table distribution of the land, in fee-simple, among
the people; securing them, by the jubilee, against the introduction of
feudal tenure, and landlordism; the abolition of a standing army, and
the defense of the country by the militia; the election of all officers,
civil and military, from the town constable, and the justice of the
peace, up to the president of the republic, the Lord Jehovah himself, by
universal suffrage--and the Federal Union of the twelve tribes into one
nation, with township, county, and state governments, with a common law,
common schools, and the equality of all citizens before the law; the
right of naturalization; sanitary and social institutions, such as
modern philanthropists are only beginning to dream of, for the elevation
of the people; and all this avowedly held in trust for all mankind, as a
fountain of blessings for all the families of the earth. No such ideas
of liberty, equality, and fraternity, ever existed among the wisest
heathen nations--the Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, or Romans. On the face
of the whole earth there never was, and there is not to-day, a free
republic outside of the light and liberty of the Bible. The so-called
republics of Athens and Rome were hideous aristocracies, and tyrannies.
From the Bible the men of the Continental Congress learned the grand
truth, which they emblazoned on the forefront of their immortal
Declaration of Independence, "That all men are endowed by their Creator
with certain inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness;" thus planting the rights of man upon the only immovable
basis--the throne of the eternal God.

But there were other features of the Mosaic legislation so far in
advance of the ideas of our modern Materialism as not to have been even
yet suggested in our social congresses, nor even dreamt of by our most
advanced Christian philanthropists, in their endeavors after the
elevation of the masses. Moses' idea was the prevention of pauperism,
and of the conflict between labor and capital, and of the gambling
speculating fever, and the formation of an independent, intelligent,
joyous, religious, healthy, and thrifty people, well-bred, well-fed,
well-lodged, able to fight their foes on the battle-field, to reap their
ridge on the harvest-field, to enjoy the blessings of healthy families,
and to rejoice before the Lord. A volume would be needed to develop the
social bearings of the laws of the Hebrews. We can only sugg