Page:The Collected Works of Theodore Parker volume 3.djvu/77

64 in special? This it is easy to ask, bat perhaps not possible to answer. These are carious questions; they are of little practical importance tons at this moment.

After the Hebrew institutions of religion got fixed—the worship of Jehovah, the Levitical priesthood, and the peculiar forms of sacrifice—it became common to refer their origin back to the time of Moses, who lived fourteen or fifteen hundred years before Christ. Since few memorials from his age have come down to us, it is plain we can know little of him. But from the impression which his character left on his nation, and through them on the whole world; from the myths so early connected with his name; it seems pretty clear that he was one of the greatest and most extraordinary men that ever lived. Mankind seldom tell great things of little men. It is difficult to say what share he had in making the laws of the Hebrew nation which are commonly referred to him, — and, as it is popularly taught, revealed to him directly by Jehovah. Perhaps we.are not safe in referring to him even the whole of the ten commandments; surely not in any one of their present forms. Was the Sabbath observed as a day of rest before Moses? Was its observance enforced by him? Was it even known to him? These questions are not easily answered. This is only certain: from the time of Moses to that of Jehoram, a period of about six hundred years, there is no historical mention of its observance, not the least allusion to it. Yet we have documents which treat of that period,—the books of Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and the Kings,—some of them historical documents, which go into the minute detail of the national peculiarities, and were evidently written with a good deal of concern for strict integrity and truth; they refer to the national rite of circumcision. Now, if the Sabbath had been observed during that period, it is difficult to believe it would have received no passing notice in those historical books. But not only is there no mention of it therein, none even in the times of David and Solomon, who favoured the priesthood so strongly; but in £he book of Chronicles, the most Levitical book in the Bible, at a date more than two hun-