=2. The Early Morality.=--The accounts of the tribal life and customs in the early period after the settlement in Canaan, show the main features of group life which are already familiar to us. Clan or kinship loyalty was strong on both its good and its defective sides. There were fidelity, a jeoparding of lives unto death, honor for group heroes, joint responsibility, and blood revenge. There were respect for hospitality and regulation of marriage, though not according to later standards. A rough measure of justice was recognized in "as I have done, so God hath requited me." But there was no public authority to restrain the wrongdoer, except when a particularly revolting brutality shocked public sentiment. Festivals and sacrificial meals united the members of the family or clan more closely to each other and to their god. Vows must be kept inviolable even if they involved human sacrifice. The interests and ends of life were simple. The satisfaction of bodily wants, the love of kin and above all of children, the desire to be in right relation of favor and harmony with the unseen deity who protected from enemies and sent fruitful seasons,--these made their chief good. The line of their progress from these rude beginnings to a lofty moral ideal lay through religion. But the religious conceptions were directly related to political, social, and economic conditions; hence, both aspects must be briefly characterized. =3. Political Development.=--The political development (a) built up a national unity which worked to break down old group units, (b) strengthened military ambition and race pride, (c) stimulated the prophets to their highest conceptions of the divine majesty and universality, but, finally when the national power and hope were shattered, (d) compelled the most thoroughgoing reconstruction of all the values, ideals, and meaning of life. It is not possible or necessary to trace this process in detail, but we may point out here the general effect of the political development in bringing into clearer consciousness the conceptions of authority and law which were important factors in Hebrew morality. The earlier patriarchal head of the clan or family exercised certain political power, but there was no explicit recognition of this. Government by the "elders" or by the heads of the household makes no clear distinction between the common kinship and the political and legal authority of the sovereign. The "judges," whose rule preceded the kingdom, were military deliverers who owed their authority to personal powers rather than to a definite provision. To establish an organized political community, a kingdom, was then to bring into clearer recognition this element of authority which was merely implicit in the tribal organization. It allowed a more distinctly voluntary relationship to be differentiated from the involuntary relationship of kinship, or the personal relationship of the hero. While, therefore, in the