The legislator is evidently under the empire of ideas and sentiments infinitely superior to those of the people, to whom, nevertheless, his strong sympathies attach him. When we consider the Mosaic Legislation, we find that in everything which concerns the external forms and practices of worship, the ideas of Egypt have made great impression upon the mind of the Lawgiver, and the frequent use that he has made of Egyptian customs and ceremonies is not less visible. But far above these institutions and these traditions, which seem not seldom out of place and incoherent, soars and predominates constantly the Idea of the God of Abraham and of Jacob, of the God One and Eternal, of the True God. The Laws of Moses omit no occasion of inculcating the belief in that God, and of recalling Him to the recollection of the Hebrews. And this, not as if they were recalling a principle, an institution, a system; but as if they propose to place a sovereign, a lawful and living sovereign, in the presence of those whom he governs, and to whom they owe obedience and fidelity. {188} Moses never speaks in his own name, or in the name of any human power, or of any portion of the Hebrew nation. God alone speaks and commands. God's word and his commands Moses repeats to the people. At his first ascending Mount Sinai, when he had received the first inspiration from the Eternal, "Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all these words which the Lord commanded him. And all the people answered together, and said, All that the Lord hath spoken we will do." [Footnote 49] [Footnote 49: Exodus xix. 7, 8.] When Moses, again ascending Mount Sinai, had received from God the Decalogue, he returned, "And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient." [Footnote 50] [Footnote 50: Exodus xxiv. 7.] {189} As the events develop themselves, the Hebrews are found far from rendering a constant obedience: they forget, they infringe--and that frequently--these laws of God which they have accepted; and God sometimes punishes, sometimes pardons them; still it is always God alone that is acting; it is from Him alone that all emanates; neither the priests who preside over the ceremonies of his worship, nor the elders of Israel whom He summons to prostrate themselves from afar before Him, nor Moses himself--his sole and constant interpreter--do anything by themselves, demand anything for themselves. The Pentateuch is the history and the picture of the personal government by God of the Israelites. "Our legislator," says the historian Josephus, "had in his thoughts not monarchies, nor oligarchies, nor democracies, nor any one of those political institutions: he commanded that our government should be (if it is permitted to make use of an expression somewhat exaggerated) what may be styled a Theocracy." [Footnote 51]