NGERSOLLandMoSE OlJRTISS. V ^^ m. PRINCETON, N. J. SAe//. Division . . . hr/. . .v«< . . I. .4Tr. .A- "-h^ Section ....>.vr^ Number. ..}..Xi-..\Xi..\. .K.w | INGERSOLL AND MOSES. A REPLY BY EEY. SAMUEL lYES^CURTISS, D. D., DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY, LEIPZIG ; LICENTIATE OF THEOLOGY, BERLIN ; PRO- FESSOR OF OLD TESTAMENT LITERATURE AND INTERPRETATION IN CHICAGO THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY; AUTHOR OF "THE LEVITICAL PRIESTS," ETC. WITH NOTES AND APPENDICES. CHICAGO: JANSEN, McCLURG & COMPANT. 1880. , COPYRIGHT : Jansen, McClurg & Co., A. D. 1879. STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY THE CHICAGO LEGAL NEWS COMPANY. TO THE YOUNG MEN OF THE NORTHWEST, THIS LITTLE WORK, BY ONE OF THEIR OWN NUMBER, IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. PEEFACE. It may seem to many a useless task to publish a reply to that which is considered by some as its own refutation. Such however, ignore the insidious and wide-spread influence of the author of The Mistakes of Moses. If it should appear to the physician that a specific compound is sure death to some who may receive it, he ought not to decline to seek an antidote because he despises the man- ufacturer of the drug as a charlatan, but is bound to em- ploy his best skill in preparing a remedy. It may be deemed wiser, instead of indicating the poison by its vulgar name, learnedly to warn people against using its constituent parts, lest we should bring the very thing into notice which we wish to suppress. In other words many will say, to combat Ingersoll is to advertise him, and make that prominent which might otherwise be forgotten. If any hold this view of the case, I beg leave to difi'er with them. Hence I have pre- pared these pages to meet the wants of those who have known that IngersolPs address was full of sophistries (5) PREFACE, and errors, but have not had the means at hand for refut- ing them. I therefore offer both to the clergy and the laity this little work, which is the fruit of extended read- ing and research. There is but one class of readers for whom I have not written. I refer to those who, without weighing evidence, will affirm as soon as they see the covers of this book, or perhaps on the basis of a garbled extract, that Ingersoll cannot be answered, hence, that he has not been answered in this case. My desire howev- er, is not for personal reputation. Should it appear that better arguments can be offered than are here afforded, I should rejoice at the discovery of the fact. Whatever may be the success of this and similar efforts, let it be remem- bered, that the most potent argument against infidelity, is a life which is hid with Christ in God, which would rather suffer reproach, poverty, and even death itself, than bring disgrace upon Him who gave Himself a ransom for many. S. I. C. Chicago, September, 1879. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. PAGE Introduction, 9 CHAPTER II. The Creative Week, 16 CHAPTER III. The First Family in Eden, 26 CHAPTER IV. The Deluge and the Confusion of Tongues, . • . 35 CHAPTER V. Israel's Exodus and Wanderings, 42 CHAPTER VI. Israel's Customs and Laws, 58 CHAPTER VII. Various Misstatements by Ingersoll, 73 (7) 8 CONTENTS. APPENDIX A. The Appointment of Luminaries, 91 APPENDIX B. "The Sons of God," 93 APPENDIX C. Traditions Concerning the Flood, 95 APPENDIX D. The Rapid Increase of the Israelites in Egypt, , . 100 APPENDIX E. The Former Condition of the Wilderness of Sinai, . 101 APPENDIX F. "The Land Flowing with Milk and Honey," . . 107 APPENDIX G. Ramses II and Moses • .111 APPENDIX H. Roman Slavery, • • 112 APPENDIX I. Does the Bible Favor Polygamy? 113 Index, •••• 115 INGERSOLL AND MOSES. CHAPTEK I. INTRODUCTION. Summary: A Lesson for us from the first Chapter of Romans — Ingersoll's Method — The Scriptures should not be Rejected without Sufficient Cause — Monotonous "Hoots" — Creeds and some " Solemnly Stupid " Graduates of Andover — Was Moses the Author of the Pentateuch? — Ingersoll's Caricature of the Bible. The Apostle Paul, in that terrible picture which he draws of the sensuality and abominable vices of the heathen world — a picture which every classical scholar and missionary acknowledges to be strictly true^ — 1 Cf. Plato's Symposium, 191, etc. For some remarks on the vice of paiderastia, in Greece, see Lecky's His- tory of European Morals, New York, 18G0, Vol. II, p. 311. Allusion is also made to that which obtained among the Lesbian women, and which is said to be found. in some parts of Africa in Reade's Savage Africa, New York, 1864, p. 424. Instances of a want of natural affection among heathen nations, both ancient and modern, are abundant ; (a) the poor and sick were left to per- ish. BiUiotheca Sacra, Andover, 1863, Vol. XX, p. 232 ; Quarterly Review, Lon- don, 1809, Vol. I, p. 219. (6.) The aged were often left alone to die; Catlin, The North American Indians, Philadelphia, 1857, Vol. I. p. 335-7. Jenkins in the Voyage of the U. S. Exploring Squadron, Aubnm, 1852, p. 349, says : " Among the Fejees, old people are frequently put to death at their (9) 10 INGERSOLL AND MOSES. assigns the reason for that melancholy degradation. The heathen, he says, who once had the truth respect- ing God, exchanged it for a lie, and tlierefore wor- shipped the creature instead of the Creator. Who may not see in IngersolPs caricature of God, and in his apotheosis of wife and children, the prelim- inaries of a similar process, which, if it were to sweep Christianity, as he desires, from the earth, would leave us with a civilization rotten to the core? It is not my intent, however, to tarry upon this point, but to proceed at once to consider his lecture delivered in Chicago some weeks ago, entitled The Mistakes of Moses} own desire, to escape decrepitude, and are sometimes forcibly strangled or buried alive, by their children. Persons in an infirm condition, or sick of a lingering disease, are often served in the same manner," (c.) Infanticide has been most prevalent. It was "almost universally admitted among the Greeks," and was " a crying vice of the [Roman] em- pire." Lecky, i&id., pp. 27-29; it has been observed among the North American Indians, Missionary Herald, Boston, 1823, Vol. XIX, p. 9 ; and has abounded in India, Q^arterly Review, London, 1809, Vol. 1, p. 219, JahrbUcher der Literatur, Wien, 1818, Vol. II, p. 326 ; in China, Hue, A Journey Through the Chinese Empire, New York, Vol, II, p. 332 ; Doolittle, Social Life of the Chinese, New York, 1865, Vol. II, p. 203-9 ; and in the South Sea Islands. Eev John Williams, in his Narrative of Missionary Enterprms, London, 1838, p, 479, says of the women of the Society Islands : " I never conversed with a female that had borne children prior to the introduction of Christianity who had not destroyed some of them, and frequently as many as from five to ten." The universal testimony is that Christianity has proved a check to these practices. A writer in the Quarterly Review, London, 1809, Vol, I, p. 216, says of it: "All human affections and instincts are on its side in Hindo- stan; it forbids the mother to expose or sacrifice her child the widow to be burnt with her husband's corpse, the son to set Are to his living mother's funeral pile." I'lhe edition used is that of Rhodes & McClure, Chicago, 1879. / IXTEODUCTIOX. H I have no doubt that the author possesses the rarest tact in interesting an audience, and I can understand how he succeeds in captivating some of our young men. And yet, after scanning his lecture, he seems to me like one of those old sophists who professed their ability to maintain any position. Indeed, ac- cording to my thinking, he appears in just the same role in which he accuses the clergy of appearing, namely, that of an advocate. He has searched the Bi- ble through that he might find blemishes on which to display his ridicule. This is indeed a possible way of studying art and literature. He reminds me of a character in the Meister Sanger, who found only dis- cords and mistakes in his rival's music, which en- tranced every other ear. He is deaf to those majestic strains of Christianity which have been growing in sweetness and harmony throughout the centuries. Rather than enjoy the fragrance of the flowers of Scripture, he passes them to light, if possible, upon some dunghill. He is as fair in his discussion of the Bible as one who should make some of Ophelia's songs in her madness ^ a test of Shakspeare's genius, or of the value of his immortal creations. I would not, however, be understood as implying that there are blemishes in the Bible. I am merely ^Hamlet, Act IV, Scene 5. 12 INGERSOLL AND MOSES. endeavoring to show how irrational this method is. Before I could be content to be a deist, and think that perhaps there was " in immensity some being beneath whose wing the universe exists, whose every thought is a glittering star," but who had left this poor world to take its course, and all his creatures to suffer with- out one word of sympatliy, I should want to weigh the matter well before rejecting that Book which is associated with a mother's prayers and tears, and the holiest influences of childhood. Before embarking on the shoreless, starless sea of atheism, I should w^ant something more than the Mistakes of Moses, served Tip by a politician w^ho wants " the peoj)le splendid enough " to put a man at the head of the State who does not believe in any moral governor of the uni- verse. But we must not delay here. Let us take up the various assertions with which Mr. Ingersoll is trying to subjugate the West to atheism. He professes to be a kind friend of the ministers, and wishes to free them as far as possible from the tyranny of creeds, so that they need no longer, owl-like, hoot the same " hoots " which their fathers have hooted before them. You see how it is. According to this new teacher of ethics, there is no definite truth. INTRODUCTION. 13 Is it not sad that our children should be carrying on this same process, and be hooting the hoots that the inventor of the multiplication table hooted, when he used to say five times one are five? Ought not Ingersoll, since he is such a friend of education, to seek a reform in this particular, so that the children may be independent enough to say five times one are six? Is it not, however, reasonable to suppose that there should be exact truth about the being and attributes of God, which can never change, and that he should reveal it to his creatures? The narrowness of Andover Theological Seminary, because it has a creed, is held up for derision, and its ministers are cited as those who "shrink and shrivel, and become solemnly stupid, day after day." Dr. Kichard Salter Storrs, of Brooklyn, is a pretty good example of this shriveling process, and there are scores of others;* And now we come to Robert Ingersoll's charge, that "Moses never wrote one word of the Pentateuch." When I consider Ingersoll's untiring devotion to crit- 1 The Triennial Catalogue of the Theological S^eminary, Andover, 1870, shows a splendid galaxy of names, such as those of Leonard Bacon, S. C. Bartlett, W. I. Budington, Joseph Cook, Roswell D. Hitchcock, Adonir.im Judson, Edwards A, Park, H. B. Smith, Gardiner Fpring, Wm. Hayes Ward— men who have been and are anything but "solemnly stupid." 14 INGERSOLL AND MOSES. ical investigation, and some of his remarkable discov- eries, which I shall mention hereafter, I might be tempted to believe the assertion. But soberly, althouorh there are not a few critics who maintain the same view, I am old fashioned enongh to take the assertion, " and Moses wrote this law" (Deut. xxxi : 9, 24), as proof that he was at least the author of of Deuteronomy. This opinion is held by Prof. Delitzsch,* and some other eminent scholars,^ and as regards the rest of the Pentateuch, something more than mere assertion is necessary to disprove the Mosaic authorship. Ingersoll, in denying that author- ship is simply '' hooting the hoots" of the critics. It would have been well for his reputation if he had continued the process throughout his address. His entire effort, however, is devoted to breaking down the inspiration of the Scriptures. He holds up certain facts, pours his sarcasm upon them, and then derisively asks: " Can the book which contains such statements be true? Can it be inspired?" I may as well remark here, that some of the facts of the Bible are just about as correctly represented by 1. See his Commentar uher die Genesis, Leipzig, 1872, p. 20 sq. 2. Schroder, Das Deuteronomi'im, Bielefeld, 1866, p. 4 sq. I think that NJigelsbach, author of the commentary on Isaiah, C. P. Caspari, who wrote uher Miche den Morasthiten, Christiania, 1852, and that Prof. Kohler (?) of Erlangen, hold the same view. INTliODUCTIOX. 15 this scoffer as the cherubs in tlie Sistine Madonna, with their faces turned upward in wrapt adoration, are portrayed in some of those horrible caricatures which we see in the shop windows. So much by way of cau- tion with reference to some of the points which must pass in review. CHAPTER 11. THE CREATIVE WEEK. Summary: Creation out of Nothing — The Bible lays no claim to Scientific Accuracy — Its Purpose — It uses Popular Lang-uag-e — Object of the Author of Genesis I — Relation of Light and Darkness — The Firmament — The Sun's " Amorous Kiss'' — Was there no Light on the Third Day? The Luminaries — The Sun Standing Still, and the Shadow on the Dial — The His- tory of Astronomy in " Five Words " — The Age of the World •with reference to the passage of Light — Objections to the Text of the Old Testament — Specimen of the Light of the iSTineteenth Century. Ingersoll takes exception to liis own version of the Englisli Scriptures, when he says that the [one] '' who wrote [the Bible] begins by telling us that God made the universe out of nothing." This, however, is not in the English version. There we simply read: " In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." It is true that many critics hold that tara^ in connec- tion with hereshith^ signifies creation out of nothing, and that theologians especially, in view of Ileb. xi. 3, (16) THE CREATIVE WEEK. 17 teacli tliis doctrine. But tlicn this mistake, if it be a mistake, is neither due to Moses in the original nor in the translation. Indeed, the only evidence that Inger- soll can afford why it is a mistake, is because it seems unreasonable to him. lie doubtless believes according^ to the " light of the brain and heart of the nineteentli century," which he mentions as our standard of judg- ment — that you and I have come into being through the force of natural laws; that our eyes were pro- duced because millions of our progenitors tried to see; our ears, because they itched to liear.^ Our friend, who probably holds all this as sweetly reason- able, thinks it irrational that an omnipotent Creator should have created the material of the universe. He next takes exception to the expression that God divided the light from the darkness, and concludes that the author must have considered them "entities." Before answering this objection, let us establish the proposition once for all, that the Bible does not use scientific language, nor does it profess to teach science. AYe read, 2 Tim. iii, 16-17: " All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteous- J Haeekel, In his Anthropogenie, Leipzig, 1877, p. 565, says : " Originally all the organs of sense were nothing more than parts of the external skiu, in. which the nerves of sensation have extended themselves." 18 INGERSOLL AND MOSES. iiess, that tlie man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." You will perceive that not one word is said here about a purely intellec- tual or scientific teaching; but the design of Scripture, its purpose as a whole, is to promote man's righteous- ness. Now, in following out this purpose, it touches the realms of nature and history, and employs them for the inculcation of its truths. But as its instructions were committed to man for common men in all ages, we should not expect to find in the Old Testament the technical terms of science. A book thus written would have been unintelligible for the mass of man- kind. For this reason, the language is phenominal. The sacred historian speaks of the sun just as we do in common speech, as rising and setting. I^or have we any evidence that the astronomical or other knowl- edge of the inspired writers, was superior to that of the men of their time. They had certain moral truths to inculcate. The author of the first chapter of Gen- esis, starts out with the proposition that God created the universe. For a high grade of intelligence, that was sufficient. But the Bible was addressed to men 'who needed to have this lesson impressed upon them, and who would have their queries, just as your little boy after you have told him this same truth, would ask: "Papa, did he make tlie horses?" And when THE CREATIVE WEEK. 10 you have caiiswered this query, you are l)y no means at the end of your ckatechism, for your little questioner 6 in rapid succession pursues you: "Did he make the trees? Did he make the birds? " Xow in a polytheis- tic age when men worshipped the sun and the moon, trees and animals, it w^as important to be so explicit as to set their minds forever at I'est. When ^ve remem- ber these simple principles of interpretation, and do not look for Astronomy, Geology and Chemistry where they are not to be found, we shall discover that a multitude of difficulties will vanish. From this point of view, it is not of the slightest consequence whether the sacred historian had correct views of the relations of light and darkness. It was, however im- portant that men should know^ that God had established the relation between them, and that those who in certain a^res of the w^orld mio^ht consider darkness^ as tlie realm of the evil principle, should be assured that it was subject to God's control. There is no evidence, however, that the author considered darkness an entity in the passage before us. The same principle applies to the firmament. Mr. Ingersoll may make himself as merry as he pleases regarding this terminology, for we must not forget the 1 The Parsccs held this opinion ; see the Zend-Avesta, Riga, 177G, pp. 9, 21, etc 20 INGERSOLL AND 3I0SES. lesson which is being taught here is not one in science. Let us suppose Mr. Ingersoll, who manifests great fondness for children, with a little three-year old prat- tler on his knee, who has a language all its own, which he, the father, understands — would he not use some of that child's words, and adapt himself to its concep- tions? Would he try to strangle and confuse it with the technics of science? Why, then, should not our Heavenly Father, in revealing himself to the infancy of the race, use language which his humblest children can comprehend? It is quite possible that the author of Genesis had unscientilic notions in regard to the laws of evaporation, and the process by which the rain falls; but the expression, "windows of heaven," does not indicate this. Such an interpretation is very child- ishly literal, and is about as reasonable as some of the cavils w^liich your twelve-year old literalist makes at your expense. Why, what right has a man who talks about the " Sun wooing with amorous kiss the weaves of the sea," to take exception to God's opening tlie windows of heaven, or to his bowing the heavens and coming down? (Ps. xviii, 9.) Or shall we sup- pose, with some future Ingersoll five hundred years hence, that his progenitor literally believed that some celestial being, called the Sun, made love to some ter- THE CREATIVE WEEK. 21 restrial maiden (perliaps a mermaid), called the Sea? Let us have consistency. If Ingersoll will expunge every metaphor, every figure of speech from the Bible, then let him speak, if he can, a language unadorned with a single rhetorical figure. AVe pass to tlie creation of the third day. Xot a blade of grass, as he asserts, had ever been touched by a ray of light. IIow^ does Ingersoll know that? Well might the words addressed to Job be applied to him, xxxviii, 2-4: "Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the founda- tion of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding." How dare Ingersoll assert that not a blade of grass had ever been touched by a beam of light, when on the very first day God created light? How dare he assert that the sun and moon were not made before the fourtli day, when the original does not indicate any more than that God lighted up the luminaries by supplying the sun with its proper atmosphere?