If from the age of Moses the religion of Jahveh was thus inseparably connected with morality, all the best of the people would rally round it. Unless Israel at any time was wholly without a remnant that loved righteousness and hated iniquity, Jahvism must always have had its earnest supporters. The same cause, of course, would tend to make it unpopular with the mass of the people. But for this, it would be difficult to understand why the Israelites, down to the captivity, were so persistent in their devotion to strange gods. Jahveh was their national divinity, and a mere love of polytheism could hardly account for this incessant desertion of him. The close connection between Jahvism and morality fully explains the phenomenon. The Israelites in general found Jahveh too severe for them, and turned to gods more tolerant of evil-doing, just as Catholic sovereigns used to choose indulgent confessors. This fact would only confirm the few more strongly in their allegiance. The worshipper of Jahveh would justly extol Jahveh in comparison with Baal, as he compared himself with the worshipper of Baal. And thus through the purity of Jahveh’s adherents their religion would be saved from the contamination of baser elements, and would necessarily develop in simplicity and truth. Sin, at first hated chiefly because Jahveh forbade it, would at last be hated because of its own foulness; Jahveh, at first reverenced merely as the national saviour, would at last be reverenced as the lord of heaven and earth. Down the channel of Jahvism flowed all the higher forces of the national life, till at length they broke forth in the wave of moral and religious energy which finally overcame resistance in the grand struggle of the prophets.