Workmen's advocate. (New Haven, Conn.) 1883-1891, 1890-09-20
THE SENT rs
GEO. G. STIEBELlNG, NJ. d.
(CORcluded)

ties, to their credit be 1t stated, behaved
otherwise, To be sure, 1t was mainly
due to the peculiar course of their his
tory and especially to the singular way
in which their existence as a distinct
nation terminated They had not yet
passed the stage of nomadism when they
first emigrated from Palestine to Egypt.
There they learned the rudiments of
agriculture, manufacture and com.
merCe, SO that they grew superior
to the tribes which occupied the pasture
grounds that they had left, and by
this superiority they were enabled, on
their return from Egypt, to vanquish
They founded kind of patriarchal gov
eminent combined with few republi-
can and communistc institutions, under
which they prOspered, more or less,
through four centuries But then the
almost inCtssant wars against the neigh
boring heather nations induced them to
change it into a monarchy by electing a
prominent soldier as king. Now COM
menced the brightest period of their
history. The foreign enemies We're beaten
back and held i'll check. Besides cult
waiting the soil and raising crops, they
began, with the aid of the Phnnicians,
to introduce and practice manufacture
and commerce. Thus they soon gained
great wealth; but at the same time the
germs of corruption and decay crept in.
Already the third king turned the
monarchy into a despotsm. After his
death domestic strifes broke out which
ended in the separation of the twelve
tribes; two of them establishing the
kingdom of Judah and ten the king
dom of Israel. But neither could
achieve any lasting success; both thence
forth declined more and more until
finally they were conquered-the latter
by the Assyrians after 253 and the for
mer by the Babylonans after 800 years
of existence.
The ten tribes of Israel had to leave
their homes and were exiled to remote
parts of the Assyrian empire, What
bas become of them is not certainly
known. However it appears very prob
able that the Persian king Cyrus, when
he had overcome Babylonia, drove them
out from those parts, so that they scat
tered in all directions. This supposition
would explain the fact that Hebrews
have been found and are sill existing
to-day far away from their original
seats, in very distant countries-as, for
example, in Abyssinia and India-and
that these Hebrews by their physical,
moral and mental characteristics show
a great variety Of transitions between
the white, yellow, brown and black
races. the development of which must
certainly have required period of many
centuries The two tribes of Judah,
after their defeat, also had to 90 into
exile. They were sent to Babylonia
where they stayed from GOA until 535
B. c., when Cyrus, the Persian king
mentioned above, allowed them to re.
turn to Jerusalem and to live there az
his subjects. Hence calling themselves
Je,cs, they established an ecclesiastic
government under the care of a high
priest ana of elders, in accordance with
the old constitution given by Moses. In
this state they remained up to Sc A. D.,
no great changes having occurred in the
meanwhile except that the sovereignty
over them passed from the Persians to
the Macedonians and Greeks, then to
the Egyptians and at last, to the Ro-
mans. About that time, however the
extortions and expressions of the latter,
made worse yet by the stubborn strifes
Of internal factions, caused a revolt
which ended with the conquest and des-
truction of Jerusalem. The Jewish people
who survived the massacre dispersed on
all sides. They joined those who all eady,
during the preceding centuries or rather
since the Assyrian exile, had fled to the
adjacent countries-to Arabia, Egypt,
Asia minor, Greece and Italy-and who
thus had become acquainted with the
arts and sciences of the classical age.
Thenceforth the Jews shared the des-
tiny of the nations among which they
had taken refuge. 1t is obvious that,
under such circumstances, their struggle
for life was a very severe one. Where
ever they went, contempt, suspicion or
even hatred met them, and whenever
they began to prosper, exactions and
burdens of every kind, tribulations, per-
secutions and, finally, explosions follow
ed. Too weak in numbers they could not
oppose their adversaries by the force of
arms, so that, in order to defend them
selves, they necessarily had to rely on
the mere powers of superior intelligence
and knowledge. Thus it came that,
during the decadence of the Roman en-
pire they tried to learn and acquire the
then existing arts and sciences as much
as possible. But without permanent