia, is exquisitely pathetic, but it involves the horrible idea of human sacrifice, and therefore had better be omitted. The acts and speeches of Samuel mark an epoch in the history of the Hebrew religion, and are of profound interest to the scholar. But there are certain features, such as the killing of Agag, which would have to be eliminated in any case; then the theological and moral elements are so blended that it would be difficult if not impossible to separate them; and altogether the character of this mighty ancient seer, this Hebrew Warwick, this king-maker and enemy of kings, is above the comprehension of primary scholars. We shall therefore omit the whole intervening period, and pass at once from the Moses cycle to
The David Cycle.