faint conception
of his previous foolishness has dawned on his mind; and, as he is
a thoroughly good fellow at heart, he has tried to make amends.
The present war has taught him a good deal that he did not know
before, and he renders a homage, all the more enthusiastic because
belated, to the principle of Nationality. His latest exploit in this
direction has been to suggest the creation of a Jewish Regiment.
The intention was excellent and the idea picturesque; but for the
practical business of life we need something more than good intentions
and picturesque ideas. "Wisdom," said Ecclesiastes, "is profitable
to direct;" and Wisdom would have suggested that it was advisable
to consult Jewish opinion before the formation of a Jewish Regiment
was proclaimed to the world. There is probably no race of people
about which John Bull has been so much mistaken as he has been
about the Jews. Lord Beaconsfield's description of Mr. Buggins,
with his comments on the Feast of Tabernacles in Houndsditch, is
scarcely yet anachronistic.[*] But slowly our manners and our
intelligence have improved in this as in other directions; and Lord
Derby (who represents John Bull in his more refined development)
thought that he would be paying his Jewish fellow-citizens a pretty
compliment if he invited them to form a Jewish Regiment.

[Footnote *: See _Tancred_, Book V., chapter vi.]

Historically, Lord Derby and those who applauded his scheme had a
great deal to say for themselves. The remote history of Judaism is
a history of war. The Old Testament is full of "the battle of the
warrior" and of "garments rolled in blood." Gideon, and Barak, and
Samson, and Jephthah, and David are names that sound like trumpets;
and the great Maccabean Princes of a later age played an equal
part with Romans and Lacedaemonians. All this is historically true;
but it never occurred to Lord Derby and his friends that the idea
which underlay their scheme is the opposite of that which animates
modern Judaism. Broadly speaking, the idea of modern Judaism is not
Nationality, but Religion. Mr. Lucien Wolf has lately reminded us
that, according to authoritative utterances, "The Jews are neither
a nation within a nation, nor cosmopolitan," but an integral part
of the nations among whom they live, claiming the same rights and
acknowledging the same duties as are claimed and acknowledged by
their fellow-citizens. It is worth noticing that Macaulay accepted
this position as