te in a labor hard but glorious like
that of Moses and Ezra, a labor which shall be a worthy fruit of the
long anguish whereby our fathers maintained their separateness,
refusing the ease of falsehood.' They have wealth enough to redeem the
soil from debauched and paupered conquerors; they have the skill of the
statesman to devise, the tongue of the orator to persuade. And is there
no prophet or poet among us to make the ears of Christian Europe tingle
with shame at the hideous obloquy of Christian strife which the Turk
gazes at as at the fighting of beasts to which he has lent an arena?
There is store of wisdom among us to found a new Jewish polity, grand,
simple, just, like the old--a republic where there is equality of
protection, an equality which shone like a star on the forehead of our
ancient community, and gave it more than the brightness of Western
freedom amidst the despotisms of the East. Then our race shall have an
organic centre, a heart and brain to watch and guide and execute; the
outraged Jew shall have a defence in the court of nations, as the
outraged Englishman or American. And the world will gain as Israel
gains. For there will be a community in the van of the East which
carries the culture and the sympathies of every great nation in its
bosom; there will be a land set for a halting-place of enmities, a
neutral ground for the East as Belgium is for the West. Difficulties? I
know there are difficulties. But let the spirit of sublime achievement
move in the great among our people, and the work will begin....

"What is needed is the leaven--what is needed is the seed of fire. The
heritage of Israel is beating in the pulses of millions; it lives in
their veins as a power without understanding, like the morning
exultation of herds; it is the inborn half of memory, moving as in a
dream among writings on the walls, which it sees dimly but cannot
divide into speech. Let the torch of visible community be lighted! Let
the reason of Israel disclose itself in a great outward deed, and let
there be another great migration, another choosing of Israel to be a
nationality whose members may still stretch to the ends of the earth,
even as the sons of England and Germany, whom enterprise carries afar,
but who still have a national hearth, and a tribunal of national
opinion. Will any say,