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for anything which helps us to discern even broad stages in the development. Undoubtedly those flagrant abuses of worship which called forth the denunciations of Isaiah and Jeremiah had passed away. One gathers that public worship in the Temple had become an affair of truly religious significance. The prayer of Solomon is repeated from Kings, but in addition the Chronicler ascribes similar utterances of praise, supplication, and thanksgiving to David and Hezekiah, and the good kings (esp. Hezekiah and Josiah) are represented as zealously active in ordering and arranging for great services of worship which the people were to attend. All this, of course, is related of the past, but from it we may infer facts of the Chroniclers present. We infer, then, a community accustomed to gather constantly at the Temple for the worship of their God. The main elements of public worship can be traced. There was, of course, the ancient ritual of animal sacrifice, hallowed for the Jews by its vast antiquity, and grown the more impressive in proportion as the literalism of the past was forgotten and men felt more vividly that the offering was symbolic of things of the spirit—of the mystery of life, of forgiveness, and of recognition that all things are the gift of God. Undoubtedly there was public prayer. It is hardly possible to read the prayers of the great kings in Chronicles and not feel that they echo a liturgy of prayer—for the individual and for the nation. There was a great and impressive service of song and of music, cp. 2 Chr. v. 12, 13: that is writ large indeed on the pages of Chronicles; and 1 Chr. xvi. 8 ff. is enough to tell us that the Psalter was the book of praise. We have a sufficient hint, too, that to the songs at least, if not to the prayers also, the people were expected to respond—"And all the people said, Amen, and praised the Lord" (2 Chr. xvi. 36). Probably arrangements were in vogue for regular reading of the Law, although Chronicles alone would hardly suffice to establish the point (2 Chr. xxxiv. 31 is insufficient evidence). Even if it be thought that this picture represents rather the ideals of the Levites than the actual attainments of the community, it is