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HELON'S PILGRIMAGE
TO
JERUSALEM.

HELON'S PILGRIMAGE

TO

JERUSALEM.

A PICTURE OF JUDAISM,

IN THE CENTURY WHICH PRECEDED THE ADVENT

OF OUR SAVIOUR.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN OF

FREDERICK STRAUSS,

WITH NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE TRANSLATOR.

Ἡ ΣΩΤΗΡΙΑ ἘΚ ΤΩΝ ἸΟΓΔΑΙΩΝ ἘΣΤΙΝ.

VOL. I.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR J. MAWMAN, LUDGATE-STREET.

1824.

LONDON: PRINTED BY A. APPLEGATH, STAMFORD-STREET.

CONTENTS.

VOL. I. BOOK I.

BOOK II.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE.

The present work contains a picture of the Jewish people, in which their ecclesiastical and civil constitution, their social and domestic life are represented, as they existed at the time when the advent of the Messiah was at hand.

From his boyhood the author had been inspired, by the perusal of similar works on Pagan antiquities, with the wish to exhibit such a picture of the Jewish nation; and, encouraged by men whose opinion he valued, he had at an early period of life formed the resolution to undertake it, had sketched the general outline of his work, and even executed particular parts of it. Just at this time, however, it pleased the Disposer of events to call him from the situation of leisure in which he had hitherto been placed, to the execution of an office, whose multiplied duties left him little time for any other occupations; and he was compelled to abandon the design which he had so long cherished. It was not without pain that he resolved to make this sacrifice of an object which had long directed and animated his studies. The images which it had left in his mind recurred from time to time, and revived his former wishes. In particular, whenever he had occasion, in the discharge of his pastoral duty, to narrate the histories of the Bible, the question arose in his mind, whether it might not be possible to delineate the peculiar system of life in which these writings originated, according to the picture which they had left in his own mind, without descending to all the minutiæ of antiquarian detail? In pursuance of this thought, he has devoted his few and interrupted hours of leisure, to the work which he now offers to the indulgence of the reader, for which he hopes with the more confidence, having had such large experience of it on a former occasion.

The plan of the work is the following. A young Jew, who had been enamoured of the prevailing Grecian philosophy, has returned to the observance of the law of his fathers, at one of those important crises in life which decide the character of succeeding periods. Bent on the fulfilment of the law, which he believes it impossible to accomplish any where but in the place where the altar of Jehovah is fixed, he makes a journey from Alexandria, where he had been brought up, accompanied by his uncle, to Jerusalem, in the spring of the year 109 before the birth of Christ, remains there during the half year which included the principal religious festivals; becomes a priest; enters into the married state; and, by the guidance of Providence, and varied experience, attains to the conviction, that peace of mind is only to be found in believing in Him who has been promised for the consolation of Israel.

The plan now traced, while it offered an opportunity of delineating the progress of an interesting change in the sentiments of Helon himself, seemed also to present the means of combining with this a living picture of the customs, opinions, and laws of the Jewish people. No period of their history seemed so well adapted to the design of this work, as that of John Hyrcanus. It is about this time that the books of the Maccabees close; it is the last era of the freedom and independence of the people, whose character and institutions at the same time were so nearly developed and fixed, that very little change took place between this and the time of our Saviour. It was possible, therefore, to give a picture which, as far as relates to usages and manners, should be applicable to the times of the New Testament. By selecting this period, it was more easy to avoid the inconvenience of placing fictitious characters in contact with the real personages of history, than if the time of our Saviour had been chosen. Hyrcanus and his sons have only in one instance been brought upon the scene, and even here care has been taken to keep them as much as possible in the back-ground, to avoid mingling the individual realities of history with a series of events, which the author has invented to answer the design of his work.

It was in the last years of the long reign of Hyrcanus that the opposing sects of Sadducees and Pharisees first became conspicuous, and the one hundred and ninth year before the Christian era is the date of the destruction of Samaria. In the description of the temple, however, I have allowed myself to anticipate a little, in order to describe its magnificence in the days of Herod, whose temple was that to which our Saviour resorted. In the description of the customs of sacrifice and prayer, I have ventured to use, but with moderation, the accounts of later times.

One thing it must be allowed to the author to remark, in order to prevent the misapprehensions of those, who do not know what properly belongs to a work like the present, and that is, that he is by no means to be understood as uniformly declaring his own views; and he particularly wishes this to be borne in mind in reading the first part.[^[1]]

It is well known that the want of a lively and distinct picture of those local and national peculiarities which are presented in the Bible, revolts many from the perusal of it, and exposes others to very erroneous conceptions. It is the author’s prayer to Him, from whom these precious records have proceeded, that the present work may serve, under his blessing, to make the perusal of the Scriptures more attractive and edifying; and he hopes those who shall drink with pleasure from his humble rill, will not be satisfied without going to the fountain of living waters.

TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE.

The work which is now offered to the public, appeared in Germany in 1820, unaccompanied by notes or even references to Scripture. The author alleged, as a reason for this omission, that the majority of readers would not concern themselves about authorities, and that the few who did might easily find them. He was, however, soon convinced, by the expression of public opinion, that he had underrated the curiosity of the former class, as much as he had overrated the patience of the latter; and promised to remedy the deficiency. As the work had been partly translated into Dutch and illustrated with notes, by the Professors Vanderpalm and Clarisse, he purposed to add his own notes to theirs, when their translation should be completed. It was my original intention to have waited for the appearance of this appendix; but as four years have now elapsed, and I have been unable to hear any tidings of it from Germany, I thought it better to endeavour to supply the defect. Having no clue whatever to guide me to the sources of the author’s statements, it may happen that I have not assigned the precise authority which he had in view; and, in justice to him, the reader will not conclude, that all which is not fortified by a reference is destitute of a warrant from antiquity, but only that the passage in which it is found has not occurred to me.

The liberty which I have used with the original consists wholly in retrenchments. Of these alterations some have been made to prevent repetition and diffuseness: in a very few instances what appeared evidently fanciful or unfounded has been silently effaced.

The reader who is not acquainted with any other authority for Jewish antiquities than the Old and New Testament, will not, perhaps, be displeased to find here a brief statement of the sources whence the materials of the following work have been derived. He who chooses a distant age for the scene of such a fiction as this, and endeavours to give the form and colour of reality to the dim and broken outlines, will find himself at a loss, even in delineating the best known ages of Greece and Rome. But our author has undertaken a task of still greater difficulty. The Jews were entire strangers to those kinds of literary production, in which the living manners of a people are preserved to posterity: literature among them was devoted to higher objects than comedy, satire, and ethical description. The history of our Saviour, it is true, carries us into the very bosom of domestic life among his contemporaries; and the knowledge which we thus acquire is peculiarly valuable, from the stamp of truth which is impressed on every part of it. But if we learn much from this source, there is still more of which we are left ignorant. Next to the books of Scripture, the Antiquities and History of the Jews by Josephus, are the most authentic sources of information. Philo, occupied in pursuing the phantoms of allegorical interpretation, gives less aid than might have been expected from his voluminous writings. Among the Fathers of the Christian church, Jerome, who was long resident in Palestine, has left us, in various works, very important information respecting the geography, natural history, and customs of the country. Of the heathen writers, even the gravest and most learned so pervert and confound every thing relating to the manners and religion of the Jews, that they cannot be trusted for any thing beyond geography, and the details connected with it.

The Rabbinical writings of the Jews are chiefly occupied with that traditional law, which, in our Saviour’s time, had almost strangled, by its parasitical growth, the genuine stock of the Mosaic institutions: but they also contain much information respecting civil and religious customs, especially the ritual of the second temple. According to the Jewish doctors, there existed two kinds of law; the written, promulgated on Sinai, and preserved in the Mosaic books; and the oral, delivered at the same time,[^[2]] but handed down, traditionally, by a succession of teachers, to the captivity; and thence from Ezra to the time of Rabbi Judah Hakkadosh, (the holy,) who lived about the middle of the second century after Christ. As the dispersion of the Jews had rendered the oral transmission of their learning more difficult and uncertain, he reduced the traditions of the doctors into a system, to which the name of the Mishna (repetition) was given. It consists partly of civil and criminal laws, partly of a ritual for the great Jewish festivals; in both, the Mosaic precepts bear a very small proportion to the later additions. The Mishna itself was soon found to need commentary and supplement; and the Gemara of Jerusalem was compiled by Rabbi Jochanan, and two disciples of Judah Hakkadosh, to supply its deficiencies. This collection appears to have been received as of authority by the Jews of Palestine, who cultivated Rabbinical learning in the academies of Tiberias and Jafnia. In the sixth century, Rabbi Asa, president of the school of Sora, in the Babylonian territory, where the Jews were numerous and flourishing, compiled another Gemara. The original work of the Mishna, with the addition of one or the other of these Gemaras, forms the Talmud (doctrine) of Jerusalem or Babylon.[^[3]] The Talmud is the oracle of the Jewish doctors, venerated by the greater part of them as of equal if not greater authority than the law itself; though many, as the whole sect of Karaites, deny its authority. Probably the first step towards the religious improvement of the modern Jews, must be the abandonment of the Talmud, and a return to the simplicity of the Mosaic law.

Besides this great repository of their traditions, the Jews have commentaries of their Rabbins, of uncertain age, on books of Scripture, under the name of Medraschim; and collections of their sayings. I do not mention here their cabalistical writings; which are, evidently, too fanciful and absurd, to furnish materials to the antiquary.

