to which the debased soul bows down with grovelling instincts, and in the pursuit of which the soul forgets its higher destiny and its paramount obligations.  Moses is the first to expose with terrific force and solemn earnestness this universal tendency to the oblivion of the One God amid the temptations, the pleasures, and the glories of the world, and the certain displeasure of the universal sovereign which must follow, as seen in the fall of empires and the misery of individuals from his time to ours, the uniform doom of people and nations, whatever the special form of idolatry, whenever it reaches a peculiar fulness and development,—­the ultimate law of all decline and ruin, from which there is no escape, “for the Lord God is a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.”  So sacred and awful is this controlling Deity, that it is made a cardinal sin even to utter His name in vain, in levity or blasphemy.  In order also to keep Him before the minds of men, a day is especially appointed—­one in seven—­which it is the bounden duty as well as privilege of all generations to keep with peculiar sanctity,—­a day of rest from labor as well as of adoration; an entirely new institution, which no Pagan nation, and no other ancient nation, ever recognized.  After thus laying solemn injunctions upon all men to render supreme allegiance to this personal God,—­for we can find no better word, although Matthew Arnold calls it “the Power which maketh for righteousness,”—­Moses presents the duties of men to each other, chiefly those which pertain to the abstaining from injuries they are most tempted to commit, extending to the innermost feelings of the heart, for “thou shalt not covet anything which is thy neighbor’s;” thus covering, in a few sentences, the primal obligations of mankind to God and to society, afterward expanded by a greater teacher into the more comprehensive law of Love, which is to bind together mortals on earth, as it binds together immortals in heaven.

All Christian nations have accepted these Ten Commandments, even Mohammedan nations, as appealing to the universal conscience,—­not a mere Jewish code, but a primary law, susceptible of boundless obligation, never to be abrogated; a direct injunction of the Almighty to the end of time.

The Ten Commandments seem to be the foundation of the subsequent and more minute code which Moses gave to the Jews; and it is interesting to see how its great principles have entered, more or less, into the laws of Christian nations from the decline of the Roman Empire, into the Theodosian code, the laws of Charlemagne, of Ina, of Alfred, and especially into the institutions of the Puritans, and of all other sects and parties wherever the Bible is studied and revered.  They seem to be designed not merely for Jews, but for Gentiles also, since there is no escape from their obligation.  They may seem severe in some of their applications, but never unjust; and