Much the same result will be found from enquiry into the origin of special feasts and customs that are said to have been instigated at the express command of Jehovah; for there is evidence which shows that they were often customs common amongst the heathen, and were only invested with a new significance by the higher religion of the Hebrews. Among these it is likely that we must reckon even the Passover, for the daubing of the lintels is said to be a common heathen practice, and it will be noticed in support of the pre-Mosaic origin of the ceremony that at its first mention in Exod. xii. 21, it is called _the_ Passover. The meaning of the Hebrew word translated "Passover" is also capable of another meaning than that given in the story of its institution, a meaning which also points to its being the survival of a Semitic and heathen custom. Similar enquiry into ancient religions of the Semitic type shows that originally circumcision had no special religious significance, but was probably a sign of puberty and the right to marry. As manners softened it became a family rite and there was no need to postpone it till years of manhood. The practice of wearing special garments at religious rites is also found in heathen religions, and still maintains itself in our habit of wearing "Sunday clothes." The results of these enquiries are sufficiently startling to those who have been accustomed to regard the religion of Israel as starting from some definite act of revelation which ordained these ordinances and their religious meaning for the first time. But it is common enough in history to find that customs persist long after their original significance has been forgotten, and that they are gradually invested with a meaning more appropriate to the spirit of the age. We are not, however, shut up to the conclusion, that, because we can trace much of the wonderful religion of Israel to common causes acting upon heathen religion, there is no real work of revelation in this gradual progress from lower to higher stages. It would be quite useless, from the point of view of this book, to enter on the fruitless discussion as to whether in the evolution of religion we have to deal with a natural process or with a supernatural revelation. Is any such antithesis necessary? Surely the one can come through the other. If revelation is to reach us it must come through the ordinary processes of our minds; the recognition that it is from God cannot be authenticated to us by any miracle or outward authority, but simply by the possibility of the mind, which God has made, being able to recognise its Maker. It may be more of a difficulty to others that we should have such erroneous conceptions of history in a Book that has been regarded as infallible on these matters. We have to face the fact, from which there is no escape, that the historian may not have known the origin of the things of which he wrote, or may have intentionally obscured the fact of the