o consecutiveness in it,
no reasoning, no recognition in fact of the reason. It was a mere mass
of legends without the exquisite charm and spiritual intention of those
of Greece, of bloody stories and obscure disconnected prophecies by
shepherds and peasants. Their god was a horror, a boor upon a mountain,
wielding thunder and lightning. Aphrodite was perhaps not all that could
be wished, but she was divine compared with the savage Jehovah. It was
true that a recent Jewish sect professed better things and recognised as
their teacher a young malefactor who was executed when Tiberius was
emperor. So far, however, as could be made out he was a poor
crack-brained demagogue, who dreamed of restoring a native kingdom in
Palestine. What made the Jews especially contemptible to culture was
that they were retrograde. They strove to put back the clock. There is
only one path, so culture affirmed, and that is the path opened by
Aristotle, the path of rational logical progress from what we already
know to something not now known, but which can be known. If our present
state is imperfect, it is because we do not know enough. Every other
road, excepting this, the king's highway, heads into a bog. These Jews
actually believed in miracles; they had no science, and thought they
could regenerate the world by hocus-pocus. They ought to be suppressed
by law, and, if necessary, put to death, for they bred discontent.

"Nevertheless, Charmides decided to enter the hovel. He was in idle
mood, and he was curious to see for himself what the Jews were like. He
pushed open the door, and when he went in he found himself in a low, mean
room very dimly lighted and crowded with an odd medley of Greeks, Romans,
tolerably well-dressed persons, and slaves. The poor and the shaves were
by far the most numerous. The atmosphere was stifling, and Charmides sat
as near the door as possible. Next to him was a slave-girl, not
beautiful, but with a peculiar expression on her face very rare in Rome
at that time. The Roman women were, many of them, lovely, but their
loveliness was cold--the loveliness of indifference. The somewhat common
features of this slave, on the contrary, were lighted up with eagerness:
to her there was evidently something in life of consequence--nay, of
immense importance. There were few of her betters in Rome to whom
anything was of importance. A hymn at that moment was being sung, the
words of which Charmides could no