After participating in the darkness of the middle ages, Jewish literature and science revived with great brilliancy in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, from the connection of the Jews with the Saracens of Spain, and their acquaintance with the Aristotelian philosophy. Of the learned men who arose about this time, Jarchi, Aben Ezra, and David Kimchi, are most celebrated for their grammatical and critical works: Moses Ben Maimon, or Maimonides, for the vigour of his understanding, and his knowledge of the ancient rites and ceremonies of his nation. He gave consistency and systematic form to the Jewish doctrines, and his articles are the standard of Jewish orthodoxy. The age at which these authors lived, however, prevents us from receiving them as original testimonies to any thing which concerns the state of the Jews before the destruction of their polity. The question how far Rabbinical authority can be relied on for Jewish antiquity, resolves itself at last into the credibility of those who wrote in the first five centuries after the Christian era, and especially of the Mishna and the Gemaras.

It is now pretty generally admitted, that these works are very delusive guides, in respect to the times of the Old Testament. But it might be thought, that, having been compiled at so short an interval after the destruction of Jerusalem, we might have trusted to them safely for information respecting the times of the preaching of the Gospel, and the immediately preceding period. And it cannot be denied that some advantage is to be derived from them in this way, but much less than might have been expected.[^[4]] It is not necessary to have recourse to works, which, like the Entdecktes Judenthum of Eisenmenger, have been written purposely to expose the Talmuds to contempt; it is sufficient even to consult the professed extracts of what is useful in them, such as the works of Lightfoot (a name not to be mentioned without respect and gratitude) to be convinced how large a proportion is frivolous subtlety or groundless fiction. Indulging themselves in an unbounded license of invention, to solve difficulties, or exaggerate the glories of their nation and religion, they incur the usual penalty of those who violate the truth, and are suspected of falsehood, even when they may be innocent. The rule which Schöttgenius lays down—eligendum est quod Scripturæ Sacræ magis convenit et quod cæteris paribus aliorum antiquiorum auctoritas sequendum suaserit—affords no guide in respect to those accounts which Scripture does not confirm, nor yet by its silence necessarily invalidate. Here an author can only follow his own judgment and feeling of probability. The reader must determine for himself, whether, in the Pilgrimage of Helon, only due weight has been given to Rabbinical authority. I have endeavoured to enable him to ascertain, by the references, what rests on this, and what on more solid ground.

The descriptions given by travellers of the present manners of the people of Palestine, Syria, and Arabia, have furnished another and less fallacious means of completing the picture of Jewish life. Allied to the children of Israel, according to the testimony of Scripture and their own traditions, by a common origin, and experiencing little change from age to age, these nations still present the strongest conformity with the manners described in the Bible; nor has any thing contributed more to its illustration, than the use which modern critics have made of oriental voyages and travels. The Arab Sheikh, among his flocks and herds, recalls the very image of patriarchal times; allowing for the change which religion has made, the mourning and the festivity, the diet, dress, and habitation, of the present natives of these regions, will be found nearly what they were two thousand years ago. It is true, that we advance a step further, when, from the present state of the east, we describe what it was at this distant period, than when we merely illustrate scriptural allusions from modern oriental manners: but among the various descriptions which might be given, that will be nearest to the truth which is most accordant with the known usages of eastern nations; and though this presumption can never amount to a positive proof of its accuracy, the reader is not misled, provided he is informed on what he relies. The author has also occasionally attributed some of the practices of the modern Jews to their ancestors of the Asmonean period; and, perhaps, the singular inflexibility which characterises the manners not less than the faith of this people, may justify him in so doing.

The reader may possibly think that too flattering a portrait of the Jews has been drawn in the Pilgrimage of Helon. Whoever is acquainted with an earlier work of the same author, Die Glockentöne, will perceive at once, that the piety, enthusiasm, and ardent feeling, the sensibility to the religio loci, which mark the hero of the narrative, are the characteristics of the writer’s own mind. And as every variety of temperament exists in every age of the world, there is nothing unnatural in the creation of such a character as that of Helon among the Jewish people, if it only acts and is acted upon, according to the principles and motives of the times to which it is referred. If, in the description of the national character, he has heightened its virtues, or touched its faults with a lenient hand, it must be remembered, that this was the almost inevitable consequence of that warm interest in his subject, without which he could have had no power to engage his readers’ feelings. To those who cannot be satisfied, unless the Jews are described as sunk in all the vices which mark a people for the vengeance of heaven, I would suggest how improbable it is, that the religious and moral advantages which they enjoyed should not have made them better than those whose corrupt religion, if it had any, had a pernicious influence on their morals—or that Providence should select the instruments of the moral regeneration of mankind from among a people, whose depravity equalled or exceeded that of the heathen world. Were this a proper place for entering on such a discussion, it might not be difficult to show how unjustly we identify the whole body of the people with the hypocritical Pharisees whom our Lord rebuked; or infer their ordinary character from what Josephus says of the atrocities committed by them, when stung by oppression, engaged in a desperate struggle for independence and existence, and maddened by faction and fanaticism; under the influence of which, Christian nations have manifested an equal disregard of justice and humanity.

The translator may perhaps be singular in regarding the Jewish people, even in the last days of their national independence, as objects rather of commiseration than abhorrence; but surely there can be no question, that the language in which they are perpetually spoken of must tend to retard the event, which every true Christian earnestly desires, the removal of that veil of prejudice which hides from them the evidence of the divine origin of the Gospel. Beneath the exterior appearance of passive submission, which fear and oppression have taught the Jew to assume, and the habits of sordid worldliness to which our unjust laws condemn him, lurks a deep-seated animosity against the Christian name—a name associated in his mind with the brutal outrages of fanatic mobs, the extortion and cruelty of tyrannical rulers; and though last, not least in bitterness, the harsh and contumelious language with which his nation is assailed, as if they were branded with the curse of heaven, and a perpetual memorial of its vengeance. While the feeling continues which such reproaches necessarily perpetuate, the efforts of Christians for the conversion of the Jews will probably be as fruitless as they have hitherto been. It would well become the disciples of the religion of love, to set the example of conciliation; and to renounce the use of language which is equally unfavourable in its influence on those who employ and those who endure it.

Tuque prior, tu parce, genus qui ducis Olympo!

HELON'S PILGRIMAGE

TO

JERUSALEM.

BOOK I. CHAP. I.
ALEXANDRIA.

The whole house was in commotion. The camels were receiving their load in the inner court, and drinking, before their journey, from the fountain beneath the palm trees. The slaves ran this way and that way: in the apartments of the women the maid-servants were busily preparing the farewell meal for the son of their mistress, who, while she hurried in different directions and issued her commands, was repeating the words of the forty-second Psalm.—

As the hart panteth for the water-brooks,

So panteth my soul after thee, O God!

My soul thirsteth for God,

The living God!

When shall I return

And appear before the face of God!

She had been born in the Holy Land, and her deceased husband had brought her to Egypt. The country in which her youthful days had been spent, and the journies to Jerusalem, in which she had borne a part, rose up to her remembrance, and with overflowing eyes she proceeded:

My tears have been my food day and night,

While they say unto me continually

“Where is thy God?”

The thought of her deceased husband rushed upon her mind, and her tears flowed in a fuller stream. Yet with a lighter heart, and with a less faltering voice, she proceeded: (ver. 4.)

When I remember these things, my heart melteth within me;

How I had gone with the multitude to the house of God,

How I had gone with the voice of joy and praise,

With the multitude that kept the festival.

At this moment Helon met her. She embraced him and said, “So once I went to the holy city, but now I must remain a captive in a strange land. All the day long this psalm of the sons of Korah dwells upon my mind. Thy father sang it the last evening that we spent together. Immediately after, he set out for the promised land, and returned no more.”

Helon was moved by the distress of his mother. His feelings had been the same as hers, but he was near the accomplishment of his wishes. He was about to visit the holy city, and the grave of his father in the valley of Jehoshaphat; and raising himself from his mother’s embrace, he replied, “Hast thou forgotten the thrice repeated chorus of that psalm?”

Why art thou cast down, O my soul,

And why art thou disquieted within me?

Hope thou in God; for I shall yet praise him

Who is my deliverer and my God.

Sallu, a young Jew, who had been purchased as a servant of the family six years before, now entered the apartment. He was dejected, and anxiously asked Helon, “Wilt thou not take me with thee, master?” The mother replied, “Thou art free; yesterday thy six years expired, and it shall be Helon's last employment before his departure solemnly to [emancipate] thee.” The youth kept his eyes fixed upon Helon, as if he was still asking him, “Wilt thou not take me with thee, master?” “Why dost thou refuse thy freedom, Sallu?” said Helon. “Master,” replied he, “when thy father bought me, six years ago, I was a houseless, friendless boy. I have been brought up with thee, and if I now must leave thee, I shall be again without a friend or a home. I will not leave thee: thou art going to Jerusalem, and, if I go not with thee, I shall never behold the altar of my God, nor the place to which I direct my prayers. Take me with thee, and I will be a servant in thine house all my days. I have called the elders, and they will be here immediately.”

They endeavoured to dissuade him from his purpose. Helon painted to him the value of freedom, and the mercy of Jehovah towards the bondsmen in Israel, in appointing their release in the seventh year. His mother promised him that he should not go forth empty handed; that she would give him “of her flock, and of her barn, and of her wine-press, of all in which the Lord her God had blessed her,” as the Lord had commanded by Moses in the law.[^[5]] But Sallu replied, “Nay but I will remain with thee: it is best for me to be here.” The elders had now arrived.

“This youth,” said one of them, “will be a servant of thy house. Come together to the gate.”

The elders, with Helon, his mother, and Sallu, went through the covered way, as far as the gate which opened to the outer court. Sallu stood beside the gate-posts. The elder asked him, “Wilt thou not leave Helon?” Sallu replied, “I will not leave him; for I love him and his house.” Then Helon took an awl, and piercing his ears against the door-post, made him his servant for ever. The elders pronounced a blessing, and Helon put a ring through the ears of Sallu, as a sign that he was become his property. The youth bounded for joy, and exclaimed, “I have bought thee with my blood. Wilt thou not now take me with thee to the Holy Land?” “Go,” said Helon, “to look after the camels, and prepare thyself for the journey.”

