The Chosen People

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THE CHOSEN PEOPLE

A COMPENDIUM OF SACRED AND CHURCH HISTORY FOR SCHOOL-CHILDREN.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE."

"God, who at sundry times and in diverse manners spake in time past unto
the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by
His Son, whom He hath appointed heir of all things."--_Heb_. i, l,

"Yes; so it was ere Jesus came--
Alternate then His Altar flame
Blazed up and died away,
And Silence took her torn with Song,
And Solitude with the fair throng
That owned the festal day;
For in earth's daily circuit then
Only one border
Reflected to the Seraphs' ken,
Heaven's light and order.

But now to the revolving sphere
We point and Say, No desert here,
No waste so dark and lone
But to the hour of sacrifice
Comes daily in its turn, and lies
In light beneath the Throne.
Each point of time, from morn till eve.
From eve to morning,
The shrine doth from the Spouse receive
Praise and adorning."--_Lyra Innocentium_.

FIFTH EDITION.

PREFACE.

In drawing up this little book, at the request of several friends, the
Author has been chiefly guided by experience of what children require to
be told, in order to come to an intelligent perception of the scope of
the Scripture narrative treated historically. Since a general view can
hardly be obtained without brevity, many events have been omitted in
the earlier part, and those only touched upon which have a peculiar
significance in tracing the gradual preparation for the work of
Redemption; and though one great object has been the illustration of
Prophecy, the course of types has been passed over, lest the plain
narrative should be confused, since types are rather subjects of
devotional contemplation than of history, and they should be perfectly
comprehended as _facts_, before being treated as allegorical.

The next portion is little save an abridgement from Prideaux's
Connexion, taken in connection with the conclusions drawn by modern
discoveries, as detailed in Mr. G. Rawlinson's valuable edition of
Herodotus. It is hoped that by thus filling up the interval between
the New and Old Testaments, that children may thus be fairly able to
understand what they read in the Gospels of the Roman dominion, the
relation to Herod, the mutual hatred of the Pharisees and Sadducees, and
the enmity to the Samaritans.

The concluding lessons are offered with great diffidence, and with many
doubts whether the absence of detail may not prevent them from being
easily remembered; but it has been felt important that the connection of
the actual Church with that of the Apostles and Martyrs, should be made
evident to the general mind, and the present condition of the Church
accounted for. The choice of subjects has been very difficult; but it
is hoped that those selected may be those most needful to be known as
evidence that our present Church has every claim to the promise of Him
Who will abide with her for ever.

If older and more critical persons than those for whom the little work
is intended should cast an eye over it, the author hopes that they will
bear in mind how the need of being both brief and clear is apt to render
statements apparently bolder, and sometimes harsher, than where there is
room for qualification or argument; and that they will not always accuse
the work of unthinking boldness of assertion, where the softening is
omitted for fear both of wearying and perplexing the young reader.

The chronology, for the sake of the convenience of teachers and
scholars, is that of the margin of our Bibles.

The questions at the end are chiefly intended to direct the mind of
the learner to the point of each lesson. It will be perceived that the
answers must he prepared as well from the Bible as from the book; and
in most cases the teacher will in use have to multiply, and perhaps to
simplify them. One of their especial objects has been to show the ever
brightening stream of prophecy, and afterwards, its accomplishment alike
with regard to heathen nations, to the history of the Jews, of the
Church, and, above all, to the Life of our Blessed Lord; and it is hoped
that those who examine into them, cannot fail to be struck with the full
and perfect accordance of the beginning with the end; and if they learn
no other lesson, will have it impressed on them, how "the counsel of the
Lord endureth for ever."

Two tables have been added for the convenience of the scholar, one
giving the contemporary kings and prophets, the other the course
of historical chapters, with, as far as possible, the prophetical,
didactic, or poetical books, of the same date ranged in parallel lines.
It is hoped that these may be found useful in arranging lessons for
upper classes or pupil teachers.

_May 20th_, 1859.

TABLE OF THE BOOKS OF HOLY SCRIPTURE ACCORDING TO DATE.

HISTORICAL
BOOKS. PROPHETIC AND POETICAL BOOKS.
B.C.

