carefully weighed, before the law is passed. As an instance of my meaning, the restriction of game-shooting to certain seasons must give, as it does, more people liberty to shoot game, in return for the restriction on liberty. If there were no such law there would soon be no game to shoot. Supposing for the moment, as my opponent supposes, that suppression and restriction are the same thing, can he point out a personal liberty, which is secured or augmented by the suppression of drink? The writer sees but one: the liberty secured to Prohibitionists to impose their personal convictions through force. The liberty to do good work, to support the family, to put money in the bank, etc., urged by Prohibitionists, are all there already, and, in addition, the God-given liberty to enjoy in moderation one of his creatures, drink.

The writer has already pointed out that in these two propositions there is no mention of the moral law. He has shown now that there is a denial of the natural law, of which the moral law is a part, since the propositions suppress the greatest common good,' personal liberty, at the will of a majority, which, moreover, is responsible to no one for its judgment, if it is believed by the majority to be the most effective means, and as such, is demanded by them.' No common good, however great, can be weighed in the balance against entire suppression or personal liberty, in things which, before the State forbade them, were legitimate. (All this holds for ordinary times. In time of war, when the existence of the State is threatened, all else yields to the Salus publica, suprema lex.')

Now, for some final remarks. The writer has not followed our advocate in his discussion whether Prohibition, in certain countries and under certain conditions, would be unethical,' for the simple reason that it is always unethical, or, in plain Anglo-Saxon, bad. The question is one of essentials, not of circumstances. The old rhetorics had a line designed to furnish topics to orators: 'quis, quid, ubi, quibus auxiliis, cur, quomodo, quando.' To follow the line there is question of a 'quiddity,' not of the other circumstances. It is a question of the ethics of the suppression of the virtue of temperance.

The word 'temperance' brings up the fact that my opponent passes by as 'puerile -the argument against Prohibition, that it destroys the feasibility of the virtue

of temperance, without mentioning his reasons for this epithet. Surely, even within the limits of his article there was room for stating those reasons. Temperance deserves better treatment at his hands! From the time of Aristotle it has been termed one of the Four Cardinal Virtues. To say that we are given opportunity at the expense of temperance to practise obedience, is rather a cavalier treatment of a greater virtue, by suppressing it altogether, in order to give opportunity to practise a lesser, for whose practise plenty of opportunity is already afforded. The writer could fill a book with arguments against the fallacy which makes a desert void of weeds at the expense of the loss of the flowers, and thinks it has done well in the result. The book would be called a parable for rulers,' and it would simply expound the parable of the 'wheat and the tares,' as Our Lord gives it in the thirteenth chapter of St. Matthew. The central theme would be: 'lest perhaps, in rooting out the cockle, you root out the wheat together with it.' 'Suffer both to grow until the harvest.' What, in face of this teaching about the proper spirit of government, are we to think of the effort at Prohibition, as a Divinely instigated movement ?

Though the other way, about to be mentioned, fail, still it is the way recommended by the Great Legislator, God Himself. He expressly forbids His servants to root out the evil at the expense of the good. Even though the good be unintentionally destroyed in rooting out the evil. He holds that the loss overbalances the gain. What would He think of a deliberate intention to root out the good plant of temperance in order to destroy thereby the evil weed of intemperance? The writer recognizes, as does every sane man, among whom he trusts the Lord counts him, the many abuses of liquor. But 'abusus non tollit usum.' A much more experienced and greater man than hinself, Cardinal Gibbons, gives his voice in favour of stringent restriction of the abuse. 'But restriction has failed as a remedy,' urge the Prohibitionists. Restriction has not failed as a remedy, but the remedists-to coin a term-have failed to restrict. So have Christians failed to realize Christianity. The answer is to keep on trying in both cases. The other answer, to which the three last Popes have devoted briefs, is to teach men insistently with the Catholic Church the nobility of the virtue of

temperance; the virtue of the Son of Man, who' came eating and drinking.' The writer fears that the truth is, though perhaps it would be more charitable not to say it, that the Cardinal Virtues of Prudence, Justice, and Temperance seem to be little esteemed by Prohibitionists, in comparison with the vision of a Sahara-Nirvana, in which alone they deem that mankind may safely enjoy 'the marriage supper of the Lamb.'

