d in it
the root of the better kind which was to come. It was imperfect, but not
false. It was entire faith in the supreme power of Jehovah to do what he
would, and in his disposition to be a friend to the patriarch and his
posterity. It was, therefore, trust in the divine power, wisdom, and
goodness. The difference between the religion of Abraham and that of the
polytheistic nations was, that while they descended from the idea of a
Supreme Being into that of subordinate ones, he went back to that of the
Supreme, and clung to this with his whole soul.

Sec. 3. Moses; or, Judaism as the national Worship of a just and holy King.

In speaking of Moses and of his law, it may be thought necessary to begin
by showing that such a man as Moses really existed; for modern criticism
has greatly employed itself in questioning the existence of great men. As
the telescope resolves stars into double, triple, and quadruple stars, and
finally into star-dust, so the critics, turning their optical tubes toward
that mighty orb which men call Homer, have declared that they have
resolved him into a great number of little Homers. The same process has
been attempted in regard to Shakespeare. Some have tried to show that
there never was any Shakespeare, but only many Shakespeare writers. In
like manner, the critics have sought to dissolve Moses with their powerful
analysis, and, instead of Moses, to give us a number of fragmentary
writings from different times and hands, skilfully joined together; in
fact, instead of Moses, to give us a mosaic. Criticism substitutes human
tendencies in the place of great men, does not love to believe in genius,
and often appears to think that a number of mediocrities added together
can accomplish more than one man of genius.

Certainly this is a mistake. The easiest and most natural solution of
wonderful results is the supposition of genius, inspiration, heroism, as
their cause. Great men explain history. Napoleon explains the history of
Europe during a quarter of a century. Suppose a critic, a thousand years
hence, should resolve Napoleon into half a dozen Napoleons; would they
explain the history of Europe as well? Given a man like Napoleon, and we
can understand the French campaigns in Italy and Germany, the overthrow of
Austria, the annihilation of Prussia, the splendid host of field-marshals,
the Bonaparte circle of kings, the Codex, the Simplon Road, and the many
changes of states and governments o