The mother invited the elders to partake of the farewell supper with her and her son, at which Elisama was also to be present. They consented, and went back with her into the inner court (the [thavech].) Helon remained awhile behind, to inspect the preparations for the journey. The slaves were equipping three stately dromedaries, which, young, high-spirited, and fleet, deserved the name of ships of the desert. They had taken a long draught at the well, while the slaves laid in order the baggage which contained the food and clothing of the travellers, and [presents] for their host in Jerusalem. In the east, the expressions of friendship were made by deeds rather than by words, and the travellers destined for their host costly caftans, Egyptian linen, a robe of thread of gold, and some books written on papyrus. The camels, kneeling down, received the burthen on their backs.

Helon’s uncle, Elisama, who was to be his guide on the pilgrimage to the Holy Land, arrived, examined the preparations, and appointed to the slaves the hour of departure. Helon and he then went together into the [inner court], where the elders were sitting under the palms beside the fountain, and enjoying the refreshing coolness of the evening. This inner court, around whose sides ran a portico and a gallery, was paved with green, white, yellow, and black marble. An awning of various colours was stretched over it to shelter from the burning rays of the sun; and in the middle was the fountain with its lofty palms. In Alexandria, as in the east generally, this was the place for the reception of visitors.

The meal was prepared, and the elders arose from beside the fountain to place themselves on cushions around the table. A venerable man with hoary locks took the place of honour, the middle place, on the middle cushion. The seven-branched lamp shed a bright light around, from its one and twenty flames. The slaves had strewed the table, the cushions, and the floor with the flowers of spring. Sallu came with a silver basin, poured water on the hands of the guests, and when he had wiped them sprinkled on them the fragrant [nard]. The most delicate productions of fertile Egypt were served up; among which the mother had not forgotten [the fish of the Nile], that her son might taste them once more before his departure. Helon [lay before Elisama], or, as it was called in the east, in his bosom.

Elisama, acting as father of the house, [blessed] the bread. He spread both his hands over it, and said, “Blessed be thou, O Lord our God, King of the world, who causest bread to grow out of the earth;” and the rest answered “Amen.” As this was an entertainment, the wine also was blessed. Elisama took the cup with both hands, then holding it with the right, at the height of a yard above the table, he praised the Lord and said, “Blessed be thou, O Lord our God, who hast given unto us the fruit of the vine;” and the rest again replied, “Amen.” The bread and wine were blessed with both hands, that the fingers might be a remembrance of the number of the commandments. This done, he repeated the twenty-third Psalm:

The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want.

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures,

He leadeth me beside the soft flowing waters,

He refresheth my soul,

He leadeth me in the straight path

For his name’s sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I fear no evil, for thou art with me;

Thy rod and thy staff comfort me.

Thou preparest a table for me

In the presence of mine enemies;

Thou anointest my head with oil;

My cup runneth over

Surely goodness and mercy follow me all my life,

I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

This was the prayer with which the festive meal was usually hallowed in Israel. The guests helped themselves and enjoyed the feast. When the last dish was removed, Elisama began: “It is long since I repeated that beautiful psalm, with such a feeling of devotion as to-day. One might think that it had been written expressly for the feast on the evening before our departure for the Holy Land. '[Happy the people] that know the sound of the trumpet!'”

Helon’s kindling glance, thanked Elisama for thus expressing the sentiment of which his own heart was full. But one of the elders replied, “The sound of the trumpet is heard also in Leontopolis, and the psalm might be repeated with equal propriety, before a journey to the nome of Heliopolis.”

“I always maintain,” said Elisama, “that Israel is Israel nowhere but in the Holy Land.”

“But does not the law itself declare,” said the elder, “Thou shalt not abhor an Egyptian, because thou wast a stranger in his land?[^[6]] Did not the patriarchs of our nation always repair to Egypt in their distress, and did not the land of Ham almost always show a brotherly compassion for the children of Shem? Why did our forefathers always resort to this land of wonders, rather than to Syria or Mesopotamia? Does it not appear as if some secret guiding of Providence had always impelled Israel to unite himself with his brethren of Misraim? Was not our father Abraham himself in Egypt?” “And well did Pharaoh reward him by his treatment of Sarah,” interrupted Elisama. “Jehovah himself forbad Isaac to go down to Egypt.”[^[7]]

“Yet,” replied the elder, “[Jacob came hither] with seventy souls; Joseph was proclaimed the father of the land, and Pharaoh said to him, I am Pharaoh, and without thee shall no man lift up his hand or foot in the land of Egypt.[^[8]] Moses was born here and brought up at court, and Jeremiah also was here.[^[9]] When Alexander founded this city, he brought a multitude of our nation hither; the first Ptolemy settled a hundred thousand of them in different parts of the land, and because the kings thought us to be the brethren of the Egyptians, we have obtained the privileges of the highest rank of citizens, and are called, like the conquerors themselves, Macedonians. The Lord has moved the heart of the king and queen, and Onias, the son of Onias, has built us a temple in Leontopolis, which is an exact copy of that on mount Moriah. Soon shall we be still more highly exalted. You know that let the schemes of Ptolemy Lathyrus be what they may, his mother Cleopatra, who is joint regent with him, has the administration in her hands, and by her means (a thing unheard of in any other country) two of our nation, Hilkias and Ananias, the sons of Onias, are at the head of the army.”

“The God of Israel bless Cleopatra our queen! May he increase her a thousandfold, and cause her seed to possess the gate of their enemies,” exclaimed the elders.

“What thou hast said of our fathers, and of their journies into Egypt is true; but acknowledge also,” said Elisama, “that they never failed to return to the Holy Land, when they had an opportunity; and we will do the same.”

“No,” said the elder, “we have our own temple in Egypt, our Oneion.”

“But it is contrary to the law of the Lord; on Moriah only should the temple and the altar stand. Jehovah spoke to Moses saying,[^[10]] ‘To the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes, to put his name there, even unto his habitation shall ye seek, and thither shall ye come, and thither shall ye bring your burnt-offerings: but take heed that thou offer not thy burnt-offerings in any place that thou seest; in the place which the Lord shall choose there shalt thou offer thy burnt-offerings, and do all that the Lord thy God requires of thee.’ And five hundred years after, when the temple was built, he said to Solomon, when he appeared to him in the night, ‘I have heard thy prayer and have chosen this place to myself, as a house of sacrifice.’[^[11]] And this place is Moriah, where Abraham was about to offer up his own son.”

“Knowest thou not,” continued the elder, “what Isaiah, the greatest of all the prophets, said two hundred years later? Our high priest wrote the passage to the king and queen at the building of the Oneion. In that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan and swear to the Lord of Hosts: one shall be called [Irhaheres, Leontopolis].”[^[12]]

Elisama replied, “I adhere to the words of the psalm, ‘The Lord hath chosen Zion and delights to dwell therein.’[^[13]] To Isaiah also the Lord spoke, saying, ‘I will comfort you as one whom his mother comforteth, and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem.’[^[14]] We might say to you of Alexandria, what the Lord said by the mouth of Jeremiah, 'Go up into Gilead and take balm, O virgin daughter of Egypt!'”[^[15]]

“Yet Jehovah, in the same chapter, calls Egypt a fair heifer.”

“True, but he threatens her; ‘destruction cometh from the north,’ and in us will his word be fulfilled, 'ye shall be ashamed of Egypt as thou wast ashamed of Assyria.'”[^[16]]

“Now accursed be he who reviles the Oneion, the temple of the Lord, and Egypt and the queen,” exclaimed the elder, in vehement indignation. They had long ceased to eat, as their conversation became more animated, and sat upright upon their cushions. The elder started on his feet, and seemed about to offer some violence to Elisama; but a grey-headed elder, who had hither only listened, interposed between them, and with the calmness of age said to them both, “Peace, my children! There is enough of strife in Israel; let not us increase it. Do thou remain in Egypt, and thou Elisama take thy way to Jerusalem. The Messiah cometh and will teach us all things.”

The mother entered the room. “What sayst thou, dejected mother in Israel,” continued the aged man. “She could not,” she said, “divest herself of the fear that one of the travellers would never return. So it had been six years before. Her only comfort was, that her deceased husband had been buried in the valley of Jehoshaphat, and nothing would have induced her to consent to Helon’s departure, but the thought that he would visit his father’s grave. Ye all knew him,” said she, turning to the guests, “he was a stay of Israel in a foreign land.”

The elders turned to Helon and said, “Blessed be thou, for thou art the son of an upright man, and one that feared God.” “As to thy apprehension that one of us may not return,” said Elisama, “let us rather hope, that we shall bring back with us a new member of the family, a future mother, either from Jericho or from Anathoth.”

The mother smiled, with a significant look, which seemed to say that she already knew more of this matter. The elder, who had scarcely recovered from his passion, seemed not well pleased that the number of Aramæan Jews in Alexandria should be increased. Helon blushed, and observed the modest silence which became a youth in Israel, in the presence of his elders.

“Of the two,” said the old man, “thou wouldst rather receive thy new relation from Anathoth.” “True,” she replied, “many of our friends live there, and there the holy prophet Jeremiah was born.” The mention of Jeremiah was sufficient to kindle Elisama. His forefathers had accompanied the prophet, when, after Ishmael’s outrage upon Gedaliah,[^[17]] he was carried into Egypt, by the people who feared the vengeance of the king of Babylon; and he had sojourned with this family. “While there lives one of our race,” exclaimed Elisama, “never shall it be forgotten by us that we once entertained a prophet of the Lord. His writings are our favourite study, and by them we are directed to seek the Holy Land.”

