The central Presbyterian. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1856-1908, 1876-03-01
zation as her prime work ? we will try to
answer this question in our next number.
ZACCHEUs.
Did Moses Get his Law From the Egyptians I?

| LACCHEUo.
Did Moses Get his Law From the Egyptians
DIR. Field, who has been writing to the
N. Y. Evangelist most interesting letters
from Egypt gives satisfactory reply to this
question:
"It is favorite theory of certain writer's
that Moses, being brought up in Egypt, there
obtained both the Law and the Religion
which he gave to the Israelites. No doubt
he did learn much from a country that was
at that time the most civilized in the world.
He was brought up in court, and enjoyed
every advantage of royal education. He
was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyp-
tians. And it is no detraction from his in
spiration, to suppose that he may have been
instructed to embody in his new and better
code whatever was excellent in the older sys-
tenn, and had been proved by the experience
of centuries. Very likely much of the cere-
monial law-such as the rites of publication
may have bco8 adopted from the -Egyp-
tians. But these are the mere fringes of
the garment of the great Lawgiver. As soon
as we open the Hebrew Scriptures, we find
traces of wisdom such as the Egyptians
never knew. Its very first sentence In
the beginning God created the heavens and
the earth '-scatters the fables of Isis and
Osiris, and substitutes for the troop of hea-
then deities the worship of one Living and
True God. This single declaration marks a
stupendous advance in the religious faitn
and worship of mankind.
The same first principle appears as the
cornerstone of the law given in Mount
Sinai: 4 am the Lord thy God which brought
thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the
house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other
gods before me-.
The second law of the first table breaks in
pieces the images of the gods of the Egyp-
tians Thou shalt not make unto thee any
craven image, nor any likeness of any thing
that is in heaven above, nor in the earth be-
meath, nor in the waters under the earth. =
This was spoken to people that had just
come out of country where they worship
ped beasts and birds and reptiles, and where
the walls of the temples were covered with
the images of all kinds of foul and creeping
things.
In this age of the world, and among civil
lied nations, We cannot understand the pas
sion for idolatry. Yet it is one of the most
universal and ineradicable instincts of half
barbarous people. They see tokens of an
unseen power in all the forces of nature, in
clouds and winds, in lightning and tempest,
and they torment themselves with all imagi-
nable terrors, from which they seek relief
and protection in bowing down to gods Of
wood and stone.
The Israeites coming out of Egypt, we're
out of the house of bondage in one sense,
but they were in it in another. They were
continually relapsing into idolatry. The
golden calf of Aaron was no doubt an imita-
ton Of the sacred bulls of Egypt. Often
they pined for the products Of Of the fertile
valley of the Nile. With nothing but the
burning sands beneath their feet, they might
we'll long for the shade of the palm tree and
for its delicious fruit, and they said, Why
hath this man Moses brought US up to die in
this wilderness? 1t required forty years of
wandering, and that whole generation
should die off, and leave their bones to
whiten the sands of the desert, before their
children could be wholly alienated from the
worship of. false gods. So not only the Is
raelites, but with all nations Of men, ages of
fiery discipline have been necessary to bring
back the race to this simple article of our
faith: 6 1 believe in God the Father Almigh-
ty, the maker of heaven and earth.
We might follow the comparison through
all the tables of the law, to show how false is
the. e.pretence that all which Moses taught to
the Israelites he first learned from the Egyp-
tians. Tell US, ye learned antiquarians,
where, on all these temples, and in all the
records which they have left US, is there any
trace of the Ten Commandments?
And yet Egypt is connected very intimate
ly, in history at least, with the birth of our
religion. No other country, except Pales-
tine, figures SO largely in the Bible Abra-
ham went down into Egypt. There came
the sons CT Jacob to buy corn, and found
Joseph ruling in the house of Pharaoh. And
thither centuries later fled the virgin mother
with her child from the wrath of Herod, full
filling the prediction, Out of Egypt have
called my son..
But Religion-the Divine wisdom which
at once instructs and saves mankind-came
not from the valley of the Nile. Abraham
and Jacob and Moses saw the Pyramids
standing just as we see them now, but they
did not point them to the true God. That
knowledge came from higher source
History, says Bunsen, was born on that
night when Moses, with the law of Cod
moral and spiritual-in his heart, led the
people of Israel out of Egypt And not
history only, but Religion then came to a
new birth, that was to be the herald of new
| IL LA.Ia. LAnan and nf O hinhnr niuiliza.