428 THE UNTEUST WORTHINESS OF TRADITION. 



Ration of the Arabs is in the exact style of the Old Testament. 

 The name of God is coupled with every trifling incident in 

 life, and they believe in the continual action of Divine special 

 interference. Should a famine afflict the country, it is ex- 

 pressed in the stern language of the Bible, ' The Lord has sent 

 a grievous famine upon the land ;' or, ' The Lord called for a 

 famine, and it came upon the land/ Should their cattle fall 

 sick, it is considered to be an affliction by Divine command ; 

 or should the flocks prosper and multiply particularly during 

 one season, the prosperity is attributed to special interference. 

 Nothing can happen in the usual routine of daily life without 

 a direct connexion with the hand of God, in the Arab's belief. 

 "This striking similarity to the description of the Old 

 Testament is exceedingly interesting to a traveller when 

 residing among these curious and original people. "With the 

 Bible in one hand, and these unchanged tribes before the 

 eyes, there is a thrilling illustration of the sacred record : the 

 past becomes the present, the veil of three thousand years is 

 raised, and the living picture is a witness to the exactness of 

 the historical description. At the same time, there is a light 

 thrown upon many obscure passages in the Old Testament by 

 the experience of the present customs and figures of speech of 

 the Arabs, which are precisely those that were practised at 

 the periods described. I do not attempt to enter upon a theo- 

 logical treatise, therefore it is unnecessary to allude specially 

 to these particular points. The sudden and desolating arrival 

 of a flight of locusts, the plague, or any other unforeseen cala- 

 mity, is attributed to the anger of God, and is believed to be 

 an infliction of punishment upon the people thus visited, 

 precisely as the plagues of Egypt were specially inflicted upon 

 Pharaoh and the Egyptians. Should the present history of 

 the country be written by an Arab scribe, the style of the 

 description would be purely that of the Old Testament, and 

 the various calamities or the good fortunes that have in the 



