line which braces all man's moral powers, and
founds for him an indispensable basis of character. And, therefore, it
is justly said of the Jewish people, who were charged with setting
powerfully forth that side of the divine order to which the words
_conscience_ and _self-conquest_ point, that they were "entrusted with
the oracles of God";[455] as it is justly said of Christianity, which
followed Judaism and which set forth this side with a much deeper
effectiveness and a much wider influence, that the wisdom of the old
pagan world was foolishness[456] compared to it. No words of devotion
and admiration can be too strong to render thanks to these beneficent
forces which have so borne forward humanity in its appointed work of
coming to the knowledge and possession of itself; above all, in those
great moments when their action was the wholesomest and the most
necessary.

But the evolution of these forces, separately and in themselves, is not
the whole evolution of humanity,--their single history is not the whole
history of man; whereas their admirers are always apt to make it stand
for the whole history. Hebraism and Hellenism are, neither of them, the
_law_ of human development, as their admirers are prone to make them;
they are, each of them, _contributions_ to human development,--august
contributions, invaluable contributions; and each showing itself to us
more august, more invaluable, more preponderant over the other,
according to the moment in which we take them, and the relation in which
we stand to them. The nations of our modern world, children of that
immense and salutary movement which broke up the pagan world, inevitably
stand to Hellenism in a relation which dwarfs it, and to Hebraism in a
relation which magnifies it. They are inevitably prone to take Hebraism
as the law of human development, and not as simply a contribution to it,
however precious. And yet the lesson must perforce be learned, that the
human spirit is wider than the most priceless of the forces which bear
it onward, and that to the whole development of man Hebraism itself is,
like Hellenism, but a contribution.

Perhaps we may help ourselves to see this clearer by an illustration
drawn from the treatment of a single great idea which has profoundly
engaged the human spirit, and has given it eminent opportunities for
showing its nobleness and energy. It surely must be perceived that the
idea of immortality, as this idea rises in its generality