the evening. He
said -
    »You have your own way of looking at things, Mordecai, and, as you say, your
own way seems to you rational. I know you don't hold with the restoration to
Judea by miracle, and so on; but you are as well aware as I am that the subject
has been mixed with a heap of nonsense both by Jews and Christians. And as to
the connection of our race with Palestine, it has been perverted by superstition
till it's as demoralising as the old poor-law. The raff and scum go there to be
maintained like able-bodied paupers, and to be taken special care of by the
angel Gabriel when they die. It's no use fighting against facts. We must look
where they point; that's what I call rationality. The most learned and liberal
men among us who are attached to our religion are for clearing our liturgy of
all such notions as a literal fulfilment of the prophecies about restoration,
and so on. Prune it of a few useless rites and literal interpretations of that
sort, and our religion is the simplest of all religions, and makes no barrier,
but a union, between us and the rest of the world.«
    »As plain as a pike-staff,« said Pash, with an ironical laugh. »You pluck it
up by the roots, strip off the leaves and bark, shave off the knots, and smooth
it at top and bottom; put it where you will, it will do no harm, it will never
sprout. You may make a handle of it, or you may throw it on the bonfire of
scoured rubbish. I don't see why our rubbish is to be held sacred any more than
the rubbish of Brahmanism or Bouddhism.«
    »No,« said Mordecai, »no, Pash, because you have lost the heart of the Jew.
Community was felt before it was called good. I praise no superstition, I praise
the living fountains of enlarging belief. What is growth, completion,
development? You began with that question, I apply it to the history of our
people. I say that the effect of our separateness will not be completed and have
its highest transformation unless our race takes on again the character of a
nationality. That is the fulfilment of the religious trust that moulded them
into a people, whose life has made half the inspiration of the world. What is it
to me that the ten tribes are lost untraceably, or that multitudes of the
children of Judah have mixed themselves with the