have arisen to hold up before the nation the principles of justice and
mercy and true piety, The old superstitions and magic also continued in
Babylonia as in Egypt to exercise more and more their baneful influence.
Saddest of all the priesthood and ceremonialism, which had already
reached a point of development commensurate and strikingly analogous to
that of later Judaism, became the dominant power in the state, and
defined religion not in terms of life and action, but of the ritual, and
so constricted it that all true growth was impossible. Hence the
religions of the Babylonians and Egyptians perished, like many others,
because they ceased to grow, and therefore degenerated into a mere
worship of the letter rather than the spirit.




IV

THE PLACE OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IN DIVINE REVELATION

[Sidenote: _Advent of the Hebrews_]

Modern discovery and research have demonstrated that the truth revealed
through the Babylonians and with less definiteness through the people of
the Nile was never entirely lost. Such a sad waste was out of accord
with the obvious principles of divine economy. As the icy chill of
ceremonialism seized decadent Babylonia and Egypt, there emerged from
the steppes south and east of Palestine a virile, ambitious group of
nomads, who not only fell heir to that which was best in the revelation
of the past, but also quickly took their place as the real spiritual
leaders of the human race. Possibly their ancestors, like those of