he various tribes probably had
different rites.

The general picture we must fashion in our minds of this period is of a
polytheistic, idolatrous people, slightly distinguishable from the
surrounding Semites, save as they held, in their recognition of Jehovah
and his Ten Words, the germ of a higher thought and life.

III.

_The period of the monarchy, down to the epoch of the great prophets:_ B.
C. 1100-800.

The story of the making of England may interpret to us the development
that ensued in this third period of Israel's history. We know how the
petty realms of the Angles-land, under pressure from a common foe, learned
to act momentarily together, came for a summer under some commanding
leader, drew thus into closer affiliations grouped gradually around the
more powerful realms, and at length crystallized into England. In some
such way the Hebrew tribes were slowly knit together by the necessity of
war, until to organize a lasting victory they were forced into
consolidation and out of the loose confederation of tribes arose a nation,
Israel. Social tendencies generally throw a leader to the front. The man
is not wanting for the hour. The king-maker of Israel was Samuel. A man
combining in that simple state of society several functions--priest and
judge and leader--he had the prescience to divine the need of the age, and
the wisdom to point out the man to meet it. Saul was chosen King, in free
gathering of the hardy yeomanry, and proved his human election a divine
selection by rousing the nation to new efforts, which his genius led to
victory. Saul was followed by a brief period of national unity under David
and Solomon, in which the rapid and brilliant progress made in the spread
of the kingdom, in wealth and civilization, revealed the latent powers of
this gifted race.

The progress of political and commercial greatness was stayed by the
rending of the kingdom after Solomon. No great advances were possible amid
the chronic jealousies and frequent strife of the sister kingdoms, which
were unable to come together again in a unity that would have restored
their prestige, and were unable, apart, to achieve any signal success in
diplomacy or war.

The social state of the people underwent the changes usual in this stage
of a people's history. With peace came wealth, with wealth came luxury,
with luxury new social vices, fed from the court which grew around the
monarchy. But that the heart of the people con