DS 120 M522J2 MENDES LIFTING OF THE VEIL o o 1 8 5 8 7 8 THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES The Lifting of the Veil. " INTRODUCTORY LECTURE of the course on Hebrew History and Literature, by Ret'. Dr H. Pereira Mendcs Minister of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, delivered by request at the Young Men' s Hebrew Association, New York. REPRINTED FROM "THE MENORAH," 5648. N H \V YORK: PHILIP COWEN. PRINTER AND PUBLISHER. 498-500 THIRD AVENUE, 5648-1888. THE LIFTING OF THE VEIL speak of Jewish history, not as a recital of barren facts, but as a history of incalculable importance in the spiritual development of the world; not as a series of oft-told tales or childhood's Bible stories, but to show the unity of design, that we may follow it understandingly and therefore comprehend how far we personally are concerned therein; in other words, to lift the veil which shrouds the workings of the God of humanity, who in mercy and love so shapes the drama of human life that it shall be climaxed in happiness universal this is my object. If from a point of view, built up by centuries and millennia, we gaze upon the vast expanse of history spread before us, we cannot pause to search out the genesis of even' episode or historic speech any more than from the mountain- top we can, in describing the whole scene unfolded to view, pause to trace the beginning of each blade of grass or tree- leaf, all of which combine to make up the whole, each of which offers more food for study than a lifetime can digest. At once, then, let us climb to our point of observation to view the scene as a whole, and as it unfolds let us rest our minds on some of the crystallized thoughts which we call literature. Scenes in the far distance of time are dimly seen, the mists of thousands of years hang before them. But when we look upon those before us, when we open creation's page, we are at once made conscious of a feeling of awe and soul-thrill- ing reverence for the great Master of the universe who knocks at the door of our hearts. For we learn that the scene of our history this world we live in is but a speck in the vast expanse, is itself like a leaf is to a whole forest, but one small feature, with its duty prescribed, with its place assigned. And as the rustle of the leaf helps with its little to swell the forest anthem, so this little earth of ours helps with its mite 209G610 4 THE LIFTING OF THE VEIL to make the Universe, of which it is but a very small feature, 1 ' declare the glory of the Lord. ' ' This testifying to the glory of the Lord is the key-note of Jewish and of human history. For the glory of a king is the well-being of his subjects. The glory of the great King of kings is the happiness of His creatures. Jewish history is but a means to this end. This is how it is to be understood.. For thus understanding it we will, as we trace it, even though scenes most unhappy and sounds most discordant will at times arrest our attention, learn to appreciate theliigh ideals which our prophets were the first to preach for man to long for and to strive for. So learning, our own lives will be influenced "by the experience of the past and the hope of the future. Influence on life, personal or national life, is the legitimate end of History. It means, in our case, that we will become, according to our intelligence, workers towards these ideals, which the aim of the philosopher and the dream of the poet, constitute the mission of the Jew. Let me say at once what that mission is. It is the promotion of that blossoming forth of human character which, beautiful and fragrant, shall secure mankind's happiness. When this universal happiness shall be attained, then, in the happiness of the creature, the glory of the Creator will be manifested. The steps which humanity has taken, is taking, towards this ideal have been and are very gradual. They follow in ordained order. They obey the rule of Law. In fact, the evolution of the beauty of man's spiritual nature, on which human happiness depends, seems to follow the same course as did the evolution of the beauty of the material nature. This is not strange. For in the laboratory with the microscope, and in the study with the telescope, we find a wonderful similarity in what first seems to us diversity in the methods of the Creator. Now, we know that at the point where the Holy Book tells us the material creation ended, the spiritual nature of man began its development. We may expect that what is law in the material world is also law in the spiritual world, for the ways of God are the same. We are not disappointed. THE LIFTING OF THE VEIL For thus we read as to material creation on the initial page of Holy Scripture: " In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and void, and dark- ness was upon the face of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering upon the surface of the waters.'' When this beginning was, how long earth was in the condition of tohu, without form, or rather bewildering chaotic confusion, and bohu, not void, but with the germ of all in it, Scripture sayeth not. All we are told is that, amid the darkness the spirit of God was moving over the waters when the first fiat was heard: " Let there be light." And God himself it was, so saith the Holy Writ, who made the distinction between light and darkness. Next, as the Scripture describes, there was the expansion of an atmosphere, which constituted a division between the waters of our earth and the ethereal fluids