The discourse assumed a more cheerful character. The last cup was emptied. Sallu washed the hands of the guests, and sprinkled them with fragrant oil. Elisama pronounced the thanksgiving, and the old man rising up, took Helon’s hand and said, “Farewell, and take with thee my blessing.” Then, laying his hands upon the young man’s head, he said—

“He that keepeth Israel neither slumbereth nor sleepeth.

May Jehovah be thy keeper, thy shade on thy right hand!

May Jehovah preserve thy going out and coming in,

From this time forth and for evermore?”—Ps. cxxi.

The other elders also blessed him, but it was evident that they would have done it with a more hearty good will, if he had been going to Leontopolis. All the guests took leave, and returned to their respective abodes.

CHAPTER II.
THE DEPARTURE.

It was late in the evening: the slaves extinguished the seven-branched lamp and laid the cushions for beds in the porticoes which surrounded the inner court. All retired speedily to rest, that they might set out the earlier on the following morning. But the mother still lingered on the spot; her grief increased as the time of departure drew nigh; weeping she embraced her child, and said, “Call me Mara, for I am a sorrowful mother in Israel.” Helon in silence leant upon her bosom, till Elisama came, and said to her: “Bethink thee of what our prophet saith,[^[18]] 'Rachel weepeth for her children and refuseth to be comforted. But thus saith the Lord, refrain thy voice from weeping and thine eye from tears: for thy work shall be rewarded and thy children shall come again to their own border.'” He forced her away into the inner apartments, and himself lay down on one of the cushions in the portico.

Helon did not attempt to sleep. Wishing his uncle calm repose, he ascended the roof of the house where stood the [alija], a small apartment like a turret, dedicated to secret meditation and prayer. From the roof there was an extensive view over the city of Alexandria; on the north to the Mediterranean, on the south to the lake Mareotis, and on the east to the Nile and the Delta. Here he had often stood when a boy, and with restless longing had looked towards the Holy Land. It was a clear, calm night of spring. Refreshing odours arose from the surrounding gardens. The countless stars shed down their twinkling radiance upon him, and the moon’s new light was mirrored in the lake and the canals of the Nile.

Before him lay the city of Alexander, justly styled in the days of her highest prosperity, the Queen of the East and the Chief of Cities. In what stillness she now reposed, with her towering obelisks! How deep the silence and the rest which wrapt her 600,000 inhabitants, and her five harbours, by day so full of activity and noise! The house was near the [Panium], from which the whole city could be seen at one view. There stood the Bruchium which, besides the royal palace, contained the Museum, rendered the chief seat of the learning of the times, by its library of 400,000 volumes, and by being the residence of the learned men, whom the munificence of the Ptolemies had collected around their court. Here Helon had sat for several years, at the feet of the philosophers. He thought on those years, and, as he compared them with his present hopes, he exclaimed:

Better is a day in thy courts than a thousand!

I would rather be a door-keeper in the house of the Lord

Than dwell in the tents of sin.—Ps. lxxxiv. 10.

“Truly the tents of sin,” said he to himself, as he paced the roof, “even when I think on my own people, who live here in high favour. Let them be called Macedonians if they will, let the sons of the high priest be the commanders of the army, let them hope for still greater distinctions from Cleopatra’s favour, it is still an exile and Israel is in affliction. Their schisms in doctrine and laxity of morals are too plain a proof of it.”

He went into the alija and brought out his harp; the plaintive tones resounded through the still air of night as he sung

By the rivers of Babel we sat and wept

When we thought on Zion.

We hung our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof.—Ps. cxxxvii.

“Here we ought to hang them upon the pyramids,” continued he. “The controversy which destroyed the harmony of our social meal this evening still jars upon my soul. Praised be God, that Jeremiah sojourned with my forefathers, that they like myself have continued Aramæan Jews, and have not gone over to the Hellenists.”

The Diaspora, or body of the Jews dispersed in foreign countries, was divided at this time into Hellenists and Aramæan Jews. The Hellenists had adopted the Greek, at that time the universal language of the civilized and literary world; the [Aramæan Jews] used, even in foreign lands, the Hebrew, or rather a dialect of that language, called the Aramæan. The latter attached themselves to the temple at Jerusalem, the former worshipped at Leontopolis in Egypt. A division once begun is easily extended to other points. With the Greek language the Hellenists had adopted Grecian culture, yet wished still to continue Jews, and hence arose the necessity for uniting philosophy with the law. The only way in which this could be accomplished, was that which they adopted, of attributing the doctrines of Grecian wisdom to the law, as its inward and spiritual meaning. In this undertaking the Egyptians had led the way for them. Egypt is the native country of [allegories]. For a long time past the popular religion had been very different from that of the sacerdotal caste, and they stood to each other in the relation of the letter to the spirit; of the image to the reality. The Hellenistic Jews had adopted this Egyptian mode, and three classes had been formed amongst them. One party openly renounced both law and allegory, living without the law, which indeed it was impossible to observe exactly any where but in Judea. Another outwardly conformed to the law, but did so for the sake of its hidden and spiritual meaning. A third set were contented with this spiritual meaning, which they arbitrarily annexed to it, and concerned themselves no further with the literal observance. No little confusion had arisen from this variety of opinions, and the incessant controversies to which they gave rise.

Helon had been hurried by the prevailing spirit of his age and country for some years into the vortex of allegory. A youth of such an ardent temperament and high intellectual endowments, connected with the most considerable families of the Alexandrian Jews, could scarcely escape this temptation. Had his father been alive, he would have been a constant monitor to him against the danger—but since his death on the journey to the Holy Land, Helon’s danger had increased, with the increase of his liberty. It seems too as if it were necessary that those master spirits, who are destined successfully to oppose the errors of their times, should themselves for a while be involved in them. The scattered intimations which the law itself affords opened to him a new and attractive field, which he was eager to explore completely. He was advised to make himself acquainted with the Grecian philosophy, as the source of the knowledge which he desired, and for this purpose he resorted to the Museum. His first instructor here was a Stoic, who demanded from him a greater rigour than even the law had required, but at the same time taught him, that the knowledge of God was not necessary. Helon forsook him, and applied himself to an acute Peripatetic; but his thoughts seemed more occupied with his pecuniary remuneration, than with the high rewards of wisdom and philosophy. Helon lost no time in seeking another teacher. A Pythagorean required, as a preliminary, a long study of music, astronomy and geometry, and Helon thought that the knowledge of the truth might surely be attained by a less circuitous process. At last a young and lively Greek of the name of Myron, whom he had known as a child, introduced him to a Platonic philosopher. In him he seemed to have found all of which he had been in search. He perused with Myron the dialogues of him whom his disciples called the divine. Those were hours never to be forgotten, in which his doctrine of [reminiscences], of virtue that is not to be taught or learnt, of That which is, first irradiated his mind. About this time he became acquainted with , who was also a Platonist, and profoundly skilled in the interpretation of the law. He could answer every question which Helon wished to ask respecting the sense of scripture. He explained to him the seven days of creation, and the ten commandments, in their spiritual import; and taught him much respecting the world of ideas, which he had not found even in Plato. His new teacher represented the divine intelligence, not as an attribute of God, but as a being having a distinct existence, and called it the image of God, his first born son, the highest of the angels and the primeval man.

For a long time his fancy rioted in these speculations, to which he was so entirely devoted, that if he continued to observe the law, it was owing to the pure and simple manners to which he was accustomed in his father’s family. But every thing which only gratifies the understanding loses its charm, especially with men of lively and ardent temperament, when it loses its novelty. When Helon’s first transport, at the enlargement of his views, had subsided, and cool reflection began to resume her sway; when he perceived that Myron could, with equal ease, explain and vindicate the worship of Jupiter, Bacchus, and Apollo—the Orphic and Dionysian mysteries—and all the idolatries of polytheism, by the aid of the same principles which his teacher had applied to the interpretation of scripture; suspicions were awakened in his mind that these principles could not be true. That which converts falsehood into truth, he thought, can never increase the force and evidence of truth. The promises which were given to Israel, the threatenings and warnings of Jehovah against participation in idolatry, recurred to his mind. The image of his deceased father was daily held up to him by his mother, as one who had abhorred the system of the Hellenists. A feeling of pride in his own nation, as the chosen people of Jehovah, was awakened in his bosom, and he could no longer take pleasure in the society of Myron.

He began now to remark the endless varieties and inconsistencies of these allegorical interpretations. Every one, full of the persuasion of his own wisdom, expounded the divine word according to his own fancy. Helon could not but perceive that all this wisdom was an arbitrary, self-invented, human system of doctrine respecting divine things, in opposition to which, not only Plato but the whole tenour of scripture taught him, that God only can be our [instructor] in things relating to himself, and that human reason must here rely upon revelation. This revelation he found in the law, delivered to his nation upon mount Sinai, under circumstances the most impressive and sublime. While this train of thought tended to alienate him from the Hellenists and their system, his mother one evening remarked to him with sorrow his slowness in fulfilling the divine precepts. At first he was so much offended by it, that he replied to her remonstrance only by a sarcastic look, and retired to his books. But conscience did not allow him to rest. Suddenly the divine denunciation occurred to him, “The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.”[^[19]] He was deeply moved, and now saw with opened eyes the abyss of immorality, to the edge of which this new wisdom had conducted him. He had long desired to be free from the burthensome duties of the law, and he had now transgressed against the first commandment with promise. He felt to what this heathen philosophy, this partial culture of the mind, was bringing him; and in the lives of its professors he saw, in all their rank maturity, the vices, of which he discovered the seeds in his own heart. They lived without a law, sunk in heathen vice and immorality. He now perceived that nothing but the most faithful obedience to the law could make him truly happy, that in this way only he became a partaker in the promises of God to the upright, and that the passion for allegories had corrupted his mind instead of enlightening it. These reflections determined him to return to the faith of his fathers.

