statutes, to fear Jehovah our God for our good.'"

=Religion through education.=--It is easy to understand that with this
training in childhood it became more and more easy from this time on
to persuade the Jewish people not to worship idols and to see why they
gradually changed more and more rapidly into the most devout and
earnest people in the world. The children were taught in their homes.

THE NEW KIND OF TEACHERS, THE SCRIBES

After Josiah's time many additions were made to this law of Jehovah.
At first it consisted of only a part of our book of Deuteronomy. But
the learned priests and prophets, especially after the destruction of
Jerusalem, made a careful study of all the writings of preceding
generations, and they found many collections of laws and histories of
Jehovah's dealings with his people which seemed to them inspired of
Jehovah and worthy to be reverenced and obeyed. They tried the
experiment of combining some of these with the law of Deuteronomy. So
it came to pass that two or three centuries later the Jews had as
their sacred book the whole of what is now the Pentateuch, or the
first five books of the Bible.

=The need of other teachers besides the father in the home.=--If this
larger Bible was to be carefully studied by every Jew from his
childhood up, there must be certain men who should give their lives to
teaching it. So in time there came to be a class of teachers known as
"scribes." These men spent all their working hours reading this law of
God, making copies of it and teaching it to others. Some of these men
were truly great and good. For example, there was the gentle Hillel,
who lived about a century before Christ and who taught the spirit of
the Golden Rule, although in a form not so perfect as that of Jesus.

="Do not to your neighbor what is unpleasant to yourself.
This is the whole law. All else is exposition."=

It was a scribe like this who talked with Jesus about the "greatest
commandment," and to whom Jesus said, "Thou art not far from the
Kingdom of God."

THE SCHOOLS OF THE SCRIBES

These teachers conducted regular daily schools in the synagogues. More
and more children were sent to them until in the time of Jesus all
boys were supposed to go for at least a year or two. Girls were taught
only at home. People had not yet come to realize that the minds of
girls are as well worth educating as those of boys.

=The methods of teaching.=--The boys sat on the floor in a c