The hearts of the Hebrews were “hard.” In matters of social humanity and justice they fell away from the beneficent precepts of their lawgiver in their dealings with their neighbour, as in matters of religion they fell away from their allegiance to the true God. Judaism was not Christianity, nor was Judæa Christendom; yet it may perhaps be safely said, that no two communities in the history of the world have been more different from each other than the community of great capitalists and landowners with their droves of slaves which covers the Southern States of America, and the community of peasants “dwelling each under his own vine and his own fig-tree,” and each “going forth to his labour until the evening,” which in the happy days of the Hebrew people lay around the Holy City and worshipped together in the Courts of Sion. It was among this peasantry, true sons of labour yet free of soul, pure, simple-minded, religious, and though devoid of the wisdom of the world, not uninstructed in religion, that when the time for the fulfilment of their long-cherished hope was come, the Saviour of the world appeared. It was from their cottages and fishing-boats that He called the open and ardent natures, neither corrupted by riches nor debased by Slavery, which were destined to confront a world in the strength of conviction, and to become the founders of Christendom.