J. M. PRENDERGAST, S.J.

THE RELIGION OF THE PENTATEUCH

BY REV. G. BINNS, S.J.

IT can hardly be expected that the limits of this article will not involve gaps in the treatment of so extensive and important a subject. Attention will, consequently, be confined to the larger issues: the nature and worship of God; the human soul, with its relation to God and a future life; the faith necessary to guide the soul in its progress towards that goal; sin-the great obstacle that checks such progress-with the correlative dogma of Redemption; lastly, the manner in which these truths were put into practice by the chief personages of the narrative, and the whole question of the morality of the Books.

The Catholic, controlled in his interpretation of Scrip ture by divinely-appointed authority, is preserved, in studying the subject of these lines, from the common error of seeing in similarity of primitive cult a necessary identity of origin, such as totemism, ancestor-worship, or polydaemonism. Such theories, it is true, as that food-taboos are to be found in the 'unclean' animals of the Pentateuch, or, again, that ancestor-worship is traceable, e.g., in mourning-customs, funeral repasts, and the importance attached to tombs, might speculatively, without prejudice to the Catholic position, be credited with as much truth as could be vindicated by their defenders. Abraham was called by God from a polytheistic family (Josue xxiv. 2, 3; Judith v. 6, 9) and he must have had hard work to eradicate from the companions of his wanderings age-long pagan beliefs and customs. But that such was the only religious equipment of the Israelites in patriarchal times, that there was no direct intervention of God but only natural religious progress, cannot possibly be maintained, unless the sole historical evidence we have is to be set aside and replaced by sheer hypothesis.

Hence, also, theories that make the God of the Israelites a mere glorification of some local deity must be rejected.

The idea that certain stones, trees, and springs are consecrated to Yahweh is natural enough. The cool shade and refreshing water would be of inestimable value in nomad life, and where Abraham found such convenient restingplaces he would naturally seize the opportunity of paying definite worship to his newly-revealed God. After his time they became sanctified by his having adored there. Altars were built, pillars erected and anointed, and the Lord's name invoked-a rite resembling, as far as it went, the pagan, but in no way necessarily involving worship of the local pagan deities. It is alleged that the scenes of this patriarchal worship were peculiarly sacred to such deities, but even if the Chanaanite oak at Sichem (Genesis xii. 6, 7), the Amorrhite oak at Mambre (Genesis xiii. 18), and the mountain at Bethel (Genesis xii. 8) were dedicated to pagan worship-and this is hypothesis-there would be no disloyalty to Yahweh if Abraham erected there his primitive altars, especially seeing that they were memorable to him from divine visitations. Perhaps the evergreen tamarisk at Bersabee (Genesis xxi. 33) symbolized for him the God of Ages. Jacob buried the strange gods of his household under the turpentine-tree at Sichem (Genesis xxxv. 4), but this is explicit rejection of any god save Yahweh.

· ..

Again, when he sets up a 'mazzebah' (the name given to the sacred pillars of the heathen) and anoints it at Bethel (Genesis xxviii. 18), it is the place that is sacred because of his vision. His thoughts are full of the sacredness of the spot: Indeed, the Lord is in this place and I knew it not. How terrible is this place! This' (the place, and not the stone) is no other but the house of God and the gate of heaven.' Though he proceeds to call the stone itself 'the house of God,' his words must be understood in the light of what he has already said. Besides, when he returns to fulfil his vow by building an altar, it is expressly the place that is called Bethel. It might be added that a 'mazzebah' was set up on Rachel's tomb (Genesis xxxv. 20), but there is no evidence of tombs being a place of worship.

The spring at Cades is probably sacred and called 'the spring of judgment,' not because of a local deity but owing to the decisions given them later by Moses; while it is the appearance of the same Yahweh who led Abraham from Ur that sanctifies the well of him that liveth and seeth.'