By C. E. BISHOP.
Old historians generally gave kings bad characters, but in the reaction from this indiscriminate censure we get a school of writers who praise too much. Treacle has taken the place of vinegar in writing history. Thus, Green makes heroes of the coarse Saxon savages and heathen; Froude has painted the picture of Henry VIII so his own mother—much more his multitudinous wives—would not recognize it; even Benedict Arnold and Judas Iscariot have their eulogists. Nevertheless, no one, so far as I have read, has had a good word to say of King John. Green vouchsafes “the sober judgment of history” in ratification of the Billingsgatish opinion: “Foul as it is, hell itself is defiled by the fouler presence of John.” I have no kalsomine to mix for him who seems by all accounts to have been worse than his Satanic Majesty, in that Johnis“as black as he is painted.” Yet it is to this royal monster that England owes her Great Charter of Rights and Freedom, and one of her red letter days.
The boy whose impudence and mean spirit made everybody detest him; the youth who so embittered the last hours of his fond father, Henry II, that he died cursing him; the prince who plotted the dethronement and death of his brother, King Richard, absent on a crusade, and murdered the rightful heir, the boy Arthur; the husband who deserted his own wife and abducted the wife of his friend; the soldier who was always provoking quarrels and always running away from fighting, and abandoned all his continental possessions to his enemy without striking a blow; the churchman so abjectly superstitious that he dared not go hunting without a string of relics around his neck, yet quarrelled with the Pope about the right to rob the Church revenues, and ended by basely resigning his crown into the Pope’s hands and kissing the toe of his legate; the lawgiver of his realm who reduced bribery to a department of the royal exchequer, and opened book accounts with the subjects whose hush-money and blood-money bought justice and the perversion of justice, wherein it was recorded that one man paid to have the king’s anger appeased, another “that the king should hold his tongue about Henry Pinel’s wife,” and that a poor woman paid two hundred livres for the privilege of visiting her husband in prison; the father of his people who hired foreign plunderers to rob and murder his children, who starved women and children to death in dungeons, crushed old men under loads of lead, extorted rich men’s money by pulling their teeth, one each day; who was so licentious that noble ladies had to flee the realm to be safe from his approach or his violence—this “awful example” of the race of kings was the chosen instrument for inciting England to demand a charter as complete in its guarantees as his encroachments, as beneficent as he was pestilent, as monumental grandly as he was meanly. And so at last it came about that King John had not a friend left at home or abroad.
He had one opponent whom both interest and principle moved to lead the national demand for justice, which now took shape. That was Stephen Langton, the Archbishop of Canterbury, whose appointment by the Pope had been resisted by John. This worthy Saxon successor of Anselm and Becket had hunted out in the garret of a monastery a copy of the charter which Henry I, in the days of his honeymoon with his Saxon wife, had granted to his people; he had called together the barons and bishops, and proposed that John be made to renew that bill of rights, and they had all laid their hands on the high altar of St. Edmondsbury and sworn to make him do so, by arms if need be. Christmas Day, 1214, was grandly celebrated, for then the burly knights in armor came to John in London Temple and made their demand. The crafty king asked time to consider of it, and to study the document. “How long?” demanded Langton. “By Easter you shall have my answer,” promised the king.
He employed the interval in begging the Pope to order Langton to cease his opposition, which the Pope did, and the archbishop did not. On the contrary, Langton gave to the barons’ movement religious sanction and the title “The Army of God and Holy Church,” thus neutralizing the moral and spiritual influence of John’s only supporter, Rome. John tried to buy off the opposition with promises, but no one would trust the champion prevaricator of the age. He sent out proclamations to all bailiffs to put down his enemies, but everybody took pride in being his enemy, so there was no one to execute the writs. He made a great pretense of going on a crusade and took the cross, but even that all-compelling appeal was laughed at. John a crusader! See how necessary it was that this king should have been so bad that no one would trust or believe him, even with the Pope at his back and the cross in his hands.
We of this country and time—all mankind, in fact, have to thank John for all this resistance, for the more he struggled and plotted and lied, the more they advanced their demands, so that by Easter “the Army of God and Holy Church” had a far different charter to offer from that they had sworn to before the last Christmas; like all nature at that spring-dawn, the charter had put out new shoots. Freedom, too, had come forth from the tomb.
On Easter day, 1215, the barons were assembled in large force at Stamford; a committee headed by Langton went to the king with the articles drawn up on parchment; the document made a big bundle; you can see it yet in the British Museum. If the king was astonished at the growth the document had made, he was more so at the growth of the demands put forth in it, and he swore up and down he never would sign it and grant liberties to his subjects which would make him a slave. The barons seemed to think he would sign, nevertheless. May was nearly gone before they brought the king to book. He tried to raise an army at home, but no one came to his banner. He sent abroad to hire soldiers, but they did not come. May 22, 1215, “the Army of God” marched triumphant into London, and the kingdom was in its hands. Scotland and Wales offered aid, and the northern barons came marching with their retainers to the common cause. For two weeks John skulked about London with seven horsemen only, and all England in arms against him. Thanks to John again for this resistance! The barons improved the time adding new and stricter conditions. But there was an end to it at last, and the king sent to know when and where the papers should be executed.
