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laws of the Brahmans pointed out that the usual proportion of produce taken by the king
was a sixth part (as we have seen was the case in Egypt), but that in times of necessity he
might take one-fourth of the crop (Monier Williams, Indian Wisdom, p. 264).

We may remember also that, in the time of the Maccabees, the inhabitants of
Judea seem to have been taxed to the extent of one-third of their seed and half of their
fruit, (I Maccabees 10:30).

For a more modern illustration I asked about taxes on my first visit to Bokhara, in
1882, and received widely divergent answers in different parts of the Khanate. At one
place they said that out of ten batmans of harvest they paid eight (or four-fifths) for taxes;
and at another, four (or a half); and that, a matter of fact, the beks took more and more,
and as much as they pleased (Lansdell's Russian Central Asia, vol. 2. p. 187).

Again, in 1894, when travelling through most of the large towns of Italy, I was
told more than once that the taxes then being levied upon the people amounted to at least
20 per cent of their incomes. Given, then, a conscientious Italian paying 20 percent of his
income to the State, and, as expected by the Council of Trent, (session 25, ch. 12) another
tithe, or 10 percent, to his church, these demands, united, would be a heavier claim upon
income than the three tithes of YEHOVAH's law. Moreover, if Josephus could enjoin the
Jews to pay three tithes for their own religion, when they were paying also taxes to the
Romans, much more might the Mosaic law require three tithes under the theocracy,
especially as the payment of these procured to the Israelite not a few of the judicial,
educational, and social benefits for which other nations now pay taxes.

It would seem, then, that the Mosaic law enjoined upon the Israelite to pay yearly,
in connection with his religion, two-tenths, and, at the end of three years, a third tenth, of
his income.

Mosaic Offerings

BESIDES three tithes, properly so-called, the Pentateuch imposed other fixed
claims, both annual and occasional. Thus the Israelite was commanded:

"When ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of
thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleaning of thy harvest. And thou shalt not
glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather the fallen fruit of thy vineyard; thou
shalt leave them for the poor and for the stranger," (Leviticus 19:9-10).

Again:

"When thou reapest thine harvest in thy field, and hast forgot a sheaf in the field,
thou shalt not go again to fetch it: it shall be for the stranger, for the fatherless,
and for the widow: that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all the work of thine
hands. When though beatest thine olive tree, thou shall not go over the boughs
again . . . . When thou gatherest the grapes of thy vineyard, thou shalt not glean it