you might have shamed him by recounting yours.
If he referred to the ages through which the line is traceable,
or to deeds, rank, or wealth--such allusions, except when great
occasion demands them, are tokens of small minds--if he mentioned
them in proof of his superiority, then without dread, and standing
on each particular, you might have challenged him to a comparison
of records."

Taking a moment's thought, the mother proceeded:

"One of the ideas of fast hold now is that time has much to do with
the nobility of races and families. A Roman boasting his superiority
on that account over a son of Israel will always fail when put to
the proof. The founding of Rome was his beginning; the very best
of them cannot trace their descent beyond that period; few of them
pretend to do so; and of such as do, I say not one could make good
his claim except by resort to tradition. Messala certainly could
not. Let us look now to ourselves. Could we better?"

A little more light would have enabled him to see the pride that
diffused itself over her face.

"Let us imagine the Roman putting us to the challenge. I would
answer him, neither doubting nor boastful."

Her voice faltered; a tender thought changed the form of the argument.

"Your father, O my Judah, is at rest with his fathers; yet I
remember, as though it were this evening, the day he and I,
with many rejoicing friends, went up into the Temple to present
you to the Lord. We sacrificed the doves, and to the priest I gave
your name, which he wrote in my presence--'Judah, son of Ithamar,
of the House of Hur.' The name was then carried away, and written
in a book of the division of records devoted to the saintly family.

"I cannot tell you when the custom of registration in this mode
began. We know it prevailed before the flight from Egypt. I have
heard Hillel say Abraham caused the record to be first opened with
his own name, and the names of his sons, moved by the promises
of the Lord which separated him and them from all other races,
and made them the highest and noblest, the very chosen of the
earth. The covenant with Jacob was of like effect. 'In thy seed
shall all the nations of the earth be blessed'--so said the angel to
Abraham in the place Jehovah-jireh. 'And the land whereon thou liest,
to thee will I give it, and to thy seed'--so the Lord himself said
to Jacob asleep at Bethel on the way to Haran. Afterwards the wise
men looked forward to a just division of the