“Let it be at Runnymede, and on the fifteenth day of June,” was the answer. All circumstances conspire to make this appointment ideally, even romantically, appropriate. Rune-mede was the Meadow of Council, a grassy strip between the Thames and the foot-hills of Surrey, where since old times earls and kings and the wise men had used to deliberate and treat, in the open air as they lived. It spoke of a time when men dared not trust each other in enclosures; of a people in thought and temper as free and large as “all out-doors.” On that historical spot the powers of England who could not trust her king met the king who would trust no one.
It is the middle day of “the leafy month of June,” 1215. [How green and beautiful England is in June!] “The Armyof God and Holy Church” has marched out from London with a great crowd of citizens, and sat down along the Council Meadow. A rude table is set, and on it are spread out the fairly-engrossed parchment and writing implements. The king rides thither from Windsor Castle. Only three or four are with him, and they belong to the barons’ party. John stands absolutely deserted, a picture of regal isolation such as has been never seen before or since. Distinguished monarch! He is smiling, courtly and complaisant, as he well knows how to be. Yes, it affords him great pleasure to do this for his beloved subjects.
“Hold,” says Langton, as the too-eager king grasps the pen, “there is more to be considered. Your signature is to be affixed only of your free will and desire, and you are to here swear not to renounce this instrument on account of anything that has taken place up to this moment, and to keep this covenant faithfully inviolate forever.”
Yes, the smiling John would so swear.
“Then for the better fulfillment of all these conditions, you will consent to the appointment of five-and-twenty knights, who shall have power to enforce this contract; you hereby give them power, in case any article is infringed by you or your officers, to punish the offender by fine, or, if necessary, to destrain your goods, and, in case of resistance, to levy war against you and your castles, saving only the safety of your person and your family; and all your subjects shall be like yourself sworn to obedience to the twenty-five barons, executors of this contract. In further security of all which, the Tower and city of London are to remain in possession of the Archbishop until this act shall be duly and faithfully so put in execution by you.”
Ah, the smile has faded from the king’s face, and pale and trembling he abruptly leaves the council and returns to the castle. Once there he raves and stamps like a caged madman. He froths at the mouth, rolls on the floor and bites at every object near him. “They have given me five-and-twenty over-lords,” roars the king repeatedly.
A week passed before all the formalities were complied with, the barons remaining obstinately in camp, yielding not one jot of their demands, and at last tiring out the king and securing his assent to everything.
What is Magna Charta? What are its provisions, what reforms did it work, what good has it done? Everybody has heard of it, not one in a thousand probably can answer these questions. It undertook two things—reform of existing abuses and provisions for further justice; remedy for the past, security for the future. Its great mission in the cause of civilization has been as a rallying-point for popular rights against royal encroachments. Kings and ministers in succeeding centuries were again and again patiently brought back to that ground and made to swear obedience to the principle oflimitation of authority. On this one point British obstinacy stuck and never budged, and it is due to that resistance and persistance for Magna Charta that limited monarchy, and constitutional, representative government stand where they do on the earth to-day.
A remarkable thing about the instrument itself is the lawyer-like accuracy of its language and the minuteness and fullness of its provisions, showing care in its preparation and affording evidence of the state of the jurisprudence and scholarship of the time, and of the extent of the ramifications of the executive wrongs it sought to remedy.
But this is not a constitution, not a statement of rights; it is a statute-law of the sort then possible, viz: in the form of a royal edict. In each section the king ordains so and so. Nor is it a charter in the interest of the rights of man. The bondsmen, who made the bulk of the population of England at that time, are not included in its benefits, and not mentioned save once, and that exception was doubtless inserted for the benefit of the masters, for it exempts from execution the tools of the slave, which of course belonged to his owner. So much for what the charter is not and does not.
A large share of its articles are devoted to defining and regulating the feudal tenure, duties and rights of the barons, and were quite selfish in their scope, although they mark progress as reducing ill-understood relations of king and feudatories for the first time to a written form. But they went further, and stipulated that all these privileges and immunities should apply to all classes of freemen—an important point, as it made Normans and Englishmen equal before the law. Much space is devoted to regulating business and commercial matters; as leasehold rights, treatment of the estates of wards and widows, fixing the widow’s right of dower, freeing of trade, home and foreign, from restrictions and imposts, regulating fisheries, bridge-building, highways, weights and measures.
