the Semitic stock. Its first settlers--those who had founded its cities,
who had invented the cuneiform system of writing and originated its
culture--were of a wholly different race, and spoke an agglutinative
language which had no resemblance to that of the Semites. They had,
however, been conquered and their culture absorbed by the Semitic
Babylonians and Assyrians of later history, and the civilisation and
culture which had spread throughout western Asia was a Semitic
modification and development of the older culture of Chaldæa. Its
elements, indeed, were foreign, but long before it had been communicated
to the nations of the west it had become almost completely Semitic in
character. The Babylonian conquerors of Canaan were Semites, and the art
and trade, the law and literature they brought with them were Semitic
also.

In passing, therefore, from Babylonia to Canaan, Abraham was but passing
from one part of the Babylonian empire to another. He was not migrating
into a strange country, where the government and civilisation were alike
unknown, and the manners and customs those of another world. The road he
traversed had been trodden for centuries by soldiers and traders and
civil officials, by Babylonians making their way to Canaan, and by
Canaanites intending to settle in Babylonia for the sake of trade.
Harran, the first stage on his journey, bore a Babylonian name, and its
great temple of the Moon-god had been founded by Babylonian princes
after the model of the temple of the Moon-god at Ur, the birthplace of
the patriarch. Even in Canaan itself the deities of Babylonia were
worshipped or identified with the native gods. Anu the god of the sky,
Rimmon the god of the air, Nebo the interpreter and prophet of
Bel-Merodach, were all adored in Palestine, and their names were
preserved to later times in the geography of the country. Even
Ashtoreth, in whom all the other goddesses of the popular cult came to