arned and honoured were a mere human
superstition. Or else it would be natural to ask, Is it because the
offices and functions of Judaism were more formal, more perfunctory than
ours, that a greater spiritual grace went with their appointments than
with the laying on of hands in the Christian Church, a rite so clearly
sanctioned in the New Testament?

It is written of Joshua that Moses was to lay his hands upon him,
because already the Spirit was in him; and of Timothy that he had
unfeigned faith, and that prophecies went before concerning him (Num.
xxvii. 18; 1 Tim. i. 18; 2 Tim. i. 5). But in neither dispensation did
special grace fail to accompany the official separation to sacred
office: Joshua was full of the Spirit of Wisdom, for Moses had laid his
hands upon him; and Timothy was bidden to stir into flame that gift of
God which was in him through the laying on of the Apostle's hands (Deut
xxxiv. 9; 2 Tim. i. 6).

Accordingly there is great stress laid upon the orderly institution of
the priest. And yet, to make it plain that his authority is only "for
his brethren," Moses, the chief of the nation, is to officiate
throughout the ceremony of consecration. He it is who shall offer the
sacrifices upon the altar, and sprinkle the blood, not upon the first
day only, but throughout the ceremonies of the week.

In the first place certain victims must be held in readiness--a bullock
and two rams; and with these must be brought in one basket unleavened
bread, and unleavened cakes made with oil, and unleavened wafers on
which oil is poured. Then, at the door of the tent of the meeting of man
with God, a ceremonial washing must follow, in a laver yet to be
provided. Here the assertion that purity is needed, and that it is not
inherent, is too plain to be dwelt upon.

But such details as the assuming of the existence of a laver, for which
no directions have yet been given (and presently also of the anointing
oil, the composition of which is still untold), deserve notice. They are
much more in the manner of one who is working out a plan, seen already
by his mental vision, but of which only the salient and essential parts
have been as yet stated, than of any priest of the latter days, who
would first have completed his catalogue of the furniture, and only then
have described the ceremonies in which he was accustomed to see all this
apparatus take its appointed place.

What we actually find is quite natural to a creative ima