A GUIDE 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION OF 
 JEWISH YOUTH.
 
 A GUIDE 
 
 FOB 
 
 THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION OF 
 JEWISH YOUTH. 
 
 PROPOSED TO TEACHERS BY 
 
 ISAAC REGGIO, 
 
 RABBI AND PROFESSOR, 
 
 MEMBER OF THE ORIENTAL AND SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES OF LEIPSIC, HALLE, 
 ETC., ETC., ETC. 
 
 TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN 
 
 M. H. PICCIOTTO. 
 
 LONDON: 
 SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, AND CO., 
 
 STATIONERS'- HALL COURT.
 
 LOKDOH: 
 
 1'KINTED BY .1. WEB.THE1MER AND CO. 
 CIRCUS PLACE, FINSJ1UK.Y CIRCUS.
 
 SYNOPSIS. 
 
 Notice by the Translator. Author's Preface. 
 
 CHAPTKR I. 
 GOD. 
 
 1. His existence. Cosmological 4. All-wise, good, pure, iin- 
 
 argument. mutable. 
 
 2. First Cause, necessary,eter- 5. God. 
 
 6. Psychological argument. 
 
 3. Omnipotent, free, provi- ?> Mopal ^.g^ent. 
 
 dent, omniscient, infal- 
 lible. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 MAN. 
 
 8. His faculties. 14. Double tendency. 
 
 9. His destination. 15. Contrast. 
 
 10. Intellect. 16. Choice. 
 
 11. Reason. 17. Conscience. 
 
 12. Freewill. J8. Feeling. 
 
 13. Immortal soul. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 NATURAL RELIGION. 
 
 19. Idea of religion. 21. Faith. 
 
 20. Necessity for man.
 
 VI SYNOPSIS. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 INSUFFICIENCY OF NATURAL RELIGION. 
 
 22. Obstacles. 28. Limitation of human un- 
 
 23. Tardy development of rea- derstanding. 
 
 son. 29. Uncertainty of human 
 
 24. Ascendancy of sensuality. knowledge. 
 
 25. Want of opportunity. 30 - Experience. 
 
 26. Social life. 3L Nec essity of a revelation. 
 
 27. Internal anarchy. 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 REVEALED RELIGION. 
 
 32. Its actuality. 36. Divine plan. 
 
 33. Its truth. 37. Essence of revelation. 
 
 34. Its fundamental principle. 38. Lofty aspiration of man. 
 
 35. Relation between God and 39. Prophecy. 
 
 man - 40. Prediction of the future. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 OBJECTION AND ANSWER. 
 
 41. Rationalism antagonistic to 46. Is the cause of faith. 
 
 47. Is not the offspring of ima- 
 
 42. Self-love in the physical gination. 
 
 wor ld. 48. Depends on the subjection 
 
 43. Self-love in man. of the sensual appetites. 
 
 44. Heroism of man. 49. Furnishes evidence to faith. 
 
 45. Proceeding from love. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 PRELIMINARY DISPOSITIONS OF REVELATION. 
 
 50. Contingency in revelation. 53. Beginning from an indi- 
 
 51. Its removal. duaL 
 
 52. Choice of a portion of man- 54 - Election of that individual. 
 
 kind.
 
 SYNOPSIS. Vll 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 PATRIARCHAL EPOCH. 
 
 55. Abraham. 59. Circumcision. 
 
 56. His virtues. 60 Abraham's progeny. 
 
 57. Aim of his vocation. 
 
 61. Providential measures. 
 08. Covenant established with 
 
 him. 
 
 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 SINAITIC REVELATION. 
 
 62. Egyptian bondage. Moses. 64. Modality of the revelatio n 
 
 63. Preamble of the revelation. 65. Decalogue. 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 THE TEN COMMANDMENTS. 
 
 66. First Commandment, 71. Sixth, Seventh, and 
 
 67. Second, Eighth, 
 
 68. Third, 72 - Ninth 
 
 69. Fourth, 73 - Tenth - 
 
 70. Fifth, 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 SUCCESSIVE REVELATIONS. 
 
 74. Their character. 76. Their twofold direction. 
 
 75. Their sanction. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 REVEALED NOTIONS RESPECTING GOD. 
 
 77. Knowledge of God. 80. Love of God. 
 
 78. Opportunity of such a 8 1 . Fear of God. 
 
 knowledge. 
 
 79. Immediate relation be- 82 ' Other duties towards God. 
 
 tween God and man.
 
 Vlll SYNOPSIS. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 DUTIES TOWARDS FELLOW-MEN. 
 
 83. Justice. 87. Charity and benevolence. 
 
 84. Negative duties. 88. Duties toward the animate 
 
 85. Positive duties. and inanimate^ nature. 
 
 86. Other duties. 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 DUTIES TOWARDS ONE'S-SELF. 
 
 89. Fundamental rule. 91. Sanctificatiou. 
 
 90. Duties towards the body. 92. Other special obligations. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 JUDAISM. 
 
 93. Religious idea. 95. Mosaism. 
 
 94. Its vicissitudes among the 96. Prophetisin. 
 
 Jews. 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 97. Action, creed, hopes.
 
 NOTICE. 
 
 TIIE name of Isaac Reggio of Goritz, is now a 
 celebrity in the Hebrew literary world. A man of 
 vast mind, a profound scholar, a philosopher, and 
 an elegant writer, his numerous works on The- 
 ology, Hermeneutics, Philology, History, and 
 Literature, written in Hebrew, in Italian, and in 
 German, have tended much to revive the taste 
 for Hebrew literature, and to reconcile modern 
 education to the study of Jewish antiquities. 
 
 The present little book is one of his latest pro- 
 ductions in the Italian language. In a style at 
 once concise and perspicuous, and with a form of 
 reasoning suited to the scientific requirements of 
 the times, he introduces the student "to an en- 
 larged view of Religion, ascends with him to the 
 heavenly source from which it emanated, and leads 
 him, through the paths of virtue arid love, to the
 
 X NOTICE. 
 
 comprehension and admiration of the objects con- 
 templated by it. In short, he teaches if I am per- 
 mitted the expression the philosophy of religion. 
 
 I humbly, but firmly believe that, in the hands 
 of able Jewish teachers, this work will considerably 
 assist them to infuse into religious instruction a 
 little more spirituality, and to impart a more com- 
 prehensive view of religion, than the routine of 
 former days deemed necessary, and that, by so 
 doing, they will be better able to enlarge and 
 satisfy the minds, improve the hearts, and generally 
 advance the moral education of youth. 
 
 Notwithstanding the well-intentioned and bene- 
 ficial efforts of many friends of education among 
 the British Jews, and the praiseworthy exertions 
 of some excellent teachers, the education of 
 the mass is, we must confess, still in a con- 
 dition, in which the attainment of those objects 
 has not ceased to be a desideratum. We may or 
 may not be on a level with our neighbours, but we 
 have very urgent and special calls of our own for 
 self-improvement, we have a particular mission 
 to fulfil, with its concomitant duties. Such self- 
 improvement and such duties are demanded by 
 the spirit not of the age, as is too commonly said 
 and believed but of an age which began thirty-
 
 NOTICE. XI 
 
 two centuries ago, at the revelation on Mount 
 Sinai the spirit of Judaism, of well-understood 
 Judaism. Our age, with all its boasted and un- 
 deniable progress, is still, morally, far below the 
 type designed by Providence for humanity in the 
 Sinaitic dispensation, far behind the spirit which 
 dictated and pervades the pages of the sacred 
 volume, and which, when thoroughly understood 
 and generally acted upon, must bring about the 
 supreme reign of justice, charity, and universal 
 
 love, and as far as attainable the ultimate 
 
 perfection of mankind. 
 
 It has appeared to me that these truths find a 
 plain and logical exposition in this little work, and 
 that its contents may not prove uninteresting even 
 to the general reader. I also believe that a more 
 correct apprehension of the true spirit and prin- 
 ciples of Judaism by our Christian brethren, than 
 is commonly arrived at, will have the two-fold 
 effect, of gradually leading to a larger measure of 
 justice being dealt to the Jew, and inducing the 
 latter to a higher degree of self-respect. For these 
 several reasons, I have volunteered to translate it 
 for the use of the English public, while other ver- 
 sions are being prepared in Germany and France. 
 I trust that those to whose lot has fallen the
 
 Xll NOTICE. 
 
 honourable but arduous task of educating and in- 
 forming young minds, and to whom it is more 
 particularly addressed, will give it their earnest 
 consideration, for the sake of whatever good they 
 may cull from it, as a material in aid, while they 
 are laying the foundations of virtue in the hearts 
 of the rising generation. 
 
 That the results may correspond to the intentions 
 is the sincere wish of 
 
 THE TKANSLATOR.
 
 AUTHOK'S PREFACE. 
 
 TO INSTRUCTORS. 
 
 IN the exercise of the sacred mission entrusted to 
 you by Providence that of educating our youth 
 to piety and religion it must have frequently 
 occurred to you, to wish that such an instruction 
 could be imparted, not in the shape of dogmas 
 demanding to be admitted without investigation, 
 but as doctrines addressed to the intellect by 
 proper demonstrations, and finding their way to 
 the heart by stimulating its noblest feelings. The 
 little book that I present to you is intended to 
 satisfy, at least in part, that wish. You will not 
 find in it a complete treatise on Jewish Theology, or 
 a systematic catechism, but only the essential ele- 
 ments, which may serve to the future elaboration
 
 XIV AUTHOR S PREFACE. 
 
 of both. You will find deposited in it the rough 
 materials, which some abler hands will perhaps 
 one day employ in constructing an edifice, in 
 which our youth may find a safe refuge from the 
 storms of doubt, unbelief, and irreligion. I have 
 purposed to avoid all exuberant ornaments of 
 style, all pompous parade of erudition, and con- 
 tented myself with a plain diction, and a strict 
 laconism. I have not quoted authors who preceded 
 me in the same field; I have not called up for 
 investigation what of valuable or defective could 
 be found in them; in short, I have not instituted 
 comparisons, scientific disquisitions, or critical ex- 
 aminations of the opinions of others. A series of 
 aphorisms, simple, plain, unadorned, of easy un- 
 derstanding, drawn from no other source than 
 the Divine Word, presented with the greatest 
 possible perspicuity and precision, progressing in 
 a regular chain of consequential propositions, and 
 containing in few words the most important points 
 of the Israelitish creed that is the form in which 
 I have thought more proper to present to those, who
 
 AUTHOR'S PREFACE. xv 
 
 are already versed in the Bible and in Hebrew lite- 
 rature, a skeleton of the vast religious science, in 
 which they may perceive at a glance the principal 
 characteristic of Judaism, its various ramifications, 
 subsidiary parts, and special tendencies; they may 
 then easily discover and account for the multi- 
 farious phases, in which it manifested itself in the 
 various epochs of the universal history of mankind. 
 To supply the deficiencies, to adorn those naked 
 propositions, to provide them with evidence de- 
 duced from the sacred text, to enlarge them with 
 appropriate applications, to illustrate them with 
 examples, in fine, to reduce the whole into such 
 a catechistic form as will suit a sound system of 
 instruction such is the task which remains en- 
 trusted to your intelligence, and to your zeal. By 
 employing the proffered materials with that dis- 
 cretion which is peculiar to your ministry, with 
 that method which the tender minds of your pupils 
 require, and with the love inspired by the sublimity 
 and importance of the subject, yours will be the
 
 XVI AUTHORS PREFACE. 
 
 merit of having propagated the seeds of truth 
 that will bring forth charity and universal edifica- 
 tion; to me suffices the happiness of having, in 
 some degree, contributed to so noble a work.
 
 A GUIDE 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 KELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION OF 
 JEWISH YOUTH. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 I. WHOEVER directs his mind to the contempla- 
 tion of the objects that surround him, the aggregate of 
 which is called the universe, will soon perceive, that 
 the parts of which it is composed undergo continu- 
 ally various modifications and successive changes, 
 every one of them exercising some influence on the 
 others, and receiving from them some alteration. 
 This state of mutual dependence, in which the 
 parts of the universe stand in relation to each 
 other, leads us necessarily to conclude, that none 
 of them has within itself the reason or cause of 
 its existence, but that all of them together depend 
 upon a cause which is out of themselves, and through 
 which they began to exist ; the universe, then, has 
 had a cause, an Author. 
 
 II. This Author of the universe, if he had not 
 in himself the reason of his existence, must also 
 
 B
 
 Z A GUIDE FOE THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 have it in others, and these again in others. Con- 
 sequently, we must either suppose an endless pro- 
 gression of causes and effects, which is repugnant 
 to reason, or arrive at last at a Being existing 
 by and of himself, that is to say, one who owes 
 not his existence to others, and has caused all 
 other things to exist ; and in that case, the reason 
 of his existence must be part of his own essence 
 and nature, and, consequently, inseparable from 
 him and indestructible. The Author of the uni- 
 verse is then a Being necessary and eternal; and 
 as to Him all things owe their existence, it follows 
 that through Him they began to exist, and He 
 created them from nought. 
 
 III. He, who could create all from nought, has 
 a power without limits, and nothing is to Him im- 
 possible; He, who has given existence to all things, 
 has also ordained the laws to which they are sub- 
 ject; He, who has ordained at His will the laws of 
 nature, has also the power of changing or sus- 
 pending them at His will; and lastly, He, who 
 caused all things to exist, can alone keep them in 
 existence, governing and directing them with 
 ceaseless providence; and such continual action 
 implies, of necessity, that He should know every- 
 thing, that nothing should be hidden from Him, and 
 that in Him error should be impossible. The 
 Author of the universe is then omnipotent, free, 
 all-provident, omniscient, and infallible. 
 
 IV. Again, whoever attentively contemplates 
 the universe cannot help discovering, with admi-
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 6 
 
 ration, in every part of it a stupendous art, a 
 constant order, a systematic correspondence of 
 means to ends, which demonstrate that all has 
 been arranged on a predetermined plan and for a 
 fixed purpose, to which all the particular dispo- 
 sitions developed in the course of the natural 
 phenomena are exquisitely adapted. This order 
 and this harmony which manifest themselves, also, 
 in all the progressive courses of nature indicate 
 a self-developing excellence, and a tendency to an 
 ever- in creasing perfectibility, such as can only 
 emanate from a cause infinitely intelligent and 
 good; and as such qualities cannot be attributed 
 to a being corporeal, because limited and subject 
 to changes, it follows that the Author of the uni- 
 verse is all-wise and good, pure and immutable. 
 
 V. Now, this Being, necessary and eternal, 
 whom the contemplation of the universe alone 
 reveals to us as the Author of everything, as om- 
 nipotent, free, all-provident, omniscient, infallible, 
 pure, immutable, all-wise, and good, is He whom 
 we call GOD. 
 
 VI. But our conviction of the existence of God 
 need not be derived exclusively from the wonders 
 of the universe ; for every man can find in himself 
 the evident proof of the existence of that supreme 
 cause. In fact, man feels within himself that he 
 thinks ; and if he were even to doubt it, he could not 
 deny that at least he doubts ; and the doubt itself 
 is already a thought. Admitting that he possesses 
 the faculty of thinking, he must admit that there 
 
 B 2
 
 4 A GUIDE FOR THE EELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 is within himself a substance, a being, a something 
 which thinks. But this being, who is conscious of 
 his own thoughts, is also conscious that he exists 
 not by himself, that he has not existed from all 
 eternity, that he is subject to changes, that even 
 the simple ideas, which compose his thoughts, are 
 not produced by himself, but acquired through his 
 senses from external objects ; and, in short, that 
 he depends upon various causes placed without 
 himself, and undergoes vicissitudes, which it is not 
 in his power to remove. Therefore man has not 
 within himself the reason of his own existence, but 
 he must trace it to another, who is the Author of 
 it. Now, this Author cannot have received His 
 own existence from another, if He is to be consi- 
 dered the primary cause ; otherwise we should fall 
 into a succession of causes and effects to infinity. 
 Then, the true Author of our existence is one who 
 exists by Himself, and as such He is eternal, omni- 
 potent, all-wise, etc., etc. ; He is God. 
 
 VII. Another source, affording the proof of the 
 existence of God, man finds in himself when his 
 intellectual faculties have attained a certain degree 
 of culture and maturity. He then knows himself 
 to be a moral being; that is to say, a being who, 
 placed between good and evil, can, of his own free 
 will, adhere to the former and reject the latter, if 
 he follows the dictates of his reason. Then the 
 moral sense awakens in his mind the idea of a 
 supreme blessing, of a progressive and infallible 
 moral perfection, of a future final accord between
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 5 
 
 virtue and felicity, and their necessary co-existence. 
 Now, he cannot expect this supreme blessing from 
 anything that surrounds him in nature, because he 
 does not find in the latter the desired union of 
 happiness with virtue, enjoyment with merit. He 
 must, therefore, seek it in a Supreme Cause existing 
 out of nature in a Cause which should contain in 
 itself the type of the moral law^ embrace the whole 
 extent of that law with infinite intelligence, and 
 act up to its dictates with a powerful will. This 
 Supreme Cause is God.
 
 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 VIII. MAN has many advantages and privileges 
 over all other creatures. Not only can he, like 
 other animals, perceive through his senses all the 
 surrounding objects, but he can compare with one 
 another the perceptions received, associate them 
 together, separate them, and form new ideas. He 
 can know for what purposes things exist, investigate 
 their causes and effects, discern between good and 
 evil, between just and unjust; he alone can com- 
 municate his thoughts to others; he alone can 
 speak. 
 
