noza
compared the Mennonites, who confessed they knew nothing, but hoped
much, to the rabbis, who pretended they knew all. His praise of the
Mennonites, and his criticisms of the growing love for power in Judaism,
were carried to the Jewish authorities by some young men who had come to
him in the guise of learners. Moreover, the report was abroad that he
was to marry a Gentile--the daughter of Van den Ende, the infidel.

On order, he appeared at the synagogue, and defended his position. His
ability in argument, his knowledge of Jewish law, his insight into the
lessons of history, were alarming to the assembled rabbis. The young man
was quiet, gentle, but firm. He expressed the belief that God might
possibly have revealed Himself to other peoples beside the Jews.

"Then you are not a Jew!" was the answer.

"Yes, I am a Jew, and I love my faith."

"But it is not all to you?"

"I confess that occasionally I have found what seems to be truth
outside of the Law."

The rabbis tore their raiment in mingled rage and surprise at the young
man's temerity.

Spinoza did not withdraw from the Jewish Congregation--he was thrust
out. Moreover, a fanatical Jew, in the warmth of his religious zeal,
attempted to kill him. Spinoza escaped, his clothing cut through by a
dagger-thrust, close to the heart.

The curse of Israel was upon him--his own brothers and sisters refused
him shelter, his father turned against him, and again was the icy
unkindness of kinsmen made manifest. The tribe of Spinoza lives in
history, saved from the fell clutch of oblivion by the man it denied
with an oath and pushed in bitterness from its heart. Spinoza fled to
his friends, the Mennonites, plain market-gardeners who lived a few
miles out of the city.

Spinoza had not meant to leave the Jews--the racial instinct was strong
in him, and the pride of his people colored his character to the last.
But the attempts to bribe him and coerce him into a following of
fanatical law, when this law did not appeal to his commonsense, forced
him into a position that his enemies took for innate perversity. When an
eagle is hatched in a barnyard brood and mounts on soaring pinions
toward the sun, it is always cursed and vilified because it does not
remain at home and scratch in the compost. Its flight skyward is
construed as proof of its vile nature.

How can people who do not think, and can not think, and therefore have
no thoughts to express, sympathize with one