r. Thus he worked in very much the same kind of way
for Shinar that our own King Alfred did, thousands of years later, for
England.

This list of laws was found in 1901. They are engraved on a great
block of black marble, and are so numerous that they would fill pages
of our Bible.

They are wise and just as far as they go. There is a great deal about
buying and selling in them, and the lawful way of conducting different
kinds of business; but they are wholly different from those wonderful
Commandments which God gave to the Children of Israel three hundred
years later.

For Shinar's laws were the heathen laws of a heathen king; in them
there is no word of God; no word even of the heathen gods in which
Amraphel believed.

'_Thou shalt love the Lord thy God ... and thy neighbour as thyself._'
(Luke x. 27.) In these words Jesus Christ gives to us the true meaning
of the Commandments which Moses wrote down in our Bible.

Again, until quite lately many people were certain that there could
never have been a king like Melchizedek, the king of Salem, who came
and blessed Abraham, and of whom we read in Genesis xiv. and also in
Hebrews vii.

But among the letters found in the Foreign Office of the king of Egypt,
is one from the king of Salem. Not from Melchizedek, but from another
king of Salem, who describes himself in these words: '_I was set in my
place neither by father nor mother, but by the Mighty King_'--meaning
'by God.' Read what is said about Melchizedek in Hebrews vii. These
words show us that all the kings of Salem believed that they owed
everything to God. This is why Abraham honoured Melchizedek so highly.

'_Salem_--that is, peace. '_Jeru-salem_' means city of peace. So, as
we see from these ancient letters, Jerusalem was called the city of
peace even in the days of Abraham.

All these old records and many more Moses must surely have seen; the
cities of Canaan were as full of books as were those of Egypt and
Babylonia, for the name '_Kirjath-sepher_' (Joshua xv. 15) means 'City
of Books.'

Thus, as year by year new discoveries are made, we realize more clearly
the kind of preparation which Moses had for his great work, and the
sources from which he gathered much of his information. Yet no single
word of the Bible is copied from the heathen writings.

No; just as a man who decides to give his whole life to God to-day
uses, in the Lord's service, the knowledge he gained before he was
convert