tual power; but by their
keeping two at least of the commandments, as no other people on earth has
kept them. They have kept the second commandment; and hated idolatry,
and any approach to it, with a stern and noble hatred, which would God
that all who call themselves Christians would imitate. They have kept,
likewise, the fifth commandment; and have honoured their parents, as no
other people on earth have done, except it may be the Chinese, who
prosper still, in spite of many sins. Their family affections are so
intense, their family life is so pure and sound, that they put to shame
too many Christians; and where the family life is sound, the heart of a
people is sure to be sound likewise; and all will come right with them at
last: and meanwhile the days of the Jews will be long in whatsoever land
the Lord their God shall give them, till the day of which St Paul
prophesied, when the veil shall be taken off their hearts, and they shall
acknowledge that Christ, whom their forefathers crucified in their
blindness, for their King, and Lord, and God; and so all Israel shall be
saved. Amen. Amen.

And meanwhile, who are we that we should complain of the Jews now, or the
Jews of our Lord's time, for being too fond of money? Is anything more
certain, than that we English are becoming given up, more and more, to
the passion for making money at all risks, and by all means fair or foul?
Our covetousness is--alas! that it should be so--become a by-word among
foreign nations; while our old English commercial honesty--which was once
our strength, and protected us from, and all but atoned for, our
covetousness--is going fast; and leaving us, feared indeed for our power;
but suspected for our chicanery; and odious for our arrogance.

And it is most sad, but most certain, that we are like those Pharisees of
old in this also, that we too have made up our mind that we can serve God
and Mammon at once; that the very classes among us who are most utterly
given up to money-making, are the very classes which, in all
denominations, make the loudest religious profession; that our churches
and chapels are crowded on Sundays by people whose souls are set, the
whole week through, upon gain and nothing but gain; who pretend to
reverence Scripture, while they despise the warning of Scripture, that
the love of money is the root of all evil.

Have we not seen in our own days persons of the highest religious
profession, whose names were the fo