His name shall be continued as long as the sun.
Men shall be blessed in him;
All nations shall call him blessed!—Psl. lxxii.
CHAPTER VI.
THE HALT AT RHINOCORURA.
They arrived in safety, and at an early hour, at [Rhinocorura], and encamped where a copious stream from the mountains had produced verdure and fertility upon its banks. Elisama, who from his advanced age was easily exhausted by any unusual excitement, was compelled to lie down to rest immediately on his arrival, and it was not till after the meal that he was able to resume his narrative.
“I have,” said he, “a long and melancholy history to relate. The vicissitudes of five hundred years were necessary, in order to impress upon the mind of Israel the conviction, that the retributive Providence of God watched over their observance of the law, and rewarded or punished them according as they kept or broke it. Yesterday we left our nation on the highest and most brilliant pinnacle of national prosperity, possessed of the law, of the land of promise, and of a temple in which all the outward rites of Jehovah’s worship might be observed. One thing only was wanting to make Israel that blessed people, by whom all other nations were to be blessed—willing obedience. But something more was necessary to produce this obedience, than the possession of the law and the means of keeping it. It must be regarded as an extraordinary mark of the favour of Jehovah towards Israel, that every thing was so combined, as to impress the doctrine of retribution upon them, both by fact and precept. No people exhibits such a quick succession and such a striking alternation of reward and punishment, so that Jehovah may be said to have set it up as a monument to the nations of his retributive justice. Its history, however, was not designed merely for the instruction of others, but primarily to teach Israel itself this great lesson; and for this purpose a succession of prophets was raised up, to enforce by their instruction the moral which the events of history were teaching.”
Myron was about to interpose, but Elisama made a sign to him and continued,
“I guess what you are going to say.”
“Allow me, however, this once to interrupt you in your narrative, for you seem to me to be going too far in your panegyrics. Has not every nation and every religion its priests, its prophets, and its inspired teachers?”
“You know,” said Elisama, “that I do not relish the Grecian mode of interlocutory debate: let me, if you please, go quietly on, and I hope, before I have done, to remove all your objections. Your own statement shows the difference. Our prophets were not always priests. They were sometimes shepherds, and were chosen by God from all the tribes without distinction. They were chosen messengers of Jehovah; their office raised them above both priest and people, and through them he made known his judgments and his mercy. They remind the people of the law, they point out in passing, or in future events, the operations of retributive justice; they promise rewards to obedience and denounce punishments on disobedience, and they disclose, in the distance, the future glories of the days of the Messiah.