Charlotte M. Yonge

“ The Covenant with Abraham had circumcision for the token, faith as the condition, and the blessing to all nations as the promise. This Covenant remained in full force, but in the course of the last four hundred years, sin had grown so much that the old standard, handed down from the patriarchs, had been forgotten, and men would not have known what was right, nor how far they fell from it, without a written Law. This Law, in ten rules, all meeting together in teaching Love to God and man, commanded in fact perfection, without which no man could be fit to stand in the sight of God. ”

“ God of angels and of powers, God of all creatures, and of the just who live in Thy Presence, I thank Thee that Thou hast brought me to this day and hour, when I may take part in the number of the martyrs in the Cup of Thy Christ, to rise to the eternal life of soul and body in the incorruption of the Holy Spirit. May I be received into Thy Presence with them as an acceptable offering, as Thou hast prepared and foretold, Thou the true God Who canst not lie. ”

“ Alexander next passed on to Egypt, where he built, at the mouth of the Nile, the famous city that still is called by his name, Alexandria; indeed he founded cities everywhere, and made more lasting changes than ever did conqueror in the short space of twelve years. He then hunted Darius into the mountain parts of the north of Persia, and after two more victories, the Greeks found the poor Persian king dying on the ground, from wounds given by his own subjects. So the soft silver of Persia yielded to the brazen might of Greece. ”

“ The son of Constantius, Constantine, became emperor in 307. He was in doubt between the two religions; he saw that Christianity made people good, and yet he could not quite leave off believing in the heathen gods, and was afraid of neglecting them. As he was passing the Alps to put down a very powerful and cruel tyrant, who had made himself master of Italy, he and all his army suddenly beheld in the sky, at mid-day, a bright light shaped like a cross, and in glorious letters round it, the Latin words meaning, "In this sign thou shalt conquer." ”

“ The miry clay which Nebuchadnezzar saw mixed with the iron of Rome, had by the end of the fourth century nearly overcome the strong metal, and the time had come when the great horn of the devouring beast was to be broken off, and give place to ten others. The Romans for the last two hundred years had been growing more and more selfish and easy in their habits; and instead of fighting their own battles, had called in strangers to fight for them, till these strangers became too strong for them. ”

“ Mahomet blasphemously pretended to be as much greater a prophet than our Lord, as our Lord was than Moses. He ordered prayers and fastings and washings at set times, forbade the least drop of wine to be touched, and commanded that not only no image should be adored, but that no likeness of any created thing should exist, promising that all who strictly obeyed all these rules, should be led safely over a bridge, consisting of a single hair, and enter into a delicious garden, full of fruits, flowers, and fountains, there to be waited on by beautiful women. ”

“ The empire was again divided into two parts, which were held by two brothers. Valentinian, who had the eastern half, was an Arian; and Valens, who ruled at Rome, was a Catholic. Though all the empire was Christian, still there were sad disputes; for many had fallen away into the heresy, and there was so great a love of arguing in a light careless manner in market-places, baths, feasts, and places of common resort, that it was a great distress to the truly devout to hear the most sacred mysteries discoursed of so freely. ”

“ Athens was no longer a powerful city, but it served as a sort of college for all the youths of the Roman Empire who wished to be highly educated; and it was full of philosophers, who spent their time in the porticos and groves, arguing on questions of their own—such as whether, this life being all of which they were sure, it was best to live well or to live in pleasure. The Stoics were the philosophers who upheld the love of virtue and honour ”

“ When Moses had led the 600,000 men, with their wives, children, and cattle, beyond the reach of the Egyptians, they were in a small peninsula, between the arms of the Red Sea, with the wild desolate peaks of Mount Horeb towering in the midst, and all around grim stony crags, with hardly a spring of water; and though there were here and there slopes of grass, and bushes of hoary-leaved camel-thorn, and long-spined shittim or acacia, nothing bearing fruit for human beings. ”

“ The inhabitants were a stern, earnest, brave, honest set of men; not great thinkers like the Greeks, but great doers, and caring for nothing so much as for their city and her honour. They thought their own lives and happiness as nothing in comparison with Rome; and all the free citizens had a share in the government, so that their city's concerns were their own. Their religion seems in early times to have been more solemn and grave than that of the Greeks. Jupiter was their chief god, the King of gods and men, who held thunderbolts in his hand, and they had eleven other principal gods ”

“ The Saracens, who had not been unkind to the pilgrims, were subdued by a much fiercer set of Mahometans, the Turcomans, who did everything to profane the holy places, and robbed and misused the Christians who came to worship there. The news of this profanation stirred up all Europe to deliver the Sanctuary from the unbeliever. Monks went about preaching the holy war, and multitudes took the cross, that is, fastened on their shoulder one cut out in cloth, and vowed to win back Jerusalem. ”

“ 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 ”

