TO SUNDAY SCHOOL TEACHERS, AND OTHERS

INTERESTED IN RELIGIOUS EDUCATION.

DEAR FRIENDS,

The following publications will be found specially suited to your use during the months of April, May, and June.

PICTORIAL DESCRIPTION OF THE TABERNACLE IN THE WILDERNESS; its rites and ceremonies. For the use of Sunday School Teachers, and other students of Scripture. By JOHN DILWORTH. Price 2d. This little work, which is fully illustrated, and of which upwards of seventy thousand copies have been sold, will form a valuable aid in the preparation of the quarter's Lessons, while its cheapness brings it within the reach of all. COLOURED ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE TABERNACLE IN THE WILDERNESS rites and ceremonies with descriptive letter press and suggestive questions, Price 1s. Being a series of ten highly coloured cards, illustrating the various offices, &c., of the Tabernacle Worship.

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INTERNATIONAL COLOURED SCRIPTURE PRINTS FOR APRIL. Moses descending from the Mount; The Golden Calf; The People Forgiven; and The Tabernacle and its Furniture. Price 4d. each, or complete in a packet, price 18. 4d. A liberal discount is allowed to Sunday School Teachers. All orders will receive prompt attention if directed to

Your obedient Servant,

THE TRADE MANAGER.

KAYE'S WORSDELL'S PILLS.

Impure blood, no matter how caused, is the foundation of all disease; hence the value of KAYE'S WORSDELL'S PILLS, which effectually cleanse the vital fluid from all impurities. They strengthen all the organs and restore impaired health when all other remedies have failed.

Sold by all Chemists at 1s. 1d., 2s. 9d., and 4s. 6. per box.

CALF-WORSHIP IN HOREB.

IN illustrious poet of our own era, in one of the finest compositions that has come from his pen, while descanting on the great truth that it is only by God's aid men can expel or conquer doubts, those spectres of the mind, adds, in conclusion, that we must look for His presence not only in the brightness, where we would naturally expect to realize it, but also—

"In the darkness and the cloud,

As over Sinai's peaks of old,

While Israel made their gods of gold
Although the trumpet blew so loud."

And the circumstance mentioned in these lines may be considered as an exceedingly remarkable one, with every allowance for those sudden and wayward impulses by which large bodies of men are carried away. Indeed, to many commentators it has seemed so difficult to explain this act of idolatry, that they have tried to persuade themselves the people were really, though in an unlawful way, engaging in the worship of Jehovah under the symbol of a calf. It is at least evident that Aaron would have given it this colouring, for his proclamation (Exod. xxxii. 5) is a futile attempt to stem the current, since they (that is, the overwhelming majority of the Israelites) had already cried, "These be thy gods, O Israel." That is, they looked upon this image as the fitting representative of the Egyptian deities, to whose aid they chose to ascribe their deliverance from Pharaoh's tyranny. The heavy punishment that followed upon the sin of the Israelites is ample proof their act was one far more heinous than the setting up of a "cherubic symbol" of the God of their fathers. We see this also from Moses' repeated references to it; and in the Psalms, the place where this occurred is mentioned as an aggravation of their offence (Psa. cvi. 19, 20).

In this crisis it seems that no organization existed whereby others, in the absence of Moses, could in some measure fill his place and control the people. His high principles and godly zeal had produced no favourable effect on the minds of the people, and in their words there lurks a secret satisfaction at Moses" departure. The conduct of his brother stands in singular contrast, displaying cowardice and unbelief, though we are not to suppose from Exod. xxxii. 4, 24, that Aaron fashioned the calf VOL. V., SECOND SERIES.

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with his own hands. Often a man is said to do things which he only sets others to the doing of. Like Moses, Aaron had doubtless more knowledge than the most of his brethren; and, availing themselves of the fact that the priestly function had been delegated to him, the Israelites called upon him to superintend the shaping of the idol, and to arrange the ritual for its worship. Long after, in Jewish history, we have an account of the setting up of idolatry, starting with this same calf-worship, whereby Jeroboam, under the flimsy pretext that the Israelites could thus worship Jehovah without the fatigue of a journey to Jerusalem, plunged them at last into still grosser forms of this sin, as existing among Canaanitish nations.