above, of which it says nothing, and of which we know nothing. Then flowed earth's waters together, revealing dry land. Whereupon the germs of vegetable life sprouted forth, and the sun became visible with the hosts of heaven. Then were the lower orders of animal life created, next the higher types ; and last the highest of all, man. And the whole seemed to God hineh tob meod u behold, very good." Then, as if creation was not yet complete, the Sabbath was instituted. Mark now the similar course of man's spiritual develop- ment. Amid the darkness which sits upon the heaving waters of human thought, amid the tohu "the chaotic con- fusion" of ideas in the mind of man, where, nevertheless, there are bohu ("in it"), the germs of all that is good, there the spirit of God moves. The first glimmerings of light mys- terious become visible a light divine, through which man learns the distinction between moral darkness and moral light. The distinction is due to God Himself. As a result of a con- sciousness of right and wrong, however vague and shadowy it be, man learns to understand that there is a something a sphere beyond ours of which nothing is directly stated, and of which nothing is directly known. For truly next to 6 THE LIFTING OF THE VEIL the thought of God, and a standard of right and wrong, immortality, a more or less dim perception of a future state, is to be marked in the development of man's spiritual nature. Then, as in material nature's creation, next appeared the dry land and the rock, then earth's vegetation, blossoms and leaves, fragrancies and colors; so in the midst of the waters of human thought the rock of faith appears, and at last firm ground of belief for man to tread and build upon is revealed. Whereupon, like hills with verdure clad, ideals bright with promise are seen for man to climb. And gradually are rendered possible the blossomings of effort; gradually become evident the tender leaves of hope, the fragrancies of truth, all the glorious colors of human character. For then streams down the light divine from Heaven itself to illumine man's paths and to guide him, to warm and to cheer him, to quicken and to develop what is in his nature. And human life is shaped according to the response which it makes to these influences, in obedience to the law of God Himself, which law declares that according to the response which everything makes to its environment, so shall its development be. Lowest order of human life, because least responsive to light divine or spiritual environment, we find " the wild untutored savage." From him, with his nature- worship, we ascend to higher types of man, judging each type of manhood by its response to spiritual environment. Thus we pass from symbol worship, with its accompanying horrible traits of human character, to the type whose response is set forth in the mythos-web of poet's fancy, where darksome colors of character, woven amid glorious brilliancies, were brought out in contrast sharp and striking. To types where higher or better response to heavenly light seems discernible we next ascend. They are found where classic philosoph or Oriental faith-founder worked on the minds around him. On we pass to yet higher type, higher order of human life, where the response is the admixture of light from heaven, with shadows as strange and fantastic as the shadows created by the crescent moon, the symbol of the type itself. On to other type of human character, type represented by the cross, where the THE LIFTING OF THE VEIL 7 response to spiritual environment is yet more perfect, and more,of the light divine is received, and then reflected. On to highest type of all we ascend, where the response to spiritual environment is perfect, and the light divine is so reflected that all the colors of human character in prismatic beauty blend in all shades and hues of spiritual beauty. It is the type of perfect human character, the highest order of human being, and it is the type which is found in the scroll of the Hebrew, who is bidden be perfect with God. Indeed his very environment, when he reaches the ideal of his inspired scroll, is God to live in God, to walk with Him, to "set Him before Him alway.'' When this ideal last, and therefore best is by all humanity reached, then the spiritual development of humanity will be complete, and shall, like ended creation of old, seem to the Creator tob meod " very good.'' Then comes the crowning glory, when men shall u rest in the Lord,'' and the blessings of material peace shall, with the blessings of spiritual peace, be conjoined. Rest! Peace! that is Sabbath! Rest: freedom from care! Peace: peace in the heart! Man at peace with God! That is indeed happiness! Thus the story of earth's material creation is paralleled by the psalm of man's spiritual development Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished for! What stands in the way ? Man's want of self-control, man's refusal to obey the Divine will, even when the reason-why of a prohibition is not understood. This much we learn from the story of the Garden of Eden. Why else is that episode narrated ? Man's insufficient rjespect for God; man's impatience and cruelty; this much we learn from the story of Cain and Abel. Man's obliteration of the laws of nature, to which perhaps we owe the fancy limnings of mystic creatures of blended types. Man's unspeakable violence so much we learn from the story of the flood. That story! From all lands come its echoes! In Babylon it is Xithuthros ; in Britain, Dwyvan