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disposed to grant, on the grounds that he (David) had never injured or robbed him. Nabal, interrupted in the midst of festive preparations, replied in the churlishly interrogative style, declining to share with mere strangers the good things prepared for himself and his servants. The proper punishment for this incivility, the opinion of David, was the immediate slaughter of Nabal and all his male followers, a sanguinary purpose which he forthwith prepared to put into speedy execution by arming four hundred of his followers. But the ready-witted Abigail, informed of all these things by one of her husband's servants, hastened to meet David with a liberal supply of wine and provisions, and won the heart of the amorous warrior by her charming countenance, and clever abuse of her churlish husband. David, with characteristic piety, saw in her the messenger of Jehovah, and sent her away with the assurance that her advice and person were equally agreeable to

him.

On the return of Abigail to Nabal, she found that unlucky churl in no fit condition for matrimonial confidence. But the next morning she told him these things, and his heart died within him, and he became as a stone,' in other words the unhappy husband became paralysed, on learning that his wife had been intriguing with a stranger.

Our interest in this narrative, however, centres in the closing scene: 'It came to pass about ten days. after, that the Lord smote Nabal, that he died.' For this tragical result David praises the Lord, forthwith marries Abigail, and takes another wife in the following verse! Let us compare this narrative with the famous

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scene in which Nathan the Prophet denounces David for his adultery with Bathsheba, in the memorable words Thou art the man.' Might not the king have advisedly answered, Hast thou forgotten, O Nathan, most mistaken of the Prophets! how the Lord slew Nabal that I might marry his charming widow? Has not, therefore, Uriah fallen by the will of Jehovah, that the beautiful Bathsheba might become the lawful possession of his faithful servant, David?'

Deuteronomy xxiv. records a law legalising divorce at the caprice of husbands. The wife had no voice in the question of expulsion from her home, but enjoyed the privilege of remarrying some one more appreciative of her charms, as often as she might be divorced, with the sole exception that she could not renew conjugal relationship with one of her former husbands. Attractive women, whilst yet young, may have found life tolerable under these conditions, but what became of them when old-a misfortune which overtakes women at a very early age in the East? Who provided for the victims of Mosaic legislation who failed to secure more than one husband during a lifetime? And what became of the children born of such marriages?

This statute, in fact, swept away the seventh commandment, and legally sanctioned an economical system of polygamy fatal to the domestic and social life of the Hebrews. The rich man might crowd his harem with wives and handmaidens, but his impecunious neighbour, adopting intermittent divorce, avoided the expense of keeping more than one wife, whilst retaining the privilege of changing her at discretion.

1 2 Sam. xii.

The last three commandments, condemning covetousness, dishonesty, and falsehood, simply define rules indispensable to even elementary civilisation; and we therefore fail to discover in the Decalogue any trace of a moral revelation superior to the ethics of uninspired Humanity. On the contrary, we find that, when Mosaic teaching nominally harmonises with the social virtues of the ancient Egyptians, it becomes forthwith marred by supplementary legislation characterised by ignorance, superstition, and barbarism. Can we imagine a more degraded law, enacted in the darkest hour of Nigritian fetishism, than the Mosaic test of female frailty ?1

In the event of a jealous husband suspecting impropriety in his wife, he forthwith brought her to a priest, who gave her a mixture of dust and holy water to drink, as the miraculous test of guilt or innocence. If the case were one of unjust suspicion the accused suffered nothing more than the pangs of injured innocence. But, if she were indeed guilty, the unsavoury dose became a deadly poison, which convicted the culprit by afflicting her with some loathsome disease. This miracle was, therefore, always at the disposal of jealous husbands; and revelation was compromised by a barbarous rite, admitting of the innocent being poisoned through collusion with venal priests.

We wonder if this ordeal is a lost secret to modern Jews; and whether, if substituted in our day for the more tedious and costly procedure of divorce courts, modern justice would also present the bitter cup to the lips of suspected husbands.

If theocratic legislation sanctioned the bondage of

1 Numb. v.

aliens, did it, at least, secure the rights of freemen for each member of the Chosen Race? On the contrary, it is enacted immediately after the Ten Commandments, that Hebrews might purchase their own countrymen for a term of six years. If, in the interval, the master gave the slave a wife, and children were born of the marriage, the man was free to depart on the expiration of his term of servitude, leaving his family as the property of the slaveowner. But, if love of wife and children induced the husband and father to prefer slavery to desertion of his family, then he was forthwith marked with the brand of perpetual slavery. Natural affection among Hebrew slaves, therefore, condemned them to penal servitude for life, whilst callous heartlessness secured the priceless boon of freedom!

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Thus slavery, invested with all the honours of a divine institution, was carried into the nineteenth century in the name of an infallible Bible by communities holding the foremost place in modern civilisation. the British and American nations have, however, with tardy consciousness of guilt, disavowed Moses in emancipation, is it not full time for them to vindicate their 'deal Deity from the charge of past complicity in human bondage?

Mosaic legislation inflicted yet one more appalling calamity on mankind.

Exod. xxii. 18: Thou shalt not suffer a witch to

live.'

Lev. xix. 26: Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek after wizards to be defiled by them. I am the Lord your God.'

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Lev. xx. 27: A man also or a woman that hath a

familiar spirit or that is a wizard shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them.'

Thus, alleged revelation adopts the barbarous superstition of sorcery in terms so vague, that even three thousand years later the British witch-hunter could devise no more rational method of detection than that of thrusting pins into the flesh of suspects to test Satanic insensibility to pain; and tens of thousands of innocent men and women, convicted by irrational evidence of impossible crime, were consigned to the stake or the gallows by the sentence of learned and conscientious judges, piously accepting judicial guidance from an infallible Bible.

Inspired by Mosaic legislation, the Church of Rome employed, for centuries, all her vast resources in an imaginary conflict with impalpable phantoms, whose supposed mediums were the unhappy victims of the spiritual contest. The chiefs of the Reformation were as ignorant as their theological opponents of the monstrous delusion involved in human intercourse with evil spirits. Luther, a steadfast believer in every form of Satanic agency, was unmerciful in his denunciation of infernal practitioners. Episcopalians and Nonconformists, in England and Scotland, vied with each other in piously hunting down fresh victims for immolation at the altar of the Hebrew God, who had imposed on mankind the religious duty of exterminating witches. And finally the Pilgrim Fathers, carrying with them this most pernicious superstition to a new hemisphere, piously committed the appalling crimes against Humanity, involved in the persecution and judicial murder of the martyrs of Salem.

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