youngest of the house had to live out in the booth; and, chiefest of feasts, the week of

the Passover, when, all leaven being carefully purged out, every morsel of food, by its

difference from that ordinarily used, would show the child that the season was a special

one. From the moment a child was at all capable of being instructed--still more, of his

taking any part in the services --the impression would deepen day by day. Surely no

one who had ever worshipped within the courts of Jehovah's house at Jerusalem could

ever have forgotten the scenes he had witnessed, or the words he had heard. Standing

in that gorgeous, glorious building, and looking up its terraced vista, the child would

watch with solemn awe, not unmingled with wonderment, as the great throng of white-

robed priests busily moved about, while the smoke of the sacrifice rose from the altar of

burnt-offering. Then, amid the hushed silence of that vast multitude, they had all fallen

down to worship at the time of incense. Again, on those steps that led up to the

innermost sanctuary the priests had lifted their hands and spoken over the people the

words of blessing; and then, while the drink-offering was poured out, the Levit es' chant

of Psalms had risen and swelled into a mighty volume; the exquisite treble of the Levite

children's voices being sustained by the rich round notes of the men, and accompanied

by instrumental music. The Jewish child knew many of these words. They had been the

earliest songs he had heard --almost his first lesson when clinging as a "taph" to his

mother. But now, in those white-marbled, gold -adorned halls, under heaven's blue

canopy, and with such surroundings, they would fall upon his ear like sounds from

another world, to which the prolonged threefold blasts from the silver trumpets of the

priests would seem to waken him. And they were sounds from another world; for, as his

father would tell him, all that he saw was after the exact pattern of heavenly things which

God had shown to Moses on Mount Sinai; all that he heard was God-uttered, spoken by

Jehovah Himself through the mouth of His servant David, and of the other sweet

singers of Israel. Nay, that place and that house were God-chosen; and in the thick

darkness of the Most Holy Place--there afar off, where the high-priest himself entered

on one day of the year only, and in simple pure white vesture, not in those splendid

golden garments in which he was ordinarily arrayed--had once stood the ark, with the

veritable tables of the law, hewn and graven by the very hand of God; and between the

cherubim had then throned in the cloud the visible presence of Jehovah. Verily this

Temple with its services was heaven upon earth!

Nor would it have been easy to lose the impression of the first Paschal Supper which a

child had attended. There was that about its symbols and services which appealed to

every feeling, even had it not been that the law expressly enjoined full instruction to be

given as to every part and rite of the service, as well as to the great event recorded in

that supper. For in that night had Israel been born as a nation, and redeemed as the

"congregation" of the Lord. Then also, as in a mould, had their future history been cast

to all time; and there, as in type, had its eternal meaning and import for all men been

outlined, and with it God's purpose of love and work of grace foreshadowed. Indeed, at

a certain part of the service it was expressly ordained, that the youngest at the Paschal

table should rise and formally ask what was the meaning of all this service, and how that

night was distinguished from others; to which the father was to reply, by relating, in

language suited to the child's capacity, the whole national history of Israel, from the

calling of Abraham down to the deliverance from Egypt and the giving of the law; "and

the more fully," it is added, "he explains it all, the better." In view of all this, Philo might

indeed, without exaggeration, say that the Jews "were from their swaddling clothes,

even before being taught either the sacred laws or the unwritten customs, trained by

their parents, teachers, and instructors to recognise God as Father and as the Maker of

the world" (Legat. ad. Cajum, sec. 16); and that, "having been taught the knowledge (of

the laws) from earliest youth, they bore in their souls the image of the commandments"

(Ibid. sec. 31). To the same effect is the testimony of Josephus, that "from their earliest

consciousness" they had "learned the laws, so as to have them,as it were, engraven

upon the soul" (Ag. Apion, ii, 18); although, of course, we do not believe it, when, with

his usual boastful magniloquence, he declares that at the age of fourteen he had been

"frequently" consulted by "the high priests and principal men of the city...about the