* Of course no skeptical address could be complete without reference to the sun's standing still. (Josh. X. 12-14.) I need not remind you that this is popular ^See Appendix A. 22 INGERSOLL AND MOSES. language. I do not, however, wish to explain away the miracle which underlies it. An omnipotent God is able to arrest the course of the universe without disastrous consequences. But such a supposition is unnecessary. We must remember that Joshua, when we strip the account of its poetical imagery, simply prayed for time to overcome his enemies. Similarly Agamemnon is represented as praying in the Iliad (ii. 412-414). Zeus most glorious, most great Shrouded in clouds, dwelling in state; let not the sun go down, nor darkness fall, Till 1 overthrow of Priamus the sooty hall, And burn with hostile fire his gates. According to this interpretation, Joshua's prayer would be answered by his being enabled to do two days' work in one, although it seemed perhaps to the sacred writer, as he read the account in the book of Jasher, that the prayer was literally answered. But in case it should be best to insist on a miracle of light as well as of prowess, there are doubtless ways in which God could accomplish the desired phenomenon with- out arrestino^ the course of the universe. ]^or need we suppose that the motion of the earth was reversed so as to afford a sign to the languishing THE CUE A ri VE ^^ 'eek. 2 3 Hezekiah. Ingersoll says: " How inucli easier it would have been to cure the boil." Such a remark betrays a very imperfect conception of the Divine Being with whom nothing is difficult, as well as an entire misap- prehension of the importance of faith. How the phenomenon was brought about, which is described in 2 Kings, xx, 11, as God's bringing back the shadow ten degrees, and in Is. xxxviii, 8, as the sun returning ten degrees, we are not bound to tell. It might have been as Keil, Delitzsch and others have suggested, by a refraction of light. In any case it was doubtless local, as appears from the fact that ambassadors from the princes of Babylon probably came to enquire in regard to it (2 Chr. xxxii, 31). I need not point out the absurdity of the assump- tion that the sacred writer gives the history of astron- omy in the five words "lie made the stars also." I have shown that the first chapter of Genesis has a moral end in view, and this would be subserved by assuring a people who might come in contact with those who worshipped the host of heaven, that God made the stars. Even granting Ingersoll's supposi- tion, that the light from the remotest nebulae would require many millions of years to come to us, there is nothing in the Biblical account which is contradic- 24 IKGERSOLL AND MOSES. tory to this assumption, since some of the Fathers, even before modern scientific discoveries, regarded the cre- ative days as indefinite periods. But this statement of Ingersoll's rests upon an erro- neous assumption of Humbold t's. Herschel estimated that it would take light about fourteen thousand years to come from the remotest objects visible. " But it must be admitted," says !Newcomb,^ " that Herschel's estimate of the extent of the Milky Way may be far too great, because it rests on the assumption that all stars are of the same absolute brightness." Hence, according to ^ewcomb and Proctor, we can only as- sume, in the language of Professor Esty, of Amherst, to whom 1 am indebted for these facts, that it takes light some thousands of years to go from one limit to another of our visible universe. If, then, we inter- pret the days of creation as indefinite periods, as we have a perfect right to do, all difficulty vanishes. Hence Genesis does not stand respecting astronomy in contradiction to science. Mr. Ingersoll endeavors to excite distrust against the text of the Old Testament, by asserting that it was written entirely without vowels, and without being divided into chapters and verses. He is how- ever, entirely ignorant of the scrupulous care which 1 Popular Astronomy, New York 1878, p. 481. THE CREATIVE WEEK. 25 the Hebrews employed in preservini^ tlieir iiianu- scripts. These were at an early period divided into sections,' while the slight variations which have crept into the sacred text are of interest to the critic, they do not, as we shall see hereafter, essentially effect its teaching. 1. These Sections, termed in Hebrew, Parashas, are attributed in the Babylonian Gemara Berachoth 12b to Moses: "Every Parasha which Mo- ses, our teacher, divided, we divide; those which he did not divide we do not divide." Hupfeld remarks in the Htudien und Kritiken, Hamburg, 1837, p. 840 : " that these divisions are to be referred back to the earliest copies of the Holy Scriptures," Compare Home, On Introduction to tlie Critical Study a7id Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, London 18.9, pp. 35-36. CHAPTER III. THE FIRST FAMILY IN EDEN. SuM:\rA"RY: Are the two Accounts of Man's Creation Contradic- tory? — The Logical Order of the Facts in Genesis II — Did God seek to palm off an Animal on Man as Helpmeet (!) ? — The Creation of Woman from a Rib — Plato's account of the Orig-in of the sexes — What is the Scriptural test of Salvation? — Shameless Travesty of the Doctrine of Retribution — " God Hates a Critic." — The Narrative of the Fall Confirmed by Tradition — Its Consequences Illustrated by Sacred History — Why did God not blot out Adam? Ingersoll claims that the two accounts given of the creation of man, in the first two chaj)ters of Genesis, are contradictory. This is not the case. In the first cliapter, and the first three verses of the second, an account, is given of God's creative week. Man is mentioned as his final creation, because he is the king for whom the earth is prepared. In the second cliap- ter, supplementary matter is introduced, which, ac- cording to the author's plan, would hav^e been out of place in the first. The facts mentioned in the second (20) THE FIRST FAMILY IX EDEX. 2? chapter are put in logical rather than in chronolo.n^ical order, as introducing the garden and woman. First plants are spoken of (ii, 5). Then it is said that there was not a man to till the o-round. In this connection his creation is mentioned (ii, 7), afterwards the garden which he was to till (ii, 8), and the origin of the trees, as introducing the tree of knowledge of good and evil (ii, 9). In like manner the creation of the ani- mals is introduced as preparatory to the account of Eve's creation (ii, 18-19). Mr. Ingersoll profanely suggests that God tried to palm off one of the animals on Adam as his helpmeet. The narrative indicates nothing of the kind. Like a wise father he does not pre- sent the sweetest and best of his creatures to Adam un- til he has caused him to feel his loneliness by showing him that there is not one among the brutes who can be his companion, (ii. 20). There was certainly divine wisdom in thus enabling Adam to appreciate that choicest of all earthly gitts, a true and loving wife. A man entirely ignorant of oriental imagery, may mock, if he will, at the idea of God's making woman out of the rib of a man. His laughter is simply the insicrnia of his iccnorance. The word which is trans- lated rib in this passage, elsewhere, means side. The Arabs say of an intimate friend, Jniva liz^i — He is 28 INGEBSOLL AND MOSES. my side, and Martial (vi. 68: 4) speaks of a constant companion or friend, as a dulce latiis, a sweet side.^ ]^ow, whether we take the description of woman's cre- ation literally or not, there is a deep significance in the fact that she was derived from his side by which she is to stand ; so that, as Knoble says, if it was the pur- pose of the author to say that woman was derived from any part of man, he could not well have chosen any- thing better than a rib.'' And Matthew Henry pithily observes: " AVoman was made of a rib out of the side of Adam ; not made out of his head to top him, not out of his feet to be trampled upon by him, but out of his side to be equal with him, under his arm to be pro- tected, and near his heart to be beloved." Certainly this simple narrative does not suffer when compared with Plato's account of the origin of the sexes, which are represented as androgenous — that is, as existing together, having two faces, four hands, and four feet, and as being halved by Juj^iter.^ E^or is the story of woman's creation, or any other fact of Bible history made a test of man's salvation, as Ingersoll, with blas- phemous wit, seems to assert; but faith in the Lord Jesus Christ (Acts, xvi, 31), which is manifest in a 1 See Knoble in Dillmann's Genesis, Leipzig, 1875, p. 78. '■^Die Genesis, Leipzig, 1852, p. 34. 3 Symposium, 189 etc. THE FIRST FAMILY IN EDEN. 29 pure and holy life. (James, ii, 22.) That a defaul- ter and adulterer should be received into the heav- enly kingdom on the score of his belief in the inspiration of the Scriptures, iinds no warrant in the Bible. Isaiah represents God as indignantly denouncing those who engage in acts of worship, while their lives are full of wickedness, (i, 10-17.) David is not only sternly rebuked for his abom- inable sin, but he is assured that on account of it the sword shall not depart from his house (2 Sam. xii, 10), Christ says of the Pharisees, which devour widow^i ; houses, and for a pretense make long prayers: " These shall receive greater damnation" (Mark xii, 40). And it is written in Revelation (xxii, 15) respecting the lost; " For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whore- mungers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketli a lie." Kow what a shameless travesty it is of the doctrine of retribution for Inger- sollto imply that the Bible teaches, or that the church teaches, that a man will be saved on the score of orthodoxy, whatever he may do. Such a statement is infamous ! After making this burlesque of the doctrine of rewards and punishments, Ingersoll remarks that "of all the authors in the world, God hates a critic the worst." There may be some truth in this state- 30 INGERSOLL AND MOSES. ment, so far as the criticisms are made up of misrep- resentations, for we read that tlie Lord liatetli a lying tongue (Prov. vi, IT). Certainly that is not honest criticism which caricatures, not only the doctrine of retribution, but also that of the temptation. A true critic would not make light of the scriptural represen- tation of the Serpent as the tempter, especially when he finds that account confirmed by some of the most ancient traditions of the race as contained in the Zend-Avesta,^ and the Chaldean tablets as given by George Smith.'"^ AVhile there are striking similarities in these traditions, the Biblical account transcends the other two in its noble simplic- ity. Dazzled by the serpent's promise, that on eating of the forbidden fruit their eyes shall be opened, and they shall become as Gods, knowing good and evil, both Eve and Adam partake. At once the sad conse- 1 According to the tradition, contained in the Zend Avesta, man (Mashia and Mashiane) was at first created pure and holy, and so remained, until Ahriman, who had come long before into the world in tlie shape of a ser- pent, corrupted their tlioughts. Windischmann (Zoroastrische Studien. Berlin, 1863, p. 212) remarks, that " the account of the lall of man has such an ev- ident similarity with that of Genesis, that at first sight, one might be in- clined to suspect its derivation from that source. But on closer considera- tion, it shows quite as great discrepancies, and so peculiar traits, that this version of the primitive tradition must pass as original, although it is infer- ior to that of Genesis in noble simplicity." Compare, as to the teaching of the Parsees on this subject, Spiegel, Farsismus in Herzog's Real Encyklopadie, Gotha, 1859, p. 118, and Bunseu, Die Einheit der Eeligionen, Berlin, 1870, Vol. I, p. 35. 2 The Chaldean Account of Genesis, New York, 1876, p. 87 etc. THE FIRST FAMILY IX EDEX. 31 qnences of man's disobedience are portrayed. In Adam's indirectly charging God with being the author of his temptation (Gen. iii. 12), we liave a proof of the working of sin, which develops in natural yet frightful consequences in the murder of Abel, in the increasing wickedness of the Cainitic race, which fin- ally, through the beauty of its female representatives, draws away the Sethites, the children of God (Gen.' vi. 2 ^), from purity, so that at the last the earth is full of violence, and but one family, that of ]N^oah, remains true amidst the general apostacy. It is here that Ingersoll vents his spleen against the divine govern- ment, and suggests that " God ought to have rubbed him [Adam] out at once [immediately after the fill)]. He might have known that no good could come of starting a world like that .... people got worse and worse. God, vou must recollect, was holdinof the reins of government, but he did nothing for them. And the world got worse every day, and finally he concluded to drown them. Yet that same God has the impudence to tell me how to raise my own chil- dren. AVhat would you think of a neighbor who had just killed his babes, giving you his views on domestic economy ? " 1 See Appendix B. 32 INGERSOLL AND MOSES. There is no department of human knowledge where questions cannot be raised which baffle us. How much more in the reahn of theology, where the infi- nite is a factor. Then, too, we must remember, that when the courts sit in judgment upon men, thej col- lect every scrap of evidence which can bear upon the case before they decide upon its merits. !N"ow, when Ingersoll seeks to impeach the Judge of all the earth, it should only be after a full knowledge of the facts. But such a trial is from the nature of the case impos- sible. It cannot be stated that God did nothing for the world; the facts are too meagre to allow of that; still, the presumptive evidence is the other way; for we read that the Sethi tes began, at an early period, to call on the name of the Lord (Gen. iv. 26), and that Noah was a preacher of righteousness (2 Peter ii, 5). So far as God's delay of the judgment was concerned, it was a mercy to men, for we have no evidence in the Scriptures that God annihilates them after death, or that the future state of the wicked is one of enjoy- ment; therefore, by allowing them to live as long as possible, God at least granted them the pleasures of this life. Ingersoll, however, intimates that all the misery in- cident to the deluge might have been avoided if God THE FIBST FAMILY IN EDEX. 33 had destroyed Adam and Eve after the fall. But does that follow? So long as God had resolved to people the earth with free moral agents, and there was temp- tation in the world, can it be affirmed that any man, subsequently created, would have been more likely to- stand than Adam? But some one may raise the ques- tion, could not God have removed all temptation from the earth? Perhaps so. But then where would have- been man's virtue? These questions are entirely too deep for ns, and we feel the truth of Zophar's words,. Job xi, T: "Canst thou find out the depth of God?' Canst thou find out the end of the Almighty? It is- as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than, sheol; what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea." The illustration by which Ingersoll compares God,, in visiting the earth with a deluge, to a father who murders his own babes, is not to the point. Nothing can be more horrible than the murder of innocent babes. But the world which God proposed to destroy had grown old in sin in spite of infinite patience (1 Peter, iii, 20), and Noah's preaching (2 Peter, ii, 5) Its inhabitants, therefore, can in no respect be com- pared to innocent children, for we read (Gen. vi, 11):: " The earth also was corrupt before Go^, and the earth 3 INGERSOLL AND MOSES. was tilled with violence." What remained then for God to do, who had seen all the Sethites drawn aside from virtue, except ^N^oah, but with one fell stroke to remove the earth's degraded inhabitants, and then to disinfect it with the waters of the flood? CHAPTER IV. THE DELUGE AND THE CONFUSION OF TONGUES. Summary: Traditions — Was the Flood Partial? — Objection as to Flight of Birds — Window or System of Windows ? — Subsidence — The Origin of the Rainbow — " Why did God not make Noah in the first place? " — The Confusion of Tongues — Probability of the Account — Recapitulation. This grand catastrophe has exerted a deep moral influence upon the earth's inhabitants, as is indicated bj the many traditions which have been preserved re specting the flood among the nations of antiquity, in whose accounts of this great event we have a conflrma- tion of its reality.* It is by no means necessary to suppose a universal deluge. Even the language which speaks of all flesh as dying (Gen. vii, 21,) may be understood relatively with reference to the world as known to the writer, which was very much smaller than ours, Ingersoll ob- i 1 See Appendix, C. (35) 36 INGEESOLL AND MOSES. jects: " If [the flood] was partial, why did J^oah save the birds? An ordinary bird, tending strictly to busi- ness, can beat a partial flood." The whole force of this objection depends upon facts which have not yet been determined by observation. Although almost all birds are migratory, with the exception, of course, of certain fowls, yet it is by no means certain that their migration is dependent upon changes in the weather. Prof. Newton, of Cambridge, England, says:^ "As a rule, it. would seem as though birds were not depend- ent on the weather to any great degree. Occasionally the return of the Swallow or the Nio^htinccale mav be somewhat delayed, but most sea-fowls may be trusted, it is said, as the almanac itself "Were they satellites revolving around this earth, their arrival could hardly be more surely calculated by an astronomer. Foul weather or fair, heat or cold, the Pufiins repair to some of their stations punctually on a given day, as if their movements were regulated by clock-work." iN'ow who shall say, in view of the above statements, the torrents of rain, and the rapid submergence, that the fowl be- longing to the district in question, were able to escape? The objection that the ark was not sufficient in size to accommodate the animals, comes from massing together difficulties which do not exist. The ark, i Encyclopsedia Britannica, New York, 1878, Vol. Ill, p. 768. THE DELUGE AND COXFUSION OF TONGUES. 37 according to Tiele, contained three and a half millions of cubic feet, and deducting nine-tenths of the space for provisions, afforded amply suflScient room for seven thousand pairs of animals. But if we confine the deluge to the valley of the Euphrates, the fauna peculiar to that region, of which living representatives were preserved, would doubtless be very much less. IngersolPs witticism about the ventilation, is simply the result of ignorance. Gesenius understands the Hebrew word Zohar (Gen. vi. 16), which does not occur elsewhere in the singular, as indicating a system of windows, which, according to Knobl^ and Delitzsch, were to be made at a distance of a cubit below the roof. I^or are the objections to the amount of rain which would be required, valid. 'We read (Gen. vii. 11) that " the fountains of the great deep were broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." The for- mer expression, to which Ingersoll does not allude, probabl}^ denotes a subsidence, which occurring, ac- cording to Hugh Miller,^ at the rate of four hundred feet a day would bring the mountains of Ararat below the level of the deluge. The decadence of the flood would be caused by the rising of the tract of country' ^ See his interestins: theory of the origin of the deluge in The Testimony of the Rocks, Bostoii 1870, p. 358. 2 Compare LyeU's Principles of Geology, New York, 1876, Vol. II, p. 101. dS INGERSOLL AND MOSES. until at last the ark rested on one of the mountains of Ararat, not on the highest peak, as Ingersoll, who prob- ably knows nothing of Hebrew, supposes. Such a sub- mergence, to a limited extent, is not without analogy in what may be called the ordinary course of things.