Advancing into the domain of property and personal rights, it fixed the terms and places of courts and opened them freely to all; no man could be tried without witnesses, or detained in prison without trial; borough franchises were declared inviolable. Then came three sections which struck at the heart of the tyrannical practices of John’s reign:
Foreign officers, temporal or spiritual, were to be removed and their holdings filled by Englishmen; and mercenary troops were to be removed from the realm.
“Justice or right shall not be sold, delayed or denied to any man.”
And then came the declaration of civil rights, which has never ceased to echo wherever free institutions aspired to live:
“No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized of rights and property, or be outlawed or exiled, or otherwise destroyed but by lawful judgment of his peers or the law of the land.”
This grand declaration was five hundred years ahead of the times, and was not made a fact sooner than that; but all the same, it made the condition of “freeman” in England a great prize for the slave to struggle for, and under all the stormy vicissitudes of royal, baronial and clerical oppression of succeeding ages; made the condition of men in England infinitely superior to that of subjects of other realms—in fact, and in the end, made England what she is, America whatsheis as to free institutions.
So, on the whole, those iron-fisted old barons did their work well, according to their light and the condition of their times; and Runnymede has become, by their great act, a shrine of freedom.
But here our thanks to John must cease. His phenomenal wickedness had done the world all the good it could. He did not mean it, of course. When he had signed the charter, and as soon as the Army of God had dispersed, he sent to the Pope for absolution from his oath, and to the continent for an army of murderers and marauders. He hurled upon his realm the excommunications of the Church and the torch and sword of his mercenaries. He went through England from end to end, as if determined to annihilate all life and property in his wild, insatiable revenge. His career of ruin was short. We regret that it could not have been terminated by the sword of justice, instead of by nature, and so have rounded up the measure of retribution. But every writer and every reader of English history, from that day to this, has in thought and wish constituted himself John’s executioner, and, setting off against the glory of Runnymede his detestable career, has learned to loathe injustice, treachery, cowardice, and sin in high places.
[To be continued.]
We can not be just if we are not kind.—Vauvenargues.
SELECTED BY THE REV. J. H. VINCENT, D. D.
ByRev.FRANK RUSSELL, A. M.
The word of God began to be spoken to the first of the race in Eden, and such is the beginning of the Bible. It was only a spoken word, doubtless, for nearly twenty-five hundred years. From generation to generation through all the patriarchal ages it was preserved by fathers carefully teaching it to their children. Many fragments may have been lost, but it is no taxation of our belief that for many centuries much of the early Word may have been carefully treasured through the exercise of memory. We know of marvelous instances of the power of memory. It is supposed that the works of Homer, an elaborate poem with careful divisions, were preserved for centuries in critical form, by one generation repeating it to the next while it was unwritten. It does not bear the marks of change during these generations of its history, but is unique, precise, and giving every evidence of being the original work of one author, Homer. Sir Robert Peel is stated to have been able to listen to a speech in Parliament one and a half or two hours long, and then repeat it all verbatim, and it is also said at the present time that Gladstone has learned Homer so thoroughly that on hearing any line of it repeated he is able at once to repeat the following and the preceding line. Now Shem lived upon the earth after he came out of the ark five hundred years, and could have thoroughly taught the new race in Asia the story. Snatches of song and old tales which he related might have been verbally composed in the antediluvian period, and many think that specimens of the same still hold their place, set like pearls in the earliest Scripture writings. There is little doubt that Job is the first writer whose productions are preserved. That he wrote before Moses seems quite evident from statements easily understood; viz., his descriptions are only of the manners and customs of the ancient patriarchs, his religion is purely patriarchal, the only idolatry he mentions is the worship of the sun and moon, thus seeming to antedate the time of their idol worship, and lastly, he makes no mention of Sodom, Gomorrah, or Abraham, which would scarcely have been the case had he written after Moses. Moses may likely have read Job and have received added inspiration from it, if, indeed, he should need more than to have received the tables writ with God’s own finger. There are, thus far, six pamphlets bound with sixty of later date that make up our book. Look at the antiquity of these six venerable fragments, written one thousand years before Homer sang, one thousand years before either Herodotus or Confucius was born.
Following these earlier Scripture writings there came to be mentioned the rolls of the prophets, songs and sketches of genealogies and history, so that gradually fragments, here and there, came forth by divine direction, which, preserved by divine care, were to enter the canon which we have of sixty-six pamphlets, by about forty writers, the entire authorship spanning a period of about sixteen centuries, geographically ranging over the cities of Chaldea, the plains of Arabia, and the mountains of Palestine. The range of mind is equally varied; written by men who sat on thrones, by some who lived as hermits in the mountains, and by some who were shepherds and fishermen.
