monarchical in politics, abrupt in style, and
impractical for speculation.'

One cannot look at this bold and rapid outline of the Semitic
character without perceiving how many points it contains which are
open to doubt and discussion. We shall confine our remarks to one
point, which, in our mind, and, as far as we can see, in M. Renan's
mind likewise, is the most important of all--namely, the supposed
monotheistic tendency of the Semitic race. M. Renan asserts that this
tendency belongs to the race by instinct,--that it forms the rule, not
the exception; and he seems to imply that without it the human race
would never have arrived at the knowledge or worship of the One God.

If such a remark had been made fifty years ago, it would have roused
little or no opposition. 'Semitic' was then used in a more restricted
sense, and hardly comprehended more than the Jews and Arabs. Of this
small group of people it might well have been said, with such
limitations as are tacitly implied in every general proposition on the
character of individuals or nations, that the work set apart for them
by a Divine Providence in the history of the world was the preaching
of a belief in one God. Three religions have been founded by members
of that more circumscribed Semitic family--the Jewish, the Christian,
the Mohammedan; and all three proclaim, with the strongest accent, the
doctrine that there is but one God.

Of late, however, not only have the limits of the Semitic family been
considerably extended, so as to embrace several nations notorious for
their idolatrous worship, but the history of the Jewish and Arab
tribes has been explored so much more fully, that even there traces of
a wide-spread tendency to polytheism have come to light.

The Semitic family is divided by M. Renan into two great branches,
differing from each other in the form of their monotheistic belief,
yet both, according to their historian, imbued from the beginning with
the instinctive faith in one God:

1. The nomad branch, consisting of Arabs, Hebrews, and the
neighbouring tribes of Palestine, commonly called the descendants of
Terah; and

2. The political branch, including the nations of Phenicia, of Syria,
Mesopotamia, and Yemen.

Can it be said that all these nations, comprising the worshippers of
Elohim, Jehovah, Sabaoth, Moloch, Nisroch, Rimmon, Nebo, Dagon,
Ashtaroth, Baal or Bel, Baal-peor, Baal-zebub, Chemosh, Milcom,
Adrammelech, Annamelech, Nibhaz and