ld prophets of their race.

No doubt the individual sons of Abraham whom we found in our ill-favored
and ill-flavored streets were apt to be unpleasing specimens of the race.
It was against the most adverse influences of legislation, of religious
feeling, of social repugnance, that the great names of Jewish origin made
themselves illustrious; that the philosophers, the musicians, the
financiers, the statesmen, of the last centuries forced the world to
recognize and accept them. Benjamin, the son of Isaac, a son of Israel,
as his family name makes obvious, has shown how largely Jewish blood has
been represented in the great men and women of modern days.

There are two virtues which Christians have found it very hard to
exemplify in practice. These are modesty and civility. The Founder of
the Christian religion appeared among a people accustomed to look for a
Messiah, a special ambassador from heaven, with an authoritative message.
They were intimately acquainted with every expression having reference to
this divine messenger. They had a religion of their own, about which
Christianity agrees with Judaism in asserting that it was of divine
origin. It is a serious fact, to which we do not give all the attention
it deserves, that this divinely instructed people were not satisfied with
the evidence that the young Rabbi who came to overthrow their ancient
church and found a new one was a supernatural being. "We think he was a
great Doctor," said a Jewish companion with whom I was conversing. He
meant a great Teacher, I presume, though healing the sick was one of his
special offices. Instead of remembering that they were entitled to form
their own judgment of the new Teacher, as they had judged of Hillel and
other great instructors, Christians, as they called themselves, have
insulted, calumniated, oppressed, abased, outraged, "the chosen race"
during the long succession of centuries since the Jewish contemporaries
of the Founder of Christianity made up their minds that he did not meet
the conditions required by the subject of the predictions of their
Scriptures. The course of the argument against them is very briefly and
effectively stated by Mr. Emerson:

"This was Jehovah come down out of heaven. I will kill you if you say he
was a man."

It seems as if there should be certain laws of etiquette regulating the
relation of different religions to each other. It is not civil for a
follower of Mahomet to call his neighbor of a