IIITHE TESTIMONY OF THE NATIONSENGLAND, awake! awake! awake!Jerusalem thy sister calls.Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of deathAnd close her from thy ancient walls?Thy hills and valleys felt her feetGently upon their bosoms move;Thy gates beheld sweet Zion’s ways:Then was a time of joy and love.WILLIAMBLAKE.
ENGLAND, awake! awake! awake!Jerusalem thy sister calls.Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of deathAnd close her from thy ancient walls?Thy hills and valleys felt her feetGently upon their bosoms move;Thy gates beheld sweet Zion’s ways:Then was a time of joy and love.WILLIAMBLAKE.
ENGLAND, awake! awake! awake!Jerusalem thy sister calls.Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of deathAnd close her from thy ancient walls?Thy hills and valleys felt her feetGently upon their bosoms move;Thy gates beheld sweet Zion’s ways:Then was a time of joy and love.WILLIAMBLAKE.
ENGLAND, awake! awake! awake!
Jerusalem thy sister calls.
Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of death
And close her from thy ancient walls?
Thy hills and valleys felt her feet
Gently upon their bosoms move;
Thy gates beheld sweet Zion’s ways:
Then was a time of joy and love.
WILLIAMBLAKE.
WORLD’S DEBT TO ISRAELWE Gentiles owe our life to Israel. It is Israel who has brought us the message that God is one, and that God is a just and righteous God, and demands righteousness of his children, and demands nothing else. It is Israel that has brought us the message that God is our Father. It is Israel who, in bringing us the divine law, has laid the foundation of liberty. It is Israel who had the first free institutions the world ever saw. It is Israel who has brought us our Bible, our prophets, our apostles. When sometimes our own unchristian prejudices flame out against the Jewish people, let us remember that all that we have and all that we are we owe, under God, to what Judaism has given us.LYMANABBOTT.AT a time when the deepest night of inhumanity covered the rest of mankind, the religion of Israel breathed forth a spirit of love and brotherhood which must fill even the stranger, if he be only willing to see, with reverence and admiration. Israel has given the world true humanitarianism, just as it has given the world the true God.C. H. CORNILL, 1895.
WE Gentiles owe our life to Israel. It is Israel who has brought us the message that God is one, and that God is a just and righteous God, and demands righteousness of his children, and demands nothing else. It is Israel that has brought us the message that God is our Father. It is Israel who, in bringing us the divine law, has laid the foundation of liberty. It is Israel who had the first free institutions the world ever saw. It is Israel who has brought us our Bible, our prophets, our apostles. When sometimes our own unchristian prejudices flame out against the Jewish people, let us remember that all that we have and all that we are we owe, under God, to what Judaism has given us.
LYMANABBOTT.
AT a time when the deepest night of inhumanity covered the rest of mankind, the religion of Israel breathed forth a spirit of love and brotherhood which must fill even the stranger, if he be only willing to see, with reverence and admiration. Israel has given the world true humanitarianism, just as it has given the world the true God.
C. H. CORNILL, 1895.
ISRAEL AND HIS REVELATIONTHE religion of the Bible is well said to berevealed, because the great natural truth, that ‘righteousness tendeth to life’, is seized and exhibited there with such incomparable force and efficacy. All, or very nearly all, the nations of mankind have recognized the importance of conduct, and have attributed to it a natural obligation. They, however, looked at conduct, not as something full of happiness and joy, but as something one could not manage to do without. But ‘Zion heard of it and rejoiced, and the daughters of Judah wereglad, because of thy judgements, O Eternal!’ Happiness is our being’s end and aim, and no one has ever come near Israel in feeling, and in making others feel, that to righteousness belongs happiness! As long as the world lasts, all who want to make progress in righteousness will come to Israel for inspiration, as to the people who have had the sense for righteousness most glowing and strongest.This does truly constitute for Israel a most extra-ordinary distinction. ‘God hath given commandment to bless, and He hath blessed, and we cannot reverse it; He hath not seen iniquity in Jacob, and He hath not seen perverseness in Israel; the Eternal, his God, is with him.’MATTHEWARNOLD, 1875.
THE religion of the Bible is well said to berevealed, because the great natural truth, that ‘righteousness tendeth to life’, is seized and exhibited there with such incomparable force and efficacy. All, or very nearly all, the nations of mankind have recognized the importance of conduct, and have attributed to it a natural obligation. They, however, looked at conduct, not as something full of happiness and joy, but as something one could not manage to do without. But ‘Zion heard of it and rejoiced, and the daughters of Judah wereglad, because of thy judgements, O Eternal!’ Happiness is our being’s end and aim, and no one has ever come near Israel in feeling, and in making others feel, that to righteousness belongs happiness! As long as the world lasts, all who want to make progress in righteousness will come to Israel for inspiration, as to the people who have had the sense for righteousness most glowing and strongest.
This does truly constitute for Israel a most extra-ordinary distinction. ‘God hath given commandment to bless, and He hath blessed, and we cannot reverse it; He hath not seen iniquity in Jacob, and He hath not seen perverseness in Israel; the Eternal, his God, is with him.’
MATTHEWARNOLD, 1875.
ISRAEL, GREECE, ANDROME38FOR a philosophic mind there are not more than three histories of real interest in the past of humanity: Greek history, the history of Israel, and Roman history.Greece has an exceptional past. Our science, our arts, our literature, our philosophy, our political code, our maritime law, are of Greek origin. The framework of human culture created by Greece is susceptible of indefinite enlargement. Greece had only one thing wanting in the circle of her moral and intellectual activity, but this was an important void; she despised the humble and did not feel the need of a just God. Her philosophers, while dreaming of the immortality of the soul, were tolerant towards the iniquities of this world. Her religions were merely elegant municipal playthings.... Israel’s sages burned with anger over the abuses of the world. The prophets were fanatics in the cause of social justice, and loudly proclaimed that if the world was not just, or capable of becoming so, it had better be destroyed—a view which, if utterly wrong, led to deeds of heroism and brought about a grand awakening of the forces of humanity.One other great humanizing force had to be created—a force powerful enough to beat down the obstacles which local patriotism offered to the idealisticpropaganda of Greece and Judea. Rome fulfilled this extraordinary function. Force is not a pleasant thing to contemplate, and the recollections of Rome will never have the powerful attraction of the affairs of Greece and of Israel; but Roman history is none the less part and parcel of these histories, which are the pivot of all the rest, and which we may call providential.ERNESTRENAN, 1887.NONE of the resplendent names in history—Egypt, Athens, Rome—can compare in eternal grandeur with Jerusalem. For Israel has given to mankind the category of holiness. Israel alone has known the thirst for social justice, and that inner saintliness which is the source of justice.CHARLESWAGNER, 1918.AMONG the theocratic nations of the ancient East, the Hebrews seem to us as sober men in a world of intoxicated beings. Antiquity, however, heldthemto be the dreamers among waking folk.H. LOTZE, 1864.
FOR a philosophic mind there are not more than three histories of real interest in the past of humanity: Greek history, the history of Israel, and Roman history.
Greece has an exceptional past. Our science, our arts, our literature, our philosophy, our political code, our maritime law, are of Greek origin. The framework of human culture created by Greece is susceptible of indefinite enlargement. Greece had only one thing wanting in the circle of her moral and intellectual activity, but this was an important void; she despised the humble and did not feel the need of a just God. Her philosophers, while dreaming of the immortality of the soul, were tolerant towards the iniquities of this world. Her religions were merely elegant municipal playthings.
... Israel’s sages burned with anger over the abuses of the world. The prophets were fanatics in the cause of social justice, and loudly proclaimed that if the world was not just, or capable of becoming so, it had better be destroyed—a view which, if utterly wrong, led to deeds of heroism and brought about a grand awakening of the forces of humanity.
One other great humanizing force had to be created—a force powerful enough to beat down the obstacles which local patriotism offered to the idealisticpropaganda of Greece and Judea. Rome fulfilled this extraordinary function. Force is not a pleasant thing to contemplate, and the recollections of Rome will never have the powerful attraction of the affairs of Greece and of Israel; but Roman history is none the less part and parcel of these histories, which are the pivot of all the rest, and which we may call providential.
ERNESTRENAN, 1887.
NONE of the resplendent names in history—Egypt, Athens, Rome—can compare in eternal grandeur with Jerusalem. For Israel has given to mankind the category of holiness. Israel alone has known the thirst for social justice, and that inner saintliness which is the source of justice.
CHARLESWAGNER, 1918.
AMONG the theocratic nations of the ancient East, the Hebrews seem to us as sober men in a world of intoxicated beings. Antiquity, however, heldthemto be the dreamers among waking folk.
H. LOTZE, 1864.
WHAT IS A JEW?WHAT is a Jew? This question is not at all so odd as it seems. Let us see what kind of peculiar creature the Jew is, which all the rulers and all nations have together and separately abused and molested, oppressed and persecuted, trampled and butchered, burned and hanged—and in spite of all this is yet alive! What is a Jew, who has never allowed himself to be led astray by all the earthly possessions which his oppressors and persecutors constantly offered him in order that he should change his faith and forsake his own Jewish religion?The Jew is that sacred being who has brought down from heaven the everlasting fire, and has illumined with it the entire world. He is the religious source, spring, and fountain out of which all the rest of the peoples have drawn their beliefs and their religions.The Jew is the pioneer of liberty.Even in those olden days, when the people were divided into but two distinct classes, slaves and masters—even so long ago had the law of Moses prohibited the practice of keeping a person in bondage for more than six years.The Jew is the pioneer of civilization.Ignorance was condemned in olden Palestine more even than it is to-day in civilized Europe.Moreover, in those wild and barbarous days, when neither life nor the death of any one counted for anything at all, RabbiAkiba39did not refrain from expressing himselfopenly against capital punishment, a practice which is recognized to-day as a highly civilized way of punishment.The Jew is the emblem of civil and religious toleration.‘Love the stranger and the sojourner’, Moses commands, ‘because you have been strangers in the land of Egypt.’ And this was said in those remote and savage times when the principal ambition of the races and nations consisted in crushing and enslaving one another. As concerns religious toleration, the Jewish faith is not only far from the missionary spirit of converting people of other denominations, but on the contrary the Talmud commands the Rabbis to inform and explain to every one who willingly comes to accept the Jewish religion, all the difficulties involved in its acceptance, and to point out to the would-be proselyte that the righteous of all nations have a share in immortality. Of such a lofty and ideal religious toleration not even the moralists of our present day can boast.The Jew is the emblem of eternity.He whom neither slaughter nor torture of thousands of years could destroy, he whom neither fire nor sword nor inquisition was able to wipe off from the face of the earth, he who was the first to produce the oracles of God, he who has been for so long the guardian of prophecy, and who transmitted it to the rest of the world—such a nation cannot be destroyed. The Jew is everlasting as is eternity itself.LEOTOLSTOY.
WHAT is a Jew? This question is not at all so odd as it seems. Let us see what kind of peculiar creature the Jew is, which all the rulers and all nations have together and separately abused and molested, oppressed and persecuted, trampled and butchered, burned and hanged—and in spite of all this is yet alive! What is a Jew, who has never allowed himself to be led astray by all the earthly possessions which his oppressors and persecutors constantly offered him in order that he should change his faith and forsake his own Jewish religion?
The Jew is that sacred being who has brought down from heaven the everlasting fire, and has illumined with it the entire world. He is the religious source, spring, and fountain out of which all the rest of the peoples have drawn their beliefs and their religions.
The Jew is the pioneer of liberty.Even in those olden days, when the people were divided into but two distinct classes, slaves and masters—even so long ago had the law of Moses prohibited the practice of keeping a person in bondage for more than six years.
The Jew is the pioneer of civilization.Ignorance was condemned in olden Palestine more even than it is to-day in civilized Europe.Moreover, in those wild and barbarous days, when neither life nor the death of any one counted for anything at all, RabbiAkiba39did not refrain from expressing himselfopenly against capital punishment, a practice which is recognized to-day as a highly civilized way of punishment.
The Jew is the emblem of civil and religious toleration.‘Love the stranger and the sojourner’, Moses commands, ‘because you have been strangers in the land of Egypt.’ And this was said in those remote and savage times when the principal ambition of the races and nations consisted in crushing and enslaving one another. As concerns religious toleration, the Jewish faith is not only far from the missionary spirit of converting people of other denominations, but on the contrary the Talmud commands the Rabbis to inform and explain to every one who willingly comes to accept the Jewish religion, all the difficulties involved in its acceptance, and to point out to the would-be proselyte that the righteous of all nations have a share in immortality. Of such a lofty and ideal religious toleration not even the moralists of our present day can boast.
The Jew is the emblem of eternity.He whom neither slaughter nor torture of thousands of years could destroy, he whom neither fire nor sword nor inquisition was able to wipe off from the face of the earth, he who was the first to produce the oracles of God, he who has been for so long the guardian of prophecy, and who transmitted it to the rest of the world—such a nation cannot be destroyed. The Jew is everlasting as is eternity itself.
LEOTOLSTOY.
THE BOOK OF THEAGES40THE Bible is the book of the ancient world, the book of the Middle Ages, and the book of modern times. Where does Homer stand compared with the Bible? Where the Vedas or the Koran? The Bible is inexhaustible.A. HARNACK.WITHIN this awful volume liesThe mystery of mysteries:Happiest he of human raceTo whom God has given graceTo read, to fear, to hope, to pray,To lift the latch, and learn the way;And better had he ne’er been bornWho reads to doubt, or reads to scorn.SIRWALTERSCOTT.HOW many ages and generations have brooded and wept and agonized over this book! What untellable joys and ecstasies, what support to martyrs at the stake, from it! To what myriads has it been the shore and rock of safety—the refuge from driving tempest and wreck! Translated into all languages, how it has united this diverse world! Of its thousands there is not a verse, not a word, but is thick-studded with human emotion.WALTWHITMAN.
THE Bible is the book of the ancient world, the book of the Middle Ages, and the book of modern times. Where does Homer stand compared with the Bible? Where the Vedas or the Koran? The Bible is inexhaustible.
A. HARNACK.
WITHIN this awful volume liesThe mystery of mysteries:Happiest he of human raceTo whom God has given graceTo read, to fear, to hope, to pray,To lift the latch, and learn the way;And better had he ne’er been bornWho reads to doubt, or reads to scorn.SIRWALTERSCOTT.
WITHIN this awful volume liesThe mystery of mysteries:Happiest he of human raceTo whom God has given graceTo read, to fear, to hope, to pray,To lift the latch, and learn the way;And better had he ne’er been bornWho reads to doubt, or reads to scorn.SIRWALTERSCOTT.
WITHIN this awful volume lies
The mystery of mysteries:
Happiest he of human race
To whom God has given grace
To read, to fear, to hope, to pray,
To lift the latch, and learn the way;
And better had he ne’er been born
Who reads to doubt, or reads to scorn.
SIRWALTERSCOTT.
HOW many ages and generations have brooded and wept and agonized over this book! What untellable joys and ecstasies, what support to martyrs at the stake, from it! To what myriads has it been the shore and rock of safety—the refuge from driving tempest and wreck! Translated into all languages, how it has united this diverse world! Of its thousands there is not a verse, not a word, but is thick-studded with human emotion.
WALTWHITMAN.
THE BIBLE, THE EPIC OF THEWORLD41APART from all questions of religious and historical import, the Bible is the epic of the world. It unrolls a vast panorama in which the ages move before us in a long train of solemn imagery from the creation of the world onward. Against this gorgeous background we see mankind strutting, playing their little part on the stage of history. We see them taken from the dust and returning to the dust. We see the rise and fall of empires, we see great cities, now the hive of busy industry, now silent and desolate—a den of wild beasts. All life’s fever is there, its hopes and joys, its suffering and sin and sorrow.J. G. FRAZER, 1895.WRITTEN in the East, these characters live for ever in the West; written in one province, they pervade the world; penned in rude times, they are prized more and more as civilization advances; product of antiquity, they come home to the business and bosoms of men, women, and children in modern days.R. L. STEVENSON.THE Bible thoroughly known is a literature in itself—the rarest and the richest in all departments of thought or imagination which exists.J. A. FROUDE, 1886.
