xix. THE BLOOD OF THE PASCHAL LAMB. 335 



that the primary reasons upon which it was founded 

 could not have been known to Moses himself at the 

 time, and have now only, after the lapse of three 

 thousand years, been discovered by careful scientific 

 research. In some respects this ancient legislation on 

 sanitary matters is* far superior to our boasted modern 

 efforts in that direction. We find all our improvements 

 anticipated, and carried out with a systematic faithful- 

 ness which leaves our sanitation boards far behind. In 

 proof of the thoroughness of the Levitical laws of 

 purity and food, the Jews can point to the superior 

 healthiness of their nation during the whole period of its 

 history. From an actuary's point of view, the life of a 

 modern Jew who still conforms to the Mosaic legis- 

 lation, and who has inherited a constitution from a long 

 line of ancestors bound by their very religion to use all 

 precautions to preserve their health and purity is of 

 higher value than that of his Gentile neighbour, whose 

 blood has been contaminated by long centuries of 

 neglect. 



There is every reason to believe that the last plague 

 of Egypt, which destroyed all the first-born of the land, 

 and gathered up in itself in increased intensity and 

 meaning all the others, was some zymotic disease, or 

 epidemic of a peculiarly deadly character. All the 

 other plagues were natural to the land. As each was 

 aimed at some peculiar feature of the wide-spread 

 Egyptian idolatry, so each was in the line of the 

 natural phenomena of the country. The conversion 

 of the water of the Nile into blood was in accordance 



