Vow may be defined as a religious undertaking, either, 1. Positive, to do or perform; 2. or Negative, to abstain from doing or performing a certain thing. The morality of vows we shall not here discuss, but merely remark that vows were quite in place in a system of religion which so largely consisted of doing or not doing certain outward acts, with a view of pleasing Jehovah and gaining his favor. The Israelite, who had been taught by performances of daily recurrence to consider particular ceremonies as essential to his possessing the divine favor, may easily have been led to the conviction which existed probably in the primitive ages of the world, that voluntary oblations and self-imposed sacrifices had a special value in the sight of God. And when once this conviction had led to corresponding practice, it could not be otherwise than of the highest consequence that these sacred promises, which in sanctity differed little from oaths, should be religiously and scrupulously observed. Vows, which rest on a human view of religious obligations, assuming as they do that a kind of recompense is to be made to God for good enjoyed, or consideration offered for good desiderated, or a gratuity presented to buy off an impending or threatened ill, are found in existence in the antiquities of all nations, and present themselves in the earliest Biblical periods (;;; ). With great propriety the performance of these voluntary undertakings was accounted a highly religious duty (; ). The words of the last vow are too emphatic, and in the present day too important, not to be cited: 'Better is it that thou shouldest not vow, than that thou shouldest vow and not pay' (comp. , sq.; 76:11; 116:18). The views which guided the Mosaic legislation were not dissimilar to those just expounded. Like a wise lawgiver, Moses, in this and in other particulars, did not attempt to sunder the line of continuity between the past and the present. He found vows in practice; he aimed to regulate what it would have been folly to try to root out (, sq.). The words in are clearly in agreement with our remarks: 'If thou shalt forbear to vow, it shall be no sin in thee.'
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John Kitto was an English biblical scholar of Cornish descent.Born in Plymouth, John Kitto was a sickly child, son of a Cornish stonemason. The drunkenness of his father and the poverty of his family meant that much of his childhood was spent in the workhouse. He had no more than three years of erratic and interrupted education. At the age of twelve John Kitto fell on his head from a rooftop, and became totally and permanently deaf. As a young man he suffered further tragedies, disappointments and much loneliness. His height was 4 ft 8 in, and his accident left him with an impaired sense of balance. He found consolation in browsing at bookstalls and reading any books that came his way.
From these hardships he was rescued by friends who became aware of his mental abilities and encouraged him to write topical articles for local newspapers, arranging eventually for him to work as an assistant in a local library. Here he continued to educate himself.
One of his benefactors was the Exeter dentist Anthony Norris Groves, who in 1824 offered him employment as a dental assistant. Living with the Groves family, Kitto was profoundly influenced by the practical Christian faith of his employer. In 1829 he accompanied Groves on his pioneering mission to Baghdad and served as tutor to Groves's two sons. In 1833 Kitto returned to England via Constantinople, accompanied by another member of the Groves mission, Francis William Newman. Shortly afterwards he married, and in due course had several children.
A London publisher asked Kitto to write up his travel journals for a series of articles in the Penny Magazine, a publication read at that time by a million people in Britain, reprinted in America and translated into French, German and Dutch. Other writing projects followed as readers enquired about his experiences in the East amidst people living in circumstances closely resembling those of Bible times.
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