ld not attain to a very clear symbol. Brahminism has only survived
to the present day by virtue of the astonishing faculty of
conservation which India seems to possess. Buddhism failed in all its
approaches toward the West. Druidism remained a form exclusively
national, and without universal capacity. The Greek attempts at
reform, Orpheism, the Mysteries, did not suffice to give a solid
aliment to the soul. Persia alone succeeded in making a dogmatic
religion, almost Monotheistic, and skilfully organized; but it is very
possible that this organization itself was but an imitation, or
borrowed. At all events, Persia has not converted the world; she
herself, on the contrary, was converted when she saw the flag of the
Divine unity as proclaimed by Mohammedanism appear on her frontiers.

It is the Semitic race[1] which has the glory of having made the
religion of humanity. Far beyond the confines of history, resting
under his tent, free from the taint of a corrupted world, the Bedouin
patriarch prepared the faith of mankind. A strong antipathy against
the voluptuous worships of Syria, a grand simplicity of ritual, the
complete absence of temples, and the idol reduced to insignificant
_theraphim_, constituted his superiority. Among all the tribes of the
nomadic Semites, that of the Beni-Israel was already chosen for
immense destinies. Ancient relations with Egypt, whence perhaps
resulted some purely material ingredients, did but augment their
repulsion to idolatry. A "Law" or _Thora_, very anciently written on
tables of stone, and which they attributed to their great liberator
Moses, had become the code of Monotheism, and contained, as compared
with the institutions of Egypt and Chaldea, powerful germs of social
equality and morality. A chest or portable ark, having staples on each
side to admit of bearing poles, constituted all their religious
_materiel_; there were collected the sacred objects of the nation, its
relics, its souvenirs, and, lastly, the "book,"[2] the journal of the
tribe, always open, but which was written in with great discretion.
The family charged with bearing the ark and watching over the portable
archives, being near the book and having the control of it, very soon
became important. From hence, however, the institution which was to
control the future did not come. The Hebrew priest did not differ much
from the other priests of antiquity. The character which essentially
distinguishes Israel among theocra