Old Testament.[1] No people ever felt so strongly as the people of the Old Testament, the Hebrew people, that conduct is three-fourths of our life and its largest concern. No people ever felt so strongly that succeeding, going right, hitting the mark in this great concern, was the way of peace, the highest possible satisfaction. 'He that keepeth the law, happy is he; its ways are ways of pleasantness, and all its paths are peace; if thou hadst walked in its ways, thou shouldst have dwelt in peace for ever!'[2] Jeshurun, one of the ideal names of their race, is the upright; Israel, the other and greater, is the wrestler with God, he who has known the contention and strain it costs to stand upright. That mysterious personage by whom their history first touches the hill of Sion, is Melchisedek, the righteous king. Their holy city, Jerusalem, is the foundation, or vision, or inheritance, of that which righteousness achieves,—peace. The law of righteousness was such an object of attention to them, that its words were to 'be in their heart, and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.'[3] That they might keep them ever in mind, they wore them, went about with them, made talismans of them: 'Bind them upon thy fingers, bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart!'[4] 'Take fast hold of her,' they said of the doctrine of conduct, or righteousness, 'let her not go! keep her, for she is thy life!'[5]
People who thus spoke of righteousness could not but have had their minds long and deeply engaged with it;