and Dwyvach. From Armenia, Persia, Syria, India, Greece, Cuba, Mexico, Tahito, literally from "China to Peru," 1 come endorsements of the Bible-flood narrative, useful now when 8 THE LIFTING OF THE VEIL the Bible contents are viewed with suspicion, just because they are in the Bible. Yes! it was, and it has ever been, the faults of human character which have stood, and stand,, in the way of the realization of human happiness. At last the spirit of God moves on the waters of human thought, and Abram, the son of Terah, responds to the Light Divine. As if again the ' ' Let there be light ' was heard, he sets forth to spread the light of true religion. His light was the result of his response to true spiritual environment. Yet, let us mark this fact, which, at the very inception of his life work, shows it was the Providence of the world Father, all mankind's Father which sent him forth from Chaldea to Canaan. Not to rescue his own family from soul- death, like Noah; or peril, like Lot, was he sent. The very first command was, that he was to go forth and be a blessing; that through him the families of earth should be blessed. '' This is the keynote of Jewish history. It is in harmony complete with the music of human history. It is a command such as we might expect from Him who is Father of all. Of the lives of Abraham and his successors, Isaac and Jacob, I do not propose to speak in detail. They knew their mission, which we find set forth in what is called the Abrahamic blessing. This is: i st. " That God shall be our Lord, and we His people; z&. That we shall be numerous as the stars of heaven, as the sand by the sea, and that we shall spread like the dust of the earth; 3d. That we shall possess Canaan; 4th. That the families of earth shall be blessed by our means." We know that Abraham commanded "his children and his household after him to preserve the way of the Lord, to do righteousness and justice, in order that He should bring to pass His purpose which He had spoken concerning him. '' (Genesis xviii., 19.) The fulfilment of this blessing, and the bringing to pass of the Divine purpose, are identical. They do but mean the institution of brotherhood, peace, and happiness universal. They constitute what I have termed the mission of the Hebrew. It becomes us, therefore, to THE LIFTING OF THE VEIL investigate the methods adopted by the patriarchs and their successors in their efforts to promote our world mission, to " preserve the way of God" and accomplish His purpose.'' There are, it seems to me, two special features in their policy to be particularly observed. The one is protestant, the other is separatist. In pursuance of the first, they built altars to the real God and proclaimed or "called on the name of the Lord," thus protesting against the errors around them. Among their practical protests must be mentioned the so-called trial of Abraham's faith. Rather it was a "lifting up " of Abraham a rendering the Hebrew permits to be a standard of conduct. It was a protest against that foul blot of Canaanite practice, child-sacrifice, voiced by the refusal of God to accept it the whole undertaken only in order to practically publish the fact of the Divine rejection. He would not accept the death of the son. How many Canaanite parents must have wished that their gods were like the God of Abraham ! The horrors of the custom are described in profane history, as in the history of Carthage, a colony of the Phoenicians or Canaanites. Plutarch describes how mothers would stand by, and groan not nor weep, lest their merits should be diminished; and from other sources we know how the little ones were hushed with kisses and blandishments as they were led to the frightful death. In pursuance of the second, the separatist policy, Abraham in order to keep his son Isaac separate from Canaanite or anti-Hebrew influences, sent to his former home to obtain there a wife for him, so that he should not marry a woman of Canaan. For what kills religion in the home of the contracting parties more than inter-marriage ? What could have more marred the life of Isaac as the successor of Abraham in the new religion, the religion of protest, than a marriage with a woman of Canaan, whose religion was so antagonistic, and against which the teachings of Abraham protested ? Similarly Isaac bade Jacob seek a wife from Laban's daughters. In the same spirit of separation Abraham would be under no obligation to the Hittites ; to 10 THE LIFTING OF THE VEIL place his loved dead in ground of theirs would have been a tie of union ; hence he insisted on a tomb of his own. In accordance with the separatist policy he sent away from Isaac his other children, whose mothers naturally would have influenced them with their own religious ideas. In the same separatist spirit Isaac, living long and growing rich among the Philistines, never merged with them, though they courted his alliance. Similarly Jacob would not stay .with Laban where, had he wished, he could have lived more and more at ease as the years sped. Thus too, he separated from Esau. In the same spirit his sons would not accept union with the Shechemites. And it is significant that in Egypt Joseph separated his father's family by giving them the land of Goshen. In Egypt however, their enslaved descendants aban- doned the protestant policy ; for except, as Maimonides remarks, the descendants of Levi, third son of Jacob, they worshiped Egypt's gods. In this very tribe of Levi was born the rescuer Moses trained, we cannot