[232] Cardinal Wiseman in his letters to John Poynder, Esq. ("Essays on Various Subjects," i. 257), says, "Dr Spencer, a learned divine of the Established Church, published two folio volumes replete with extraordinary erudition, entitled 'De Legibus Hebræorum ritualibus et eorum ratione,' which has gone through many editions both here and on the Continent. Now, the entire drift and purport of this work is manifestly twofold--first, to prove that the great design of God, in giving rites and ceremonies to the Jews, was to prevent their falling into idolatry; secondly, to demonstrate that almost every practice, rite, ceremony, and act so given was directly borrowed from the Egyptian heathens; ... that whether we speak of the more solemn and especial injunctions, or of the minutest details of the ceremonial law, of circumcision and of sacrifice in all its varieties, and with all its distinctive ceremonies of purification and lustrations and new moons; of the ark of the covenant and the cherubim; of the temple and its oracles; of the Urim and Thummim, and the emissary goat; of them all Spencer has endeavoured to prove, and that to the satisfaction of many learned men, that they pre-existed among the Egyptians and other neighbouring nations." I have not met with Dr Spencer's work. I may mention, however, the pomegranates in the Levitical robe as an instance. _Vide_ references in this chapter and appendix. APPENDIX TO CHAPTER XI. THE PONGOL FESTIVAL. "The Pongol Festival in Southern India," by Charles E. Govat. "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland," new series, vol. v., part i. (1870.)