The Hebrews were the first to lend to the moral ideas a controlling influence in the sphere of religion. Let me attempt to briefly sketch the origin of Monotheism amongst them, as numerous considerations elsewhere recited in detail, have led me to conceive of it. The religions of the Semitic nations who surrounded ancient Israel were intensely emotional in character, and their gods were gods of pleasure and pain. In the temples unbounded license alternated with self sacrificing asceticism. The lewd rites of the goddess of love must be regarded as typical of the one; the slaughter of sons in honor of Moloch, of the other. Now the Hebrews have been distinguished for the purity of their home life from a very early period of their history. The high value which they set on male offspring, the jealous vigilance with which they guarded the virtue of their women are alike illustrated in the narratives of the Bible. The more gifted and noble minded among them, beholding their domestic feelings outraged by the prevailing religions, rebelled against the gross conceptions of idolatry. How could they offer up their beloved sons for sacrifice, how could they give over their wives and daughters to shame? The controlling force of their character determined the doctrines of their creed. Judaism became, so to speak, a family religion. Jehovah is conceived of as the husband of the people. Israel shall be his true and loyal spouse, the children of Israel are His children. The image of Jehovah is that of the ideal patriarch. Like the patriarch, he is the head of the spiritual family of man. Like the patriarch in ancient times, he is the lawgiver and the judge; He is the guardian of domestic purity. The word for false religion in Hebrew signifies fornication. "Contend against your mother," says Jehovah, "for I am not her spouse, nor she my wife." "My people lust after false gods, for the spirit of impurity has seduced them." And the day of the triumph of the true religion is thus predicted: "On that day thou shalt not call me any more my Baal, (paramour) but thou shalt call me my husband, and I shall wed thee in justice, etc." Thus the idea of Jehovah sprang from the soil of the family, and the conception of a divine father in heaven was derived from the analogy of the noblest of moral institutions on earth. The spiritual God of the Hebrews was the personification of the moral Ideal.