ion never separated itself into an institution apart from the State.

There was no Jewish Church, of which Dean Stanley wrote the history.
Church and State were one. Sacred and secular history flowed in one common
stream. The history of Israel was the history of Judaism. Its choicest
literature formed its sacred writings. Religion was never narrowed to a
theory, an institution, an "ism," a sect, a school. It was as generous and
as rich as the broad, free life of the nation. Every factor essential to a
noble religion was thus supplied from the sound and healthy life of the
people.

The inner life of the soul was voiced in the hymns of Israel, to which we
still turn for the inspiration of personal piety in our private devotions;
and which lift the public worship of the moderns as they swelled the souls
of the hosts who waited in the temple courts at Jerusalem, two thousand
years ago.

A cultus of character through ritual and discipline was elaborated by the
priesthood in that wonderful system which, rebaptized, does duty still in
the Catholic Church. The true outer sphere for personal religion, trained,
if need be, by an ecclesiastical cultus, was fashioned by the great
prophets, the men of the people; who poured their passion for
righteousness into aspirations for a true commonwealth, in which Justice
should be throned on law, and international relations be ruled, not by
Policy, but by Principle. Natural religion was nobly set forth by the
sages in Proverbs, The Wisdom of Jesus, and the other "Writings;" all of
which were characterized by a calm and rational philosophy, that
recognized the laws of life and fed the wisdom which obeys them. Even
Agnosticism, in so far as it is the confession of the inadequacy of every
interpretation of the universe, finds despondent yet still earnest
expression in Ecclesiastes, and humble, hopeful expression in Job; and the
silence of many of the noblest natures of our age, which the churches
brand as irreligious, finds place among the phases of religion in their
Sacred Book.[21]

Almost every form of strenuous ethical life, almost every answer that
earnest souls have found to the problem of life, is to be drawn from the
writings of this many-sided people. Thus their literature feeds a rich,
and rounded life of religion.

4. _Israel's literature presents us with the record of a continuous growth
of religion upward through its normal stages._

Religion grows like every form of h