“In reading your book I could not help wondering that all these combinations which appear quite clear and plausible now were not made a long while ago by other investigators. The earliest inscribed monuments of ancient Babylonia, dating from the fifth millennium before Christ, are door-sockets which bear ample witness to the correctness of your theory. Professor Hommel’s recent ingenious analysis of the Assyrian word for “to pray,” which was a result of his study of your ‘Threshold Covenant,’ is one of the strongest evidences in favor of your arguments. Our own recent excavations of the lowest strata of the temple of Bêl in Nippur, which takes us back to 7000 B.C., testify in the same direction. “Of the greatest importance for the study of the Old Testament religion is your doubtless correct explanation of the Passover. It is entirely in harmony with ancient customs, with philology, and with common sense. According to the old interpretation this rite hangs, so to speak, in the air, without any connection, and yet we know from many other instances that Old Testament rites of the Hebrews stand in the closest possible connection with those practiced by surrounding nations. In the light of your investigations I regard it as an established fact, and as one of the chief results of your labors, that Jehovah in entering into covenant with his ‘bride Israel’ did not invent a new rite, but took one with which his chosen people were already familiar, and gave to it a new and deeper significance in its new use and relations. “Your final chapter, ‘Outgrowths and Perversions of this Rite,’ is likewise full of thought and new suggestions. One cannot help wishing you might have gone beyond the scope of your book and expressed yourself more in detail as to the precise connection in which tree and phallus worship stand to the threshold in each of the principal ancient religions, and what _rôle_ the snake played in the further development or determination of the primitive rite so excellently discussed by you. There is no doubt in my mind that all these different rites, however independent of each other they may appear in later times, are but different outgrowths of the same original root and later perversions of original uplifting thought,–search for unity between men and God. But as you yourself have given only brief indications of this, I wisely abstain from entering into details.