For a long time his fancy rioted in these speculations, to which he was so entirely devoted, that if he continued to observe the law, it was owing to the pure and simple manners to which he was accustomed in his father’s family. But every thing which only gratifies the understanding loses its charm, especially with men of lively and ardent temperament, when it loses its novelty. When Helon’s first transport, at the enlargement of his views, had subsided, and cool reflection began to resume her sway; when he perceived that Myron could, with equal ease, explain and vindicate the worship of Jupiter, Bacchus, and Apollo—the Orphic and Dionysian mysteries—and all the idolatries of polytheism, by the aid of the same principles which his teacher had applied to the interpretation of scripture; suspicions were awakened in his mind that these principles could not be true. That which converts falsehood into truth, he thought, can never increase the force and evidence of truth. The promises which were given to Israel, the threatenings and warnings of Jehovah against participation in idolatry, recurred to his mind. The image of his deceased father was daily held up to him by his mother, as one who had abhorred the system of the Hellenists. A feeling of pride in his own nation, as the chosen people of Jehovah, was awakened in his bosom, and he could no longer take pleasure in the society of Myron. He began now to remark the endless varieties and inconsistencies of these allegorical interpretations. Every one, full of the persuasion of his own wisdom, expounded the divine word according to his own fancy. Helon could not but perceive that all this wisdom was an arbitrary, self-invented, human system of doctrine respecting divine things, in opposition to which, not only Plato but the whole tenour of scripture taught him, that God only can be our instructor in things relating to himself, and that human reason must here rely upon revelation. This revelation he found in the law, delivered to his nation upon mount Sinai, under circumstances the most impressive and sublime. While this train of thought tended to alienate him from the Hellenists and their system, his mother one evening remarked to him with sorrow his slowness in fulfilling the divine precepts. At first he was so much offended by it, that he replied to her remonstrance only by a sarcastic look, and retired to his books. But conscience did not allow him to rest. Suddenly the divine denunciation occurred to him, “The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.”[19] He was deeply moved, and now saw with opened eyes the abyss of immorality, to the edge of which this new wisdom had conducted him. He had long desired to be free from the burthensome duties of the law, and he had now transgressed against the first commandment with promise. He felt to what this heathen