About 600 B. C., it is recorded in Jeremiah xxxvi that Jehoiachim, while listening to the reading of the roll, became so enraged at its contents that he took his penknife and defaced it, and then cast it into the fire-place and saw it consumed. He has had many descendants of the same temper, and his race is not yet extinguished.
In about 450 B. C.—I am careful to give approximate dates in round numbers—the sacred rolls were so mutilated that when Ezra and Nehemiah returned from the eastern captivity and reorganized the old worship in the city of Jerusalem, they added to their other improvements the establishment of a district library, Ezra collected and translated all the copies of the Bible, writing in a kind of Chaldaic Hebrew, the old language modified by the eastern dialect, with which the Hebrews in their captivity had grown familiar, so that now there were two languages of Scripture, the Samaritans clinging tenaciously to the old Hebrew of Job, and Moses, and the prophets after them.
About 280 B. C., marks another epoch in the development of the book. Ptolemy Philadelphus, the ruler of Egypt, desired to enrich the great imperial library of Alexandria with a complete and careful translation of the sacred writings into Greek, which was the popular language of his time. He organized a college of seventy or seventy-two eminent scholars, and classified the work among them; and the result was the Septuagint translation, the foundation of all our translations of the Old Testament since. It is said that the last transcript of this work was made by the hand of a woman named Techla. This was the edition which the Savior and the apostles used, the very language which they quoted and mostly spake. Between 130 and 140 B. C., Antiochus distinguished himself by attempting to burn all the Bibles in the world, thus acting the part of Jehoiachim No. 2.
In 128 A. D., Aquila made another translation, it is thought in favor of the more zealous Jews and to the prejudice of Christians, and not as fair a work as the Septuagint, and in 300 A. D., Diocletian added to the infamies of the tenth great persecution an attempt to destroy the Bible by seizing and burning all copies that could be found. He is Jehoiachim No. 3. Such attempts in fulfillment of the declarations of the text are like the effort to exterminate a ripened head of wheat by stamping it beneath your feet; the next year many thrifty growths will laugh at the result.
In the early part of the fifth century good Saint Jerome, one of the most distinguished of the Latin fathers, profound in learning and devout of heart, collected all the important translations that preceded him, took up his residence in Palestine and made a very thorough version, called the Latin Vulgate, and used by our Catholic friends ever since, an important aid in all subsequent Bible work.
In 500 the Emperor Justinian decreed, to quell some discussion about the preferences of versions, that either might be used with entire liberty in any part of the realm. It is supposed that the Jewish sentiment, vacillating for some time between liberal views and their characteristic conservatism, rebounded at this decree and led to a tenacity for their own ancient language, to which they have since scrupulously adhered, reading mostly throughout their wide dispersion the ancient characters of Job and Moses, but some, as at Frankfort in Germany, using the Chaldaic shading of Ezra’s version. From a little before 600 we are able very definitely to trace the way of the book in England. There was dense ignorance among the masses of common people throughout the middle ages, but the convents and the great monasteries were some of them nevertheless centers of great learning. The Jews of England from the first kept a clear knowledge of their old writings, and furnished men in every century eminent in scholarship. Monks, so inclined, had little else to do but to eat and study, and God perpetuated through their work the knowledge of his word. I was shown in the British Museum a copy of the Gospels in Latin, of exquisite beauty, done by Eadfrid in the seventh century. It is on excellent paper, in red and black characters, executed almost with the precision of type. Near the close of thatcentury Cædmon, the father of English poetry, translated portions of the Scripture into the Saxon or early English.
A fragment of manuscript written by Aldhelm, a bishop, in 706, praises the nuns for their fidelity in the daily reading of the holy Scriptures, a circumstance that indicates both that there was something of education among the convents, and also that they doubtless had many copies of Scripture manuscripts. Aldhelm himself is known to have translated fifty of the Psalms into the early English.
A bright picture comes to us by the pen of Saint Cuthbert in 735. On the 26th of May—Ascension Day—cloudless and beautiful toward its closing, there were silent tread and hushed voices among the monks of a great monastery in the county of Durham, in England. All attention along the cloisters was directed toward the passageway of one cell, and eager inquiries of all who came thence if the dying one were still alive.
Within the cell, on a low white bed, was the feeble form of an old man, bolstered up that his eye might rest upon either of the manuscripts supported in position on and about his bed. At a table near him was seated a scribe writing every word which the pale lips spake. One listening heard the scribe say, “There is only one chapter left, master, but you are too weary now, and you must sleep.” “No, go on, it is very easy, write rapidly,” was the reply; and so the writing proceeded according to the faint dictation of the exhausted old man, until he seemed to fall asleep. The scribe awoke him again, and the glassy eyes brightened as the old man heard, “Master, there is but one verse now,” and with an effort to fix the drooping eyes upon the adjusted scrolls, there came slowly forth, one by one, the words of the last verse of John’s gospel, and when the “Amen” was pronounced, the whitened head sank among the pillows lightened with the last rays of the setting sun, as it streamed through the grated window, and the bloodless lips murmured forth, “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost,” when the form of the Venerable Bede was still, and the awful silence of death followed immediately the ending of his translation.