 IX. Everything produced by an intelligent 
 Author must be intended for some purpose must 
 have a destination. Man, the noblest creature on 
 earth, must also have a destination. We shall 
 arrive at a clear knowledge of that destination, 
 when we shall have considered the powers and 
 capabilities possessed by him; for the means with 
 which nature has endowed him, for the development 
 of his activity, evidently point out the goal which 
 that activity is designed to attain. 
 
 X. Now, the capabilities that we discover in man 
 are the following: Besides a body constructed
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 7 
 
 with wonderful skill, but weak, corruptible, 
 mortal, man has within himself a vivifying prin- 
 ciple, which substantiates in him the knowledge of 
 things with the aid of the senses, renews in him 
 perceptions once received, unites them, separates 
 them, and forms out of them new ideas. This 
 thinking principle is certainly different from the 
 body, of which no part is apt to think, and is what 
 we call the soul ; the act itself of thinking proceeds 
 from a faculty of the soul which we call intellect. 
 
 XL But the soul can also judge, conclude from 
 causes to effects, distinguish between good arid evil, 
 between just and unjust, conceive an idea of things 
 never perceived through the senses; it can recog- 
 nise the supreme Author of the universe, it can 
 adore God. This faculty of the soul is called 
 reason ; intellect and reason are the principal or 
 superior faculties of the human soul. 
 
 XII. Reason points out good as a thing de- 
 sirable, and evil as a thing to be avoided ; yet man 
 feels within himself a desire or impulse towards all 
 that is pleasurable to the senses, although reason 
 may represent it to him as an evil. And, on the 
 other hand, he is conscious of his perfect freedom 
 of choosing good, however disagreeable to the 
 senses, and of abhorring evil, however tempting it 
 may appear; he has, then, the faculty of directing 
 his action to one or other of these two courses; 
 his soul is endowed with free-will. 
 
 XIII. A being endowed with intellect, reason, 
 and free-will cannot be composed of parts, because
 
 8 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 the operations proceeding from such faculties pre- 
 suppose a comparison of various relations with 
 each other, and a deduction of consequences from 
 their principles ; and these operations require such 
 a unity and simplicity in their subject as are abso- 
 lutely incompatible with the nature of matter, 
 composed, as it is, of parts. The human soul is 
 therefore a simple being, a spirit, and, as such, in- 
 destructible, immortal. 
 
 XIV. Man, then, unites in himself two natures, 
 belongs to two classes of beings very different from 
 one another, is a citizen of two worlds. In his body 
 he is linked to the material world, undergoes all the 
 vicissitudes of matter, is subject to the incentives 
 of the senses, and is impelled to gratify the wants 
 and cravings of physical enjoyment. As regards his 
 soul, he enters into the sphere of intelligences, he 
 feels himself attracted by the ideas of the beautiful, 
 of the true, of the just ; he participates in the con- 
 dition of the spiritual beings, aspires to the im- 
 mense, to the infinite; and is susceptible of an ever- 
 increasing perfectibility, finding within himself the 
 power of abhorring moral evil, viz., vice, and of 
 cleaving to moral good, viz., virtue. 
 
 XY. Man has, therefore, within himself a germ 
 of discord between the two principles of which he 
 is constituted, a contrast between the exigencies 
 of the body and those of the soul between the 
 appetites of the senses and the dictates of reason; 
 and as this latter alone is competent to form a 
 judgment on what he ought or ought not to do, it
 
 Otf JEWISH YOUTH. 
 
 follows that reason alone should be consulted and 
 obeyed in determining upon every action. 
 
 XVI. Now, by freely and spontaneously resolving 
 to conform all the actions of his life to the dictates 
 of reason, which commands him to be wise in his 
 self-government, upright with others, and pious 
 towards the supreme Author, man will have wor- 
 thily corresponded to the end for which he was 
 created he will have fulfilled his destination ; for 
 it is clearly the destination of man to make the 
 best possible use of the sublime faculties with 
 which his soul is endowed; arid the best possible 
 use he does make when he subordinates his inferior 
 to his superior tendencies, the cravings of the body 
 to those of the soul; in a word, when he obeys 
 the dictates of reason. 
 
 XVII. When man obeys the dictates of reason, 
 an internal voice in his heart tells him that he has 
 done right; he feels satisfied with himself, and is 
 penetrated with a sense of true joy. When, on 
 the contrary, he consciously infringes the laws of 
 reason, he is not only deprived of that internal 
 approbation, but an inextinguishable voice rises 
 reproachful within his heart; he is no longer satis- 
 fied with himself, but feels uneasiness and pertur- 
 bation. That internal voice, which judges man's 
 actions, and generates happiness or sorrow^ is what 
 is called Conscience. 
 
 XVIII. But the human soul, when it concen- 
 trates itself within, has also the faculty of feeling 
 the sense of its own individuality, and perceiving
 
 10 A GUIDE FOB THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 * 
 
 that the state in which it is is its own. By virtue 
 of this sense, which we may call feeling, the soul 
 is led always to desire its own welfare, its own 
 happiness ; thence springs love or hatred, inclination 
 or aversion towards an object, as this object seems 
 apt to occasion pleasure or pain. But man, sooner 
 or later, discovers that a true and permanent plea- 
 sure cannot be obtained through any of the phy- 
 sical enjoyments on earth, which he may not always 
 be able to procure, or, when procured, leave after 
 them weariness and disgust. He, consequently, 
 cannot place in them his true happiness; and his 
 internal sense tells him that there are other enjoy- 
 ments of a purely spiritual nature, which alone can 
 satisfy the highest aspirations of his soul. The 
 exercise of his moral duties which, through his 
 freedom of action, lies always within his power, 
 and by which alone he can tranquillise his con- 
 science and fully delight in self-contentment is 
 that which offers to his soul true and permanent 
 enjoyment; that alone is worth desiring.
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. * 11 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 XIX. ON man governing himself morally well in 
 life, it becomes manifest to him, on the one hand, 
 that his conduct, being conformable to the end for 
 which he was created, must also be agreeable to the 
 will of the Creator. On the other hand, that same 
 internal sense, which prompts him to satisfy the 
 demands of his own conscience, leads him, also, to 
 elevate his mind towards God ; and he feels at the 
 bottom of his heart that he would be wanting in 
 the principal element of his happiness if he referred 
 not his every thought to the Author of his exist- 
 ence. This twofold direction of the mind towards 
 God is called Religion, a word derived from the 
 Latin religare\ for, as a moral being endowed with 
 intelligence and freedom, man feels always a certain 
 tendency to disengage himself from the physical 
 order of terrestrial things, and to link himself again 
 to the Supreme Cause from whom he emanated. 
 
 XX. All the peoples of antiquity exhibited, in 
 their successive developments, the aptitude of the 
 human soul to entertain religion within itself, nay, 
 the necessity in which it finds itself to connect the 
 exercise of moral duties or virtue with the Supreme
 
 12 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 Source of all morality. In fact, God, in His infinite 
 wisdom and goodness, wills nothing but what is 
 good; and in no better mode could man ever ma- 
 nifest his gratitude to the Author of his existence, 
 than by doing that which is agreeable to His will. 
 Hence it is, that whoever is true to his destination, 
 is said to be true to God ; and he who is virtuous 
 is religious. There is, then, in the human soul a 
 natural disposition to religiousness or piety; and 
 the history of all ages testifies that no people ever 
 existed, who, however rude and uncultivated, has 
 not had some presentiment of the relations which 
 bind the rational creature to its Creator. Man is 
 born to religion.* 
 
 XXI. This need for man to be religious consti- 
 tutes the basis of faith. As man is said to know 
 that which is proved to him by experience, or by 
 
 * These truths are now readily admitted by all well- thinking 
 men. It was very easy, and very amusing, for the philosophy 
 of the eighteenth century, to ridicule the ignorance and super- 
 stition of the ancients, and to denounce the modern peoples 
 which followed in the same direction, though by different tracks. 
 But the true philosophy of the present age, which has penetrated 
 deeper into the recesses of the human heart, has arrived at the 
 double conclusion, that a superior power has implanted therein 
 certain elements which it is not in human power to remove ; 
 and that what is inherent in human nature cannot be com- 
 bated, but must be wisely directed. Hence, modern civilisation 
 deals less than preceding ages in abstractions ; and in its intel- 
 lectual development, accepts religion as a starting point in the 
 laborious but open walk, which leads to human happiness. The 
 TRANSLATOR.
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 13 
 
 the testimony of the senses, so he is said to believe 
 that which is to him a real want, although it cannot 
 be demonstrated to him either by experience or by 
 the evidence of the senses. Knowledge is based 
 upon objective, and belief upon subjective proofs. 
 
 The existence of God, the providence with which 
 He governs the world, the immortality of the soul, 
 the excellence of virtue, the just expectation of a 
 final triumph of good, and of an improvement and 
 future perfection of the human condition, are truths 
 which have their foundations in man himself, that 
 is, in the nature of his soul; they originate in him, 
 even without the concurrence of reflection, almost 
 from an innate feeling of the heart, which impels 
 him to admit them; they are founded on subjective 
 proofs, and man believes them as necessities of his 
 own nature. These religious truths are therefore 
 called natural, and their disciples are said to profess 
 a natural religion.
 
 14 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 XXII. YET, notwithstanding the possibility for 
 man to attain happiness by only following the voice 
 of reason, experience has shown, in the most un- 
 mistakeable manner, that natural religion is insuf- 
 ficient alone to guide mankind in the right path, to 
 preserve him from error, and to regulate his life 
 with constant conformity to his destination, under 
 all circumstances and in all conjunctures. Such 
 insufficiency is caused by various obstacles, pre- 
 sented by the self-same nature of man, and the 
 objects that surround him, and which prevent rea- 
 son from exercising an absolute dominion over the 
 heart, and naturally weaken its influence on human 
 actions. 
 
 XXIII. First among these obstacles, is the cir- 
 cumstance, that the intellectual faculties do not 
 exhibit so much vigour in early youth as the 
 animal or appetitive faculties. Long before the 
 force of reason has developed itself in the mind, 
 the sensual tendencies have already grown giants 
 in the heart, impelling man to desire ardently all 
 that has the semblance of pleasure, however fugi- 
 tive and deceitful. The will, which is in its full 
 vigour even in a child, has already carried into
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 15 
 
 effect most of these desires, and has thus produced 
 such a habit of grasping impulsively, and without 
 reflection, at everything that presents itself in the 
 aspect of an enjoyment, that reason often arrives 
 too late to destroy the ascendancy gained by the 
 lust of the heart, and to claim its dominion over all 
 man's actions. 
 
 XXIY. Besides, reason is sometimes in danger 
 of losing its supremacy, even after having asserted 
 it. Instinct, which, in brutes, holds the place of 
 free-will, confines their physical cravings within 
 certain limits, and we never see an animal wallow 
 in intemperance; but man, just because enjoying 
 absolute .freedom of will, may extend his desires 
 beyond every limit, and so much strain and invigo- 
 rate them as to succumb under their influence. 
 Therefore reason, whether from its tardy develop- 
 ment, or from the unlimited ascendancy of sensuality, 
 holds the reins of its power always with uncertainty, 
 and is not ever certain of being obeyed. 
 
 XXV. Another obstacle is to be traced in the 
 want of opportunity and time, or, in other words, 
 in the little time that man can spare to devote to re- 
 flection, in the presence of the multifarious cravings 
 of his body. These cravings, increased, no doubt, by 
 luxury and an inclination to superfluities, demand 
 daily and hourly to be satisfied. He is, then, 
 obliged to work unceasingly to earn or procure the 
 means of satisfying "his own physical wants, as well 
 as, not unfrequently, those of a whole family. 
 Aliment, clothing, habitation, comfort, recreation,
 
 16 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 and other innumerable cares, real or artificial, re- 
 quire so much labour and exertion, that little or no 
 time remains for the great majority of mankind to 
 devote to the assiduous reflections and researches 
 necessary to determine what duties reason imposes 
 upon them to fulfil, and what actions to perform. 
 
 XXVI. A third obstacle to the development of 
 the moral force in man is the very social life which, 
 by his own nature, he is called to enter. The safety 
 of the social fabric demands that the property of 
 each individual be distinct and acknowledged, and 
 establishes a diversity of ranks, offices, honours, 
 and positions, which ill agree with human cupidity. 
 Hence a conflict of desires, a collision of ambitions, 
 a contest of interests, which at all times generate 
 among men discords, machinations, frauds, usurpa- 
 tions, treachery, violence, and rapine. Add the 
 consequences of the pride and ambition, which 
 each more or less entertains, to reach or surpass 
 some others in power, wealth, or fame, whence 
 many causes of disappointments and heartburnings, 
 of hatreds and jealousies, of persecutions and ca- 
 lumnies, of acts of vengeance and injustice of every 
 form, and it will be easily conceived how little, 
 under the influence of so many evil passions occa- 
 sioned by social life, could populations, in the 
 course of time, be disposed to submit willingly to 
 the severe and exclusive regimen of reason. 
 
 XXVII. Independently of these external im- 
 pediments, there exists a kind of internal anarchy 
 in man, arising from the want of a force exercising
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 17 
 
 the functions of an arbitrator between the mind 
 and the heart, and inclining the latter to shape its 
 decisions on the motives of the former. The truths, 
 which he is frequently able to discover, satisfy his 
 intellect without affecting his will, minister food to 
 the mind, but operate not on the heart; in short, 
 they establish a theory, but command not practice. 
 Hence it often happens that man sees right, ap- 
 proves it, and yet adheres to wrong. Even after 
 having gathered an abundant harvest from long 
 studies and profound meditations, he still feels the 
 need of a guide to direct his steps of a means, 
 available at all times, and competent to enable him 
 to subordinate the appetitive to the intellectual 
 faculties, and to cause the will to follow the 
 judgments of the mind rather than those of the 
 heart. 
 
 XXVIII. The inadequacy of natural religion 
 alone becomes still more manifest, when we con- 
 sider the weakness and limited extent of the 
 human understanding. To meditate assiduously 
 on an abstract object, which does not fall under 
 the perception of the senses, is given only to a few 
 individuals endowed with uncommon penetration. 
 But by far the greater part of men, disinclined to 
 submit to long and arduous researches, concerning 
 what they ought or ought not to believe and to 
 do, prefer living thoughtlessly; and when they 
 even try to enter upon spiritual meditations, they 
 soon feel discouraged, and, often distrusting their 
 own powers, throw up the difficult task half 
 
 c
 
 18 A GUIDE FOR THE EELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 way, to resume the course of a reckless mode of 
 life. 
 
 XXIX. But even the few privileged beings, who 
 believe themselves equal to the task, and plunge 
 earnestly into spiritual researches, must confess to 
 the insufficiency of the intellectual powers, and 
 admit, that beside some few principles which they 
 have succeeded in establishing, many doubts remain 
 to be cleared, many questions to be solved, many 
 objections to be overcome; and they must ulti- 
 mately conclude, that reason by itself is unable to 
 answer on all that interests man to admit or to 
 deny, to seek or to avoid, to believe and to do, to 
 hope and to fear. There is not, in this wide range 
 of spiritual subjects, a proposition held by one as 
 true, which has not been discarded by another as 
 an error; and there is not a paradox or an absurdity 
 that has not found some supporters, who maintained 
 it as a truth. Doubt and error, in abstract and 
 metaphysical questions, are natural and inherent 
 in mankind, so long as reason is their only luminary 
 in the research. 
 
 XXX. The experience of all ages teaches us 
 that. the obstacles above stated have always exer- 
 cised their influence upon the development of the 
 moral sense among men, by retarding, and some- 
 times even rendering impossible to them, a clear 
 and sound conception of their destination, and a 
 firm resolve to conform to it. 
 
 All the nations of antiquity, which, left to them- 
 selves, never received from without any spiritual
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 19 
 
 and religious instruction, could never rise from the 
 slougli of sensuality and superstition; they sank 
 deep in idolatry, and ultimately adopted creeds and 
 practices abominable and repugnant alike to the 
 excellence of reason and the dignity of man. On 
 the other hand, all the nations that totally or partly 
 succeeded in extricating themselves from a state of 
 brutality and barbarism, must acknowledge that not 
 to the development of their intelligence alone they 
 owe their regeneration, but to certain sublime doc- 
 trines originated in causes quite extrinsical from 
 human nature which, having found their way to 
 them through a concourse of favourable and appa- 
 rently fortuitous circumstances, were more or less 
 readily admitted, as notions gained from without, 
 and by degrees ingrafted, under various modifi- 
 cations, on their own primitive ideas. 
 
 XXXI. It being, then, almost impossible, or, at 
 least, extremely difficult, for man to arrive, through 
 the sole action of the faculties inherent in his 
 nature, at his intended goal, to shape his course 
 accordingly, and thus to lay the foundations of 
 his future happiness, it was necessary that an in- 
 telligence far superior to his own should come to 
 his assistance, communicate to him some funda- 
 mental truths concerning his present and future 
 life, enlighten his intellect, guide his reason, in- 
 vigorate his will in the paths of truth, justice, and 
 righteousness, and thus facilitate to him the attain- 
 ment of his sublime destination. It was necessary 
 that God himself should instruct him in what was 
 
 c 2
 
 20 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 most important to know, manifest His will to him, 
 and explicitly point out to him the way he was to 
 follow, the obstructions he was to avoid, and the 
 goal he had to reach. Man, then, was in need of 
 a revelation.
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 21 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 XXXII. THIS revelation was actually vouch- 
 safed. It pleased the supreme Being, through His 
 infinite mercy, to manifest His will, and make known 
 some great and precious truths, which men would 
 have vainly attempted to discover with the unaided 
 operation of their reason ; He chose to undertake, 
 to a certain extent, the education of mankind. 
 From the beginning of the world God revealed 
 Himself to the first man ; and He continued after- 
 wards for many ages, as His eternal wisdom deemed 
 proper, to communicate to such individuals as were 
 the worthiest among mortals the instructions which 
 were afterwards to work the salvation of all man- 
 kind. Those instructions, which contain truths by 
 far more comforting and sublime than any results 
 which man could have arrived at through his own 
 faculties alone, constitute the substance of Reve- 
 lation; and he who acknowledges their divine 
 origin, and conforms to them the actions of his life, 
 is called a professor of the revealed religion. 
 
