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It cannot but be instructive to note, that thus on the very
threshhold of history, we have two customs so opposite
brought into contrast—the one strongly condemned, the
other most awfully sanctioned. And it is the more neces-
sary to mark this, because there are many religious persons
who have by custom acquired the Egyptian notion, and
forgotten its emphatic condemnation. There are many
who, though told that certain diseases to which the more
active of the clergy are specially liable, might be prevented
and may be cured, by simply wearing the Beard, will still
insist upon their ministers paying the penalty invariably
attaching to a violation of God's laws, because their pre-
judices lead them to fancy a smooth face rather than a
manly one.
As further confirmation of our idea that the object of
this law of Moses was to prevent any of the natural fea-
tures from being materially altered—he objected not to
trimming the Beard, whioh was a common Jewish practice
—is to be found in the first verse of the 14th chapter of
Deuteronomy, where the people are commanded not to
shave their eyebrows; which was a customary mark of grief
among some bearded nations. The Jews too, unlike the
Persians and others, instead of shaving the Beard in time
of mourning—though in the violence of oriental grief they
sometimes plucked it—usually left it merely untrimmed or
veiled, till the clays of mourning were passed.
