THE EVOLUTION OF HEBREW RELIGION. 601 



whose character it is not our present business to investigate. It was 

 successively worked up in various schools of priests and prophets, and 

 this accounts for the host of discrepancies it contains, some of which 

 have been noticed in the beginning of this essay. It was finally am- 

 plified by the inventive genius of the second-Temple priesthood, 

 who succeeded in heightening the sanctity of their own institu- 

 tions by tracing them back to a revered, heroic person, who had 

 lived in the dim days of remote antiquity. 



In the preceding pages we have indicated the more important 

 phases of that great conflict which ended in the establishment of 

 monotheism, whose traces, though sometimes barely legible, are still 

 preserved in our records. We saw in the first instance that the 

 Mosaic age is shrouded in uncertainty. We pointed out that pure 

 monotheism was unknown in the time of the early kings. We briefly 

 referred to the rise of monotheism. Finally, we endeavored to show 

 how the prophetic idea had been successively expressed in various 

 codes, each corresponding to a certain stage in the great process of 

 evolution. From what we have said, it follows that the prophetic ideal 

 of religion is the root and core of all that is valuable in the Hebrew 

 Bible. The laws, rites, and observances, in which it found a tem- 

 porary and changeful expression, may lose their vitality ; it will always 

 continue to exert its high influence. It was not the work of one 

 man, nor of a single age, but was reached in the long course of gen- 

 erations on generations, evolved amid error and vice, slowly, and 

 against all the odds of time. It has been said that the Bible is 

 opposed to the theory of evolution. The Bible itself is a prominent 

 example of evolution in history. It is not homogeneous in all its 

 parts. There are portions filled with tales of human error and falli- 

 bility. These are the incipient stages of an early age the dark and 

 dread beginnings. There are others thrilling with noblest emotion, 

 freighted with eternal truths, breathing celestial music. These are 

 the triumph and the fruition of a later day. It is thus by discriminat- 

 ing between what is essentially excellent and what is comparatively 

 valueless that we shall best reconcile the discordant claims of reason 

 and of faith. The Bible was never designed to convey scientific in- 

 formation, nor was it intended to serve as a text-book of history. In 

 its ethical teachings lies its true significance. On them it may fairly 

 rest its claims to the immortal reverence of mankind. 



There was a time in the olden days of Greece when it was de- 

 manded that the poems of Homer should be removed from the schools, 

 lest the minds of the young might be poisoned by the weeds of super- 

 stitious belief. Plato, the poet-philosopher, it was who urged this 

 demand. That time is past. The tales of the gods and heroes have 

 long since ceased to entice our credulity. The story of Achilles's 

 wrath and the wanderings of the sage Ulysses are not believed as 

 history, but the beauty and freshness and the golden poetry of the 



