therefore less certain that Abraham exThe Jews distinguished books written by inspired men, from books composed by particular inspiration. How, indeed, can it be believed that God dictated false dates?

antiquity; but it is evident that all the kingdoms of Asia were in a very flourish-isted. ing state before the wandering horde of Arabs, called Jews, had a small spot of earth which they called their own,-when they had neither a town, nor laws, nor even a fixed religion. When, therefore, Philo the Jew of Suidas, relates that we see an ancient rite or an ancient opin-Terah, the father or grand-father of Abraion established in Egypt or Asia, and ham, who dwelt at Ur in Chaldea, was a also amongst the Jews, it is very natural { poor man who gained a livelihood by to suppose that this small, newly-formed, making little idols, and that he was himignorant, stupid people, copied, as well self an idolater. If so, that ancient reas they were able, the ancient, flourishing, { ligion of the Sabeans, who had no idols, and industrious nation. but worshipped the heavens, had not then, perhaps, been established in Chaldea; or, if it prevailed in one part of the country, it is very probable that idolatry was predominant in the rest. It seems, that in those times each little horde had its religion, as each family had its own peculiar customs; all were tolerated, and all were peaceably confounded. Laban, the father-in-law of Jacob, had idols. {Each clan was perfectly willing that the neighbouring clan should have its gods, and contented itself with believing that its own were the mightiest.

It is on this principle that we must judge of Judea, Biscay, Cornwall, &c. Most certainly triumphant Rome did not in any thing imitate Biscay or Cornwall; and he must be either very ignorant or a great knave, who would say that the Jews taught anything to the Greeks.

SECTION III.

It must not be thought that Abraham was known only to the Jews: on the contrary, he is renowned throughout Asia. This name, which signifies father of a people in more Oriental languages than The Scripture says that the God of the one, was given to some inhabitant of Jews, who intended to give them the land Chaldea, from whom several nations have of Canaan, commanded Abraham to leave boasted of descending. The pains which the fertile country of Chaldea, and go the Arabs and the Jews took to establish towards Palestine, promising him that in their descent from this patriarch, render it his seed all the nations of the earth should impossible for even the greatest Pyrrho-be blessed. It is for theologians to exneans to doubt of there having been an Abraham.

The Hebrew Scriptures make him the son of Terah, while the Arabs say that Terah was his grand-father, and Azar his father, in which they have been followed by several Christians. The interpreters are of forty-two different opinions with respect to the year in which Abraham was brought into the world, and I shall not hazard a forty-third. It also appears, by the dates, that Abraham lived sixty years longer than the text allows him; but mistakes in chronology do not destroy the truth of a fact. Supposing even that the

ok which speaks of Abraham had not been so sacred as was the law, it is not {

plain, by allegory and mystical sense, how all the nations of the earth were to be blessed in a seed from which they did not descend, since this much-to-be-venerated mystical sense cannot be made the object of a research purely critical. A short time after these promises, Abraham's family was afflicted by famine, and went into Egypt for corn. It is singular that the Hebrews never went into Egypt, but when pressed by hunger; for Jacob afterwards sent his children on the same errand.

Abraham, who was then very old, went this journey with his wife Sarah, aged sixty-five: she was very handsome, and Abraham feared that the Egyptians,

smitten by her charms, would kill him in order to enjoy her transcendent beauties: he proposed to her that she should pass for his sister, &c. Human nature must { at that time have possessed a vigour which time and luxury have since very much weakened. This was the opinion of all the ancients; it has even been asserted that Helen was seventy when she was carried off by Paris. That which Abraham had foreseen came to pass: the Egyptian youth found his wife charming, notwithstanding her sixty-five years; the king himself fell in love with her, and placed her in his seraglio, though, probably, he had younger females there; but the Lord plagued the king and his seraglio with very great sores. The text does not tell us how the king came to know that this dangerous beauty was Abraham's wife; but it seems that he did come to know it, and restored her.

