own.

It was inevitable that with such tendencies the old rigidity of creed
should be impaired and that the observances which completely severed
the Jew from other people should be discarded. There can be little
doubt that the dissolution of old beliefs which has been such a marked
and ominous characteristic of the latter half of the nineteenth
century has been even more common among the Western Jews than in
Christian nations, and it appears to have spread quite as rapidly
among the women as among the men. Many Jews have passed into complete
religious indifference--into absolute and often very cynical negation.
They have become, as Sheridan wittily said, like the blank page
between the Old and the New Testament. Others have taken refuge in a
kind of highly rationalised Judaism little different from pure Theism.
Some of the most independent, scientific, and trenchant criticism of
the Old Testament writings has proceeded from members of the race
which was once distinguished for the most complete and superstitious
worship of the letter of the law. Spinoza in his 'Tractatus
Theologico-Politicus' led the way in this path, and in our own day I
need only mention the writings of Salvador, Kalisch, and Darmesteter
and the remarkable Hibbert Lectures of Mr. Montefiore.

This movement, however, is chiefly confined to the Western Jews. The
Oriental Jews have retained in a far greater measure their old creed
and ritual, their old fanaticism and aspirations. To them Palestine is
still the land of promise, and they still dream that it is destined to
become once more a Jewish State. Few persons who consider the
conditions of the East and the power of the Jewish race will
pronounce the realisation of this dream to be impossible or even in a
very high degree improbable. Perhaps the most formidable obstacle is
the poverty of the land and the total absence among the Jews of
agricultural tastes and aptitudes. One thing, however, may be safely
predicted. If Palestine is ever again to become a Jewish land, this
will be effected only through the wealth and energy of the Western
Jews, and it is not those Jews who are likely to inhabit it.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] Mr. Lecky had made various notes with the intention of bringing this
essay up to date, but failing health prevented him from accomplishing
it.--ED.

MADAME DE STAEL

Among the many important works which have lately been published on the
Continent, reconstructing the history