torch of visible community be lit! Let the reason of Israel disclose
itself in a great outward deed, and let there be another great
migration, another choosing of Israel to be a nationality whose members
may still stretch to the ends of the earth, even as the sons of England
and Germany, whom enterprise carries afar, but who still have a
national hearth and a tribunal of national opinion. Will any say 'It
cannot be'? Baruch Spinoza had not a faithful Jewish heart, though he
had sucked the life of his intellect at the breasts of Jewish
tradition. He laid bare his father's nakedness and said, 'They who
scorn him have the higher wisdom.' Yet Baruch Spinoza confessed, he saw
not why Israel should not again be a chosen nation. Who says that the
history and literature of our race are dead? Are they not as living as
the history and literature of Greece and Rome, which have inspired
revolutions, enkindled the thought of Europe, and made the unrighteous
powers tremble? These were an inheritance dug from the tomb. Ours is an
inheritance that has never ceased to quiver in millions of human
frames."

Mordecai had stretched his arms upward, and his long thin hands
quivered in the air for a moment after he had ceased to speak. Gideon
was certainly a little moved, for though there was no long pause before
he made a remark in objection, his tone was more mild and deprecatory
than before; Pash, meanwhile, pressing his lips together, rubbing his
black head with both his hands and wrinkling his brow horizontally,
with the expression of one who differs from every speaker, but does not
think it worth while to say so. There is a sort of human paste that
when it comes near the fire of enthusiasm is only baked into harder
shape.

"It may seem well enough on one side to make so much of our memories
and inheritance as you do, Mordecai," said Gideon; "but there's another
side. It isn't all gratitude and harmless glory. Our people have
inherited a good deal of hatred. There's a pretty lot of curses still
flying about, and stiff settled rancor inherited from the times of
persecution. How will you justify keeping one sort of memory and
throwing away the other? There are ugly debts standing on both sides."

"I justify the choice as all other choice is justified," said Mordecai.
"I cherish nothing for the Jewish nation, I seek nothing for them, but
the good which promises good to all the nations. The spirit of our
religious life, which is one with