 XXXIII. That God has really revealed Himself 
 to some individuals of the human species is an 
 historical fact, the truth of which is proved, like all
 
 22 A 
 
 truths of a similar order, by testimony and docu- 
 ments. But independently of the existing evidence, 
 the possibility of such an act can be easily con- 
 ceived by the human understanding, when we con- 
 sider that everything is feasible to the omnipotence 
 of the Creator; and nothing is more consentaneous 
 to His infinite goodness and wisdom, than the blessed 
 purpose of granting to human frailty an assistance 
 calculated to lead the noblest of creatures to the 
 attainment of the exalted end for which he was 
 created. To conceive, also, the precise modes and 
 forms in which such a revelation is effected or con- 
 veyed, it was given only to those elect who were 
 themselves the recipients, and who are called 
 Prophets. But we can arrive at the knowledge of 
 the principal characteristics which constitute pro- 
 phecy, after we shall have placed in a clear light 
 the essence and the final object of revelation. 
 
 XXXIV. All the revealed doctrines may be re- 
 duced to one fundamental principle, from which 
 they originate, and on which rests the whole edifice 
 of revelation. This principle may be expressed as 
 follows: Besides the general relation of depend- 
 ence "existing indistinctly between all creatures and 
 their Creator, there is a relation more intimate and 
 special between God and man a relation of a 
 spiritual and sentimental nature, arising from the 
 circumstance of the latter being created in the 
 image of God, by virtue of which man is not sub- 
 ject exclusively to the blind government of the 
 physical laws of nature, but, almost independent of
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 23 
 
 them, he walks under the immediate influence of 
 his celestial Father; this independence, however, 
 cannot be accomplished before he has succeeded in 
 subduing his sensual appetites, and has bent them 
 to follow the divine direction. Thus acting, he will 
 not remain a passive spectator of the vicissitudes 
 which accelerate or retard the fulfilment of that 
 which the Divine wisdom purposed as the final aim 
 of the creation, but, through the immortal spirit 
 transfused in him, he will feel impelled to take 
 some active part in the great work of the ultimate 
 universal perfection, and to associate his own will 
 to the will of the Creator. 
 
 XXXV. The relation between God and man is 
 a tie of love. God being goodness itself, this finds 
 a more extensive field for its manifestation in the 
 rational creature than in any other. On the other 
 hand, man, possessed of a spiritual soul, is superior 
 to matter, and is capable, more than the other ter- 
 restrial beings, of receiving within himself an 
 abundance of the Divine benevolence, which dif- 
 fuses itself throughout the universe in exact pro- 
 portion to the various aptitudes of the recipients. 
 It is precisely in consequence of the understanding 
 with which man is endowed, and of his aptitude to 
 nourish love for the supreme Being, that he has 
 been elected, from among all terrestrial creatures, to 
 enter into a more intimate relation with God, and 
 to co-operate, in as much as lies in his power, to 
 the accomplishment of the divine plan. 
 
 XXXVI. The plan of the Creator is irnmea-
 
 24 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 surably profound, and therefore inscrutable. Never- 
 theless, in so far as it is permitted to the human 
 mind to penetrate it, and as it has pleased the 
 Divine mercy to reveal it, we know with certainty 
 that it is all directed to diffuse happiness and be- 
 atitude over all creatures, in proportion to their 
 respective capabilities of participating in them, 
 and to guide all beings towards that end, which, in 
 the scheme of the universe, was pre-ordained by 
 the Infinite Wisdom as the best. Now, the inanimate 
 portion of the creation progresses unconsciously in 
 the way ordained by Providence, obeys physical 
 immutable laws, and is, therefore, only a means to 
 a more exalted end. But the moral being, who has 
 self-consciousness, resolves on action after deli- 
 berating upon what he thinks best, and carries out 
 his resolve with free will ; he is, then, himself the 
 aim of his life. Therefore, to lead this being towards 
 his own destination, it was proper not to subject him 
 to restraint under laws of necessity, otherwise the 
 freedom of his will would have been destroyed ; it 
 was only necessary to enlighten him, to place before 
 him some fundamental truths, capable of dispelling 
 all doubts from his mind, and detaching him from 
 errors and superstitions, and thus to offer hirn 
 means and inducements sufficient to direct his 
 attention and will towards the end designed by the 
 Divine wisdom. 
 
 XXXVII. It is these truths, offered as means 
 and inducements, that constitute the essence of 
 revelation. Through revelation, man was made
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 25 
 
 acquainted that God created the universe out of 
 nought, that He governs it with His wisdom, and 
 can work every change which He deems suitable ; 
 that He created man in the Divine image, that is, 
 with an immortal soul, capable of receiving within 
 itself the Divine idea, of conceiving its sublimity, 
 and carrying it into effect. Through revelation, 
 man learnt that God is One, omnipotent, holy, of 
 infinite forbearance and mercy, and an inexhaus- 
 tible source of pure love ; that He created as a stock 
 of all the human family a single individual (to pro- 
 claim thereby the principle of universal brotherhood 
 and mutual love between all the members of that 
 family) ; that He desires to be loved, worshipped, 
 and served by it, with purity of heart, with eleva- 
 tion of spirit, and with unflinching constancy. 
 Through revelation, we are taught to use wisely the 
 earthly gifts, and to turn their material enjoyment 
 into a subject for edification and the glorification 
 of God; to exercise right, justice, rectitude, charity, 
 piety, and humility; we are also taught that God 
 judges the human actions, punishes those who con- 
 travene His will, and is disposed to pardon the sins 
 of those who feel a true repentance. And, lastly, 
 through revelation, an invitation is tendered to man 
 to elevate his mind to the Creator, to imitate Him, 
 to approach Him through self-sanctification ; and a 
 perspective is opened before his mind's eye of an 
 interminable future of beatitude beyond the grave, 
 as the ultimate goal of his longings, and a just re- 
 ward to his virtuous conduct.
 
 26 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 . XXXVIII. When an individual, after long and 
 serious meditations, and through a concourse of 
 favourable circumstances, acquires a comprehension 
 of this divine plan, and conceives it in its fullest 
 extent and excellence, he will feel an irresistible 
 attraction towards such a contemplation, and an 
 ineffable admiration will seize all his mind ; an in- 
 ternal intense desire will spring up in his heart to 
 see it carried out, nay, to contribute himself to its 
 accomplishment, since the first tendency is already 
 engrafted on his very nature. In proportion as this 
 desire extends its roots in the heart of that indi- 
 vidual, so will he make it his exclusive pre-oc- 
 cupation, voluntarily sacrifice to it every worldly 
 consideration, and so will he feel impelled to devote 
 himself to promote, promulgate, and bring to uni- 
 versal knowledge those truths which, as stated, 
 form the essence of revelation ; his soul will become 
 the receptacle of the Divine idea, his tongue and all 
 his body the organs of its fulfilment; his whole life 
 will be an expression of the idea which pervades 
 him ; he will feel within himself an irresistible call 
 to constitute himself, of his own authority, and 
 without any regard to worldly powers, a preceptor 
 to mankind, an adviser and censor of all, a sup- 
 porter of right and virtue, a herald of truth, and 
 a defender of the cause of God ; he will defy every 
 obstacle with unbending spirit, will employ all his 
 powers, physical and moral, to the attainment of 
 his aim; and sometimes he will end by becoming 
 a martyr to his holy project. In short, his will 
 becomes identical with the will of God.
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 27 
 
 XXXIX. Such a tnan is a prophet. His mind 
 elevated to the highest degree of intelligence, his 
 heart bent constantly to love what is good, he has 
 almost assumed a second nature, and he lives upon 
 earth a purely spiritual life. Of all that sur- 
 rounds him, nothing is of any value in his eyes 
 but that which may contribute to the accomplish- 
 ment of the Divine design; in all passing events 
 he sees but as many dispositions of Providence 
 calculated to direct men to the path in which they 
 are called to walk; the very thoughts which cross 
 his mind, and the wishes which form themselves 
 in his heart, he regards them not as the productions 
 of his own soul^ but as emanations from the Spirit of 
 God which dwells in him, and pervades all his 
 being. Such a mode of viewing things is, after 
 all, not a mere effect of his imagination, but a 
 true reflex of the influence that actuates this man, 
 an influence springing from the fact already 
 stated, that his will has identified itself with the 
 will of God. Hence the prophet is called a man 
 inspired by God, for it is the Divine Spirit that 
 pervades, agitates, and directs him ; it is the Divine 
 Spirit that found in him an instrument for its 
 operation, an organ for its manifestation, a medium 
 to carry out its high designs, a representative of 
 God on earth, who shall recall men to their Divine 
 origin, and lead them on to their ultimate desti- 
 nation. 
 
 XL. From the foregoing exposition of the cha- 
 racters of prophecy it will appear obvious, that
 
 28 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 those are greatly mistaken, who think that the 
 exclusive or even the principal ministry of the 
 prophet consists in foreseeing and foretelling future 
 events. The prophet may occasionally find it 
 necssary to his ends to predict some events, which 
 he does by virtue of the Divine spirit infused in 
 him ; but this is for him only an accessory means 
 to the chief object, which is to propagate and pro- 
 mote among men divine knowledge and religious 
 life. With an all- wise provision, God disposed 
 that, as a rule, the future shall remain hidden 
 from mortals, that they may exert themselves to 
 render it propitious by their good actions ; and if 
 He sometimes permitted, as an exception, that it 
 should be revealed to them through the dispensers 
 of His word, it was not to gratify an idle curiosity, 
 but to excite men to worthily conform their works 
 to coming events.
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 29 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 XLI. THE preliminary notions hitherto set forth 
 are to be regarded as placed in the vestibule lead- 
 ing to the temple of Revelation. Now, before we 
 cross the threshold, it may be well to meet at once 
 an objection which will possibly be offered by 
 modern incredulity. It is fashionably said, that 
 rational man can admit nothing as true except that 
 which is proved to him by logical demonstrations ; 
 and as for the acceptance of a revealed religion 
 faith is a necessary element, and this must exclude 
 (as commonly pretended) every kind of proof, 
 therefore all reasoning is out of the question, and 
 the very basis of that which is sought to be incul- 
 cated as a truth, renders it inadmissible. Such 
 an objection, however erroneous in reality, has too 
 grave an appearance, and its consequences would 
 be too lamentable, to permit us to disregard it. It 
 becomes, therefore, indispensable, before entering 
 the sanctuary of Revelation, to remove the ob- 
 struction of such an error, even at the cost of 
 a digression from our path, in order to consider 
 the matter in its origin. 
 
 XLIL One of the primary laws of existence in
 
 30 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 the physical world is self-love ; that is, an instinct 
 in every creature to procure its own good, even at 
 the expense of others, so that the preservation of 
 one is attended with the destruction of some 
 others. All nature is in a perpetual struggle 
 within itself, and every component part receives the 
 elements of its own life and increment from the 
 destruction of others. This we see repeatedly 
 happen under our own eyes, as well in plants as in 
 animals, arid so evidently, that we need not here 
 record instances to confirm it. It is through this 
 contrast of individual interests, through this per- 
 petual alternation of production and growth with 
 decrease and destruction, that Providence or- 
 dained the preservation of the world in its totality, 
 while the individuals perish and the species re- 
 main. 
 
 XLIII. Man also, considered only in his physical 
 nature, is subject to the universal law of self-love ; 
 and until he has arrived at a correct appreciation 
 of his moral nature and duties, he will allow him- 
 self to be impelled by that law to possess himself 
 of all that he thinks suitable to his own advantage, 
 regardless of the detriment of others, and even of 
 their very existence; and so will, on the other 
 hand, every one else, being in the same condi- 
 tion, act towards him. But the effects of un- 
 restrained self-love are by far more mischievous in 
 man than in the irrational animals, for the intel- 
 ligence with which he is endowed affords him more 
 means and artifices to accomplish his selfish views,
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 31 
 
 so long as he is governed by these and not by nobler 
 impulses. Hence it happens also, that so long as 
 a man lies under the fascination of self-love, society, 
 of which he is called to become a member^ places 
 him in a condition, from which he looks upon his 
 fellow-men as the natural enemies of his individual 
 happiness; and he feels a propensity to throw 
 obstacles, either by malice or violence, in the way 
 of others, to prevent their attaining that which is 
 denied to him. 
 
 XLIV. But we find, also, in man another principle 
 diametrically opposed to self-love, which, proceed- 
 ing from the noblest prerogatives of his soul, 
 distinguishes him from the irrational creatures, 
 and invites him to a career totally opposite to 
 theirs. This principle, commonly called virtue, 
 we shall express by the more comprehensive name 
 of heroism. As by self-love man is inclined to 
 sacrifice the welfare of others to his own, so by 
 heroism he is led to sacrifice himself to the welfare 
 of others. When we see a mother struggling to 
 death, and with admirable self-devotion, against 
 overpowering waves, or ferocious beasts, or de- 
 vouring flames, to save her child from certain 
 destruction, it would be stolidity and folly for us 
 to bring into comparison with this act, the cares 
 bestowed by a brute in feeding her young, since as 
 soon as the latter has carried into effect the order of 
 nature, she forsakes them, and, when grown, does 
 not even recognise them; whereas the love of a 
 mother endures beyond the grave. When a hus-
 
 32 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 band, bound with the indissoluble tie of affection 
 to the woman of his heart, voluntarily sacrifices 
 to her everything dearest in the world, and finds 
 in her affection ample recompense for his direst 
 privations, who would dare to attribute this to 
 the physical sexual tendency common even to the 
 brutes? a tendency, which, besides manifesting it- 
 self only at detached periods of time, disappears 
 altogether in old age, whereas conjugal love runs 
 beyond the confines of time. The same may be 
 said of a friend, who would give his own life to 
 save that of his beloved, of a generous warrior 
 who risks everything for his country's sake, and 
 of a host of others, who magnanimously devote 
 themselves to the relief of suffering humanity; in 
 short, of every one who feels himself moved by 
 a superior force to cross over the boundaries of 
 selfishness and sensuality, and to become a hero. 
 
 XLV. In all these phenomena, a principle di- 
 rectly adverse to that of physical nature mani- 
 fests itself. While in the latter, self-love is a 
 necessary supreme law, in the spiritual life of 
 man we see prevailing, as a foundation to morality, 
 a voluntary sacrifice of self, offered on the altar of 
 love. No pain or regret ever accompanies such an 
 offering; on the contrary, a sensible man under- 
 takes it with cheerfulness, as a manifestation of his 
 exalted nature, and derives from its performance 
 a purer joy than all other earthly enjoyments could 
 afford him. But this love, which limits and 
 conquers self-love, this love which so well testifies
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 33 
 
 to the excellence of man, whence does it proceed? 
 Assuredly not from physical nature; this is, on the 
 contrary, based upon a law which would destroy 
 love. It must emanate, then, from a source, itself 
 a prototype of moral perfection, a perpetual spring 
 of the purest love ; and this source is God. Through 
 the effects and impressions of this celestial love, 
 man feels the need of approaching his Creator, of 
 finding in Him the provident Ruler of the human 
 destinies, and of expecting from His kindness the 
 future triumph of good, and an ultimate perfection 
 of all things. God, providence, and the immor- 
 tality of llie soul, become then for him incontestable 
 truths: and at such a knowledge he does not 
 arrive by way of laborious instruction and logical 
 demonstrations; but it springs up, as it were, in 
 his inward feeling, which prompts him to regulate 
 his life according to that sublime model of moral 
 perfection; therefore, although reason furnishes 
 not to him logical proofs of these truths, yet he 
 finds the presentiment of them within his heart, 
 he feels them, he accepts them with a force more 
 sentimental than intellectual, he embraces them 
 with enthusiasm, and can no longer detach himself 
 from them ; in short he believes them. 
 
 XL VI. Thus, with the same confidence with 
 which man admits as true, what is demonstrated 
 to his reason by solid arguments, and he is then 
 said to be convinced, does he likewise give his 
 assent to the noble inspirations of his heart, not 
 yet depraved by abject inclinations, and he is 
 
 D
 
 34 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 then said to be persuaded. Thus there are two 
 kinds of truths, equally ascertained, and therefore 
 equally admissible ; the one proceeding from intellect 
 and called rational truth, the other formed in 
 the heart, and called moral truth. The source of 
 the latter might also properly be called good sense, 
 which in fact acts, in many circumstances of life, 
 in lieu of pure reason. A man endowed with 
 good sense, and who has not yet become a slave to 
 sensual appetites, will not doubt for a moment, 
 even without having ever been acquainted with the 
 proofs, that lying, calumniating, blaspheming, false 
 swearing, robbing, murdering, betraying friend- 
 ship, country or honour, are culpable and abomina- 
 ble actions. Other truths based on good sense are 
 also the following : the faith we have in friendship, 
 in the rectitude of those who administer justice, 
 in the fidelity of a beloved object, in the tenderness 
 of parents, in the excellence of virtue, and above 
 all, in the wisdom, goodness, and providence of 
 God ; all these things we admit within our souls, 
 not in consequence of a cold calculation of the 
 intellect, but through an irresistible impulse of the 
 heart, and in consequence of a sort of presentiment 
 springing from the consciousness of our own no- 
 ble spirituality, which develops itself and gains 
 force, in proportion as we elevate ourselves above 
 the material propensities to which we are subject 
 as citizens of this earth. 
 