APART from all questions of religious and historical import, the Bible is the epic of the world. It unrolls a vast panorama in which the ages move before us in a long train of solemn imagery from the creation of the world onward. Against this gorgeous background we see mankind strutting, playing their little part on the stage of history. We see them taken from the dust and returning to the dust. We see the rise and fall of empires, we see great cities, now the hive of busy industry, now silent and desolate—a den of wild beasts. All life’s fever is there, its hopes and joys, its suffering and sin and sorrow.
J. G. FRAZER, 1895.
WRITTEN in the East, these characters live for ever in the West; written in one province, they pervade the world; penned in rude times, they are prized more and more as civilization advances; product of antiquity, they come home to the business and bosoms of men, women, and children in modern days.
R. L. STEVENSON.
THE Bible thoroughly known is a literature in itself—the rarest and the richest in all departments of thought or imagination which exists.
J. A. FROUDE, 1886.
THE BIBLE INEDUCATION42CONSIDER the great historical fact that for three centuries this Book has been woven into the life of all that is best and noblest in English history; that it has become the national epic of Britain, and is familiar to noble and simple, from John o’ Groat’s to Land’s End; that it is written in the noblest and purest English, and abounds in exquisite beauties of a merely literary form; and, finally, that it forbids the veriest hind who never left his village to be ignorant of the existence of other countries and other civilizations, and of a great past, stretching back to the furthest limits of the oldest nations of the world. By the study of what other book could children be so much humanized, and made to feel that each figure in that vast historical procession fills, like themselves, but a momentary space in the interval between the Eternities; and earns the blessings or the curses of all time, according to its effort to do good and hate evil?T. H. HUXLEY, 1870.THE greater the intellectual progress of the ages, the more fully will it be possible to employ the Bible not only as the foundation, but as the instrument, of education.J. W. GOETHE.
CONSIDER the great historical fact that for three centuries this Book has been woven into the life of all that is best and noblest in English history; that it has become the national epic of Britain, and is familiar to noble and simple, from John o’ Groat’s to Land’s End; that it is written in the noblest and purest English, and abounds in exquisite beauties of a merely literary form; and, finally, that it forbids the veriest hind who never left his village to be ignorant of the existence of other countries and other civilizations, and of a great past, stretching back to the furthest limits of the oldest nations of the world. By the study of what other book could children be so much humanized, and made to feel that each figure in that vast historical procession fills, like themselves, but a momentary space in the interval between the Eternities; and earns the blessings or the curses of all time, according to its effort to do good and hate evil?
T. H. HUXLEY, 1870.
THE greater the intellectual progress of the ages, the more fully will it be possible to employ the Bible not only as the foundation, but as the instrument, of education.
J. W. GOETHE.
THE BIBLE AND DEMOCRACYTHIS Bible is for the government of the people, by the people, and for the people.JOHNWYCLIF,in Preface to first EnglishTranslation of the Bible, 1384.THROUGHOUT the history of the Western world the Scriptures have been the great instigators of revolt against the worst forms of clerical and political despotism. The Bible has been the Magna Charta of the poor and of the oppressed; down to modern times no State has had a constitution in which the interests of the people are so largely taken into account, in which the duties so much more than the privileges of rulers are insisted upon, as that drawn up for Israel in Deuteronomy and in Leviticus; nowhere is the fundamental truth that the welfare of the State, in the long run, depends on the uprightness of the citizen so strongly laid down.... The Bible is the most democratic book in the world.T. H. HUXLEY, 1892.WHERE there is no reverence for the Bible, there can be no true refinement of manners.F. NIETZSCHE.
THIS Bible is for the government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
JOHNWYCLIF,in Preface to first EnglishTranslation of the Bible, 1384.
THROUGHOUT the history of the Western world the Scriptures have been the great instigators of revolt against the worst forms of clerical and political despotism. The Bible has been the Magna Charta of the poor and of the oppressed; down to modern times no State has had a constitution in which the interests of the people are so largely taken into account, in which the duties so much more than the privileges of rulers are insisted upon, as that drawn up for Israel in Deuteronomy and in Leviticus; nowhere is the fundamental truth that the welfare of the State, in the long run, depends on the uprightness of the citizen so strongly laid down.... The Bible is the most democratic book in the world.
T. H. HUXLEY, 1892.
WHERE there is no reverence for the Bible, there can be no true refinement of manners.
F. NIETZSCHE.
THE HEBREW LANGUAGEAQUIVER full of steel arrows, a cable with strong coils, a trumpet of brass crashing through the air with two or three sharp notes—such is the Hebrew language. The letters of its books are not to be many, but they are to be letters of fire. A language of this sort is not destined to say much, but what it does is beaten out upon an anvil. It is to pour floods of anger and utter cries of rage against the abuses of the world, calling the four winds of heaven to the assault of the citadels of evil. Like the jubilee horn of the sanctuary it will be put to no profane use; but it will sound the notes of the holy war against injustice and the call of the great assemblies; it will have accents of rejoicing, and accents of terror; it will become the trumpet of judgement.ERNESTRENAN, 1887.
AQUIVER full of steel arrows, a cable with strong coils, a trumpet of brass crashing through the air with two or three sharp notes—such is the Hebrew language. The letters of its books are not to be many, but they are to be letters of fire. A language of this sort is not destined to say much, but what it does is beaten out upon an anvil. It is to pour floods of anger and utter cries of rage against the abuses of the world, calling the four winds of heaven to the assault of the citadels of evil. Like the jubilee horn of the sanctuary it will be put to no profane use; but it will sound the notes of the holy war against injustice and the call of the great assemblies; it will have accents of rejoicing, and accents of terror; it will become the trumpet of judgement.
ERNESTRENAN, 1887.
REBECCA’S HYMNWHEN Israel, of the Lord beloved,Out from the land of bondage came,Her fathers’ God before her moved,An awful guide in smoke and flame.By day, along the astonished lands,The cloudy pillar glided slow;By night, Arabia’s crimsoned sandsReturned the fiery column’s glow.There rose the choral hymn of praise,And trump and timbrel answered keen,And Zion’s daughters poured their lays,With priest’s and warrior’s voice between.No portents now our foes amaze,Forsaken Israel wanders lone;Our fathers would not know Thy ways,And Thou hast left them to their own.But present still, though now unseen!When brightly shines the prosperous day.Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screenTo temper the deceitful ray.And oh, when stoops on Judah’s pathIn shade and storm the frequent night,Be Thou, long-suffering, slow to wrath,A burning and a shining light!Our harps we left by Babel’s streams,The tyrant’s jest, the Gentile’s scorn;No censer round our altar beams,And mute are timbrel, harp, and horn.But Thou hast said, ‘The blood of goat,The flesh of rams, I will not prize;A contrite heart, a humble thought,Are Mine accepted sacrifice’.SIRWALTERSCOTT, 1820.
WHEN Israel, of the Lord beloved,Out from the land of bondage came,Her fathers’ God before her moved,An awful guide in smoke and flame.By day, along the astonished lands,The cloudy pillar glided slow;By night, Arabia’s crimsoned sandsReturned the fiery column’s glow.There rose the choral hymn of praise,And trump and timbrel answered keen,And Zion’s daughters poured their lays,With priest’s and warrior’s voice between.No portents now our foes amaze,Forsaken Israel wanders lone;Our fathers would not know Thy ways,And Thou hast left them to their own.But present still, though now unseen!When brightly shines the prosperous day.Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screenTo temper the deceitful ray.And oh, when stoops on Judah’s pathIn shade and storm the frequent night,Be Thou, long-suffering, slow to wrath,A burning and a shining light!Our harps we left by Babel’s streams,The tyrant’s jest, the Gentile’s scorn;No censer round our altar beams,And mute are timbrel, harp, and horn.But Thou hast said, ‘The blood of goat,The flesh of rams, I will not prize;A contrite heart, a humble thought,Are Mine accepted sacrifice’.SIRWALTERSCOTT, 1820.
