which it could be more adequately defined? And when God speaks as "the God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob," is it not as if He would say, I am not only the God who speaks to the individual heart, but who is _also traditionally_ known to you all collectively through my manifestations and revelations to your forefathers? Compare Matt. xxii. 32. _Inter alia_, Mr B. Gould also instances such unmistakable orientalisms as "'Among the gods there is none like unto Thee, O Lord,' says David, and he exalts Jehovah above the others as a 'King above all gods.'" Where, then, may we ask, is the monotheism, "the glory of the Semitic race," to be found, if not in the time of David? The proof which follows is more clinching still-- "Jacob seems to have made a sort of bargain with Jehovah that he would serve Him instead of other gods, on condition that He took care of him during his exile from home. The _next_ stage in popular Jewish theology was a denial of the power of the Gentile gods, and the treatment of them as idols. Tradition and history point to Abraham as the first on whom the idea of the impotence of the deities of his father's house first broke. He is said to have smashed the images in Nahor's oratory, and to have put a hammer into the hands of one idol which he left standing, as a sign to Nahor that that one had destroyed all the rest." Unfortunately for this view--according to the only authentic narrative we have of the facts, Gen. xii.--Abraham must have preceded Jacob by at least two generations! I think that, after this, we may fairly ask Mr Baring Gould, who is learned in medieval myths, to trace for us more distinctly the notion of the chronicler who had a theory that Henry II. lived before Henry I. With this passage I shall conclude this chapter, merely observing, that if any department of study existed which had for its special object the investigation of tradition,[124] it is simply impossible that a work (clever in many respects) such as that of Mr Baring Gould should ever have been written.