[Footnote 1:  Compare, also, the very full announcement of mercy as a Divine attribute that was to be exercised, in Exodus xxxiv. 6, 7.

This is the more noteworthy, as it occurs in connection with the giving of the law.]

[Footnote 2:  Their creed lives in the satire of YOUNG (Universal Passion.  Satire VI.),—­as full of sense, truth, and pungency now, as it was one hundred years ago.

  “From atheists far, they steadfastly believe
  God is, and is Almighty—­to forgive. 
  His other excellence they’ll not dispute;
  But mercy, sure, is His chief attribute. 
  Shall pleasures of a short duration chain
  A lady’s soul in everlasting pain? 
  Will the great Author us poor worms destroy,
  For now and then a sip of transient joy? 
  No, He’s forever in a smiling mood;
  He’s like themselves; or how could He be good? 
  And they blaspheme, who blacker schemes suppose. 
  Devoutly, thus, Jehovah they depose,
  The Pure! the Just! and set up in His stead,
  A deity that’s perfectly well-bred.”]

[Footnote 3:  Plutarch supposes a form of punishment in the future world that is disciplinary.  If it accomplishes its purpose, the soul goes into Elysium,—­a doctrine like that of purgatory in the Papal scheme.  But in case the person proves incorrigible, his suffering is endless.  He represents an individual as having been restored to life, and giving an account of what he had seen.  Among other things, he “informed his friend, how that Adrastia, the daughter of Jupiter and Necessity, was seated in the highest place of all, to punish all manner of crimes and enormities, and that in the whole number of the wicked and ungodly there never was any one, whether great or little, high or low, rich or poor, that could ever by force or cunning escape the severe lashes of her rigor.  But as there are three sorts of punishment, so there are three several Furies, or female ministers of justice, and to every one of these belongs a peculiar office and degree of punishment.  The first of these was called [Greek:  Poinae] or Pain; whose executions are swift and speedy upon those that are presently to receive bodily punishment in this life, and which she manages after a more gentle manner, omitting the correction of slight offences, which need but little expiation.  But if the cure of impiety require a greater labor, the Deity delivers those, after death, to [Greek:  Dikae] or Vengeance.  But when Vengeance has given them over as altogether incurable, then the third and most severe of all Adrastia’s ministers, [Greek:  ’Erinys] or Fury, takes them in hand, and after she has chased and coursed them from one place to another, flying yet not knowing where to fly for shelter and relief, plagued and tormented with a thousand miseries, she plunges them headlong into an invisible abyss, the hideousness of which no tongue can express.”  PLUTARCH:  Morals,