excitement, yet it did not altogether die out in the periods of comparative repose.  It was in the case of Jehovah just as in the case of the human leaders of the people, who did not in times of peace wholly lose the influence they had gained in war.  Jehovah had His permanent court at the places of worship where in times of quietude men clung to Him that they might not lose Him in times of trouble.  His chief, perhaps in the time of Moses His only, sanctuary was with the so-called ark of the covenant.  It was a standard, adapted primarily to the requirements of a wandering and warlike life; brought back from the field, it became, as symbol of Jehovah’s presence, the central seat of His worship.  The cultus itself was more than a mere paying of court to Jehovah, more than a mere expedient for retaining His sympathies against times of necessity; the Torah of Jehovah, the holy administration of law, was conjoined with it.  This had first of all been exercised, at the instance of the priest of Midian, by Moses at the well of Kadesh; it was continued after him, at the sanctuary, within the circle of those who had attached themselves to him and were spiritually his heirs.  In cases where the wisdom or the competency of the ordinary judges failed, men turned direct to the Godhead, i.e., to the sanctuary and those who served it.  Their decisions, whether given according to their own lights or by lot (according to the character of the question), were not derived from any law, but were received direct from Jehovah. 1

***************************************** 1 They were consulted chiefly on points of law, but also on all sorts of difficulties as to what was right and to be done, or wrong and to be avoided. ****************************************

The execution of their decisions did not lie with them; they could only advise and teach.  Their authority was divine, or, as we should say, moral, in its character; it rested upon that spontaneous recognition of the idea of right which, though unexpressed, was alive and working among the tribes—­upon Jehovah Himself, who was the author of this generally diffused sense of right, but revealed the proper determinations on points of detail only to certain individuals.  The priestly Torah was an entirely unpolitical or rather prepolitical institution; it had an existence before the state had, and it was one of the invisible foundation pillars on which the state rested.

War and the administration of justice were regarded as matters of religion before they became matters of obligation and civil order; this is all that is really meant when a theocracy is spoken of.  Moses certainly organised no formal state, endowed with specific holiness, upon the basis of the proposition “Jehovah is the God of Israel;” or, at all events, if he did so, the fact had not in the slightest degree any practical consequence or historical significance.  The old patriarchal system of families