Portions of the Word were also translated in the ninth century, and were authorized by King Alfred. He himself did something at translating, and was careful to have nicely executed, as a preface to every published code, the manuscript of the Decalogue. It might exercise a salutary effect if our statesmen, every law they read, might also have the ten commandments before them. King Alfred made the declaration more than once that he desired to see the day when all men in his kingdom would be able to read God’s word.
Elfrac also, after Alfred, from 1004 to 1030, translated portions of the Scriptures into English.
But the last manuscript translation of the English Scriptures is greater than any which preceeded it, and the only one which can be called a popular edition. The quaint old stone church of Saint Mary is still standing in Leicestershire, where John Wycliffe preached when in 1830 he completed his translation. He had long been the fiery lecturer at Oxford, and had come into sore conflict with ignorant priests of the papacy for his enunciations of religious liberty and his schemes for the better education of the masses of the people. So that when his translation was finished a strong hatred sought his life. He was cited to Rome, but being too feeble to go, he was buried in his own parish. Forty years afterward, however, the same council which burned John Huss exhumed the bones of Wycliffe, and having burned them, they gathered the ashes and scattered them into the river which had the significant name of “Swift,” down which they found their way through other rivers into the ocean, and were washed, it would seem, with the strength of Wycliffe’s spirit, upon every shore of the world. There were as many as one hundred and seventy copies of the Wycliffe version made with busy pens, and circulated secretly, but widely read, thus preparing the way for greater works thereafter, and confirming the propriety of calling their author “The Morning Star of the Reformation.”
A few years since I stood long before the great bronze statue of Gutenberg in Mayence on the Rhine, a place now of over fifty thousand population. All citizens are eager to show any American that can make out to ask it, the site of the building where the invention of printing with movable type was made about 1450. The house still stands where Gutenberg lived, and another in which he did his first work with his press. Twenty-five years later printing began in England, and in another twenty-five years there were in the world over two hundred and twenty places where printing was done. I took a walk on the heights back of Bristol, in England, and was asked if I was seeking Sudbury, the old manor, which I was not, but accidentally had it pointed out to me where Sir John Walsh lived, when he employed for the instruction of his children a young priest, a fine scholar and a great reader. The fact that he devoted so much of his time and thought to the Scriptures, and even taught children to read it, produced some sensation in the community. In June, 1523, at a dining, the young priest suffered some rebuke for his liberal handling of the Scriptures by the pompous parish priest, who was present, and who, among other things, declared that it was better even to disobey a law of God than a law of the Pope. At this the opposition in the heart of the young priest became very decided, and his reply was almost in these words: “I hope to live to see even the ploughboys of England knowing more of the Word of God than either yourself or the Pope.” That young priest’s name was William Tyndale. When it was noised about that his pen was busy preparing a translation of the Bible for print, he was obliged to fly abroad on the continent, where at Cologne on the Rhine he printed a few sheets, then fled again to Worms, where he printed all of his translation, and was soon thereafter imprisoned in Antwerp for six months, during which time he converted the jailor and his family. He was then strangled and burned at the stake, his last words being, “May the Lord open the King of England’s eyes.”
It was Henry the VIII who was then King of England, and who assisted the bishops to buy up Tyndale’s edition and burn the books in a heap before St. Paul’s in London.
I saw a fragment of one of the books, mostly burned, rescued from the flames, and now in the British Museum. This is Jehoiachim No. 4.
It is said that a young man named Coverdale had been greatly interested in Tyndale’s edition; that he was a fine scholar, and that he, with several others, finding that the edition would be destroyed, succeeded in selling many copies for the flames, thus erecting a fund with which they proposed another edition. The prayer of Tyndale in less than two years was answered. Henry the VIII, with increasing disgust at the ignorance and corruption of the religious teachers in every community, determined that, after all, the Bible should be printed and extensively circulated. So Coverdale, with strong patronage, was employed to issue it, which he did, under the care of Archbishop Cramer, in 1527, in Zurich. Two thousand five hundred copies of Coverdale’s edition were seized and burned by the Inquisition in France. This is Jehoiachim No. 5.
Following Henry VIII, Edward VI ordered that every parish priest should own a copy and read therefrom a chapter at each service.
In 1558 John Calvin, with able associates, published an edition called the Genevan edition.
