The mild climate was perhaps the most beautiful in the world, and produced the simplest needs of life with little labor on the part of the inhabitants. With fertile river valleys in addition, which furnished grazing lands, it was natural that one of the earliest grades of civilization should arise here—the shepherd folk. Although these people had a civilization that was early circumscribed, it nevertheless presupposes some cultivation. Even the shepherd state cannot exist without arts and fixed customs. The Hebrews in this shepherd state had developed family bonds and fixed the ruling power of the father in domestic life. They had domesticated animals, and developed tender feelings toward them. Let us look at the moral and mental traits due to this physical and social environment. The eye developed clearness and acuteness, a vivid sensitiveness; it saw every leaf, every blade of grass, the plains and valleys, the waters in outline and expanse, the planets and the broad ether in which they hung, and it distinguished every movement. The ear heard the delicate rustlings of branches and bows, as well as the roar of winds, the smallest raindrop, and the rush of mighty waters. Every sense was thus developed to a finesse which left no phenomenon of nature unobserved. These sense impressions were impregnated with the feelings and carrying these effects of feelings they passed onward to the mind and made mental pictures of a kind which correspond to the character of the imprint made by the feelings. Then these made-over pictures were given back to the world in the sublime language found in the Old Testament. It is in these pictures, in this investing of free nature with the power to feel, that we see the texture and depth of feeling which are an essential part of the personality of this group.