mandment which no one observed, and which Christians themselves regarded as impracticable, is simply an avowal of the foolishness and nullity of that law. I could say nothing in reply to the rabbi.
Now that I understand the exact meaning of the doctrine, I see clearly the strangely contradictory position in which I was placed. Having recognized the divinity of Jesus and of his doctrine, and having at the same time organized a life wholly contrary to that doctrine, what remained for me but to look upon the doctrine as impracticable? In words I had recognized the doctrine of Jesus as sacred; in actions, I had professed a doctrine not at all Christian, and I had recognized and reverenced the anti-Christian customs which hampered my life upon every side. The persistent message of the Old Testament is that misfortunes came upon the Hebrew people because they believed in false gods and denied Jehovah. Samuel (I. viii.–xii.) accuses the people of adding to their other apostasies the choice of a man, upon whom they depended for deliverance instead of upon Jehovah, who was their true King. “Turn not aside after tohu, after vain things,” Samuel says to the people (I. xii. 21); “turn not aside after vain things, which cannot profit nor deliver; for they are tohu, are vain.” “Fear Jehovah and serve him. … But if ye shall still do wickedly, ye shall be consumed, both ye and your king” (I. xii. 24, 25). And so with me, faith in tohu, in vain things, in empty idols, had concealed the truth from me. Across the path
