crises in their history, Jehovah was guiding his people and
giving them not only food and water, but also that training in the
school of danger and privation which was essential for their
highest development.

Even more insistent than the constant struggle for food and water
were the dangers that came from the hostile tribes which already
occupied this much-contested territory. For the possession of the
springs and pasture lands they fought with the energy and craft
that characterize the Bedouin tribes to-day. Hence, to the
Hebrews, fresh from the fertile fields of Egypt, their life in the
wilderness represented constant hardship, privation, suffering and
danger.

II.

INFLUENCE OV THE NOMADIC LIFE UPON ISRAEL'S CHARACTER AND IDEALS.

The wilderness left a stamp upon Hebrew character and life that may
be traced even to-day in the later descendants of that race. It
tightened their muscles and gave them that physical virility which
has enabled them to survive even amidst the most unfavorable
conditions. It taught them how to subsist on the most meagre food
supply and to thrive where the citizen of a more prosperous land
would inevitably starve.

It is probable that in their early nomadic experiences the Hebrews
acquired those migratory habits which, intensified by unwonted
vicissitudes, have carried them to almost every civilized land. In
the wilderness they also learned the art of nomadic warfare which,
to win victories, depended not so much upon open attack as upon
strategy. The common dangers of the wilderness life tightened the
racial and religious bonds that held them together. Only by the
closest union could they resist the perils that beset them. Upon
the complete devotion of each man to the interest of the tribe hung
his fate, as well as that of the community as a whole. Hence arose
that devotion to race, that readiness to avenge every wrong and to
protect each individual, even if it cost the life-blood of the
tribe, which is illustrated in many of the stories that come from
this early period. How far has this racial characteristic survived?

In a community thus closely bound together the morality of each
individual was guarded with a jealousy unknown in more settled
prosperous communities. Thus, for example, adultery from the first
appears to have been punished by public stoning. How far has this
characteristic survived to the glory of the Jewish race?

The tribal organization also cherish