XXVI. The Dread of Envy. Wrath is cruel and anger is outrageous, but who is able to stand before envy?—Prov. xxvii. 4. WHEN the word of the Lord came to Moses: Get thee up unto the mountain; for there thou shalt die; henceforth Joshua shall lead My people, Moses prayed: O, let me live and be servant to Joshua, and go over Jordan with him? And the Lord answered: Be it unto thee according to thy prayer. Then the two men went to the tabernacle, and the cloud descended and separated one from the other. When it rose again, Moses said: "Joshua, my master, what word was revealed unto thee?" And Joshua said: "Didst thou not hear it? How strange; for whenever I was at thy side, I always did hear the voice of God and understood His bidding." Moses bent his head; shame covered his face; and the spirit of envy whispered to him thoughts of evil! But for a moment only. For he fell on his face and cried: O Lord, a hundred deaths rather than One sting of envy. And Moses went up and entered a cave, and laid himself down on the rocky floor, and the Almighty came, and, with a kiss, freed the pure soul of the prophet from its earthly bonds, and lifted it into His presence where there is fulness of joy for evermore. G. G., (After the Midrash). BLESSED life! heart, mind and soul From self-born aims and wishes free, In all at one with Deity And loyal to the Lord's control. O life, how blessed! how divine! High life, the earnest of a higher! Father! fulfill my deep desire And let this blessed life be mine. XXVII. The Joy of the Jewish Sabbath. Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the Sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem; neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the Sabbath day, neither do ye any work, but hallow ye the Sabbath day, as I have commanded ye. —Jeremiah xvii. 21, 22. O the ancient polytheists, nothing seemed so joyless as the austerity of a Jewish Sabbath. It was a strange abandonment of all the vocations of life. They saw the fields of the Hebrew forsaken by the laborer; the ass unsaddled; the oar laid by in the boat; they marked a dead stillness pervading the habitation of the Israelite; the fire extinguished, the meat unprepared; the man servant and the maiden leave their work, and the trafficker, at least one day in the week, refusing the offered coin. . . The interior delights of the habitation of the Hebrew were invisible alike to the polytheist and the Christian fathers. They heard not the domestic greetings which cheerfully announced "the good Sabbath," nor the paternal benediction for the sons, nor the blessing of the aged master for his pupils. They could not behold the mistress of the house watching the sunset and then lighting the seven wicks of the lamp of the Sabbath suspended during its consecration; for oil to fill the Sabbath lamp the mendicant implored an alms. . . . Thus, in the busy circle of life, was there one immovable point where the weary rested and the wealthy enjoyed a heavenly repose. ISAAC DISRAELI. RING fruits and wine and sing a gladsome lay, Greet we the Sabbath at our door, Hear ye the word which the Lord speaketh unto you, O house of Israel: Learn not the way of the heathen and be not dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the heathen are dismayed at them. -Jer. x. 1. 2. 'HERE is a whole class of ordinances in the Law doubtless tending to save man from the errors of idolatry and the evil practices connected with it; e. g., observing the times, enchantment, witchcraft, incantation, consulting with familiar spirits, and the like. Those who teach and practice these things caused others to believe, or they themselves believed, that by means of those arts they would perform wonderful things on behalf of individuals or whole nations, although no analogy and no reasoning can discover any relation between those performances and the promised results. . Our Law would make us abandon this evil belief and keep at the greatest possible distance from it. MOSES MAIMONIDES. ROM sin's dread power I fain would fly And to my Lord betake me; When I for help and counsel cry Thou, God, wilt not forsake me. Thy gracious spirit Thou wilt send, XXIX. Chosen and yet Sin Laden. Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet and show my people their transgression and the house of Jacob their sins.-Isaiah lviii, 1. The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron and with a point of diamond; it is engraven upon the tables of their heart and the horns of their altar.Jeremiah, xvii. 1. 'T should not be necessary to tell thoughtful people Is that when the Jews continue, even at this time, to cling to the old designation, God's Chosen Race, they forget that their forefathers were also stigmatized as a "Sin-laden People," "Offspring of Evil-doers," and with similar invectives; or, that they believe that every Jew was chosen for his own deserts. Was every Greek or every Roman of ancient days worthy of the honor in which his nation is still held? Emerson's pointed question might be remembered with profit: Here is Christianity, but where are the Christians? The English people are justly famed for their inborn respect for "The Majesty of the Law;" but who fills their jails and keeps their criminal courts busy? Their penal code was within the beginning of the present century one of the most barbarous; it still counted over eighty crimes punishable with death. The character of a people is like the property, the coins, the debts of a State belonging to all and yet to no one individually. And is there any other race whose sins have been driven home so unsparingly, have been proclaimed in such trumpet sounds, as those of Judah and Israel? Yet the people bent their heads under the chastening rod and, so far from trying to hide their shame, they themselves placed the seal of Divine Authority upon the book in which their chastisements are written; they themselves, and no one with them, saved their indictment from destruction, aye, and carried it with them to every part of the earth, whither the will of God or the tyranny of men had driven them. G. G. |