How comes it that by no other people has the attempt been made? Is it that we instinctively feel that in the Hebrew Scriptures the history of mankind has been told once and for all,--that for this, as for all other needs, the Bible may suffice? Otherwise, might not Christ Himself have wended His way to Persia, India or China, to bring to one or other of those nations the Gospel of peace and goodwill, framed in accordance with their own sacred books? The fact is certainly not without significance. For, maintain as we may that the men of greatest genius belong to no special age or country, that Dante, Shakespeare, Sophocles, Michelangelo and Goethe are the common property of mankind, it is all the same of no trivial import, that just this nation, and no other, should have been selected in each case for the honour of bringing them forth. And where else, save among a people cast down from its former high estate, conquered, humiliated and oppressed, could the apotheosis of Suffering be so fitly preached, the message of Hope be brought to the poor and humble, and the erring be led back to the fold? Alas! that in a proud and vain-glorious spirit, expecting the promised Messiah in all the pomp of earthly power, they should have rejected the New Covenant of Mercy by which the uncompromising severity of the Mosaic dispensation was to be attenuated and made perfect! I have wandered away somewhat from my theme. Perhaps however more in semblance than in reality, for as I pursue my own personal reflections, insensibly much is incorporated with them, which in the old days in the Vinea Domini was constantly being discussed, and may be said to have vaguely permeated the whole atmosphere. Judaism, as we then learned to know it, was presented less under an aspect of formality and exclusiveness, than as a leaven of righteousness, whereby the whole world should be regenerated. And possibly, could the other nations of the world have been brought to accept the Mosaic Code, much misery might have been spared them. For the great Lawgiver was wise in advance of his age, and many of the preventive measures, for instance, with which we now seek to ward off sickness from our flocks and herds, were foreseen and prescribed by Moses, long before Bacteriological Institutes were dreamt of! What profound knowledge too of human nature, what psychological intuitions were his, who dared to let four generations of his weakened and demoralised followers perish, and merely serve as stepping-stones to the one destined to enter the Land of Promise and to settle down there in peace and plenty. What indomitable strength of purpose, what iron resolution must the man have possessed, who could wait thus calmly for results! Well might he feel that he had power to bid water flow from the barren rock, nay more, that in his righteous indignation he was justified in breaking the Tables of the Law, which he had just received, since it lay with him to inscribe them again. The