even the ritualism of the wilderness lost much of its hold upon the Jews
themselves after their captivity, and still more when Greek and Roman
civilization had penetrated to Jerusalem. The people who listened to
Peter and Paul could no longer be moved by imposing rites, even as the
European nations--under the preaching of Luther, Knox, and Latimer--lost
all relish for the ceremonies of the Middle Ages. What, then, are we to
think of the revival of observances which lost their force three hundred
years ago, unless connected with artistic music? It is music which
vitalizes ritualistic worship in our times, as it did in the times of
David and Solomon. The vitality of the Jewish ritual, when the nation
had emerged from barbarism, was in its connections with a magnificent
psalmody. The Psalms of David appeal to the heart and not to the senses.
The ritualism of the wilderness appealed to the senses and not to the
heart; and this was necessary when the people had scarcely emerged from
barbarism, even as it was deemed necessary amid the turbulence and
ignorance of the tenth century.

In the ritualism which Moses established there was the absence of
everything which would recall the superstitions and rites, or even the
doctrines, of the Egyptians. In view of this, we account partially for
the almost studied reticence in respect to a future state, upon which
hinged many of the peculiarities of Egyptian worship. It would have been
difficult for Moses to have recognized the future state, in the
degrading ignorance and sensualism of the Jews, without associating with
it the tutelary deities of the Egyptians and all the absurdities
connected with the doctrine of metempsychosis, which consigned the
victims of future punishment to enter the forms of disgusting and
hideous animals, thereby blending with the sublime doctrine of a future
state the most degrading superstitions. Bishop Warburton seizes on the
silence of Moses respecting a future state to prove, by a learned yet