who, powerless in themselves, drop upon the strong arm of law for their defence. Society and legislation might as well not be as to forget that they exist as appointed of God mainly for the sake of the poor and the otherwise unprotected and unbefriended. Such needy ones every human society will have for the moral trial of those who control society, and I may add, to draw out the sympathy of the Great Father.

These revelations of himself stand forth in sunlight throughout this Mosaic code. They are a glorious advance upon all that the world had seen before. The true mission of civil law is brought out here with great fullness; for it seems to be every-where assumed that if laws protect and befriend the poor, they protect and befriend all. If the spirit of law faithfully guards their interests, it can not well fail to guard all interests that need the guardianship of human legislation. It is a priceless boon to the race to have these ideas so beautifully set forth and so substantially embodied in a code. of laws fresh from the hand and from the heart of the Infinite Father.

CHAPTER XIX.

THE RELIGIOUS SYSTEM OF THE HEBREWS.

THIS system contemplates as its ultimate end the obedience, homage, and worship due from men to God. As a prime means toward this end, it prescribes modes and forms of worship. It proposes to bring God near to men and men near to God; and for this purpose would cultivate in men the spirit of penitence and of faith-impressing them with a sense of their sins and suggesting to them how sin may be forgiven; and how, on the basis of God's own provision for pardon, he can accept the humble, reverent worship of his people.-These fundamental ideas respecting the sinner's acceptance with God, the system now before us sought especially to develop by means of visible symbolsthese symbols constituting the very elaborate and minutely described religious system of the Hebrews.This system, having long since "waxed old and vanished away" is no longer in practice, and therefore can not be useful as a rule of present duty, but is useful for the light it throws on the great and fundamental questions-How shall man-a sinner-become just before God? Is an atonement necessary? What are the fundamental ideas of "atonement"? How were they developed in the Mosaic system, and what light does this development bring to the atonement presented to view in the New Testament?

With superlative wisdom God began to give lessons on this great subject very early in the history of our race. It was wise to give such lessons long and carefully before the Great Atoning Sacrifice came in human flesh. It was also wise to give them largely by visible illustrations-by the aid of a system having so much. of the external and the visible that minds not disciplined to abstract thought might see the truth and feel its power by means of sensible manifestations.

The reader will now see readily the purpose of the ensuing examination of this religious system. It is not for historic curiosity-in which case we might select

points amusing or strange or sensational; it is not to guide the worshiper (as Moses sought to do) in the minutest details of the system that he might make no mistake in obeying it :-but it is to gather as best we may its designed moral impression, to study its underlying assumptions, and evolve its true doctrine in regard to the great question of the sinner's acceptance before a holy and righteous God.

Briefly and comprehensively we may classify the leading features of this system viewed externally, on this wise:

I. Its prescribed sacrifices and offerings.

II. Its stated times and seasons of worship.

III. Its sacred edifices and apparatus for worship.

IV. The religious orders-classes designated for sacred service.

I. The sacrifices and offerings of this system may be classified variously:-e. g. (1.) Bloody, or not bloody:terms which will be readily understood. The former were slain animals, a portion of whose blood was sprinkled. The latter included offerings of flour, oil, wine, etc. Or (2.) Some were specially required: others were voluntary or free-will offerings. -(3.) They may be classified with reference to the times and seasons when they were to be made; some being daily, as the morning and evening sacrifice; others for the Sabbath; others for the new moons; others on occasion of the three great yearly festivals; and, among the most useful for its suggestive import, those of the great day of atonement.(4.) Or we might classify them under the somewhat distinctive names given them in the law, of which we find a large number. We have (a.) The generic word sacrifice [Heb. Zebah]—a word which implies slaying, taking life:-(b.) Another quite generic term, "offering," which is used to translate several Hebrew words, and of course with very considerable latitude of meaning:-(c.) "Burnt-offering"-[which is the quite constant translation of the Heb. "Olah"] signifying what goes up upon the altar and is consumed there. The phrase "whole burnt-offering" gives according to the Hebrew, the sense of completeness-the whole of the animal being burned on the altar(d.) "Sin-offering"-in Hebrew, one of

the most common words for sin-[hatta]. Paul's use of the corresponding Greek word (2 Cor. 5: 21) follows this usage of the word for sin: "God hath made him to be sin" [a sin-offering] "for us who knew no sin," etc.:

