promise granted by the gods, as Isaac was, who was given by Elohim (or the gods) of the Hebrews. We may enter now, for a short time, into a speculation whether the Grecian story was borrowed from the Hebrew or the contrary. We are disposed to believe that the tale was adopted by the Jews after they became acquainted with the Greeks. The following are our reasons:--The conception of a godhead composed of three persons, is foreign to the Hebrew thoughts of the Almighty. Still further was it from Jewish belief to think, that Jehovah would come down upon earth to acquire information, and when there, eat and drink and talk like any ordinary man. Amongst the Israelites it was generally held that no one could see the face of God and live, On the other hand, the Greeks were familiar with tales which told of gods coming down to earth in the guise of men. As an illustration of this, we may point to Acts xiv. 11-13, wherein we find that the people of Lycaonia imagined that the gods Jupiter and Mercurius had come down to them in the likeness of men, and prepared to sacrifice to them. Yet after all, Paul had simply cured a single paralytic. On the other hand, the Jews regarded as rank blasphemy, and a crime worthy of death, that Jesus should assert himself to be a son of God, even although the miracles alleged in support of the assertion were as stupendous as they were numerous. Still, further, we cannot imagine that the degrading story of Jehovah's feasting with Abraham could have been composed, except when the Jews were no better than an untaught and grossly superstitious race. We have already, in _Ancient Faiths, &c._, expressed our opinion that the Israelites were at the very lowest period of their history at the time when Isaiah began his exhortations. There had been a confederacy between the men of Edom, of Moab, Gebal, Amnion, Amalek, Tyre, Philistia, and Assyria, the Ismaelites and the Hagarenes, which had attacked Jerusalem and Judea, and captured all the inhabitants, many of whom they sold to the Grecians (see Joel iii. 5-7). At, and shortly after this time, the Jews were in a condition of abject misery (see Isaiah i. 4-9), and capable of believing any story told to them, and would just as easily credit the mythology which the Grecian captives told, or their Grecian masters taught, as their successors do those which at a subsequent period filled the Hebrew Scriptures.