entrusted with an oracle so showy and taking. Oh that Ishmael might live before thee! Since everybody has something which conspires with this Ishmael, his success, again and again, seems to be certain. And again and again he seems drawing near to a worldwide success, nay, to have succeeded;—but always, at this point, disaster overtakes him, he signally breaks down. At this crowning moment, when all seems triumphant with him, comes what the Bible calls a crisis or judgment. Now is the judgment of this world! now shall the prince of this world be cast out![1] Cast out he is, and always must be, because his ideal, which is also that of France in general, however she may have noble spirits who contend against it and seek a better, is after all a false one. Plausible and attractive as it may be, the constitution of things turns out to be somehow or other against it. And why? Because the free development of our senses all round, of our apparent self, has to undergo a profound modification from the law of our higher real self, the law of righteousness; because he, whose ideal is the free development of the senses all round, serves the senses, is a servant. But the servant abideth not in the house for ever; the son abideth for ever.[2]
Is it possible to imagine a grander testimony to the truth of the revelation committed to Israel? What miracle of making an iron axe-head float on water, what successful prediction that a thing should happen just so many years and months and days hence, could be really half so impressive?
So that the whole history of the world to this day is in truth one continual establishing of the Old Testament revelation: 'O ye that love the Eternal, see that ye hate the thing