 XL VI I. Those who, throwing themselves on a 
 severe rationalism, will recognise nothing as true
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 35 
 
 but what is demonstrated to them like mathematical 
 theorems, will look upon the sentiments above re- 
 ferred to as delusions of the fancy, because they 
 see them founded but upon feeling ; but they who 
 think so are manifestly in error. If faith in God, 
 in His providence, and in the immortality of the 
 human soiil, were a mere product of the imagina- 
 tion, it would last only so long as the semblance, 
 which had given it aliment, exists ; and when man 
 is awakened to the sense of realities and facts 
 calculated to destroy the delusion, he would be 
 seen to withdraw from the meshes of his error, 
 and his reason triumphant would confess the former 
 aberration of the mind ; yet it happens not so. In 
 the moment we are struck by some grave calamity, 
 when we see fond hopes, long cherished, vanish in 
 an instant, or when we are on the point of losing 
 what is dearest to us, why is faith in God and in 
 His providence not then weakened in the religious 
 man? Why, on the contrary, does he cling to it 
 more and more? The reason is, because such a 
 faith is not a cold theorem, against which some 
 doubt may eventually arise, but a truth rooted in 
 the love inherent in our nature; and consequently 
 it acquires vigour with the growth of love, and its 
 power cannot be extinguished but when we cease 
 to love. So, also, the other impulses to heroism 
 and to exalted moral action, by which we are in- 
 duced to great sacrifices, or led to believe ourselves 
 capable of accomplishing them, are produced in us 
 by faith in an eternal Source of pure love, by that 
 
 D2
 
 36 A GUIDE FOB THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 faith which carries with itself the surety of a 
 future life and a future kingdom founded upon 
 love. Therefore, in proportion as man succeeds in 
 subduing his own passions, or as these grow faint 
 by age or other causes, so his love grows more 
 vigorous; and as earthly objects gradually disap- 
 pear, so faith rises and shews itself all : pervading 
 and invincible. 
 
 XLVIII. As a condition indispensable to the 
 entertainment of faith, we have already insisted on 
 the necessity of previously freeing the heart from 
 the sway of the sensual appetites; arid it is not 
 without a grave reason, for therein precisely con- 
 sists the secret of the solution of the great question 
 agitated in all ages between the so-called rationalists 
 and the supernaturalists. Intellect and reason are 
 rays from the Divine wisdom, bestowed upon man 
 to assist him to discern between true and false, 
 between good and evil; but such a function is not 
 exercised by those faculties with an absolute power 
 over the human will; they, on the contrary, are 
 subservient to such desires and passions as have 
 acquired a preponderance in the heart; they are 
 similar to those ministers of a prince who, in 
 offering him advice, only aim at facilitating the 
 attainment of their master's wishes; or to the 
 known effects of a glass applied to a jaundiced eye. 
 So long as man remains faithful to his moral 
 duties, and desires nothing but what is good and 
 honest, his intellect and reason always offer him 
 valid arguments to confirm him in his purpose, and
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 37 
 
 to augment his love of virtue; and then, also, the 
 noblest dogmas of faith, God, providence, and 
 immortality find easy access to his mind, and are 
 harboured with joy. But if depraved propensities 
 have corrupted his heart, so that his aspirations 
 are in a wrong and base direction, then these same 
 faculties become ministers to the predominant pas- 
 sion, and suggest to man sophisms, fallacies, and 
 specious subtleties, whereby to disown that which 
 he heretofore respected, to upset the edifice of his 
 faith, to lull his conscience and quiet remorse, to 
 excuse his weaknesses and break through every 
 restraint, and thus to warrant every kind of 
 fault and vice. Hence it is that the knowledge 
 and discernment of what is true or untrue, in the 
 moral world, depends, in a considerable degree, 
 upon the practice of good or evil ; hence it is, that 
 the judgments of the mind are modified by the 
 inclinations of the heart, and that virtue opens the 
 way to faith, and vice is the author of infidelity. 
 
 XLIX. From what we have hitherto briefly 
 stated, it will appear sufficiently obvious that the 
 dogmas of revealed religion, though based rather 
 on the ground of faith than on that of philosophy 
 and strict criticism, are yet, for an upright man, 
 susceptible of a degree of evidence equal to that 
 of any other demonstrable truth, inasmuch as 
 they have their foundation in human nature itself, 
 and can be rejected but by him who rebels against 
 the noblest impulses of the heart, to give himself 
 up to the sway of passions or inordinate appetites.
 
 38 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 One of the features, which most enhances the value 
 of religion, is precisely this, that it is the pro- 
 duct, not of transcendental devices of the mind, 
 but of faith in God, itself springing from love, 
 and that consequently, it is not originated by the 
 intellect, but infused by a Divine grace. Thus we 
 see every day, in our own experience, that the 
 loftiest thoughts of virtue and heroism are not 
 suggested to us by a long and laborious chain 
 of syllogisms, but break upon us unexpectedly as 
 inspirations of the heart; truly considering the 
 divine spirit dwelling within us, and which we 
 have but to harbour carefully they break upon 
 us like inspirations of heaven. 
 
 Having, as we hope, satisfactorily disposed of 
 the objection usually put forward by the so-called 
 rationalists, we shall now proceed to relate the 
 modes by which Divine revelation historically came 
 into actuality.
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 L. THE benefits which the Eternal Wisdom had 
 determined to confer upon mankind through revela- 
 tion, depended, however, on a condition without 
 which they could never have been realized. It 
 was necessary that men, on their part, should be 
 inclined to receive the bidding addressed to them, 
 that they should direct their attention to the truths 
 to be gradually promulgated to them for their own 
 advantage; in short, that they should feel disposed 
 to correspond to the Divine intentions. It was no 
 part of the plan of the Divine wisdom that men 
 should be in any way constrained, for that would 
 have been depriving them of the precious gift of 
 free will, and destroying their essence. But this 
 very liberty of action granted to man, rendered 
 the realization of the Divine thought doubtful ; and 
 it might have happened that a generation, sinking 
 itself info complete corruption, would have lost 
 every trace of the truths already revealed; and 
 thence a necessity would have arisen for one or 
 more repetitions of the communication, with equal 
 uncertainty of permanent success. 
 
 LI. To avoid such a danger, it pleased the Divine
 
 40 A GUIDE FOE THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 Mercy to found upon earth a permanent institution 
 of an exceptional, wonderful, almost preternatural 
 character, through which the preservation of the 
 principal doctrines, that form the substance of re- 
 vealed religion, could be insured to mankind. As 
 seeds of rare and precious plants are preserved 
 with care, that the species may not perish, so the 
 Ruler of Providence designed to establish among 
 us a repository wherein to keep the germs of all that 
 which concerns man's spiritual life; and He so or- 
 dained that they should be there jealously guarded, 
 and with particular diligence cultivated, in order 
 to bring about their slow and gradual, but sure 
 propagation among all the individuals of the hu- 
 man family. This provision is a most luminous 
 proof of the unbounded love and mercy of the 
 Divine Artificer towards the rational creature, to 
 whom a powerful assistance is thus offered to attain 
 his noble destination, without in the least impairing 
 his liberty of action. 
 
 LIL Such a provision consists in God having 
 chosen a small portion of mankind to be a medium 
 for, and co-operator in, the grand work, and having 
 entrusted to it the special important mission of per- 
 petually preserving within its pale, the principal dog- 
 mas of revealed religion ; of keeping always* alive on 
 earth the remembrance of that relation which was 
 established from the beginning of creation between 
 the Creator and the human family ; and, in short, of 
 contributing with all its might to the practical 
 realization of the Divine idea. The chosen few
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 41 
 
 had consequently to propose to themselves, as the 
 goal of their career, the defence of the sacred 
 deposit entrusted to them from all attacks that 
 might be directed by malice, ignorance or super- 
 stition; they had to promote the propagation of 
 the notions of monotheism; of the divine origin 
 of man, and of the duties incumbent upon him to 
 practice justice^ charity, rectitude, and piety; they 
 had to protest incessantly against polytheism, and 
 against all and every idolatrous and superstitious 
 creed, as adverse and injurious to the development 
 of the principles of revealed religion ; they had to 
 confirm these theories by making themselves the 
 exemplars of a religious life, and by bearing wit- 
 ness to them, when necessary, by their own mar- 
 tyrdom; they had thus to become the effectual 
 instruments to the gradual diffusion throughout 
 the world of those elements of truth, of virtue 
 and happiness, calculated to bring forth the ulti- 
 mate and universal perfection of mankind. 
 
 LIII. In order that the individuals charged with 
 such a grand mission should be competent effectu- 
 ally to fulfil it, it was necessary that they should 
 themselves have been always free from the per- 
 nicious influence of the errors and corruption, 
 which had already spread almost throughout the 
 world; it was necessary that their minds should 
 have remained unpolluted by the notions of the 
 extravagant and degrading idolatries, which were 
 in practice among almost all the ancient nations; 
 and that their hearts should have remained
 
 42 A GUIDE FOB THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION. 
 
 untouched by the contagion of universal depravity. 
 The soil to which any seed, however good, is to be 
 committed, would never respond to the expecta- 
 tions of the husbandman, if it were not cleared from 
 weeds and thistles. Those individuals had, there- 
 fore, to be drawn aside from the general society of 
 men; and from their infancy educated and pre- 
 pared, so as to receive within their virgin souls the 
 seeds that were afterwards to produce in them, 
 and through them, the spiritual regeneration of all 
 mankind. But here another difficulty presented 
 itself; who would have undertaken the charge of 
 watching over those individuals from their infancy, 
 and keeping them in such an isolation, as to make 
 them inaccessible to the general depravity? It 
 was, then, necessary to begin by a single indi- 
 vidual, whose descendants should receive from that 
 stock the education capable of fitting them for 
 their future mission. 
 
 LIV. The providential measure once decreed, of 
 selecting an individual as guardian of the revealed 
 truths, and making him the father of a posterity, 
 whose duty was to preserve them and to make 
 them fructify, it remained only to determine the 
 selection of the person. And here it is obvious 
 that not a capricious hazard, not an indulgent 
 predilection, but only a strict justice and wise 
 impartiality could determine the important choice. 
 Whoever would have aspired to such a glory and 
 everybody could have aspired to it by no other 
 means could he have attained it than his own
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 43 
 
 merits. Such a man must have, of his own accord 
 and spontaneously, withdrawn himself from the 
 general current of depravity ; opposed, by his own 
 impulse, the absurd ravings of his contemporaries ; 
 displayed a lively attachment to virtue, and a 
 steady abhorrence of evil; cultivated, above all, 
 justice, charity, and righteousness, in his every 
 action; that man must have thrown off the sub- 
 jection of the senses, and all cupidity of earthly 
 things, and, almost assuming a second nature, 
 have soared towards the eternal Source of truth, 
 the Creator of the universe, offering as a sacrifice 
 to Him his own 'dearest personal interests, and, 
 if required, his life itself.
 
 44 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LV. SUCH a man did appear on the stage of the 
 world. It was the patriarch Abraham. The 
 rarest qualities of mind and heart concurred ad- 
 mirably to render him fit for the high mission. 
 By the superiority of his intelligence, he arrived 
 at the rejection of the captivating, but absurd, idola- 
 trous opinions of his contemporaries, and at the 
 recognition of a unique supreme Cause of all 
 things, omnipotent, all-wise and holy, that governs 
 all with impartial justice and infinite mercy. The 
 nobility of his sentiments led him to labour and 
 exert himself in the diffusion of these holy notions 
 wherever he found himself; and he was most 
 sedulous in drawing the attention of men to that 
 which most concerned their spiritual life. An un- 
 paralleled cordiality towards not only his own 
 friends, but all who approached him; a self-abne- 
 gation, carried to the point of refusing the best 
 deserved remuneration ; a humility ready to waive 
 any right of his own in order to support that of 
 others; a hospitality full, generous, unasked; a 
 continual exercise of charity and justice, which had 
 become in him a second nature; in fine, a sub-
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 45 
 
 mission of all himself and his dearest to the will 
 of God, such was the character of that celebrated 
 luminary of antiquity, of that man truly divine, of 
 that exemplar of sublime virtue. 
 
 LVI. Although so many pre-eminent merits 
 indisputably assigned to him the distinction we 
 have pointed out, yet the Divine wisdom decided to 
 subject his constancy to various trials, with the 
 view of making manifest to the world the excellence 
 of that virtuous character, and the justice which 
 dictated the choice. In the continual antagonism 
 between the material and spiritual interests involved 
 in the events of his agitated life, he had opportu- 
 nities to display the noblest firmness in causing 
 the latter to prevail. Involuntary peregrinations, 
 conflicts with foreign potentates, domestic discords, 
 dangers, hazards, hopes deferred, and promises well 
 nigh forgotten, became to him so many occasions 
 for the exercise of the highest virtues : and last, 
 the holy resignation with which he prepared to 
 immolate his beloved son, thinking thereby to re- 
 spond to a Divine bidding, raised his glory to an 
 unapproachable summit. If the other deeds of his 
 edifying piety caused him to be appointed a herald 
 of the true religion, this last heroic act brought 
 down upon him the greatest blessing, in the shape 
 of a promise, that even to his remotest posterity 
 would be extended the mission of jealously pre- 
 serving the revealed truths, and effectually co- 
 operating in their propagation, so that through
 
 46 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 that posterity would be blessed all the families 
 of the earth, 
 
 LVII. Abraham's vocation marks a luminous and 
 highly interesting epoch in the history of human- 
 ity. It was the commencement of the execution of 
 that plan of education of mankind, which, conceived 
 since the beginning in the Increate Mind, came by 
 means extraordinary, yet consistent with the na- 
 tural course of earthly events, to diffuse itself 
 gradually and to acquire a progressive force among 
 the various ramifications of the human family. In 
 that vocation we perceive the first threads of a 
 wonderful tissue of events, as well in the physical 
 as in the moral world, which went on preparing a 
 slow but always progressive development of the 
 human intelligence, and will go on to produce 
 ultimately the full final accomplishment of the 
 same primitive plan, so grandly conceived. In fact, 
 in the very act of electing this patriarch, God re- 
 vealed the ultimate object of the election by saying, 
 that He chose him, in order that he might transmit 
 to his latest posterity the obligation which was 
 to become characteristic of it of exercising and 
 promoting CHARITY and JUSTICE, the two chief 
 columns on which rests the edifice of human per- 
 fectibility, two conditions indispensable to the 
 fulfilment of the Divine idea, and therefore called 
 ways of the Eternal. 
 
 LVIII. Abraham and his race having been 
 called upon to perpetuate the idea of the relation
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 47 
 
 existing between God and man, it was obviously 
 necessary that such a relation should be fixed and 
 established in a more precise mode in the indi- 
 viduals of that race than it was in any others ; in 
 other words, it was necessary to show clearly that 
 the idea, which was to be promoted among others, 
 was firmly seated, under permanent and concrete 
 forms, in those who were called upon to propagate 
 it. This permanency of the relation exhibited 
 itself, then, to Abraham and his posterity under 
 the form of a covenant between God and that 
 family, whereby the contracting parties, as it were, 
 promised and undertook to maintain certain con- 
 ditions, upon which depended the subsistence of 
 that relation. The mutual conditions established 
 were, in substance, nothing else than the universal 
 relations subsisting between God and every rational 
 being, but expressed, with respect to Abraham's 
 family, in more special and characteristic terms, 
 viz., under a form in which God promised Abraham 
 that He would be particularly his God, his Pro- 
 tector, Guardian, and Benefactor; and the Abra- 
 hamites, on their part, bound themselves to recog- 
 nise Him alone as the Deity, to whom adoration and 
 loyal obedience were due. Thus the covenant, 
 which had been formerly established in general 
 terms with Noah, as the representative of all man- 
 kind, was afterwards confirmed in more specific 
 terms to the Abrahamites, as those who were ap- 
 pointed to keep and to promote among mankind 
 the fulfilment of the conditions of the said relation.
 
 48 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 Considering the Abrahamitic covenant in this point 
 of view, all objections of unreasonable exclusiveness 
 and unjust predilection, which have been sometimes 
 urged, must disappear. The God of Abraham is 
 the God of the universe; and the descendants of 
 Abraham propose to themselves nothing more than 
 the attainment of that same happiness to which 
 every mortal can aspire. 
 
 LIX. In order that the idea of the contracted 
 covenant might remain firmly impressed on all 
 Abraham's progeny, it was necessary to institute 
 some external mark, which should continually recall 
 it to the mind ; for an idea being but an abstraction, 
 it could not be very long retained in men's minds, 
 without some symbol or visible sign capable of 
 keeping its remembrance alive. It was also neces- 
 sary that the adhesion of that progeny to the co- 
 venant should not begin to take effect in indi- 
 viduals in the adult age only, and as a result of 
 one's own spontaneous reflexions, as had been the 
 case with the first stock of that family, but that it 
 should present itself as an accomplished fact^ and, 
 therefore, irrevocable and obligatory ; so that every 
 future offspring should bear from his birth an ex- 
 ternal indelible mark, characterising him as a fol- 
 lower of that principle, and qualifying him to enter 
 into the pale of that association. By such means 
 the preservation of the covenant was insured, and 
 a beginning was made in the system of those ex- 
 ternal, symbolical, and commemorative acts, which 
 were to be thereafter prescribed to all that race,
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 49 
 
 when sufficiently increased to form an entire people 
 distinct from others. This external mark, insti- 
 tuted before the birth of the elect progeny of the 
 patriarch, is the circumcision. 
 
