“Nor his man-servant, nor his maid-servant.” It is a ‘natural’ thing for masters to get proud of those who serve them; and a ‘natural’ thing for servants to get proud of the masters they serve. (You see above how Bacon connects the love of the master with the love of the country.) Nay, if the service has been true, if the master has indeed asked for what was good for himself, and the servant has done what was good for his master, they cannot choose but like each other; to have a new servant, or a new master, would be a mere horror to both of them. I have got two Davids, and a Kate, that I wouldn’t change for anybody else’s servants in the world; and I believe the only quarrel they have with me is that I don’t give them enough to do for me:—this very morning, I must stop writing, presently, to find the stoutest of the Davids some business, or he will be miserable all day.
“Nor his ox, nor his ass.” If you have petted both of your own, properly, from calf and foal, neither these, nor anything else of yours, will you desire to change [[53]]for “anything that is his.” Do you really think I would change my pen for your’s, or my inkstand, or my arm-chair, or my Gainsborough little girl, or my Turner pass of St. Gothard? I would see you—— very uncomfortable—first. And that is the natural state of a human being who has taken anything like proper pains to make himself comfortable in God’s good world, and get some of the right good, and true wealth of it.
For, you observe farther, the commandment is only that thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s goods. It does not say that you are not to covet any goods. How could you covet your neighbour’s, if both your neighbour and you were forbidden to have any? Very far the contrary; in the first piece of genealogic geography I have given you to learn, the first descriptive sentence of the land of Havilah is,—“where there is gold;” and it goes on to say, “And the gold of that land is of the best: there is bdellium, and the onyx stone.” In the Vulgate, ‘dellium’ and ‘lapis onichinus.’ In the Septuagint, ‘anthrax,’ and the ‘prase-stone.’
Now, my evangelical friends, here is this book which you call “Word of God,” and idolatrously print for your little children’s reading and your own, as if your eternal lives depended on every word of it. And here, of the very beginning of the world—and the beginning of property—it professes to tell you something. [[54]]But what? Have you the smallest idea what ‘dellium’ is? Might it not as well be bellium, or gellium, or pellium, or mellium, for all you know about it? Or do you know what an onyx is? or an anthrax? or a prase? Is not the whole verse pure and absolute gibberish and gabble to you; and do you expect God will thank you for talking gibberish and gabble to your children, and telling them—that is His Word? Partly, however, the verse is only senseless to you, because you have never had the sense to look at the stones which God has made. But in still greater measure, it is necessarily senseless, because it is not the word of God, but an imperfectly written tradition, which, however, being a most venerable and precious tradition, you do well to make your children read, provided also you take pains to explain to them so much sense as there is in it, and yourselves do reverently obey so much law as there is in it. Towards which intelligence and obedience, we will now take a step or two farther from the point of pause in last Fors.
Remember that the three sons of Noah are, respectively,
| Shem, | the father of the Imaginative and Contemplative races. |
| Japheth, | the,, father,, of,, the,, Practical and Constructive. |
| Ham, | the,, father,, of,, the,, Carnal and Destructive. |
The sons of Shem are the perceivers of Splendour;[[55]]—they see what is best in visible things, and reach forward to the invisible.
The sons of Japheth are the perceivers of Justice and Duty; and deal securely with all that is under their hand.
The sons of Ham are the perceivers of Evil or Nakedness; and are slaves therefore for ever—‘servants of servants’: when in power, therefore, either helpless or tyrannous.
It is best to remember among the nations descending from the three great sires, the Persians, as the sons of Shem; Greeks, as the sons of Japheth; Assyrians, as the sons of Ham. The Jewish captivity to the Assyrian then takes its perfect meaning.