“ LESSON XXXI. THE MIDDLE AGES. "Surely the isles shall wait for Me."—Isaiah, ix. 9.
It is not easy to make out exactly the ten kingdoms to which the Roman dominion was said in Daniel to give place, because sometimes one flourished, sometimes another; sometimes one was swallowed up, sometimes a fresh one sprang forth; but there can be no doubt that the ten horns mean the powers of Europe, which have always been somewhere about that number ever since the conquest by the Teuton nations. ”

“ They taught so many false stories as articles of faith, that at last clever people, wise in their own conceit, began to believe nothing, and became like the fool who said in his heart, "There is no God." ”

“ So he stood at the head of all the Archbishops and Bishops, Abbots and clergy, of the west; and whenever a difficulty arose, it was sent to him to be settled. He ruled likewise over the consciences of all men and women. If they sinned, the being cut off from the Church, excommunicated, as it was called, was the most terrible punishment that could befall them; and if a king or country were very wicked indeed, the Pope could lay them under an interdict, namely, deprive them of every office of religion, shut up the church doors, and forbid all service. ”

“ Cyrus was the son of a Persian king and Median princess, and had been so well brought up at home, that when as a little boy he visited his grandfather at Echatana, in Media, he was very much shocked to see the court drinking to intoxication, and said wine must be poison, since it made people lose their senses; and he was much puzzled by the hosts of slaves who would not let people do anything for themselves. He thought only those who were old and helpless could like being waited on, and he kept these hardy, simple ways, even after he was a great king over both nations. ”

“ Everywhere the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, and the Ten Commandments, in the vulgar tongue, are being taught, and each convert is gathered in by baptism and fed by the Holy Eucharist, as when the apostles first went forth; and no one can mark the great spread of the Church within the last fifty years, without feeling that the blessing of God is with her. The Greek Church has done less; but though still enslaved in Turkey, in Greece she is free, and the yoke of the Mahometan is there shaken off, after her long patience and constancy. ”

“ Herod escaping, went to Rome, where he represented his case so ably, that Augustus and Antony gave him men and money that he might drive out Antigonus, and promised that he should himself be king under them. The Roman army helped him to win back the country; and as the caves in the hills were full of robbers, he let down soldiers in boxes over the face of the precipices, and thus contrived to destroy them all. After a siege of six months he took Jerusalem, and Antigonus surrendered to the Romans, who kept him prisoner for some time, and then, at Herod's entreaty, put him to death. ”

“ 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. ”

“ They have ever been loathed and persecuted by the nations where their lot has been cast, ever craving for their lost home, ever hoping for the Messiah of their own fancy. Still they keep their Sabbath on the seventh day; still they follow the rules of clean and unclean; and on each Friday, such as still live at Jerusalem sit with their faces to the wall, and lift up their voice in mournful wailing for their desolation. Their goodly land lies waste, the sky above like brass, the earth beneath like iron ”

“ Aristobulus, the son of Hyrcanus, was called King, as well as High Priest of the Jews; but the mixture of worldly policy with the sacred office did not suit well, and the Asmonean Kings were not like their fathers, the Maccabees. Still their courage and steadiness made the Jews much respected; and the Greeks and Romans around them began to read their books, and there were some few who perceived that the religion, there taught, was purer than idolatry, and wiser than the beat philosophy. ”

“ To Bethlehem came the mysterious wise men from the east. They had been led by the star to Jerusalem, and were there directed on by the scribes, learned in the prophecies; but their inquiries had alarmed Herod's jealousy, and he sent forth the savage order, that the babes of Bethlehem should all be murdered, in hopes of cutting off the new-born King of the Jews; but while the mothers wept for the children who should come again to them in a better inheritance, the Holy One was safe in Egypt, whither Joseph had carried Him, by the warning of God. ”

“ A little altar for sacrifice to Jupiter was raised on the true altar, the Temple was dedicated to Jupiter, as was also that of the Samaritans on Mount Gerizim, the Sabbath was abolished, so was circumcision, and on the day of the king's birth, in each month, the Jews were forced to eat swine's flesh, and partake of idol sacrifices, and, at the feast of the god of wine, to carry ivy in the mad drunken processions in his honour.
It was the most utter misery that had yet befallen the Jews. Temple, Priesthood, all gone! "We see not our tokens; there is not one prophet more;" ”

“ But the founder of the dominion of the ten tribes sowed the seeds of decay, because, like Saul, he would not trust to the God who had given him his crown. He was afraid his subjects would return to the kings of the House of David, if he let them go to worship at Jerusalem, and therefore revived the old symbol of a calf, which he must have seen in Egypt in his exile, setting up two shrines at Bethel and at Dan, the two ends of his kingdom, bidding his people go thither to offer sacrifice. Thus he made Israel to sin; and while hoping to strengthen his power, was the cause of its ruin. ”