mans, who, while they obeyed their pri {mitive laws, were not obliged to believe in the miracles of the sieve filled with water, the ship drawn to the shore by a vestal's girdle, the stone cut with a razor, and so forth. Therefore the historian Josephus, though strongly attached to his form of worship, leaves his readers at liberty to believe just so much as they choose of the ancient prodigies which he relates. For the same reason the Sadducees were permitted not to believe in the Angels, although the Angels are so often spoken of in the Old Testament; but these same Sadducees were not allowed to neglect the prescribed feasts, fasts, and ceremonies. This part of Abraham's history (the journies into Egypt and Phonicia) proves that great kingdoms were already established, while the Jewish nation existed in a single family; that there already were laws, since without Sarah's beauty must have been unalter-them a great kingdom cannot exist; and able; for twenty-five years afterwards, when she was ninety years old, pregnant, and travelling with her husband through the dominions of a king of Phoenicia named Abimelech, Abraham, who had not yet corrected himself, made her a second time pass for his sister. The Phoenician king was as sensible to her attractions as the king of Egypt had been; but God appeared to this Abimelech in a dream, and threatened him with death if he touched his new mistress. It must be confessed that Sarah's conduct was as extraordinary as the lasting nature of her charms.

consequently that the law of Moses, which was posterior, was not the first law. It is not necessary for a law to be divine, that it should be the most ancient of all. God is undoubtedly the master of time. It would, it is true, appear more conformable to the faint light of reason, that God, having to give a law, should have given it at the first to all mankind; but if it be proved that he proceeds in a different { way, it is not for us to question him.

The remainder of Abraham's history is subject to great difficulties. God, who frequently appeared to and made several treaties with him, one day sent three angels to him in the valley of Mamre. The patriarch gave them bread, veal,

The singularity of these adventures was probably the reason why the Jews had not the same sort of faith in their his-butter, and milk, to eat. The three tories which they had in their Leviticus. There was not a single iota of their law { in which they did not believe; but the historical part of their Scriptures did not { demand the same respect. Their conduct in regard to their ancient books may be compared to that of the English, who received the laws of St. Edward without absolutely believing that St. Edward cured the scrofula; or to that of the Ro

spirits dined, and after dinner they sent for Sarah, who had baked the bread. One of the angels, whom the text calls the Lord, the Eternal, promised Sarah that, in the course of a year, she should have a son. Sarah, who was then ninety-four, while her husband was nearly a hundred, laughed at the promise,-a proof that Sarah confessed her decrepitude, a proof that, according to the Scripture itself,

powerful, and most extensive in the world.

The Mussulmans have a great reverence for Abraham, whom they call Ibrahim. Those who believe him to have been buried at Hebron, make a pilgrim

human nature was not then very different from what it is now. Nevertheless, the following year, as we have already seen, this aged woman, after becoming pregnant, captivated King Abimelech. Certes, to consider these stories as natural, we must either have a species of under-age thither; while those who think that standing quite different from that which his tomb is at Mecca, go and pay their we have at present, or regard every trait homage to him there. in the life of Abraham as a miracle, or believe that it is only an allegory; but whichever way we turn, we cannot escape embarrassment. For instance, what are we to make of God's promise to Abraham that he would give to him and his pos-tures have been attributed; but it appears terity all the land of Canaan, which no Chaldean ever possessed? This is one of the difficulties which it is impossible to solve.

It seems astonishing that God, after causing Isaac to be born of a centenary father and a woman of ninety-five, should afterwards have ordered that father to murder the son whom he had given him contrary to every expectation. This strange order from God seems to show that, at the time when this history was written, the sacrifice of human victims was customary amongst the Jews, as it afterwards became in other nations, as witness the vow of Jephtha. But it may be said, that the obedience of Abraham, who was ready to sacrifice his son to the God who had given him, is an allegory of the resignation which man owes to the orders of the Supreme Being.

Some of the ancient Persians believed that Abraham was the same with Zoroaster. It has been with him as with most of the founders of the Eastern nations, to whom various names and various adven

by the Scripture text, that he was one of those wandering Arabs who had no fixed habitation. We see him born at Ur in Chaldea, going first to Haran, then into Palestine, then into Egypt, then into Phoenicia, and lastly forced to buy a grave at Hebron.

