treated not only with condemnation, but with scorn. Individual responsibility is insisted on. Children are not held responsible for their fathers, though the inheritance of moral evil and of the consequences of moral evil is never denied. And even trust in God rises to a higher level in Habakkuk's declaration that that trust shall never be shaken by any calamity that may befall him, than in the earlier belief that calamities would never befall those who held fast that trust. If we review this progress in moral teaching we recognise that it corresponds to the natural and for the most part unconscious working of that instinctive test which, as was pointed out before, we apply to all moral questions, the test of universality. The pivots of all the prophetical teaching are the incessant inculcation of justice and mercy; justice which requires us to recognise the rights of others side by side with our own; mercy which demands our sympathy with the feelings of other creatures that can feel. We are bound to recognise the claims of others to equal treatment with ourselves, and any refusal or apparent refusal to do so must be justified by a universal rule applicable to all alike. The perpetual attempt to justify exceptions in this way is sure to end in diminishing the number of those exceptions. If we are compelled to think much of the position of woman in marriage, we are sure at last to come to Malachi's declaration that God hateth putting away. If we are compelled to think of the position of slaves, we cannot continue for ever to believe that there are some beings with consciences and free wills, who nevertheless, because of the accidents of their lives, have no rights at all; and we acknowledge the righteousness of Jeremiah's denunciation of the breach of covenant when the nobles of Judah re-enslaved those whom they had solemnly emancipated. If we think of the nature of responsibility and the justification of punishment, we find it impossible to believe that an innocent man shall be rightly punished for the wrong-doing of another, even if that other be his father or his mother; and we are convinced that Ezekiel is speaking God's words when he proclaims on God's behalf that 'the soul that sinneth it shall die; the son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son.' And once more, whatever divine purpose gave the chosen people a priority among all peoples in knowledge of divine will and possession of divine favour, it is impossible to find any rule by which this priority shall for ever exclude all other peoples from being within the range of God's manifested love; and conscience cannot but accept as a divine message that the Gentiles also shall come to the Heavenly 'Light, and their kings to the brightness of His rising.' So again, to turn from justice to mercy, we recognise that we are bound to spare pain to all creatures that can feel, and this duty can only be set