 LX. Before Abraham's descendants attained that 
 degree of maturity which would fit them to receive 
 a revealed legislation, they had to pass through 
 various stages of progressive material increment 
 and intellectual development, and also to undergo 
 several sad vicissitudes produced by the inevitable 
 relations of contact with other nations. Through- 
 out all this period, which we may call preparatory, 
 the Divine Wisdom was pleased to take that race by 
 the hand, guiding its first steps, and watching in 
 an extraordinary manner over its destinies, so as 
 gradually to prepare it for the high mission for 
 which it was designed. We, therefore, perceive, 
 during that epoch, a continual intervention of the 
 Divinity in regulating the particular concerns of 
 the patriarchs and their successors, and an incessant 
 care to draw their attention to the future destiny 
 of their grandchildren, and to their duty of pre- 
 paring worthily for it. Such a care manifested 
 itself, particularly, in various providential measures, 
 the objects of which evidently were to remove from 
 them everything that might exercise over them a 
 sinister influence ; to enlighten them on the import- 
 ance of their election, and to make them acquainted 
 beforehand with the severe trials in store for them 
 for several centuries, before they could deservedly 
 reap the intended benefits. 
 
 E
 
 50 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 LXI. To this category of providential measures 
 belongs the state of isolation and of precarious 
 subsistence, in which, by the Divine will, the first 
 fathers had to live, in respect to their neighbours, 
 in that same land which was yet promised to them 
 as a perpetual inheritance; whereby they were 
 brought to learn from the beginning that the great 
 work, which their children were called upon to 
 accomplish, was not absolutely dependent on the 
 possession of a land under their own sovereignty, 
 but rather on the religious doctrines to which they 
 were to remain faithfully attached. To it belongs, 
 also, the severance or removal of the elder branch of 
 the first two families, which was too much inclined 
 to material interests, to teach thereby that physical 
 superiority is not at all requisite to the preservation 
 of a covenant based entirely on spirituality. And, 
 lastly, to the same category of measures belongs 
 the decreed long servitude of the Abrahamites in a 
 strange land, in which, not only the door to social 
 enjoyments would be shut against them, but a bar- 
 barous tyranny would also deprive them of the free 
 exercise of acts which are an imprescriptible right 
 of all mortals. Through the instrumentality of 
 such an oppression, the profound counsels of the 
 Eternal Wisdom designed so to regulate the first 
 education of that growing people, that, refined in 
 the crucible of adversity, it should early learn to 
 renounce the subjection of the senses, and turn its 
 heart and soul to God, from whom alone it could 
 hope salvation. It was only by depriving that
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 51 
 
 people of all human support, and of all extraneous 
 influences on its culture, that it could acquire a 
 character, firm, independent, tenacious in the 
 principles adopted, adverse to foreign notions, 
 faithful to its vocation, and that its mind could be 
 deeply impressed with the sentiment of a constant 
 adoration of the Supreme Being, as its only Deli- 
 verer, Legislator, Father, and Sovereign. 
 
 E 2
 
 52 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 LXII. THE descendants of the patriarchs, grown 
 into a numerous people, were, then, obliged to un- 
 dergo the severe trial of a long servitude in Egypt, 
 from which they could expect no rescue otherwise 
 than by a recourse to the God of their fathers. 
 If the privations of earthly enjoyments tended to 
 strengthen their spirits and courage against adver- 
 sity^ and to direct their desires towards gratifica- 
 tions of a more elevated nature; if the repulsive 
 conduct of their oppressors (by character hostile to 
 all strangers, and by system constituted in different 
 castes, each of which jealous of its own privileges) 
 favoured in a great measure their isolation, and 
 kept them from a pernicious contact and associa- 
 tion, it was the prayer which they offered up from 
 the bottom of their hearts to the Supreme Ruler of 
 their destinies, whose covenant with their pro- 
 genitors they remembered ; it was that prayer that 
 hastened the termination of so severe a discipline, 
 and drew near the epoch of their glorification. A 
 fit instrument only was wanted, through which 
 the deliverance should be effected, an organ to 
 communicate to the people the Divine laws, a 
 medium for the new solemn covenant which was to 
 be proclaimed between God and Israel. This elect
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 53 
 
 from among all mortals whose noble character, 
 resplendent with all human virtues, was heightened 
 by the true grandeur of an unexampled humility 
 was the holy legislator Moses, the divine man, the 
 faithful expounder of the will of God, the first link 
 of the glorious chain connecting the human family 
 with its Maker. He was appointed to deliver mira- 
 culously the Israelitish mass from the yoke of 
 Egypt, and to lead it to the skirts of a mountain, 
 where the grand act of the revelation was to be 
 accomplished. 
 
 LXIIL Before imparting that revelation, the 
 Divine wisdom vouchsafed to declare to the people 
 at large, in brief but clear words, the ultimate ob- 
 ject intended to be attained by such an institution, 
 and the principal condition conducive to its realisa- 
 tion. Therefore it was, that God began his com- 
 munications by saying to Israel, through Moses, 
 " 1 have brought you unto me" a concise and sub- 
 lime sentence, which comprehends in itself the 
 whole system of revealed religion, for the recogni- 
 tion of the intimate relation which brings the 
 rational creature near to its Creator, is the true 
 goal of man's destination. He added that, to 
 facilitate the attainment of that object, He had 
 adopted the means of electing a small portion of 
 mankind to be His missionaries ("although" said 
 He, " all the earth is mine") ; that He wished, there- 
 fore, to form of them a sacerdotal kingdom,, that is, 
 a class of persons, who, as priests of God, should 
 watch over, conserve, and promote spiritual in- 
 terests upon the earth; and that in consequence
 
 54 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 of the gravity of such a task, He required of them 
 that they should become a holy people, that is, a 
 people peculiarly devoted to self-sanctification 
 which substantially consists in imitating, in as far 
 as human nature permits, the Divine perfections, or 
 virtues. 
 
 LXIV. The awfully solemn act which succeeded 
 this preliminary manifestation is the most por- 
 tentous event to be found in the annals of the 
 world. Two millions of persons, ranged around 
 the skirts of a mountain, witness a majestic su- 
 pernatural vision; and amid thunder and light- 
 ning, dense vapour and blazing fire, the whole 
 ground trembling and the mountain echoing, a 
 sonorous voice from heaven descends on the terri- 
 fied ears of the people, and carries distinctly and 
 unmistakeably to humanity the high message of 
 God. By the pomp and circumstance which at- 
 tended the glorious scene of the first revelation, 
 God was pleased to afford an incontestable evi- 
 dence of the truth and divinity, not only of the 
 doctrines which were then and there being re- 
 vealed, but of those, also, that were to follow; the 
 unimpeachable testimony of the senses of a vast 
 multitude, brought to bear upon the first and fun- 
 damental communication, was capable of producing 
 so full and lasting a conviction in the minds of the 
 numerous hearers, as to remove for the future all 
 doubt as to the divine origin of revelation. Through 
 an immediate sensible perception which by its 
 nature carries the most irrefragable certainty 
 Israel, then, received from God Himself the first
 
 OF JEWJSII YOUTH. 55 
 
 dictates of a religion, of which that people was to 
 become the professor, conservator^ and propagator, 
 in perpetuity; and equally convinced of the true 
 mission of its leader, Moses, it naturally accepted 
 from the latter all subsequent instructions, as laws 
 emanating from the same divine source. 
 
 LXV. The word of God pronounced in that 
 memorable instant, and known since under the 
 name of Decalogue, or Ten Commandments, could 
 uot, however, embrace the whole sum of religious 
 truths that were intended to be revealed, because 
 it would have been humanly impossible to the 
 people to persist in that extraordinary state of in- 
 timate spiritual or prophetic relation with the 
 Deity, till the end of all the revelation. There- 
 fore, the Decalogue exhibits only some funda- 
 mental points, which, from their importance, de- 
 served to be more prominently impressed ; it marks 
 the outlines of the foundation upon which the 
 edifice of revealed religion was afterwards to be 
 raised. Yet, although the promulgation of the 
 entire divine code was a work reserved for the 
 blessed legislator Moses, the Ten Commandments 
 present, nevertheless, a compendious but complete 
 system of institutions, referring to all those social 
 and religious subjects, which most interest man- 
 kind. In fact, the three relations of man towards 
 his Creator, his fellow-man, and himself, are traced 
 in the Decalogue in a masterly manner, classified ac- 
 cording to their order, and elucidated by placing 
 prominently forward one culminating point, which 
 serves to determine their true character. Such is
 
 56 A GUIDE FOll THE KELIG10US INSTRUCTION 
 
 the wise economy of all revealed laws, that gene- 
 rally avoiding abstractions, they select as a standard 
 one special case of the most interesting, and leave 
 it to the care of the human understanding to gene- 
 ralize, and deduce from it universal theories.* Con- 
 sequently, on analysing the ten emanations of the 
 Divine Will, we must transfer mentally each of 
 them to the class of duties to which it belongs, 
 and consider it as intended to represent all that 
 class. 
 
 * The author has already informed us, that he confines himself, 
 in this book, to the enunciation of principles, and leaves to teach- 
 ers the task of demonstrating, developing, and applying them, in 
 course of instruction. Nevertheless, as this proposition recurs 
 more than once in these pages, and contains a very important 
 principle, it is perhaps desirable, for the general reader, to offer 
 here an elucidation, by the following examples of its application. 
 
 We are taught, " If thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass 
 going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again " (Exod. 
 xxiii. 4). We are to understand, that the lesson thereby con- 
 veyed, is not confined to the particular case named, but that we 
 are commanded to cast off selfishness, and to extend our kind- 
 ness and charity even to enemies, actively exerting ourselves for 
 the assistance and benefit of others', whenever opportunities offer 
 themselves in our every-day life. 
 
 Again, we are enjoined, " Thou shalt not curse the deaf, nor 
 put a stumbling-block before the blind " (Lev. xix. 14). We 
 are clearly to conclude therefrom, that any act of treachery, in 
 itself already detestable in the eyes of God, becomes doubly so 
 when directed against the unconscious and the helpless ; and a 
 very wide range of treacherous actions would, therefore, come 
 within the meaning of this prohibition. 
 
 The paramount importance of this hermeneutical rule will be 
 my apology for having dilated on a point, which must be already 
 well known to biblical sudcnts, THK TRANSLATOR.
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 57 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 LXVI. THE first commandment, which regards 
 the relations of man with God, lays down that the 
 acknowledgment of the Supreme Being is the basis 
 of all the revelation, and gives us to understand that 
 such a conviction then began historically to mani- 
 fest itself on earth, taking root first in the people 
 of Israel, whom therefore the Deity addresses, say- 
 ing, " I am the Eternal, thy God," signifying, " by 
 thee alone acknowledged hitherto." It also estab- 
 lishes the immutable eternity of the absolute Being, 
 conveyed in the etymology of the ineffable Name; 
 next, his indivisible unity, indicated in the word 
 El, which denotes the sum of all the powers, and 
 the aggregation of all the attributes, in one and the 
 same essence. The same text proceeds then to 
 arouse the feelings of gratitude, which must bind 
 especially this people to the powerful hand that had 
 delivered it from ignominious servitude ; and this 
 involves the obligation in the same people of de- 
 voting itself entirely to God, and subordinating all 
 its tendencies to religious feeling. The last two 
 words of this text allude to one of the great prin- 
 ciples on which revealed religion rests, the Eternal
 
 58 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 having thereby proclaimed, not only the individual 
 equality of all the Israelites before the law, but 
 also the personal liberty of all men, which prin- 
 ciple, being regulated according to the true idea of 
 right, becomes the fundamental basis of civil 
 society. 
 
 LXVIL The worship of the only God, coupled 
 with the absolute rejection of every form of idola- 
 trous and superstitious creed, forms the subject of 
 the second commandment, which completes the 
 portion of the Decalogue regarding the relations of 
 man towards the Creator. It severely prohibits 
 every kind of idolatry, both that which substitutes 
 for the true God false and imaginary beings, or 
 even beings real but contingent and created, and 
 that which would associate in His worship a vene- 
 ration for others, under the title of mediators or 
 protectors; it then interdicts the making of any 
 image whatsoever, when intended to represent the 
 infinite and incorporeal Being, and bids us neither 
 to pay to any such simulacra a religious respect 
 or veneration, which is due to the true God alone, 
 nor to practise such conventional acts, as, how- 
 ever insignificant in themselves, are yet held by 
 idolaters as modes of worship. Lastly, this com- 
 mandment conveys the obligation to dissent from, 
 and reject, every superstition and every error, re- 
 quiring us to preserve pure and intemerate the 
 adoration due to the Supreme Being, who, in this 
 sense, is represented in this text as jealously watch- 
 ing over human actions, and a not indifferent
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 59 
 
 spectator of good or evil; therefore a sure pun- 
 isher of the guilty, and an eternal remunerator of 
 him who faithfully adheres to His law. 
 
 LXVIII. As a transition from the duties to- 
 wards God to those towards our fellow-men, the 
 two succeeding precepts are opportunely placed, 
 one of which concerns the act of invoking the 
 Divinity between men, and the other the mode of 
 elevating men towards the Divinity. In the mul- 
 tifarious contentions arising in social life, it some- 
 times occurs to have recourse to God, to convalidate 
 an assertion, or to test a truth. Now, in the act of 
 attestation called oath, the third commandment 
 prohibits with the greatest rigour anything that 
 might offend the sanctity of the ineffable name of 
 God, which is invoked by the deponent in attestation 
 of the truth of his words. Consequently the text 
 declares, that if such a solemn invocation were 
 made to confirm a thing, which is not wholly con- 
 formable to the intimate conviction and most 
 scrupulous conscience of the swearer, the conse- 
 quences would be a profanation of the name of 
 God, and a scandalous immorality, to the detriment 
 of society at large; for this could not subsist 
 without an upright administration of justice; and 
 the latter would be upset and trampled upon by 
 perjury. In order to shew more prominently the 
 gravity of this matter, and to protect society, an 
 avenging God protests that He would never leave 
 unpunished whomsoever should render himself 
 guilty of the monstrous crime of perjury.
 
 60 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 LXIX. From the moment when the work of 
 creation was completed, the Divine wisdom ordained 
 that an intimate relation should subsist between 
 man and his Creator, and called that day holy and 
 blessed on which so merciful an institution was 
 inaugurated and began to come into operation. This 
 relation, which, as we have already stated, forms the 
 basis of revealed religion, tended to emancipate man 
 from the sphere of materiality, and to render him 
 conscious of his higher destination, and capable of 
 accomplishing it. It was, therefore, natural that 
 the people called upon to give the religious prin- 
 ciple a durable consistency on earth, should keep a 
 perpetual commemoration of that day which repre- 
 sented the bond subsisting between the Divinity 
 and humanity; it was proper that the day should 
 not only and simply be remembered, but that it 
 should, also, have some feature exercising a pre- 
 dominating influence over material life, by making- 
 tins subordinate to the spiritual requirements. The 
 fourth word of the Decalogue prescribes, then, that 
 the Israelite should for ever remember the holy 
 day of sabbath, as a representative of religion, and 
 should, during that day, abstain, and cause all his 
 dependants to abstain, from all manual labour and 
 earthly occupation, that might distract him from 
 the contemplation of heavenly subjects, which 
 should exclusively occupy his mind on that day. 
 
 LXX. Among all man's duties towards his 
 fellow-men, those of children towards their parents 
 are assuredly the highest in degree, because without
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 61 
 
 them the bonds which hold society together would 
 be destroyed. These duties form the subject of 
 the fifth commandment. To define their character 
 in a single trait, a profound wisdom has selected the 
 word honour, thereby pointing to a respect which 
 arises, not from fear and terror, but from gratitude, 
 love and submission. Additional importance is 
 given to this precept by the consideration, that the 
 revealed religion could not have been preserved and 
 made known to the latest posterity but by the in- 
 strumentality of an uninterrupted tradition from 
 generation to generation ; and the faith to be placed 
 in such a tradition depended, to a great extent, on 
 the respect in which parents would be held. The 
 reward promised to him who observes this com- 
 mandment, is in perfect and natural harmony with 
 the observance itself; man's life will be prolonged 
 and blessed by honouring the authors of it. 
 
 LXXT. The three conditions most prominent in 
 human society, viz., life, matrimony, and property, 
 are referred to in the subsequent words, which 
 form the sixth, seventh and eighth precepts of the 
 Decalogue. To concentrate in one word all that 
 is to be observed regarding these essential elements 
 of a social state, the sacred text confines itself to 
 proclaiming, in an absolute mode, their inviolability, 
 therefore adopting the negative or prohibitive form. 
 It is desired to prevent and forbid every arbitrary 
 act, and every unjust attempt, directed to deprive 
 the legitimate possessor of, or to restrict and in 
 any other way to disturb him in, the full, free, and
 
 62 A 
 
 exclusive enjoyment of his own. To respect the 
 life, the conjugal bed, and the property of others, 
 is to consolidate the bonds of society, to pay homage 
 to the eternal principles of justice, upon the prac- 
 tice of which God willed that the preservation and 
 prosperity of mankind should depend. 
 
