same document, in which, you remember, Jahweh says: "I will go down now, and see whether they have done altogether according to the cry of it which is come unto me; and if not, I will know" (Gen. xviii. 21). That God was omniscient and omnipresent had never occurred to the Jahwist. Jahweh, like a man, had to go and see if he wanted to know. There is, however, some compensation in the fact that he can move about without difficulty--he can come down and go up. One might say, perhaps, that in J., though Jahweh cannot _be_ everywhere, he can go to almost any place. All this is just like a child's thought. The child, at Christmas, can believe that, though Santa Claus cannot be everywhere, he can move about with wonderful facility, and, though he is a man, he is rather mysterious. The Jahwist's thought of God represents the childhood stage of the national life. Later, Mr. Williams writes: All this shows that at one time Jahweh was one of many gods; other gods were real gods. The Israelites themselves believed, for example, that Chemosh was as truly the god of the Moabites as Jahweh was theirs, and they speak of Chemosh giving territory to his people to inherit, just as Jahweh had given them territory (Judges xi. 24). Just as a King of Israel would speak of Jahweh, the King of Moab speaks of Chemosh. His god sends him to battle. If he is defeated, the god is angry; if he succeeds, the god is favourable. And we have seen that there was a time when the Israelite believed Chemosh to be as real for Moab as Jahweh for himself. You find the same thing everywhere. The old Assyrian kings said exactly the same thing of the god Assur. Assur sent them to battle, gave defeat or victory, as he thought fit. The history, however, is very obscure up to the time of Samuel, and uncertain for some time after. Samuel organised a Jahweh party. David worshipped Jahweh only, though he regards it as possible to be driven out of Jahweh's inheritance into that of other gods (1 Sam. xxvi. 19). Solomon was not exclusively devoted to Jahweh, for he built places of worship for other deities as well. In the chapter on "Different Conceptions of Providence in the Bible," Mr. Williams says: