stamp him as the great god of the race. And tho other gods were worshipped by the people for several centuries Yahweh remained the principal deity of the entire kingdom from the date of the opening of the great central shrine.

Thirdly, another characteristic of Yahweh-worship which especially helped to make it an exclusive cult and thus pave the way for its final development into a pure monotheism lay in the fact that Yahweh was specially known as a "jealous god." This jealousy was a trait in his temperament that was early and often insisted on. We do not know when or where the famous "Ten Commandments" were first promulgated. At any rate the view can no longer be accepted that God turned himself into a stone mason, as it has often been claimed, and carved them on two tables of stone. That story belongs to a credulous and uncritical age. We have every reason to believe that in essence at least they date from a very ancient period. Now at the head of these immemorial precepts of Yahweh stands the prohibition of placing any other gods before his face. No companion gods were to share with him his temple or be competitors for the worship of his people. Thus we know that no ashera was to be driven into the ground near his ark and that when Dagon, the god of the Philistines, found himself face to face with Yahweh he could not stand before the awful presence of the Hebrew deity but fell to the ground and brake in pieces. That Yahweh should be kept apart from the society of all other gods and that no rival deity was allowed to enter his precincts did not a little to bring about his universal rulership.

Fourthly, to this result another ancient prohibition of the priests of Yahweh no doubt largely contributed. The priesthood held it unlawful to make or multiply images of Yahweh. Strict Jehovists looked with dislike upon the adoration paid to the bull images in the northern kingdom. They held that the true God had his abode. at Jerusalem and that to give him human or animal figure was a high affront against his majesty. Hence arose the peculiar Hebrew dislike to idolatry, dislike never equally shared by any but Semitic peoples. Indeed the comparative emptiness of Semitic shrines was always a stumbling block to the Greek with his numerous and exquisite images of anthropomorphic deities.

Fifthly, the external attacks upon the existence of Israel and of Israel's God provoked a great national enthusiasm which tended to drive the increasingly exclusive and immaterial Yahweh-worship into pure monotheism. For many years the two tiny Israelitish kingdoms, Judah and Israel, had maintained a precarious independence between the mighty empires of Egypt and Babylon. In the

eighth century it became certain that they could no longer play their accustomed game of clever diplomacy and polite subjection. The downfall of Ephraim quickened the belief of the zealots in Judah that pure Yahweh-worship was the one possible panacea for the many troubles of the nation. Taking advantage of the young king Josiah, they succeeded in imposing exclusive Jehovism upon the whole people. Under the influence of these religionists Josiah brought forth from the house of Yahweh "the vessels that were made for the Baal and the Ashera, and for all the host of Heaven, and he burned them without Jerusalem in the fields of Kidron." He also abolished all the shrines and priesthoods of other gods in the cities of Judah, and put down "them that burned incense to the Baal, to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and all the Host of Heaven." By these and similar reforms he left the worship of Yahweh the sole accredited religion of Judah.

All, however, was of no avail. Religious zeal and reforms could not save the little principality from the aggressive arms of its powerful neighbors. Within twenty or thirty years of Josiah's reformation the Babylonians thrice captured and sacked Jerusalem. The temple of Yahweh was burnt, the chief ornaments were removed, and the place itself was deserted. The principal inhabitants were transported to Babylonia, and the kingdom of Judah ceased for a time to have any independent existence.

After the exile we hear little or nothing concerning Yahweh as a national god. Yahweh-worship disappears from the page of history and a spiritual, a monotheistic religion takes its place. Forbidden by Yahweh himself to make any image of their chosen deity the Jews in Babylonia gradually evolved the idea of a Supreme Ruler wholly free from material bonds, a dweller in the heavens, invisible to men, too high and pure for human eyes to look upon. Thus appears the conception of God as a being who is eternal, omniscient, almighty, holy; the most sublime deity ever conceived of by human thought. It was reserved for others, six centuries later, to fulfil the idea of pure monotheism and to proclaim abroad the unity of God to all nations. It was Jesus of Nazareth and Paul of Tarsus who, above all others, made the conception of God as a spiritual and unitary being a universal possession.

In summarizing we need but say that the deities of savage tribes were the objects of nature and the spirits of ancestors. These furnished the data from which arose the great gods of the ethnic religions. In the case of the Hebrews Yahweh, who at first was a tribal and then a national God, emerged into a universal deity. In this way monotheism came into being.

State-wide Use of the University

THE

Library

CLARENCE WESLEY SUMNER,

Librarian, University of North Dakota

HE spirit of modern library development becomes more and more truly a spirit of large and far-reaching service; a spirit of sincerity in attempting to meet some of the real needs of men and women and to instill into the hearts of boys and girls such a love for books that they may be led into the habit of good reading. We believe that every community owes it to itself not only to have a library but to have a library that is in truth a living, vital force in the community. Much has been said concerning the library of yesterday, the librarian of which was seemingly content with collecting and preserving books. Librarians of today still believe it to be their duty and privilege to be constantly gathering into libraries good books and many valuable sources of information, but not that they may be locked up in cases and carefully guarded; not even that they may be ready for service and usefulness in time of need, but that they may be, in so far as possible and practicable, sent into the homes and put into service.

Librarians are coming to see more clearly the possibilities of their profession and to look upon their work as something more than routine, essential as routine is in every library. They are coming to realize that there is truth in the statement that the real test of the value of the library is in its use, that the truly useful library is far more than a building furnished with book-shelves and stocked with row after row of books, that it is indeed and in truth, as some one has said, "an active, potential force in the community, which reaches out and touches and quickens the lives of individuals in the community, developing and enriching those lives in every possible way."

Such is the spirit of present-day library development. No one can deny, however, if we are to judge from work accomplished and lines of service extended, that the spirit of modern library development would seem to pertain more to the public library than to that of the college and university. The development of the latter, all librarians know, has not kept pace with that of the former. It has been too much the tendency of such libraries to serve only their own immediate communities-the student bodies and the faculties. This is due, no doubt, in a large mesure, to the entirely inadequate

support that it receives. It would seem that university authorities have sometimes failed to recognize the real function of the university library, the larger scope and function of its activities, the multiplicity of detail connected with its administration. They have failed to see that the library is really an institution in itself, with great possibilities for state-wide service and that, as such, it should receive liberal financial support; and we have the conviction that the fault lies partly with the librarians in not making the influence of their libraries felt more in the state at large-in not putting them upon a plane which will command the respect which justly belongs to them.

Granting that the first function of a university library is to meet the demands made upon it by its students and faculty, is there not another important field of service, lying at its very door, which could be developed if sufficient support were given to it? We refer to a state-wide service in the matter of providing a source of general information and dissemination of knowledge that would benefit the entire citizenship of the state. Why should not the state university library extend its lines of service beyond the campus? Could it not become an institution of much greater usefulness to the state if it were to act as a bureau of general information, a clearing house, as it were, on matters pertaining to education, town and city government, public health, civic improvement, and many other subjects of a distinct practical and cultural nature which are of public interest? Again, does not the state university library, co-operating with the Extension Division of the university, have a unique opportunity for greatly enlarged service, extending far beyond the campus, to every corner of the state, in that it is surrounded by a body of men, highly trained in their professions, and experts in their respective lines of work, whose knowledge, counsel and advice could be made use of in helping to meet specific and real needs of the people of the state? Such highly trained and expert service cannot be supplied even by the large public library. Nor can the Public Library Commission, important and far reaching as its work is, meet the situation. It remains for the university library, it would seem, co-operating closely with the Extension Division, fully to cover this important field of service. The university is a great reservoir of knowledge which the people should be able to tap as occasion demands. An inteligent co-operation between the university and the people outside of it results in making a broader and more efficient citizenship, and such work is the proper function of a state university in a democratic commonwealth.

We would not overestimate the place the university library

has in university extension work. Extension work in its various phases is rapidly becoming one of the most important factors in the educational policies of our universities. The extension idea has grown rapidly within a decade, until today practically all of our principal state universities are carrying on extension work of some kind. In some the work is done thru lecture courses without the support of an organized extension department. Others have thoroly organized extension departments and employ correspondence study courses in the extension teaching, under the direction of the faculty. Extension departments are collecting material along many lines of public interest and are themselves supplying this material and information whenever possible. This is without question one of their legitimate functions as it is also the function of the state library commission. It is rather our purpose to try to show how important it is that the university library, with its unique opportunity for library extension service, as we believe we have pointed out above, take some initiative in the matter of library extension-that it identify itself in this work more fully and more definitely than it has in the past-to such extent that it will become recognized as a very definite and important part of the state's agencies for library extension.

The University of North Dakota library is doing much along this line. It is gratifying to know that, in a state like North Dakota, where library facilities are limited and the need for such work is thus the greater, the university library is not only meeting the regular demands made upon it by the university community but is daily meeting specific and real needs of the people out in the state. That this is true can be seen from the following figures: From September, 1911, to September, 1912, 232 requests for material were received by the library from 87 towns over the state. Two hundred and twelve books, 89 periodicals, and 280 pamphlets were loaned out in the state during this period; besides, many letters were written by the library giving information of one kind or another. Thirtyfour bibliographies were compiled for people in the sthate. Statistics covering the two-year period from September, 1911, to September, 1913, show that a total of 471 requests were received from 126 towns in the state. Further data obtained from the correspondence on file indicates that during this period 31 bankers, 34 business men, 14 editors, 23 lawyers, 27 librarians, 8 ministers, 119 school superintendents, 36 school principals, 105 teachers, 28 high school students, and 46 unclassified individuals made use of this service. In response to these requests the university library sent out 612 books, 268 periodicals, 547 pamphlets, and compiled 45 biblographies.