 LXXII. In order that our conduct towards our 
 neighbours be strictly in accordance with justice, 
 it is necessary, generally, that it should be based 
 upon an honest and straightforward character of 
 veracity, and that our outward demonstrations, in 
 deeds and in words, should not be at variance with 
 our inward convictions, respecting the merits or 
 demerits of our fellow-inen. Falsehood, detraction, 
 calumny, and other similar vices, injurious to the 
 peace and reputation of others, as well as simu- 
 lated friendship, and hypocrisy, may all be com- 
 prehended within the denomination of perfidy ; and 
 as an extreme and most distinct manifestation 
 of peril diousness is to be found in false testimony, 
 hence the ninth commandment is addressed to this 
 vice, and forbids the witnessing against our fellow- 
 men anything that is not entirely and strictly 
 conformable to the truth. It is easy and natural 
 for us to step from this special prohibition to the 
 spirit which dictated it, and to conclude that the 
 precept is generally directed to remove from so- 
 ciety all perfidy and wrong, as contrary to truth 
 and justice. 
 
 LXXIII. A certain involuntary or instinctive 
 desire of that which is pleasing, is in human
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 63 
 
 nature itsolf; but this vague and voluble feeling- 
 may, by deliberate reflection, convert itself into an 
 act of free-will, and, eventually increasing in 
 strength, become a vehement affection, an uncon- 
 trollable passion. Now, so long as that feeling 
 does not pass into an act of appropriating the thing 
 desired, human law cannot deal with it ; but Divine 
 law, which has for its object the internal perfection 
 of man, steps in to regulate the movements of the 
 heart, when they are accompanied by a deliberate 
 will of possessing. Therefore, the tenth and last 
 commandment of the Decalogue, which refers to 
 man's duties towards himself, aims at the human 
 will, and prescribes limits, within which the desires, 
 tending to procure possession, should be confined, 
 forbidding specially to covet that which belongs to 
 others. It is not thereby intended to absolutely 
 prevent the formation of a natural wish, but it is 
 directed to confine it within just limits, that it may 
 not expand and be transformed into a usurpation.
 
 64 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 LXXIV. THE succeeding revelations, which were 
 made to the blessed legislator Moses, and by him 
 collected into a body of statutes and rules, known 
 under the title of Pentateuch, bear the same rela- 
 tion to the Decalogue as that of a finished edifice 
 to the first outline which traced its limits and com- 
 partments they are the elaboration of it, they 
 branch into the same triple classification of duties 
 which we have remarked in it, and present 
 its development and completion. What in the 
 Decalogue appeared, as in nucleus, under the form 
 of duties of man towards God, towards his fellow- 
 man, and towards himself, is developed by those 
 laws into detailed instructions, through which the 
 people of Israel was to learn the knowledge of God, 
 to practise justice and charity, and to effect its own 
 sanctification ; three cardinal points, corresponding 
 to the three classes of duties above mentioned, 
 which embrace the whole sum" and substance of 
 revealed religion. We shall not, therefore, proceed 
 to enumerate here, one by one, those multifarious 
 laws, a great part of which, being contingent on 
 the existence of the temple and the possession of
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 65 
 
 Palestine, have now no practical application, but 
 we shall only treat of the three principles which 
 form the bases of them all, viz., God, Justice, and 
 Sanctification, leaving to the intelligence of those 
 who sedulously investigate the single precepts, the 
 easy task of tracing them to one or other of the 
 said three categories. 
 
 LXXV. To the elucidation of these three prin- 
 ciples we must, however, premise two observations. 
 In the first place, it is to be remarked, on the one 
 hand, that although the human intellect can by 
 itself (provided it be not overruled by the sway of 
 sensual appetites) recognise summarily the excel- 
 lence of such principles, and give them unreserv- 
 edly its sanction, yet its perceptions with respect 
 to their specialities remain very imperfect, for 
 several reasons : first, because it finds itself unable 
 to rebut and conquer one by one all the objections 
 which the infidel may bring forward; secondly, in 
 consequence of the doubts which its own limited 
 powers sometimes suggest, impairing its own 
 sense of the truth; and lastly, because wanting 
 the knowledge of many details and circumstances, 
 about which it can form no judgment, the intellect 
 cannot construct a complete rationalistic system of 
 moral theology. Whereas, on the other hand, 
 emanating as they do from the infinite wisdom and 
 mercy of God, formulated in the shape of positive 
 precepts, and corroborated by the portentous 
 manner of their promulgation, those principles 
 acquire an undisputed authority, remove every 
 
 F
 
 66 A GUIDE FOE THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 doubt, illumine the mind with unexpected sublime 
 truths, satisfy the heart which finds them con- 
 sentaneous with its own feelings, and are thus more 
 apt to accomplish the objects towards which they 
 are directed. And if there be among them some 
 precept, of which we do not in our present time 
 clearly perceive the true tendency, we accept it, 
 nevertheless, with that filial confidence inspired by 
 its divine origin ; and, by analogy, we consider it as 
 calculated to contribute to the promotion of our 
 own weal. 
 
 LXXVI. In the second place, it is necessary to 
 distinguish, in the aggregate of this revelation, the 
 universal theories applicable to, and concerning all 
 mankind, from the special prescriptions obligatory 
 only on those to whom they were addressed. Ge- 
 nerally, all the children of Adam are bound to 
 know God, to practise justice, and to procure their 
 own sanctification ; such duties are inherent in 
 human nature itself, they correspond exactly to the 
 destination of man, and none can exempt himself 
 from them, without rebelling against nature and 
 the sovereign Author of it. Consequently, the 
 doctrines contained in the revealed law, in regard 
 to these three points, apply to all rational beings, 
 and everybody is called upon to participate in, and 
 profit by, them; they are the inheritance of all 
 mankind. But it was obvious that those, who were 
 in the first instance selected to receive those dogmas, 
 and to become their jealous conservators and per- 
 petual propagators, should have some distinctive
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 67 
 
 and peculiar devices, and be charged with obser- 
 vances, qualifying them for adepts to the ministry 
 of such a sublime mission. Hence it is, that 
 among the precepts of universal appurtenance 
 there are several which Israel alone is bound to 
 observe, and these consist partly of external acts 
 to be performed, either at certain stated times, or 
 at all times, partly of particular forms and rules 
 to be followed, either in reference to one's self or 
 to others, and to some external objects of animate 
 or inanimate nature, and partly, in fine, they pre- 
 scribe abstinence from certain things which to all 
 others are left permissive. It will be easy to every 
 attentive student to discern and point out the pre- 
 scriptions of this class, as their very nature is 
 sufficient to characterise them; we shall have, 
 however, occasion to mention them, after we shall 
 have endeavoured to place in a clear light the three 
 principal articles of the revelation. 
 
 F2
 
 68 A GUIDE FOE THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 LXXVII. IMMENSE efforts have been made by 
 human reason to elevate itself to the conception of 
 the Deity, to demonstrate His existence, and to 
 deduce with solid arguments His principal attri- 
 butes. Yet, even that quantum which human 
 reason believes to have succeeded in establishing 
 on this exalted subject, has always had to encoun- 
 ter in the fields of proud philosophy tenacious, or 
 rather pertinacious, adversaries. Whereas revela- 
 tion, extricating man from the labyrinth of tran- 
 scendental abstrusities, presents him at once with 
 a well constructed system of theological science, 
 which he has only to receive within his bosom, to 
 lead a happy life on earth, and attain his true goal 
 beyond the grave. The Divine word informs us of 
 God, as a pure spirit, eternal and immutable, in- 
 corporeal, absolute (that is, not dependent upon 
 causes without Himself), omniscient, omnipresent, 
 omnipotent, all-perfect and therefore all-holy (that 
 is, possessing all the attributes in the highest de- 
 gree of perfection) ; one, because admitting not in 
 Himself distinctions of multiplicity, and sole, be- 
 cause beside him there is no God ; Creator of the 
 universe from nought, therefore distinct from all 
 things created (which we would call, if allowed the
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 69 
 
 expression, extramundam) ; Creator of man in His 
 image, having endowed him with intelligence, 
 liberty, and an immortal soul ; provident and im- 
 mediate* to man, watching over his actions, punish- 
 ing faults and rewarding merits, and pardoning 
 him who truly repents of evil committed; He is a 
 perpetual source of the purest love, hence a mer- 
 ciful father to all His creatures, unto whom He con- 
 tinually pours forth treasures of His kindness ; He 
 strengthens the weak, comforts the afflicted, en- 
 lightens the ignorant, protects the oppressed, and 
 grants the prayer of those who trust in Him; He 
 governs human events according to His will, now 
 causing human enterprises to succeed, anon to fail ; 
 always directing them to the ends contemplated 
 by His infinite wisdom, for He is the all- wise, just, 
 and faithful, whose promises are infallibly accom- 
 plished, and whose word subsists to eternity. He 
 sometimes suspends the order of nature, and 
 works miracles, whenever He deems it suitable to 
 His high designs. He established a covenant with 
 the Abrakamitic race, and revealed to it His holy 
 law, by this means to illuminate and bless all man- 
 kind. 
 
 LXXVIII. Although these notions do not com- 
 
 * This expression is here used to indicate the direct and 
 spqcial relation of God with man, and the direct government of 
 mankind by God, without intermediate agencies, in contra- 
 distinction to the other terrestrial creatures, whose relation with 
 the Creator is only general, and which are governed through the 
 medium of pre-established physical laws. THE TRANSLATOR.
 
 70 A GUIDE FOB THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 plete the idea of the Divinity, much less can they 
 claim to define His essence for to the very limited 
 faculties of the human mind this will always re- 
 main inconceivable yet they are sufficient to 
 afford such an instruction on divine subjects as to 
 satisfy the wants of humanity. With the guidance 
 of the elements offered, and by a conscientious 
 meditation on those Divine attributes, man will be 
 able to dispel the superstitious notions and the 
 errors into which they have fallen, who have not 
 consulted the Divine word on such a subject; he 
 will be able to sketch in his own mind an idea, 
 however incomplete, of the sublime object of his 
 adoration, and thus preserve himself from much 
 that is evil. Having been destined to live in 
 society, and compelled to work in order to supply 
 the multifarious wants of his body; always more 
 or less struggling with the interests of his fellow 
 men to secure a possession often disputed to 
 him by malice, or violence; and evil example and 
 ignorance and the sensual appetites being concur- 
 rently at work man became naturally, in the 
 course of time, too easy a prey to passions, vice 
 and error; he was overpowered by materialism, 
 and fell into sin. Therefore, the idea revealed to 
 him of a holy God, who watches over his destinies, 
 who punishes the guilty, rewards the virtuous, and 
 pardons the penitent, is the best balsam that could 
 be administered, the best truth that could be taught 
 to him ; it saves him from error, removes him from 
 sin, invites him to direct his view to heaven, re-
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 71 
 
 stores him within the Divine grace, and opens to 
 him the prospect of an interminable beatitude. 
 
 LXXIX. Among those attributes, however, one 
 becomes prominent, from its importance ; it is that 
 which establishes an immediate relation, or com- 
 munion, as subsisting between the Creator and the 
 rational creature; a fundamental point on which 
 the whole religion hinges. The intimacy of such a 
 relation manifested itself at the very beginning of 
 the world by God having created man in His image, 
 by which expression it is meant, that the Divine 
 Maker bestowed some part of His perfections on the 
 noblest creature on earth, endowing it with intel- 
 ligence, free-will, and immortality; these high pre- 
 rogatives conferred upon man, to a certain degree, 
 a similitude with his Maker, and from this simili- 
 tude was naturally to follow a closer relation of 
 mutual love, than exists between God and the 
 other created things. Such a relation assumed a 
 more definite form when God took man under His 
 special guardianship, whilst He left the government 
 of inanimate nature to physical laws, unalterable 
 and compulsory, which He had established in the 
 first instant of creation. The stupendous connec- 
 tion was lastly completed, by God having communi- 
 cated His will to men, and traced out to them the 
 course. they had to follow, in order to render them- 
 selves worthy of the great boon, and to attain the 
 end destined for them. From all these circum- 
 stances it became evident that God is immediate to 
 man. 
 
 LXXX. As, in general, all the revelation has
 
 72 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 for its object to benefit humanity, so, in particular, 
 when the divine word is directed to impart to us 
 the knowledge of God, it intends to teach us the 
 duties we are called upon to fulfil towards the 
 Author of our existence; duties which we could 
 not well discharge if we were wanting in that 
 knowledge. Now, the first of these duties is to 
 love God. Such a noble feeling, which, as we have 
 already stated, derives its origin from a relation of 
 similitude between him who loves and the object 
 beloved, cannot be kindled in us by effect of a mere 
 command, as the motions of the heart are not pro- 
 duced by authority. Therefore, while holy writ 
 inculcates the love of God, it at the same time in- 
 dicates to us the means whereby this sublime love 
 will be promoted ; and the means is to walk in the 
 ways of the Eternal. To understand the connec- 
 tion between the means and the end, we must con- 
 sider the different degrees of which love is suscep- 
 tible, and motives by which it is actuated. He who 
 loves God because of great favours received, is apt 
 to feel a diminution of attachment, or even indif- 
 ference, on being overtaken by misfortune. He 
 who loves Him with a view to benefits in a future 
 life, is also in danger of ceasing to love, if some 
 doubts were to arise in his mind and to weaken his 
 hopes. But when man loves God because he un- 
 derstands, and admires, and adores in Him the 
 aggregate of all perfections, and feels within him- 
 self the flame of a desire to approach the Divine 
 Majesty, then his love is an inextinguishable love, 
 for he abnegates his own self, and centres his mo-
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 73 
 
 tives exclusively in the object beloved. This kind 
 of love, however, presupposes a uniformity of ten- 
 dencies, which causes the one who loves to esteem 
 and to endeavour to appropriate the qualities ad- 
 mired by him ; and in this precisely consists the re- 
 semblance, which produces the true love. Justice, 
 faithfulness, righteousness, mercy, and many other 
 Divine attributes, which in the biblical language 
 are called the ways of the Eternal, cannot be fully 
 and worthily appreciated, except by him. who uses 
 all his endeavours to adorn himself with such 
 virtues, as far as his limited nature allows. And 
 now we can understand, why he cannot truly love 
 who walks not in His ways. 
 
 LXXXI. Another principal duty, issuing from 
 the same .revelation, is that which is commonly 
 called fear of God, an expression very frequent in 
 the sacred text, but which requires to be explained. 
 The Hebrew word used is susceptible of two dif- 
 ferent interpretations. It might apply to the fear of 
 retribution, suggested by the reflection that an all- 
 powerful God will not leave unpunished the trans- 
 gressors of his commands ; or the same word might 
 signify the sense of reverence and unbounded venera- 
 tion, with which the frail creature must feel almost 
 overwhelmed when thinking of its exalted Creator, 
 who knows all, sees all, and governs all. The former 
 originates in the intellect, the latter in the heart. It 
 is obvious that the fear of punishment is not a suf- 
 ficient restraint to deter man, at all times, from sin ; 
 for in the ebullition of impetuous passions, the in- 
 tellect becomes offuscated and impeded in the exer-
 
 74 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 cise of its functions, or frequently is itself pressed 
 into the service of the predominating passion. Not 
 so the awe and reverence inspired by the majesty of 
 the Supreme King of the universe. It pervades all 
 the heart, disposes it to feelings of submission and 
 obedience, convinces it that man is at all times in 
 the presence of his Maker, and thus prevents inor- 
 dinate material appetites from bursting forth and 
 rising forcibly to uncontrollable preponderance. 
 Hence it is that the fear of God, taken in the latter 
 sense, is a powerful prop which supports the 
 religious edifice, is the most effectual and valuable 
 lesson we derive from the revelation of the Divine 
 attributes. 
 
 LXXXII. From these two principal duties, 
 spring, as corollaries, others of no less importance, 
 which come, also, within the sphere of the first 
 cardinal point of biblical revelation, the knowledge 
 of God. He, who truly loves and fears God, will 
 surely feel the necessity of placing in Him exclu- 
 sively all his trust, for he is convinced that there is 
 no being in nature, besides God, that can offer an 
 infallible support to human hopes. He will find 
 in -his heart an almost irrepressible impulse to 
 praise the Divine perfections, to extol His glory, to 
 offer sincere homage to the Sovereign of the uni- 
 verse, to worship and serve Him with purity of 
 heart, to thank Him for favours received, to sup- 
 plicate Him for help, to confess to Him sins com- 
 mitted, and to ask His pardon with contrite spirit. 
 All these and other like acts of filial dependence 
 and piety, find their expression in that elevated form
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 75 
 
 of external worship called prayer, which, whether 
 exercised publicly in appropriate and consecrated 
 temples, or recited in the solitude of the domestic 
 closet,* whether strictly following an established 
 formulary, or pouring out the impulsive feelings of 
 the heart, is always an urgent want and an indis- 
 pensable duty of every religious man. Lastly, the 
 true love and fear of God imply the obligation of 
 avoiding, in all that pertains to Divine worship, 
 everything that might have the appearance of 
 idolatry, of intrusion of intermediate powers, or 
 of any superstition whatever; above all clearly 
 emerges the duty of not abusing the holy name 
 of God, either by uttering it on trivial occasions 
 which would tend to diminish the reverence 
 due to Him or by profaning it with an invocation 
 to a false testimony, whereby the detestable crime 
 of perjury would be consummated. 
 