Most interesting is it, in connection with this transgression at Sinai, to look back and see how this calf or ox worship took its rise in Egypt, a land so memorable as the nursery of art and science ere Greece and Italy were names in the world. The prevalent superstition in the valley of the Nile was a sort of pantheism; and hence, believing in a god diffused through every form of life, it mattered little in Egyptian eyes what particular object was selected for adoration. Even things inanimate were sometimes chosen, and the incongruous assemblage of divinities sometimes sculptured might well excite wonder,—

"Genii with heads of birds, hawks, ibis, drakes,
Of lions, foxes, cats, fish, frogs, and snakes,
Bulls, rams, and monkeys, hippopotami,
With knife in paw, suspended from the sky;
Vast scarabæi, with the crocodile,

And other reptiles from the land of Nile."

But of these a marked pre-eminence was enjoyed by a few, and the bull especially came to be individualized; at first, probably, taken only as a representative of power, the animal was afterwards regarded as the living shrine of the god Apis. One bull, lodged in the temple at Memphis, was the subject of chief honour; chosen for certain marks of a symbolic character, it was, when selected, treated by the priests with all the honours of royalty. At its death all the nation mourned, and the dead Apis was worshipped as Serapis, until a new animal was, by priestly research, proved to be duly qualified for instalment as the chief divinity. Always, from the days of the patriarchs, more or less engaged with cattle, still such familiarity did not prevent the Israelites from adopting this Egyptian ox-worship while bondsmen, and they eagerly returned to it in the shadow of Sinai.

J. B. S. C.

JEWISH CUSTOMS.

NO. II. THE FEAST OF THE LAW.

SIMCOTH TOURO—the rejoicing of the law-is sometimes spoken of as the ninth day of the feast of tabernacles, although properly speaking it does not belong to that festival. As we are commanded in the Scripture to keep the feast of tabernacles eight days, the actual day of the rejoicing of the law would be that on which we now keep the day of solemn assembly, namely, the day previously, or the eighth day of the feast; but as those who dwelt at a distance from Jerusalem were often unable to ascertain the exact date of a festival, as calculated from the consecration of the new moon, it was their custom to keep a second day, and the modern Jews, with few exceptions, continue this practice to the present time.

The feast is known as the rejoicing of the law because it is the day when the recitation of the weekly portion of the Pentateuch is concluded. The law is divided into fifty-four portions or lessons, one for each Sabbath. It sometimes

happens, however, that a festival falls on the Sabbath day, and, as there is a separate lesson for each festival, in that case more than one lesson is taken on some succeeding Sabbath, in order that the whole may be read through within the space of the year. The feast of the law is a day of holy convocation, and is kept as strictly as the Sabbath, with this exception, that although no servile work is allowed to be performed, the lighting of a fire or the dressing of food is not especially prohibited. It has one other important claim to be considered as a sacred feast, it being that day on which the portion of the law referring to the death of Moses is repeated. According to the Jewish belief, Moses was the greatest of the prophets, the faithful servant of God, and chosen minister of His sacred word; who from the time of the sublime miracle of the burning bush until the crowning mercy, when he is described as knowing the Lord face to face, worked and taught from a height of ecstasy beyond our mortal ken. Whether on the sacred mountain, in the wearying desert, or beside the holy stream, he is ever the great leader and prophet, and ever the revered of outcast Israel; they never can forget how he bore on his arms the tables of the law, fresh writ from the divine inspiration, how his soul, sickening at the ghastly mockery of the golden calf, for a moment lost faith in the destiny of the chosen race, but afterwards by his life and death made it possible for us to have a day of the rejoicing of the law.