of Judaism was to impress this special note of
chastity on human virtue, and to give to virtue the wings of a great
hope. The flowering of that hope was in Christianity; the preparation
for it comes now before us.

Under the rule of Alexander's successors the Jewish system, with its
mixture of ethics and ritual, came in collision with the ideas and
practice of degenerate Greek culture,--pleasure-loving,
nature-worshiping, sensual, with gymnastics and aesthetics, tolerant and
tyrannical. The two systems were hostile alike in their virtues and
vices. The Greek ruler put down with a strong hand the religious and
patriotic scruples of his Jewish subject. The Jew bore persecution with
the tough endurance of his race, then rose in revolt with the fierce
courage and religious fervor of his race. He won his last victory in the
field of arms. Brief was the independence, soon followed by inglorious
servitude; but its sufferings and triumphs had fused the nation once more
into invincible devotion to the Law of their God, and had rooted in their
hearts a principle of hope which in varying forms and growing power was
to change the aspect of human life.

It seems natural to man to ascribe some impressive origin, some dramatic
birth, to the beliefs that are dearest to him. But if we trace back
through Christian and Jewish lineage the idea of immortality, we are
quite unable to discover the time or place of its beginning. The early
Jew thought of death much as did the early Greek,--as the extinction of
all that was precious in life, and the transition to a shadowy and
forlorn existence in the realm of shades. The Hades of Homer seems much
to resemble the Sheol of the Old Testament, though more vividly
conceived. The strong, ruddy, passionate life of the Hebrew found as
little to cheer it in the outlook beyond death as did the energetic,
graceful, joyful life of the Greek. Ancient Egypt had, at least for the
initiate, a noble teaching of retribution hereafter to crown the mortal
career with fit consummation of joy or woe. Ancient Persia had in its
own form a like doctrine. The Hebrews in their servile period caught not
a scintilla of the Egyptian faith. In their exile it is probable that
they did get some unrecorded influence from their Persian neighbors.
Unmistakably, their emigrants to Alexandria, meeting there the nobler
form of Greek culture while the Palestinian Jews encountered its baser
side, caught some inspirati