becoming matters of international relationship. The prophets threw
themselves heartily into the national politics, standing between the party
of Assyria and the party of Egypt, as independents concerned with the
interests of neither faction, but seeking to lift both sides above the
shifting sands of policy upon the firm ground of principle. They sought to
lead the nation to turn aside from its dazzling dream of a brilliant
foreign policy to the humbler tasks of internal reform; to induce the
State to busy itself with the labor of redressing civic disorders and of
building a community of sober, pure, and just citizens, cultivating peace
and equity with other peoples, and fearing God. They were preachers to the
corporate conscience of Israel, and dealt with subjects which the modern
pulpit effeminately shuns. In strains of pure and passionate patriotism,
they delighted to vision before the people the ideal State and its ideal
King; thus to lead the aspirations of the nation to a higher ambition
than martial prowess and diplomatic craft.

The spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,
The spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The spirit of counsel and might,
The spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the Lord,
And shall make him of quick understanding in the fear of the Lord:
And he shall not judge after the sight of his eyes,
Neither reprove after the hearing of his ears:
But with righteousness shall he judge the poor,
And reprove with equity for the meek of the earth.
And he shall smite the earth with the rod of his mouth,
And with the breath of his lips shall he slay the wicked.
And righteousness shall be the girdle of his loins,
And faithfulness the girdle of his reins.[47]

These Hebrew prophets made the right administration of public affairs the
essentially religious service which their devout student Gladstone
declares them now to be. Because of this inspiration of civic life with
religiousness, their books have become, as Coleridge called them, the
Statesman's Manual.

At this period in Israel's history the social revolution attending the
progress of all peoples from a simple to a complex organization was
entailing its usual excesses, and alarming symptoms were showing
themselves in the commonwealth. In earlier days Israel's tenure of land
had been, like that of all peoples, communistic. Proprietorship of the
land was vested in the family, and then in the village c