361 
suclx association of that which is perishable with that which 
is eternal. 
2. Every one of the sacred writers had a mission, express 
or understood, to take his part in working the ultimate aboli- 
tion of idolatry, or polytheism, with all its vanity, falsehood, 
licentiousness, and cruelty. Every provision of the Mosaic 
Ritual and Civil Law was so framed as to be counteractive of 
the teaching and practices of idolatry. The entire economy 
of the Hebrew State and the order of domestic life were cha- 
racterized by constant separation from polytheists. The ’rn 
wall of separation in the Temple, like the wall of separa- 
tion in. the Eastern city, the distinction of meats, and other 
regulations tending to the same end, kept the worshippers of 
One God separate from the devotees of many, and was a per- 
petual restraint upon themselves, and test of their fidelity to 
God. At last, it became a signal, also, of intolerance ; but 
in. many lands it had its use, and still has it; and he who, in 
this view, reads how severely Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, and 
the post-captivity prophets set themselves against even the 
least appearance of conformity to the worship or bare acknow- 
ledgment of other gods, and avoidance of the ways of their 
worshippers, cannot but feel at once the extreme improbability 
that they and their brethren and fathers would have stooped 
to . borrow or mature their doctrines, or to adorn their wor- 
ship with aught that polytheism could offer. 
But still, if it be thought that the alloy of paganism any- 
where mingles with the gold of Revelation, let him point it 
out who can, and no pains will bo spared in applying the fit 
criterion. 
Tho Chairman (J. E. Howard, F.R.S.). — I have now to convey the thanks 
of the meeting for this interesting paper ; there is a great deal in it with which 
I am in perfect accord. I, however, almost fear that the writer has not fully 
grasped tho question of the fading away of the primitive knowledge of a 
loving and true God, and of this knowledge having been superseded by 
idolatry. In order to prove that Moses and the writers of Scripture are in 
no way indebted to the Pantheists for any portion of their truth, he goes 
farther than was necessary, in stating what he supposed to be the entire 
absence of all knowledge of the one God among those who were other than 
tho chosen nation. I would take, as the first instance of this, the title 
of El Elioun, the Most High God, to whom Dr. Rule has alluded in pages 
356 and 357. He says, “ Take, for example, the title of Most High. 
It was used in the time of Abraham by the patriarch himself, and by the 
king-priest Melchizedek, to name the one true God.” Dr. Rule, I suppose, 
does not consider Melchizedek to have been an idolater, I take it for 
