Page:The spirit of the Hebrew poetry 1861.djvu/126

 ARADISE was lost! Nevertheless, in accordance with the primæval Biblical Idea, the religious man—the chief of a family—was permitted to enjoy, through a long term of years, a terrestrial lot in which were conserved the rudiments, at least, of the forfeited felicity, and thus through the lapse of centuries a conception of Life on Earth was authenticated, in meditation upon which Piety might re-assure its confidence in the Divine wisdom and goodness.

The Patriarchal Idea is Oriental, not European; it excludes the energy, the individual development, the progress, that are characteristic of the Western races:—it is—Repose, and the fruition of unambitious well-being. The Patriarchal life, in part nomadic, in part precariously dependent upon the chase, in part agricultural and of the vine culture;—the life of the tent, more than of strongholds and walls, combines those conditions of earthly existence which are the most favourable to religious contemplative tranquillity, and under which the sanctities