He now felt himself once more at home under his paternal roof; his former filial reverence for his mother returned; his father’s spirit seemed to smile on his conversion; and the experienced counsels of his uncle proved much more than an equivalent to him for all the wisdom of the Museum. All the joys and the longings of his childhood returned upon him; the feelings of the present moment seemed to be linked immediately to the remembrances of his boyish days, and all that had intervened appeared like a period of delusion. His desire to behold Jerusalem came over him again, in all its original vividness: it had been the strongest of his early feelings, and the very names of Canaan, Zion, and Jerusalem, had held a mysterious sway over his imagination. His mother, as he sat upon her knees, had told him of the place, towards which he was taught to lisp his prayer; of the thousands who went up to the feast; of Moses, David, and Solomon; and had represented Egypt as a land of exile, another Babel, in comparison with the land of his fathers. He often saw her weep when she spoke of Jericho and her native city, and related how she, when a maiden, had gone up in the choir of singers to the festival, but must now remain in a strange land. As the severest punishment for his childish offences, he used to be told, that it would be a long time before he would be fit to accompany his father on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land; and the reward of his proficiency and his obedience was the promise of a sight of Jerusalem. When Jews from the holy city visited Alexandria, and, as their custom was, came to see his father, it was a festival for Helon; he regarded these strangers with scarcely less veneration than his fathers had done Jeremiah, and tried all the insinuating arts of which he was possessed, to induce the most courteous among them to tell him something about the land of his ancestors. It was the land of promise, the theme of sacred song, the theatre of sacred history. When his father was in a cheerful mood, he used to relate anecdotes of his pilgrimages, beginning and ending every narrative with the words of the children of Korah:

The Lord loveth the gates of Zion,

Whose foundation is in the holy mountains,

More than all the dwellings of Jacob.

Glorious is it to speak of thee,

O city of God!—Ps. lxxxvii.

The journey from which his father never returned, was to have been the last which he made alone—on the next, Helon was to have accompanied him. His grief at being obliged to remain at home, his mother’s tears, his father’s solemn farewell, as it were prophetic of the fatal event; his mother’s daily remarks, “Now they are in Hebron, to-day they will reach Jerusalem; to-day the passover begins, to-day it will be over;” their joyful expectations of his return, and the overwhelming intelligence of his death, had all combined to leave an impression on his mind, which he had with difficulty mastered for a time, and which now revived with uncontroulable force. Since his return to the law of his fathers, a pilgrimage to Jerusalem had been his dream by night and his thought by day. Leontopolis, the character and proceedings of the Hellenists, and even the conversation at this evening’s entertainment, all conspired to convince him, that Egypt was no place for the fulfilment of the law. It was now the predominant wish of his soul to become a true Israelite, a faithful follower of the law, and a worthy member of the people of the Lord, and he felt that only in the Holy Land could he become so.

All these reflections and retrospects of his past life filled the mind of Helon, as he laid down his harp upon the parapet of the roof, and paced up and down in strong emotion. At times he stopped, and fixing his eyes on the north-east, almost persuaded himself that the clouds which he saw there were the hills of Judah. In the mean time Sallu, who, like his master, had been unable to sleep, had silently placed a lamp in the alija. Helen was attracted by the light and went in. A roll lay unfolded; he looked into it, and opened at the splendid description which an exile at Nineveh, of the tribe of Naphthali, makes of the holy city. (Tob. x.) “O Jerusalem, the holy city! Many nations shall come from far to the name of the Lord God, with gifts in their hands. Blessed are they that love thee, and rejoice in thy peace. Let my soul bless God, the great King: for the Lord our God will deliver Jerusalem from all her afflictions. The gates of Jerusalem shall be built of sapphires and emeralds and precious stones; thy towers and battlements of pure gold: and the streets of Jerusalem shall be paved with white marble, and in all her streets shall they say, Hallelujah! Praised be God who hath exalted her, and may his kingdom endure for ever. Amen.”

“Hallelujah,” he exclaimed, “that before me an [Egyptian Jew] could put such words into the mouth of a captive at Nineveh.” He hastened to his harp, and placing the footstool under his foot, turned towards the Holy Land as he sung

O Jehovah, thou art my God, early will I seek thee.

My soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee,

In a dry and thirsty land.

Would that I might see thy sanctuary,

To behold thy power and glory.—Ps. lxiii.

He knew by heart all the psalms which had any relation to Jerusalem, and no sooner had he finished one, than his fingers and his voice, unbidden, began another.

When Israel went out of Egypt,

The house of Jacob from a people of strange language,

Judah was his sanctuary,

Israel his dominion.—Ps. cxiv.

His own pilgrimage to Jerusalem seemed to him like the departure of Israel from Egypt fourteen hundred years before, and he was transported at once to those remote ages with so lively a feeling, that the psalm seemed to him to spring fresh from his own soul, and to have been dictated by his own emotions. The forty-third Psalm occurred to his mind, and with the raised look, but subdued voice of humble devotion, he sung—

Send out thy light and thy truth and let them guide me!

Let them bring me to thy holy hill and to thy tabernacles!

Then will I go unto the altar of God,

Unto God my exceeding joy.

Yea upon the harp will I praise thee,

O God, my God!

Why art thou cast down, O my soul,

And why art thou disquieted within me?

Hope in God; for I shall yet praise him

Who is the health of my countenance and my God.

The tones of the harp gradually died away, and Helon remained absorbed in gratitude and devotion towards Jehovah.

At length he arose to perform his evening prayer. Since his return to the law of his fathers, he had been rigid in the performance of this duty, and without discriminating accurately, in the fervour of his new zeal, between the commands of God, and the usages established by tradition, he would gladly even have added to their length and frequency. There was at this time a distinction commonly made among the Aramæan Jews between the righteous man, who only aimed to fulfil the law as it was left by Moses; and the pious man, who, not content with this, endeavoured by the performance of other ordinances to attain a still higher degree of the divine favour. At an earlier period of Helon’s life, it would have seemed to him a superfluous trouble, to endeavour to deserve the character of the [righteous man]; now, nothing could satisfy him, but to aspire to the rank of a pious man.

The washing of the hands preceded prayer, because nothing impure was to appear before the purest of Beings. Helon next covered his head with his mantle, a sort of [tallith]. This mantle had at the four corners fringes, which were called zizis, consisting of eight double twisted threads of wool, whose azure colour had a reference to the heavens, with five tassels for the five books of the law. The use of these fringes had been commanded by God himself to the children of Israel, “That they might look upon them and remember all the commandments of the Lord and do them, and seek not after their own heart and their own eyes.”[^[20]] He next bound the [phylacteries], called tephillim, on his forehead and his left arm, in such a way, that the strings of the first hung upon his breast, and the latter were wound seven times round the fore-arm, then across the fore-finger and the thumb, and finally three times round the middle finger. These phylacteries were little cases, containing strips of parchment, on which the following sentences of the law were written. Deut. v. 11, 13-21. Exod. xiii. 11-16. Deut. vi. 4-9. and Exod. xiii. 1-10. of which the Lord had commanded “They shall be for a token upon thine hand and for frontlets between thine eyes.”[^[21]] In the phylactery for the forehead there were four strips, in that for the left arm only one.

He now placed himself with his face towards Jerusalem and prayed the Kri-schma, a prayer which consisted of these three passages from the books of Moses; Deut. vi. 4-9. in which it is commanded to love and honour God alone; Deut. xi. 13-21. where the promises are given for the fulfilling of the law; and Numb. xv. 37-41. where it is required that the commandments be diligently kept. He concluded all with a prayer to God, as being, in every act of religious worship, the beginning and the end, the centre to which every thing tends.

Having performed his devotions, he descended with a cheerful heart from the roof, and laid himself beside Elisama in the portico. At the first cock-crowing he arose; for strengthened and animated by hope he had little need of sleep.

He went first to the alija, and having repeated the ceremonies of the preceding evening, and again concluded with an act of praise to God, he roused the slaves and bade them lead the laden camels to the gate. His mother came, with eyes red with weeping, from the apartment of the women. The sun was rising at that moment, and Elisama approaching her, tried to console her with the words of the eighty-fourth Psalm,

The Lord God is a sun and shield,

The Lord will give grace and glory;

No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.

O Lord of Hosts

Blessed is the man that trusteth in thee!

“Yes,” she exclaimed,

Turn thee unto me and have mercy upon me,

For I am desolate and afflicted.

The travellers were invited to take some food, but Elisama declared that only the servant in Israel [took food early] in the morning, and to others it was a disgrace. The mother, however, was not to be dissuaded, and compelled them to take dates, figs, and honey. “Greet thy father’s grave,” said she to Helon. “Let thy first visit be to the valley of Jehoshaphat.” Sallu led out the camels. He was full of joy, and every moment touched his ear-ring as a badge of honour. The mother embraced her son, and weeping said to him,

The Lord bless thee and keep thee!

The Lord make his face to shine upon thee

And be gracious unto thee!

The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee

And give thee peace!

“Go then,” she exclaimed, “God be with thee on the way, and his angel lead thee!”

Helon tore himself from her, and, accompanied by his uncle, descended the inner court. He had scarcely reached the outer, before the delightful expectation of visiting Jerusalem had already gained the ascendency in his thoughts over the sorrow of departure. And when from the end of the street he had cast back a look on the parental house, and blessed once more his mother and the alija, he proceeded with alacrity on his way, repeating to himself,

Blessed is the man who puts his confidence in thee,

And [thinks of the way] to Jerusalem.

No farewell to home is ever less painful than the first.

CHAPTER III.
THE CARAVAN.