In 1614 King James commissioned forty-seven scholars to make a careful and complete edition, which was authorizedas standard. This is our own edition or translation in common use since. As Tyndale commenced his work in 1511, you will see that it took just a century and more than fifty years after the time of printing to produce a complete and authorized version of God’s word. The race of Jehoiachims in many parts have attempted to destroy it, especially in Spain, for the last few years.
During the time of the preparation of King James’s version, our Catholic friends completed an edition more to their liking, which was published in 1609 in Douay, France, and which they have in whatever common use it is proper to say, called the Douay version.
In 1604, the same year that King James moved for his version, John Eliot was born. In 1631 he joined the church in Boston, and became a learned and pious missionary among our American Indians. In 1661 he published his translation, and lived to see over twenty Indians educated and using his edition in their own tongue, in the pulpit. Eliot died when he was eighty-six years old. There are now about thirty copies of his translation remaining, about equally divided between England and America. There is a copy in the Astor Library in New York, and one in Yale College library. A copy was sold at auction in New York a few years since for $1,130, the highest known price ever paid for one book. There is no man now living who can read Eliot’s Bible.
In 1870 a movement was started, appropriately by the Church of England, for a thorough revision of our Scriptures. The New Testament has been in our hands for some time, and we now eagerly look forward to the appearance of the Old Testament in the new version.
“Within this simple volume liesThe mystery of mysteries;Happiest story of human race,To whom that God has given graceTo read, to fear, to hope, to pray,To lift the latch, to force the way;And better had they ne’er been bornThan read to doubt or read to scorn.”—Sir Walter Scott.
“Within this simple volume liesThe mystery of mysteries;Happiest story of human race,To whom that God has given graceTo read, to fear, to hope, to pray,To lift the latch, to force the way;And better had they ne’er been bornThan read to doubt or read to scorn.”—Sir Walter Scott.
“Within this simple volume liesThe mystery of mysteries;Happiest story of human race,To whom that God has given graceTo read, to fear, to hope, to pray,To lift the latch, to force the way;And better had they ne’er been bornThan read to doubt or read to scorn.”—Sir Walter Scott.
“Within this simple volume lies
The mystery of mysteries;
Happiest story of human race,
To whom that God has given grace
To read, to fear, to hope, to pray,
To lift the latch, to force the way;
And better had they ne’er been born
Than read to doubt or read to scorn.”
—Sir Walter Scott.
By W. F. COLLIER, LL. D.
The Creation of Maninvolved the necessity of preparing a dwelling-place for him. The Bible informs us that the world passed through successive changes, which transformed an unshapely mass to its present condition of beauty and fitness. God said, “Let there be light,” and the rays of the sun burst upon the surface of the earth. Then the land appeared from under the waters, and was clothed with vegetation. The fishes, reptiles, and birds were called into existence. Next, quadrupeds appeared. Finally, as a crowning act, man was created in the image of God, his Maker. “Then the woman was formed from the rib of the man, in token of the closeness of their relation, and the duty of man to love his wife as his own flesh.”
Man having been created, means were employed for his occupation. In order to develop his mind and body activity was necessary. He was to dress and keep the garden, to subdue the lower animals, study them, and subject them to his control and use.
Distinguished from all other created beings around him by the gift of speech, he was enabled to classify and name the animals, hold converse with his wife, and engage in oral acts of praise and worship of his Heavenly Father.
The locality of the Garden of Eden is believed to be in the highlands of Asia Minor, near the sources of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris. The whole district drained by these rivers is represented by travelers as one of surpassing beauty. Mountains rise, by easy slopes, to the height of five thousand feet; their sides are clothed with gigantic forest trees, underneath which the box, bay, and rhododendron flourish. The valleys and lowlands are studded with villages, and checkered by orchards, vineyards, and gardens, yielding both the cereals of the temperate zones and the fruit of the tropics. Somewhere in the eastern part of this charming district the garden was located, on the shore of Lake Van. This lake is described by travelers as follows:
“The shores of Lake Van (a noble sheet of water, two hundred and forty miles round), are singularly fine. They are bright with poplar, tamarisk, myrtles, and oleanders, whilst numerous verdant islands, scattered over its placid bosom, lend to it the enchantment of fairy land. In one direction the gardens cover a space of seven or eight miles long, and four miles broad. The climate is temperate, and sky almost always bright and clear. To the southeast of the lake extends the plain of Solduz, presenting in one part an unbroken surface of groves, orchards, vineyards, gardens, and villages. The same description is applicable to the tract extending along the Araxes, which, for striking mountain scenery, interspersed with rich valleys, can scarcely be equalled. This district accords, in every respect, with the best notions we can form of the cradle of the human race.”