* I*^or does the narrative in Genesis ix. 18-16, right- ly translated, necessarily indicate that the rainbow had not existed before God made his covenant with ]^oah. The passage reads as follows: "And Elo- him said, this is the sign of the covenant which I am establishing between me and between you, and between every living creature that is with you unto everlasting generations. My bow have I set in the cloud, and it shall become a sign of a covenant between me and between the earth. And it shall come to pass, when I bring ^ a cloud upon the earth, and the bow shall appear in the cloud, that I will remember the covenant between me and between you," etc. That is, God makes the rainbow, which was already in existence, a sign of His covenant with Noah, just as Portia might take a ring from her fin- ger and put it on Bassanio's hand, making it hence- forth a sign of their mutual troth. 1 " In June, 1819, the sea flowed in by the eastern mouth of the Indus, and in a few hours converted a tract of land, 2,000 square miles in area, into an inland sea, or lagoon." Lyell's Principles of Geology, New York, 1876, Vol. II, pp. 99-100. 2 Literally : " When I cloud a cloud." THE DELUGE AND CONFUSION OF TONGUES. 39 The question '' why God did not make Xoah in the first place, [since] he knew that lie would have to drown Adam and Eve and all his family," is slightly absurd, as Adam had already Leen dead 726 years when the flood came. So long as God has not made men machines, but has endowed them with free will, it is quite probable that if He had placed Noah in the Garden of Eden, the result would have been substan- tially the same as in the case of Adam. We are asked why God should want to drown the animals? There is no evidence that He did wish to drown them ; but in this case as well as since that time, the animals have not only suffered from their mutual ferocity, but also on account of their contiguity to man. In the same connection Mr. Ingersoll asks: " Is it possible that any one believes that [the confusion of tongues] is the reason why we have the variety of languages in the world? " I answer, that the account in Genesis does not require us to believe that this was the only and main reason for the differences which we detect in the lan(ruao:es of earth. The narrative states that the de- scendants of Noah were clannish, and that God resolved to scatter them, and that he accomplished his purpose by confounding their speech. If we admit that there is a God, and that He is the moral ruler of the universe, I do not see the slightest difficulty in accepting this 40 INGEESOLL AND MOSES. account as true. ]^or does our belief in it hinder us from holding that manifold other causes have contribu- ted to the differences which may exist in the various main divisions of human speech. It is now time for us to ask ourselves whether the objections which Mr. Ingersoll urges against the first eleven chapters of Genesis, stripped of their rhetorical embellishments, constitute a sufiicient reason why we should renounce God and the Christian system. We have seen that the objections brought against the narrative of the creation, in Ingersoll's case, as he states them, from a scientific point of view, are beneath contempt. They are so full of errors as to disgust any scholar. But it maybe said: granted that this is so; have there not been objections raised by those whom we are bound to respect? I admit it so far as they have been urged in a scholarly spirit, but even those who consider the account of creation mythical, are not by any means, as a general thing, atheists or even deists, although they are inclined to deny the reality of miracles. It should, however, be remembered that such an eminent Scientist as Prof Dana, finds no essential contradiction between Genesis and Sci- ence.* However correct his views may be, let it not be 1 " The order of events in the Scripture cosmogony corresponds essentially with that which has been given [by Dana]. There was first a void and THE DELUGE AND CONFUSION OF TONGUES. 41 forgotten that the Bible, from the nature of tlie case, could not employ scientific language, nor does it pro- fess to teach Science. It will be seen, therefore, that the charo^es ur2:ed ao^ainst the narrative in the first two chapters of Genesis, are based upon false pre-supposi- tions. The arguments which Mr. Ingersoll urges against the temptation, the fall, the dehige, and the confusion of tongues — have arisen from the virtual denial that God exercises a providential care over the universe; that He has made men in his own image, gifted with the power of choice, and has left them to develop a character which involves the happiness or misery of themselves, and multitudes with whom they may be associated. formless earth : this was UteraUy true of the ' heavens and the earth,' if they were in the condition of a gaseous fluid. The succession is as follows: "(1) Light. "(2) The dividing of the waters below from the waters above the earth. " (3) The dividing of the land and water dn the earth. " (4) Vegetation : which Mose-', appreciating the philosophical character- istic of the new creation, distinj^uishing it from previous inorganic sub- stances, defines as that ' wiiicli has seed in itself.' "(5) The sun, moon and stars. " (6) The lower animals : those that swarm in the waters, and the creeping and flying species of the land. " (7) Beasts of prey — ,' creeping" here means ' prowling' [?]. "(8) Man. "In this succession we observe not merely an order of events, like that deduced from science: there is a system in the arrangement, and a far- reaching prophecy, to which philosophy could not have attained, however instructed." Dana, Manual of Geology, New York, 1S76, pp. G78-7i). CHAPTEE V. ISRAEL'S EXODUS AND WANDERINGS. Summaky: Alleged Clerical Idiocy — Is the Increase of the Israelites in Eg-ypt Incredible? — A Probable Estimate — The Number of First-bo n Children — "The Champion Bird-eaters " — "Not a Blade of Grass in the Desert of Sinai" — Palmer's Testimony — Ebers — Stanley — Palestine, "a Frightful Country " — Causes of Desolation — Hornets — The Seven Nations and Israel — The Land as Promised — Wild Beasts — Reptiles — Manna — Had the Israelites Other Means of Sustenance? — Clothing in the Wild- derness — The Holy Anointing Oil — The Adornments of the Tab- ernacle — Fruit after the Fourth Year — Aaron's Consecration — "The Infinite Prestidigitator." I NOW pass to that part of Mr. Ingersoll's address which treats of certain things in the Israelitish history and laws which he considers inconsistent with the theory of the inspiration of the Old Testament, closing with a general attack on the Bible. I shall follow the order of the objections given in the address, even at the risk of seeming desultory and disconnected. Col. Ingersoll asks whether " there is a minister in (42) ISRAEL'S EXODUS AND WANDERINGS. 43 the city of Chicago that will certify to his own idi- ocy by claiming that [the Israelites] could have in- creased to three millions in two hundred and fifteen years?" Whether any one may choose to call me an idiot or not, I believe that the seventy Israelites who were in Egypt, after Jacob's family had all been gath- ered thither, increased in four hundred and thirty years to two millions of people. You will see that Ingersoll, who follows a certain class of interpreters, has set the time too low by two hundred and fifteen years, since Ex. xii, 40, shows that the period of Israel's sojourn in Egypt was twice as long as he has given it.^ The passage in Genesis (xv. 13) which speaks of four hundred years as the time of the op- pression, is merely a round number, which does not conflict with the exact period. Then Ingersoll, in set- ting the number of the Israelites at three millions, reck- ons at least half a million more than Colenso, who, while seeking to show the inconsistencies of the Penta- teuch narratives, tries to be careful in his statements. I believe, then, that seventy Israelites increased in four hundred and thirty years to two millions :(1) by reason of God's blessing, he had promised Abraham that his seed should be as the star3;(2) on account of their 1 " Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, which they sojourned in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years." 44 INGERSOLL AND MOSES. residence in Egypt. This country is renowned among classic writers, and even at the present day, for the fruitfulness of its women!* Kiel, in his commentary on Ex. xii. 37-41, has clearly shown that forty-one persons, counting ten generations, which is perfectly legitimate, as according to 1 Chr. vii, 20-27, there were from ten to eleven generations ^ between Ephraim and Joshua, would yield the number claimed.® If we reckon an average of six children to a family in the first six generations, and of four children to each fam- ily in the next four generations, we should have, on the supposition that there were as many boys as girls at tlie time of the Exodus, 478,224 males above twenty 1 See Appendix D, 2 The promise as given to Abraham, Gen. xv, 16, that his descendants should return in the fourth generation, may seem to be in contradiction to this statement. It must, liowever, be remembered that the word dor, like i^ecidum, originally designated a period of a hundred years; but afterwards, as human life was abbreviated, it indicated only thirty or forty years. In the patriarchal age, when God was speaking with Abraham, it was natural tha.t he should use the longer dt signation, and assure him that his descend- ants would leave Egypt in the four hundredth year of their sojourn. 3 Kiel -says : " It is not at all necessary to assume that the numbers given in- cluded not only the descendants of the seventy souls who went down with Jacob, but also those of 'several thousand manservants and maid-ser vants, who accompanied them. For, apart from the fact that we are un- warranted in concluding, that because Abraham had 318 fighting servants the twelve sons of Jacob had several thousand, and took them with them into Egypt ; even if the servants had been received into the religious fellow- ship of Israel by circumcision, they cannot have been reckoned among the 600,000 who went out, for the simple reason that they are not included in the seventy souls who went down to Egypt ; and in chapter i, 5, the num< bers of those who came out, is placed in unmistakable connection witt!» the number of those who went in." ISRAEL'S EXODUS AND WANDERINGS. 45 years of age, wliicli with 125,326 men from the ninth generation, would make 003,550, or the exact number as given in Num. i, 46. jS"ow, who that have heard of the hirge families that were common in this coun- try at the beginning of the present century, often numberinir from six to twelve children, and who have read in Ex. i, T, that the Israelites " multiplied and waxed exceedingly," can feel very much aggrieved if Mr. Ingersoll should choose to call them idiots for believinijthe Biblical account? In the same connection, it is alleged as equally in- credible, that the number of first-born children at the time ot the first census should have amounted only to 22,273, because the women in Israel must have had, according to Ingersoll, on an average sixty-eight chil- dren apiece. This estimate is founded on an erroneous supposition. It seems probable that only those who were born after the command was issued to consecrate every first-born son, are reckoned. It certainly would be difiicult to prove, with our data, that the number given is out of proportion. Ingersoll, in speaking of the daily births,, says: " We know that there must have been, among three millions of people, about three hundred a day;" and then comes the remarkable state- ment that "every woman had to have a sacrifice of a couple of doves, a couj)le of pigeons, and the priests 46 INGERSOLL AND MOSES. had to eat those pigeons in the most holy place" (Lev. vi:26; vii: 6.); consequently he goes on to show that at that time the three priests must have eaten two hundred birds apiece a day, and calls them "the champion bird eaters of the world." ^ 'Now what does Ingersoll mean by making such an assertion as that? There is nothing of the sort in the Bible. If we turn to Leviticus xii: 6, 8, we shall find that the mother, if wealthy, was to bring a lamb for a burnt offering, and a young pigeon or a turtle-dove for a sin-offering. If she was poor, she might bring two turtle-doves or two young pigeons — the one for a burnt offering, the other for a sin-offering. The burnt offer- ing was consumed entire' (Lev. i, 9, 17). Hence the lamb and one of the turtle-doves or two young pigeons, would not fall to the priests, the sin-offerings however were to be eaten by them. But Dr. Jamieson has correctly shown that this law, thouorh enacted in the wilderness, was not enforced there, and adds: " It is expressly said in this chapter [Lev. xii, 3,] that these sacrifices were not to be offered 1. According to Colenso (The Pentateuch and book of Joshua critically ex- amined, London, 1862, Part I, p. 128), whom Ingersoll seems in the main to foUow, although with a generous increase of his estimates : " The very pigeons to be brought as sm-offerings for the birth of children would have averaged . . . two hundred and sixty-four a day ; and each priest would have had to eat daily, eighty-eight for his own portion ' in the most holy place.' " 2 Compare Speaker's Commentary, New York, 1871, p. 496. ISRAEL'S EXODUS AND WANDERIXGS. 47 till after the circumcision of the child; but as it clearly appears (Josh, v, 5-7), that the rite of circumcision was not observed during the wanderings through the wil- derness, there was no occasion for pigeons." * At this point Ingersoll inquires: " AVhere were these Jew^s? They were upon the desert of Sinai; and Sahara compared to that is a garden There was not a blade of grass in the desert of Sinai." This assertion, on the kindest possible con- struction, betrays an astounding amount of ignorance. Prof. E. II. Palmer, of Cambridge University, England, who accompanied the ordinance survey of Sinai, says of the Bedouins, of whom some 5000 live in the wilder- ness: " To call him a ^son of the desert' is a misnomer; half the desert owes its existence to him, and many a fertile plain from which he has driven its useful and industrious inhabitants, becomes in his hands like the * South Country,' a parched and barren w^ilderness."^ But yet in such an inhospitable region, Palmer saw in one place more than 150 milch camels feeding.' He often speaks of the signs of former cultivation which he found.* Ebers, the famous Eg^^ptologist, wlio 1 A Commentary, Ch-itical, Experimental and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments, Philadelphia, Vol. I, p. 404. 2 Palmer, The Desert of the Exodus, New York 1S72, p. 241. 3Ibid. p. 274. 4 Ibid, pp 281,. 285, 286, 291, 293. Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, New York, 1870, pp. 23-24, says: "The general name by which the Hebrews called 'the 48 INGERSOLL AND MOSES. traveled through the country, believes from various indications, such as the extensive importation of wood- coal into Egypt, which anciently obtained, that at the time of the Exodus the country could support exten- sive flocks.' Ingersoll raises the question: " Where were these people going?" "They were going" he replies, "to the Holy Land . . . one-fifth the size of Illinois — a frightful country, covered with rocks and desolation. There never was an agent in Chicago that would not have bluslied with shame to have described that land as flowing with milk and honey." In reply to such a remark as this, I need merely mention the great changes which are wrought in any country by neglect. The Mormons have trans- formed a seemingly very unpromising section into a garden. Would it not be possible that tlieir domain wilderness,' including always that of Sinai, was ' the pasture.' Bare as the surface of the desert is, yet the thin clothing of vegetation, which is seldom entirely withdrawn, especially the aromatic shrubs on the high hill sides, furnish sufficient sustenance for the herds of the six thousand Bedouins who constitute the present population of the Peninsula. ' Along the mountain ledges green. The scattered sheep at will may glean The desert's spicy stores.' •' So were they seen following the daughters or the shepherd-slaves of Jethro. So they may be seen climbing the rocks, or gathered round the pools and springs of the valleys, under the charge of the blacli-veiled Bed- ouin women of the present day." ^DuTch Gosen zum Sinai, Leipzig 1S72, pp. 233,>nd compare Appendix E ISRAEL'S EXODUS AND WANDERINGS. 49 should relapse into its primitive unfruitf ulness through the effect of war and ages of neglect? Whatever the present appearance of the land of Canaan may be, its fertility, when the Israelites took possession of it, cannot be doubted. Two causes have contributed to its barrenness: (1) The destruction of the trees, which began in the time of Shishak, 970, E . C; and (2) The washing away of the terraces.' The best authorities on Archaeology, such as De Wette'' and Keil do not hesitate on the authority of Tacitus, Am- mianus Marcellinus, Josephus and others, to accept the testimony of the Bible respecting the very great fer- tility of the land of Canaan as true.^ Just here Inorersoll derides the idea that God should have em- ployed hornets to drive out the Canaanites, or that he should direct Israel to kill off the seven nations slowly, which, according to his arithmetic, in that narrow domain amounted to twentj^-one millions. AVhile there is no reason why God should not employ hor- nets to make the residence of the Canaanites un- comfortable, still we may, perhaps, interpret the expres- sion figuratively, as almost all modern commentators are inclined to do, after the analogy of the Greek word 1 Cf. W. H. and H. B. Tristram, in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, New York, 1870, Vol. Ill, p. 2294, 2 Lchrhuch der hebrdiicfi-jiidischen archseologie, Leipzig, 18G4, p. 113. » See Appendix, F. 4 50 INGERSOLL AND MOSES. oistros, which signifies both a gad- fly and (fnry) madness.^ I prefer, however, to consider them as literal hornets.* The objection that it would not be necessary to kill off the nations gradually, because they with the Israelites would make a poj)ulation of twenty-four mil- lions for a land containing only twelve thousand square miles, rests upon an utterly false assumption. (1) The number of the Israelites was nearer two than three millions. (2) Although it is said that the seven nations were greater and mightier than Israel, we have no right, as Knoble, who is a great authority in such matters, has indicated, to suppose that each nation was larger than Israel, but simply that all of them to- gether had the advantage of their invaders. (3) The land, as originally promised (Gen. xv, 18) contained much more than twelve thousand square miles, and being covered with immense forests, and surrounded by extensive deserts, there would be especial danger of wild beasts, from which the country in the most prosperous times was never free. Dr. Porter, who 1 Thus the wretched lo is represented in Prometheus Bound, 1. 566-67. as shrieking: "Oh! Oh! Again the gad-fly stings me miserable," while the angur Tiresias, in Sophocles' Antigone, 1, 1001-2, says; *' An unknown sound of birds I hear Screaming with wild, unwonted /nry." 2 See the learned dissertation in Bocharti Hierozoicon, Lipsiae, 1796, Vol. iii. pp. 402. etc. ISnAEL'S EXODUS AND WANDERINGS. 51 lived for several 3'ears in the East, says: "The popu- lation of that country [Palestine] at the present mo- ment is about two millions, or about equal to the number of the Israelites at the Exodus; and lean tes- tify that more than three-fourths of the richest and the best of the country lies coiyijpletely desolateP * Dr. McCaul has put the case very well when he says: " God promises not to drive out the Canaanites in one year for two reasons ; first, lest the land should be desolate; and, second, lest the beasts of the field should multiply against them. Xow if the whole population of Canaan had been destroyed in one year, which implies continual fighting, disorder, and neglect of agricultural pursuits, was there not a danger that the following year there would be no crops? In such a state of things, in a country like Canaan, when there were wild beasts in the land,' and abundance in the neighborhood — when the fields, and roads, and cities would all be full of the corpses of slain and un- iSee The Athcnxum, London, Jan. 3d, 1863, p. 20. Dr. Porter's letter, fron\ which the quotation is taken, furnishes to my mind a complete refutation of three of Colenso's objections to the historical character of the Pentateuch. '-^ Thompson, in The Land and tlie Boik, New York, 18C.'), who was for twen- ty five years a missionary in Syria and Palestine, speaking of Samson meet- ing a lion on the way to Timnath, says, vol. ii, p. Sfii, that was ' just where one would expect to find a lion in those days, when wild beasts were far more c mmon than at present. Nor is it more remarkable that lions should be met with in .such places than that fierce leopards should now maintiiin tlieir position in the thickly settled parts of Lebanon, and even in these very mountains, within a few hundred rods of large villages. Yet .'