There seems an impression that the Jew is being absorbed by other races.
We hear much of relaxing Judaisms; of rituals and beliefs assimilating to
those around them; of peculiarities being laid aside, that have withstood
the wear and tear of centuries. The inference is sought to be drawn that
the Jew is beginning to feel his isolation, and to sink his own national
life amid that among which he dwells. We accept all the facts; but can
only see in them that, under the influence of the profound thought and
research of its great leaders, Judaism is shaking off the dust of ages,
and is more vividly awaking to its mission upon earth. We believe it is
coming forth from all this superficial change, more intensely and
powerfully Judaical, more penetrated and vivified by that thought which
for untold centuries has been the life of its life. What is to be its
specific future as a leader in the advancement and redemption of
humanity, none can foresee. But it seems the reverse of strange that a
genius like George Eliot's should have been powerfully attracted by this
problem; and that, in one of her noblest works, she should have very
prominently addressed herself to at least a partial solution of it. That
the solution she suggests is a noble one, few who carefully consider the
subject will, we think, deny. The establishment of a Jewish polity, in
the true sense of the word a theocracy, where the Infinite Holiness is
supreme, and in its supremacy is included a reign of justice, purity, and
love;--the establishment of such a polity locally between the
materialistic proclivities of the West and the psychological subtleties
of the East, mediative between them, communicating from each to each of
those essentials to human life in which the other is deficient, is a
conception worthy of her genius.

Another minor and very trivial objection to the presence of this Jewish
element need be no more than adverted to. It is the presence of such
different types as the mean-souled scoundrel Lapidoth; the shrewd self-
approving trader Cohen, with the inimitable picture of a home-life so
pleasant and kindly; the vague intense enthusiasm, the ardent aspirations
and fervent hopes of Mordecai; the absorbing Judaism of the Physician;
the fierce revulsion of his daughter against her race and name; the meek,
delicate, ethereal purity of Mirah; the innate Jewish yearnings and
aspirations of Deronda, expanded by all the breadth that could be given
by