and his children seem, that both Jewish prophets and Christian apostles compare it not only to the parental, but even to the marriage, bond. It must, however, be acknowledged that many of the exceedingly complex emotions of friendship and love which bind us together upon earth will be wanting in the society of heaven, and that many of the emotions which can well be supposed to swell the hearts of the saints above must be absent in the love with which God looks upon his children. The holiest and sweetest part of human love, whether here or in the world to come, is the recognition of the divine image in the beloved, the perception of our friend's superiority in some point of spiritual character to us. This is the reason why the tenderest love takes the form of adoration. In this form the recognition of superiority - it, of course, ceases with finite spirits. But there is no reason to limit the recognition of worth, of character, to finite spirits, or to deny that God approves the victor over temptation, and loves one who strives after virtue. God acts, indeed, through universal law. But what is a law? It is an intellectual idea, embodied or expressed in a multitude of particulars. The mind which originated the idea and embodied it in the whole, embodied it in each particular instance. The intellect which planned the world planned its minutest details. We stand before him as individuals, and he knows each individual's wants. He gave us freedom, so carefully guarded that we cannot frustrate his designs, yet so real that we rejoice before him in the liberty of his children; and he loves and approves us according to our use of his unspeakable gift.

Every cause, even the Ultimate Cause, stands related to all its effects. Impossible as it is for us to reconcile the predicates assumed with those declared, in that proposition, we are compelled to admit both by a sterner logical necessity than that which would attempt to drive us to the reconciliation. The cause stands related to its effects. Utterly inscrutable as the Power which formed the Universe may be, it still remains certain that the Cause which produced the goodly whole was able to exert mechanical force, and to

guide matter according to a priori laws of space and time. Utterly unknown and unknowable as that First Cause may be, it still remains certain that it could produce, on this earth, at least, intellects which recognize these geometric and algebraic laws, and find delight in tracing the paths in which worlds and atoms are moving to obey them. Impossible as it may be to assign any attributes whatever to the First Cause, we know that it made these intelligent observers capable of a myriad of other forms of happiness. We may not assign to it any attributes; but we know that it also inspired these happy intelligences with longings after virtue and excellence, and with longings for communing with eternal and infinite wisdom and goodness. In other words, however inscrutable the First Cause of all, it was able to call the world into being, and guide it by wise laws; to create man, and inspire him with an expanding mind, with lofty virtue, with longings and hopes that lay hold of eternity, with loves that fill him with unutterable bliss, with a love that takes in indefinitely wider and wider circles of acquaintances and friends, and grows also indefinitely stronger and stronger in its attachments.

The reasonable induction from these facts is, that the First Cause is the All-wise, Almighty, All-holy, All-loving God, whose condemnation of sin, whose approval of goodness, whose tender yearnings of love towards each individual one of his countless children, are but faintly echoed in our moral judgment, faintly imaged in the holiest affections of our most tender relations to each other.

ARTICLE II.

GALILEE IN THE TIME OF CHRIST.

BY REV. SELAH MERRILL, ANDOVER, MASS.

(Continued from p. 73.)

XIII. RELIGION, EDUCATION, AND MORALS AMONG THE GALILEANS.

We come now to speak of the religious character of the Galileans, with which may be associated the kindred topics of morals and education. On these points we would not presume to speak, except after the most careful study. It is a most difficult matter to separate the Galileans from the people of Judea, and say that they possessed this or that characteristic, in distinction from the latter. Still, there is evidence to enable us to do this to some extent; at least, it can be shown that the Galileans were equally interested with the Judeans in all matters pertaining to education and religion. Indeed, in some respects, the advantage in regard to religion and morals will be found to be on the side of the Galileans. The impression is often given that away from the Temple, in the far northern province, ignorance and irreligion prevailed. The statement is made that "they manifested less aversion to the religion and manners of the heathen than the people of the south, and less zeal for the religion of Moses."1 Also, that "from their heathen neighbors the Galileans imbibed all sorts of superstitions. Nowhere else were there so many persons possessed and plagued with evil spirits as in Galilee; since the Galilean narrowmindedness ascribed all forms of disease to the influence of demons." 2 Their religious character is further described as 1 Munk, 33. col. 1. 2 Graetz, 3. 395, who gives several refs. to Talmud.

