ention.

The ordinary English arrangement assigns to the tables four commandments
and six respectively. And the noble catechism of the Church of England
appears to sanction this arrangement by including among "my duties to my
neighbour" that of loving, honouring and succouring my father and
mother. There are several objections to this arrangement. It is
unsymmetrical. There seems to be something more sacred and divine about
my relationship with my father and mother than those which connect me
with my neighbour. The first table begins with the gravest offence, and
steadily declines to the lowest; sin against the unique personality of
God being followed by sin against His spirituality of nature, His name,
and His holy day. If now the sin against His earthly representative, the
very fountain and sanction of all law to childhood, be added to the
first table, the same order will pervade those of the second--namely,
sin against my neighbour's life, his family, his property, his
reputation, and lastly, his interest in my inner self, in the wishes
that are unspoken, the thoughts and feelings which

"I wad nae tell to nae man."

We thus obtain both the simplest division and the clearest arrangement.
In Romans xiii. 9 the fifth commandment is not enumerated when
rehearsing the actions which transgress the second table. In the Hebrew
text of Deuteronomy all the later commandments are joined with the sixth
by the copulative (represented along with the negative fairly enough in
our English by "Neither"), which seems to indicate that these five were
united together in the author's mind. But the fifth stands alone, like
all those of the first table. Now, it is clear that such an arrangement
gives great sanction and weight to the sacred institution of the family.

Finally, the comprehensiveness and spirituality of the law may be
observed in this; that the first table forbids sin against God in
thought, word and deed; and the second table forbids sin against man in
deed, word and thought.

_THE PROLOGUE._

xx. 2.

The Decalogue is introduced by the words "I am the Lord thy God, which
brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage."

Here, and in the previous chapter, is already a great advance upon the
time when it was said to them "The God of thy fathers, the God of
Abraham, of Isaac, and of Jacob, hath appeared." Now they are expected
to remember what He has done for themselves. For, although religio