From the period when Vedic speculation first began its course to that in which it produced its earliest Upanishad, these moral and spiritual truths were not kept secret among the philosophic few, but were prophesied in the gates and streets of every Hebrew city. No one can say that they were thankfully received and loyally obeyed by the people of Israel; on the contrary, their whole history represents the struggle of a stubborn and rebellious race against a revelation too pure and spiritual to be acceptable to them. Their religion was always higher than themselves, but while towering above them, it perpetually hovered round them, contradicting their most cherished inclinations, and condemning their most deeply rooted habits. The invisible God, of whom no likeness was to be tolerated, who was not to be worshipped even in the greatest of His works, was too far removed from their sympathies. It took centuries of severe handling to uproot their strong tendency to Nature-worship; yea, the Divine detestation of it had to be branded in the national conscience by their final overthrow. Eventually, however, the truth got rooted in the mind of a “remnant” of them that God is not to be worshipped under any symbol, and cannot be enshrined in temples made with hands; that the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him; that in gifts and offerings He takes no pleasure, but that He dwells with the meek and lowly, and finds a pleasing sacrifice in the contrite spirit and broken heart. The divinity of the revelation seems attested by the fact that it continued all throughout their history above them, rebuking and condemning, but never suffering them altogether to fall away from it. And this is still its relation to ourselves: it is a creed contradicting our life, a Divine law in direct opposition to all that claims to be popular; for where even yet is the Christian who can be said fully to realise all that is summed up in the truth, “God is not to be worshipped by man as though He needed anything;” “God is a spirit, and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth”?