1. First, of ancient Oriental life. In a previous chapter it was said that behind Palestine looms Arabia and beneath the Jew is the Arab. From before the dawn of history the immense grass-lands of Arabia have been peopled by small nomadic tribes who derived a sufficient livelihood from the flocks they possessed and followed. All the organised life of the Semitic races, with whom alone we are here concerned, has its instincts rooted in this nomadic existence, about which much might profitably be said; but only one point is essential, and to that our remarks will be confined. It is that these pastoral communities have solved the problem of life under existing circumstances. The rigid limitations of their physical surroundings dictates a narrow circle of ambitions beyond which they do not pass, so long as the conditions remain unchanged. For not only have they discovered how to live, but they have found out the best way of living, within their simple, monotonous world. Therefore they continue, but they do not change. Progress was practically unthought of, certainly undesired; and in fact the life of the modern Bedouin of Arabia is still in its essentials the same as that depicted in the _Book of Genesis_. But about 3000 B.C., for the first time though not the last time in history, Arabia became overcrowded, in the sense that its pasturage was insufficient to sustain the population, and multitudes of nomads, hunger-driven, poured forth into the fertile territories bordering the deserts. There the arts of agriculture and of building were learnt, settled communities formed, tribal organisation yielded to larger groups, kingdoms arose, and eventually great empires. But the civilised life of the Semites proved to be as lacking in the instinct for progress, whether material, moral or intellectual, as in its simpler way the original pastoral existence has been. Life in Semitic towns became richer and more complex up to a certain point, but there ambition faded, and the ingrained habit of acquiescence in existing circumstances prevailed, hindering and preventing further growth. Thus, politically, this eastern civilisation was characterised by the mass of the people seeking no share in their own government. They were content to be ruled by authorities whom they seldom created and never effectively controlled. It has been truly said that the kings of the East fought over the heads of their subjects. The affairs of a baker in Jerusalem, a merchant in Gaza, a craftsman in Tyre (provided the victorious army left him alive) were unaltered by the rise and fall of his rulers. To the bulk of the inhabitants of the Palestinian towns it mattered little whether they were temporarily independent or were under the heel now of Babylon, now of Egypt, now of Persia. Men hoped for no more than that trade should be possible, food obtainable, and that the injustice in the realm should be--not abolished (no one was so mad as to entertain