heathenism has been explored, and the result is a discovery of fertile plains instead of barrenness. The distinction between the ante-Christian and the post-christian eras is, if not obliterated, yet so far effaced, that the transition from one to the other is natural and facile. The longing for spiritual satisfaction that stirred in the heart of the empire, found neither its source nor its gratification exclusively in the religion that afterwards became the professed faith of Rome. It slaked its thirst at older fountains. Such longings will, at need, open fountains of living water for their own supply. Passing through the valley of Baca they create a well, the streams whereof fill the pools. The smitten rock pours out its torrents. The hungry soul creates its harvest as it goes along, feeding itself by the way with food that seems to fall miraculously from the sky. It makes a religion if there be none at hand. A new heaven peopled with angels; a new earth full of providences come into being at its call. But in this emergency the religion was extant in the world, already venerable, already proved. It was the religion of Israel, with all that was necessary to attract attention and command reverence; a holy God, an immediate providence, a solemn history, a glorious prophecy, an inspiring hope, traditions, institutions, a temple, a priesthood, sacrifices, a code of laws, ceremonial and moral, poetry, learning, music, mystery, stately forms of men and women, judges, kings, heroes, martyrs, saints, a superb literature, legends of virtue, festivals of joy, visions of resurrection and judgment, precepts of righteousness, promises of peace, songs of victory and of sorrow, dreams of a heavenly kingdom to be won by obedience to divine law, tender lessons of charity, stern lessons of denial, fascinating attractions and yet more fascinating fears, gentle persuasions and awful menaces, calculated to lay hold on every mood, to thrill and to satisfy every human emotion. The religion of Israel lacked little but outward prestige of power and wealth to make it precisely what the time required; and in times of real earnestness the prestige of power and wealth is readily dispensed with. The unfashionable faith is the very one to attract worldly people on their first awakening to spiritual sensibility. The show of worldliness is then, to the worldly, particularly offensive. "The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the pride of life," delight in abasing themselves before rags and filth, wishing to reach the opposite extreme. The graces of the religious character, humility, meekness, self-accusation, contrition, find in associations with the coarse, the hard, the repulsive, their fittest expression. Hence it was that Judaism, heretofore the faith of the despised, became the faith of the despisers. Its very dogmatism, its proud exclusiveness and intolerance, were in its favor. Its haughty reserve assisted it; its superb disdain of other