4004
1689 Genesis
1529 Job
Psalm lxxxviii. by Heman, the Ezrahite, (See
1 Chron. ii. 6)
1491 Exodus
1491 Leviticus
1451 Numbers Psalm xc. and (perhaps) xci
1450 Deuteronomy
1451
1427 Joshua
1312 Ruth
1120 Judges
1171
1056 1 Samuel Psalms, certainly vii, xi, xvi, xvii, xxii, xxxi,
xxxiv, lvi, liv, lii, cix, xxxv, lvii, lviii,
cxliii, cxl, cxli, and many more
1056 1 Chronicles Psalms, certainly ii, vi, ix, xx,
1023 Psalms iii, iv, lv, lxii,
lxx, lxxi, cxliii, cxliv, all on
occasion of the war with Absalom
1017 2 Samuel 1015 from chap. ii xxi, xxiv, lxviii, xxxii, xxxiii,
xxxviii, xxxix, xl, li,
xxxii, ci, ciii.
1017 Psalms xviii, xxx, many more
of David
Psalm xxviii (other Psalms
of the elder Asaph) Chron.
xvi. 5

THE CHOSEN PEOPLE.

LESSON I.

THE PROMISE.

"The creature was made subject unto vanity, not willingly, but by reason
of Him who hath subjected the same in hope."--_Rom_. viii. 20.

When the earth first came from the hand of God, it was "very good," and
man, the best of all the beings it contained, was subjected to a trial
of obedience. The fallen angel gained the ear of the woman, and led her
to disobey, and to persuade her husband to do the same; and that failure
gave Satan power over the world, and over all Adam's children, bringing
sin and death upon the earth, and upon all, whether man or brute, who
dwelt therein.

Yet the merciful God would not give up all the creatures whom He had
made, to eternal destruction without a ray of hope, and even while
sentencing them to the punishment they had drawn on themselves, He held
out the promise that the Seed of the woman should bruise the head of the
serpent, the Devil; and they were taught by the sight of sacrifices of
animals, that the death of the innocent might yet atone for the sin of
the guilty; though these creatures were not of worth enough really to
bear the punishment for man.

Abel's offering of the lamb proved his faith, and thus was more worthy
than Cain's gift of the fruits of the earth. When Cain in his envy slew
his brother, he and his children were cast off by God, and those of his
younger brother, Seth, were accepted, until they joined themselves to
the ungodly daughters of Cain; and such sin prevailed, that Enoch, the
seventh from Adam, prophesied of judgment at hand, before he was taken
up alive into Heaven. When eight hundred and nine hundred years were
the usual term of men's lives, and the race was in full strength and
freshness, there was time for mind and body to come to great force;
and we find that the chief inventions of man belong to these sons of
Cain--the dwelling in tents, workmanship in brass and iron, and the use
of musical instruments. On the other hand, the more holy of the line of
Seth handed on from one to the other the history of the blessed days of
Eden, and of God's promise, and lived upon hope and faith.

Noah, whose father had been alive in the latter years of Adam's life,
was chosen from among the descendants of Seth, to be saved out of the
general ruin of the corrupt earth, and to carry on the promise. His
faith was first tried by the command to build the ark, though for
one hundred and twenty years all seemed secure, without any token of
judgment; and the disobedient refused to listen to his preaching. When
the time came, his own family of eight persons were alone found worthy
to be spared from the destruction, together with all the animals with
them preserved in the ark, two of each kind, and a sevenfold number of
those milder and purer animals which part the hoof and chew the cud, and
were already marked out as fit for sacrifice.

It was the year 2348 B.C. that Noah spent in floating upon the waste of
waters while every living thing was perishing round him, and afterwards
in seeing the floods return to their beds in oceans, lakes, and rivers,
which they shall never again overpass.

The ark first came aground on the mountain of Ararat, in Armenia, a
sacred spot to this day; and here God made His covenant with Noah,
renewing His first blessing to Adam, permitting the use of animal food;
promising that the course of nature should never be disturbed again till
the end of all things, and making the glorious tints of the rainbow,
which are produced by sunlight upon water, stand as the pledge of this
assurance. Of man He required abstinence from eating the blood of
animals, and from shedding the blood of man, putting, as it were, a mark
of sacredness upon life-blood, so as to lead the mind on to the Blood
hereafter to be shed.

