food and raiment. Love ye therefore the stranger: for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt. Thou shalt fear the Lord thy God; Him shalt thou serve, and to Him shalt thou cleave, and swear by His Name. He is thy praise, and He is thy God, that hath done for thee these great and terrible things, which thine eyes have seen. Thy fathers went down into Egypt with three score and ten persons; and now the Lord thy God hath made thee as the stars of heaven for multitude.”[1] This, though the language of a “Chosen People,” is, compared with the self-praise of the Greeks and Romans, far from being the language of national pride. Yet there are some expressions in the passage which could not be used without fanaticism, by any nation or community, now that we know the relation in which all men alike stand to God, and to each other.
Finally, to ascend to the highest sphere of all, the Hebrews had, like other ancient nations, a national Deity, whose name was Jehovah. The national Deity of the Hebrews, unlike those of other nations, was God indeed. All His attributes were those of the true God, though but partially revealed: and His worship has consequently passed into the worship of the Universal Father without break or incongruity, as the light of dawn brightens and broadens into the light of day. But it is as God the universal Father of all that He is worshipped by Christians, not as Jehovah the Deity of the Hebrew nation.
