Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/134

 foul fiends of passion and lust, and fills the dwelling with that sweet, pure, trustful love, which makes home the type of heaven.

"Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." This guards character and reputation against evil eyes as well as slanderous tongues; against the looks as well as words by which one casts a shade on another's good name, which is dearer to him than life.

"Thou shalt not covet" — not only shalt thou not rob or defraud thy neighbor, thou shalt not even desire that which is his — it is the fruit of his labor, leave it to his enjoyment, and be content with thine own. This protects your neighbor, and by its reverse action protects you also, not only from violence and wrong, but from the least approach of covetous desire. If this one command were obeyed, what contentment and what peace would it bring into every home and into every heart.

That is all. There are but ten commandments, no less and no more. These last five seem almost too brief and too simple. But do they not cover the whole field? What crime is there against person or property, against a man's life or his honor, against his virtue or his good name, which they do not forbid? Tell us, legislator or philosopher, if you have anything to add to this brief code? What interest of man does it leave unprotected?

The more we reflect upon it, the more the wonder grows. The framework of laws in a nation is the work of ages, but here the whole is compressed into a space so small that it could be written on a man's hand. Different nations have obtained their rights at the price of great sacrifices — rights which are summed-up in certain great charters, such as the Magna Charta of England and the Declaration of Independence of America. As these contain the principles of Universal Liberty, so does this