4. THE FIRST CONSTITUTION.

(B. C. 1491.)

THE promulgation of "The Law of Moses," introduced the Hebrew people to the obligations of responsible citizenship, and established the test by which they were to be proven worthy of a permanent government. From that day until the present, the principles of that organic law have been the basis of all well-balanced society. Its introduction in a volume designed to lead youth to aspire after good citizenship is suggestive of the highest possible attainment within their reach.

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS.

I AM the Lord thy God who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

I. Thou shalt have none other gods before me.

II. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters under the earth; thou shalt not bow down thyself unto them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, upon the third and upon the fourth generation of them that hate me: and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.

III. Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain for the Lord wilt not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

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IV. Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work; but the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates; for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day wherefore the Lord blessed the seventh day and hallowed it.

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V. Honor thy father and thy mother; that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

VI. Thou shalt not kill.

VII. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

VIII. Thou shalt not steal.

IX. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

X. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house: thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his man-servant nor his maid-servant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's.

5. THE FIRST CIVIL CODE.

THE police and social regulations of the Hebrew Commonwealth exalted the dignity of the State, honored the rights of the stranger as well as those of the humblest native citizen, and still survive, by enactment in the codes of all highly civilized States. They were especially associated with a formal repetition of the original "Ten Commandments," and announced the true standard by which to estimate the greatness, wisdom, and justice of organized society. The following are selections which retain their essential features in the statutes of most American States. The Preamble, or Introduction, gives the general reputation which a nation acquires among the nations of the world when its people observe the principles of these divinely accredited statutes, and stands as addressed to all mankind, in all ages.

PREAMBLE.

"Hearken unto the statutes and the judgments which I shall give you! Keep them and do them; for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of all nations. They shall hear all these statutes, and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people. And what nation is so great that it hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all this law which I set. before you this day?"

Keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thou hast seen; but teach them to thy sons and thy son's sons. These words which I command thee this day shall be in thy heart. Thou shalt teach them diligently to thy children and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou walkest by the way; when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. Thou shalt write them upon the posts of thine house and on the gates."

STATUTES.

Judges and officers shalt thou make throughout all thy tribes, and they shall judge the people with just judgment. They shall not wrest judgment, neither take a gift; for a gift doth blind the eyes of the wise and pervert the words of the righteous. That which is altogether just, that shalt thou follow."

"One witness shall not rise up against a man for any iniquity; but at the mouth of two witnesses, or three witnesses, shall a matter be established. If a false witness rise up [testify] against a man, the judge shall make diligent inquiry; and if the witness be found to be a false witness, then shall be done to him, as he had thought to have done to his brother. Then they which remain [citizen spectators] shall hear, and fear, and shall thenceforth commit no such evil among you."

"Ye shall do no unrighteousness in judgment [cases before a magistrate] in mete-yard [length and surface measure] nor in weight, nor in measure. Thou shalt not have in thy bag divers weights, a great and a small one, nor in thy house different measures, a great and a small; but thou shalt have a just and perfect weight, a perfect and just measure shalt thou have."

1 Courts were held at the gates of the cities; and there bargains were made; and there also proclamations were made, or posted, for the information of the people. — ED.

"Thou shalt not lend upon usury [excessive interest] to thy brother [thy fellow-citizen] either usury of money, usury of victuals, or usury of anything that is lent upon interest."

Thou shalt not remove thy neighbor's landmarks, which they of old have set up in thine inheritance." "The poor shall never cease out of thy land; therefore, I command thee, saying, Thou shalt open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy in thy land."

"No man shall take the mill-stone, the lower, or the upper, to pledge [as security] for he then taketh a man's life [his means of making his daily bread] in pledge."

"When thou buildest a new house, thou shalt make a battlement for thy roof, that thou shalt not bring blood [responsibility for accident] upon thy house, if any man fall from thence."

"Thou shalt not see thy brother's ox or sheep go astray and hide thyself from them. Thou shalt in every case bring them to thy brother." (This is the basis of the modern "Pound Law" for stray stock.)

"Thou shalt not oppress a hired servant that is poor and needy, whether he be of thy brethren, or of the stranger that is in thy land, and therefore I command thee to open thy hand wide [be generous] to thy brother, to the poor and needy in thy land."

NOTE. - A sound Bankrupt Law; a Statute of Limitations; a careful distinction between murder and manslaughter, as when the head of an axe slip off the helve and kill a man; a coroner's inquest over a person found dead; arbitration, in closely balanced cases; enrolment and classification of the militia; special drafts of men and money in emergencies; regimental organizations of a thousand men, with ten companies and each of two platoons of fifty each, were among the features of the ancient Hebrew Code. When, about the year 30 A. D., the Saviour, in order to feed a vast multitude, ordered them to be seated upon the grass, they,、 involuntarily, “seated themselves by hundreds and by fifties."

6. THE HEBREW CODES DEVELOPED.

THE marvellous devotion of the Hebrew people to their new country was never effaced by their contact with other nations, even when the vices and idol-worship of those nations corrupted their lives and disgraced their history. The national sentiment was intensely patriotic; and they hopefully looked for some divinely commissioned leader of their own blood and faith, who should be to them both deliverer and king. Their sacred books were full of delineations of the character of the expected Messiah; but there was nothing in their stately templeworship, or in the gorgeous Roman ceremonials, to inspire that purity of personal life which their own history had proven to be the sole condition of the best national life. The early democracy of equal rights had passed away, and the exactions of their own officials were hardly less severe than those of Rome.

The Christ, from whose birth all history is now reckoned, appeared at the "due time," and all the conditions of blood, nativity, family, and physical surroundings, harmonized with their prophetic books; but their thirst for political restoration had closed their eyes to the moral blessings of verified promise. His utterances recognized their whole history, but adapted its scope to its fullest meaning, that "all the nations of the earth should partake of its realized glories." Those utterances voice human hope and human destiny, just as the "Beatitudes," given in the Book of Matthew, are followed by His development of the earlier Hebrew Codes.

THE GOSPEL CODE ANNOUNCED.

Think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil."