hold his glory." Trajan repeated his demand. "Well," said
the Rabbi, "suppose we try, in the first place, to look at one of his
ambassadors." The emperor consented, and Joshuah took him into the open
air, and desired him to look at the sun in its meridian splendour. "I
cannot," said Trajan; "the light dazzles me." "Thou canst not endure the
light of one of his creatures," said the Rabbi, "yet dost thou expect to
behold the effulgent glory of the Creator!"

* * * * *

Our selections from the sayings of the Hebrew Fathers might be largely
extended, but we shall conclude them with the following: A Rabbi, being
asked why God dealt out manna to the Israelites day by day, instead of
giving them a supply sufficient for a year, or more, answered by a
parable to this effect: There was once a king who gave a certain yearly
allowance to his son, whom he saw, in consequence, but once a year, when
he came to receive it; so the king changed his plan, and paid him his
allowance daily, and thus had the pleasure of seeing his son each day.
And so with the manna: had God given the people a supply for a year they
would have forgotten their divine benefactor, but by sending them each
day the requisite quantity, they had God constantly in their minds.

* * * * *

There can be no doubt that the Rabbis derived the materials of many of
their legends and tales of Biblical characters from foreign sources; but
their beautiful moral stories and parables, which "hide a rich truth in
a tale's pretence," are probably for the most part of their own
invention; and the fact that the Talmud was partially, if not wholly,
translated into Arabic shortly after the settlement of the Moors in
Spain sufficiently accounts for the early introduction of rabbinical
legends into Muhammedan works, apart from those found in the Kuran.

_ADDITIONAL NOTES._

ADAM AND THE OIL OF MERCY.

In the apocryphal Revelation of Moses, which appears to be of Rabbinical
extraction, Adam, when near his end, informs his sons; that, because of
his transgression, God had laid upon his body seventy strokes, or
plagues. The trouble of the first stroke was injury to the eyes; the
trouble of the second stroke, of the hearing; and so on, in succession,
all the strokes should overtake him. And Adam, thus speaking to his
sons, groaned out loud, and said, "What shall I do? I am in great
grief." And Eve also wept, sayin