of his own handiwork; and should not have meddled with tasks which were obviously beyond the scope of his faculties. And even in this latter case, the most favorable one for Jehovah, he acted with unpardonable injustice towards the man and woman in first creating them with a nature whose powers of resistance to temptation he could not tell, then placing temptation, raised to its utmost strength by a mysterious order, continually under their noses, then allowing a serpent to suggest that they should yield to it, and lastly punishing the unhappy victims of this chain of untoward circumstances by expulsion from their garden. A human parent who should thus treat his children would be severely and justly censured. It is a striking proof how rudimentary were the Hebrew conceptions of justice, that they should have accepted, in reference to their deity, a story which evinces so flagrant a disregard of its most elementary requirements (Gen. ii. 8, and iii). Just as in the case of Adam and Eve, he required implicit obedience to an arbitrary command, so in the case of Abraham he required implicit obedience to an immoral one. There was with him no fixed system of morality. Submission to his will was the alpha and omega of virtue. Observe now how superior is the feeling shown in the Hindu legend which has been quoted as a parallel to that of the projected sacrifice of Isaac. Although in that story the father was bound by a solemn promise to sacrifice his son, yet he is never blamed for his reluctance to do so, though Abraham is praised for his willingness; while the Brahman who is actually prepared to plunge the sacrificial knife into his child's breast is treated with scorn and reprobation for his unfeeling behavior. Even the service of the gods is not made supreme over every human emotion. But the conception of the existence of duties independent of the divine will seems not to have entered the minds of the Hebrew theologians who wrote these books.
The further proceedings of Jehovah are quite in keeping with his beginning in the garden of Eden. Throughout the whole course of the history he shows the most glaring partiality. In its earlier period he is partial to individuals; in its later, to the Hebrew race. Let us notice a few cases of this favoritism as shown towards individual favorites. Immediately