but believe, by special Providence, in the royal court where he learned the wisdom of Egypt and thus was fitted for his roles as soldier, legislator, leader. For the time had come when the world- work of the Hebrew race was to receive a distinct impetus. Identifying himself with the slave-race, though he thus cast aside his career of honor open to him as an Egyptian noble and royal protege, he fled to Midian. There, as a shepherd, he must oft have pondered on his people's past and promised future. Maybe the legend of his tender solici- tude for the wandering lamb does but indicate his solicitude to lead to the true waters of life those who had strayed far away, his own people first, and through them the world! Such a desire would have been a logical result in a mind like his, stored with the traditions of his people's past and their hopes of a glorious future, with which the world's happiness was identified ; traditions and hopes which he could have learned from his mother who nursed him at the royal court, and who was of the tradition-holding tribe of Levi, and also from his own inquiries from other sources ; traditions and THE LIFTING OF THE VEIL 11 hopes which must have been known to him to cause him to champion hts enslaved race. Armed with the demand for his people's freedom, he received as he entered Egypt, final instructions voicing recompensing justice to the king who had ordered the death of all the male children of the Hebrews, and who thus aimed at their extermination. ''Thus saith the Lord, Israel is My son, My first born, and I say unto thee let My son go, that he may serve Me, and if thou refuse to let My son go, behold I will slay thy son, even thy first- born." So ran his message to Pharaoh. But when did God ever forget to temper justice with mercy ? When did God ever punish without giving the chance to render the punishment unnecessary ? Four hundred years before when the covenant between the portions, the Berith ben habetarim, was by Him made with Abraham, He had said He would not punish the Amorite, at once, for their measure of sin was not yet full ; four hundred years of grace or respite thus were granted. And what was the work of the patriarchs but that of mission- aries to the Canaanite nations ; also to render their punishment avoidable ? And what was the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah but a salutary lesson for the rest of the land ? So with Pharaoh of Egypt. 1 he punishment first threatened, the death of the first-born, was not at once inflicted. Nine other punishments 'were sent of increasing intensity, attacking first the people's convenience or comfort, then their property, before the one which directly- attacked human life was inflicted in retributive-justice. Nine times Mercy spake ! But the clemency of the Lord in thus deferring the plague first promised was misinterpreted by Pharaoh. In a mind like his, educated to faith in his country's gods alone and unaccustomed to be corrected or called to account, not only the ability of the God of the slaves to so punish him was perhaps naturally doubted, but the respite which was so repeatedly and seemingly so easily gained, served only to make him think that that God was not in earnest or found it impossible to inflict the penalty. Hence the very indulgence 12 THE LIFTING OF THE VEIL of God was a cause of the king's heart being hardened; hence the Bible phrase that Pharaoh hardened his heart, or that God hardened the heart of Pharaoh. Now, the separatist feature of Hebrew history had been maintained during the sojourn in Egypt, due, it is true, to Egyptian policy. But the protestant feature had not been so displayed. It remained now for God to effect a display simply magnificent in its effect. For we cannot imagine that God could be wishful to pit Himself against a weak mortal, though the mortal be great even like Egypt's king. His purpose was not only to rescue the Hebrews, it was also to protest against the folly of the Egyptian religion. Hence the verse, "On all gods of Egypt I will execute judgments." (Ex xii 12.) What the judgments were, the Egyptians were speedily forced to admit. From the ancient monuments, from classic authors, from modern Egyptologists, we learn with what crushing force the plagues must have fallen, and how thoroughly the gods of Egypt must have been humbled. Plutarch and Heliodorus speak of the deified Nile, Hero- dotus and Clemens write of the sacred fish. But the Bible recounts how the Nile was turned to blood and the fish died, and what was sacred thus became a source of disgust ! Two of the above named authors remark on the constant ablutions and personal cleanliness demanded for the exigencies of wor- ship, thus the first, second and third plagues stopped worship throughout the whole of Egypt ! Modern research informs us of the reverence paid to certain wild animals the fourth plague showed wild animals as a source of terror and danger! To learn how the domestic animals were worshiped we need not the evidence of Strabo and Lucian but the fifth plague destroyed all these deified animals of Egypt! If Amon Ra was hailed as "the sovereign of life and health and strength,' the sixth plague, a disease through which no man could stand, as the Bible indicates, demonstrated that god's uselessness and prevented attendance at his or any temple! If the gods could not secure their own worship, what must their votaries have THE LIFTING OF THE VEIL \'.