A Lawyer s Studies in Biblical Law. a man may disinherit his children and give his estate to strangers. This under the ancient Jewish law was impossible. Children could not be disinherited, and even if the land had been sold by the father, it reverted to the family in the year of the Jubilee. To discover the rudiments of the modern last will and testament in the Bible requires a comparative study of an cient legal institutions. Sir Henry Maine helps us again in this point. He has shown in his usual perspicuous fashion how the modern last will was developed from the an cient Roman testament and how in the course of time the modern will acquired characteristics directly the reverse of those of the ancient will. Three principal charac teristics are to be noted : First, that it takes effect only on the death of the testator; sec ond, that it is secret as long as the testator is living; and third, that it is revocable by him at his pleasure. The old Roman will had none of these characteristics. It took effect during the testator's life time, was public and irrevocable. Sir Henry Maine failed to observe the striking resemblance between the ancient Roman will and the gift of an inheritance among the Hebrews. He, like many others, although a profound scholar and a careful student, was not sufficiently familiar with the science of ethnological jurisprudence which has grown up among the German scholars, the study of which might have led him to still greater generali zations than those which first stirred the scientific world in his "Ancient Law." There is probably no custom or phase of social and legal development which is unique, and it is not too much to say that every institution of the world has been developed among more than one people. There is perhaps no one of the institutions of the Hebrews which is not found among some other people, and it is only by a broad and comprehensive view of the whole field of jurisprudence and its mani festations among all peoples that a truly
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scientific view of the Jewish law and of cus toms and institutions may be obtained. It is for these reasons that nearly all of the work done in this field thus far is of little or no value. Jewish history and Jewish law have been treated as though they were un ique phenomena in the world. But sociol ogy and comparative jurisprudence present result of development and growth similar to that which produced other systems, al to us the most irresistable evidence thai the customs and laws of th'e Hebrews were the though in its details and in its final shape the system of the Jews may have many points of differentiation. The beginning of testamentary disposition of estates may be seen in the famous episode of the blessing of Jacob by his father Isaac. Jacob stood before his father and Isaac blessed him saying, "God give thee of the dew of heaven and the fatness of the earth and plenty of corn and wine: let people serve thee; be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee: cursed be every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he that blesseth thee." (Genesis 27: 28-29.) This was the blessing which must be read, not as a mere sentimental outburst of the father's feeling, but as having some formal significance, whereby Isaac blessed his son; that is to say, made him the heir before he died. Now, after Jacob left, having obtained the blessing by a fraud, Esau came in, and when the fraud was discovered, both Isaac and Esau were overwhelmed. They both felt that the words which had gone forth were irrevocable. All that Isaac could say was, "Thy brother came with subtility and hath taken away the blessing." It seems that it ought to have been easy enough for Isaac to revoke the portion of the blessing by which he made Jacob lord over his breth ren, yet Isaac seems to have been bound by his own words, for in reply to Esau's appeal for a blessing, Isaac answered, "Behold I have made him thy lord, and all his brethren