WHEN Israel, of the Lord beloved,Out from the land of bondage came,Her fathers’ God before her moved,An awful guide in smoke and flame.By day, along the astonished lands,The cloudy pillar glided slow;By night, Arabia’s crimsoned sandsReturned the fiery column’s glow.There rose the choral hymn of praise,And trump and timbrel answered keen,And Zion’s daughters poured their lays,With priest’s and warrior’s voice between.No portents now our foes amaze,Forsaken Israel wanders lone;Our fathers would not know Thy ways,And Thou hast left them to their own.But present still, though now unseen!When brightly shines the prosperous day.Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screenTo temper the deceitful ray.And oh, when stoops on Judah’s pathIn shade and storm the frequent night,Be Thou, long-suffering, slow to wrath,A burning and a shining light!Our harps we left by Babel’s streams,The tyrant’s jest, the Gentile’s scorn;No censer round our altar beams,And mute are timbrel, harp, and horn.But Thou hast said, ‘The blood of goat,The flesh of rams, I will not prize;A contrite heart, a humble thought,Are Mine accepted sacrifice’.SIRWALTERSCOTT, 1820.
WHEN Israel, of the Lord beloved,
Out from the land of bondage came,
Her fathers’ God before her moved,
An awful guide in smoke and flame.
By day, along the astonished lands,
The cloudy pillar glided slow;
By night, Arabia’s crimsoned sands
Returned the fiery column’s glow.
There rose the choral hymn of praise,
And trump and timbrel answered keen,
And Zion’s daughters poured their lays,
With priest’s and warrior’s voice between.
No portents now our foes amaze,
Forsaken Israel wanders lone;
Our fathers would not know Thy ways,
And Thou hast left them to their own.
But present still, though now unseen!
When brightly shines the prosperous day.
Be thoughts of Thee a cloudy screen
To temper the deceitful ray.
And oh, when stoops on Judah’s path
In shade and storm the frequent night,
Be Thou, long-suffering, slow to wrath,
A burning and a shining light!
Our harps we left by Babel’s streams,
The tyrant’s jest, the Gentile’s scorn;
No censer round our altar beams,
And mute are timbrel, harp, and horn.
But Thou hast said, ‘The blood of goat,
The flesh of rams, I will not prize;
A contrite heart, a humble thought,
Are Mine accepted sacrifice’.
SIRWALTERSCOTT, 1820.
MOSES43TO lead into freedom a people long crushed by tyranny; to discipline and order such a mighty host; to harden them into fighting men, before whom warlike tribes quailed and walled cities went down; to repress discontent and jealousy and mutiny; to combat reactions and reversions; to turn the quick, fierce flame of enthusiasm to the service of a steady purpose, require some towering character—a character blending in highest expression the qualities of politician, patriot, philosopher, and statesman—the union of the wisdom of the Egyptians with the unselfish devotion of the meekest of men.The striking differences between Egyptian and Hebrew polity are not of form, but of essence. The tendency of the one is to subordination and oppression; of the other, to individual freedom. Strangest of recorded birth! From the strongest and most splendid despotism of antiquity comes the freest republic. From between the paws of the rock-hewn Sphinx rises the genius of human liberty, and the trumpets of the Exodus throb with the defiant proclamation of the rights of man.The Hebrew commonwealth was based upon the individual—a commonwealth whose ideal it was that every man should sit under his own vine and fig-tree,with none to vex him or make him afraid; a commonwealth in which none should be condemned to ceaseless toil; in which, for even the bond slave there should be hope; in which, for even the beast of burden there should be rest. It is not the protection of property, but the protection of humanity, that is the aim of the Mosaic code. Its Sabbath day and Sabbath year secure, even to the lowliest, rest and leisure. With the blast of the jubilee trumpets the slave goes free, and a re-division of the land secures again to the poorest his fair share in the bounty of the common Creator. The reaper must leave something for the gleaner; even the ox cannot be muzzled as he treadeth out the corn. Everywhere, in everything, the dominant idea is that of our homely phrase—‘Live and let live.’That there is one day in the week that the working man may call his own, one day in the week on which the hammer is silent and the loom stands idle, is due, through Christianity, to Judaism—to the code promulgated in the Sinaitic wilderness. And who that considers the waste of productive forces can doubt that modern society would be not merely happier, but richer, had we received as well as the Sabbath day the grand idea of the Sabbath year, or, adapting its spirit to our changed conditions, secured in another way an equivalent reduction of working hours.It is in these characteristics of the Mosaic institutions that, as in the fragments of a Colossus, we mayread the greatness of the mind whose impress they bear—of a mind in advance of its surroundings, in advance of its age; of one of those star souls that dwindle not with distance, but, glowing with the radiance of essential truth, hold their light while institutions and languages and creeds change and pass.Leader and servant of men! Law-giver and benefactor! Toiler towards the Promised Land seen only by the eye of faith! Type of the high souls who in every age have given to earth its heroes and its martyrs, whose deeds are the precious possession of the race, whose memories are its sacred heritage! With whom among the founders of Empire shall we compare him?To dispute about the inspiration of such a man were to dispute about words. From the depths of the Unseen such characters must draw their strength; from fountains that flow only from the pure in heart must come their wisdom. Of something more real than matter; of something higher than the stars; of a light that will endure when suns are dead and dark; of a purpose of which the physical universe is but a passing phrase, such lives tell.HENRYGEORGE, 1884.
TO lead into freedom a people long crushed by tyranny; to discipline and order such a mighty host; to harden them into fighting men, before whom warlike tribes quailed and walled cities went down; to repress discontent and jealousy and mutiny; to combat reactions and reversions; to turn the quick, fierce flame of enthusiasm to the service of a steady purpose, require some towering character—a character blending in highest expression the qualities of politician, patriot, philosopher, and statesman—the union of the wisdom of the Egyptians with the unselfish devotion of the meekest of men.
The striking differences between Egyptian and Hebrew polity are not of form, but of essence. The tendency of the one is to subordination and oppression; of the other, to individual freedom. Strangest of recorded birth! From the strongest and most splendid despotism of antiquity comes the freest republic. From between the paws of the rock-hewn Sphinx rises the genius of human liberty, and the trumpets of the Exodus throb with the defiant proclamation of the rights of man.
The Hebrew commonwealth was based upon the individual—a commonwealth whose ideal it was that every man should sit under his own vine and fig-tree,with none to vex him or make him afraid; a commonwealth in which none should be condemned to ceaseless toil; in which, for even the bond slave there should be hope; in which, for even the beast of burden there should be rest. It is not the protection of property, but the protection of humanity, that is the aim of the Mosaic code. Its Sabbath day and Sabbath year secure, even to the lowliest, rest and leisure. With the blast of the jubilee trumpets the slave goes free, and a re-division of the land secures again to the poorest his fair share in the bounty of the common Creator. The reaper must leave something for the gleaner; even the ox cannot be muzzled as he treadeth out the corn. Everywhere, in everything, the dominant idea is that of our homely phrase—‘Live and let live.’
That there is one day in the week that the working man may call his own, one day in the week on which the hammer is silent and the loom stands idle, is due, through Christianity, to Judaism—to the code promulgated in the Sinaitic wilderness. And who that considers the waste of productive forces can doubt that modern society would be not merely happier, but richer, had we received as well as the Sabbath day the grand idea of the Sabbath year, or, adapting its spirit to our changed conditions, secured in another way an equivalent reduction of working hours.
It is in these characteristics of the Mosaic institutions that, as in the fragments of a Colossus, we mayread the greatness of the mind whose impress they bear—of a mind in advance of its surroundings, in advance of its age; of one of those star souls that dwindle not with distance, but, glowing with the radiance of essential truth, hold their light while institutions and languages and creeds change and pass.
