Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1876 edition. Excerpt: ... IV. CHEIST AT THE FEAST OF TABERNACLES.* GREAT national benefits, civil, social, and religious, were conferred upon the Jews by the ordinance that three times each year the whole adult population of the country should assemble at Jerusalem. The finest seasons of the year, spring and autumn, were fixed oh for these gatherings of the people. The journeyings at such seasons of friends and neighbors, in bands of happy fellowship, must have been healthful and exhilarating. Separated as it was into clans or tribes, the frequent reunion of the entire community must have served to counteract and subdue any jealousies or divisions that might otherwise have arisen. The meeting together as children of a common progenitor, living under the same laws, heirs of the same promises, worshippers of the same John Tii. 11-52. God, must not only have cultivated the spirit of brotherhood and nationality, but have strengthened their faith and guarded from the encroachments of idolatry the worship of the country. Among the lesser advantages that these periodic assemblages brought along with them, they afforded admirable opportunities for the expression and interchange of the sentiments of the people on every subject that particularly interested them: what in our times the press and public meetings do, they did for the Jews. So far as we know, no nation of antiquity had such full and frequent means of testing and indicating the state of public feeling. Whatever topic had been engrossing the thoughts of the community would be sure to be the subject of general conversation in the capital the next time that the tribes assembled in Jerusalem. Remembering how fickle public feeling is, how difficult it is to fix it and keep it concentrated upon one subject for..."
