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288 THE CURIOUS LORE OF PRECIOUS STONES
practical result of this modern experiment is a clever oracle which, will probably enjoy a certain vogue.
For
those who, with the late lamented Lieutenant Totten, see in the tribes
of Manasseh and Ephraim the Anglo-Saxons of England and the United
States, and who look upon George V as the king who sits upon the throne
of David, these symbolical stones of the breastplate acquire an added
significance. While not pretending to be able to follow all the
intricate and certainly most ingenious and interesting speculations of
this school of Biblical exegesis, we cannot help expressing some
astonishment that Ephraim should be thought to prefigure England and
Manasseh the United States, instead of vice versa. In Gen.
xlviii, 17-20, the text more especially referred to in these
speculations, Jacob's blessing is bestowed upon Ephraim, in spite of
Joseph's protest that it should go to the eldest son, Manasseh.
To this protest Jacob answers: "I know it, my son, I know it : he also
[Manasseh] shall become a people, and he also shall be great: but truly
his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his seed shall become
a multitude of nations." Certainly the very composite population of the
United States perfectly merits this description. As a general rule, the
Hebrews, when using the names Ephraim and Manasseh as tribal
designations, maintained the twelve-fold division of the people, by
substituting these tribes for Joseph and by dropping the name of Levi
from the list, the tribe of Levi being assigned as priests to the care
of the sanctuary, and not participating in the division of the Land of
Promise.
In
the Midrash Bemidbar, the Babbinical commentary on Numbers, the tribes
are given in their order, with the stone appropriate to each and the
color of the tribal standard pitched in the desert camp, this color
corre-
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