The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1900-04-16

DuIlu tlIlc tllyt SlIlNS tlity Ilfed 80
stones? They made bricks from clay
and pitch and burnt them as potter
burns his pots in the oven and hardens
them. In. this way they made the brick
and built the city and the tower exceed
ingly high, with seventy steps The as
cent was made from the east and the de-
scent from the west. II man fell
therefrom they did not heed it much,
whereas, if a brick fell they wept bit
terly, and said When, oh! when Will
another be brought up?' When Abram
saw their wicked ways, he cursed them
in the name of the Lord, but they did
not pay any attention to his words. Inc
Lord then descended from the seventy
thousand angels that surrounded his
throne, and at that time of the disper-
sion he COMPOUNDED their tongue into
seventy different languages.
A LEGEND ABOUT ABRAHAM.
The legends clustered around the per-
sonality Of Abraham are innumerable,
but this one Is peculiarly characteristic
of the Hebrew conception Of Abraham's
work: ut is related that the whole
household of Abraham's father were
idol worshippers; moreover, they made
lQOlS ANU SUlu lllCAi upon hiiV Sti NNe'''
But when a man approached Abraham
to sell him an idol he would ask him:
How much IS this image?' Three ma
mas he would reply. How old art
thou?' Abraham would ask. Thirty
years. Thou art thirty years of age
and yet worshipest this idol, which We
made but to-day The man would
depart and go his way. Again another
would come to Abraham and ask, How
much is this idol?' Five manas,' he
| would say. How old art thou? would
Abraham continue Fifty years.
And dost thou, who art fifty years. of
age bow down to this idol which we
made but to-day?' With this the man
would depart and go his way. When
| Nimrod heard of Abrahams utterances
| he ordered him to be brought before
! him. and said: Thou son OF Terah,
| make me a beautiful god Abraham
| then entered his fathers house and
said: Make a beautiful image for me-.
| They accordingly made it, finished 1T
and painted it with many colors. He
went and brought 1t to Nimrod.
| "And on that day Abraham's righ-
| teousness shone forth 1t was cloudy
| uly anu Tdlll IGll, lIlSISlpi0 y, WlACii tiiSy
were about to thrust him into the burn
| ing furnace Nimrod sat down, and all
1.-THE people of the dispersion did likewise.
Abraham then entered, and standing In
| the center he pleaded his cause. After
| which Ni1nrod asked, If not the gods,
whom shall server Abraham replied,
| The God Of Gods and Lord of Lords,
whose kingdom is everlasting in heaven
and on earth, and in the heavens of the
| high heavens shall worship said
| Nimrod, the god of fire; and behold,
| shall cast thee therein Let then the
| God to whom thou testifeth deliver thee
from the burning furnace They then
| Immediately bound him strongly and
| tightly and placed him on the ground.
| They then surrounded him With wood
! on the four sides, five hundred cubits
| thickness to the north, five hundred GU
! bits to the south, five hundred to the
| west and five hundred to the east
They they set the pile on fire. The
whole house Of Terah were worshippers
of idols, and until that moment had not
| recognized their Creator. Their neigh
bors and fellow citizens assembled, and
beating their heads, said to Terah, Oh
shame great shame--thy son, Of whom
thou did say that he will inherit this
| world and the world to come, has MINI
| rod burned in fire. Immediately then
Gods mercy was moved, so that he de-
scended from the habitation of his glo-
ry, his greatness, his majesty and the
| holiness Of his great name, and deliv-
/ cred Abraham our ancestor from that
! shame, from that reproach and from the
| fiery furnace, as it Is said, I am the
Lord who brought thee out of the fire
of the Chaldeans.
There has been a strange fascination
about the loss Of the Ten Tribes of Is
rael, and Hebrew legend attempts to
supply an account Of the fate of those
| Ten Tribes in various ways. There Is
peculiarly interesting legend respecting
the so-called children of Moses, connect
| ed, of course with the exile of Nebu-
chadnezzar when they arrived In
Babylon their enemies and captors said
to them, Sing us a song of Zion,' and
they replied. How can we sing song
of Zion upon strange ground?' Now
retorted their captors, we shall sing by
| force, but they at once cut off their
fingers with their teeth and cast them
| before LIleIIl, dtlu lHGS ISpliGti, LAW Soi'
those fingers, which struck the strings
of the heart and the temple, strike them
here in a strange land?' And God ex-
claimed, If I forget Jerusalem, my
right hand shall be forgotten. cloud
then descended. and, lifting all the chill
dren of Moses, with their sheep and cat
tle brought them to the east of Haviln.
In the night they were let down, and on
that same night they heard great
| noise surrounding them, like that of
river, without hearing drop of water
descending, but heard only the rolling
of stones and sand where there had new
err been a river. This river then rolled
great stones and the sand without any
water. made noise as If a great earth
quake This continued until the Sab
bath. The river they called Sabbatyon
or Sabbatianus. On the Sabbath 1t
| ceases to flow, and on the eve OF Sab
bath a cloud ascends full of smoke. No
one Is able to approach them, neither do
they approach them. There are no wild
beasts, no unclean animals nor any rep
tiles or creeping things. Nothing eX-
cept their flocks and herds They reap
and SOW and they ask the others, and
thus they learn of the destruction of the
Second Temple 1t is behind this re-
gion in which the children of Moses
dwell that the remnants of the Ten
Tribes are said to be found.
THE TEN LOST TRIBES.
.Tbe tribe of Issachar dwell on the