That their condition was evil must be fully believed if they were condemned by the executive of the Jewish law. This law, it will be remembered, permitted polygamy, slavery, revenge, aggressive war. The Jews were expected to rob their neighbors the Egyptians of jewels, and they were allowed “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” They were expected to butcher other nations, with their women and children, their flocks and their herds. If we look at the lives of men recorded in the Old Testament as examples of distinguished excellence, we find that their standard, however superior to that of the people around them, would ill accord with the morality of the present day. They were all polygamists, slaveholders and warriors. Abraham treated Hagar and Ishmael with inhumanity. Jacob, with his mother’s aid, deceived Isaac, and received thereby a blessing which extended to the whole Jewish nation. David, a man whom Paul tells us the Lord found to be after his own heart, slew the messenger who brought tidings of the death of Saul, and committed other acts which would stain the reputation of a Christian beyond redemption. It is scarcely necessary to turn to other nations if this be true of the chosen men of a chosen people. History indeed presents us with no people prior to, or contemporary with, the Jews who were not morally their inferiors. If we turn to more modern periods, an examination of the morality of Greece and Rome reveals a curious intermixture of lower and higher moral conditions. While each of these nations produced excellent moralists, the influence of their teachings was not sufficient to elevate the masses above what would now be regarded as a very low standard. The popularity of those scenes of cruelty, the gladiatorial shows and the combats with wild beasts, sufficiently attests this. The Roman virtue of patriotism, while productive of many noble deeds, is in itself far from being a disinterested one, but partakes rather of the nature of partisanship and selfishness. If the Greeks were superior to the Romans in humanity, they were apparently their inferiors in the social virtues, and were much below the standard of Christian nations in both respects.