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THEOCRACY AND DEMOCRACY,

Perhaps it does not often occur to readers of the Old Testament, that there is much likeness between the Hebrew Commonwealth and the American Republic. There are more differences than resemblances: at least the differences are more marked. Governments change with time and place, with the age and the country, with manners and customs, with modes of life and degrees of civilization. Yet at the bottom there is one radical principle that divides a republic from a monarchy or an aristocracy: it is the natural equality of men — that "all men are born free and equal" — which is as fully recognized in the laws of Moses as in the Declaration of Independence. Indeed the principle is carried further in the Hebrew Commonwealth than in ours: for not only was there equality before the laws, but the laws aimed to produce equality of condition in one point, and that a vital one — the tenure of land — of which even the poorest could not be deprived, so that in this respect the Hebrew Commonwealth approached more nearly to a pure democracy.

Of course the political rights of the people did not extend to the choice of a ruler, nor did it to the making of the laws. As there was no King but God, it was the theory of the state that the laws emanated directly from the Almighty, and His commands could not be submitted to a vote. No clamorous populace debated with the Deity. The Israelites had only to hear and to obey. In this