for having slaughtered the inhabitants of the kingdoms of Peru and Mexico, because the plea under which this wholesale butchery was committed is equally good as that brought forth in defence of the Mosaic injunction for the extirpation of the Canaanites. True it is, it pleased Providence, through the instrumentality of the Hebrews, to sweep from the land of Canaan an idolatrous people, who, in other respects, appear not to have been worse than the Hebrews; and it pleased Him also, through the means of the Spaniards, nearly to extirpate the idolaters of the flourishing kingdoms of South America. But are, therefore, those who committed. these atrocities to be exculpated, under the plea that what took place was done agreeably to the will of God? Do we, then, not know that God uses the bad as well as good qualities in man for the accomplishment of His ends? Yet is there, then, no difference between wickedness and virtue when both are turned to the accomplishment of a good object? But there are many who will say that the Canaanites were treated so unmercifully on account of the command of the Deity. Though I reply that this is a matter of faith and not of history; still I cannot forbear to express my regret that there are among Christians those who entertain so inadequate a conception of the perfection of God, as to imagine He contradicts in special cases His general law. Such changeableness is at least not agreeable to the doctrine of Christ.

But though, in a moral point of view, I condemn the barbarous law of Moses as violating the feelings of humanity, in regard to the extirpation of the people that inhabited Canaan, I confess that it displays much political wisdom, and manifests a daring will, resolved on any measures that might lead to the object in view. The Hebrews were to become an isolated people, and Canaan was to be their possession; consequently the Canaanites were to be extirpated, and this was to be accomplished by a career of unrelenting massacre and pitiless bloodshed. But when the conquest was achieved, they were to settle down into a nation of peaceful husbandmen, under a constitution not deficient in humane and mild precepts. "Up to a certain point, they were to be trained in the worst possible discipline for peaceful citizens; to encourage every disposition opposite to those inculcated by the general spirit of the law. Their ambition was inflamed; military habits formed; the love of restless enterprise fostered; the habit of subsisting upon plunder encouraged. The people, who were to be merciful to the meanest beast, were to mutilate the noblest animal, the horse, whereever they met it; those, who were not to exercise any oppression whatever towards a stranger of another race, an Edomite, or even towards their ancient enemy, an Egyptian, on the capture of a Canaanitish city, were to put man, woman, and child to the sword. Their enemies were designated; appointed limits fixed to their conquests; beyond a certain boundary, the ambitious invasion, which before was a virtue, became a

crime. The whole victorious nation was suddenly to pause in its career. Thus far they were to be like hordes of Tartars, Scythians, and Huns, bursting irresistibly from their deserts, and sweeping away every vestige of human life; at a given point their arms were to fall from their hands; the thirst of conquest subside; and a great unambitious agricultural republic-with a simple religion, an equal administration of justice, a thriving and industrious population, brotherly harmony and mutual good-will between all ranks, domestic virtues, purity of morals, gentleness of manners—was to arise in the midst of the desolation their arms had made, and under the very roofs, in the vineyards and corn-fields, which they had obtained by merciless violence."*

Such seem the visions of hope which represented themselves to the imagination of the great lawgiver of the Hebrews; but history teaches us, that they were but the dreams which disappear as the eye meets the morning sun—and that the reality was almost the reverse of what Moses evidently hoped would be the result of a law, which, wise as it was, stained the glorious trophy of his genius. Mankind was to learn that divine justice does not leave unpunished heinous crimes committed under the pretended sanction of heaven. Wicked as the Canaanites appear generally to have been, much innocent blood was surely shed among them by the Hebrews; but it was revenged seven-fold when the day of reckoning came.

We must not pass unnoticed, that none of the capital punishments of the law are peculiarly cruel, or attended with protracted pains. There were, however, introduced, at a later period, cruel forms of death; but the most common, and the only ones sanctioned by the Mosaic law, were stoning and slaying with the sword.t

Torture, imprisonment, and banishment, are not known to the law. The only secondary punishments were fines, excommunications of various kinds, and the one corporeal punishment of scourging. This last punishment was anciently, and is still, common all over the East. It neither was among the Hebrews, nor is now anywhere in the East, considered more ignominious than we consider imprisonment, or rather far less; and

* Milman's History of the Jews, vol. i. chap. 3.