-uch I kuow is the fact." Compare Dr. Porter's remarks in The Athaixum, Ibid. 52 INGERSOLL AND MOSES. buried Canaanites — there would be the greatest possi- ble danger of the wild beasts multiplying against the new comers, and even disputing possession with them. Even in France, with its immense population, wolves increased during the revolutionary troubles and con- fusion, from 1793 on, to such a degree as to cause se- rious alarm, and hio^h rewards were offered by the Na- tional Convention for their destruction. In 1797, no less than 5,351 wolves were destroyed, and the alarm had not subsided in the year 1800." It seems to me that these facts show the utter fallacy of Mr. Inger- soll's objection. His profane remark about God's going into partner- ship with snakes, fails to recognize the fact that every- thing is subject to God, and that he can even employ reptiles to perform his will. In the same breath that Ingersoll speaks of serpents, he says that " the child- ren of Israel lived on manna — one account says all the time, and another only a little while." I must confess that in looking at Ex. xvi, 14-36; Num. xi, 7-9; Deut. viii, 3-16; Josh, v, 12, I have failed to find any such disagreement as he indicates. As to the peculiarities of the manna, they must be assigned to that miracu- lous power by which it was provided. Undoubtedly the food became monotonous and wearisome, still we have no right to assume that this was their only means of sustenance. Ebers holds that tliey undoubteclly enjoyed the milk from their flocks, that they slaugh- tered their cattle and sheep, and that they obtained fish, which are found in great abundance in the neigh- boring sea/ Their diet could not have been as poor as that of the Turks in the late war. When Ingersoll says they knew that God could just as well give them three good meals a day, he overlooks the fact that the long period of Israel's wandering was one of chastise- ment (Dent. viii. 2-3, 16), and that all his dealings with tliem were designed to break their rebellious spirits. The sickly sentimentality which fits up handsome cells for prisoners, feeds them bountifully, and lets them off easily when they shoot down our citizens, was not known under the theocracy. God made short and quick work with rebellion and mutiny, as was absolutely necessary in dealing with a multitude of people, one generation of which knew that they could never leave the wilder- ness. (Num. xxxii. 11-12.) Ingersoll follows the rabbinical interpretation when he supposes that the clothes grew with the children, but Deut. viii. 4, indi- cates nothing of the kind : " Thy raiment waxed not old upon thee, neither did thy foot swell these forty years." We must remember that the garments worn by the Orientals are flowing, so that they were likely J Compare Appendix E. 54 INGERSOLL AND MOSES. to be much more durable than ours. Besides, the chil- dren were doubtless as destitute of clothing as those of the present denizens of the wilderness, of which Palmer says: "They are for the most part without clothing of any kind."' * Then it must not be forgot- ten that this miraculous providence of God does not exclude a good supply of clothes to begin with (Ex. iii, 22; xii, 35), and materials derived from their flocks and herds, as well as from the caravans which were often passing them. The question is now put : " Do you believe the real God — if there be one — ever killed a man for making hair oil?" It is perhaps no wonder that one who is so profane in all his thoughts and expressions, should not be able to see why God should j^rohibit the com- mon use of the holy anointing oil, which was a sym- bol of the unction of the Divine Spirit; and of the incense, which symbolized prayer, under pain of death. Nor can such a man appreciate why Gcd gave directions as to the building of the tabernacle, and the attire of the priests, although none of these details were without spiritual significance. There is no reason why God should not tell Moses to have curtains made of tine linen, nor why gold, silver, and precious stones should not be employed in making 1 " The Desert of the Exodus, Kew York, 1872, p. 79. ISRAEL'S EXODUS AND WAXDERrXGS. 55 the vessels of the tabernacle and the ephod of the liigh priest. Why should Ingersoll say : " Did he tell them to make things of gold, silver and precious stones, when they did not have them ? " It is express- ly stated that every Israelitish woman borrowed of her Egyptian neighbor, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment (Ex. iii, 22; xi, 2; xii, 35.), not to speak of treasures which probably had been handed down, especially in the princely family of Joseph, as heirlooms. In regard to Ingersoll's query: "Is it possible that God told them not to eat any fruit until after the fourth year of planting the trees?" Micha- elis' remark is a sufficient answer;^ " The wisdom of this law is very striking. Every gardener will teach us not to let fruit-trees bear in their earliest years, but to pluck off the blossoms; and for this reason they will thus thrive the better and bear more abun- dantly afterwards." Ingersoll ridicules the ceremony employed at the consecration of Aaron and his sons, when they laid their hands upon the head of a ram, and Moses slew it," and took of its blood and put it upon the tip of Aaron's right ear, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot. (Lev. viii, 22.) Our scoffer suggests that we could not keep ^Bas Musa sche i:cch!, Trankfort, A. M. 1778, Tart iv. p. 349. 56 INGERSOLL AND MOSES. our faces straight in witnessing sucli a ceremony. That would depend upon the ideas which we associated with it. Tlie celebration of the Lord's Supper, which often moves a devout communicant to tears on account of what it signifies, might merely furnish food for a scofier's mirth. I have no doubt that this consecra- tion performed by Moses (who had acquired all the grace and dignity of an Egyptian court) upon his ven- erable brother, was one of great solemnity. The sym- bolism is certainly beautiful, as indicated by Lange, when he says : " Obedience, as spiritual hearing, is the first duty, especially of the priests. !N^ext the hand, as symbolizing human activity, is specially consecra- ted by being sprinkled wdth blood; finally, the great toe of the right foot, as symbolizing the walk of life in general." Ingersoll, after speaking of God as a juggler, in his turning Moses' rod into a serpent, asks: " Is it possi- ble that God worked miracles to convince Pharaoh that slavery was wrong?" I answer no; for Pharaoh was not open to any such conviction. Hence Inger- soll's query: "Why did he not tell Pharaoh that any nation founded on slavery could not stand?" — which he ends with a rhetorical flourish — is, in view of the circumstances, ridiculous. Pharaoh would have said, " I do not believe you ; give me a sign." (Ex. vii, 9.) ISRAEL'S EXODUS AXD WAXDEIilXGS. 57 This was the demand which he did make, and which the Jews made when Christ stopped the traffic in the temple. " What sign," they say, " showest thou unto ns, seeing that thou doest these things? " (John ii, IS cf. vi. 30.) The words of ]\Ioses and Aaron could have no effect upon Pharaoh unless power lay behind them. The miracle which God performed in changing Moses' rod into a serpent, which devoured the serpents of the Egyptian charmers, was level to Pharaoh's comprehen- sion, and tended to establish the claims of Moses and Aaron. CHAPTEE VI. ISRAEL'S CUSTOMS AND LAWS. Summary: Slavery — Divorce — The Position of Woman — God's Victory over the Egyptians — The size of the Egyptian Stand- ing Army in the time of Moses — The Hare — Ingersoll's Theory as to the Origin of the Ten Commandments — Influence of the second Commandment on Art — Did God teach and uphold Po- lygamy? — Was the Extermination of the Canaanites Justifia- ble? — The Hushand of an Idolatrous Wife — Captive Maidens — The Midianitish Women — Quotation from Philo —Unjust repre- sentations as to Israelitish Slavery — Two kinds of Servitude — Limitations — The Slave- wife — Foreign Slaves — Alleged Abuses — Comparison between Israelitish and Roman Slavery — Mom- msen's Remark. The cliaroje that God did not use such ar^riiments as Ingersoll recommends, because "he believed in tlie infamy of slavery," is either an infamous falsehood or an infamous mistake. All God's commands are with reference to the mitigation of an institution which has existed from the hoariest antiquity. We shall have occasion to speak of this matter again. IsTeither can God be charged as the author of divorce. (58) ISRAEL'S CUSTOMS AND LAWS. 59 This very clearly appears from what Christ said to the Jews when they asked, Matt, xix, 3: "Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause ? " lie tells them: "Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, for this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they twain shall be one flesh? What therefore God hath joined together let not man put asunder." And when they asked why Moses commanded to give a writing of divorcement and put her away, he said: "Moses, be- cause of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put away your wives, but from the beginning it was not so." It is an infamous calumnv when Mr. Inirer- soil says that [woman] was never worth mentioning [in the Bible]. Why then do we read so much about her that is tender and appreciative? IIow is it that Sarah, Rebecca, Kachel, Miriam, Deborah, Huth, and Abigail have become household words? IIow is it that the bridegroom is not to go to war, nor to be charged with any business, but is to be free at home for a year that he may cheer his wife? (Deut. xxiv. 5.) How is it that we read, Prov. xviii. 22 : " Whoso findeth a wife, findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favor of the Lord?" and at the very close of the book, how is it that we find that eulogy on a virtuous woman, which, 60 INGERSOLL AND MOSES. as Delitzsch says, praises her throughout the twenty- two letters of the alphabet ? Shame on the man who claims to have read the Bible through once this year and yet affirms that " There is not one word about woman in the Old Testament except the word of shame and humiliation." Ingersoll blasphemously says: "After God had killed all the first-born in Egypt, .... it could raise an army that could put to flight six hundred thousand men; and because this God overwhelmed the Egyi^tian army, he bragged about it for a thousand years, repeatedly calling the attention of the Jews to the fact that he overthrew Pharoah and his hosts. Did he help much with their six hundred thousand men? We find by the records of the day that the Egyptian standing army was at that time never more than one hundred thousand men." But where are the passages, in which God boasts of his victory over the Egyptians? The Israelites were fond of celebrating this great deliverance in song and story. Just in sight of that grand catastrophe they sing (Ex. xv, 11): "Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing w^onders." But such recognitions of God's power came from the popular heart. I ask, by what records of the day " we find ISRAEVS CUSTOMS AND LAWS. 61 that the Egyptian standing army, at the time of the Ex- odus, was never more than one hundred thousand men ?" According to Diodorus Siculus,' Sesostris, or Eamses II, during whose reign Moses was born,' had an army of 600,000 foot, 24,000 horse, and 27,000 chariots. After much earnest search in the latest and best authorities, I think there can be no doubt that Ingersoll's state- ment is without any good foundation.^ Aside from this, however, it was not God's purpose to use an arm of flesh in overcoming the Egyptians; for the Israelites were to stand still and see the salvation of the Lord (Ex. xiv. 13). Ingersoll next speaks of certain matters in which the Bible is not inspired, as for instance, in natural history, and mentions the hare and rabbit as animals which are said to chew the cud but do not. ITow when we remember that the object of the Jewish law was 11,54. 2 See Appendix, G. 3 In the Records of the Past, London, Vol. ii. p. 70, Ramses TI. is represented by the third i:fallier papyrus assaying: "I am amid multitudes unknown, nations gathered against me ; lam alone, no other with me; my foot and horse have left me ; I called aloud to them, none of them heard ; I cried to them. I find Ammon worth more than millions of soldiers, than one hundred thousand cavalry, than ten thousand brothers, striplings [Brugsch, 'and sons' J, were they all gathered together in one." Compare Brugsch p. 505. It does not appear from this quotation, that the " Egyptian standing army was never more than one hundred thousand men ;" Biit even if Pharaoh had led only a few thousand troops against the Israelites, as was probably the case, they would have been amply sutficieut to strike terror into those who had but just escaped from bondage. 62 INGERSOLL AND MOSES. simply to prohibit the use of these animals and that it indicates them by the tremulous motion of the mouth, which the ancients supposed was caused by chewing the cud, we certainly find no reason for im- pugning God's word.* Ingersoll claims that the Bible is not inspired in re- spect to its law, because men object to having their goods stolen and to being murdered. But does that account for all the ten commandments, which are ^ Wood, B/'6?e -4 mma's, London, 1869, p. 315, says: " It has been mentioned that the Hj-rax, a true pachyderm, does not merely chew the cud, but that the peculiar and constant movement of its jaws strongly resemble the act of rumination. The Jews, ignorant as thev were of scientific zoology, would naturally set down the Hyrax as a ruminant, and would have been likely to eat it, as the flesh is very good. It must be remembered, that two conditions were needful to render an animal fit to be eaten by a Jew, the one, that it must be a ruminant, and the second, that it should have a divided hoof. Granting, therefore, the presence of the former qualification, Moses points out the absence of the latter, thereby prohibiting the animal as eff'ec- tually as if he had entered into a question of comparative anatomy, and proved that the Hyrax was incapable of rumination. Dr. Gardiner has also put the matter very well in his excellent article en- titled Errors of the Scriptures, in The Bibliotheca Sacra, Andover, July, 1879, Vol. XXXVI, p. 503, when he says : " Moses speaks of the coney (Hyrax Syriacus) as unclean, although he chews the cud, because he does not divide the hoof (Lev. xi. 5), and so of some other animals All this is wrong. The coney does not really chew the cud, but merely has a way of moving his lower jaw which gives him the appearance of doing so Now was this an error on the part of Moses, and is it an error of the Bible ? Techni- cally and superficially, of course it is, but not really. Moses himself may very likely have been but an indifferent comparative anatomist ; but this cannot be determined simply from this use of language. He was giving a law for popular observance, and must necessarily mark his distinctions ac- cording to appearances, or expose the people to be continually involved in transgression. It is of no consequence at all what was the extent or defi- ciency of his own private information. The exigencies of the time and the circumstances required that the law should be expressed as it is, and it would have failed of its purpose had it been set forth in the techni- calities of modern science." ISRAEL'S CUSTOMS AND LA WS. 63 founded on perfect love to God and our neighbor? Matt. xxii. 37-40. He affirms that the second com- mandment was the death of art in Palestine. That, however, is not the fault of the commandment, for rightly understood it does not discourage art. Under the Mosaic dispensation the cherubim (Ex. xxxvii. 7-9), tlie brazen serpent (Num. xxi. 9), etc., were prepared. And we find similar works of art on a grander scale in the temple (1 K. vi. 23-29; vii. 23-37), and palace (x. lS-20) of Solomon. The command- ment was not directed against the making of images, but against making them as objects of worship. Ingersoll further affirms that the Bible is not in- spired in respect to morals. After putting the question : " Is there a man, is there a woman here who believes in the institution of polygamy? and anticipating their reply "no, we do not," he says: "Then you are better tlian your God was four thousand A^ears aofo. Four thousand years ago he believed in it, taught it and upheld it." Where, I ask, does he teach it? Does Moses say like Mohammed, that a man may take two, three, or even four wives? ^ No. There are only* six verses in regard to the subject. According to Exodus xxi, 9, 10, it is said that if a father take another wife for his son in addition to the maid-servant whom 1 Sura IV. 64 INGERSOLL AND MOSES. he has betrothed to him, lie is not to diminish the rights of the latter. In Lev. xviii, 18, it is prohibit- ed that a man should take his wife's sister during her life-time. In Deut. xxi, 15-17 we read: "If a man have two wives, one beloved and another hated, and they have borne him children, both the beloved and the hated (or less beloved) ; and if the first-born son be hers that was hated, then it shall be, when he maketh his sons to inherit that which he hath, that he may not make the son of the beloved first-born before the son of the hated,which is indeed the first-born," that is we have the right of primogeniture established among the Hebrews. Is there proof in those six verses that God believed in polygamy, taught and upheld it?* But you may say are not the historical examples of polygamy favorable to it? Not at all. The Sacred historian shows the shadows and unhappiness result- ing from having a plurality of wives. On the other hand, pictures of domestic bliss are only portrayed as connected with one wife (Ps. cxxviii, 3; Fro v. v, 18; xviii, 22; xix, 14; xxxi, 30; Eccl ix, 9.) Ingersoll says he thinks the Bible is neither inspired about religious liberty, nor about war. I connect the two charges, since the same principle underlies them both. The Israelites were commanded to wage a war iSee Appendix! . ISRAEL'S CUSTOMS AXD LAWS. G5 of extermination against the Canaanites. In their dealings with other nations they were directed to spare the virgins and the female children. Kow remember that this command occurs in the Old Testament in regard to people who were so abominably filthy in their practices that the Scripture says the land was vomiting them ont (Lev. xviii, 26, 27). If the Jews Jiad spared these nations as the IN'ormans spared the Saxons, they wonld certainly have fallen into these gross sins. Even Oort says:^ "The best of the Israelites felt an aversion for tlie tribes they had con- quered and oppressed, which was not simply the result of national pride and selfishness, but was based upon a deep moral sense." When Ingersoll speaks of the cruelty of a man turn- ing against the wife of his bosom, because she wished to incite him to idolatry, he fails to recognize that under the divine government, love and obedience to God are to be preferred when they conflict with con- jugal affection. It was better that a man's heart should be torn with anguish by the loss of his wife than that he should deny the God who had made him. And now we come to the most horrible passage in Ingersoll's address, in which he shamefully misrej)re- 1 The Bible for Learners, Boston, 1S7S, vol. ii, p. 93. 