into the Temple, touched her
lips with a live coal from off the altar, and from a tongue of fire men
heard, "Thus saith the Lord." They revived the true Mosaic priesthood,
which set apart conscience as the mediator between God and man. The seed
that Moses planted budded and swelled toward its bloom. The prophetic
writings show us men a-hungered after righteousness breathing out the
worship of Jehovah into the worship of the Eternal, who loveth
righteousness.

Isaiah carries this message from God:

To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me?
I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts.
And I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he-goats.
When ye come to appear before me,
Who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts?
Bring no more vain oblations;
Incense is an abomination unto me;
The new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot endure;
It is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.
Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hateth;
They are a trouble unto me;
I am weary to bear them.
And when ye spread forth your hands,
I will hide mine eyes from you:
Yea, when ye make many prayers, I will not hear:
Your hands are full of blood.
Wash you, make you clean;
Put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes:
Cease to do evil; learn to do well:
Seek judgment, relieve the oppressed,
Judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.[45]

Micah voices the questions that men raised in his day, answering them with
the new thought:

Wherewithal shall I come before the Lord,
And bow myself before the high God?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
With calves of a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
Or with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my first born for my transgression,
The fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He hath showed thee, O man, what is good,
And what doth the Lord require of thee,
But to do justly, and to love mercy,
And to walk humbly with thy God?[46]

Two features of the work of the prophets bring out clearly their ethical
inspiration. Israel was at this period being drawn, for the first time,
into the currents created by the strife of the mammoth empires of Assyria
and Egypt, in whose maelstrom she at length went down. Public affairs were