This last has been interpreted to mean beheading-a punishment known to the Egyptians-which is perhaps shown by Genesis xl. 17-19; but with more certainty on the Egyptian monuments, where persons are represented kneeling and bent forward, with their hands tied behind them, while their heads are smote off. This method, however, is not necessarily implied in the Hebrew expression, which appears to have left it to the discretion of the executioner to use his weapon as he saw fit, and which it seems he generally did use, by running the criminal through with his sword. Some traces of decapitation may, however, by found in 2 Sam. iv. 8, xx. 21, 22; 2 Kings x. 6-8.

hence it was, and is, inflicted without distinction, on the highest, as well as the lowest persons in the state.

There are some minor provisions of the law, to which it is difficult to assign any object, except that of softening the ferocity of manners, and promoting compassion and humanity; as for instance, kindness to domestic animals; the prohibition to speak reproachfully of the deaf; the promise of a blessing to him who, when he takes a nest of birds or eggs, leaves the parent bird unmolested; though I admit that there may be some other reason for this last.

Charity is also inculcated towards the poor: the gleaning of every harvest-field was left to the fatherless and widow; the home of the poor man was sacred; his garment, if pledged, was, as observed before, to be restored before night-fall. Even an indigent stranger shared in all the privileges reserved for the native poor. Yes, the Hebrews were taught to love their neighbor as themselves! Hatred and revenge are prohibited.† As an incitement to deeds of kindness of this nature, the people are reminded that they themselves were, of old, strangers and servants to the Egyptians an exhortation which has very justly been observed to imply the knowledge and admission of the duty of doing to others what they would wish done to themselves, and of not inflicting on others what they were themselves unwilling to suffer. There are also prohibitions against uttering falsehoods, and admonitions not to go up and down as talebearers among the people; but rather to do their duty by informing the guilty persons of their faults in private, and not render themselves partakers of their guilt by giving an unnecessary publicity to their faults.

The religion and institutions of Moses had undoubtedly a moral tendency; and though enforced only by promises of temporal good, and threats of temporal evil, they were in many respects adapted to promote virtue and goodness in the hearts of men. What is human is perishable and finite, but what is divine is imperishable and infinite. Consequently we shall have little difficulty, when free from prejudice, to discern what is divine and what is human in the Mosaic religion and institutions. We shall have no need of consulting the numberless interpreters of the Mosaic writings--among whom scarcely two agree-for discovering the divine truths they contain. We require only to gather from them such information as may tend to relieve us from the necessity of building our belief upon the assertions of others, and to aid us in our endeavors to make ourselves acquainted with the manner in which these divine truths have been revealed to man. This is one of the great problems we have to solve

Lev. xix. 18.

Exod. xxiii. 4, 5; Lev. xix. 16-18; Deut. xxiii. 7, 8.

Lev. xix. 6.-It would be well if this rule should be adopted in Christian communities. It is indeed lamentable to behold how men are now-a-days taught to commit crimes, by just such publications that pretend to deter from crime.

during our historical investigations, and which if we as I doubt notshall be able satisfactorily to accomplish, will convince us that history reveals to man the secrets of heaven.*

LETTER VI.

THE

WANDERING

AND DEATH OF MOSES.

ORDER is wrought in chaos-a vast multitude, composed of the most dissonant elements, is made to submit to harmonious institutions--a new nation is brought into being-the outcasts of Egypt, no less than the Hebrews themselves, are taught to revere Abraham as their common

* I will here add the following relative to the Hebrew division of time:

Day and Night.-The Hebrews, in conformity with the Mosaic law, reckoned the day from evening to evening. The natural day, or the portion of time from sunrise to sunset, was divided, as it now is by the Arabians, into six unequal parts, as follows:

1. The Break of Day.-This portion of time was at a recent period divided into two parts, in imitation of the Persians; the first of which began when the eastern, the second when the western division of the horizon was illuminated.

2. The Morning, or Sunrise.

3. The Heat of the Day.-This began about nine o'clock.-Gen. xviii. 1; 1 Sam. xi. 11. 4. Mid-day.

5. The cool of the day, literally, "the wind of the day;" so called from the wind that began to blow a few hours before sunset, and continued until evening.-Gen. iii. 8.

6. The Evening.-This was divided into two parts, the first of which began, according to the Koraites and the Samaritans, at sunset; but according to the Rabbins, the first commeuced a little before sunset, and the second precisely at sunset. The Arabian practice agrees with the first account; and thus the Hebrews appear to have computed before the captivity.