(e.) "Trespass offering";-which is another of the Hebrew words for sin, offense ["asham"] :———(f.) "Meat-offering"; some variety of food or drink other than flesh: (g.) "Peace-offering "-which seems closely related to the "thank-offering," being an expression of gratitude to God; the animal sacrificed being in large part eaten socially by the offerer and his friends; also by the poor, the widow, servants, etc.:

-(h.) Wave and heave offerings-terms which refer to ceremonies of elevating or waving certain parts of the sacrifice.

(5.) A much more important distinction in the Mosaic sacrifices lies between those which were expiatory and those which were not specially so, the former class being slain animals whose fat at least was burned on the altar and whose blood was sprinkled in specified and various ways; the latter class having somewhat various objects, but chiefly that of expressing gratitude for blessings or joy in the God of their salvation.

Two other points in respect to sacrifices are of importance, viz

(a.) The choice of animals to be slain in sacrifice. (b.) The killing itself, coupled with the use made of the blood, of the fat, and in some cases of the flesh with the attendant ceremonies.

(a.) It should be carefully noted that animals for sacrifice were not taken up at random. It was not merely life and blood that were sought. They were not the wild, but the tame, domesticated; not the savage, flesheating animals, but the docile, grass-eating; not animals mostly or altogether useless to man, but precisely those which were most useful; not animals of the sort nobody loves or cares for, but those most loved and cared for, between whom and the human family there often arises a special intimacy and affection. In a word they were the representatives of utility, docility, and innocence. The ox, patient of toil, in his early years invaluable for food; the goat, useful for flesh and milk; the lamb-the symbol of affection, at

tachment, innocence:-these three classes of animals formed the staple material for bloody sacrifice. [Of birds, the turtle-dove and young pigeon, being less expensive, were permitted to the poor. As naturally representing innocence and loveliness, they are quite of the same class].-It sometimes escapes notice that the Orientals brought these animals much nearer to their hearts and homes than our Western notions and habits know of. We forget that not infrequently to this day they live under the same roof along with sons and daughters. The prophet Nathan in that touching verse about the "one little ewe lamb" (2 Sam. 12: 3) drew not from his imagination but from Oriental life. "The poor man had nothing save one little ewe lamb which he had bought and nourished up, and it grew up together with him and with his children: it did eat of his own meat" [food] "and drank from his own cup and lay in his bosom, and was to him as his daughter.'

Moreover, the Hebrew might not select for sacrifice the deformed, the torn, the lame, the sickly; but evermore, the unblemished, the perfect-those specially lovable and choice pets around which the hearts of the household, young and old, were wont to cling: of these must the worshiper take for the altar.

Let us think of the scene at that altar of sacrifice. The place is in the front court of the tabernacle, whose inner sanctuary was made glorious with the visible presence of Jehovah. The one all-engrossing thought associated with this sacred spot, was-God is here. I go up to meet God. Before his face I bring this prescribed offering. It is one of my sweet lambs of the flock, or as the case may be, a young bullock of one or two years old. I know that the animal must die there. Either in my own person or through the priest, acting in my behalf, I am to lay my hand on the head of the victim and thus confess my sin. From that moment the innocent lamb takes my place and stands before the executioner, as if guilty of capital crime. The sight and the smell of blood; the struggle and the recoil; the outcry of horror-the only awful, horrible sound uttered by these animals-go to make up a scene which, once witnessed, can never be forgotten. We of this age might see it in some of its aspects if we would; we rarely do. We should find it, not in our worshiping sanctuaries