5 66 INGERSOLL AND MOSES. sents tlie Jewish law in regard to captive maidens, in- terpreting it donbtless in the light of Sepoy and Turk- ish enormities. It is here that he counsels a woman when she comes to this passage, to throw the book from her in contempt and scorn. It is here that he says:" That is the God we teach our children about, so that they will be sweet and tender, amiable and kind! That monster — that fiend!" May God forgive Ingersoll's blasphemy ! jN^ow, what are the facts in the case? Moses reproves the Israelites for saving the Midianitish women alive, who had caused them to commit fornication in prac- ticing the licentious rites of Baal-peor (Num. xxv, 1-3.) He therefore bids them kill all except the virgins and the little girls.^ This historical instance illustrates the practice of the Israelites. The statutes in regard to the matter are found in Deuteronomy, xx, 14, where w^e read that if a city refuses to make peace with the 1 If the Israelites had pursued any other course, they would have spared the very women who, as priestesses, iu the obscene worship of Baal-peor had not only led them to commit carnal but also spiritual fornication, and had thus brought down upon the children of Israel terrible judgments (Num. xxv, 9). Had they spared the male children, they would not merely have preserved the germs of the Midianitish nation among them, but th( y would have incurred the actual danger that those same children on reach- ing their majority might have been their most dangerous enemies by seek- ing, in accordance with the ancient custom, to become avengers of blood. On this latter point, compare Knoble, Die Biichcr Numeri, DeiUeronnmlum rtnd Josita, Leipzig, 1861, p. 170, and Jamieson's very fuUdiscussionon Num. xxxi, 48-54, in A Commentary, Critical, Experimental and Prad cat, &c., Phila- delphia. ISRAEL'S CUSTOMS AND LAWS. 07 Israelites, then they " shall smite every male there- of with the edge of the sword. But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city " they shall take unto themselves. As to the treatment of captive women, Deuteronom}', xxi, 10-1 J:, directs that if an Israelite sees among the captives a beautiful woman whom he would have as his wife, he is to allow her to mourn a month for her parents before he consummates the marriage. If afterwards he should not be pleased with her, he may not sell her, but must grant her liberty. I trust that the base insinuations which Ingersoll has made as to the treatment of these captives, will furnish a suffi- cient apology for giving Philo's construction of this passage in his chapter on Humanity, where at the fourteenth section, he expresses himself as folows: * '' Moreover, if after having taken prisoners in a sally, you should entertain a desire for a beautiful woman amongst them, do not satiate your passion, treating her as a captive, but act with gentleness, and pity her change of fortune, and alleviate her calamity, regula- ting everything for the best." He further remarks that " the lawgiver has given all his laws with great beauty. For, in the first place, he hath not allowed appetite to proceed onwards in its unbridled course, 1 Ed. Mangcy, ii, 303, scq. QS INGERSOLL AND MOSES. with stiff-necked obstinacy, but he has checked its ve- hement impetuosity, compelling it to rest for thirty days. And in the second place, he has tested love, trying whether it is a frantic passion, easily satisfied, and, in fact, wholly originating in desire, or whether it has any share in that most pure essence of well- tempered reason, for reason will bridle the desire, not allowing it to proceed to any acts of insolence, but compelling it to abide the appointed period of a month of probation. And, in the third place, he shows his compassion for the captive, if she is a virgin, because it is not her parents who are now giving her in marriage, arranging for a most de- sirable connection." The subject is one of such delicacy that 1 cannot quote facts which would go to show that the Jewish regulation in regard to maidens taken in war is far in advance of practices which have obtained among some modern nations, not to mention those of antiquity. In view of these facts, are not IngersoU's strictures on the Old Testament in regard to maidens, disgraceful? Equally unjust and impious are his representations in regard to slavery among the Israelites. There is a passage which may seem to be favorable to his view. In Lev. XXV, 45, we read: " Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them ISRAEL'S CUSTOMS AND LAWS. GO shall je buy, and of their families that are with yon, which they beget in the land, and they shall be yonr possession." But when we examine all the passages which relate to this subject, we see that they tend to mitigate an institution which seems almost to have been a necessity of that civilization.* The servitude among the Hebrews was of two kinds: (1) That of Israelites, which is mentioned in Lev. xxv, 39 : " And if tliy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to serve as a bond-servant. But as a hired servant, and as a sojourner he shall go with thee, and shall serve thee unto the year of jubilee, and then shall he depart from thee, both he and his children with him, and shall return unto his own family, and unto the possession of his fathers shall he return." Both in Exodus and Deuter- onomy it is said that the servant is to be free at the 1 Rev. W. L. Bevan, in SmP.h's Dictionary of the Bible, New York, 1870, Vol. iv, p. 3057, says : " Repugnant as the notion of slavery is to our minds, it is difficult to see how it can be dispensed with in certain phases of society, without, at all events, entailing severer evils than those which it produces. . . . , In the case of war, carried on for conquest or revenge, there were but two modes of dealing with captives, namely, putting them to death or re- ducing them to slavery. The same may be said in regard to such acts and outrages as disqualified a person for the society of his fellow-citizens. Again, as citizenship involved the condition of freedom and independence, it was almost necessary to offer the alternative of disfranchisement to all who, through poverty or any other contingency, were unable to support themselves in independence. In all these cases, slavery was the mildest of the alternatives that ollered, and may hence be regarded as a blessing rather than a curse." INGEESOLL AND 3I0SES. end of every six years (Ex. xxi:2; Dent. xv:12.) un- less he has obtained his freedom, by the year of jubi- lee intervening. And when his master lets him depart he is to furnish him liberally from his flock, and from his harvest so that he may be in position to lead an independent existence (Deut. xv: 13-15). In connec- tion with this servitude, the master could give his Israelitish slave a wife from among his servants. If he accepted her, she and her children belonged to her master. If the servant, moved by aflfection, shoukl say: "I love my master, my wife, and my children; I w^ill not go free," then he was to remain a slave for life (Ex. xxi : 5-6). With respect to this regulation IngersoU asks: " Do you believe that God ever turned the dimpled cheeks of little children into iron chains to hold a man in slavery? Do you know that a God like that would not make a resjDCctable devil?" I have merely this to say, that the Israelitish ser- vant was not compelled to take a slave-wife. On the other hand, the law plainly stated what the result of such a step would be. If, therefore, he accepted such a partner, he did so with his eyes open. It might be an unfortunate match, as many are that young women make when they marry their father's coachmen, but he would have only himself to blame for it. (2.) Another kind of slavery was that of those who ISIiAEL'S CUSTOMS AND LA WS. 71 were foreigners. But as the writer of an article in Smith's Bible Dictionary remarks, the general treat- ment of slaves appears to have been gentle' — occa- sionally too gentle, as we infer from Solomon's warn- ing (Prov. xxix, 21): " He that delicately bringeth np his servant from a child shall have him become his son at length." Minor personal injuries were recompensed by giving the slave his freedom. AVitli reference to the assumption that a master might abuse his slave as much as he pleased, even unto death, because he was his property, the objection is well met by Prof. Bar- rows, who says:'* '' There is no ground for supposing that the murder of a slave with a deadly weapon, or the destruction of his life in any other way, in such circumstances as afforded proof of an intention to kill, was not punished with death. If the servant survived a day or two, the master was not to be punished. The reason added is, ' for he is his money.' The meaning of these words is not that the master is to escape pun- ishment because the servant, whose death he has caused, was an article of property, for the destruction of which, punishment was not required (which would be in direct contradiction to the context); but rather that, being worth money to his master, it is to be pre- ^ Slave, Vol. IV, p. 30G0. ^Bibliotheca Sa ra, Andover, 1S62, Vol. XIX p. 583. 72 INGERSOLL AND MOSES. sumed, in tlie absence of express evidence to the con- trary, that there was no intention of killing him, while he suffers a penalty to a certain extent in the loss of the servant." The kind spirit of the Jewish law towards all ser- vants is manifested in the command that they shall not do any work on the Sabbath, and in the reminder that the Israelites themselves were once servants in Egypt (Dent, v, 15), this fact is also called to their remembrance when they are required to admit their slaves to Israel's stated occasions of festivity and re- joicing throughout the year (Deut. xvi, 12). It has been abundantly proved in the light of such facts that the system of Hebrew bondage was much kinder than that of American slavery, regarding which, Mommsen has made the follovv^ing remark: "It is easily possible, that, compared with Roman slavery ^ the sum of all ]^egro sufferings is a drop." Let it be remembered that we now have to do with the Old Testament; the principles of the ]^ew, fairly inter- preted, strike at the very foundations of slavery.' 1 Edmische Geschichte, Berlin, 1874, Vol, II, p. 77. While the above state- ment may be too strong, the facts given in Appendix J show the surpas- singly brutal nature of Roman slavery. See Appendix H. CHAPTEE VII. VARIOUS MISSTATEMENTS BY INGERSOLL. Summary: The Atonement Saves the "Wrong Man — Changes in the Text of Scripture — Disagreement of the Jews as to the Limits of the Canon — Greek Translation Prepared Two or Three Tears B. C. — Henry VIII. and Elizabeth Interested in the Translation of the Bible — Our Indebtedness to Murderers for our Bibles and Creeds — Constantine the Great the Murderer of his Wife — One Hundred Thousand Errors in the Old Testa- ment — No Contemporaneous Literature at the Time the Bible was Composed — The Bible the Occasion of Dungeons. Kacks, etc. — The Selfishness of the Christian's Heaven — A Book Con- taining the Story of Elisha and the Bears Cannot be true — Answers to the above, and Conclusion. Among Ingersoll's many misstatements, none is greater than when he says that tlie atonement saves the wrong man. According to the Scriptures, every living soul needs the atonement. In God's sight " there is none righteous, no not one " (Rom. iii, 10). No one, however lovely traits of character he may pos- sess, can save himself (Rom. iii, 20). But this right- eousness of Christ, which every soul may receive (73) 74 INGEESOLL AND MOSES. through repentance and faith, is not favorable to anti- nomianism. Paul indignantly repels that heresy when he says (Rom. vi, 1-2): ''Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" Hence according to the Christian scheme, there can be no jus- tification, unless it is attended by sanctification. What Ingersoll says about the changes which took place in the text of the Scriptures before the Bible was printed, is ignorant nonsense. Scrivener remarks;^ " But even were the progress of the science [of textual criticism] less hopeful than we believe it to be, one great truth is admitted on all hands — the almost com- plete freedom of Holy Scripture from the bare sus- picion of willful corruption ; the absolute identity of the testimony of every known copy in respect to doc- trine and spirit, and the main drift of every argument and every narrative through the entire volume of in- spiration. On a point of such vital moment, I am glad to cite the well-known and powerful statement of the great Bentley, at once the profoundest and. the most daring of Eno-lish critics: " The real text of the sacred writers does not now (since the originals have been so long lost) lie in any manuscript or edition, but is dis- persed in them all. 'Tis competently exact, indeed, 1 A Plain Introduction to The Criticism of the Nciv Testament, Cambridge, 1874, pp. 6-7. VARIOUS MISSTATEMENTS BY IXGERSOLL. 75 in the worst manuscript now extant; nor is one article of faith or moral precept either perverted or lost in them; choose as awkwardly as you will, choose the worst by design out of the whole lump of readings ; . . . . make your thirty thousand variations as many more, if numbers of copies can ever reach that sum : all the better to a knowing and a serious reader, who is thereby more richly furnished to select what he sees genuine. But even put them into the hands of a knave or a fool, and yet with the most sinistrous and absurd choice, he shall not extinguish the light of any one chapter, nor so disguise Christianity, but that every feature of it will still be the same." Ingersoll said to his auditors, who perhaps won- dered at his learning: '' I want you to know that the Jews themselves never agreed as to what books were inspired, and that there were a lot of books written that were not incorporated in the Old Testament." "We have in the Prologue of the book of Sirach, writ- ten one hundred and thirty-two years ^ before Christ, an allusion to the three great divisions of the Old Testament, which are termed the Law, the Prophets, and the Sacred Writings. There can be but little doubt, although there is not data enough to argue with certainty ,"" that these 1 Fritzsche, Libri Apochnjphi Vderis Tcstamenti Grocce, Lipsix, 1S71, p. xxii. aFurst, Der Kanon des Alien TesUnne.^ls, Leipzig, 1SC8, p. C5, (56) has made a 76 INGERSOLL AND MOSES. three divisions contained tlie thirty-nine books which are enumerated by the Jews as twenty-two, and are mentioned by Josephus in a famous passage*/ "For we have not an innumerable multitude of books among us, disagreeing from, and contradicting one another, but only twenty-two books." The same number of books is mentioned in a celebrated passage of a treatise in the Talmud, called Baha hathra'^ Jerome, who had a Jewish teacher, also mentions that there were twenty-two books, or twenty -four reckoned by the Jews in the Old Testament,^ according as Euth and Lamentations, were numbered separately, or added to Judges and Jeremiah. "With reference to the apoc- remark which is worthy of attention. In reply to the question, " At what time was the last division (the Hagiographa) gathered and put in order?" he says : " The admirable book of Jesus Sirach, composed 180 B. C, in spite of its excellence as a book for the people, and although it was written in Hebrew, could find no place in the collection of the Kethubim (the Hagio- grapha), which, when we regard the almost canonical estimation in which this book was held, could only occur because the Kethubim (the last divis- ion of the canon) was already closed and completed." It is certain, on the basis of the most unbiased criticism, that the Old Tes- tament canon was closed towards the end of the first century A. D. (Bleek, Einleitung in das Alte Testament, Berlin, 1878, p. 550), and it is very probable that it was completed three hundred years before. (Fiirst Jbid., p. 57 : " So dass man mit Bestimentheit annehmen kann, dass um 200 v. Chr. die Ke- tubim bereits redigirt waren.") 1 Contra Apion, i, 8. 2 14b. 3 Jerome, in the Prologus Galeaius, says : " Atque ita fiunt pariter veteris legis libri vigiutiduo ; id est, Moysi quinque, Prophetarum octo, Hagiogra- poriim novem. Quamquam nonnulli Ruth et Cinoth [Lamentationes], in- ter Hagiographa scriptitent, et hos libros in suo putent uumero supputan- dos, ac per hoc esse priscse legis libros vigintiquatuor." VARIOUS MISSTATEMENTS BY INGEliSOLL. 77 ryplia to wliich Ingersoll alludes, altliougli it was cur- rent among the Alexandrian Jews in the Greek, yet it is not quoted by Philo, who often refers to the Old Testament as Scripture. In tlie Talmud it is writ- ten: "He who brings into his house more than twenty-four books of the canon, brings a destruction into his house." i^ nd in the Mishna it is recorded: " He who reads books that must be kept separate from the canonical ones, forfeits eternal life." ^ Ino^ersoll wants we should know that the Hebrew MS. was translated into Greek two or three years be- fore Christ. He undoubtedly refers to the Septuagint which was prepared, according to the best authorities, between 285 and 150 B. C The date which he gives is a disgraceful blander. While it is true that per- haps no manuscripts of the Hebrew Scriptures have yet been discovered, extending back beyond 916 A. D.,^ 1 Biesenthal, in The Bibliotheca Sacra, Andover, 1875, pp. 163-1 G4. 2 Fritsche in Herzog's and Plitt's Real EncyUopddie, Leipzig, 1877, p. 282, says: " Everything goes to show that at first considerable portions of the Old Testament were translated under the Ptolemies, especially Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-247 B.C.); afterwards translations of the rest of the Scrip- lures were gradually prepared, and shortly after the middle of the second century before Christ, no Scripture remained untranslated." Compare Bleek, Einleitung in das Alte Testament, Berlin, 1878, p. 571. sSeeHarkavy and Strack, Catalog der Eebrdischen Bibelhandscrijten der Kaiserlichen OejjenUihch.cn Bibliothek in iSt. Petersburg, St. Petersburg, 1875, p. 223. Schiller-it zinessy in the Catalogue of the Hebrew J/SS. preserved in the Univer- fity Library, (ambridge, 1876, p. 14, claims, that the date of No. 12, given in the postscript, the 7 of Adar 616 (Feb. 18, 856 A. D.), is correct, hence this would be the oldest 0. T. manuscript. The comparatively recent age of our 78 INGERSOLL AND MOSES. yet it does not disprove the substantial accuracy of our present Hebrew manuscripts concerning wliicli Dr. Biesenthal, an eminent Kabbinical scholar, makes the following remark : ^ " The Jews were not at all times faithful keepers of the spirit and substance, but they surely were more than any other nation, the guardians and preservers of the word of the Old Testament Countless precepts threaten the woes of hell to the copyist of the scriptures of the Old Testament, if he should dare to add or leave out a syllable." "We pass from one succession of Ingersoll's blunders or misrepresentations to another. What can be more absurd in the light of history than the statement that Henry YIII. took a little time between murdering his wives to see that the Word of God was translated cor- rectly? " The fact is that Tyndale, who translated the oldest Hebrew manuscripts does not militate against their authority. It should be remembered that " we have no complete copy of Homer himself prior to the thirteenth century." (Scrivener's Introduction, p. 4.). 1 Bibliotfieca Sacra, Andover, 1865, p. 162. The exactness which the Jews observed in their preparation of Pentateuch rolls is indicated in Home's Introduction, London, 1869, vol. ii. p. 41 : " The want of a single letter, or the redundance of a single letter, the writing of prose as verse, or verse as prose, respectively, vitiates a manuscript ; and when a copy has been com- pleted, it must be examined and corrected within thirty days after the writing has been finished, in order to determine whether it is to be ap- proved or rejected." Carpzovii, Oritica Sacra, Lipsise, 1718, p. 372, says : " Maimondes mentions twenty faults, a single one of which profanes or renders the whole volume useless." VARIOUS MISSTATEMENTS BY IXGEIiSOLL. 