a singular mixture of faith and superstition.1 It is supposed that before the destruction of Jerusalem this province was especially poor in regard to means for disseminating knowledge (understand, knowledge of the law, the only thing which "knowledge" meant to the Jews), and on this account "the Galileans were stricter and more tenacious in regard to customs and morals" than the people of the south.2 And by still another we are informed that, on account of the picturesque scenery and delightful climate of Galilee, the mind, away from the influence of the religious formalism. which existed in Jerusalem, would naturally devote itself more to parables and legends. We are not prepared to accept these statements, nor any one of them, as final in this matter. The first two, those of Graetz and Munk, are decidedly wrong. But since, among the Jews, "education" meant merely education in religion, the two naturally blend together in our treatment of them. That passage in Josephus is very significant which states that during the reign of Queen Alexandra (79-70, or 78-69 B.C.) the Pharisees rose to power a sect reputed to excel all others in the accurate explanation of the laws."4 This means no less than that there was at that time a revival of biblical study. At the death of Herod the Great we hear of two celebrated teachers, Judas and Matthias, whose "explanation of the laws many young men attended." 5 But they do not appear to have taught in any special school, nor to have belonged to any organized school system whatever. The famous Hillel was not trained for a teacher; but he began to teach, and the result proved his natural fitness for that work. Neither Hillel nor Gamaliel, the teacher of young Saul, belonged to any college or seminary or other institution of learning, i.e.

1 Graetz, 3. 394.

2 Ibid.

8 Neubauer, 185. In order to make Galilee appear as backward as possible, Neubauer, p. 75, states, on the authority of himself, that "this province possessed no wise men, and still less a school."

4 Wars, 1. 5. 2.

Wars, 1. 33. 2.

Hillel, 30 B.C.-A.D. 10. Simon, his son, A.D. 10-30; Gamaliel, son of Simon, A.D. 30-50.

in our meaning of those words. There could not be a school system where instructors (here the Rabbis) were not allowed to receive pay for their labor. Whoever understood the law thoroughly, and had facility in explaining it, provided he chose to teach, was regarded as a "learned man" -a Rabbi.1 In Christ's time there were no schools which it was necessary to have attended, or at which it was necessary to have graduated, in order to be regarded as a learned man. The only schools were those connected with the synagogues. The only school-book was the Hebrew Scriptures. A synagogue presupposed a school,2 just as in our country a church presupposes a Sunday-school. Church and districtschool is not a parallel to the Jewish system of things, but church and Sunday-school is. Synagogues were found in every city throughout the land, and also in every village, unless the place was insignificant in size, and even in such cases they had their place or places of prayer. At one time Tiberias boasted of thirteen synagogues, and Jerusalem of four hundred and eighty. The method in the schools, so far as there was any method, was nearly as follows: Questions were asked and answered, opinions stated and discussed, and illustrations proposed in the form of allegories or aphorisms or parables; corresponding, perhaps, as much as to anything modern, to our adult Bible-classes. In the training of boys much responsibility and labor devolved upon the father.

1 Ant. 20. 11. 2; Hausrath, 1. 77; full statement of this subject in Gfrörer, pp. 156-161, and names of a number of Rabbis given who supported themselves by some trade-as all did; yet a "schoolmaster" might take pay, Ibid. p. 158. NOTE. Of the statements of the Talmud in regard to schools and public instruction among the Jews it must be said that the Talmud is inclined to give too great antiquity to the Rabbinical school-system, which was developed and existed only long after the destruction of Jerusalem, and to make the impression that the systematic public instruction and training of youth prevailed long before Christ. Dr. Ginsburg in Art. “Education,” in Kitto's Cyclopaedia Bib. Lit. 1. 729, gives altogether too much weight to these statements of the Talmud, and thus, we think, greatly misrepresents the real state of the case at the time of Christ. Another instance in point is the statements of the Talmud in regard to coins; see Madden, Jewish Coinage, 334 sq.-"Counterfeit Jewish Coins." 2 Conybeare and Howson, 1. 56.

* Matt. xxii. 17-22; Luke ii. 46; xx. 2-4; Conybeare and Howson, i. 58.