Among the North Americans "the notion of a universal deluge" was, in the time of the Jesuit De Charlevoix, "rather wide-spread." In one of their stories, told by the Iroquois, all human beings were drowned; and it was necessary, in order to re-populate the earth, to change animals into men (N. F., vol. iii. p. 345).

The Tupis of Brazil are supposed to be named after Tupa, the first of men, "who alone survived the flood" (M. N. W., p. 185). Again, "the Peruvians imagined that two destructions had taken place, the first by a famine, the second by a flood; according to some a few only escaping, but, after the more widely accepted opinion, accompanied by the absolute extirpation of the race." The present race came from eggs dropped out of heaven (Ibid., p. 213). Several other tribes relate in diverse forms this world-wide story. In one of the versions, found in an old Mexican work, a man and his wife are saved, by the directions of their god, in a hollow cypress. In another, the earth is destroyed by water, because men "did not think nor speak of the Creator who had created them, and who had caused their birth." "Because they had not thought of their Mother and Father, the Heart of Heaven, whose name is Hurakan, therefore the face of the earth grew dark, and a pouring rain commenced, raining by day, raining by night" (Ibid., p. 206 ff.).

The diluvian legend appears in a very singular form in India in the Satapatha Brâhmana. There it is stated, that in the basin which was brought to Manu to wash his hands in, there was one morning a small fish. The fish said to him, "Preserve me, I shall save thee." Manu inquired from what it would save him. The fish replied that it would be from a flood which would destroy all creatures. It informed Manu that fishes, while small, were exposed to the risk of being eaten by other fishes; he was therefore to put it first into a jar; then when it grew too large for that, to dig a trench and keep it in that; that when it grew too large for the trench, to carry it to the ocean. Straightway it became a large fish, and said: "Now in such and such a year, then the flood will come; thou shalt therefore construct a ship, and resort to me; thou shalt embark in the ship when the flood rises, and I shall deliver thee from it." Manu took the fish to the sea, and in the year that had been named, "he constructed a ship and resorted to him. When the flood rose, Manu embarked in the ship. The fish swam towards him. He fastened the cable of the ship to the fish's horn. By this means he passed over this northern mountain. The fish said, 'I have delivered thee; fasten the ship to a tree. But lest the water should cut thee off whilst thou art on the mountain, as much as the water subsides, so much shalt thou descend after it.' He accordingly descended after it as much (as it subsided).... Now the flood had swept away all these creatures; so Manu alone was left here" (O. S. T., vol. i. p. 183). The story goes on to relate that Manu, being quite alone, produced a woman by "arduous religious rites," and that with this woman, who called herself his daughter, "he begot this offspring, which is this offspring of Manu," that is, the existing human race.

After the flood, the history proceeds for some time to narrate the lives of a series of patriarchs, the mythological ancestors of the Hebrew race. Of these the first is Abram, afterwards called Abraham; to whom a solemn promise was made that he was to be the progenitor of a great nation; that Jehovah would bless those who blessed him, and curse those who cursed him; and that in him all generations of the earth should be blessed (Gen. xii. 1-3). When Abraham visited Egypt, he desired his wife Sarah to call herself his sister, fearing lest the Egyptians should kill him for her sake. She did so, and was taken into Pharaoh's harem in consequence of her false statement; but Jehovah plagued Pharaoh, and his house so severely that the truth was discovered, and Sarah was restored to her lawful husband. It is remarkable that Abraham is stated to have subsequently repeated the same contemptible trick, this time alleging by way of excuse that Sarah really was his step-sister; and that Abraham's son, Isaac, is said to have done the same thing in reference to Rebekah (Gen. xii. 10-20, xx., xxvi. 6-11). Abimelech, king of Gerar, who was twice imposed upon by these patriarchs, must have thought it a singular custom of the family thus to pass off their wives as sisters. Apparently, too, both of them were quite prepared to surrender their consorts to the harems of foreign monarchs rather than run the smallest risk in their defense.

Abraham, at ninety-nine years of age, was fortunate in all things but one: he had no legitimate heir. But this too was to be given him. Jehovah appeared to him, announced himself as Almighty God, and established with Abraham a solemn covenant. He promised to make him fruitful, to give his posterity the land of Canaan, in which he then was, and to cause Sarah to have a son. At the same time he desired that all males should be circumcized, an operation which was forthwith performed on Abraham, his illegitimate son Ishmael, and all the men in his house (Gen. xvii). In due time Sarah had a son whom Abraham named Isaac. But when Isaac was a lad, and all Abraham's hopes of posterity were centered in him as the only child of Sarah, God one day commanded him to sacrifice him as a burnt-offering on a mountain in Moriah. Without a murmur, without a word of inquiry, Abraham prepared to obey this extraordinary injunction, and was only withheld from plunging the sacrificial knife into the bosom of his son by the positive interposition of an angel. Looking about, he perceived a ram caught in a thicket, and offered him as a burnt offering instead of Isaac. For this servile and unintelligent submission, he was rewarded by Jehovah with further promises as to the amazing numbers of his posterity in future times (Gen. xxi. 1-8; xxii. 1-19).