The slaves halted before the gate with the camels and the horses. The camels bore the travelling equipage, provisions, clothes, and presents for the hosts. Sallu when weary was to find a seat upon the one which was most lightly loaded. Elisama and Helon mounted two stately Egyptian horses, which they designed to sell again at Gaza. Egypt abounds with [beautiful horses], and supplies the neighbouring country with them.

They had arranged their journey so well, that, by joining a Tyrian caravan from Pelusium to Gaza, they would be able to arrive in Judea time enough to accompany the pilgrims from Hebron on their way to Jerusalem. From Alexandria to Pelusium their road lay through Egypt, and they might venture to make it alone.

Alexandria lies upon a tongue of land, between the Mediterranean sea on the north, and the lake Mareotis on the south. Their journey at first lay between these two, affording them views first of one and then of the other. The shore of the lake was covered with palm trees and papyrus, canals united it with the Nile, and splendid buildings rose on every side of it. Helon, in spite of his longing for the Holy Land, was compelled to confess, that Alexander had chosen a spot to bear his name, not only preeminently convenient for trade, but delightfully situated.

The places through which they passed, being well known to both our travellers, offered nothing to divert the course of their thoughts. They halted one day, because it was [the sabbath], on which the law did not permit them to travel more than a thousand paces. The whole journey lasted nine days, in the course of which they ferried over several [branches of the Nile], crossing both the great and the little Delta. They passed through Naucratis, celebrated for several centuries past, as the first emporium of Grecian commerce with Egypt; Sais, with its temple of Neitha; Busiris, with the ruins of the largest temple of Isis in Egypt; and Tanis, anciently the royal residence. This land of wonders, however, had little other effect upon Helon, than to make him often repeat—

Blessed is the man who puts his confidence in thee,

And thinks of the way to Jerusalem!

His uncle sometimes smiled at him, and observed that it was well that they had left the elder behind at Alexandria. For the rest but little conversation passed. Elisama was wearied by the journey, and Helon and Sallu were silent, or repeated passages from the Psalms.

At length they came in sight of Pelusium, where they were to meet the Phœnician caravan; and Helon rejoiced that he should leave the country of the grave and gloomy Egyptians, to penetrate into the desert that conducted him to the land of his forefathers.

As they made a circuit round the city, they saw outside one of the gates a promiscuous assemblage of men, goods, camels, and horses. The neighing of the Egyptian and Arabian steeds pierced through the hoarser cry of the camels. Egyptians, Phœnicians, Syrians, Romans, and swarthy Ethiopians, were hurrying in every direction, between the piled up heaps of merchandise; Greek, Aramaic, and Latin, were blended in one confused murmur. The main part of the caravan consisted of Phœnicians from Tyre, who, according to the custom which then prevailed, had carried wine in earthen jars to Egypt, where [little wine was produced]. They had gone through Alexandria to Memphis, and as they passed, Elisama had agreed with them to be conducted from Pelusium to Gaza. They had just arrived from Memphis, and this was the rendezvous for all who wished to accompany them in their journey through the desert. They had purchased, to carry back with them, horses, cotton and embroidered cloths, and the fine and costly linen of Egypt. The leader of the caravan, busied with a variety of cares, briefly saluted Elisama and Helon, and informed them that he should depart on the following morning at daybreak, and that the camels should be arranged four and four. Half the inhabitants of Pelusium had come out, to traffic or to gaze, and the tumult and bustle were indescribable.

While Elisama and Helon endeavoured to find themselves a suitable lodging-place for the night, in the [marshy land] around this city, which borders on the vast sandy desert of Arabia, and Sallu was following them with the slaves, a well-known voice exclaimed, “Welcome Elisama and Helon! Are ye also for Tyre?” It was Myron, the young and handsome Greek from Alexandria, Helon’s early friend, who had introduced him to the knowledge of Platonism, and studied Plato with him in the Museum. Since his return to the law, Helon had purposely avoided him, and would willingly not have encountered him here, just as he was entering on his journey to Jerusalem. Myron was going to Damascus, and meant to accompany the caravan to Tyre; and although they told him that their intention was only to go as far as Gaza, this did not prevent his offering to join company with them to that place; and he made his proposal with so much of Greek urbanity, that they knew not how to refuse. The pleasure of their society, he said, would save him from dying of tedium; which, if he kept company any longer with the Phœnicians, who could talk of nothing but their merchandise, threatened to be more fatal than thirst to him in crossing the desert. “Your oriental gravity,” said he, “will be enlivened by my Grecian levity, and together we shall form the most agreeable party in the whole caravan.” He took the hand of Elisama with a smile, and the bargain was concluded.

Long before sunrise on the following morning, the tumult of the [caravan] began again. Helon’s camel was bound behind the three camels of Elisama: Sallu led them, the slaves urged them on, and the three travellers mounted their horses. The trumpet sounded a second time, as the signal of departure. The camels were arranged four together, and our party endeavoured to place themselves as near as possible to the head of the line of march, to avoid the clouds of sand which were raised in the middle and near the end. Between every fifty parties, came a horse with a guide, and a man bearing a kettle of pitch, raised on a pole, which was to be kindled during the night. The principal guide, who had the superintendence of the whole caravan, rode usually in front, on a horse richly caparisoned, and accompanied by a camel which carried his treasure. He was the absolute master of the whole train; at his nod the blasts of the trumpet were given, and every one set forward or halted. A litter was borne behind him, in which he occasionally reposed.

It was an hour after sunset before all was arranged and the third blast of the trumpet was given. The guide mounted his Arabian horse, and the march began. Thousands of persons from Pelusium and the neighbourhood, stood by the road-side, and saluted them as they departed. The slaves began to sing, and the bells on the necks and feet of the camels chimed between. Every thing in the caravan was performed in measured time, the step of the camels, the jingling of the bells, and the song of the slaves. Both men and beasts were full of alacrity, and thus, even in the desert, one portion of the dreary way after another is performed without tediousness.

Helon’s heart beat high with the thought that he had entered on the road to Jerusalem; and he could not refrain from exclaiming, when the signal for the march was given, “Happy are the people that know the sound of the trumpet.” To Myron his exclamation was unintelligible, and he continued to exercise his Attic raillery upon every thing around him; but Helon was too much absorbed in his own thoughts to notice him.

The first day’s journey, as is usual with caravans, was very short; and they halted, after a march of an hour and a half, at [Gerrha], where there was a fountain, by which they encamped. All the press and tumult was renewed. The beasts and the merchandise were placed in the middle, and tents were erected all around, as a shelter from the burning heat of noon. Myron’s slave went to fetch wood and water: Sallu unpacked the travelling equipage from the camel, and the three travellers helped him to set up the tent. He then spread a carpet, on which Elisama seated himself; coverlets and mattresses were brought out for sleeping; and a [round piece of leather], having rings at the circumference which can be drawn together like a purse by a string which runs through them. This was to be laid on the ground before the meal, that the dishes might be placed upon it. The slave had brought the wood—a fire was made in the sand, and the camp kettle placed upon it.

While Sallu and the slave were preparing the meal, Helon and Myron joined Elisama in the tent. Myron’s slave brought a hare which he had purchased of an inhabitant of Pelusium, and was about to dress it. Elisama observed it, and joined with Sallu, who thrust the slave away, exclaiming, “that the animal was unclean, and must not be dressed for food for his masters.”

“Nay, what is this?” said Myron; “the game is excellent, and I meant it to do honour to my introduction into your society.”

“We may not eat of it,” replied Elisama; “it is [unclean]. It is forbidden in the law to eat any animal, which ruminates without dividing the hoof.”[^[22]]

“Ye are then worse off even than the Egyptians,” said Myron, “who are only forbidden to eat their sacred animals. We Greeks are wiser than either: we eat what we like.”

“And do what ye like;” interposed Helon. “But we have the law.”

“And what need,” said Myron, “of any other law than that which is written in the hearts of all men?”

“Yet that this law, written in the heart, is not of itself sufficient, and does not supersede the necessity of a revealed law, you might have learnt from your own Socrates. Remember what he says of his dæmon.”

“If the Jew attempts to turn the weapons of the heathen against himself, let us see if the heathen cannot do the same with those of the Jew. Ye call Abraham the progenitor of your people.”

“Undoubtedly,” said Elisama.

“Did he not live many hundred years before the law was given by Moses? If so, which you cannot deny, this progenitor, whom ye prize so highly, and exalt above all men that ever lived, had not even heard of the law, and was no better than one of us.”

Helon was for a while silent and perplexed. At length he replied, “The example of our father Abraham urges us to obedience to the law: for circumcision, which is a leading part of it, was commanded to him, and he performed it on all his house on the same day on which Jehovah made a covenant with him and changed his name.”[^[23]]

“I will give thee a better answer,” interposed Elisama. “It is true, that Abraham had not the law of Moses, and could not, in our sense of the word, exhibit the righteousness of the law. He received the commands of the Lord immediately from himself, and therefore needed not that they should be engraved on tables of stone. And for the same reason he was permitted to sacrifice elsewhere than in Jerusalem, though his greatest and most costly sacrifice, that of his son, was appointed to be performed on [Moriah], the hill where our temple stands. The Lord, who himself gave him the law, was every where with him, in Egypt as in Mamre. But now, since Israel has been stained with sin, the glory of Jehovah will dwell only on his own holy hill; and it is our duty to repair to Jerusalem and bring thither our offerings.”

A new view of the subject opened itself to Helon’s mind, and Myron listened with great attention; Elisama continued:

“Obedience to the law presupposes three things. First, that a law is given. Secondly, that external circumstances are so disposed that the observance of the law is practicable; and, thirdly, that there be willingness to obey. The two first existed in Abraham, as perfectly as in his descendents. The third could only be formed in the people of Israel, by the events of several centuries, confirming the promises to the obedient and the threats denounced against the disobedient. Israel is at length grown wise by experience, and the time draws near, when the Messiah shall come to deliver his people from oppression, and bless all nations of the earth by means of the law. But Abraham needed no such discipline—he practised voluntary obedience.”

“By Apollo,” said Myron, “thou speakest wisely!”

“Such a man,” pursued Elisama, “do we venerate in our great progenitor. Is there any people that can produce one like him? In him every thing was united essential to that happiness which is attainable only by the law. For this reason also he received the promise from Jehovah, that in his seed all the nations of the earth should be blessed. Abraham was to become a people, and that people must attain the righteousness of Abraham. But with a people such a change must be progressive: Israel first of all received the law on Sinai, then the promised land and a temple; and only through a long course of discipline learnt to obey the law willingly. These three periods, together with the end which is yet to come, and the beginning in Abraham, form the series of Jewish history. You Greeks like to have things presented to you in such arranged and comprehensive views.”

“With good reason,” exclaimed Myron, who had all that curiosity for knowledge of every kind, which was the characteristic of his nation. “And now, my venerable Elisama, I would fain hear from thee the whole history of thy people, arranged according to the plan which thou hast traced. Ere we reach Gaza, we shall pass many an hour together, at the places of encampment, which might be so employed, agreeably to us all. You will delight in an opportunity of relating what redounds so much to the honour of your people; Helon will listen as gladly as you will relate; and I shall rejoice in an opportunity of hearing a connected narrative of your history.”

“As thou wilt, Myron,” said Elisama, “in the hope that you Greeks may also learn to value duly the chosen people of Jehovah. It is only of the history of such a people as Israel, that such an orderly developement can be made: it is necessary for this purpose that God himself should have taught us what plan of his he designs a nation to fulfil. Of Israel he declared this, even when he had no political existence; and we need only open our eyes upon his history, in order to perceive the progressive accomplishment of the promise. The Messiah, when he comes, will perhaps teach us to what purpose Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians have existed. I know not what it may be, but this I know, that theirs must be a subordinate part, and an inferior destination to that of Israel. This I tell you frankly, and you will see the proofs of it still more strongly in the history itself. Are you satisfied with it?”

“Only begin your discourse,” said Myron, “and I promise you to listen, as the Hellenic nation listened to Herodotus, when he recited his history at the Olympic games. A Greek of Athenian blood, a pupil as I boast myself to be of the Alexandrian philosophy, knows no greater pleasure than to acquire knowledge, wherever he may find it. Pythagoras travelled into the east, and Plato visited Egypt and Italy. Conversation is the life of life; and a discourse which is regularly renewed should have some fixed object, by which it may be resumed at each successive opportunity. Do us then this favour, and relate the history of your nation.”

Helon had been sitting absorbed in thought on what he had heard from his uncle. “What a noble subject,” he now exclaimed, “for our conversation on our pilgrimage to the Passover! What an excellent preparation for the momentous times which are approaching! Truly, ‘days should speak and length of years give understanding.’ How profound is the discernment of those ‘whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditate upon it day and night!’ Begin then, dearest uncle, and speak of the glories of our forefathers.”

“Youths,” said Elisama, “I will not refuse your request, though ye praise me too much. I call to mind the psalm of Asaph, which I will rehearse to thee, Myron:

Give ear, O my people, to my teaching!

Incline your ears to the words of my mouth!

I will open my mouth in parables;

I will declare the histories of old,

Which we have known and heard,

Which our fathers have told us

That we might not hide them from their children,

Showing to the generation to come the praise of Jehovah,

His strength, and the wonders he hath done.

He established a testimony in Jacob,

And appointed a law in Israel,

Which he commanded our fathers

That they should make known to their children;

That the generation to come might know them, the sons which should be born;

That when grown up they might declare them to their children,

That they might set their hope in God,

And not forget the works of God,

And keep his commandments.—Ps. lxxviii.

“Israel is rich in such psalms as this. The history of our nation lives in their poetry, it is interwoven with their prayers, it is the groundwork of doctrine and the theme of narrative; all our festivals rest upon it as their basis, and nothing great or important can take place in Israel, which has not an historical reference. The cause of this lies in the promise of Jehovah and in its fulfilment. We seek our wisdom in the revelation which God has given us—ye seek it in your own reflections: hence our wisdom is historical, yours speculative. What we know of God and of his law, was communicated to us through the discourses of God to our fathers, or derived from the observation of his dealings with them. It is therefore a bold undertaking in which I engage, to relate the history of our nation, and I must stipulate beforehand that you will not expect from me any thing like a perfect view of it, in the halts of a caravan. You must also permit me, Myron, to go on, after the oriental manner, in an unbroken narrative, which besides better suits a history, than that dialogue form, interrupted by question and objection, in which you Greeks so much delight. There will be time for these when my narrative is ended.”

“Make what stipulations thou wilt,” said Myron, “only begin.”

“For to-day,” said Elisama, resuming, “I must confine myself to the patriarchs, not only because our discourse has been accidentally led to them, but because the knowledge of their history is absolutely necessary to understand what follows.

“Our father Abraham is at once, the last star in the night of primeval history, and the morning star which announces the approaching day. The history of the creation and the fall you have doubtless heard already in the Bruchium; for I am told that both your [philosophers] and our Hellenists employ themselves very diligently upon it; and I must lament, that, leaving the true path of knowledge, they should prize the interpretations of the heathens above the genuine word of Jehovah. But enough of these men.

“Notwithstanding the fall of our first parents, they had still a just knowledge of God and of his will, connected with his promise, that the seed of the woman should bruise the head of the serpent. But when Cain was compelled to flee from his father’s house, unwilling to relate to his children the story of his own fratricide, he represented himself as the origin of the human race, on which account his descendants, who had been brought up in his sins, called themselves the Sons of Men; in contradistinction to which, the children of the other sons of Adam, who were acquainted with the history of the creation, called themselves Sons of God. By the sins of these sons of men, and their mixture with the sons of God, iniquity became so prevalent upon the earth, that Jehovah sent a deluge, in which only Noah and his family were saved. In him and the descendents of his son Shem alone, was the true knowledge of God preserved, when the former iniquities again obtained the ascendency among other nations and they fell into idolatry. When the true religion began to give way before the false, even in Ur of the Chaldees, where Abram the son of Terah[of Terah] lived, Jehovah bade him leave his native country and his father’s house, to go to a land which the Lord should show him. That land was Canaan. This Abram is our father Abraham, who, when he arrived at Bethel, erected a tabernacle there, and built an altar, and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord appeared often unto him and proved his faith: ten of these trials are recorded in scripture. The severest of them was that in which he was commanded to offer up his son Isaac, in whom the promise was to be fulfilled. But his steadfastness in all these trials made him worthy that on him all these promises should rest. God promised him, in the person of his descendents, the land of Canaan, which on this account we still call the Land of Promise. The Lord made him to come forth from his tent, and said, ‘Look towards heaven, and see if thou canst count the stars thereof—such shall thy seed be.’[^[24]] On the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abraham, and said, ‘To thy seed will I give this land from the river of Egypt unto the great river Euphrates.’ But these promises, to make his posterity a mighty nation and to give them a fair country for their inheritance, had their motive in a yet higher promise. After he had endured, with such noble firmness and resignation, the most grievous of all his trials, God said unto him, ‘In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.’[^[25]] This prophecy is the radiant point of Jewish history, never obscured through all the vicissitudes of our condition, nay, wonderful to relate, shining most brightly in the very circumstances which seemed most unauspicious for its fulfilment. The promise was renewed to his son Isaac, and his grandson Jacob; its import involves the history of the whole human race. Abraham stood alone in his knowledge and his worship of the one true God; except indeed that he found at Salem, the present Jerusalem, a single priest of the Most High, the king Melchisedec. It was necessary therefore that the people of the promise should separate themselves from all other nations, even from the rest of Abraham’s descendents. In Isaac they separated themselves from Ishmael and his children; in Jacob from Esau and his children, the Edomites: for thus only could they continue to be the people of the promise.

“How great and dignified does the patriarch appear, in whom were united all those qualities, to which his descendents could only be formed by the lapse of a thousand years—the knowledge of the will of Jehovah from his own immediate communication; in his own house, and its precincts, a temple; unlimited faith and unreserved obedience!

“While I mention these three distinguishing characteristics of the patriarch, I cannot help dwelling more particularly on the second, of which I am reminded by the contrast of our life in Egypt; and because our present situation, living in tents and caravans in the desert, has some analogy with his. His whole dwelling, and the region in which for the time he had his abode, were consecrated as a temple by the manifestations of Jehovah. The manifold complexity of relations and collision of interests, which are so burdensome in the life of men in cities, were unknown to him, in the simple grandeur of his pastoral state. His days flowed on in intercourse with God, amidst the groves, the hills and the plains of the finest countries of the east. Now he dwells upon the lofty sides of Lebanon, near the cedars that pierce the heavens; on the approach of the rainy season, he drives his herds to the warmer plains of Jordan. He is in the fields with the earliest glow of morning, and his simple tent is designed only for shelter at night, and during the rain. Three hundred and eighteen servants, born in his house,[^[26]] feed his countless flocks of sheep and goats, his herds of cattle, asses and camels. In the fairest part of the pasture the dark brown tents are pitched, and in the midst of them the tent of the patriarch. Seldom does he come into a city; for they are the abodes of corruption. If a stranger makes his appearance, he is hospitably received, the fatling of the flock is killed, and while the patriarch’s own hands prepare it for food, Sarah bakes cakes upon the hearth; the guest is feasted, and not till he has eaten and been satisfied is he asked who he is. Benevolence guides all his actions. If he falls in with another body of roving shepherds, he says to Lot, ‘Why should there be strife betwixt me and thee; if thou wilt go to the left hand, I will go to the right; or if thou wilt go to the right hand, I will go to the left.’ Independent of all without, he rules as a king in his own house: but his highest dignity is that he is also a priest there. He walks before God with a perfect heart: to him he repairs in danger and in joy, to him he offers thanks, to his command he is ready to sacrifice his dearest hopes: to him he erects altars, raises memorials of his providential guidance, and proclaims his name. And Jehovah dwells with his servant Abraham, he appears to him, and blesses him in all things; he discloses the future to him, and says, ‘Shall I hide from Abraham that which I am about to do, seeing that he shall become a great and mighty nation; and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him. For I know him that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, and do what is just and righteous, that the Lord may accomplish unto Abraham that which he hath spoken of him.’[^[27]]

“Thus he lived a complete century in Canaan; he came thither not as an old man, but in the prime of life, in his seventy-fifth year, and in his hundred and seventieth year he died, in a good old age, and was gathered to his people.