Leader and servant of men! Law-giver and benefactor! Toiler towards the Promised Land seen only by the eye of faith! Type of the high souls who in every age have given to earth its heroes and its martyrs, whose deeds are the precious possession of the race, whose memories are its sacred heritage! With whom among the founders of Empire shall we compare him?
To dispute about the inspiration of such a man were to dispute about words. From the depths of the Unseen such characters must draw their strength; from fountains that flow only from the pure in heart must come their wisdom. Of something more real than matter; of something higher than the stars; of a light that will endure when suns are dead and dark; of a purpose of which the physical universe is but a passing phrase, such lives tell.
HENRYGEORGE, 1884.
THE BURIAL OF MOSESBY Nebo’s lonely mountain,On this side Jordan’s wave,In a vale in the land of Moab,There lies a lonely grave.But no man built that sepulchre,And no man saw it e’er;For the angels of God upturned the sodAnd laid the dead man there.That was the grandest funeralThat ever passed on earth;Yet no man heard the trampling,Or saw the train go forth:Noiselessly as the daylightComes when the night is done,And the crimson streak on ocean’s cheekGrows into the great sun.Perchance the bald old eagleOn grey Beth-peor’s heightOut of his rocky eyrieLooked on the wondrous sight;Perchance the lion stalkingStill shuns that hallowed spot;For beast and bird have seen and heardThat which man knoweth not.This was the bravest warriorThat ever buckled sword;This the most gifted poetThat ever breathed a word;And never earth’s philosopherTraced with his golden penOn the deathless page truths half so sageAs he wrote down for men.C. F. ALEXANDER.
BY Nebo’s lonely mountain,On this side Jordan’s wave,In a vale in the land of Moab,There lies a lonely grave.But no man built that sepulchre,And no man saw it e’er;For the angels of God upturned the sodAnd laid the dead man there.That was the grandest funeralThat ever passed on earth;Yet no man heard the trampling,Or saw the train go forth:Noiselessly as the daylightComes when the night is done,And the crimson streak on ocean’s cheekGrows into the great sun.Perchance the bald old eagleOn grey Beth-peor’s heightOut of his rocky eyrieLooked on the wondrous sight;Perchance the lion stalkingStill shuns that hallowed spot;For beast and bird have seen and heardThat which man knoweth not.This was the bravest warriorThat ever buckled sword;This the most gifted poetThat ever breathed a word;And never earth’s philosopherTraced with his golden penOn the deathless page truths half so sageAs he wrote down for men.C. F. ALEXANDER.
BY Nebo’s lonely mountain,On this side Jordan’s wave,In a vale in the land of Moab,There lies a lonely grave.But no man built that sepulchre,And no man saw it e’er;For the angels of God upturned the sodAnd laid the dead man there.That was the grandest funeralThat ever passed on earth;Yet no man heard the trampling,Or saw the train go forth:Noiselessly as the daylightComes when the night is done,And the crimson streak on ocean’s cheekGrows into the great sun.Perchance the bald old eagleOn grey Beth-peor’s heightOut of his rocky eyrieLooked on the wondrous sight;Perchance the lion stalkingStill shuns that hallowed spot;For beast and bird have seen and heardThat which man knoweth not.This was the bravest warriorThat ever buckled sword;This the most gifted poetThat ever breathed a word;And never earth’s philosopherTraced with his golden penOn the deathless page truths half so sageAs he wrote down for men.C. F. ALEXANDER.
BY Nebo’s lonely mountain,
On this side Jordan’s wave,
In a vale in the land of Moab,
There lies a lonely grave.
But no man built that sepulchre,
And no man saw it e’er;
For the angels of God upturned the sod
And laid the dead man there.
That was the grandest funeral
That ever passed on earth;
Yet no man heard the trampling,
Or saw the train go forth:
Noiselessly as the daylight
Comes when the night is done,
And the crimson streak on ocean’s cheek
Grows into the great sun.
Perchance the bald old eagle
On grey Beth-peor’s height
Out of his rocky eyrie
Looked on the wondrous sight;
Perchance the lion stalking
Still shuns that hallowed spot;
For beast and bird have seen and heard
That which man knoweth not.
This was the bravest warrior
That ever buckled sword;
This the most gifted poet
That ever breathed a word;
And never earth’s philosopher
Traced with his golden pen
On the deathless page truths half so sage
As he wrote down for men.
C. F. ALEXANDER.
ISRAEL’S PSALTERAT no period throughout the whole range of Jewish history has the poetic voice been mute. Every great fact throughout its entire course, right down to modern times, has left its impress on the Synagogue liturgy. Jewish poetry is the mirror of Jewish national life, and poetic utterance a divine instinct of the Jewish mind. For to the Hebrew, poetry was both prayer and praise, and alike in mercy and affliction the poet’s words became for the Hebrew the medium of direct communion with the Divine. Adoration can rise no higher than we find it in the Psalter.JOHNE. DOW, 1890.THE ancient psalm still keeps its music, and this is but the outer sign of its spiritual power, which remains as near and intimate to our needs, human and divine, as in David’s day. So, indeed, it seems to have remained through all the centuries—the one body of poetry which has gone on, apart from the change of races and languages, speaking with a voice of power to the hearts of men.ERNESTRHYS, 1895.THE Psalms resound, and will continue to resound, as long as there shall be men created in the image of God, in whose hearts the sacred fire of religion shines and glows; for they are religion itself put into speech.C. H. CORNILL, 1897.
AT no period throughout the whole range of Jewish history has the poetic voice been mute. Every great fact throughout its entire course, right down to modern times, has left its impress on the Synagogue liturgy. Jewish poetry is the mirror of Jewish national life, and poetic utterance a divine instinct of the Jewish mind. For to the Hebrew, poetry was both prayer and praise, and alike in mercy and affliction the poet’s words became for the Hebrew the medium of direct communion with the Divine. Adoration can rise no higher than we find it in the Psalter.
JOHNE. DOW, 1890.
THE ancient psalm still keeps its music, and this is but the outer sign of its spiritual power, which remains as near and intimate to our needs, human and divine, as in David’s day. So, indeed, it seems to have remained through all the centuries—the one body of poetry which has gone on, apart from the change of races and languages, speaking with a voice of power to the hearts of men.
ERNESTRHYS, 1895.
THE Psalms resound, and will continue to resound, as long as there shall be men created in the image of God, in whose hearts the sacred fire of religion shines and glows; for they are religion itself put into speech.
C. H. CORNILL, 1897.
THE PSALMS IN HUMAN LIFEABOVE the couch of David, according to Rabbinical tradition, there hung a harp. The midnight breeze, as it rippled over the strings, made such music that the poet king was constrained to rise from his bed, and till the dawn flushed the eastern skies he wedded words to the strains. The poetry of that tradition is condensed in the saying that the Book of Psalms contains the whole music of the heart of man, swept by the hand of his Maker. In it are gathered the lyrical burst of his tenderness, the moan of his penitence, the pathos of his sorrow, the triumph of his victory, the despair of his defeat, the firmness of his confidence, the rapture of his assured hope.The Psalms express in exquisite words the kinship which every thoughtful human heart craves to find with a supreme, unchanging, loving God, who will be to him a protector, guardian, and friend. They translate into speech the spiritual passion of the loftiest genius; they also utter, with the beauty born of truth and simplicity, the inarticulate and humble longings of the unlettered peasant. They alone have known no limitations to a particular age, country, or form of faith. In the Psalms the vast hosts of suffering humanity have found the deepest expression of their hopes and fears.R. E. PROTHERO, 1903.
ABOVE the couch of David, according to Rabbinical tradition, there hung a harp. The midnight breeze, as it rippled over the strings, made such music that the poet king was constrained to rise from his bed, and till the dawn flushed the eastern skies he wedded words to the strains. The poetry of that tradition is condensed in the saying that the Book of Psalms contains the whole music of the heart of man, swept by the hand of his Maker. In it are gathered the lyrical burst of his tenderness, the moan of his penitence, the pathos of his sorrow, the triumph of his victory, the despair of his defeat, the firmness of his confidence, the rapture of his assured hope.