The tradition of human sacrifice, thus preserved in the story of Abraham and Isaac, is found also in a curious narrative of the Aitareya Brâhmana. That sacred book also commemorates an important personage, in this instance a king, who had no son. Although he had a hundred wives, yet none of them bore him a male heir. He inquired of his priest, Narada, what were the advantages of having a son, and learned that they were very great. "The father pays a debt in his son, and gains immortality," such was one of the privileges to be obtained by means of a son. The Rishi Narada therefore advised King Harischandra to pray to Varuna for a son, promising at the same time to sacrifice him as soon as he was born. The king did so. "Then a son, Rohita by name, was born to him. Varuna said to him, 'A son is born to thee, sacrifice him to me.' Harischandra said, 'An animal is fit for being sacrificed, when it is more than ten days old. Let him reach this age, then I will sacrifice him to thee. At ten days Varuna again demanded him, but now his father had a fresh excuse, and so postponed the sacrifice from age to age until Rohita had received his full armor." Varuna having again claimed him, Harischandra now said, "Well, my dear, to him who gave thee unto me, I will sacrifice thee now." But Rohita, come to man's estate, had no mind to be sacrificed, and ran away to the wilderness. Varuna now caused Harischandra to suffer from dropsy. Rohita, hearing of it, left the forest, and went to a village, where Indra, in disguise, met him and desired him to wander. The advice was repeated every year until Rohita had wandered six years in the forest. This last year he met a poor Rishi, named Ajigarta, who was starving, to whom he offered one hundred cows for one of his three sons as a ransom for himself in the sacrifice to be offered to Varuna. The father having objected to the eldest, and the mother to the youngest, the middle one Sunahsepa, was agreed upon as the ransom, and the hundred cows were paid for him. Rohita presented to his father the boy Sunahsepa, who was accepted by the god with the remark that a Brahman was worth more than a Kshattriya. "Varuna then explained to the king the rites of the Rajasuya sacrifice, at which on the day appointed for the inauguration he replaced the (sacrificial animal) by a man."

But at the sacrifice a strange incident occurred. No one could be found willing to bind the victim to the sacrificial post. At last his father offered to do it for another hundred cows. Bound to the stake, no one could be found to kill him. This act also his father undertook to do for a third hundred. "He then whetted his knife and went to kill his son. Sunahsepa then got aware that they were going to butcher him just as if he were no man (but a beast). 'Well,' said he, 'I will seek shelter with the gods.' He applied to Prajapati, who referred him to another god, who did the same; and thus he was driven from god to god through the pantheon, until he came to Ushas, the dawn. However, as he was praising Ushas, his fetters fell off, and Harischandra's belly became smaller; until at the last verse he was free, and Harischandra well." Sunahsepa was now received among the priests as one of themselves, and he sat down by Visvamitra, an eminent Rishi. Ajigarta, his father, requested that he might be returned to him, but Visvamitra refused, "for," he said, "the gods have presented him to me." From that time forward he became Visvamitra's son. At this point, however, Ajigarta himself entreated his son to return to his home, and the answer of the latter is remarkable. "Sunahsepa answered, 'What is not found even in the hands of a Shudra, one has seen in thy hand, the knife (to kill thy son); three hundred cows thou hast preferred to me, O Angiras.' Ajigarta then answered, 'O my dear son! I repent of the bad deed I have committed; I blot out this stain! one hundred of the cows shall be thine!' Sunahsepa answered, 'Who once might commit such a sin, may commit the same another time. Thou art still not free from the brutality of a Shudra, for thou hast committed a crime for which no reconciliation exists.' 'Yes, irreconcilable (is this act),' interrupted Visvamitra!" (A. B., p. 460-469.)

On the likeness of this story to the Hebrew legend of the intended sacrifice of Isaac, and on the difference between the two, I shall comment elsewhere. From the days of Abraham the history proceeds through a series of patriarchal biographies—those of Isaac and Rebekah, of Jacob and Rachel, of Joseph and his brothers—to the captivity of the Israelites in Egypt under the successor of the monarch whose prime minister Joseph had been. It is at this point that the history of the Hebrews as a distinct nation may be said to begin. The patriarchs belong to universal history. But from the days of the Egyptian captivity it is the fortunes of a peculiar tribe, and afterwards of an independent people that are followed. We have their deliverance from slavery, their progress through the wilderness, their triumphant establishment in their destined home, the rise, decline, and fall of their national greatness, depicted with much graphic power, and intermingled with episodes of the deepest interest. It would not be consistent with the plan or limits of this work to follow the history through its varied details; all we can do is to touch upon it here and there, where the adventures, institutions, or imaginations of the Hebrews present points of contact with those of other nations as recorded in their authorized writings.

It was only by the especial favor of Jehovah that the Hebrew slaves were enabled to escape from Egypt at all. That deity appointed a man named Moses as their leader; and, employing him as his mouthpiece, desired Pharaoh to let them go. On Pharaoh's refusal, he visited Egypt with a series of calamities; all of them inadequate to the object in view, until at length Pharaoh and all his army were overwhelmed in the Red Sea, which had opened to allow the Israelites to pass. These last now escaped into the wilderness, where, under the guidance of Moses, they wandered for forty years, undergoing all sorts of hardships, before they reached the promised land. During the course of their travels, Jehovah gave Moses ten commandments, which stand out from a mass of other injunctions and enactments, by the solemnity with which they were delivered, and by the extreme importance of their subject-matter. They are reported to have been given to Moses by Jehovah in person on Mount Sinai, in the midst of a very considerable amount of noise and smoke, apparently intended to be impressive. By these laws the Israelites were ordered—