207 



to the x'itual of Moses; and this is confirmed by the discovery 

 of the Sippax-a Temple by Mr. Rassam, which is also according 

 to the same pattern. Why, then, was this pattern given by 

 God to Moses on Mount Sinai ? We can only conclude, I 

 think, that Jehovah was then re-instituting a ritual that had 

 become corrupted among the nations. And, if we carefully 

 examine the Mosaic Dispensation, we shall find many circum- 

 stances to corroborate this. Many features of that dispensa- 

 tion already existed in the world; the priest was nothing new; 

 the altar, the sacrifice, the sacrificial feast were nothing new; 

 and, after Mr. Rassam^s discovery of the Temple at Sippara, 

 we can say with confidence the form of the tabernacle was 

 nothing new. I have been led, therefore, to infer that 

 the Mosaic Dispensation was a '' Reformation,^^ and, if so, 

 there must have been a ritual and a worship that existed in 

 earlier ages, appointed by the same Jehovah ; and we can 

 thus understand the priestly and sacrificial vestiges of a once 

 divinely-appointed worship that are to be found, or were once 

 to be found, not only in India, but, to a greater or less extent, 

 all over the world . 



18. We come, then, if I am right, to regard the Brahmanism 

 of the Vedic era, with its priests, altars, temples, and sacrifices, 

 as retaining divinely-appointed rites, appointed long before 

 Moses, which in their origin can only now be correctly read 

 in the after-light of the "Reformation,^^ called the Mosaic Dis- 

 pensation ; but which had already become for the most part 

 dead fossils of a past history, the only life that remained being 

 the remembrance of the fact of the existence of the one Infinite 

 {AdiH),^th.e oueSupreme {Brahma) , the oneCreator {Pnijdpati), 

 the one Spirit [Atma), after whom some yearning spirits of men 

 still sought, though they had lost his truth. Symbolism had 

 crushed the life out of their religion. The sun, the moon, the 

 heavens, the storms, the powers of nature, the sacrificial fire, 

 the soma cup, first worshipped as manifestations of the divine 

 presence, clouded the image of the personal Jehovah, and 

 became at last only the veils of the Great Unknown. 



19. Parallel with these recollections of a once divine worship 

 must have been the recollections of a divinely-taught morality. 

 If there were a divinely-appointed worship among the fathers 

 of the nations, there must have been a divine code of duty 

 also in reference both to God and man. There are vestiges 

 here also. There are expressions in the Riq Veda in 



* See Rig Veda, Max MiQler, vol. i., p. 230, et seq. 



