The Essenes are described by the Rev. Dr Ginsburg, whose authority I follow (_The Essenes_. Longmans, London, 1864), as a Jewish sect of singular piety. They did not sacrifice animals, but endeavoured to make their own minds holy--fit for an acceptable offering to Jehovah. They provided themselves with just enough for the necessities of life, and held such goods as they possessed, e.g., clothes and cloaks, in common. They only allowed themselves to converse on such parts of philosophy as concern God and man. They abhorred slavery, but each served his neighbour. They respected the Sabbath. Their fundamental laws were, to love God, to love virtue, and to love mankind. They affected to despise money, fame, pleasures, professed the most strict chastity, or, rather, continence, and they practised endurance as a duty. They also cultivated simplicity, cheerfulness, modesty, and order. They lived together in the same houses and villages, and sustained the poor, the sick, and the aged. When they earned wages the money was paid to a common stock. They did not marry, or have children; but if any of their body chose to wed, there was nothing in the regulations to prevent their doing so, only they then had to enter another class of the brotherhood. When possible, they worked all day. They were highly respected by those who knew them, and were frequently receiving additions to their number. They seem to have resembled, in their habits and customs, a fraternity of monks of a working, rather than a mendicant, order. Pleasure they regarded as an evil, having a tendency to enchain man to earthly enjoyments, a peculiarly Buddhist tenet. Still further, they considered the use of ointment as defiling, which was certainly not a Hebraic doctrine; but they dressed decently. They prayed devoutly before sunrise; but until the orb had risen they never spoke of worldly matters. They gave thanks, and prayed before and after eating; and ere they entered the refectory bathed in pure water. The food provided was just sufficient to keep them alive. When a person wished to enter the community, he underwent a period of trial, and, if approved, he proceeded to take an oath--"to fear God; to be just towards all men; never to wrong anyone; to detest the wicked, and love the righteous; to keep faith with all men; not to be proud; not to try and outshine his neighbours in any matter; to love truth, and to try and reclaim all liars; never to steal or to cajole; never to conceal anything from the brotherhood, and to be reticent with outsiders." The Essenes reverenced Moses, and so great was their respect for the Sabbath, that they would not ease nature on that day. They bore all tortures with perfect equanimity, and fully believed in a future state of existence, in which the soul, liberated from the body, rejoices, and mounts upwards to a paradise, where there are no storms, no cold, and no intense heat, and where all are constantly refreshed by gentle ocean breezes.