Soon a choice was made among the sons of Noah. Ham mocked at his
father's infirmity, while his two brothers veiled it; and Noah was
therefore inspired to prophesy that Canaan, the son of the undutiful
Ham, should be accursed, and a servant of servants; that Shem should
especially belong to the Lord God, and that Japhet's posterity should be
enlarged, and should dwell in the tents of Shem. Thus Shem was marked as
the chosen, yet with hope that Japhet should share in his blessings.

It seems as if Ham had brought away some of the arts and habits of the
giant sons of Cain, for in all worldly prosperity his sons had the
advantage. In 2247 B. C. the sons of men banded themselves together to
build the Tower of Babel on the plain of Shinar, just below the hills of
Armenia, where the two great rivers Euphrates and Tigris make the flats
rich and fertile. For their presumption, God confounded their speech,
and the nations first were divided. Ham's children got all the best
regions; Nimrod, the child of his son Cush, kept Babel, built the first
city, and became the first king. Canaan's sons settled themselves in
that goodliest of all lands which bore his name; and Mizraim's children
obtained the rich and beautiful valley of the Nile, called Egypt. All
these were keen clever people, builders of cities, cultivators of the
land, weavers and embroiderers, earnest after comfort and riches, and
utterly forgetting, or grievously corrupting, the worship of God. Others
of the race seem to have wandered further south, where the heat of the
sun blackened their skins; and their strong constitution, and dull meek
temperament, marked them out to all future generations as a prey to be
treated like animals of burden, so as to bear to the utmost the curse of
Canaan.

Shem's sons, simpler than those of Ham, continued to live in tents and
watch their cattle, scattered about in the same plains, called from
the two great streams, Mesopotamia, or the land of rivers. Some
travelled westwards, and settling in China and India, became a rich and
wealthy people, but constantly losing more and more the recollection of
the truth; and some went on in time from isle to isle to the western
hemisphere--lands where no other foot should tread till the world should
be grown old.

Japhet's children seemed at first the least favoured, for no place,
save the cold dreary north, was found for most of them. Some few, the
children of Javan, found a home in the fair isles of the Mediterranean,
but the greater part were wild horsemen in Northern Asia and Europe.
This was a dark and dismal training, but it braced them so that in
future generations they proved to have far more force and spirit than
was to be found among the dwellers in milder climates.

LESSON II.

THE PATRIARCHS.

"The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham."--Acts, vii. 2.

Among the sons of Shem (called Hebrews after his descendant Heber, who
dwelt in Mesopotamia) was Abram, the good and faithful man, whom God
chose out to be the father of the people in whom He was going to set His
Light. In the year 1921, He tried Abram's faith by calling on him to
leave his home, and go into a land which he knew not, but which should
belong to his children after him--Abram, who had no child at all.

Yet he obeyed and believed, and was led into the beautiful hilly land
then held by the sons of Canaan, where he was a stranger, wandering with
his flocks and herds and servants from one green pasture to another,
without a loot of land to call his own. For showing his faith by thus
doing as he was commanded, Abram was rewarded by the promise that in
his Seed should all the families of the earth be blessed; his name was
changed to Abraham, which means a father of a great multitude; and as a
sign that he had entered into a covenant with God, he was commanded to
circumcise his children.

One son, Ishmael, had by this time been born to him of the bondmaid
Hagar; but the child of promise, Isaac, the son of his wife Sarah, was
not given till he was a hundred years old. Ishmael was cast out for
mocking at his half-brother, the heir of the promises; but in answer to
his father's prayers, he too became the father of a great nation, namely
the Arabs, who still live in the desert, with their tents, their flocks,
herds, and fine horses, much as Ishmael himself must have lived. They
are still circumcised, and honour Abraham as their father; and with them
are joined the Midianites and other tribes descended from Abraham's last
wife, Keturah.

Isaac alone was to inherit the promise, and it was renewed to him and
to his father, when their faith had been proved by their submission to
God's command, that Isaac should be offered as a burnt-offering upon
Mount Moriah, a sign of the Great Sacrifice long afterwards, when God
did indeed provide Himself a Lamb.

When Abraham bought the Cave of Machpelah for a, burial-place, it was
in the full certainty that though he was now a stranger in the land, it
would be his children's home; and it was there that he and the other
patriarchs were buried after their long and faithful pilgrimage.