79 Bible, was put to death under Henry in the year 153G/ and that Miles Coverdale, Tyndale's friend, as a piece of good policy, dedicated his version to Henry.' I need not say that the statement tliat " Elizabeth, the murderess of Mary, Queen ot Scotts, got up another edition, which also did not suit," is false. The Gene- van Bible, which received its name from the place where it was prepared, was dedicated to Queen Eliza- beth for the sake of her patronage, but she had noth- ino^ to do in brino^ins: about its translation or that of the Bishop's Bible.' "What does Incrersoll mean when in the same connec- tion he says: " You must recollect that we are indebt- ed to murderers for our Bibles and creeds? " This is a statement which every well-informed person knows to be false on its very face, but there are very many who have not the ready knowledge to nail it at once ' Anne Bolcyn was favorable to Tyndale, and in recognition of her tind intervention for liim, he presented her with a copy of the New Testament bound in vellum and beautifully illuminated. (Westcctt, A General View of the Hutory of the English Bible, London, 1872, p. 49). His last prayer was: "Lord, open the King of England's eyes." {Ibid., p. 51.) 2 Westcott, Jbid., p. 61, says : " His [Coverdale's] object was to bring about the open circulation of the Scriptures, and that could only be by securing the king's favor. To this end the work w'as dedicated to Henry VIIL ^Ibid., p. 92. In regard to the Bishop's Bible, Westcott remarks (p. 108): "When the edition was ready for publication, Parker endeavored to obtain through Cecil, a recognition of it by the Queen. . . . There is no evidence to show whether the Queen returned any answer to his petition." Although the circulation of the Bible was secured, her attitude towards the movement was evidently rather that of concession than of hearty patronage. 80 INGERSOLL AND MOSES. as a lie. Without respect to the subject matter treated, it is scandalous that a professedly well educated man should make such mistakes, which reference to any good encyclopaedia would prevent. We have seen how false the assertions were, that Henry YIII. or Elizabeth had anything to do with the translation of the Scriptures. Ingersoll charges that " Constantine, w^ho helped on the good work in its early stages, murdered his wife and child." This accu- sation is substantially true with respect to his son, and it is a dark stain on Constantine's memory.' It is also true that he bade Eusebius of Cgesarea have fifty copies of the Scriptures written on prepared skins by skilled scribes,"^ and that he w^as prominent in securing the iProf. Schaff, History of the Christian Chicrch, New York, 1870, Vol. ii, pp. 15- 17, indicates the lights as Avell as the shadows of Constantiue's character. " His moral character was not without noble traits, among which a chastity rare for the time, and a liberality and beneficence bordering on wasiefalness were prominent. Many of his laws and regulations breathed the spirit of Chrisiian justice and humanity, promoted the elevation of the female sex, improved the condition of slaves and of iinfortunates, and gave free play to the efficiency of the church throughout the whole empire. Altogether, he was one of the best, the most fortunate, and the most influential of the Koman emperors. Christian and pagan. [But] the very brightest period of his reign is stained with gross crimes, which even the spirit of the age, and the policy of an absolute monarch, can- not excuse Worst of all is the murder of his eldest son, Crispus, in 326, who had incurred suspicion of political conspiracy and of adulterous and in- cestuous purposes towards his step-mother, Fausta, but is generally regarded as innocent. . . He hasbeen frequently charged. besides,though it would .seem altogether unjustly, with the death of his second wife. . . The accounts of the cause and manner of her death are so late and discordant as to make Con- stantine's part in it at least very doubtful." 2 Wescott. A General. Survey of tlie History of the Canon, London, 1875, p. 422. VARIOUS MISSTATEMENTS BY INGEIiSOLL, 81 meeting of the ecumenical council at Nicaea, in the year 325, at which he presided, and where the [N'icene Creed was prepared. But it is not true, as IngersoU would have us infer, that we are in- debted to him for those copies of the Biljle, and for that creed because he had put his son to death. Xo, the first statesman of his time, he recognized the growing power of Christianity before which heathen- ism must fall, he therefore, at first, protected it as a political measure.^ Having done this he perceived that it was desirable in a state religion that there should be uniformity.* As the church was divided into the or- thodox party and the Arians, and the strife threatened to be dangerous politically, he called the council at l^icaea, in order that harmony in doctrine might be secured. How little he cared for the distinction which divided the two parties, appears from the fact that he was at first in favor of a sjmibol, which, failing to assert the deity of Christ, was agreeable to the Arians, but afterwards, for the sake of peace, gave his voice for the orthodox creed." JSTow, in view of these facts, how shameless and ignorant the charge that w^e are indebt- ed to murderers for our Bibles and creeds! The assertion that there are at least one hundred 1 Compare Schaflf, Vol. ii, p. 13. 2 Ibid. p. fi21. 3 Schaff, Vol. ii, p. 628. 6 82 INGERSOLL AND MOSES. thousand errors in tlie Old Testament, is doubtless a despicable falsehood/ and the statement that hereafter the prophet will be fed bj Arabs instead of ravens,'^ and that Samson's three hundred foxes will be three hundred sheaves, is utterly without foundation. Ingersoll wishes us to know that there was no con- temporaneous literature at the time the Bible was com]30sed. Unfortunately for him, there are several Egyptian papyrus rolls in existence, which date back even earlier than the time of Moses. Dr. Heinrich Brugsch-Bey says,^ after giving a quotation from a certain roll: '' We may presuppose that many a He- brew, perhaps Moses himself, encountered the Egyp- tian scribe as he was wandering through the streets of the temple-city [Ramses] as they were adorned for the festival." What then was to hinder him who was skilled in all the learning of the Egyptians, as the 1 Prof. Green, of the Old Testament Conjipany of American Revisers.writes as follows: "Ingersoll's gross misrepresentation of the number of mis- takes in the authorized version, is of course absurd enough and easily set aside, as both ignorant and malicious. I am sorry that 1 have not statis- tics at hand with which to supply you. I have preserved no record of the number of deviations from the original which affect the sense. The more carefully I study our version, the more I am impressed with its great excellence. It would be very hard, I think, for Ingersoll or any one else to show that the faith of Christendom would be altered in any particular if there had been no blemish whatever in our version, but it had accu- rately represented the originals in eveiy word and sentence." 2 This is a rationalistic interpretation, which was exploded long ago. ^Geschichte jEgyptens unter den Pharaonen, Leipzig 1S77, p. 549. VARIOUS MISSTATEMENTS BY IXGERSOLL. 83 reputed son of Pliaraolrs daughter, from being an adept in the art of writing? * The affirmation that the Jews were infinitely iornor- ant in their day and generation is a mere assertion, while the declaration that they were isolated by bigotry and wickedness from the rest of the world is a scur- rilous falsehood. The nations that surrounded them were far more wicked than they. It does not seem possible that any American of ordi- narj^ intelligence and in his right mind could say: " I want you to understand that where this Bible has been, naan has hated his brother — there have been dungeons, racks, thumb-screws and the sword." " I pity the man 1 Brugsch. Ibifl.. p. 500, after giving a quotation from an Egyptian poet, says: "At all events, the peculiar order of tliought of the Egyptian poet in the fourteenth century before Christ, shines out in its entire fullness and confirms our opinion, that the Mosaic laiijUage ixhibi s iti-elf as a conUmporary image of the Egyptian manner of speech." The Italics are my own. - There is only one sense in which this statement can be true, and that is that the Bible, in arousing the antagonism of bad men and corrupt sys- tems, has often made those who believed in its truths martyrs. But, while it must be admitted that there have been sporadic cases of persecution owing to superstition and a misinterpretation of the Bible, as in the case of the so-called Salem witches (Upham, Salem Witchcvaft, Boston, 18G7, vols, i and ii), it is not true that the spirit of the Scriptures makes men persecutors of others. There has been no power more intolerant than that of Popery, which forbids the masses freely to read the Word of God {The Protestant, Hartford, 1836, vol. ii, pp. 352-53), and it is in this very sj-stem that the In- quisition, with all its horrors, originated. " In Spain alone, according to Llorente, upwards of three hundred and forty thousand persons were judged and punished one way or another by the tribunal. Of these nearly thirty- two thousand were burned alive" Encyclopxdia B it'anica, Boston. 18-56, vol. xii. p. 301). Compare Llorente's Kritische Geschichte der Spani^chen In- quisition, Gmund, 1819, Fox, Boo/c of Maityrs, etc. etc. 84 INGEESOLL AND MOSES. that can credit siicli a statement. I can scarcely think that Ingersoll hinu elf believes that that book which bids lis break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free; which in the teachings of Christ breathes such love, could have such an effect. This assertion rests on just such a perversion of history as we have already remarked. Oh ! it makes one's blood boil to hear such statements repeated before audiences that lay claim to some refinement and intelligence. It makes one's cheek mantle with shame to think such a statement could be taken for sober truth. Every intelligent per- son knows that those instruments of torture abounded most when it was considered a crime to read the Bible- Shame on the man who can invent such a story! Ingersoll, when he speaks of the selfishness of the Christian heaven, forgets that Christ came with infinite love to open the doors of heaven to all who believe on him, and that the Apostle Paul said (Rom. ix, 3): " I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethern, my kinsman, according to the flesh." Let the graves of the missionaries off the west coast of Africa testify whether Christians who are imbued with the spirit of the Scriptures care nothing for the salvation of their fellow men. Ingersoll professes not to believe in the Bible on ac- count of the Pentateuch, and the story of the bears. VABIOUS MISSTATEMENTS BY IXGEIiSOLL. 85 who came out and tore the children who mocked Elisha (2 Kings, ii, 23-24). The story is a brief one. It is the only vindictive miracle which was wrought through the agency of a peculiarly tender-hearted prophet. Ingersoll has pictured the frantic grief of the mothers at finding their darlings torn by the wild beasts. But tliere is another side to this scene. A party of street Arabs who have often heard their idolatrous parents re- vile the prophet, and who are the very embodiment of their hatred, dog his footsteps and mock him as the rep- I'esentative of Jehovah. AYith prophetic instinct of their destruction from the Lord he pronounces the curse which is the forerunner of the punishment falling up- on them and their parents. It is a sad picture, but perhaps not more sad than that of little children who carry the sins of their pxrents, in scarred faces and aching limbs till they stumble into the grave. The misery in this world is a mystery which the Scriptures explain as the result of sin. Jesus comes with infinite love to bear the load of our transgres- sions, to open wide the gates of heaven to all who will accept him. He has not come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. His dvino^ accents on the cross re- specting his murderers were, " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." lie has gone to pre- 86 INGEESOLL AND MOSES. pare a place for his people, where there will be no more sorrow, nor crying, where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. It is against this gospel, whose very breath is love, which simply tells men of their disease, that it may apply the remedy, which merely points out the dan- ger that it may provide a refuge, that Ingersoll is arrayed, and which he wishes to banish from the earth. And what does he give us in its place? He virtually says to the sensualist: "Make the most of this life; you have no assurance that there is any hereafter." He comes to the mother, whose heart is breaking over the loss of a beloved babe, into whose soul dull de- spair has not yet entered, because she has heard the voice of Him who has said : " I am the resurrection and the life," and tells her that her hope is an idle dream. He comes to those who are often in prayer, who mourn over sin, who are struggling and crying for a purer and better life, like that of Jesus, and tells them religion is a sham. He comes to the youth who stands on the threshold of life, with sweet persuasion, like an angel of light, and tells him that a mother's faith and a mother's pray- ers are a weak superstition, and bids him go forth to meet the tremendous battle of life, shorn of that faith in God which makes men heroes and women sublime. VARIOUS MISSTATEMENTS BY INGERSOLL. 87 AVlien Christianity is banislied from the earth, when darkness falls upon the nations, when hospitals are razed to their foundations, tlie old and weak are ex- posed to the fury of the elements by their unnatural relatives, and lust and murder hold high carnival, then let Byron's dream be realized: let the bright sun be extinguished, the stars wander darkling in the eternal space, rayless and pathless, and the icy earth swing, blind and blackening, in the moonless air. But that day wdll never come. Scoffers and heathen from Porphyry and Julian down, have entered this contest only to experience inglorious defeat. History repeats itself. About one hundred years ago Thomas Paine arrayed himself against Christianity,' and now Kobert Ingersoll is treading in his footsteps. Paine could not crush Christianty, nor can Ingersoll. It possesses, from its Founder, a divine energy. " Who- soever falleth on this stone shall be broken, but on whomsoever it shall fall, itVill grind him to powder." 1 TM Age of Reason, Paris, 179 i. APPENDICES. APPENDICES. APPENDIX A. THE APPOINTMENT OF LUMINARIES. It is interesting to notice that Rashi, who died 1105, and conse- quently knew nothing of modem scientific theories, in his comment on Gen. i. 14, maintains tliat the sun and moon were created on the first day (they Ijeing included in the account of the creation of the heavens), although they were not set apart to their distinctive work until the fourth day. Similarly, Dawson says: * "The lumi- naries [light-bearers] were made or appointed to their office on the fourth day. They are not said to have been created, being inclu- ded in the creation of the beginning; they were now completed, and fully fitted for their work. An important part of this fitting seems to have been the setting or placing them in the heavens, conveying to us the impression that the mutual relations and reg- ular motions of the heavenly bodies were now for the first time perfected." 1 The Origin of the World, New York, 1S77, p. 201. (91) 92 APPENDIX A. I am aware that when I a?=sert that the original does not indi- cate the creation of the luminaries on the fourth day, I am in an- tagonism to Prof. Delitzsch, who remarks;* "The opinion that the heavenly bodies were not created on the fourth day, but were only brought into a definite relation to the earth, is contrary to the terms of the narrative." Dillmann is of the same opinion,' and says that the entire representation, while fitted to convey divine truth, is from the ancient childlike view of the world as the centre of the universe. I am confident, however, with all deference to these eminent authorities, that we have not to do with a creation of certain celestial bodies, but with their inauguration to specific duties. The sun and moon became meoroth (bearers of hght) per- haps by the gift of a luminous atmosphere to the former. In ver. 16, the word which is translated made could be rendered constitu- ted, appointed, so that we can read with perfect propriety: "And God appointed two great lights." Compare 1 Kings, xii. 31 : "And he made (appointed) priests." 2 Kings, xxi. 6: "And he made (appointed) necromancers and sorcerers." After a compar- ison with such passages, there seems to be no violence in the in- terpretation suggested. The creation of light on the first day, and the establishment of luminaries on the fourth, instead of being a sign of ignorance, is, as Dana has well observed, an indication of divine wisdom.' 1 Commentar iiber die Genesis, Leipzig, 1872, p. 94. 2 Die Genesis, Leipzig, 1875, pp. 30-31. 3 Manual of Geology, New York, 1876. p. 767. APPENDIX B. 93 APPENDIX B. *♦ THE SONS OF GOD." Gen. vi, 2. Three interpretations have been given of this difficult passage : (1.) That of the Jews, who maintained that the bene Elohim [Sons of God) indicate men of high rank, and that the henoth hacidam {daughters of men) were women of plebeian origin. We have no evidence, however, that the hene Elohim and the hene haadam are ever contrasted in this way. Ps. xlix, 2 (Hebr. 3), makes a con- trast between ish^ vir and adam, homo: '* Both low [betie adam) and high {Jbene ish.) " Besides, there is nothing in the connection to indicate that a misalliance, in point of station, was the occasion of those terrible judgments that visited the earth. (2.) BothPhilo and Josephus, the earliest Christian Fathers, and many modem com- mentators (such as Baumgarten, Hofmann, Knoble, Ewald, Dill- - (_, mann, Delitzsch, etc.) hold that the hene Elohim {Sons of God) were angels. There are several reasons which seem to commend this view as presented by evangelical interpreters: a. The term hene Elohim {Sons of God) in every other passage is applied exclu- sively to angels. (Job i, 6; ii, 1; xxxviii, 7.) h. It seems prob- able that the fallen angels mentioned in Jude, 6, by their appear- ance on the earth, contributed to the terrible catastrophe of the flood. But while the term hene Elohim signifies angels in the passages mentioned, yet there is nothing to indicate that any such designa- tion was employed for them in Genesis, where they are spoken of as men (xviii, 2), and afterwards as the two angels {shene hamma- 94 APPENDIX B. lachim, xix, 1); and again as the angels of God (malache Elohim, xxviii, 12, which, according to the fragmentary hypothesis, belongs to the same author as vi, 2). Besides this fact, however, that the author of Genesis uses a different designation for angels, we find that pious men are called " sons of the living God " {bene El Chay, Hos. i, 10, orii, 1, and Deut. xiv, 1: *' Sons are ye unto the Lord your God "). Moreover, according to the teaching of Christ, angels do not marry (Matt, xxii, 30). Therefore we must look for an- other interpretation. (3.) From the time of Augustine and Chry- sostomto the present it has been widely held that the hene EJohhn {sons of God) were the Sethites, and that henoth haadam {daugh- ters of men, vi, 2,) were Cainitic women. This view is best adapted to the connection. For in the preceding chapters we have two lines distinctly discriminated; that of Cain (iv, 17-24), and that of Seth, who took the place of Abel (iv, 25). These were prob- ably not the only children of Adam, but are mentioned as exam- ples of the antagonism which has existed between the church and the world. The Cainitic race is distinguished for violence (iv, 8, 28,) and polygamy (iv. 19); that of Seth for piety (iv, 26; v, 22). Now, what explanation have we in the preceding hypothesis of the fact that the earth was corrupt and filled with violence, and that Noah was the only one of the Sethites that remained faith- ful in this apostacy? If we maintain that the two races inter- married, we have a reasonable explanation of the great change which came over the race of Seth — one that was fully in accor- dance with the warnings of the Bible (Num. xxv, 1, 2; Deut. vii, 8, 4; Josh, xxiii, 12, 13). We have akeady seen that pious Israel- ites were called sons of God, hence there is no reason why this term should not be applied to the Sethites here. But it may be ob- jected that the term henoth haadam (daughters of men, vi, 2,) APPENDIX C. 95 cannot apply merely to the Cainitic women, since the tei*m men in the first verse has a more general signification. This objection, however, is not serious, when we consider that the expression "daughters of men" receives a special and narrower signifi- cance through contrast with the tenn "sons of God." "When, therefore, we remember that angels are never designated by this term in Genesis, but by another; that God's chosen people are called his children; that according to the teaching of Christ, angels are said not to marry, and that the corruption of the Sethites is best accounted for by intermarriage with the parallel Cainitic race, there seem to me to be the best reasons for adopting, with Dettiuger, Hengstenberg, Keil, Oehler and Lange, the view just given. APPENDIX a TRADITIONS CONCERNING THE FLOOD. Although unevangelical scientists and negative critics dispute the fact of the Noachian deluge, and try to explain the numerous traditions respecting this event, either as the result of the exag- gerated accounts of local floods, or from a tendency of the human race to produce the same myths, yet, when we examine these various traditions, the theories proposed do not seem to furnish so satisfactory an explanation of their great number, and of the striking similarity which we find in some of them, as the suppo- sition that many of them are more or less distinct reminiscences of the same great catastrophe. Let us consider a few of these traditions in detail. With the 96 APPENDIX C. exception of some new matters whicli I have gleaned from other sources, I am indebted to Prof. 0. Zockler {Lie Simitjiuth-Sagen des AUerthums in the Jahrhiccher fur Deutsche Theologie^ Gotha, 1870, pp. 319-42) for the materials of the following sketch: 1. THE CHALDEAN STORY OF THE FLOOD. This tradition, according to George Smith {The Chaldean Ac' count of the Genesis^ New York, 1876, p. 286), corresponds with the Biblical account in Genesis in twenty-three particulars, although with certain differences. The flood is said to be sent, as it would seem, in punishment of sin. An ark is to be constructed and covered within and without with bitumen. The animals are to be rescued in it. After seven days the ark rests upon a moun- tain. A dove and swallow are sent forth, which both return, but a raven that is set at liberty does not come back again. A sacri- fice is offered after the denizens of the ark have left it. The prayer rises that a flood may no more visit the earth, which is followed by a divine covenant and blessing. While this account differs in detail from the one in Genesis, yet these points of similarity can- not have been accidental. 