"A certain king," said the Rabbi, "had a disobedient son. Among other worthless tricks of various kinds, he had the baseness to give his dogs his father's names and titles. Should the king show anger with the prince or his dogs?" "Well-turned," replied the philosopher; but if God destroyed the objects of idolatry, he would take away the temptation to it." "Yea," retorted the Rabbi; "if the fools worshipped such things only as were of no farther use than that to which their folly applied them--if the idol were always as worthless as the idolatry is contemptible. But they worship the sun, the moon, the host of heaven, the rivers, the sea, fire, air, and what not. Would you that the Creator, for the sake of those fools, should ruin his own works, and disturb the laws applied to nature by his own wisdom? If a man steal grain and sow it, should the seed not shoot up out of the earth because it was stolen? O no! The wise Creator lets nature run its own course, for its course is his own appointment. And what if the children of folly abuse it to evil? The day of reckoning is not far off, and men will then learn that human actions likewise reappear in their consequences by as certain a law as that which causes the green blade to rise up out of the buried cornfield." * * * * * Not less conclusive was the form of illustration employed by Rabbi Joshuah in answer to the emperor Trajan. "You teach," said Trajan, "that your God is everywhere. I should like to see him." "God's presence," replied the Rabbi, "is indeed everywhere, but he cannot be seen. No mortal can behold his glory." Trajan repeated his demand. "Well," said the Rabbi, "suppose we try, in the first place, to look at one of his ambassadors." The emperor consented, and Joshuah took him into the open air, and desired him to look at the sun in its meridian splendour. "I cannot," said Trajan; "the light dazzles me." "Thou canst not endure the light of one of his creatures," said the Rabbi, "yet dost thou expect to behold the effulgent glory of the Creator!" * * * * * Our selections from the sayings of the Hebrew Fathers might be largely extended, but we shall conclude them with the following: A Rabbi, being asked why God dealt out manna to the Israelites day by day, instead of giving them a supply sufficient for a year, or more, answered by a parable to this effect: There was once a king who gave a certain yearly allowance to his son, whom he saw, in consequence, but once a year, when he came to receive it; so the king changed his plan, and paid him his allowance daily, and thus had the pleasure of seeing his son each day. And so with the manna: had God given the people a supply for a year they would have forgotten their divine benefactor, but by sending them each day the requisite quantity, they had God constantly in their minds. * * * * *