Milford chronicle., 1907-03-15

originally comes from the Hebrew
word perushel or separatists. A Phar
isee in broad Technology means "a
separator" A separator from what2
Their Origin.
Away back in the time of Jehoiakim,
600 years before Christ, Nebuchadnez-
zar. king of the Chaldeans, with his
mighty army swept southwestward
and laid siege to and captured Jerusa-
lem. AS was the custom of that day,
a large number of the Hebrews were
carried away from the land Of their
nativity. There, within the strong walls
of old Babylon, they had to dwell
No temple had they. No priesthood
had they. Surrounded by the sins Of
n heather nation and under the shad-
ow of the shrines Of the idols, they
had to do something to prevent their
children becoming immoral idolaters.
So what did they do? They withdrew
themselves just as far as possible from
associating with these sinful Babylo-
mans. They did what the Puritans
did when they were exiles in Holland.
They did what the foreign missiona-
ries are accustomed to do amid the
awful customs of the heather lands.
They keep their children within their
own homes as far as possible. And
when their boys and girls grow too big
to be longer kept clean from the con-
Eliminating immoral influences Of the
east they send them back home to be
educated in the American homes and
American institutions. "Oh," said an
American missionary some years ago
to me in India, "the hardest burden
which a missionary has TO bear is this
separation from his children. But
what can a missionary do? l cannot
allow my children to grow up amid
the licentious influences of this land. I
must separate them from these evil
surroundings. and therefore l send
them back home to be educated and to
be kept morally and spiritually pure"
when the Puritans arrived in the
city of Lcyden, which was to be their
| home for some years to come" wrote
the author of The Pilgrim Fathers Of
| New England" "the eXiles from ScrOO-
| by lived very much together, 4 com
munity within a community, dwelling
among strange people" Thus was
it with the Hebrews in the Babylonish
exile. They kept as completely sepa-
rate as possible. In order to keep their
! Hebrew religion pure and undetled
| they became in time a people narrow
| and bigoted and clannsh. So the be
! ginning Of the sect was altogether COM
mendable. The jew was despised
captive. He could not reform the con-
! ditions around him, but he could reg
| lister his protest against them by with
| drawing himself from them. Not all
| the Jews of that time were willing to
/ thus withdraw at the cost of oblOquy
and perhaps financial loss. Those who
! did withdraw were called separatists
or Pharisees. Though the Pharisees
as a class were narrow and bigoted,
/ they had their origin in the nOblest and
purest of ideals. They were first or
ganzed as a sect in order to protect
their own morals and the morals OF
their children.
1 cannot illustrate my thought better
than by taking you for little while in
old Jerusalem to the ''wailing place. OF
the Jews. 1t is one of the great sights
for the Palestine tourist to see. Though
Jerusalem has been under foreign con-
troll for centuries upon centuries, yet
the intense patriotic Hebrews have not
forgotten their race or their religion.
They are not allowed to enter the Mo
hammedan mosque, which is built up
on the site of the old temple, so they
gather day after day at the foot of the
walls where there are stones that once
formed part of the temple. There they
repeat over and over again the lamen-
tation of the Seventy-ninth Psalm: 20
God. the heather are come into thine
inheritance. Thy holy temple have
they defiled. They have laid Jerusa-
lem on heaps. We are become re-
proach to our neighbOrs, scorn and Il
derisfon to them that are roundabout
us How long. Lord? Wilt thou be
angry forever" Thus they stand day
after day as their fathers stood, and
month after month and year after year
and century after century the weeping
and wailng' and praying and pleading
90 on. Thus did the exiled Hebrews
become the Pharisees or the separators
of Babylon. Day after day, year after
year. they pleaded with God to bring
them back to the Davidic capital.
"How long. o Lord" they cried, chow
long must we live amid these licentious
and blaspheming Babylonians? How
long? How long? How lOngF Thus
they prayed. Thus they pleaded And
thus they refused to mingle with the
Cbaldean sinners. Thus we find that
the genesis of the Pharisees was in
spired by love for God. by love for
purity and by love for the Mosaic laws.
Their Degeneracy.
Having explained the genesis OF the
Pharisees, it is sad to have TO trace
4. NNhpn Cod