The Psalms express in exquisite words the kinship which every thoughtful human heart craves to find with a supreme, unchanging, loving God, who will be to him a protector, guardian, and friend. They translate into speech the spiritual passion of the loftiest genius; they also utter, with the beauty born of truth and simplicity, the inarticulate and humble longings of the unlettered peasant. They alone have known no limitations to a particular age, country, or form of faith. In the Psalms the vast hosts of suffering humanity have found the deepest expression of their hopes and fears.
R. E. PROTHERO, 1903.
THE SPACIOUS FIRMAMENT ON HIGH(PSALM19)The spacious firmament on high,With all the blue ethereal sky,And spangled heavens, a shining frame,Their great Original proclaim.Th’ unwearied sun from day to dayDoes his Creator’s power display,And publishes to every landThe work of an Almighty hand.Soon as the evening shades prevail,The moon takes up the wondrous tale;And nightly to the list’ning earth,Repeats the story of her birth:Whilst all the stars that round her burn,And all the planets in their turn,Confirm the tidings as they roll,And spread the truth from pole to pole.What though in solemn silence allMove round the dark terrestrial ball?What though nor real voice nor soundAmid their radiant orbs be found?In reason’s ear they all rejoice,And utter forth a glorious voice;For ever singing as they shine,‘The hand that made us is divine.’JOSEPHADDISON, 1719.
The spacious firmament on high,With all the blue ethereal sky,And spangled heavens, a shining frame,Their great Original proclaim.Th’ unwearied sun from day to dayDoes his Creator’s power display,And publishes to every landThe work of an Almighty hand.Soon as the evening shades prevail,The moon takes up the wondrous tale;And nightly to the list’ning earth,Repeats the story of her birth:Whilst all the stars that round her burn,And all the planets in their turn,Confirm the tidings as they roll,And spread the truth from pole to pole.What though in solemn silence allMove round the dark terrestrial ball?What though nor real voice nor soundAmid their radiant orbs be found?In reason’s ear they all rejoice,And utter forth a glorious voice;For ever singing as they shine,‘The hand that made us is divine.’JOSEPHADDISON, 1719.
The spacious firmament on high,With all the blue ethereal sky,And spangled heavens, a shining frame,Their great Original proclaim.Th’ unwearied sun from day to dayDoes his Creator’s power display,And publishes to every landThe work of an Almighty hand.Soon as the evening shades prevail,The moon takes up the wondrous tale;And nightly to the list’ning earth,Repeats the story of her birth:Whilst all the stars that round her burn,And all the planets in their turn,Confirm the tidings as they roll,And spread the truth from pole to pole.What though in solemn silence allMove round the dark terrestrial ball?What though nor real voice nor soundAmid their radiant orbs be found?In reason’s ear they all rejoice,And utter forth a glorious voice;For ever singing as they shine,‘The hand that made us is divine.’JOSEPHADDISON, 1719.
The spacious firmament on high,
With all the blue ethereal sky,
And spangled heavens, a shining frame,
Their great Original proclaim.
Th’ unwearied sun from day to day
Does his Creator’s power display,
And publishes to every land
The work of an Almighty hand.
Soon as the evening shades prevail,
The moon takes up the wondrous tale;
And nightly to the list’ning earth,
Repeats the story of her birth:
Whilst all the stars that round her burn,
And all the planets in their turn,
Confirm the tidings as they roll,
And spread the truth from pole to pole.
What though in solemn silence all
Move round the dark terrestrial ball?
What though nor real voice nor sound
Amid their radiant orbs be found?
In reason’s ear they all rejoice,
And utter forth a glorious voice;
For ever singing as they shine,
‘The hand that made us is divine.’
JOSEPHADDISON, 1719.
‘O GOD, OUR HELP IN AGES PAST’(PSALM90)O GOD, our help in ages past,Our hope for years to come,Our shelter from the stormy blast,And our eternal home;Beneath the shadow of Thy ThroneThy saints have dwelt secure;Sufficient is Thine arm alone,And our defence is sure.Before the hills in order stood,Or earth received her frame,From everlasting Thou art God,To endless years the same.A thousand ages in Thy sightAre like an evening gone;Short as the watch that ends the nightBefore the rising sun.Time, like an ever-rolling stream,Bears all its sons away;They fly, forgotten, as a dreamDies at the opening day.O God, our help in ages past,Our hope for years to come,Be Thou our guard while troubles last,And our eternal home.ISAACWATTS, 1719.
O GOD, our help in ages past,Our hope for years to come,Our shelter from the stormy blast,And our eternal home;Beneath the shadow of Thy ThroneThy saints have dwelt secure;Sufficient is Thine arm alone,And our defence is sure.Before the hills in order stood,Or earth received her frame,From everlasting Thou art God,To endless years the same.A thousand ages in Thy sightAre like an evening gone;Short as the watch that ends the nightBefore the rising sun.Time, like an ever-rolling stream,Bears all its sons away;They fly, forgotten, as a dreamDies at the opening day.O God, our help in ages past,Our hope for years to come,Be Thou our guard while troubles last,And our eternal home.ISAACWATTS, 1719.
O GOD, our help in ages past,Our hope for years to come,Our shelter from the stormy blast,And our eternal home;Beneath the shadow of Thy ThroneThy saints have dwelt secure;Sufficient is Thine arm alone,And our defence is sure.Before the hills in order stood,Or earth received her frame,From everlasting Thou art God,To endless years the same.A thousand ages in Thy sightAre like an evening gone;Short as the watch that ends the nightBefore the rising sun.Time, like an ever-rolling stream,Bears all its sons away;They fly, forgotten, as a dreamDies at the opening day.O God, our help in ages past,Our hope for years to come,Be Thou our guard while troubles last,And our eternal home.ISAACWATTS, 1719.
O GOD, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Our shelter from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home;
Beneath the shadow of Thy Throne
Thy saints have dwelt secure;
Sufficient is Thine arm alone,
And our defence is sure.
Before the hills in order stood,
Or earth received her frame,
From everlasting Thou art God,
To endless years the same.
A thousand ages in Thy sight
Are like an evening gone;
Short as the watch that ends the night
Before the rising sun.
Time, like an ever-rolling stream,
Bears all its sons away;
They fly, forgotten, as a dream
Dies at the opening day.
O God, our help in ages past,
Our hope for years to come,
Be Thou our guard while troubles last,
And our eternal home.
ISAACWATTS, 1719.
THE LIVING POWER OF THE JEWISHPROPHETS44THE moral feelings of men have been deepened and strengthened, and also softened, and almost created, by the Jewish prophets. In modern times we hardly like to acknowledge the full force of their words, lest they should prove subversive to society. And so we explain them away or spiritualize them, and convert what is figurative into what is literal, and what is literal into what is figurative. And still, after all our interpretation or misinterpretation, whether due to a false theology or an imperfect knowledge of the original language, the force of the words remains, and a light of heavenly truth and love streams from them even now more than 2,500 years after they were first uttered.BENJAMINJOWETT.ONE lesson, and only one, history may be said to repeat with distinctness, that the world is built somehow on moral foundations; that in the long run it is well with the good; in the long run it is ill with the wicked. But this is no science; it is no more than the old doctrine taught long ago by the Hebrew prophets.J. A. FROUDE, 1889.
THE moral feelings of men have been deepened and strengthened, and also softened, and almost created, by the Jewish prophets. In modern times we hardly like to acknowledge the full force of their words, lest they should prove subversive to society. And so we explain them away or spiritualize them, and convert what is figurative into what is literal, and what is literal into what is figurative. And still, after all our interpretation or misinterpretation, whether due to a false theology or an imperfect knowledge of the original language, the force of the words remains, and a light of heavenly truth and love streams from them even now more than 2,500 years after they were first uttered.
BENJAMINJOWETT.
ONE lesson, and only one, history may be said to repeat with distinctness, that the world is built somehow on moral foundations; that in the long run it is well with the good; in the long run it is ill with the wicked. But this is no science; it is no more than the old doctrine taught long ago by the Hebrew prophets.