2. THE ACCOUNT OF BEROSUS, "Xisuthros, the Babylonian Noah, the last of the ten antedilu- vian patriarchs or primitive kings, receives in a dream a vision of the God Kronos, who announces to him that man will be destroyed on the fifteenth of the month Desios by a universal flood, and com- mands him to build a ship for the rescue of himself and his near- est relatives and friends. The ship, which Xisuthros, obedient to APPENDIX C. 97 this connnand constructs, has the colossal lenj^th of five stadia (over 2,800 feet), and a breadth of two stadia (between eleven and twelve hundred feet). Besides the food for himself, his family and friends, Xisuthros takes a large number of animals and birds with him in the ship, and thus saves them also from the universal destruction. When the waters begin to diminish, he lets one of the birds fly, but it returns without having found a resting place. A second, sent out later, returns with some mud on its feet. A third does not return. Tlie ark lands upon one of the mountains of Armenia. Xisuthros, with his wife and children, leave the ark. He rears an altar to the gods and brings them offerings. As a reward for this, his piety, he as well as his friends, at a later period, are taken to heaven and placed among the gods." We find in the general outlines of this Chaldeo-Babj'lonian myth, which is related to the preceding, a strong resemblance to the Biblical narrative. 3. INDO-EUEOPEAN TRADITIONS. The Armenian tradition mentions Ararat as the landing-place. The Greek tradition, while it localizes the deluge in different ways, according to the mythical point of view of the various Greek tribes, considers the flood in every case as a destruction of all men with a few exceptions. The East Indian tradition is interesting in this respect, that the entire human race after the flood are descended from Manus, and the seven wise ones who are rescued with him, thus corresponding to the eight persons saved in the ark, as men- tioned in Genesis (Noah and his wife, his three sons and their wives). While the Persians, the Germans, and the Scandinavians have their traditions, they are peculiar in confusing the creation and the deluge, Adam and Noah together. 98 APPENDIX C. 4. THE CHINESE TRADITION, 600 B. C. '* Under tlie three primitive emperors, Yao, Si and Ki, an im- mense flood covered all the nine parts of the world, even the highest mountains, and drowned all men. Only the three emperors, Yao, Si and Ki, whose names have an apparent relationship with those of the sons of Noah, Japheth, Shem and Ham (Cham, ch==k) save themselves in a ship, which finally lands on the smiimit of the mountain Jo-lii. After the drawing off of the waters, they bring a thank-offering in the middle of the world, to the God of heaven, Shang^i.i" 5. AMERICAN TRADITIONS, The Macusi Ind'ans of South America, represent that the only persons rescued from the immense floodpeopled the earth by throw- ing stones behind them. The Maypuren and Tamanaken on the Orinoco have the same tradition, which resembles that of Deuca- lion and Pyrrha, only the human race who have been saved cast behind them the fruit of the MauriziaPalm, out of whose kernels new men arose. Various Brazilian Indian tribes derive their own and all other Indian races, from two people, a brother and a sis- ter, who only escaped from a great flood. According to the tradi- tion of the Peruvians, shortly before Manco Capac and his sister, the children of the sun, who came from the southeast, founded iKlaproth a. a. O. Windischmann, Philosophie 1. 1, S. 211; GiitzlafF, Geschichte des chines. Reichs (von Neumann), p. 26, f. Vgl. P.J. Plath, Ueber die Glaubwiirdigkeit der altesten chines. Geschichte, Miinchen, 1866. Lyell (Principles of Geology, New York, 1877, vol. 1, pp. 10-11) asserts on the authority of Mr. Davis, who accompanied two embas.sies to China that the great flood of the Chinese has been erroneously identified with the Noachian deluge. It seems doubtful however, whether Mr. Davis saw the tradition in the form given above. APPENDIX C. 90 the oldkingfdom of the Incas with its service of the sun, only four men and four women, or eight persons in iill, escaped from the waters of a universal deluge to the caves of the highest mountains and did not go out from them again until the dogs which they had sent forth to investigate, no longer returned with wet, but with nmddy feet. The Aztecs of Mexico relate partly in oral traditions, partly by means of remarkable representations upon old stone monuments, that only one man, Coxcox, with his wife, Cihuakoatl, (the " serpent-woma.n" through whom sin entered into the world after the flood) saved themselves in a boat from the universal flood. The birds which were sent out to ascertain the state of the water, appear to have played a prominent part in this tradition." It has been urged that these traditions may have been imported from Christian Europe by the Northmen, or by the Spanish and Portuguese; Zockler, however, maintains that they have come with the people from eastern Asia over the Pacific Ocean. In this con- nection he mentions a fact, which tends to show the fallacy of Lyell's position : that the various accounts of the flood among dif- ferent nations have arisen from local inundations, namely, that the tradition of the building of a tower as the occasion of the separa- tion of the peoples and the confusion of tongues, is found among almost all of the above named tribes of North America. As evi- dence of the position that these traditions were rather derived by the way of ihe Pacific at a very early period, than by the Atlantic through Christian influence, he shows that the inhabitants of the Fiji, Samoan, Tahitian and South Sea islands, all have their le- gends of the deluge in various forms, thus establishing a bridge between the eastern shore of Asia and the American continent. 100 APPENDIX D. APPENDIX D. THE RAPID INCREASE OF THE ISRAELITES IN EGYPT. Rosenmliller says: ^ " The Israelites lived in the most productive portion of the most productive of all lands, which, through the fruitfulness of the women, was also so pre-eminent above all other lands, that, according to the testimony of the greatest of all natu- ralists among the ancients, Aristotle, the women in Egypt not only often bore twins, but also brought to light far more frequently than elsewhere, three, four, and sometimes five children at a birth. He tells us of a woman {Hist. Animal^ vii, 4) who was in the last named condition four times.^ Maillet, who lived sixteen years as French consul in Egypt, says:^ *' The air in this country is much purer and better than in any other. This salubrity of the air im- parts itself to all organic beings — plants and animals. The females, not only of the human species, but also of animals, are more fruitful than any other in the world." Reignald Stuart Poole of the British Museum, remarks* (article Egypt): *'It is deemed disreputable for a young man not to marry when he has attained a sufficient age; there are therefore few unmarried men. Girls, in like manner, marry veiy young; some even at ten years of age, and few remain single beyond the age of sixteen; they are generally very prolific.' ^ The Italics are my own. 1 Das alte und neue Morgmland, Leipzig, 1818, vol. 1 p. 252. 2 Compare Columella, De re rust, ill, 8 ; Plln. Hist. Nat., vii, 3. s Description de V Egypte, Paris, 1733, i,p. 18. ^EncycLpxdia BnLannica, New York, 1878, Vol. vii, p. 725. APPENDIX E. 101 APPENDIX E. THE FORMER CONDITION OF THE WILDERNESS OF SINAI. "While the -wilderness' was in the time of the Israelites an in- hospitable country, yet travelers agree in supposing that its re- sources for the sustenance of a people and their flocks were once much greater than at present. The arguments for this position are essentially as follows : 1. At the present time, even under the most unfavorable condi- tions, if a fords some facilities for pasturage and gardening. Prof. E. H. Palmer, of Cambridge, England, who spent ten months with a party engaged in the suiTey of the Desert of the Wanderings, has furnished much valuable information, bearing on the first as well as the other points. Speaking of the Tih, he remarks: ^ "In the larger wadies, draining as they do so exten- sive an area, a very considerable amount of moisture infiltrates through the soil, producing much more vegetation than in the plains. Sufiicient pasturage for the camels is always to be had in these spots, and here and there a few patches of ground are even available for cultivation." In his account of the means of livelihood among the Teyaheh, who occupy the central portion of Et Tih, he thus describes the food of those who are not public carriers: ^ " Such of them as are 1 Palmer, T?ie Desert of the Exodus, New York, 1872, p. 232, says : " The scenes of the Exodus undoubtedly took place in that desert region, which is called by the appropriate name of Arabia Petraea, or the Stony. This includes, be- sides the Sinaitic Peninsula, the Badiet et Tih, (literally signifying 'the Desert of the Wanderings ') and some portion of Idumaea and Moab?" 2 Ibid. p. 235. 8 Ibid. p. 239. 102 APPENDIX E. not fortunate enough to participate in this traffic, live ahnost en- tirely on the milk of their sheep and camels, occasionally selling- one of the latter, if this resource fail from drought or other causes. In many other parts of the desert, milk forms the sole article of diet obtainable by the Bedouins; and I have heard a well- authen- ticated case of an x'\.rab in the north of Syria, who for three years had not tasted either water or solid food; an Arab, therefore, in selecting a spot for his encampment, regards the existence of a good supply of pasturage as of much greater importance than prox- imity of water. Only the Bedouins of the mountainous districts engage in anything like agricultural pursuits." In a similiar vein he says : ^ " The Arabs do occasionally practice agriculture, if sow- ing a little corn in a roughly ploughed field, and leaving the irri- gation to chance, can be so called, but it never occurs to them to take advantage of the works left them by the former owners of the soil." How closely the barrenness of the desert is connected with the neglect of its denizens is indicated in the following passage : ^ " Camels and sheep are, as I have before said, the Bedouins' only means of subsistence; and so long, then, as he lives his present unsettled life, and can support himself with the milk which they produce, he is indpendent of all occupation save plundering. The effect of this is that the soil he owns deteriorates." Regarding the effects of cultivation in the wilderness, Stanley remarks:^ "How much may be done by a careful use of such water and such soil as the Desert supplies, may be seen by the oul^^ two spots to which, now, a diligent and provident attention is paid; namely, the gardens at the Wells of Moses, under the care 1 Ibid. p. 241. 2 Palmer, The Desert of the Exodus, New York, 1872, p. 243. 3 Stanley, Sinai and Palestine, New York, 1870, p. 27. APPENDIX E. 103 of the French and English afjents from Suez, and the gardens in the valleys of Gebel Mousa, under the care of the Greek monks of the Convent of St. Catherine." "Without dwelling upon this point, which has been abundantly corroborated by other travelers,^ we must remember, 2. The ivilderness of Sinai is believed to have been ancientJy m uch more productive. In this connection, Palmer's theory, that northern Syria to Sinai, southward, is characterized by a diminishing degree of fertility, is of great interest. The most fertile section is that of Syria, which has a well-watered and productive soil. In Palestine from Mount Hermon, the soil is less productive. The south country of Palestine from the mountains of Judea to Kadesh, although now a barren waste, *' presents signs of the most extensive cultivation even at a comparatively modem period. . . Between this [south country] and the edge of the Tih plateau, the country is even more barren; but there are still traces of a primeval race of inhabitants in the cairns and stone huts. . . At the time of the Exodus, it must have borne a similar relation to the then fertile region of the south country, which that now barren tract at the present day, bears to Palestine. . . From the analogous recession of fertility northward, we may fairly conclude that the surrounding country was then better supplied with water than it is now, and that it was, therefore, at least as suitable for the encampment of the Israelitish hosts as any spot in Sinai. "^ 1 Robinson's Biblical Researches, Vol. I, p. 62, fF. ; Cf. Wellstedt's Reisen in Arabien, Halle, 1842, Vol. II p. 62; Ti-schcndorf, R ise in den Orient, Leipzig, lb40, Vol. I, p. 187 ff. ; Ans clem heiliijen Lande, Leipzig, 1S63, p. 42 ff. ; Ebers Durch Gosen zum i^inai, Leipzig, 1872. p. 184 ff. ; Schaff, Through Bible Lands, New York, 1878, pp. ins, 187, 200; Bartlett, Fiom Egypt to ralcstine. New York, 1879, pp. 225, 254, 256, 276, etc. 2 The Detert qf the Exodus, New York, 1872, p. 2S5. 104 APPENDIX E. But there a,re positive facts wliicli indicate that the country was once much better adapted to afford sustenance for flocks and herds than at present. It is well known, what an effect the destruction of trees has in decreasing the moisture of any country. The trunks of palm trees, preserved by the salt, which have been washed up from the Dead Sea, on whose shores they no longer exist, show how the storms which must have raged with much more violence in the mountains of Sinai, may have stripped away the trees. In- deed Burckhardt, writing May 16, 1816, relates in regard to the eastern side of Mount Sinai :^ " On the declivity of the mountains, farther on, I saw many ruins of walls, and was informed by my guides, that fifty years ago this was one of the most fertile valleys of their country, full of date and other fruit trees; but that a violent flood tore up all the trees, and laid it waste in a few days, and that since that period it has been deserted." Wellstedt mentions a flood occurring in 1832 near Tor, which rose to the height of five feet above the level of the valley, and swept several trees away.'^ But Rev. F. W. Holland, who claims that the peninsula of Sinai must once have been far more fertile, gives the most striking illus- tration of the origin and the effect of floods. He says :^ "In con- sequence, too, of the mountainous character of the peninsula of Sinai, the destruction of the trees would have a much more seri- ous effect than would be the case in most countries. Formerly, when the mountain- sides were terraced, when garden- walls extended across the wadies, and the roots of trees retained the moisture and broke the force of the water, the terrible floods that now occur, and sweep everything before them, were impossible." 1 Travels in Syria and the Holy Land, London, 1822, p. 538. 2 Reisen in Arabien, Halle; 1842, Vol. ii, p. 15. 3 Capt. Wilson, Capt. Warreu, etc. The Recovery of Jerusalem; New York, 1871, p. 425. APPENDIX E. 105 And then he goes on to describe how in the winter of 1?67, he witnessed in Wady Feiran, one of the greatest floods that has ever been known in the peninsula, and how he had to escape for his Hfe. *' In less than two hours, a dry desert wady, upward of three hundred yards broad, was turned into a foaming torrent from eight to ten feet deep, roaring and tearing down, and bear- ing everything before it (so that after the storm), two miles of tamarisk-wood, which was situated above the palm-groves, had been completely washed away, and upward of a thousand palm- trees swept down to the sea. . . . "The fact is, that in consequence of the barrenness of the mountains, the water, when a heavy storm of rain falls, runs down from their rocky sides just as it does in this country from the roofs of our houses. . . . The monks used formerly to build walls across the gullies leading down from the mountains; they planted the wadies with fruit trees, and made terraces for their gardens, and these checked the drainage, and let it down by degrees, so that the storms in their days must have been compar- atively harmless. The Amalekites and former inhabitants of the peninsula adopted probably the same means for increasing the fertility of their country." In addition to the violence of nature, the inhabitants have con- tributed their share in desolating the wilderness. Ruppell, as quoted by Stanley,^ observes that the acacia trees have been of late years ruthlessly destroyed by the Bedouins for the sake of charcoal ; especially since they have been compelled by the Pasha of Egypt to pay a 'tribute in charcoal for an assau:t committed on the Mecca caravan in the year 1823. Charcoal from the acacia is, in fact, the chief, perhaps it might be said the only, 1 Sinai and Palestine, New York, 1870, p. 27. 106 APPENDIX E. traffic of the peninsula." Hence it has been weil remarked:^ "The devastation which began ages ago has, in fact, continued without cessation, and if it goes on at the present rate of increase, will ere long reduce the whole district to a state of utter aridity and barrenness. When Niebuhr visited the country at the begin- ning- of the last century, large supplies of vegetable produce were exported regularly to Egypt, showing that the original fertility was not even then exhausted. Those supplies have ceased, and the only wonder is that so much remains to satisfy a careful inquirer of the possibility of the events recorded in Exodus." Seetzen,^ Stanley, and Ebers incline to think that the wilder- ness was so very much more productive then than at present as to afford substantial supplies to the Israelites during their wander- ings. However this may be, we have no right to assume that there was not sufficient pasturage for their flocks and herds, and we know not which to wonder at most, the ignorance of a man who says there was not a blade of grass, or the credulity of those who applaud him. 1 Speaker's Commemtary, New York, 1871, Vol. 1, p. 246. 