One of the most remarkable circumstances of his life was, that at the age of ninety, before he had begotten Isaac, he caused himself, his son Ishmael, and all his servants, to be circumcised. It seems that he had adopted this idea amongst the Egyptians. It is difficult to determine the origin of such an operation; but it appears most likely that it was performed in order to prevent the abuses of puberty. But why should a man undergo this operation at the age of a hundred?

On the other hand it is asserted, that only the priests were anciently distinThere is one remark which it is parti-guished in Egypt by this custom. It was cularly important to make on the history of this Patriarch regarded as the father of the Jews and the Arabs. His principal children were Isaac, born of his wife by a miraculous favour of Providence, and Ishmael, born of his servant. It was in Isaac that the race of the Patriarch was blessed; yet Isaac was father only of an unfortunate and contemptible nation, who were for a long period slaves, and have for a still longer been dispersed. Ishmael, on the contrary, was the father of the Arabs, who, in course of time, established the empire of the Caliphs, one of the most

an usage of great antiquity in Africa and part of Asia, for the most holy personages to present their virile member to be kissed by the women whom they met. The organs of generation were looked upon as something noble and sacred-as a symbol of divine power: it was customary to swear by them; and, when taking an oath to another person, to lay the hand on his ¿ testicles. It was perhaps from this ancient custom that they afterwards received their name, which signifies witnesses, because they were thus made a testimony and a pledge. When Abraham sent his

servant to ask Rebecca for his son Isaac, the servant placed his hand on Abraham's genitals, which has been translated by the word thigh.

By this we see how much the manners of remote antiquity differed from ours. In the eyes of a philosopher, it is no more astonishing that men should formerly have sworn by that part, than by the head; nor is it astonishing that those who wished to distinguish themselves from other men, should have testified by this venerated portion of the human person.

ABUSE OF WORDS.

Books, like conversation, rarely give us any precise ideas: nothing is so common as to read and converse unprofitably.

We must here repeat what Locke has so strongly urged-Define your terms.

A jurisconsult, in his criminal institute, announces that the non-observance of Sundays and holidays is treason against the Divine Majesty. Treason against the Divine Majesty gives an idea of the most enormous of crimes, and the most dread

tutes the offence? To have missed vespers-a thing which may happen to the best man in the world.

The Book of Genesis tells us, that cir-ful of chastisements. But what consticumcision was a covenant between God and Abraham; and expressly adds, that whosoever shall not be circumcised in his house, shall be put to death. Yet we are not told that Isaac was circumcised; nor is circumcision again spoken of, until the time of Moses.

In all disputes on liberty, one reasoner generally understands one thing, and his adversary another. A third comes in who understands neither the one nor the other, We shall conclude this article with one nor is himself understood. In these dismore observation, which is, that Abra-putes, one has in his head the power of ham, after having by Sarah and Hagar acting; a second, the power of willing; two sons, who became each the father of a third, the desire of executing; each rea great nation, had six sons by Keturah, volves in his own circle, and they never who settled in Arabia; but their posterity meet. were not famous.

ABUSE.

A VICE attached to all the customs, to all the laws, to all the institutions of man: the detail is too vast to be contained in any library.

States are governed by abuses. Maximus ille est qui minimis urgetur. It might be said to the Chinese, to the Japanese, to the English-Your government swarms with abuses, which you do not correct! The Chinese will reply-We have existed as a people for five thousand years, and at this day are perhaps the most fortunate nation on earth, because we are the most tranquil. The Japanese will say nearly the same. The English will answer-We are powerful at sea, and prosperous on land; perhaps in ten thousand years we shall bring our usages to perfection. The grand secret is, to be in a better condition than others, even with enormous

abuses.

It is the same with quarrels about grace. Who can understand its nature, its operations, the sufficiency which is not sufficient, and the efficacy which is ineffectual.