J. A. FROUDE, 1889.
THE BOOK OF JONAH.AN involuntary smile passes over one’s features at the mention of the name of Jonah. For the popular conception sees nothing in this book but a silly tale exciting us to derision. I have read the Book of Jonah at least a hundred times, and I will publicly avow that I cannot even now take up this marvellous book, nay, nor even speak of it, without the tears rising to my eyes and my heart beating higher. This apparently trivial book is one of the deepest and grandest that was ever written, and I should like to say to every one who approaches it, ‘Take off thy shoes, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground’.Jonah receives from God the command to go to Nineveh to proclaim the judgement, but he rose to flee from the presence of the Lord by ship unto Tarshish in the far west. From the very beginning of the narrative, the genuine and loyal devotion of the heathen seamen is placed in intentional and exceedingly powerful contrast to the behaviour of the prophet—they are the sincere believers: he is the only heathen on board. After Jonah has been saved from storm and sea by the fish, he again receives the command to go to Nineveh. He obeys; and, wonderful to relate, scarcely has the strange preacher traversed the third part of the city crying out his warning, than the whole of Nineveh proclaim a fast and put on sackcloth. The people of Nineveh believed the words of the preacher and humiliated themselves before God; therefore, the ground and motive of theDivine judgement ceased to exist: ‘God repented of the evil that He thought to do them, and He did it not’. Now comes the fourth chapter, on account of which the whole book was written, and which cannot be replaced by paraphrase.‘But it’ [i.e.God’s determining not to destroy Nineveh because of its sincere repentance] ‘displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I hasted to flee unto Tarshish: for I knew that Thou art a gracious God, and full of compassion, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy, and repentest Thee of the evil. Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech Thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live. And the Lord said, Doest thou well to be angry? Then Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city. And the Lord God prepared a gourd and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his evil case. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the gourd. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. And it came to pass, when the sun arose, that God prepared a sultry east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and requested for himself that he might die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live. And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well tobe angry even unto death. And the Lord said, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night and perished in a night; and should not I have pity on Nineveh, that great city; wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle’?With this question the book closes. More simply, as something quite self-evident, and therefore more sublimely and touchingly, the truth was never spoken in the Hebrew Scriptures that God, as Creator of the whole earth, must also be the God and Father of the entire world, in whose loving, kind, and fatherly heart all men are equal, before whom there is no difference of nation and creed, but only men,whom He has created in His ownimage.45C. H. CORNILL, 1894.IAM convinced that the Bible becomes ever more beautiful the more it is understood.J. W. GOETHE.
AN involuntary smile passes over one’s features at the mention of the name of Jonah. For the popular conception sees nothing in this book but a silly tale exciting us to derision. I have read the Book of Jonah at least a hundred times, and I will publicly avow that I cannot even now take up this marvellous book, nay, nor even speak of it, without the tears rising to my eyes and my heart beating higher. This apparently trivial book is one of the deepest and grandest that was ever written, and I should like to say to every one who approaches it, ‘Take off thy shoes, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground’.
Jonah receives from God the command to go to Nineveh to proclaim the judgement, but he rose to flee from the presence of the Lord by ship unto Tarshish in the far west. From the very beginning of the narrative, the genuine and loyal devotion of the heathen seamen is placed in intentional and exceedingly powerful contrast to the behaviour of the prophet—they are the sincere believers: he is the only heathen on board. After Jonah has been saved from storm and sea by the fish, he again receives the command to go to Nineveh. He obeys; and, wonderful to relate, scarcely has the strange preacher traversed the third part of the city crying out his warning, than the whole of Nineveh proclaim a fast and put on sackcloth. The people of Nineveh believed the words of the preacher and humiliated themselves before God; therefore, the ground and motive of theDivine judgement ceased to exist: ‘God repented of the evil that He thought to do them, and He did it not’. Now comes the fourth chapter, on account of which the whole book was written, and which cannot be replaced by paraphrase.
‘But it’ [i.e.God’s determining not to destroy Nineveh because of its sincere repentance] ‘displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. And he prayed unto the Lord, and said, I pray thee, O Lord, was not this my saying, when I was yet in my country? Therefore I hasted to flee unto Tarshish: for I knew that Thou art a gracious God, and full of compassion, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy, and repentest Thee of the evil. Therefore now, O Lord, take, I beseech Thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live. And the Lord said, Doest thou well to be angry? Then Jonah went out of the city, and sat on the east side of the city, and there made him a booth, and sat under it in the shadow, till he might see what would become of the city. And the Lord God prepared a gourd and made it to come up over Jonah, that it might be a shadow over his head, to deliver him from his evil case. So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the gourd. But God prepared a worm when the morning rose the next day, and it smote the gourd that it withered. And it came to pass, when the sun arose, that God prepared a sultry east wind; and the sun beat upon the head of Jonah, that he fainted, and requested for himself that he might die, and said, It is better for me to die than to live. And God said to Jonah, Doest thou well to be angry for the gourd? And he said, I do well tobe angry even unto death. And the Lord said, Thou hast had pity on the gourd, for the which thou hast not laboured, neither madest it grow; which came up in a night and perished in a night; and should not I have pity on Nineveh, that great city; wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand; and also much cattle’?
With this question the book closes. More simply, as something quite self-evident, and therefore more sublimely and touchingly, the truth was never spoken in the Hebrew Scriptures that God, as Creator of the whole earth, must also be the God and Father of the entire world, in whose loving, kind, and fatherly heart all men are equal, before whom there is no difference of nation and creed, but only men,whom He has created in His ownimage.45
C. H. CORNILL, 1894.
IAM convinced that the Bible becomes ever more beautiful the more it is understood.
J. W. GOETHE.
JOBICALL the Book of Job one of the grandest things ever written with pen ... a noble book, all men’s book! There is nothing, I think, in the Bible or out of it, of equal literary merit.T. CARLYLE.THIS extraordinary book—a book of which it is to say little to call it unequalled of its kind, and which will one day, perhaps, when it is allowed to stand on its own merits, be seen towering up alone, far away above all the poetry of the world.J. A. FROUDE, 1885.
ICALL the Book of Job one of the grandest things ever written with pen ... a noble book, all men’s book! There is nothing, I think, in the Bible or out of it, of equal literary merit.
T. CARLYLE.
THIS extraordinary book—a book of which it is to say little to call it unequalled of its kind, and which will one day, perhaps, when it is allowed to stand on its own merits, be seen towering up alone, far away above all the poetry of the world.
J. A. FROUDE, 1885.
ECCLESIASTESTHE old cycles are for ever renewed, and it is no paradox that he who would advance can never cling too close to the past.The thing that has been is the thing that will be again; if we realize that, we may avoid many of the disillusions, miseries, insanities that for ever accompany the throes of new birth. Set your shoulder joyously to the world’s wheel; you may spare yourself some unhappiness if, beforehand, you slip the Book of Ecclesiastes beneath your arm.HAVELOCKELLIS.
THE old cycles are for ever renewed, and it is no paradox that he who would advance can never cling too close to the past.The thing that has been is the thing that will be again; if we realize that, we may avoid many of the disillusions, miseries, insanities that for ever accompany the throes of new birth. Set your shoulder joyously to the world’s wheel; you may spare yourself some unhappiness if, beforehand, you slip the Book of Ecclesiastes beneath your arm.
HAVELOCKELLIS.
THE BOOK OFESTHER46WITHIN it burn a lofty independence and a genuine patriotism.The story of Esther, glorified by the genius of Handel and sanctified by the piety of Racine, not only affords material for the noblest and gentlest of meditations, but is a token that in the daily events—the unforeseen chances—of life, in little unremembered acts, God is surely present.When Esther nerved herself to enter, at the risk of her life, the presence of Ahasuerus—‘I will go in unto the king, and if I perish I perish’—when her patriotic feeling vented itself in that noble cry, ‘How can I endure to see the evil that shall come unto my people? or how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred’?—she expressed, although she never named the name of God, a religious devotion as acceptable to Him as that of Moses and David.A. P. STANLEY, 1876.WE search the world for truth; we cullThe good, the pure, the beautifulFrom graven stone and written scroll,From all old flower-fields of the soul;And, weary seekers of the best,We come back laden from our quest,To find that all the sages saidIs in the Book our mothers read.J. G. WHITTIER.
