is heav'nly Master's eye,
Man's presence flees in fear and awe,
Forgets he's seen by God on high."

That is a glimpse of the world of the Haggada--a wonderful, fantastic
world, a kaleidoscopic panorama of enchanting views. "Well can we
understand the distress of mind in a mediaeval divine, or even in a
modern _savant_, who, bent upon following the most subtle windings of
some scientific debate in the Talmudical pages--geometrical, botanical,
financial, or otherwise--as it revolves round the Sabbath journey, the
raising of seeds, the computation of tithes and taxes--feels, as it
were, the ground suddenly give way. The loud voices grow thin, the doors
and walls of the school-room vanish before his eyes, and in their place
uprises Rome the Great, the _Urbs et Orbis_ and her million-voiced life.
Or the blooming vineyards round that other City of Hills, Jerusalem the
Golden herself, are seen, and white-clad virgins move dreamily among
them. Snatches of their songs are heard, the rhythm of their choric
dances rises and falls: it is the most dread Day of Atonement itself,
which, in poetical contrast, was chosen by the 'Rose of Sharon' as a day
of rejoicing to walk among those waving lily-fields and vine-clad
slopes. Or the clarion of rebellion rings high and shrill through the
complicated debate, and Belshazzar, the story of whose ghastly banquet
is told with all the additions of maddening horror, is doing service for
Nero the bloody; or Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian tyrant, and all his
hosts, are cursed with a yelling curse--_a propos_ of some utterly
inappropriate legal point, while to the initiated he stands for Titus
the--at last exploded--'Delight of Humanity.' ... Often--far too often
for the interests of study and the glory of the human race--does the
steady tramp of the Roman cohort, the password of the revolution, the
shriek and clangor of the bloody field, interrupt these debates, and
the arguing masters and disciples don their arms, and, with the cry,
'Jerusalem and Liberty,' rush to the fray."[17] Such is the world of the
Talmud.

THE JEW IN THE HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION[18]

In the childhood of civilization, the digging of wells was regarded as
beneficent work. Guide-posts, visible from afar, marked their position,
and hymns were composed, and solemn feasts celebrated, in honor of the
event. One of the choicest bits of early Hebrew poetry is a song of the
well. The soul, in grateful joy, jubila