denounced the severest punishment; against prostration before their images, or offering sacrifices on their altars; against even attending their festivals,[1] or in any way countenancing their superstitions. Every monument of the old religion was to be thrown down: "Ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves."[2]
But this work of destruction was only clearing the way for the great work of construction. After all this wreck and ruin of cruel rites and degrading superstitions had been swept from the minds of the Hebrews, as they had often seen a vast plain swept by the winds of the desert, Moses began to construct the fabric of a pure religion — the worship of One Living and True God; and out of this central principle, as the root of a mighty banyan-tree, there sprang a hundred trunks and arms, spreading far and wide, so that a whole nation could dwell under its shade. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." That was the first principle imbedded in the Hebrew Law, the acknowledgment of which in itself contained a whole government, and out of the most incoherent elements formed a nation and created a state.
Such was the Hebrew Commonwealth — a state founded in Religion. Was it therefore founded in fanaticism and folly? or in profound wisdom and far-seeing sagacity? Religion may seem an unsubstantial foundation on which to erect any human structure. It is indeed intangible, but only as gravitation is intangible, which yet holds the solar system in its place. So is Religion the most powerful influence which can bind human societies together. Says Coleridge in his Manual for Statesmen — and the great English thinker seldom uttered a profounder truth, or one more worthy of the consideration of statesmen — "Religion, true or false, is, and ever has been, the