\ thought ? Then again, Plutarch shows how fire and water were reverenced. But fire rode on the storm-blast, while thunder pealed its victory! That tempest, the seventh plague, was summoned by Him '* who inaketh the winds His mes- sengers." And when the murmurs of courtiers' mutiny were unheeded, He summoned on the east-wind the locusts to destroy all growth the storm had spared. Thus should the Egyptians judge between the gods of Egypt who were thought to call forth earth's life, and Him who had proclaimed to them that "He was the Lord in all the earth! " Then the Sun- god was, as if disgraced, bidden hide his face for three days. And at last great Osiris, hymned as the "Lord of life," was judged, and proved worthless, for the angel of death sped forth in the night, and there was not a house without its dead ! The work of protest was complete ! Forth went the Hebrews, and among the echoes of the past concerning the event we find the following from the Greek writer of antiquity, Strabo, written by him unconscious of the priceless value of what he wrote : " Moses, an Egyptian priest, who possessed a considerable tract of Lower Egypt, unable longer to bear with what existed there, departed thence to Syria, and with him went out many who honored the Divine Being." Of the passage of the Red Sea, of the wonderful events of the desert-life, of the place of worship with its mysterious Holy of Holies dedicated to the invisible God, of the legislation of Moses and the side-work of such as Aaron and Miriam, I cannot here pause to speak. For our theme is the unity or connection of Hebrew history, not the details, though they are of such surpassing interest. Twenty-five centuries had lapsed since the commence- ment of man's spiritual history. Or to be more correct, 2448 years after man first trod the earth, the " armies of the Lord" marched forth. To fight what? What was the future, what were the thoughts of Moses not only on the night of that i5th of Nissan, 'the night to be much observed ' but through- out his forty years' leadership ? It is important that we try to understand. 14 THE LIFTING OF THE VEIL He surely knew the ultimate destiny of his people from his mother or other sources, as I have stated. He knew therefore the Abrahamic blessing, and not least, that part of it which said that the new-born nation was to be a source of blessing to all the families of earth. The first revelation to him, by the light of the burning bush, was that the blessing's fulfilment was to be at once forwarded. The second was at the moment of entering Egypt as the instrument to bring it about, when he was told that his people was the first-born of God. This implied that the other nations were also His children. A third revelation was at Sinai. Here he learned that the reason of the supernatural deliverance of Israel, the 'bear- ing of eagles' wings ' (Ex. xix. 4) by Him to whom ' all the earth pertained ' (verse 5), was that the nation should be ' a kingdom of priests ' (verse 6). Priests to whom, to minister to whom, unless to the other peoples of earth ? Now a successful ministering to the spiritual wants of a world, as of an individual, means the conveyance of that blessing the culmination of which is peace, happiness. Such a blessing is that which Aaron was commanded to convey to his people. Such a blessing is that which his people was and is destined to convey to the world. But Moses saw the moral unfitness of the Hebrews, he knew their waywardness, their discontent, their want of fear of God ; for the stories of Marah, Sin and Rephidim showed speedily to him their character. He knew also that after his death they would be utterly corrupt (Deut. xxxi. 29), and that punishment, exile, would await them (ib. 14). More than all knew he that for the fulfilment of the Hebrew mission there would be necessary that exhibition of God's mercy, compassion and forbearance of which he was made conscious at the solemn moment when, after the sin of the golden-calf had again evidenced the Hebrews' fickle nature, he was made to see God's "after-parts," or to be more correct, he was made conscious of the "that which comes after" in God's workings for His earthly children's happiness. This "that which comes after ' ' is, let it be emphasized, the exhibition THE LIFTING OF THE VEIL lf> of that Divine mercy, pity and forbearance which were then proclaimed, (Exod. xxxiv., 6), which come after Israel's faults and the world's follies and blot out the sad story, and through which alone human happiness is rendered possible. His duty was therefore to prepare his race for their mission, bearing in mind that many would be the years before the mission would be accomplished The Psalm inscribed with his name seems to reflect these thoughts. There he under- stands that a thousand years are with God but as yesterday; he speaks of long days of affliction, years in which the chosen race experiences sorrow. He asks that God's works be manifested at last to His servants, and ends with the prayer that their world-work may be established and the beauty of the Lord be therein manifested. (Psalm xc.) Mark we how, in discharging what he conceived to be his duty, he followed the thoughts of the patriarchs and emphasized the protestant and separatist features. It is as if he understood that only by a policy of protest and separation could the mission of his race be fulfilled and the antagonistic influences to be naturally born in the coming centuries, be resisted. He did understand this. For God, finding that Moses was like Abraham, able and wishful to respond to an