similar gods, and, worse still, to the Queen of Heaven, as the feminine was taboo to Hebrews.

"The men and all the women, a great multitude," demanded the return to the worship of the Queen of Heaven, as under her they had "plenty of victuals and were well and saw no evil," but on returning to Iové they have "wanted for all things and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine (Jeremiah xliv., 17-27). Iové again threatens them with being sent back to Egypt, where they will" die of the sword and by famine, and they shall "be an execration and an astonishment and a curse and a reproach," as they had been before Pharaoh thrust them forth." But, worse still," I will punish them in Egypt by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence," again making Egypt a source of fear on account of disease.

In spite of this "frightfulness," we find that at the time of Jeremiah a great part of the Jewish nation had remained in, or returned to Egypt, and worshipped the Queen of Heaven, Isis, to the disgust of Jeremiah (Jeremiah xliv., 24-28). But they always did worship the gods of the people among whom they dwelt (Bishop Colenso).

These terrible calamities were threatened by the Nabis as what would happen to anyone deserting the service of Iové, and they constantly harped on the jealousy of their tribal god, and stated, in fact, in Exodus xxxiv., 14, that one of his names was "Jealous," with a capital "J," so that it was holy, "For thou shalt worship no other god: for Iové, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God" (or Al), and even in the great commandments the only parts which are peculiarly Hebraic are the opening four commandments: (1st) No other gods; (2nd) no graven images. This only applied to graven images of other gods, for they freely erected and worshipped graven images, brass pillars, serpents, Jakin and Boaz, Ark and Eduth, Teraphim, which Rachel stole (Genesis xxxi.), Pesselim, Ephod, Massekah, Matzebah, such as the Danites stole from Mica's priest (Judges xvii.), and without which Hosea (chapter 3) says religion would cease. (3rd) He threatens what he will do for bowing down and serving other gods, "for I, Iové of the Eloi-band, am a Jealous Al, visiting the sins of the father upon the children unto the third and fourth generation." [Ophalim or syphilis, memories of the diseases for which they were expelled from Egypt.] Then,

lastly, he appointed their quarter moon-day, named after a Babylonian god, Sabbath, Saturn, as a day sacred to Iové. Saturn was worshipped all over the known world as Sabath or Sabatto. (Christianity, pp. 105 and 109.)

Now all this portrays a very ignorant, savage people, held down by a boastful, determined priesthood, whose worship of a god consisted not so much of that of a god of love or Cupid, but of that of a quite different use of the Greek god's name-Cupidity. their threats seem to have produced little effect when Jeremiah exclaims, "According to the number of thy cities are thy gods, O Judah" (Jeremiah xi., 28).

But

It is a curious result of our training in childhood that these old threats of Iové (a god identical in character with the Ju Jus of Africa or the fiendish gods of the Solomon or Friendly Islanders-gods we hold in utter contempt and loathing) have far more effect on modern Europe than they had on the people to whom they were addressed, and they drive nations like the Scotch-hard-headed and logical-to a service in which they do not believe, and to a Sabbatical restraint they detest, simply by the power of these old curses