Isaac's wife, Rebekah, was fetched from Abraham's former home, in
Mesopotamia, that he might not be corrupted by marrying a Canaanite.
Between his two sons, Esau and Jacob, there was again a choice; for God
had prophesied that the elder should serve the younger, and Esau did not
value the birthright which would have made him heir to no lands
that would enrich himself, and to a far-off honour that he did not
understand. So despising the promises of God, he made his right over
to his brother for a little food, when he was hungry, and though he
repented with tears when it was too late, he could not win back what he
had once thrown away.

His revengeful anger when he found how he had been supplanted, made
Jacob flee to his mother's family in Mesopotamia, and there dwell for
many years, ere returning to Canaan with his large household, there to
live in the manner that had been ordained for the first heirs of the
promise. Esau went away to Mount Seir, to the south of the Promised
Land, and his descendants were called the Edomites, from his name,
meaning the Red; and so, too, the sea which washed their shores, took
the name of the Sea of Edom, or the Red Sea. They were also named
Kenites from his son Kenaz. Their country, afterwards called Idumea, was
full of rocks and precipices, and in these the Edomites hollowed
out caves for themselves, making them most beautiful, with pillars
supporting the roof within, and finely-carved entrances, cut with
borders, flowers, and scrolls, so lasting that the cities of Bosra and
Petra are still a wonder to travellers, though they have been empty
and deserted for centuries past. The Edomites did not at once lose the
knowledge of the true God; indeed, as many believe, of them was born the
prophet Job, whom Satan was permitted to try with every trouble he could
conjure up, so that his friends believed that such sufferings could only
be brought on him for some great sin; whereas he still maintained that
the ways of God were hidden, and gave utterance to one of the clearest
ancient prophecies of the Redeemer and the Resurrection. At length God
answered him from the whirlwind, and proclaimed His greatness through
His unsearchable works; and Job, for his patience in the time of
adversity, was restored to far more than his former prosperity.

Jacob's name was changed to Israel, which meant a prince before God; and
his whole family were taken into the covenant, though the three elder
sons, for their crimes, forfeited the foremost places, which passed to
Judah and Joseph; and Levi was afterwards chosen as the tribe set apart
for the priesthood, the number twelve being made up by reckoning Ephraim
and Manasseh, the sons of Joseph, as heads of tribes, like their uncles.
Long ago, Abraham had been told that his seed should sojourn in Egypt;
and when the envious sons of Israel sold their innocent brother Joseph,
their sin was bringing about God's high purpose. Joseph was inspired
to interpret Pharaoh's dreams, which foretold the famine; and when
by-and-by his brothers came to buy the corn that he had laid up, he made
himself known, forgave them with all his heart, and sent them to fetch
his father to see him once more. Then the whole family of Israel,
seventy in number, besides their wives, came and settled in the land
of Goshen, about the year 1707, and were there known by the name of
Hebrews, after Heber, the great-grand-son of Shem. There in Goshen,
Jacob ended the days of his pilgrimage, desiring his sons to carry his
corpse back to the Cave of Machpelah, there to be buried, and await
their return when the time of promise should come. He gave his blessing
to all his sons, and was inspired to mark out Joseph among them as the
one whose children should have the choicest temporal inheritance; but of
the fourth son, he said, "The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor
a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come." Shiloh meant Him
that should be sent, and Judah was thus marked out to be the princely
tribe, which was to have the rule until the Seed should come.

LESSON III.

EGYPT.

"When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of
Egypt."--_Hosea_, xi. 1.

The country where the Israelites had taken up their abode, was the
valley watered by the great river Nile. There is nothing but desert,
wherever this river does not spread itself, for it never rains, and
there would be dreadful drought, if every year, when the snow melts upon
the mountains far south, where is the source of the stream, it did not
become so much swelled as to spread far beyond its banks, and overflow
all the flat space round it. Then as soon as the water subsides, the hot
sun upon the mud that it has left brings up most beautiful grass, and
fine crops of corn with seven or nine ears to one stalk; grand fruits of
all kinds, melons, pumpkins, and cucumbers, flax for weaving linen, and
everything that a people can desire. Indeed, the water of the river is
so delicious, that it is said that those who have once tasted it are
always longing to drink it again.

