arly childhood in reading,
marking, learning, and inwardly digesting the one great Hebrew document,
the Bible; to have its very words and phrases ready to spring to one's
lips; to be saturated with its sentiments; to have been made much more
familiar with the sayings and doings of Abraham and Joseph, David and
Solomon, Isaiah and Ezekiel, than even with those of the kings, heroes,
and poets of one's own people--all this cannot but impart to a receptive
mind the power of distinguishing with fair accuracy the Hebraic quality
from the un-Hebraic. On the other hand, in Hellenic studies I may be
allowed to take a more confident stand; and as sometimes the long august
procession of Hebrew history and Hebrew letters passes across the mind,
and sometimes again the brilliant march of Grecian deeds and Grecian
words, one cannot fail to be more and more impressed with the contrast
between the excellences or the shortcomings of the two.

Up till the present time, the life and literature of Europe in general
has twice passed beneath Hebraic influences, twice beneath Hellenic.
Each influence has been greater or less, more or less durable, in
different regions; nevertheless there are two clearly distinguishable
invasions of the influences in each case. The intellectual influence of
Greece was first felt in pagan times, when Greek ideas and Greek
philosophy passed westward to Rome and through Rome permeated the
peoples under Roman sway. The spiritual influence of Hebraism was first
felt when, soon after this, the Christian Jews carried the doctrine of
one God amongst the pagans, and when Christianity,--which, however
otherwise diverse from Judaism, is none the less its outcome--became the
religion of all the European stocks. The first influence which came from
Greece was an intellectual influence, the passing of a fresh and
stimulating breeze. The first influence of Jerusalem was a moral
re-awakening and revelation, the shaking of a rushing mighty wind. The
moral principle of Hebraism, in the special guise of Christianity,
transformed the whole life and conduct and ideals of European men. What
had been virtues in some cases became vices, what had been weaknesses
became virtues.

We need not dwell upon this immense change; its nature is known to all,
and its source was Jewish. Centuries pass by. The Christianised world
has sunk its intelligence beneath the prescriptions of a demoralized
Church; the moral impulse of the religion borrowe