The words substantial form were pronounced for two thousand years without suggesting the least notion. For these, plastic natures have been substituted, but still without any thing being gained.

A traveller, stopped in his way by a torrent, asks a villager on the opposite bank to show him the ford :-"Go to the right," shouts the countryman :-:--He takes the right and is drowned. The other runs up crying :-"Oh! how unfortunate! I did not tell him to go to his right, but to mine!"

The world is full of these misunderstandings. How will a Norwegian, when reading this formula, Servant of the Servants of God, discover that it is the Bishop of Bishops, and King of Kings who speaks?

that Love has various lodgings: and that

At the time when the Fragments of Petronius made a great noise in the lite-the same word does not always signify the

same thing. There is a prodigious difference between the love of Tarquin and that of Celadon-between David's love for Jonathan, which was stronger than that of women, and the abbé Desfontaines' love for little chimney-sweepers.

rary world, Meibomius, a noted learned man of Lubeck, read in the printed letter of another learned man of Bologna:"We have here an entire Petronius, which I have seen with my own eyes and admired;"-Habemus hic Petronium integrum, quem vidi meis oculis non sine The most singular instance of this abuse admiratione. He immediately set out for of words-these voluntary equivoquesItaly, hastened to Bologna, went to the these misunderstandings which have causlibrarian Capponi, and asked him if it ed so many quarrels,-is the Chinese were true that they had the entire Petro-King-tien. The missionaries having vionius at Bologna. Capponi answered that lent disputes about the meaning of this it was a fact which had long been public. word, the Court of Rome sent a French"Can I see this Petronius?-Be so goodman, named Maigrot, whom they made as to show him to me." "Nothing is more easy," said Capponi. He then took him to the church in which the body of St. Petronius was laid. Meibomius ordered horses and fled.

pro

the imaginary bishop of a province in China, to adjust the difference. Maigrot did not know a word of Chinese; but the emperor deigned to grant that he should be told what he understood by King-tien. Maigrot would not believe what was told him, but caused the emperor of China to be condemned at Rome!

ACADEMY.

If the Jesuit Daniel took a warlike abbot, abbatem martialem, for the abbot Martial, a hundred historians have fallen into still greater mistakes. The Jesuit The abuse of words is an inexhaustible d'Orleans, in his Revolutions of England, subject. In history, in morality, in juris. wrote indifferently Northampton or South-prudence, in medicine, but especially in ampton, only mistaking the north for the theology, beware of ambiguity. south, or vice versa. Metaphysical terms, taken in their per sense, have sometimes determined the Academies are to universities, as maopinion of twenty nations. Every oneturity is to childhood, oratory to grammar, knows the metaphor of Isaiah, How hast or politeness to the first lessons in civility. thou fallen from heaven, thou star which Academies, not being stipendiary, ought rose in the morning? This discourse was to be entirely free: such were the acaimagined to have been addressed to the demies of Italy; such is the French AcaDevil; and as the Hebrew word an-demy; and such, more particularly, is the swering to the planet Venus was rendered Royal Society of London. in Latin by the word Lucifer, the Devil has ever since been called Lucifer.

in the kingdom, and even princes, sought admission into this illustrious body. The Society of London has possessed the same advantage.

The French Academy, which formed itself, received, it is true, letters patent Much ridicule has been bestowed on the from Louis XIII., but without any saChart of the Tender Pussion by Madlle. lary, and consequently without any subCuderi. The lovers embark on the riverjection: hence it was that the first men Tendre; they dine at Tendre sur Estime, sup at Tendre sur Inclination, sleep at Tendre sur Désir, find themselves the next morning at Tendre sur Passion, and lastly at Tendre sur Tendre. These ideas The celebrated Colbert, being a memmay be ridiculous, especially when Clelia, ber of the French Academy, employed Horatius Cocles, and other rude and aus- some of his brethren to compose inscriptere Romans, set out on the voyage: buttions and devices for the public buildthis geographical chart at least shows us ings. This assembly, to which Boileau