2. _Israel's literature became thus a religious literature._ Her histories were written for edification. They present the past of the people in such light as to inculcate virtue and inspire piety. Her poems are songs of pure love, like Canticles; or dramas whose plot lies in the problem of evil, like Job; or hymns in which the soul seeks communion with God. The Psalter is the hymnal of the temple choir at Jerusalem. The prophets are preachers of righteousness, personal, social, political. Even the writings of her sages or philosophers are almost wholly ethical and religious. No other people's literature is so intensely and pervasively religious. Other nations have religious writings as a part of their general literature. Israel's whole literary life was sacred. There is scarcely a book left by her to which we may not go to feed religion.[20] 3. _Israel's literature presents us, in the various moods and tenses of her life, with the various phases of religion._ The glory of a truly National Church is that it takes up into itself every form of spiritual and ethical consciousness within the nation, and exhibits in each successive school of thought, in each movement for a nobler social life, a phase of true religion. This is the glory of Israel. Religion never separated itself into an institution apart from the State. There was no Jewish Church, of which Dean Stanley wrote the history. Church and State were one. Sacred and secular history flowed in one common stream. The history of Israel was the history of Judaism. Its choicest literature formed its sacred writings. Religion was never narrowed to a theory, an institution, an "ism," a sect, a school. It was as generous and as rich as the broad, free life of the nation. Every factor essential to a noble religion was thus supplied from the sound and healthy life of the people. The inner life of the soul was voiced in the hymns of Israel, to which we still turn for the inspiration of personal piety in our private devotions; and which lift the public worship of the moderns as they swelled the souls of the hosts who waited in the temple courts at Jerusalem, two thousand years ago.