The sons of Mizraim, son of Ham, who first found out this fertile
country, were a very clever race, and made the most of the riches of the
place. They made dykes and ditches to guide the floodings into their
fields and meadows; they cultivated the soil till it was one beautiful
garden; they wove their flax into fine linen; and they made bricks of
their soft clay, and hewed stone from the hills higher up the river, so
that their buildings have been the wonder of all ages since. They had
kings to rule them, and priests to guide their worship; but these
priests had very wrong and corrupt notions themselves, and let the poor
ignorant people believe even greater folly than they did themselves.

They thought that the great God lived among them in the shape of a bull
with one spot on his back like an eagle, and one on his tongue like a
beetle; and this creature they called Apis, and tended with the utmost
care. When he died they all went into mourning, and lamented till a calf
like him was found, and was brought home with the greatest honour; and
for his sake all cattle were sacred, and no one allowed to kill them.
Besides the good Power, they thought there was an evil one as strong as
the good, and they worshipped him likewise, to beg him to do them no
harm; so the dangerous crocodiles of the Nile were sacred, and it was
forbidden to put them to death. They had a dog-god and a cat-goddess,
and they honoured the beetle because they saw it rolling a ball of earth
in which to lay its eggs, and fancied it an emblem of eternity; and thus
all these creatures were consecrated, and when they died were rolled up
in fine linen and spices, just as the Egyptians embalmed their own dead.

Mummies, as we call these embalmed Egyptian corpses, are often found
now, laid up in beautiful tombs, cut out in the rock, and painted in
colours still fresh with picture writing, called hieroglyphics, telling
in tokens all the history of the person whose body they contained. The
kings built tombs for themselves, like mountains, square at the bottom,
but each course of stones built within the last till they taper to a
point at the top. These are called pyramids, and have within them very
small narrow passages, leading to a small chamber, just large enough to
hold a king's coffin.

They had enormous idols hewn out of stone. The head of one, which you
may see in the British Museum, is far taller than the tallest man, and
yet the face is really handsome, and there are multitudes more, both of
them and of their temples, still remaining on the banks of the Nile.
The children of Israel, being chiefly shepherds, kept apart from the
Egyptians at first; but as time went on they learnt some of their
habits, and many of them had begun to worship their idols and forget the
truth, when their time of affliction came. The King of Egypt, becoming
afraid of having so numerous and rich a people settled in his dominions,
tried to keep them down by hard bondage and heavy labour. He made them
toil at his great buildings, and oppressed them in every possible
manner; and when he found that they still throve and increased, he made
the cruel decree, that every son who was born to them should be cast
into the river.

But man can do nothing against the will of God, and this murderous
ordinance proved the very means of causing one of these persecuted
Hebrew infants to be brought up in the palace of Pharaoh, and instructed
in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, the only people who at that time had
any human learning. Even in his early life, Moses seems to have been
aware that he was to be sent to put an end to the bondage of his people,
for, choosing rather to suffer with them than to live in prosperity
with their oppressors, he went out among them and tried to defend them,
and to set them at peace with one another; but the time was not yet
come, and they thrust him from them, so that he was forced to fly for
shelter to the desert, among the Midianite descendants of Abraham. After
he had spent forty years there as a shepherd, God appeared to him, and
then first revealed Himself as JEHOVAH, the Name proclaiming His eternal
self-existence, I AM THAT I AM, a Name so holy, that the translators of
our Bible have abstained from repeating it where it occurs, but have put
the Name, the LORD, in capital letters in its stead. Moses was then sent
to Egypt to lead out the Israelites on their way back to the land so
long promised to their fore-fathers; and when Pharaoh obstinately
refused to let them go, the dreadful plagues and wonders that were sent
on the country were such as to show that their gods were no gods; since
their river, the glory of their land, became a loathsome stream of
blood, creeping things came and went at the bidding of the Lord, and
their adored cattle perished before their eyes. At last, on the night of
the Passover, in each of the houses unmarked by the blood of the Lamb,
there was a great cry over the death of the first-born son; and where
the sign of faith was seen, there was a mysterious obedient festival
held by families prepared for a strange new journey. Then the hard heart
yielded to terror, and Israel went oat of Egypt as a nation. They had
come in in 1707 as seventy men, they went out in 1491 as six hundred
thousand, and their enemies, following after them, sank like lead in the
mighty waters of that arm of the Red Sea, which had divided to let the
chosen pass through.

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