 * Public, as compared with private worship, has the undoubted 
 advantage of being in itself a public homage to the omnipotence 
 of God, and a solemn testimony of the dependence of man on 
 Him. True, solitary worship is often more likely to be attended 
 with the requisite mental abstraction from all worldly objects, and 
 intellectual elevation of the soul towards its Divine Source a 
 condition of mind indispensable to establish a true spiritual com- 
 munion in Prayer, and without which all our orisons and ritual 
 ceremonies would be but mechanical and meaningless perform- 
 ances, a body without soul. It is this condition of the mind that, 
 in Talmudical style, is called H31D, as is well known, and that 
 later ascetic writers termed niYllSnn, from the circumstance that 
 it is superinduced by solitary meditation. But whenever this con- 
 dition is attained in a public service, then indeed is that service 
 " divine," and humanity is exalted in its approach to the Throne 
 of Mercv. THE TRANSLATOR.
 
 76 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 LXXXIII. ON determining the duties of the 
 individual towards his fellow-men, and towards 
 all that surrounds him in nature, revelation did 
 not think it proper to refer the motives to human 
 intelligence, and to allow the bases of justice 
 and benevolence to rest on human reason alone; 
 but it said, "Do what is right and just and good 
 in the eyes of the Eternal thy God; and refrain 
 from all that is not such, because it pleases not 
 thy God," whereby it wished to proclaim that the 
 notions of just and unjust, of good and evil, of 
 rights and duties, should be considered as emanat- 
 ing from, arid prescribed by, the Divine wisdom, 
 and therefore obligatory only because agreeable to 
 the Divine will. In this also the revealed word 
 purposed to come to the assistance of human 
 frailty, and to render superfluous the abstrusities 
 as arbitrary as uncertain and controvertible about 
 which eminent philosophers tortured their brains, 
 for many centuries, to fix, as they thought, the 
 principles of the so-called Jure in its innumerable 
 ramifications of natural and positive, public and 
 private, civil and criminal, commercial, maritime,
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 77 
 
 canonical, feudal, of police, of finance, of war, and 
 what not, without ever yet arriving at a complete 
 accord in their specialities; whereas all right ob- 
 tains a solid and effective sanction when its origin 
 is referred to God, who comprehending in Himself 
 the sum total of right, justice and moral good, and 
 having communed with man to enjoin to him 
 their exercise, willed that the carrying out of their 
 dictates should be considered as an act of religion, 
 of service rendered to Him, and that violating 
 the one or failing in the other, should be alike 
 regarded as an offence committed towards Him, 
 which He will punish severely. God, then, is the 
 source of right; He made man acquainted with it 
 through His law, and committed to him its per- 
 formance on earth after rules prescribed by His 
 will. 
 
 LXXXIV. In promulgating the duties of man 
 towards his fellow-men, the holy scripture assumed 
 sometimes the negative form, to forbid all that 
 which may cause injury to others; and sometimes 
 the positive form, enjoining the practice to be fol- 
 lowed towards all. To the first class belong the 
 following prohibitions, viz., of nourishing hatred, 
 rancour, revenge; of calumniating, or in any way 
 whatever damaging the reputations of others; of 
 assailing their honour or good fame ; of restraining 
 or obstructing others in the exercise of their rights, 
 or in the use and enjoyment of their properties; of 
 practising deceptions, impositions, frauds, and all 
 forms of insincerity, usury, extortions, and vio-
 
 78 A GUIDE FOR THE EELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 lence ; of laying obstructions in the way of the weak 
 or helpless; of giving false testimony; of speaking 
 untruth ; of reporting even truth, when it may lead 
 to discord and strife; of occasioning danger; of 
 offending decency and good manners; of causing 
 scandal; of withholding wages or remuneration due; 
 of keeping in pledge the clothing or implements of 
 the poor ; of using two weights and measures ; of 
 associating with the wicked ; of breaking a pledge- 
 word; of violating or assailing the conjugal happi- 
 ness of others ; of coveting anything that belongs to 
 others; and other similar prohibitions recorded in 
 the sacred code, which can be easily collected as per- 
 taining to this class. Moreover, it will not be un- 
 reasonable to complete this list by the addition of 
 a few more particular actions, which, though not 
 specifically mentioned, must yet be understood to 
 be forbidden ; for, as it is a constant rule in biblical 
 exegesis to deduce general theories from single laws 
 which appear to refer to particular cases, so must, 
 by analogy, be comprised in an enunciated forbid- 
 den action all others of a similar nature, character, 
 and tendency, as being understood in the former. 
 
 LXXXV. The positive precepts concerning 
 a man's conduct towards his fellow-rnen, are na- 
 turally enunciated in directions of a tendency pre- 
 cisely opposite to those expressed negatively; that 
 is to say, it is enjoined to practise the reverse of 
 what has been forbidden. Now, to begin with the 
 more general prescriptions; it is enjoined, in the 
 first place, to love one's fellow-men as one's own-
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 79 
 
 self, all mankind, without any exception, being 
 comprised in this expression, as we meet again the 
 same injunction with regard to the stranger, whom 
 we are commanded to love as ourselves; and 
 Scripture explained already Avhat is to be under- 
 stood by the word stranger, when it said : " Thou 
 also hast been a stranger in the land of Egypt " ; 
 from which it is evident that the love inculcated 
 extends even to adversaries and enemies. It is 
 next commanded to respect in every individual 
 the dignity of man, created in the image of God, 
 which establishes the inviolability of person, and 
 the equality of all before the law, so that there 
 should be no privileged caste, no hereditary pre- 
 eminence; desiring, on the contrary, that "under 
 the protection of the same law and same right 
 should dwell the native and the foreigner." The 
 personal liberty of every member of the human 
 family is also proclaimed, as it is with that inten- 
 tion that the Decalogue has put prominently for- 
 ward the circumstance of Israel having been 
 delivered from servitude ; and if, on the one hand, 
 the condition of the times, which had rendered the 
 use of slavery natural and universal, did not then 
 admit of its sudden and immediate extirpation; 
 on the other, Scripture designed to mitigate its 
 acerbity by provident and humane laws, so as -to 
 make obvious the tendency to its future total, 
 though gradual, extinction. To prevent pauperism, 
 as well as to cure its evils, the rich were enjoined 
 to lend money to those who needed it; and the
 
 80 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 law, starting from the presumption that the poor 
 man would not, or at least should not, desire to 
 borrow and incur a debt, unless being deprived of 
 the necessaries of life, ordered that such a loan 
 to the destitute brother be gratuitous, whilst in 
 commercial transactions with foreign people it 
 permitted the charge of some reasonable interest 
 on loans of money, as an equivalent for the service 
 rendered. 
 
 L XXXVI. The administration of justice being, 
 according to the revealed principles, a divine office, 
 was naturally to be confided to persons carefully 
 selected for their intelligence, probity, incorrupti- 
 bility, and superiority to every human regard; 
 these are therefore invested with a judicial repre- 
 sentation of the Divinity on earth, and are enjoined 
 to proceed according to the rules of the strictest 
 justice, without ever deferring either to the pitiable 
 condition of the poor, or to the influence of the 
 powerful. As a corollary 1o this system, every 
 person is bound to appeal to these authorities in 
 any emergency, and to refrain from taking the law 
 into his own hands; even for the correction of the 
 disorders of one's own child, the law requires a 
 recourse to the constituted authority, not permit- 
 ting the infliction of punishments of any kind, 
 without the intervention of those appointed to 
 administer justice. Passing to the other observ- 
 ances, which grow out of the grand duty to be just 
 to all, we are strictly commanded to respect the 
 property, the rights and the honour of others, to
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 8 1 
 
 be solicitous of their welfare, as much as of our own, 
 to act honestly, sincerely and faithfully on every 
 occasion, to fulfil our promises, to facilitate to 
 others the success to which they are justly entitled, 
 and to pardon our enemies. From the multifa- 
 rious and varied ties which bind the individual to 
 family and society, issue the special duties of 
 husband and wife, of fathers, of children, of rela- 
 tions, as well as the regard due to misfortune, 
 respect to the aged, the virtuous, the learned, 
 the magistrates, and the authorities of the state, 
 attachment to the country, and obedience and 
 loyalty to the sovereign, who, in the language of 
 the Bible, is constituted by God to govern the 
 destinies of the people committed to his or her 
 care. All these duties, which branch off into many 
 specialities, are either explicitly declared, or in- 
 contestably result, by analogies and sound hermen- 
 eutical deductions, from the various texts referring 
 to such subjects. 
 
 LXXXVII. But not to strict justice alone our 
 conduct towards our fellow-men must conform 
 itself; we are bound to act on the principles of the 
 most generous benevolence and charity. Those 
 acts of a noble mind and a magnanimous heart, 
 commonly called virtue, which are by moralists only 
 recommended, as meritorious works, are by the 
 Divine law enjoined, as obligatory, in the most 
 absolute sense. Alms, for instance, are, in the 
 Mosaic law, a duty of the rich, and a right of the 
 needy. God is the owner of the land ; He gave it 
 
 G
 
 82 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 to the diligent to cultivate, and through His blessing 
 their labours prosper ; He assigned to the poor His 
 dues on the cultivated soil, and ordered that to 
 them should be left the total produce of every 
 seventh year, the tithes of some other years, and 
 the gleanings of the fields and vineyards. It was 
 not thereby intended to render charity legal and 
 compulsory, depriving it of its noblest attribute, 
 which is spontaneity, but to show more conspicu- 
 ously the importance attached to it, having other- 
 wise left free all acts of kindness and mercy, to 
 which the law does not fix any measure. To this 
 class also belong the precepts, which make it a 
 duty to give timely assistance to him who is about 
 to succumb to fatigue and labour^ to supply with 
 provisions the discharged servant, to restore before 
 sunset the clothing taken in -pawn, to obviate 
 danger in building a house, to put no obstructions 
 before the blind, to grant every 'kind of relief to 
 whomsoever stands in need, without exacting, or 
 even expecting, any remuneration, to rescue those 
 who are in danger, to defend the weak, to protect 
 the widow and the orphan, to attend the sick, and 
 to .give sepulture to the dead. These and other 
 similar prescriptions, which make of charity a duty, 
 carry with them the great lesson, that justice must 
 go always hand-in-hand with mercy, since the all- 
 just God is also all-merciful, and he who satisfies 
 not both alike, does not fully discharge his duties 
 to society. 
 
 LXXXVIII. The Mosaic dispensation, which
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 83 
 
 considers the whole world as a grand unit, and tends 
 to carry out the idea of moral good to its fullest 
 extent, could not leave unnoticed the relations of 
 man with beings of different species; therefore 
 it also mentioned duties that we owe to the 
 irrational creatures and inanimate beings. True, 
 God granted to man a superiority, a dominion over 
 all things created on earth, permitting him the use, 
 and even the destruction, of them, whenever this 
 is necessary to his own welfare, or conducive to his 
 own advantage ; but He wisely restricted such power 
 within certain limits. Mosaism regards the entire 
 universe as a temple manifesting the glory of God, 
 and directs us to admire in the single component 
 parts the profound counsels and infinite wisdom of 
 Him who created and harmonized so many wonders. 
 Thus we are commanded, in the first place, to 
 respect the laws of nature, as established by its 
 Supreme Author from the creation, and not to do 
 capriciously things that are in direct opposition to 
 such laws. From this principle spring the various 
 prohibitions to couple sexually different species of 
 animals, to practise on them castration, to constrain 
 simultaneously to joint labour beasts of unequal 
 strength, to muzzle them while thrashing, and to 
 use towards them any kind of cruelty. Nay, it is 
 enjoined that they, also, should participate in the 
 general rest ordained for men on festivals. It is 
 well for us to reflect how incomplete are as yet the 
 modern institutions for the prevention of cruelty 
 to animals, when compared with those of the 
 
 G2
 
 84 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 ancient Mosaic code. Even the simultaneous sow- 
 ing of heterogeneous species, and the ingrafting of 
 plants, are considered as violations of the law of 
 nature, which had established the distinctions. In 
 the second place, in order that man, while using all 
 things for his benefit, might not imagine that he is 
 their absolute master, and should not forget the 
 true Owner, who conferred them upon him under 
 various reservations, he was enjoined not to appro- 
 priate at the same time two things^ one of which 
 had been born or produced from the other; but in 
 the act of converting to his own use some object 
 or being, he should spare that which gave it birth, 
 and not lay his hands upon both simultaneously. 
 He is thus to learn to respect the causes while en- 
 joying the effects; and from the secondary causes 
 he will mentally ascend to the primitive one, which 
 produced them all from nought. This is the sense 
 and intention of the prohibitions of taking in a 
 covey the mother with the young, of slaughtering 
 a quadruped together with that which gave it birth, 
 of cutting down a tree, were it even for the ne- 
 cessity of a siege, while we are enjoying its fruit.
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 85 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 LXXXIX. THE third class of duties comprises 
 those which man has towards himself; and here 
 the fundamental rule, from which they all emerge, 
 sounds thus " Sanctify thyself, for I, the Eternal, 
 am holy," which, in other words, may be rendered 
 as follows " Imitate God, for thou wast created in 
 His image." As, however, this sanctification of self 
 cannot possibly be effected without knowing and 
 loving God, and without walking in his ways by 
 practising justice and charity, it follows that this 
 third article is the cardinal point, which virtually 
 comprehends in itself the other two it is the ulti- 
 mate object of all the revelation, which purposed 
 nothing more or less than the perfection of man ; 
 to this grand end the whole scheme of revelation 
 was designed. 
 
 It is clear that, in regulating the precepts of 
 sanctification, the revealed word had not alone to 
 deal with the human soul, but to take into account 
 the body also, without whose concurrence man 
 cannot attain perfection. Designed for a receptacle 
 of an immortal spirit, and for an instrument to 
 carry out the actions of life, the body must be pre-
 
 86 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 served entire, pure, and inaccessible to all conta- 
 mination that would be an obstacle to the high 
 spiritual functions to be accomplished by its means. 
 To ensure this inaccessibility, as far as possible, 
 the Divine law prescribed for all mankind a rule, 
 Avhich, though to the short understanding of many 
 its character may not appear very clear, was deemed 
 by the eternal wisdom as calculated to promote 
 morality. Previously to Abraham's vocation, God 
 forbade Noah and his children to feed upon blood ; 
 and the scriptural declaration, that the soul of 
 animals resides in their blood, seems to indicate 
 that the motive of that prohibition is to prevent 
 the human body being brutalised by absorbing 
 within itself, and assimilating, a large amount of 
 an inferior vitality, and thus causing the material 
 propensities to preponderate in man. But even if 
 the true reason of that prohibition remained un- 
 known to us, this would not be the only instance 
 of man being obliged to acknowledge his own ig- 
 norance, and to bow reverently before an explicit 
 and rigorous commandment of God. 
 
 XC. The principles inculcated by the Mosaic 
 code, for the preservation of the body ; involve, pri- 
 marily, the prohibition of attempting its existence, 
 and, secondarily, that of cutting off or injuring any 
 part of it. Suicide is, therefore, explicitly declared 
 a crime; and several precepts are directed against 
 mutilations, marks, and all sorts of deformations. 
 The law does not permit voluntary macerations of 
 the body, capricious abstinences from lawful things,
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 87 
 
 multiplied or prolonged fasts, or subtractions from 
 what is necessary to life. It, on the contrary, 
 intends that bodily health should be cared for, 
 that cleanliness and decency, in every respect, be 
 regarded, a proper development of the physical 
 faculties promoted, and an employment procured 
 for them consonant with the superior requirements 
 of man. It is likewise due to the physiology of 
 the human body, not to use any of its limbs in a 
 manner contradictory to its organisation, to provide 
 for the restoration of equilibrium or health even- 
 tually lost, to avoid risks of injuries or disorders, 
 and to take advice of skilled men in cases of dis- 
 ease. But food, drink, recreation, physical en- 
 joyment, and every other indulgence usually allowed 
 to the advantage of the body, are required by the 
 law to be moderated by certain rules of a moral 
 standard, having in view more elevated ends than 
 the mere gratification of earthly wants; so that 
 even the most vulgar acts may, from the intentions 
 which accompany them, acquire a certain religious 
 importance. In short, the government of the body 
 must be such as to favour, and not to hinder, the 
 exercise of what concerns spiritual life. 
 
 XCI. Passing to other moral requirements which 
 come within the sphere of man's duties towards 
 himself, it is unnecessary to demonstrate here how 
 it is incumbent upon every man to choose a state in 
 society adapted to his individual faculties and apti- 
 tude, to be industrious, sober and decorous, to fix 
 on a well-regulated distribution of his time and
 
 88 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 work, to be economical without parsimony and 
 liberal without prodigality, and generally to follow 
 such rules of wisdom as tend to render life pros- 
 perous, and human conduct acceptable to society. 
 All such rules are self-evident, and grow neces- 
 sarily out of the general principle which demands 
 of the functions of the body to subserve the at- 
 tainment of self-sanctification. But we must now 
 speak precisely of this sanctification, to point out 
 briefly in what it consists. From the Divine pre- 
 script, " Sanctify yourselves because I am holy," 
 we clearly conclude that the type of sanctification 
 is to be sought, not in ourselves, but in God; 
 therefore, to sanctify ourselves is to shape our own 
 acts and will upon the known will of God; to 
 be fully penetrated with the idea of Him ; to hold 
 steadfastly to Him; to take Him for a guide in the 
 walks of life ; to make Him the goal of our actions 
 and the centre of our hopes ; to devote our solici- 
 tude to the accomplishment of the high designs of 
 His eternal wisdom ; to perform whatever is agree- 
 able to Him; to imitate, as far as possible, His 
 perfections ; in short, so to act, that what in Him is 
 absolute may become in us subjective; and thus 
 the sanctity of God will produce man's own sanc- 
 tification. Having established this sovereign prin- 
 ciple, revelation has accomplished its intentions, 
 has attained its object, for the whole sum of the 
 Divine law is concentrated in it; and worship, 
 morals, judicial laws, and all single observances 
 prescribed, are but branches or constituent parts
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 89 
 
 of this principle; they all flow from, and return 
 to, it, with a systematic consequence. 
 
