That Jahweh himself, in the most ancient traditions of the race, was similarly concealed within his chest or ark in the holy of holies, is evident, I think, to any attentive reader. It is true, the later Jehovistic glosses of Exodus and Deuteronomy, composed after the Jehovistic worship had become purified and spiritualised, do their best to darken the comprehension of this matter by making the presence of Jahweh seem always incorporeal; and even in the earlier traditions, the phrase “the ark of the covenant of Jahweh” is often substituted for the simpler and older one, “the ark of Jahweh.” But through all the disfigurements with which the priestly scribes of the age of Josiah and the sacerdotalists of the return from the captivity have overlaid the primitive story, we can still see clearly in many places that Jahweh himself was at first personally present in the ark that covered him. And though the scribes (evidently ashamed of the early worship they had outlived) protest somewhat vehemently more than once, “There was nothing in the ark save the two tables of stone which Moses put there at Horeb, when Jahweh made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt,” yet this much at least even they admit--that the object or objects concealed in the ark consisted of a sculptured stone or stones; and that to dance or sing before this stone or these stones was equivalent to dancing or singing before the face of Jahweh. The question whether the mysterious body concealed in the ark was or was not a lingam or other phallic object I purposely omit to discuss here, as not cognate to our present enquiry. It is sufficient to insist that from the evidence before us, first, it _was_ Jahweh himself, and second, it was an object made of stone. Further than that ’twere {125}curious to enquire, and I for one do not desire to pry into the mysteries.