If a Jew were told by some teacher a piece of Haggadah, he would be impressed by the wisdom or the beauty of the thought contained in it, or perhaps would admire the skill which drew it forth from some obscure hint of Scripture; but he would never say to himself, "I must straightway believe this; if I do not, I shall be in error, and in peril of my soul." He would more likely say, "Blessed art thou, Abraham our father, from whom has sprung such a teacher for Israel." And observe that Haggadah is still Torah. It is an exposition and application of what is implicit in the divine revelation, drawn forth and made articulate. Yet, even so, there is no demand made for the acceptance, as an article of belief, of each Haggadic exposition. The Jew, and notably the Pharisee, knew what faith was, as well as the Christian did; but he did not make it the regulator of his attitude towards that which was taught him as the contents of revelation. I have said that Haggadah is interpretation of Scripture in all directions except that of precept. And that is true; but the term "interpretation" must be taken in a very wide sense. A connection of some kind there always is between Scripture and Haggadah; but it is sometimes extremely slight. For the Haggadic interpreter performed his task in two ways: either he developed what he believed to be the real teaching of Scripture upon this or that point; or he sought to find in Scripture a sanction for truths which he already believed. And not merely for definite truths, but for anything which might tend to edification,--ethical principles, mystical speculations, meditations on providence and the wonders of creation, the imaginings of pious fantasy, and even the play of daring wit. There was nothing that could not find a place in the Haggadah, if it could be linked on to some text or word or letter of Scripture. The methods employed were, from the point of view of strict exegesis, often wildly extravagant. No freak of allegory, of word-play, of fantastic juggling with letters and syllables, is without illustration in the Haggadah. And the men who employed such methods knew well that what they were setting forth was not the plain literal meaning of Scripture. What they saw, with their inward vision, was the divine truth, holiness, justice, beauty, goodness, love; they read it in their own experience, and traced it in nature and history and man. They looked to see it all mirrored in Scripture; for there was the divine revelation, and there all that they believed to be divine must be. Some of it could be plainly seen; for, in essentials, the Haggadic teaching upon ethics and piety kept to the main lines of the Scriptures. What could not be plainly seen was inferred to be there; and no hint was too slight to indicate its presence. We say that this means reading into the text what is not there. And doubtless that is the case. But the Haggadist did not so understand what he did. If he was conscious of