w easily the religious spirit adapts itself to any outward ceremonies,
and transforms them into its own life. The soul spurns the symbols to
which it yet will cling, and soars beyond the poor height to which the
laboring wings of ordinance and ritual can carry it. The profound
spiritual life which was awakened in the exile flooded these low forms
with supernal light. They spoke to men of better sacrifices than the
blood of bulls and lambs--of sins slaughtered and fleshly powers consumed,
of lives of men offered up in purity to God. They whispered to the soul of
the holiness of God, and of His forgiveness as well; and, in their
powerlessness to satisfy the spiritual needs suggested by them, they kept
men's eyes upon the future, looking for the Prophet greater than Moses,
who would surely come from behind the veil with a new word from God. Out
of such thoughts and feelings the temple worship drew upon itself a noble
service of song, of whose ethical and spiritual beauty we can judge from
the temple hymnal. You and I to-day have sung some of the very hymns which
those Jews chanted around their brazen altar. Through these psalms of many
ages, gathered into a hymnal of unrivalled nobleness, the worship of
Israel ascended in the aspirations of the people after purity and
righteousness. If the choirs sang of the Shepherd of Israel, it was not
merely in the praises of the providential care felt over the chosen
people, but in the thankfulness of souls, because of the assurance of His
spiritual guidance:

He shall convert my soul,
And bring me forth in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.

If they chanted the glories of the House of God, it was because thither
the tribes came up, with this desire in the hearts of the worshippers:

Like as the hart desireth the water-brooks,
So longeth my soul after thee, O God.
My soul is athirst for God. Yea, even for the living God:
When shall I come to appear before the presence of God?

* * * * *

O send out thy light and thy truth:
Let them lead me;
Let them bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles.
Then will I go up unto the altar of God,
Unto God, the gladness of my joy:
Yea, upon the harp will I praise thee,
O God, my God.

The temple, however, was but a part, and practically a small part, of the
institutionalism of religion in this period. This was the era of the
scribe r