ways connected. That is
intelligible--quite, peculiarly intelligible! And in this city folks are
so polite that they are fain to wrap truth in some graceful disguise.
May I, a barbarian from Judea, be allowed to set it before you, bare of
clothing, naked and unadorned."

"Speak, I beg you, speak."

"You are Jews; but you had rather not be Jews, and you endure your
origin as an inevitable evil. It is only when you feel the mighty hand
of the Most High that you recognize it and claim your right to be one
of His chosen people. In the smooth current of daily life you proudly
number yourselves with his enemies. Do not interrupt me, and answer
honestly what I shall ask you. In what hour of your life did you
feel yourself that you owed the deepest gratitude to the God of your
fathers?"

"Why should I deny it?--In the hour when my lost wife presented me with
my first-born son."

"And you called him?"

"You know his name is Benjamin."

"Like the favorite son of our forefather Jacob, for in the hour when you
thus named him you were honestly yourself, you felt thankful that it
had been vouchsafed to you to add another link to the chain of your
race--you were a Jew--you were confident in our God--in your own God.
The birth of your second son touched your soul less deeply and you gave
him the name of Theophilus, and when your third male child was born you
had altogether ceased to remember the God of your fathers, for he is
named after one of the heathen gods, Hephaestion. To put it shortly: You
are Jews when the Lord is most gracious to you, or threatens to try you
most severely but you are heathen whenever your way does not lead you
over the high hills or through the dark abysses of life. I cannot change
your hearts--but the wife of my brother's son, the daughter of Ben
Akiba, must be a daughter of our people, morning, noon, and night. I
seek a Rebecca for my daughter and not an Ismene."

"I did not ask you here," retorted Apollodorus. "But if you quit us
to-morrow, you as will be followed by our reverent regard. Think no
worse of us because we adapt ourselves, more, perhaps, than is fitting,
to the ways and ideas of the people among whom we have grown up, and in
whose midst we have been prosperous, and whose interests are ours. We
know how high our faith is beyond theirs. In our hearts we still are
Jews; but are we not bound to try to open and to cultivate and to
elevate our spirits, which God certainly made of stuff no c