th the mathematics," laughed Spinoza. "We
should fly to opposite ends of the diagonal and achieve five and two
third cubits of separation."

"Ah, fuzzle me not with thy square roots. I was never a calculator."

"But Moses Zacut was not so unbearable. I mind me he also learnt Latin
under thee."

"Ay, and now spits out to see me. Fasted forty days for his sin in
learning the devil's language."

"What converted him?"

"That Turkish mountebank, I imagine."

"Sabbata Zevi?"

"Yes; he still clings to him though the Messiah has turned Mohammedan.
He has published _Five Evidences of the Faith_, expounding that his
Redeemer's design is to bring over the Mohammedans to Judaism. Ha!
ha! What a lesson in the genesis of religions! The elders who
excommunicated thee have all been bitten--a delicious revenge for
thee. Ho! ho! What fools these mortals be, as the English poet says. I
long to shake our Christians and cry, 'Nincompoops, Jack-puddings,
feather-heads, look in the eyes of these Jews and see your own silly
selves.'"

"'Tis not the way to help or uplift mankind," said Spinoza mildly.
"Men should be imbued with a sense of their strength, not of their
weakness."

"In other words," laughed the doctor, "the way to uplift men is to
appeal to the virtues they do not possess."

"Even so," assented Spinoza, unmoved. "The virtues they may come to
possess. Men should be taught to look on noble patterns, not on mean."

"And what good will that do? Moses Zacut had me and thee to look on,"
chuckled the old man. "No, Benedict, I believe with Solomon, 'Answer a
fool according to his folly,' Thou art too half-hearted--thou deniest
God like a serving-man who says his master is out--thou leavest a hope
he may be there all the while. One should play bowls with the holy
idols."

Spinoza perceived it was useless to make the old man understand how
little their ideas coincided. "I would rather uplift than overturn,"
he said mildly.

The old sceptic laughed: "A wonder thou art not subscribing to uplift
the Third Temple," he cried. "So they call this new synagogue they are
building in Amsterdam with such to-do."

"Indeed? I had not heard of it. If I could hope it were indeed the
Third Temple," and a mystic light shone in his eyes, "I would
subscribe all I had."

"Thou art the only Christian I have ever known!" said van den Ende,
half mockingly, half tenderly. "And thou art a Jew."

"So was Christ."

"True, one forgets that. Bu