th and sixteenth century Confessions
of Faith reveals this process, and explains the prevalent Protestant
theory.

[16] About 600 A.D.

[17] 2 Maccabees ii. 13.

[18] The Dial: October, 1840.

[19] Ewald: History of Israel, i. 4.

[20] Esther is the most notable apparent exception, but this it only
apparent.

[21] In speaking of the book of Esther, Dean Stanley observes that "it
never names the name of God from first to last," and remarks "It is
necessary for us that in the rest of the sacred volume the name of God
should constantly be brought before us, to show that He is all in all to
our moral perfection. But it is expedient for us no less that there should
be one book which omits it altogether, to prevent us from attaching to the
mere name a reverence which belongs only to the reality.... The name of
God is _not_ there, but the work of God _is_.... When Esther nerved
herself to enter, at the risk of her life, the presence of Ahasuerus--'I
will go in unto the king, and if I perish I perish'--when her patriotic
feeling vented itself in that noble cry, 'How can I endure to see the evil
that shall come unto my people? or can I endure to see the destruction of
my kindred?'--she expressed, although she never named the name of God, a
religious devotion as acceptable to Him as that of Moses and David, who,
no less sincerely, had the sacred name always on their lips."--_History of
the Jewish Church_, iii. 301.

[22] Ewald: History of Israel, i. 4.

[23] The Old Testament is a record of the growth of human intelligence in
relation to the Deity--of the revelation made by Spirit to spirit. When
therefore God is described as _speaking_ to man, he does so in the only
way in which He who is a Spirit can speak to one encompassed with flesh
and blood; not to the outward organs of sensation, but to that
intelligence which is kindred to Himself the great Fountain of
knowledge.--Davidson: _Introduction to the Old Testament_, i. 233.

[24] Emerson: Miscellanies, p. 200.

[25] "To hear people speak," said Goethe, "one would almost believe that
they were of opinion that God had withdrawn into silence since those old
times, and that man was now placed quite upon his own feet, and had to see
how he could get on without God and his daily invisible
breath."--Conversations, _March 11, 1832_.

[26] Our advancing knowledge of the early portions of the Bible is
clearing its offensive portions of the grossness which characterized the