Judging from the standard of New Testament religion and their contribution to it, the Prophets may be roughly classified in the above order. The higher tendency seems to vanish from the historical works which were composed after the Exile, save in many of the Psalms, where religion reaches its highest expression outside the New Testament. The tendency represented by the middle and horizontal line ends in the somewhat superficial ethics of such works as the Book of Proverbs. The lower tendency _is only to be judged so from comparison_; it served its purpose, and it was an honest endeavour to reduce the Prophetic ideals to a definite system. It is in line with the spirit of many of the Psalms that the religion of the revelation of Christ takes its rise, and we may see in the Sadducees and the Pharisees the degenerate effect of the other lines of development. Lecture VI THE RELIGION OF THE LITERARY PROPHETS Among the writings of the Old Testament, the Prophetical Books, whether considered as literature or religion, are acknowledged to stand out as unsurpassed. If the Psalms claim to rival them it is to be remembered that the Psalms are probably to be traced to the Prophetic teaching. The Prophets themselves begin a new era; they are creative and owe but little to their past. That for so long a period, in unbroken continuity, there should emerge from a tiny nation a succession of men of differing temperament, training, and social position, who should with remarkable unity voice truths of religion not only hitherto unrecognised but rarely surpassed or apprehended in subsequent history, is in itself a unique phenomenon in comparative religion. Equally notable is the fact, that in the majority of the Prophets we have not only the gift of religious intuition, but that this is found in combination with great oratorical power, true poetic genius, and practical statesmanship. They remain for all time an indisputable witness to the Divine revelation in the development of Israel's religion.