WITHIN it burn a lofty independence and a genuine patriotism.
The story of Esther, glorified by the genius of Handel and sanctified by the piety of Racine, not only affords material for the noblest and gentlest of meditations, but is a token that in the daily events—the unforeseen chances—of life, in little unremembered acts, God is surely present.
When Esther nerved herself to enter, at the risk of her life, the presence of Ahasuerus—‘I will go in unto the king, and if I perish I perish’—when her patriotic feeling vented itself in that noble cry, ‘How can I endure to see the evil that shall come unto my people? or how can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred’?—she expressed, although she never named the name of God, a religious devotion as acceptable to Him as that of Moses and David.
A. P. STANLEY, 1876.
WE search the world for truth; we cullThe good, the pure, the beautifulFrom graven stone and written scroll,From all old flower-fields of the soul;And, weary seekers of the best,We come back laden from our quest,To find that all the sages saidIs in the Book our mothers read.J. G. WHITTIER.
WE search the world for truth; we cullThe good, the pure, the beautifulFrom graven stone and written scroll,From all old flower-fields of the soul;And, weary seekers of the best,We come back laden from our quest,To find that all the sages saidIs in the Book our mothers read.J. G. WHITTIER.
WE search the world for truth; we cull
The good, the pure, the beautiful
From graven stone and written scroll,
From all old flower-fields of the soul;
And, weary seekers of the best,
We come back laden from our quest,
To find that all the sages said
Is in the Book our mothers read.
J. G. WHITTIER.
THETALMUD47THE Talmud, which was as a second life to the men of the Ghetto, was not only a book of philosophy or devotion, it was a reservoir of national life; it was the faithful mirror of the civilization of Babylon and Judea, and, at the same time, a magical phantasmagoria of all the wild dreams, the fables, the legends, the scraps of science more or less exact, the reveries, the audacious theories discovered by the Wandering Jew in his endless travels. Every generation of Judaism had accumulated its facts and fancies there. Even the Bible itself did not come so close to the daily life of the Ghetto as the Talmud and the Mishna. The Bible was a thing eternal, apart, unchanging. The Talmud was a daily companion, living, breathing, contemporary, with a hundred remedies for a hundred needs. A nation persecuted, lives through its time of stress rather by its commentaries than by its Scriptures. In the Ghetto the Talmud was a door into the ideal always open. When the Christians burned the Jews they did no enduring harm to Judaism, for martyrdom purifies and strengthens every cause. But when they sequestrated every copy of the Talmud that fraud or force could discover, and burned the spiritual bread of a devoted people upon the public square, they committed an irreparable injury; for, by withdrawing its ideal, they debased the population of the Ghetto.A. MARYF. ROBINSON, 1892.
THE Talmud, which was as a second life to the men of the Ghetto, was not only a book of philosophy or devotion, it was a reservoir of national life; it was the faithful mirror of the civilization of Babylon and Judea, and, at the same time, a magical phantasmagoria of all the wild dreams, the fables, the legends, the scraps of science more or less exact, the reveries, the audacious theories discovered by the Wandering Jew in his endless travels. Every generation of Judaism had accumulated its facts and fancies there. Even the Bible itself did not come so close to the daily life of the Ghetto as the Talmud and the Mishna. The Bible was a thing eternal, apart, unchanging. The Talmud was a daily companion, living, breathing, contemporary, with a hundred remedies for a hundred needs. A nation persecuted, lives through its time of stress rather by its commentaries than by its Scriptures. In the Ghetto the Talmud was a door into the ideal always open. When the Christians burned the Jews they did no enduring harm to Judaism, for martyrdom purifies and strengthens every cause. But when they sequestrated every copy of the Talmud that fraud or force could discover, and burned the spiritual bread of a devoted people upon the public square, they committed an irreparable injury; for, by withdrawing its ideal, they debased the population of the Ghetto.
A. MARYF. ROBINSON, 1892.
THE HUMANITY OF JEWISH WISDOMIN my early youth I read—I have forgotten where—the words of the ancient Jewish sage—Hillel, if I remember rightly: ‘If thou art not for thyself, who will be for thee?But if thou art for thyself alone, wherefore artthou’?48The inner meaning of these words impressed me with its profound wisdom, and I interpreted them for myself in this manner: I must actively take care of myself, that my life should be better, and I must not impose the care of myself on other people’s shoulders; but if I am going to take care of myself alone, of nothing but my own personal life, it will be useless, ugly, meaningless. This thought ate its way deep into my soul, and I say now with conviction: Hillel’s wisdom served as a strong staff on my road, which was neither even nor easy.I believe that Jewish wisdom is more all-human and universal than any other; and this not only because of its immemorial age, not only because it is the firstborn, but also because of the powerful humaneness that saturates it, because of its high estimate of man.MAXIMGORKY, 1916.
IN my early youth I read—I have forgotten where—the words of the ancient Jewish sage—Hillel, if I remember rightly: ‘If thou art not for thyself, who will be for thee?But if thou art for thyself alone, wherefore artthou’?48
The inner meaning of these words impressed me with its profound wisdom, and I interpreted them for myself in this manner: I must actively take care of myself, that my life should be better, and I must not impose the care of myself on other people’s shoulders; but if I am going to take care of myself alone, of nothing but my own personal life, it will be useless, ugly, meaningless. This thought ate its way deep into my soul, and I say now with conviction: Hillel’s wisdom served as a strong staff on my road, which was neither even nor easy.
I believe that Jewish wisdom is more all-human and universal than any other; and this not only because of its immemorial age, not only because it is the firstborn, but also because of the powerful humaneness that saturates it, because of its high estimate of man.
MAXIMGORKY, 1916.
THEPHARISEES49OF all the strange ironies of history, perhaps the strangest is that ‘Pharisee’ is current as a term of reproach among the theological descendants of that sect of Nazarenes who, without the martyr spirit of those primitive Puritans, would never have come into existence.T. H. HUXLEY.THE Pharisees built up religious individualism and a purely spiritual worship; they deepened the belief in a future life; they championed the cause of the laity against an exclusive priesthood; they made the Scriptures the possession of the people, and in the weekly assemblages of the Synagogue they preached to them the truths and hopes of religion out of the Sacred Books.... The Pharisees consistently strove to bring life more and more under the dominion of religious observance. By carefully formed habits, by the ceremonial of religious observances, religious ideas and sanctions could be impressed upon the people’s mind and heart. But the outward was subordinated to the inward.CANONG. H. BOX, 1911.PHARISAISM in history has had a hard fate. For there has seldom been for Christians the opportunity to know what Pharisaism really meant, and perhaps still more seldom the desire to use that opportunity. Is then the Christian religion so weak that it must be advocated by blackening the character of its oldest rival?R. TRAVERSHERFORD, 1912.
OF all the strange ironies of history, perhaps the strangest is that ‘Pharisee’ is current as a term of reproach among the theological descendants of that sect of Nazarenes who, without the martyr spirit of those primitive Puritans, would never have come into existence.
T. H. HUXLEY.
THE Pharisees built up religious individualism and a purely spiritual worship; they deepened the belief in a future life; they championed the cause of the laity against an exclusive priesthood; they made the Scriptures the possession of the people, and in the weekly assemblages of the Synagogue they preached to them the truths and hopes of religion out of the Sacred Books.... The Pharisees consistently strove to bring life more and more under the dominion of religious observance. By carefully formed habits, by the ceremonial of religious observances, religious ideas and sanctions could be impressed upon the people’s mind and heart. But the outward was subordinated to the inward.
CANONG. H. BOX, 1911.
PHARISAISM in history has had a hard fate. For there has seldom been for Christians the opportunity to know what Pharisaism really meant, and perhaps still more seldom the desire to use that opportunity. Is then the Christian religion so weak that it must be advocated by blackening the character of its oldest rival?
R. TRAVERSHERFORD, 1912.