2 He really visited it in 1762. See Ritter, The Comparative Geography of Palestine, New York, 1870, Vol. I, pp. 255-56. sSeetzen, whom Ebers quotes with approval (Durch Gosen, p. 234), says, Vol. Ill, p. 79 : "What hindered them [the TsraelitesJ from enjoying one of the most healthful and appetizing means of diet, the milk and its products which their accompanying herds aflbrded them, and on which many tribes of the Bedouins still almost exclusively subsist? What hindered them from slaughtering their flocks and herds, and from enjoying the wild edible plants, such as the Bedouins now use [Cf. Palmer, p. 260j the fruit of date trees, and the fish which the sea along the entire coast produced in abun- dance? What hindered them from hunting birds [Schubert Reise in das Morgenland, Erlangen, 1839, Vol. II, 360-61, speaks of seeing clouds of birds in the neighborhood as he supposes of Kibroth-Hattaavah, which, accord- ing to Hammer, geschichte des Osmanischen Reiches, 22ie Ausgabe, Vol. I, p. 724, appear every spring. He says: "A cloud of quails or other small birds resembling them, darkens the neighborhood all around, which the inhabitants preserve in vinegar as an article of food and trade"], gazelles APPENDIX F. 107 APPENDIX F. "THE LAND FLOWING WITH MILK AND HONEY." There can be no doubt of the ancient fertility of Palestine. This is attested both by ancient and modeni writers. 1. Tacitus says regarding it (Hist. V, 6): "Showers are rare, the soil is rich. Besides our customary fruit, the balsam and palm are found." Ammianus Marcellinus testifies (Book XIV, Ch. viii, § 11): "The last province of the Syrias is Palestine, a district of great extent, abounding in well- cultivated and beautiful land." Josephus adds his testimony (Wars of the Jews, Book III, Ch. iii, § 2, Cf. ii, xxi, 2; iii, x, 8): "Nor hath the country [of the Galli- leans] been ever destitute of men of courage, or wanted a numer- ous set of them; for their soil is universally rich and fruitful, and full of the plantations of trees of all sorts, insomuch that it invites the most slothful to take pains in its cultivation, by its fruitfulness ; accordingly it is all cultivated by its inhabitants, and no part of it lies idle. Moreover, the cities lie here very thick ; and the very many villages there are here, are everywhere so full of people, by the richness of their soil, that the very least of them contain above fifteen thousand inhabitants. (Ill, x 8): The country also that lies [Robinson, I, p. 43, Wellsted, II, p. 50], goats, etc., and from catching locusts." Compare, however, some very sensible remarks by Bartlett (From Egypt 'o Palestine, New York, 1873, p. 355), where after making every allowance for the supplies which the Israelites might obtain from the wilderness he says : "The consistency of the Biblical narrative is in nothing more manifest than in the fact that it narrates the Divine interposition to give the people water as only an exceptional thing (Cf. Wellsted, II, p. Gl), but the miraculous supply of food as constant and permanent." 108 APPENDIX F. over- against this lake hath the same name of Gennesareth; its na- ture is wonderful, as well as its beauty; its soil is so fruitful that all sorts of trees can grow upon it, . . . for the temper of the air is so well mixed, that it agrees very well with those several sorts, particularly walnuts, which require the coldest air, flourish there in vast plenty; there are palm-trees also, which grow best in hot air; fig-trees also, and olives grow near them, which yet re- quire an air that is more temperate. . . . It is a happy con- tention of the seasons, as if every one of them laid claim to this country; for it not only nourishes different sorts of autumnal fruit beyond men's expectations, but preserves them a great while; it supplies men with the principal fruits, with grapes and figs con- tinually, during ten months of the year. (Ill, iii, 4) : They [Judea and Samaria] have abundance of trees, and are full of autumnal fruit, both that which grows wild, and that which is the effect of cultivation. ... By reason also of the excellent grass they have, their cattle yield more milk than do those in other places; and what is the greatest sign of excellency and of abundance, they each of them are very full of people. (IV, viii, 3.) This country (in the vicinity of Jericho) withal produces honey from bees." 2. Rosenmtlller {Das alte und neue Morgenland, Leipzig, 1818, Vol. T, p. 263 ff.)> says that milk and honey were the chief delica- cies of the ancients, and that the Bedouins express the happiness of a rich man and a prince by the proverb: " He sleeps with his mouth on a bottle of honey." Hence, through an abundance of milk and honey, not only the Hebrews, but also the Greeks and Romans, indicated the highest pleasure and fruitfulness. Thus the chorus in the Bacchai of Euripides, v. 142, sing : " The land streams with honey, It streameth with wine, It streams with the nectar of bees." APPENDIX F. 109 And Ovid, in his Metamorphoses^ i, 111-12, describes the golden age: " Here rivers of milk, there rivers of nectar were flowing, And from the green of the oaks the yellow honey was dropping." In the above passage [Ex. iii, 8] God describes the land of Canaan, or Palestine, as an exceedingly pleasant and fruitful land ; and it is so by nature, although it is so little distinguished at the present day for the rich productiveness of the soil. If Palestine were still cultivated and inhabited as formerly, it would not be inferior to any land in fertility and agreeableness The fame of the fertility of Palestine, and its former abundance of grain, wine and dates, has been perpetuated through ancient coins, which are still in existence. The country, however, has been laid waste repeatedly, and has suffered greatly since it has come into the hands of the Turks. However, traces of the natural beauty and fertility of the land have not even yet entirely disap- peared, as the following quotation from d'Arvieux's Reiseyiy^ ii., p. 204. will show: "One must admit, that if it were possible to Hve safely in this country, it would afford the most beautiful and agreeable residence in the world, partially on account of the charming variety of mountains and valleys, partly on account of the healthful air, which, through the natural flowers of the valleys and the fragrant plants upon the heights, is always filled with balmy odors. Most of these mountains are, indeed, dry and ban-en, and present more rock than soil adapted to cultivation, but the industry of the ancient inhabitants has overcome this defect of the ground. They hewed into these rocks from the foot to the summit, at regular intervals, filling in with soil, in which they planted, as upon the coast of Genoa, 1 The original was entitled : Voyage fait par ordre du Rot dans la Pales- tine, vers le grand Emir, Paris, 1717. 110 APPENDIX F. olives, fig-s, grape-vines and grain, together with all kinds of leguminous plants, which, through the help of the usual early and late rains, and of the dew which never ceases, the warmth of the sun and of the mild climate, produces the best fruits, and the most excellent corn. Such terraces are still to be seen, which the Arabs in the surrounding villages preserve and cultivate with industry." Kosenmtiller goes on to state that at the beginning of the eighteenth century, Hebron alone exported fifteen tons of grape syrup ^ to Egypt, and after speaking of the cotton which the plain of Esdraelon produces, he says : ' ' Numerous herds of cattle and sheep feed on the green hills of Galilee, and in the well watered meadows of the northern valley of the Jordan. Countless swarms of wild bees gather honey in the hollow trees, and in the crevices of the rocks: and so U is still literally true that Palestine has an abundance of milk and honey.'''' ^ 1 Compare Robinson's Biblical Eesearches, Boston, 1868, Vol. ii, 81. 2 Dean Stanley, in his Si7iai and Palestine, New York, 1870, pp. 120-124, has shown most conclusively that an an affirmative answer can be returned to the question : " Can these stony hills, these deserted valleys be indeed the Land of Promise, the land flowing with milk and honey ? " " (1) The existence of a flourishing town or village on every hill, shows what the resources of the country must once have been. "(2) Those resources have been reduced tenfold (p. 120) by the destruc- tion of the forests and terraces. "(3) Palestine, not merely by its situation [with reference to the neigh- boring wastes], but by its comparative fertility, might well be considered the prize of the Eastern world, the possession of which was the mark of God's peculiar favor; the spot for which the nations would contend. [The city of Jerusalem has been besieged twenty-seven times— Our Work in Pales- tine, London, 1873, pp. 48-68] : as on a smaller scale the Bedouin tribes for some 'diamond of the desert'— some 'palm-grove islanded amid the waste.' " APPENDIX G. Ill APPENDIX G. RAMSES II. AND MOSES. Dr. Heinrich Brugsch-Bey, Gescliichte JEgyptens unter den Pharaonen, Leipzig, 1877, conclusively shows that Ramses II. was a contemporary of Moses. He says, pp. 549-50: " The new Pha- raoh, who did not know anything of Jose ph (Ex, i, 8), who adorned the city of Ramses, the capital of the Tanitic province, and the city Pithom (Ex. i, 11), the capital of the district, after- wards called Sethroites, with temple-cities [instead of treasure cit- ies, as the Egyptian meskenet according to Brugsch signifies tem- ple], is no other — can he no oilier — than Ramses II, of whose buildings at Zoan the monuments and papyrus rolls speak in full agreement. . . . Ramses II. is the Pharaoh of the oppression; he is the father of that nameless princess, who found on the bank of the stream, among the reeds, the child Moses." Upon p. 563 he mentions the following interesting fact: " The monuments name among the daughters of Pharaoh his favorite daughter with a Semitic designation, Bint-antha : ' The daughter of Anaitis,' called Meri-amon and Neb-taui. A much younger sister, by the name of Meri seems to be worthy of men- tion, since her name reminds us of the Princess Merris ( also called Thermuthis), who according to Jewish tradition found the boy Moses, as she was bathing, on the bank of the stream. Is it by chance — is it by divine providence — that under the reign of the third Ramses, about a hundred years after the death of his uncle, the great Sesostris, a place is mentioned in middle Egypt which bears the name of the great Jewish law-giver? It is called I-en-Moses, the island of !Moses (or the shore of Moses.) " 113 APPENDIX H. APPENDIX H. ROMAN SLAVERY. LecHer, in a university programme, lias given some interesting facts as to the refined cruelties of Roman slavery:^ " They did not allow a slave a word, but had intercourse with him only by signs. If, however, the slave did not immediately understand the sign given, or even when he was compelled to cough or sneeze, etc., he was punished severely. If he allowed himself to be guilty of an excitement of anger, of a word of impatience, his master could whip him to death, or cause him to be strangled, or deliver him over for a combat with the wild beasts on the arena, or nail him to the cross. The despotism of the master knew no bounds which he was compelled to respect. The well known words of indomit-a- ble arbitrariness : Sic volo ; Sicjubeo ; Sit pro ratione voluntas ! In Juvenal vi, 222, stand in connectionwith the command of a master to nail a slave to the cross, while he is asked whether the slave is guilty of any fault at all? When the same master raises the question: Is then the slave a man? " He therewith bluntly and boldly speaks out the full denial of all human rights which underlies such treat- ment. The slave was indeed, with respects to his rights, degraded to an animal If a slave through awkardness, had the misfortune to break even a plate or a cup, there were cases where his master threw him into the fish-pond, where he would become a living prey of the great fishes. It was held that fish that had been fed on human flesh 1 Sklaverd und Chnstenthum, Leipzig 1877, pp. 19-20. ArPEXDIX L ii; would taste all the more delicious on the table. To such a degree of refined cannibalism had the culture of the ancient world sunk. Ordinances and laws from the times of the emperors, which deprived the masters of the right of visiting such barbarous pun- ishments, furnish irrefregable proof that such things must have occurred not infrequently. And not only violent men allowed themselves such things. Women, too, made nothing of treating their female slaves for some trifling offense with special [ausge- suchter] cruelty. Roman ladies of rank bad, while they were dressed and adorned, long needles in their hands, in order to strike the female slaves who served them, in case of any oversight what- ever, in the breast or in the limbs; and in order that the needles might make deep wounds the unhappy slave girls had to stand be- fore their mistresses, naked to the girdle. And this occurred at the time of the highest civilization. So little is mere cultivation of the understanding, without the righteous fear of God and a moral and religious cultivation of the heart, a guarantee for genuine humanity." APPENDIX I. DOES THE BIBLE FAVOR POLYGAMY? The case has been well put by Michaelis, Mosaisches RecJit, Frankfurt, 1775, Part ii. p. 179: "It appears to me that Moses did not willingly permit polygamy as a matter, indifferent morally and politically, but to use an expression of Christ, on account of the Israelites' hardness of heart; that is, with other words, he was not favorable to it but he found it advisable to endure it as a civil measure. 114 APPENDIX I. "His first book, consisting of history, contains much which does not commend polygamy. According to him, God gives, at a time when the rapid peopling of the earth was the main object of the Creator, to the first man only one wife, although it is clear that with four wives he could have begotten more children than with one. ... If polygamy had been pleasing to God, He would have commanded that every son of Noah should have married as many wives as possible. . . • "He did not allow that eunuchs should be made among the Israelites. . . . Moreover, a eunuch who came from another country to the Israelites, was excluded by a special law for life from the people of God, i. e., was incapable of the civil and eccle- siastical rights of an Israelite, Deut. xxiii, 1. This was a very unfavorable ordinance for polygamy. Commonly polygamy and castration go together, and in the lands where the former prevails, there are thousands, yea millions of eunuchs. . , • In short without eunuchs no great seralgio can be kept." INDEX. A. Acacia trees destroyed for the sake of charcoal, 105. Andover Theological Seminary, 13. Animal as helpmeet, 27. Animals, their destruction, 39. Apocrypha, prohibited, 77. Arabs instead of ravens, 82. Arabs occasionally practice agricul- ture, 102. Ararat, 38. Ark, its size, 36. Astronomy in five words, 23. Atonement, Ingersoll's misstate- m.ent, 73. B. Barrenness of the wilderness occa- sioned by neglect, 102. Barrows on slavery, 71. Bears and Elisha, 85. Bentley on the text of the Scrip- tures, 74. Bible: dungeons, racks, etc., 83 ; " not inspired about religious liberty," 61; "not inspired in natural his- tory," 61. Birds, " can beat a partial flood," 36. Blood in consecration, 55. c. Canon of the Old Testament, when completed, 75. Captive maidens, 67. Caricature of the Bible, 15. " Champion bird eaters," 46. Christian heaven, its selfishness, 84, Clothes did not grow with the chil- dren, 53. Confusion of tongues, 39, Constantino, 80. Contemporaneous literature of the Bible, 82. Creation out of nothing, 17. Creative days, their length, 24. D. Dana finds no contradiction between Genesis and Science, 40. Deluge, not universal, 35. (115) 116 INDEX. Deuteronomy, its author, 14. Divorce, God not its author, 59. E. Ebees, the food of the Israelites in the desert, 53. Egyptian army, 60. Egyptian women, their fruitfulness, 100. Elizabeth and the translation of the Bible, 79, Errors in the Old Testament, 82. F. Fall of man, 30. First-born sons at the first census, 45. Flood: Chaldean story, and account of Berosus, 96 ; Indo-European tra- ditions, 97; Chinese and Ameri- can traditions, 98. Floods in the wilderness, 105. Fruit after the fourth year, 55. G. Genesis, first two chapters, 26. Green, Prof, on the English version, 82. H. Haeckel, origin of the organs of sense, 17. Hare, 61. Hebrew bondage kinder than Amer- ican slavery, 72. Henry VIII, attitude towards the Bi- ble, 78. Herschel on light, 24. Holy land : fertility, 48 ; size as prom- ised, 50. Hornets, 49. Hugh Miller, theory of the deluge, 37. I. Increase of the Israelites, 43. Infanticide 10. Ingersoll: criticism of the Divine government, 31 ; method, 11 ; ob- jections against Genesis, 40; the effect of his system, 86. Israelites, food during their wander- ings, 106. J. JosEPHUS on the number of books in the Old Testament, 76. L. Light, its division from darkness, 17 ; on the third day, 21. Luminaries, their appointment, 91. M. Manna, 52. Manuscript, oldest of the Old Testa- ment. 77. McCaul, danger from wild beasts, 51. Midianitish women. 66. Milk in many places the sole article of diet among the Bedouins, 102. Milk and honey, 108. Miracles and slavery, 56. INDEX. 117 Mohammed, 63. Mommsen, Roman slavery, 72. Moses and the art of writing, 82. N. Neglectt of the aged, sick and poor, 9. Newcomb on light, 24. Nicene creed, 81. Noah, a preacher of righteou. less, 32. o. Oil, holy anointing, 54. P. Paiderastia, 9. Palestine: ancient fertility, 107; ef- fect of cultivation, 109. Parashas, or sections in the Bible, 25. Pharaoh's daughter, 111. Philo on humanity, 67. Plato, account of the origin of the sexes, 28. Polygamy, 63; does the Bible favor it? 113. Prologue of Sirach, 75. R. Rabbit, 61. Rain, effect upon the flood, 37. Rainbow, sgn of the covenant, 38. Ramses II : Moses born during his reign, 61 ; the Pharaoh of the op- pression, 111. Rashi on the creation of the sun and moon, 91. Rib, Ingersoll's remarks considered, 28. Ruins in the wilderness, 104. s. Scientific language not used in the Bible, 18-20. Scripture, its design, 18. Second commandment, 63. Septuagint, its date, 77. Servitude among the Hebrews of two kinds, 69. Sethites, characteristics, 94. Seven nations of Canaanites, 49. Shadow on the dial, 23. Sin and its results, 85. Sinai and Sahara, 47. Slave, murder, 71. Slave-wife, 70. Slavery : among the Israelites, 68 ; al- most a necessity under certain forms of civilization, 69; Roman, 112. Snakes, 52. Sons of God, 93. Sun standing still, 21. T. Tacitts testimony as to the fertility of Palestine, 107. Ten commandments, 62. Terraces, 104. 118 INDEX. Text of the O. T. written without vowels, 24. Textual criticism, 74. w. Wild beasts in Palestine, 51. Wilderness: effect of cultivation, 102 ; resources, 47. Wilderness of Sinai : exportation of vegetable produce to Egypt, 106; formerly more fertile, 101. Windows of the ark, 37. Woman: her creation, 27; position in the Bible, 59. z. Zend-Avesta, tradition of creation and fall, 30. "/ts value is Inesf/mab/3." — Home Journal, X. Y. MOTIVES OF LIFE. By prof. DAVID SWING. Square IGmo Trice, $1,00. "The work is remarkable for Its simplicitv, eloquence, earnest thought and sincere pleading for what is good and best in life."— Ivenina Post, Hartford, a. ^ " Here, as everywhere, Professor Swing writes with the simplicity, the earnestness and the honesty which come of a sincere devotion to all that is best and noblest and purest in life and cha.Ta.cter. "—JLvoiing Post, N. Y. "The motives discussed are 'Intellectual Progress,'— 'Home,'— 'A Good Name,'— 'The Pursuit of Happiness,'— ' Benevolence,' and 'Religion'— six in all. Throughout the entire number one can see the authors love of a quiet hearth, of a dreamy reflectiveness, and of a practical method of life. There is about his style a warmth, a beauty of imagerj', a charm that are as much a part of his individuality as his leatures are."— T/j€ 2 mes. 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