The love of Jehovah to Israel--love altogether undeserved, ix. 5, and manifested throughout history in ways without number--demands a human response. Israel must love Him with an uncompromising affection, for He is one and there is none else, and she must express that love for the God who is a spirit invisible, iv. 12, by deeds of affection towards the creatures whom God has made, even to the beasts and the birds, xxv. 4, but most of all to the needy--the stranger, the Levite, the fatherless and the widow. Again and again these are commended by definite and practical suggestions to the generosity of the people, and this generosity is expected to express itself particularly on occasions of public worship. Religion is felt to be the basis of morality and of all social order, and therefore, even in the legislation proper (xii.-xxviii.), to say nothing of the fine hortatory introduction (v.-xi.), its claims and nature are presented first. The book abounds in profound and memorable statements touching the essence of religion. It answers the question, What doth thy God require of thee? x. 12. It reminds the people that man lives not by bread alone, viii. 3. It knows that wealth and success tend to beget indifference to religion, viii. 13ff., and that chastisement, when it comes, is sent in fatherly love, viii. 5; and it presses home upon the sluggish conscience the duty of kindness to the down-trodden and destitute, with a sweet and irresistible reasonableness--"Love the sojourner, for ye were sojourners in the land of Egypt," x. 19. JOSHUA The book of Joshua is the natural complement of the Pentateuch. Moses is dead, but the people are on the verge of the promised land, and the story of early Israel would be incomplete, did it not record the conquest of that land and her establishment upon it. The divine purpose moves restlessly on, until it is accomplished; so "after the death of Moses, Jehovah spake to Joshua," i. 1.