“His son Isaac and his grandson Jacob led the same patriarchal life. Both took to themselves wives from the native country of Abraham, that they might form no connection with the Canaanites. Jehovah appeared to both of them, and their lives throughout, in an equal degree, were simple and happy, like that of Abraham.

“Such was the origin of our nation, and half the world joins with us to extol our great progenitor. The [Magi of Persia]; the Arabs, the sons of Ishmael, and the Edomites, the children of Esau, even Egypt itself celebrates the wisdom of Abraham, and the whole east praises his name.

“But the sun is already high in the heavens, the slaves are waiting for us with the food, and an old man needs rest before he undertakes a further journey.”

The slaves brought the victuals prepared in the Jewish fashion, the round piece of leather was spread upon the ground; they sat around it, ate, and were satisfied. Myron often wished to renew the conversation, but Elisama did not speak during the meal, and Helon was lost in reflections on the glory of his nation, and in anticipation of the delight of soon standing where Abraham and Isaac had talked with God.

After the meal they all laid themselves down during the heat of noon. The evening came—but hardly had the night begun, when, at the fourth hour, (about ten of our reckoning) the trumpets sounded for the first time. The tent was struck, the camels loaded, the travellers mounted their horses, each party resumed their former station in the line, and about midnight, after the third blast, they broke up from Gerrha. On account of the heat, caravans travel chiefly at night, and halt during the hottest time of the day. The march was now more orderly and peaceable. The flames flashed from the burning pitch-kettles which were borne aloft, and threw their light over the desert. It was an attractive sight, to behold them like scattered suns, along a line of march extending for several thousand paces, and to see men and beasts travelling onward through the night by their ruddy gleam. Their journey lay this night and every night, as far as Gaza, along the sea, whose distant thunder was occasionally heard, mingling with the songs of the slaves and the bells of the camels.

CHAPTER IV.
THE HALT AT CASIUM.

In the morning our travellers found themselves in the neighbourhood of [Casium]. The march had not been long, but the situations of the wells determine the halts of the caravans. Near the town a large sand-hill extended into the sea, on the point of which was built the temple of Jupiter Casius. The active Greek set off, though the distance was considerable, not for the purpose of worshipping there, but of examining it as a work of art. Helon felt no desire to accompany him, for on a journey to Jerusalem and in his present state of mind, it seemed to him nothing less than a sin to visit a heathen temple, even for the gratification of his curiosity. Elisama praised his determination, and reminded him of the reproof delivered by the mouth of Jeremiah, “Thou hast always broken thy yoke and burst thy bands; and hast said, I will not be restrained, but on every high hill and every green tree thou hast gone after idolatry.”[^[28]] In the mean time Elisama began, and Helon devoutly joined in this psalm:

Bless the Lord O my soul,

And all that is within me bless his holy name!

Bless the Lord O my soul,

And forget not all his benefits;

Who forgiveth all thine iniquities,

Who healeth all thy diseases,

Who redeemeth thy life from destruction,

Who crowneth thee with loving kindness and tender mercy.

He satisfieth thy mouth with good things

So that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

Jehovah executeth righteousness

And judgment for all that are oppressed.

He made known his ways unto Moses,

His acts unto the children of Israel.

The Lord is merciful and gracious,

Slow to anger and plenteous in mercy.—Ps. ciii.

They next sang the hundred and sixth Psalm, which describes the journey, the wilderness, and the disobedience of Israel. “It is well,” said Elisama, when they had done, “that our Greek is not here, or his nascent reverence for our people might be stopped in its growth. I must confess his society was at first very burthensome to me, but he is more open to the reception of the truth than I had given him credit for being, and I have hopes that he may become a [stranger of the gate].”

Myron returned full of admiration of the precious works of art which he had found in the temple of the Casian Jupiter, in which however, as a connoisseur, he found of course something to blame. At the meal the discourse of Helon and Myron (for Elisama was too oriental in his habits to talk at such a time) turned upon the ancient [Goshen], in whose limits they now supposed themselves to be. They agreed that at the distance of fourteen hundred years it was very difficult to identify it, but that probably it was the district of Lower Egypt which is bounded by the sea, by the eastern branch of the Nile at Pelusium and by the river of Egypt, and that it perhaps ascended as far as Heliopolis to the south.

When they awoke towards evening, refreshed by their sleep, the conversation respecting Goshen was resumed. Elisama, seated upon his carpet, thus took up the discourse:

“It seems then that we are at least on the skirts of that fruitful district of pasturage, in which the children of Abraham sojourned, and where they grew from a family to a people. Thou hast already heard, Myron, that our father Jacob came down to Egypt, with seventy persons, to his son Joseph, who had preserved the land of Pharaoh, by his wise precautions, from the miseries of famine; that two hundred and fifteen years after Jacob went down into Egypt, and four hundred and thirty years after Abraham left his native country at God’s command, 603,550 fighting men of the Israelites quitted Egypt, without reckoning the 22,000 Levites, or the women and children. During these [four hundred and thirty years] Israel grew into a nation.

“In order that the promise of Jehovah, ‘that all nations should be blessed in Abraham,’ might be accomplished, it may easily be conceived that it was necessary that Abraham should become a people. But there was no country where it could have been accomplished in so short a time as in this. Canaan was already fully peopled, but in Goshen there was ample room for them to increase and spread. The Canaanites would not have looked quietly on for so many years, and have witnessed their increase, whereas the Egyptians would feel themselves bound by gratitude to Joseph, at least during the first century after his death, to abstain from any injury towards his nation. Nowhere else could Israel have been kept so free from mixture with other nations, as in the neighbourhood of the Egyptians, whose religion inspired them with a [horror of pastoral tribes]. The land was at the same time fruitful, and facilitated the existence of numerous families. Finally, Egypt already possessed a civil polity more perfect than existed at that time in any other country; and though no human means were necessary to form a lawgiver for Israel, yet by constantly observing a people living under a constitution which regulated the rights and duties even of the lowest order of the people, the Israelites were prepared to value and receive a similar constitution themselves.

“When therefore Israel had become a numerous people, and began to feel the want of a system of laws, Divine Providence so arranged circumstances, as to awaken in them a longing for freedom and for the promised land. The Pharaohs inhumanly oppressed them, and made their lives bitter to them, by labour in brick and tile, and in all manner of service in the field. At length it was even given in command to the midwives to kill all the male infants. This was indeed, in one point of view, only a just punishment for the guilt of Israel, in worshipping the sacred animals of the Egyptians, and leaving the service of the true God: but as calamity, by the wise ordinance of Jehovah, serves at once for punishment and deliverance, the cruelty of the Egyptians proved the means of Israel’s deliverance and exaltation.

“God raised up Moses and laid his spirit upon him. After the command of Pharaoh for the murder of the male infants, he was exposed by his parents among the reeds of the Nile, and rescued in a wonderful manner by the king’s own daughter. At the royal court, where he was brought up, he became acquainted with all the wisdom of the Egyptians. When forty years of age, hurried away by sympathy for his suffering countrymen, whom even at Pharaoh’s court he had not forgotten, he slew an Egyptian who was committing an outrage upon an Israelite, and was compelled to flee. He took refuge in the wilderness, and by a pastoral life of forty years formed his mind in solitude and amidst the sublimities of nature, where only a faint remembrance of the world remained to him, and thoughts of God filled his soul. Here God appeared to him in mount Horeb, in a bush that burned with fire and yet was not consumed. ‘And Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burned. And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses, and he said, Here am I. And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. Moreover he said, I am the God of thy fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face. And the Lord said, I have seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters. I know their sorrows, and I am come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them out of that land unto a good land and a large, a land flowing with milk and honey. Come now, therefore, I will send thee to Pharaoh, that thou mayest bring forth my people, the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt.’[^[29]]

“This was the calling of Moses. His apprehension of his own unworthiness was removed, and the Lord made known his name unto him; I will be that I will be. He began the great work, and at the first step had to contend with the unsteadiness of Israel, which, during the remaining forty years of his life, occasioned him no less trouble than the assaults of their enemies. Pharaoh refused to let the people go, and nine plagues in succession, which Jehovah denounced by Moses, and then brought upon the land, were able only for a time to overcome Israel’s fickleness and Pharaoh’s obstinacy. At last the tenth was inflicted, and on the fourteenth of the month Nisan, Israel, with their wives and their children, and all their possessions, came out from the house of bondage in Egypt, and passed through the Red Sea, in which the Egyptians, following them, were drowned. This is, of all the events in the history of our nation, the most important, from its connection with the giving of the law which immediately followed. We keep the feast of the Passover in remembrance of this event. Our great leader was also a poet, and sang the following song, the oldest and the noblest ode of victory that the world can show:

I sing unto the Lord for he is great—

Chariot and horse he hath thrown into the sea.

The Lord is my strength, my song, my salvation:

He is my God, and I will sing praise unto him,