Page:On the Desert - Recent Events in Egypt.djvu/173

 be snared in such practices, these horrible pollutions were punished with death. All licentious connection with strangers was a capital offence. In one instance an Israelite who brought a foreign woman into the camp was killed on the spot. This severity was deemed necessary where the contagion of such examples tempted to frequent offences against purity. Something was conceded to the ancient customs of the East, in tolerating polygamy and divorce. Christ said that for the hardness of their hearts Moses suffered them to put away their wives. But beyond this hardship, the law surrounded the feebler sex with a wall of fire. Violence to them was a capital crime. So were adultery and incest. In cases of seduction, the guilty party was compelled to make reparation. A man who seduced a maiden was obliged to marry her; and he forfeited the right, possessed by other husbands, of giving her a divorce. If her father refused to permit the marriage, the seducer was required to pay her a dowry. Moses was jealous of intermarriage, and specified minutely the limits of kindred within which alliances were prohibited. The least contact with impurity, however innocent, inferred a ceremonial uncleanness, which had to be expiated by a seclusion and rites of purification. Thus his law refined the popular sentiments and manners and morals. If the sacredness attached to the virtue of woman be a mark of the degree of a people's civilization, the Hebrews were greatly in advance of all other Oriental nations.

The laws for the protection of property were singular, but certainly they were not severe. They were substantially the same which, as we have seen, are still the law of the desert. The main principle was restitution of