environment of true, spiritual, Divine light, caused His light to shine upon him, by revealing to him what we call His will, revelation, Torah, law. This law insists on these features : protest against error, separatism from antagonistic influences. Protest and separation thus become our war cries, our watch- words, to advance our mission and secure it when accom- plished. The law he received was to be the criterion of conduct. What was or was not adapted to the habits of an existing or future civilization was of no importance to him. The views and habits of the then existing civilizations tolerated idolatry, child sacrifice, incest and worse if there can be worse, as he well knew. The views and habits of future civilizations connived at lying, encouraged theft, and countenanced adultery, as we know. The will of God as revealed in the 10 THE LIFTING OF 7 HE VEIL law of Moses, as it is usually called, permits no trifling or compromise with the standard of conduct and guide of life there presented. A Hebrew living for example in Sparta in the days of Lycurgus, could not trifle with the letter of the Seventh Commandment though modification thereof was in accord with the views and habits of the civilization of the Spartans around him. This is perhaps worthy of some con- sideration by those who would trifle with the letter of say the Fourth Commandment, which seems to somewhat agitate the public mind, even though such modification is by them thought to be in accord with the views and habits of our surrounding civilization. Against all that does not accord with the criterion of conduct which Moses inculcates, and which he sums up in the words, ' be holy, for I the Lord am holy,' (Lev. xix., 2.,) the duty of the Hebrew is to protest by the silent but mighty protest of a pure life well lived, so that others shall say, ' surely it is a wise and an understand- ing people.' (Deut iv., 6.) Not less does he emphasize the separatist feature of Jewish history. Many of his commands tend to keep us separate "we are distinguished from all peoples" (Exodus xxxiii., 16); " We are set above every nation . . to be a holy people" (Deut. xxvi., 19); " I am the Lord your God who have separated you from all peoples" ILev. xx., 24); " I have separated you from all peoples to be Mine" (Ib., 26). This much for the two great features of the Torah legislation, on which we cannot here linger longer. Where the rustlings of the woods of Moab's mountains make mournful memory-music for Moses, the master-mind of our nation, we leave that great legislator. We pass with his successor into Canaan. We hear his summons to the inhabitants 'surrender, leave Canaan or fight, 'and we under- stand the echo from the distant end of Africa, where Procopius read : ' ' We are they that fled from the face of the robber Joshua, son of Nun. ' ' We observe the decay of religious sentiment after his death, for a Micah sets up his idolatry and a Levite coun- tenances the crime by being its priest. We find the people THE LIFTING OF THE VEIL .17 reproved and punished with foretastes of captivity, from which they are temporarily rescued by Judges. Deborah and Gideon, Jephthah and Samson flit by. The sin of Gibeah and the part played by the tribe of Benjamin portray fearful religious turpitude, redeemed only by the stern chastisement of the other tribes. Even a Samuel fails to wholly correct existing evils a king is asked, and a king is appointed. Saul leads the people united ; David extends the kingdom to its utmost borders, the Euphrates ; and a Solomon builds the Temple, honored as no other temple has ever been. But toleration of anti-Hebrew religious ideas wreaks the ruin. Even Solomon, wisest of men, compromises on the "protest policy," for he permits idolatrous worship within sight of the Holy Temple which he built and dedicated so enthusiastically. And he compromises on the F THE VEIL influenced by Jewish thought, w .ich was to be met throughout the kingdom which stretched fr m India to Ethiopia ? An i it is the era of the infancy of Gret :e and Rome. For while Uiat king reigned in Judah upon whom ' the Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold,' those lived who saw Re} lus leap in scorn the walls of new founded Rome, those sj oke who heard Lycurgus speak. Thus then, when Judah's children were carried to Babylon, history had well com- menced for those powers in whose tongues the teachings of the Jew were destined to be conveyed to the world. Oriental religions and Western tongues thus used to do something towards leading the nations of earth, God's children, to Him the Father of all ! And through their contact with Israel, His son, His first-born ! Does not this show the workings of God's purpose the working out of Israel's mission ? Enough for the present. I have brought you to the time of the lifting of the veil, which on its rising, shows these workings not on the confined stage of Palestine? but on the stage of the whole wide world. Like the 'dust of the earth' the descendants of the patriarchs and the inheritors of the Abrahamic blessing are from this Babylonian era scattered throughout the earth. Like the "stars of heaven'* they henceforth in all lands reflect on earth the light from heaven. Like the ' sand of the seashore ' we shall find them, resisting the waves of doubt, the currents of error, the storms of human passions. And we shall find how thus is brought about the declaration to Abraham, the " In thee and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.'"