eaten the meat and drunk the milk which Abraham set before him
under the oaks of Mamre, to lead him to hesitate--even to wait
twelve or fourteen hours for a repetition of the command? Not a
whit. We are told that "Abraham rose early in the morning" and
led his only child to the slaughter, as if it were the most
ordinary business imaginable. Whether the story has any
historical foundation or not, it is valuable as showing that the
writer of it conceived Jahveh as a deity whose requirement of
such a sacrifice need excite neither astonishment nor suspicion
of mistake on the part of his devotee. Hence, when the incessant
human sacrifices in Israel, during the age of the kings, are put
down to the influence of foreign idolatries, we may fairly
inquire whether editorial Bowdlerising has not prevailed over
historical truth.

An attempt to compare the ethical standards of two nations, one
of which has a written code, while the other has not, is beset
with difficulties. With all that is strange and, in many cases,
repulsive to us in the social arrangements and opinions
respecting moral obligation among the Tongans, as they are
placed before us, with perfect candour, in Mariner's account,
there is much that indicates a strong ethical sense. They showed
great kindliness to one another, and faithfulness in standing by
their comrades in war. No people could have better observed
either the third or the fifth commandment; for they had a
particular horror of blasphemy, and their respectful tenderness
towards their parents and, indeed, towards old people in
general, was remarkable.

It cannot be said that the eighth commandment was generally