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examinations of the opinions of others. A series of aphorisms, simple,
plain, unadorned, of easy understanding, drawn from no other source than
the Divine Word, presented with the greatest possible perspicuity and
precision, progressing in a regular chain of consequential propositions,
and containing in few words the most important points of the Israelitish
creed--that is the form in which I have thought more proper to present
to those, who are already versed in the Bible and in Hebrew literature,
a skeleton of the vast religious science, in which they may perceive at
a glance the principal characteristic of Judaism, its various
ramifications, subsidiary parts, and special tendencies; they may then
easily discover and account for the multifarious phases, in which it
manifested itself in the various epochs of the universal history of
mankind. To supply the deficiencies, to adorn those naked propositions,
to provide them with evidence deduced from the sacred text, to enlarge
them with appropriate applications, to illustrate them with examples, in
fine, to reduce the whole into such a catechistic form as will suit a
sound system of instruction--such is the task which remains entrusted to
your intelligence, and to your zeal. By employing the proffered
materials with that discretion which is peculiar to your ministry, with
that method which the tender minds of your pupils require, and with the
love inspired by the sublimity and importance of the subject, yours will
be the merit of having propagated the seeds of truth that will bring
forth charity and universal edification; to me suffices the happiness of
having, in some degree, contributed to so noble a work.

A GUIDE FOR THE RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION OF JEWISH YOUTH.

CHAPTER I.

I. WHOEVER directs his mind to the contemplation of the objects that
surround him, the aggregate of which is called the universe, will soon
perceive, that the parts of which it is composed undergo continually
various modifications and successive changes, every one of them
exercising some influence on the others, and receiving from them some
alteration. This state of mutual dependence, in which the parts of the
universe stand in relation to each other, leads us necessarily to
conclude, that none of them has within itself the reason or cause of its
existence, but that all of them together depend upon a cause which is
out of themselves, and through which they began to exist; the universe