Hours. These are first mentioned in Dan. iii. 6, 15, v. 5, and do not appear to have been known by the Hebrews till they learned thus to divide the day from the Babylonians during their captivity. The day was divided into twelve hours, which varied in length, being shorter in the winter and longer in the summer.-John xi. 8. The hours were numbered from the rising of the sun; so that at the season of the equinox, the third corresponded to the ninth of our reckoning, the sixth to our twelfth, and the ninth to our three in the afternoon. At other seasons of the year it is necessary to observe the time when the sun rises, and reduce the hours to our time accordingly. The sun in Palestine, at the summer solstice, rises at five of our time, and sets about seven. At the winter solstice, it rises about seven, and sets about five. The hours of principal note among the Jews were, the third, the sixth, and the ninth.

Before the captivity, the night was divided into three watches. The first continued till midnight-1 Sam. ii. 19; the second was denominated the middle-watch, and continued from midnight till the crowing of the cock-Judg. vii. 19; the third, called the morning-watch, extended from the second to the rising of the sun. These divisions and names appear to

origin-numberless gods are rejected, and the Deity in Unity is to be worshipped in the great Jehovah alone-faithfulness to Him, and valorous deeds under His banner, are to be rewarded with victories over a warlike

have derived their origin from the watching of the Levites in the tabernacle and temple.Exod. xlv. 24; 1 Sam. xi. 11. In the time of Christ, however, the night, in imitation of the Romans, was divided into four watches. According to our mode of reckoning, these were as follows:

1. 'Oчé, the evening, from twilight to nine o'clock.
2. MEGOVUKTIOV, the midnight, from nine to twelve.

3. 'AlexTopoQwvia, the cock-crowing, from twelve to three.

4. IIpwi, from three o'clock to daybreak.

The Talmudists, however, however, oppose this statement, but they have not been considered worthy of credit.

A period of seven days, under the usual name of a week, is mentioned as far back as the time of the deluge.-Gen. vii. 4, 10, viii. 10, 12; and also in Gen. xxix. 27, 28. It must therefore be considered as a very ancient division of time. The enumeration of the days of the week commenced with Sunday. Saturday was the last, or seventh, and was the Hebrew Sabbath, or day of rest. The Egyptians gave to the days of the week the same names that they assigned to the planets. From the circumstance that the Sabbath was the principal day of the week, the whole period of seven days was also called the Sabbath, ow, in the New Testament, cáßßarov and cáßßaro. The Jews, accordingly, in designating the successive days of the week, were accustomed to say, the first day of the Sabbath, that is, of the week; the second day of the Sabbath, namely, Sunday, Monday, etc.-Mark xvi. 2, 9; Luke xxiv. 1; John xx. 1, 19. In addition to the week of days, the Jews had three other seasons denominated weeks-Lev. xxv. 1-17; Deut. xvi. 9, 10—namely:

1. The Week of Weeks.-This was a period of seven weeks, or forty-nine days, which was succeeded on the fiftieth day by the feast of Pentecost-Korn, fifty.

2. The week of years, which was the period of seven years, during the last of which the land remained untilled, and the people enjoyed a Sabbath—a season of rest.

3. The week of seven Sabbatical years, being the period of forty-nine years, which was succeeded by the year of jubilee.-Lev. xxv. 1-22, xxiv. 34.

Months and Years.-The lunar changes were doubtless first employed in the measurement of time. It might, however, be questionable, whether weeks, as some suppose, were suggested by these changes, since four weeks make only twenty-eight days, while the lunar period is twenty-nine days and a half. It may also be questionable whether the changes of the moon first suggested the method of computation by years, or whether years were regulated at first by the return of the seasons. In the former case, a solar year would comprise twelve lunar years; and in the latter case, there would be as many years as there were seasons in the course of the solar year. We do not know with certainty when or where time was begun to be measured by the solar year, but it seems probable that this method of computation was first introduced among the Egyptians; nor is it known to us when this method was adopted by the Hebrews.

After the departure from Egypt, there existed among the Hebrews two modes of reckoning the months of the year, the one civil, the other sacred. The beginning of the civil year was reckoned from the seventh month, or Tishri, that is, the first moon in October. The commencement of the sacred year was reckoned from the month Nisan, or the first new moon in April, because the Hebrews departed from Egypt on the fifteenth day of that month. The priests made use of this reckoning. The civil year, which was the more ancient, was used only in agricultural affairs. The Jewish Rabbius say that March and September, instead of April and October, were the initial months of the two years. That they were so at a late period is admitted; but the change is supposed to be owing to the example of