ore we hope
for, and the more seems within the range of probability. The less
we have, the more we want. There never was a banquet magnificent
enough to gratify the imagination of a beggar. The moment people
begin to reason about what they call the supernatural, they seem
to lose their minds. People seem to have lost their reason in
religious matters, very much as the dodo is said to have lost its
wings; they have been restricted to a little inspired island, and
by disuse their reason has been lost.

In the Jewish Scriptures you will find simply the literature of
the Jews. You will find there the tears and anguish of captivity,
patriotic fervor, national aspiration, proverbs for the conduct of
daily life, laws, regulations, customs, legends, philosophy and
folly. These books, of course, were not written by one man, but
by many authors. They do not agree, having been written in different
centuries, under different circumstances. I see that Mr. Beecher
has at last concluded that the Old Testament does not teach the
doctrine of immortality. He admits that from Mount Sinai came no
hope for the dead. It is very curious that we find in the Old
Testament no funeral service. No one stands by the dead and predicts
another life. In the Old Testament there is no promise of another
world. I have sometimes thought that while the Jews were slaves
in Egypt, the doctrine of immortality became hateful. They built
so many tombs; they carried so many burdens to commemorate the
dead; the saw a nation waste its wealth to adorn its graves, and
leave the living naked to embalm the dead, that they concluded the
doctrine was a curse and never should be taught.

_Question_. If the Jews did not believe in immortality, how do
you account for the allusions made to witches and wizards and things
of that nature?

_Answer_. When Saul visited the Witch of Endor, and she, by some
magic spell, called up Samuel, the prophet said: "Why hast thou
disquieted me, to call me up?" He did not say: Why have you called
me from another world? The idea expressed is: I was asleep, why
did you disturb that repose which should be eternal? The ancient
Jews believed in witches and wizards and familiar spirits; but they
did not seem to think that these spirits had once been men and
women. They spoke to them as belonging to another world, a world
to which man would never find his way. At that time it was supposed
that Jehovah and his angels liv