which do not equally interest all readers; (2) others may appear to have been treated

with too little or else with too much detail; objections may be raised to interpretations of

types, or even to the general view of the Old Testament which has been taken

throughout. My aim has been to make the book as complete and generally useful as I

could, and clearly to express my convictions as to the meaning of the Old Testament.

But on one point especially I would wish to be quite explicit. At the close of these

studies, I would say, with humble and heartfelt thankfulness, that step by step my

Christian faith has only been strengthened by them, that, as I proceeded, the conviction

has always been deepened that Christ is indeed 'the end of the Law for righteousness,'

to Whom all the ordinances of the Old Testament had pointed, and in Whom alone, alike

the people and the history of Israel find their meaning. Viewed in this light, the Temple -

services are not so many strange or isolated rites, for the origin of which we must look

among neighbouring nations, or in the tendencies natural to men during the infancy of

their history. Rather, all now becomes one connected whole --the design and execution

bearing even stronger evidence to its Divine authorship than other of God's works,--

where every part fits into the other, and each and all point with unswerving

steadfastness to Him in Whom the love of God was fully manifested, and its purposes

towards the world entirely carried out. From first to last, the two dispensations are

substantially one; Jehovah, the God of Israel, is also the God and Father of our Lord and

Saviour Jesus Christ--Novum Testamentum in Vetere latet; Vetus in Novo patet.

A. E.

(1) Quite a different estimate must be formed of the Gemara (which in a general way may

be described as a twofold commentary --the Jerusalem and Babylonian Gemara --upon

the Mishnah), not only from its much later date, but also from the strange and

heterogeneous congeries which are found in the many folios of the Talmud. Judaism

was, at the time of its compilation, already thoroughly ossified; and the trustworthiness

of tradition greatly impaired not merely by the long interval of t ime that had elapsed, but

by dogmatic predilections and prejudices, and by the not unnatural wish to foist

comparatively recent views, practices, and prayers upon Temple -times. Indeed, the work

wants in its greatest part even the local colouring of the Mishnah--an element of such

importance in Eastern traditions, where, so to speak, the colours are so fast, that, for

example, to this day the modern Arab designations of places and localities have

preserved the original Palestinian names, and not those more re cent Greek or Roman

with which successive conquerors had overlaid them.

(2) Thus Chapters 1 and 2, which give a description of ancient Jerusalem and of the

structure and arrangements of the Temple, may not interest some readers, yet it could

neither be left out, nor put in a different part of the book. Those for whom this subject

has no attractions may, therefore, begin with Chapter 3.