 XCII. Besides the three cardinal articles above 
 stated, the observance of which, in their general 
 tendencies at least, is incumbent on all mankind, 
 there are in the sacred code various special pre- 
 scriptions obligatory only on Israel, as him who 
 first received the revelation, and who is bound to 
 preserve it with particular means, and to testify it 
 for ever, by his acts and by his very existence. 
 Through such prescriptions, the law designed either 
 to keep alive among the people the idea of the 
 high mission entrusted to it, and the memory of 
 signal favours which Providence prodigally confer- 
 red upon it in the early times of the institution, or 
 to initiate it into a more scrupulous sanctitude, by 
 interdicting to it some things that are left permis- 
 sive to others. It is not necessary here to give a 
 complete list of such precepts, as the mere inspec- 
 tion of the sacred text suffices to point them out ; 
 and we shall confine ourselves to indicating some 
 of the more important. Pre-eminent among them 
 stands the sabbath, the elevated tendency of which 
 has been already explained in the Sinaitic revela- 
 tion; next come the three Festivals of Passover, 
 Pentecost, and Tabernacles, which, besides being 
 linked to, and combined with, rural events and 
 circumstances, are also designed to commemorate 
 luminous epochs in the national history; the great 
 day of atonement, as a highly important act of 
 reconciliation with God; the circumcision, as an
 
 90 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 ineffaceable mark of the adoption of Israel; the as- 
 siduous study of the Divine law, as the purest source 
 of truth, and repository of the religious idea; the 
 fringes in the garments, the phylacteries or frontlets, 
 the inscriptions on the door-posts, and such like 
 commemorative means ; the redemption of the first- 
 born children, and the offering of the first fruits, 
 as a demonstration of filial dependance on, and 
 gratitude to, the Supreme Cause ; the prohibition to 
 feed on certain loathsome animals, and reptiles and 
 insects, in order not to assimilate to the human 
 body substances of a low, imperfect, and possibly 
 deteriorated organization ; the interdiction of mar- 
 riages between certain degrees of relationships, 
 because wanting in the antagonism required in 
 connubial unions ;* the duty of offering up prayer, 
 one of the noblest offices of piety, and the most ef- 
 fectual medium of communion with God ; that of 
 
 * Another probable reason of this prohibition is, that the 
 practice of such unions would be fraught with great domestic 
 disorders and unhappiness, and consequent social evils. But it 
 is opportune here to remind the reader, that many attempts have 
 been made, in the course of centuries, by eminent expositors, to 
 assign to many of the Mosaic ordinances motives of various 
 characters, rationalistic and metaphysical, sanitary, political, and 
 mystical, but all more or less conjectural. To the religious man 
 the positive knowledge of the true motives is not at all essential 
 for the performance of the divine precepts ; and in the words of 
 our author himself, as stated elsewhere, " we have to bow reve- 
 rently before an explicit and rigorous commandment of God, 
 and we consider it as calculated to contribute to the promotion 
 of our own weal." THE TRANSLATOR.
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 91 
 
 confessing sins, the inevitable consequence of human 
 frailty; the injunctions to reject idolatry, divina- 
 tions, charms, exorcisms, sortileges, and all manner 
 of superstitions, all of which are obstacles to the 
 development of the religious idea; and several 
 other precepts, which may be found dispersed 
 throughout the sacred code, all having similar 
 tendencies, and coming more or less directly within 
 the scope we have assigned to them.
 
 92 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 XCIII. CASTING now a retrospective glance on 
 what we have hitherto briefly stated, it will be 
 easy to deduce, from the aggregate of these no- 
 tions, the principal characteristic of that wondrous 
 institution, which it pleased the Divine mercy to 
 found upon earth for the benefit of the human 
 family, selecting for its organ the people of Israel; 
 an institution, which, in reference to the means 
 adopted for its preservation and propagation, is 
 called Judaism. The scope of Judaism is, then, 
 the propagation among men of the religious idea, 
 and this comprises the doctrines revealed respect- 
 ing the Deity and respecting man, in consequence 
 of which the latter will be able to attain his true 
 goal. Respecting God, revelation teaches that He 
 is a Being absolute that is to say, that has in Him- 
 self all the sources of existence, of will, of power, 
 and of action hence He is eternal, all-perfect, all- 
 powerful, all-holy; He is unique, because there is 
 no God beside Him ; and He is one, because in Him 
 there can be no multiplicity or division of parts; 
 He created out of nought the universe, which He 
 governs by pre-ordained physical laws, and all that
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 93 
 
 exists owes to Him its- existence and conservation. 
 Respecting man, revelation teaches that he has an 
 immortal soul, made in the image of God that is, 
 endowed with various spiritual faculties similar, in 
 their nature, to those of his Maker therefore sus- 
 ceptible of a progressive perfection, which he will 
 attain by sanctifying himself that is, by imitating 
 God and carrying out his commands. To that 
 effect, God entered into an immediate relation with 
 man, whereby He not only provides for the preser- 
 vation of mankind, as He does for that of all other 
 things created, but He, moreover, granted him a 
 supernatural assistance to improve his moral con- 
 dition ; and this assistance consists in having made 
 him the recipient of a revelation, by which He in- 
 structed him in the best rules of life, and declared 
 to him that He will be his support, his protector, 
 his judge, his loving father, and his guide towards 
 eternal felicity. 
 
 XCIV. But the religious idea is not simply a 
 theory that may be accepted or rejected without 
 affecting the human actions, it is not an abstrac- 
 tion confined within the sphere of contemplation ; 
 it is a practical system, which requires to be put 
 into execution, and to be manifested in every part 
 of the human conduct. As such, it was to pass 
 into the hands of men, to direct their actions ; and 
 they could conform to it only to the extent of their 
 intellectual comprehension of its spirit. Now, 
 every institution, however excellent in itself, is 
 liable to vicissitudes, as soon as human ingenuity
 
 94 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 seeks to comprehend it, and human weakness to 
 carry it into effect. Even as the intellectual 
 powers and the modes of viewing things vary 
 among men, so the religious idea, in its practical 
 application, was subject, in the lapse of time, to 
 some alteration among those who became its depo- 
 sitaries. Judaism did not remain always pure and 
 consentaneous to its ends ; and, although based on a 
 foundation unchangeable in its nature, and eternal, 
 its practice was sometimes at variance with its 
 spirit, and its essence was either neglected or mis- 
 understood, according to certain circumstances of 
 the national development, as we are informed, even 
 by the records of sacred history. 
 
 XCY. There can be no doubt but the inspired 
 man, who first was commissioned to proclaim the 
 true religious idea, had fully realized in his mind 
 the vastness and immense consequences of that new 
 institution in its ultimate universal compass. In 
 his eloquent addresses there are even some broad 
 traits which allude to a fulfilment reserved to the 
 latest posterity. Nevertheless, it is obvious, that, 
 having to instruct a people who were not yet pre- 
 pared to realize such an idea, and in an age when 
 the opinions of all mankind ran into totally differ- 
 ent directions, he had to take into account the 
 condition of the times and of men, and to use a 
 language suited to his hearers. At the same time 
 it was not designed, or expected, by the holy legis- 
 lator to see at once realized the last and compre- 
 hensive results to which the revealed doctrine
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 95 
 
 aspires ; it was sufficient to have given it existence 
 and form, and to have instituted a repository capable 
 of preserving it, leaving its final universal triumph 
 to the development of humanity and progress of 
 civilisation. Considered in these points of view, Mo- 
 saism has the appearance, in its exterior garb, of a 
 special law, adapted to peculiar circumstances, and 
 circumscribed to few persons, but in reality, and 
 apart from that kind of integument, it contains the 
 universal doctrines, destined to become the in- 
 heritance of all mankind. The blessed Prophet 
 clearly foresaw that the new ideas preached by 
 him would meet with many an obstacle, before they 
 were thoroughly adopted, even by those who were 
 called upon to preserve them; hence the greater 
 was the force with which he inculcated the mono- 
 theistic principle, and the necessity of segregation 
 from foreign and idolatrous influences; thus his 
 laws acquired an aspect of particularism and na- 
 tionality, whereas on being carefully studied, and 
 deeply penetrated, they exhibit their more general 
 and sublime tendency. Therefore, in judging of 
 Mosaism, and in interpreting the body of laws con- 
 tained in the Pentateuch, we must never lose sight 
 of the two following necessary cautions; viz., to 
 deduce general theories from particular cases; and 
 to take into account the circumstances of time and 
 place, in order to seize that which is designed for 
 all times and all places.* 
 
 * The attentive student of the Pentateuch must see, especially 
 when assisted by the best commentators, that several ordinances
 
 96 A GUIDE FOE THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 XCVI. "What the inspired Arch-prophet had 
 foretold came too truly to pass, as soon as the 
 people of Israel, mixing too freely with their cor- 
 rupt neighbours, wished to imitate them, and as- 
 sumed the form of a monarchy. Ambition and 
 lust of power could ill agree with a law, which 
 establishes individual liberty and equality of rights. 
 Consequently, it was not long before Paganism 
 ascended the throne, attended by a hideous train 
 of profligacies and crimes ; and, what then remained 
 of the Mosaic institutions, consisted only of the 
 material service of the temple, and some exterior 
 acts mechanically performed, but sadly lacking the 
 idea, which alone constitutes their merit. To put 
 an end to so great a disorder, Prophetism rose. 
 With admirable zeal, energy, eloquence, and abne- 
 
 are the creatures of circumstance and time, and consequently 
 of an essentially transitory character. Among these stand 
 foremost all such as refer to the treatment of, and relations 
 with, the Canaanitic families. The strict separation of Israel 
 from those corrupt and idolatrous populations, and their ulti- 
 mate destruction, were conditions necessary to the establish- 
 ment and success of the new order of things. As soon as the 
 end of those ordinances was accomplished, they naturally ceased 
 to have any other than a historical value. Therefore, he (if any 
 such there be) who would transfer to the Gentiles of our days 
 the principles of the policy that was inculcated towards the Ca- 
 naanites of the time of Moses, would not only be committing a 
 sad mistake, but running counter to the spirit of Judaism, and 
 violating the very letter of the law, elsewhere clearly expressed. 
 " Thou shalt love the stranger as thyself," is the motto which 
 God inscribed for perpetuity on the banner of Israel. THE 
 TRANSLATOR.
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 97 
 
 gation, thundering in the courts, the temple, and 
 the public markets; now by word of mouth, then 
 by writings; now threatening, anon exhorting; 
 always struggling with infinite obstacles, and set- 
 ting at defiance the tyranny of the ruling powers 
 with the sole prestige of the animated word, Pro- 
 phetism undertook to revivify the religious idea, 
 almost extinguished, or crushed under the weight 
 of universal perversion. But to repress with 
 greater force the overflowing depravity, and to 
 combat the evil with an opposite extreme, it was 
 proper to divest the religious idea of its parti- 
 cularising and national forms, and to present it in 
 its more comprehensive and general character, in 
 its celestial beauty of a future reign of happiness, 
 based on love, justice, liberty, and universal peace. 
 This was precisely what Prophetism did. There- 
 fore, he would be greatly mistaken, who would 
 suppose, in the expressions used by the Prophets, 
 any intention of slight towards the ceremonial 
 laws, and those biblical prescriptions, which are 
 specially intended for the chosen people. True, 
 these are to be regarded as means calculated to a 
 superior end; but they remain in full force and 
 validity until that end (which is in store in the 
 Eternal Mind) shall have been fully and finally 
 attained. The Prophets eliminated nothing from, 
 and added nothing to, the law; they sought to 
 revive the religious idea, which is the foundation 
 and aim of the law; they brought it into promi- 
 nence, to impress it more forcibly on the minds of 
 
 H
 
 98 A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 a people who had nearly lost it. But they did 
 more; they bounded over the confines of the 
 present, transferred themselves through the ima- 
 gination to a future final re-arrangement of the 
 human conditions ; and, giving to the religious idea 
 its greatest possible latitude, depicted a future 
 state of ideal perfection, which, while it offered 
 a vivid contrast with contemporary corruption, left 
 to posterity an imperishable monument of their 
 inspired eloquence and exquisite foresight.* 
 
 * The original has here several succeeding paragraphs devoted 
 to a historical review of various phases of Judaism, which it de- 
 scribes under the names of Talmudism, Rahbinism, Caraism, and 
 Cabalism. Believing this digression, or appendix, to be unnes- 
 sary to the general purposes of the present book, I have omitted 
 it in the translation, with the sanction of the distinguished Author 
 himself. THE TRANSLATOR.
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. 99 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 XCYlT. JUDAISM is now clearly delineated be- 
 fore us. From the outline that we have endeavoured 
 to sketch, it is evident that the religion of the 
 Jew imposes upon him solemn duties towards God, 
 towards his fellow-men, and towards himself. A 
 sincere, pure, undivided, active, loving worship of 
 his heavenly Father, and a constant practice of 
 justice, benevolence, and charity, in their widest 
 sense, will lead to his self-sanctification, which is 
 the aim intended for him. These are his funda- 
 mental duties, as far as regards actions. Many of 
 the observances prescribed by Holy Writ teach the 
 modes and means of carrying out such duties. All 
 such prescriptions as are strictly connected with 
 the existence of the temple, and the sojourn in Pa- 
 lestine are dispensed with, since the destruction of 
 the former, and the dispersion of Israel on the 
 face of the earth. But no doubts can exist as 
 to the others, which are all, and for ever, in full 
 force, having been ordained for all times and all 
 places. 
 
 But the Jew has also a creed to profess. Ac- 
 cording to the Scriptures, he is bound to believe in
 
 100 A GUIDE FOR THE KELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION 
 
 the unity, eternity, omnipotence, omniscience, un- 
 erring justice, and infinite mercy of God; in His 
 general providence over all the universe, which He 
 created and which He governs, and His more special 
 providence over man; he is bound to believe in the 
 divine origin of the Mosaic revelation, in its truth 
 and immutability, and in its efficacy to promote 
 his own sanctification; he is bound to believe 
 in the spirituality and immortality of the human 
 soul, in its destination and aptitude to perform all 
 that is good, and in the future reward of the vir- 
 tuous and punishment of the wicked; and, lastly, 
 he is bound to believe, that, in order to make known, 
 preserve, arid propagate these dogmas, a covenant 
 was established between God and Israel, in conse- 
 quence of which the latter is called servant of God, 
 son of God, holy people, and has the particular 
 mission to conform to the will of God, which is 
 called walking in the ways of the Eternal. These 
 various points are, however, so intimately con- 
 nected with each other, and form so complete a 
 system, that one being admitted, the others follow 
 as legitimate consequences. 
 
 It now remains for us only to add a few words 
 concerning the hopes of Israel. The future as 
 great in its consequences as extraordinary in its 
 conditions which the Jew has a right to expect, 
 has its foundation in the Divine promises, and, con- 
 sequently, its accomplishment, though long in the 
 womb of time, is infallible. By virtue of such 
 promises, Israel expects a complete material resto-
 
 OF JEWISH YOUTH. lOl 
 
 ration and spiritual perfection, not of his own 
 people only, but of all the human family; so that 
 every individual of the human species may then 
 correspond, in all respects, to the lofty requirements 
 of his nature, and attain the ends pre-established 
 for man by the infinite wisdom of the Creator; and 
 this not only during his earthly life, but also beyond 
 it, in his immortal condition. As to the modes by 
 which these heavenly universal promises will come 
 into actuality, we must rest satisfied with very 
 feeble and vague notions, and not require an exact 
 comprehension of specialities, which, in our present 
 limited power of mind, we might be unable even 
 to conceive. It is sufficient for us to be able to 
 deduce with certainty from prophetic words, that 
 (as regards the future condition of this life) an 
 increased intelligence, and a more energetic will 
 directed towards what is good which in the bibli- 
 cal language is called circumcision of the heart 
 will be the means of diffusing throughout the 
 world the knowledge of the One God, and the 
 exercise of virtue, under the regimen of an incor- 
 ruptible justice, a generous benevolence, a universal 
 peace, and an uninterrupted prosperity and hap- 
 piness. To Israel, in particular, the gathering of 
 his scattered members, the restoration of his an- 
 cestral inheritance, and the re-establishment of his 
 nationality, have been promised and repeatedly 
 assured; and the glory of that epoch forms the 
 subject of the most glowing pictures of inspired 
 poetry. But the fulfilment of these promises the
 
 102 RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION OF JEWISH YOUTH. 
 
 Jew must expect from the wonder-working hand 
 of God alone, without any personal efforts of his 
 own. Meanwhile, he is to consider himself, as he 
 truly is, a citizen of the country in which he 
 dwells, a brother to his fellow-citizens, a dutiful ob- 
 server of the law of the land, and a loyal subject 
 of the sovereign, whose authority is constituted 
 by God. 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 PttlNTED BY J. WEBTUEIMEB AND CO., 
 ClttCUS PLACE, FIN3BURY CUICUS.