Here, say the Armenians, was the Vale of Eden. On the summit of Mount Ararat, at no great distance from this, the ark rested; and here, also, the vine was first cultivated by Noah. It is impossible to say whether further investigation in this comparatively unknown district will ever guide us nearer to the spot where the Lord planted the garden; but there can be no doubt that these plains, lakes, and islands must have given birth to the images of Elysian fields and Fortunate islands that continued, age after age, to gild the traditions of the world.[E]
The Fall of Man.—This expression signifies the loss of the innocence and perfection with which he was endowed at his creation. The Fall was the consequence of disobedience.
Milton thus describes the momentous event:
“Of man’s disobedience, and the fruitOf that forbidden tree, whose mortal tasteBrought death into the world, and all our woe.”
“Of man’s disobedience, and the fruitOf that forbidden tree, whose mortal tasteBrought death into the world, and all our woe.”
“Of man’s disobedience, and the fruitOf that forbidden tree, whose mortal tasteBrought death into the world, and all our woe.”
“Of man’s disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe.”
Eve’s act—
“. . . her rash hand, in evil hour,Forth reaching to the fruit. She plucked, she eat.Earth felt the wound, and Nature, from her seat,Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe,That all was lost.”
“. . . her rash hand, in evil hour,Forth reaching to the fruit. She plucked, she eat.Earth felt the wound, and Nature, from her seat,Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe,That all was lost.”
“. . . her rash hand, in evil hour,Forth reaching to the fruit. She plucked, she eat.Earth felt the wound, and Nature, from her seat,Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe,That all was lost.”
“. . . her rash hand, in evil hour,
Forth reaching to the fruit. She plucked, she eat.
Earth felt the wound, and Nature, from her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe,
That all was lost.”
Adam’s act—
“Earth trembled from her entrails, as againIn pangs, and Nature gave a second groan;Sky lowered, and muttering thunder, some sad dropsWept at completing of the mortal sinOriginal. . . .”
“Earth trembled from her entrails, as againIn pangs, and Nature gave a second groan;Sky lowered, and muttering thunder, some sad dropsWept at completing of the mortal sinOriginal. . . .”
“Earth trembled from her entrails, as againIn pangs, and Nature gave a second groan;Sky lowered, and muttering thunder, some sad dropsWept at completing of the mortal sinOriginal. . . .”
“Earth trembled from her entrails, as again
In pangs, and Nature gave a second groan;
Sky lowered, and muttering thunder, some sad drops
Wept at completing of the mortal sin
Original. . . .”
At what period of the existence of our first parents their fall occurred the inspired writer does not inform us. Thefactis only stated. There is reason to infer that it occurred soon after their creation.
Before the fall they lived in the garden, whose enchanting beauty has already been described. Their employment was to dress, admire, and enjoy the lovely spot, and to praise and glorify their Maker.
Having disobeyed, they were driven forth from the garden, and the ground, which before brought forth, spontaneously, an abundant supply of fruits to satisfy all their desires,became changed, and needed cultivation to produce the food their desecrated bodies needed.
“Adam and Eve went forth into the wide world, carrying with them the fallen nature and corrupt tendencies which were the present fruit of their sin, but with faith in the promise of redemption.”
The chief object of their life was yet to be accomplished, the earth was to be peopled and subdued. The curse was accompanied by a promise. The toils of the man were to be rewarded by the fruits the earth would yield to cultivation; and the woman, in her suffering, was consoled by the hope of a Redeemer.[F]
The Flood.—Sin and wickedness had become so wonderful that God determined to destroy the whole race, except Noah and his family.
Noah was directed to construct a vessel sufficiently large to accommodate his family and such animals as he should need. In this vessel, called in the Bible the Ark, he embarked with his wife, three sons, and their wives, making in all eight souls. He took, according to Divine direction, clean beasts and birds by sevens, and of such as were not to used for food or for sacrifice by pairs, with a supply of food for all. The age of Noah at the time he entered the ark was six hundred years. When all had embarked, the ark was shut by the hand of God, and immediately the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the clouds sent forth torrents of water, which increased and bore up the ark. The Bible does not describe the terrific character of the consequences of such a storm. We are left to imagine the scenes that followed. The mountain streams must have swollen so suddenly as to forsake their channels and find new outlets, sweeping away, in their angry force, hamlets, villages, and even cities, washing down hills, and undermining mountains. But, most prominent, there rises before the fancy a scene of terrible conflict—brawny men fighting with the tempest, carrying their families from height to height, but still pursued by the remorseless, unwearying foe.
The next scene is one of defeat and death.
Bleached and bloodless corpses float everywhere, like pieces of a wreck over the shoreless sea; the poor babe, locked in the arms of the mother, having found even nature’s refuge fail.
Last of all, there is a scene of awful stillness and desolation, not one object being seen but the dull expanse of the ocean, nor one sound of life heard but the low moan of its surging waters.
On the seventh month the ark rested on the mountains of Ararat. But nearly a year elapsed, after the mighty vessel grounded, before Noah emerged from this temporary prison. Immediately upon landing he erected an altar, and offered sacrifice to God for preserving him from the watery grave which had engulfed all mankind except his family, with which act, God being well pleased, he made a covenant with him never again to destroy the world by flood, and to seal the promise, he set his bow in the cloud.
Noah, as has been stated, on going out of the ark, celebrated his deliverance by a burnt offering of all the kinds of clean beasts which he had preserved in the ark with him.[G]
Babel.—The next great event in man’s history was the confusion of tongues, and the consequent dispersion of mankind into three great lingual families.
On leaving the ark new privileges were granted, new laws imposed, and a new covenant made. In addition to the plants, all animals were allowed for food. They were forbidden to eat blood, and murder was made a capital offence. “Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed.” We may infer that the sons of Noah, and their descendants, moved naturally toward the south, until, after many years, they reached and settled the plains south of Ararat; until Assyria, the plains of Mesopotamia, and Chaldæa swarmed with busy multitudes, pursuing the various avocations of life.
It was on the plains of Chaldæa, south of Mesopotamia, that the mighty city of Babylon arose on the banks of the river Euphrates, where the inhabitants, in their pride, attempted to erect a tower that should reach to the heavens. This tower was, no doubt, intended to serve as a place from which to expose signals to call the people together, hence it was to be high enough to be seen from all parts of the plain.
To humble their pride, and to people other sections by distribution, God arrested the work by confounding of tongues, so that when the workmen asked for brick the laborers brought mortar. It is not certain to how great an extent the confusion of tongues was brought; but it is not believed that each person spoke a different dialect from every other. But, on the other hand, there is reason to believe that the whole was divided into three great lingual divisions or families.
Men now grouped together, from necessity, into tribes or families, composed of those who understood each other, sought new regions and neighborhoods where they might settle, and engage in the various departments of human industry then practiced.
In that mild climate and generous soil men were greatly tempted to become shepherds and herdsmen, a mode of life at once simple and healthful, and one highly calculated to extend the borders of occupation, and increase the population.
The government was patriarchal—a mode of government which seemed to have been especially acceptable to God, and well calculated to prevent centralization.
Social Life of the Ancients—Job.—It would be utterly impossible, in any single picture, to present a view of the state of society during a period of so great extent, and embracing such a variety of nations and countries. We can but follow the example of the Bible itself, and make choice of a single spot, and a single family, to convey some idea of the life and manners of the age. It is probable that it was during this period that the patriarch Job lived, suffered, and triumphed. Job was probably a descendant of Shem; his residence is said to have been “in the east” (Job i. 3)—the term usually applied to the district where the first settlement of men took place. (Gen. ii. 8; iii. 24; xi. 2). The Sabeans and Chaldæans were his neighbors; and at the time when he lived the knowledge of the True God seems to have been preserved, without material corruption. The adoration of the heavenly bodies had begun to be practiced (Job xxxi. 26, 27), but there seems still to have been a general belief in one Almighty God.
The picture of social life in the book of Job is in many respects extremely beautiful. We dare not regard it as a sample of what was usual over the world, but rather as exhibiting the highest condition of social life that had been attained. There were even then cases of oppression, robbery, and murder; but, for the most part, a fine patriarchal purity and simplicity prevailed. The rich and the poor met together, and to the distressed and helpless the rich man’s heart and hand were ever open: “When I went out to the gate through the city, when I prepared my seat in the street, the young men saw me, and hid themselves: and the aged arose and stood up. . . . When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me; because I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. Theblessing of him that was ready to perish came upon me, and I caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy.” The sweet bonds of family affection retained all their power in the household of Job; his children feasted by turns in each other’s houses; while the affectionate and pious father rose early in the morning to offer sacrifices for them all, lest any of them should have sinned. The simple burnt-offering retained its place as the appointed ordinance of heaven, and was the sacrifice that Job, as the high-priest of his house, presented on behalf of his children.
In the book of Job mention is made of kings, princes, nobles, judges, merchants, warriors, travelers, and slaves. The pen of iron had begun to engrave inscriptions upon rocks; the mining shaft was sunk for gold and silver; and palaces that had been built for kings and nobles had fallen into ruin. Astronomy had begun to acquaint men with the heavenly bodies, and many of the stars and constellations had received well-known names. Altogether, the state of civilization was highly advanced. The more closely we study those early times, the more erroneous appears the opinion that man began his career as a savage, and gradually worked his way up to refinement and civilization. The reverse of this is nearer the truth. “God made man upright”—civilized and refined, as well as intelligent and holy; but as man departed from God, he lost these early blessings. Sometimes a considerable degree of refinement has been reached by other paths; but by far the richest and best civilization is that which has come with true religion—with the pure knowledge and simple worship of the one True God.