THE CHARACTER IMPROVES. 201 



they supposed that Baal or Dagon had trodden Jehovah 

 under foot. The result of this was a mixed religion : 

 they worshipped Jehovah : but they worshipped other 

 gods as well. Solomon declared when he opened the 

 temple that Jehovah filled the sky, that there were no 

 other gods but he. But this was merely Oriental flat- 

 tery. Solomon must have believed that there were other 

 gods, because he worshipped other gods. His temple 

 was in fact a Pantheon ; and altars were raised on the 

 Mount of Olives to Moloch and Astarte. After the 

 reign of Solomon, however, the Jews became a civilised 

 people : a literary class arose. Jerusalem, situated on 

 the highway between the Euphrates and the Nile, 

 obtained a place in the Asiatic world. The minds of 

 the citizens became elevated and refined, and that re- 

 flection of their minds which they called Jehovah 

 assumed a pure and noble form : he was recognised as 

 the one God, the Creator of the world. 



During all these years Moses had been forgotten ; 

 but now his code of laws (so runs the legend) was dis- 

 covered in a corner of the temple ; and laws of a higher 

 kind adapted to a civilized people were issued under 

 his name. The idols were broken, the foreign priests 

 were expelled. It was in the midst of this great 

 religious revival that Jerusalem was destroyed ; and it 

 may well be that the law which forbade the Jews to 

 render homage to a foreign king was the chief cause of 

 their contumacy and their dispersal. It was certainly 

 the cause of all their subsequent calamities : it was 

 their loyalty to Jehovah which provoked the destruction 

 of the city by the Romans : it was their fidelity to the 

 law which brought down upon them all the curses of 

 the law. 



The reformation in the first period had been by no 



