native spirit
of our tradition was not to stand still, but to use records as a seed,
and draw out the compressed virtues of law and prophecy."

Then Mordecai unfolds his theory of national unity and of a regenerated
national life; and it is impossible to read his words attentively without
accepting them as an expression of George Eliot's own personal convictions.
As an embodiment of her conception of the functions of national life they
are full of interest aside from their place in the novel.

"In the multitudes of the ignorant on three continents who observe our
rites and make the confession of the Divine Unity, the soul of Judaism
is not dead. Revive the organic centre: let the unity of Israel which
has made the growth and form of its religion be an outward reality.
Looking toward a land and a polity, our dispersed people in all the
ends of the earth may share the dignity of a national life which has a
voice among the peoples of the East and the West--which will plant the
wisdom and skill of our race so that it may be, us of old, a medium of
transmission and understanding. Let that come to pass, and the living
warmth will spread to the weak extremities of Israel, and superstition
will vanish, not in the lawlessness of the renegade, but in the
illumination of great facts which widen feeling, and make all knowledge
alive as the young offspring of beloved memories.... 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 Gentile populations as
a river with rivers? Behold our people still! Their skirts spread afar;
they are torn and soiled and trodden on; but there is a jewelled
breast-plate. Let the wealthy men, the monarchs of commerce, the
learned in all knowledge, the skilful in all arts, the speakers, the
political counsellors, who carry in their veins the Hebrew blood which
has maintained its vigor in all climates, and the pliancy of the Hebrew
genius for which difficulty means new device--let them say, 'We will
lift up a standard, we will uni