ed from counting-house to laboratory, and studied Sanscrit for
recreation, _moriturus te saluto_. And thou, too, Markus, with thy
boy's body, and thy old man's look, and thy encyclopaedic, inorganic
mind; and thou, O Gans, with thy too organic Hegelian hocus-pocus.
Yes, the Rabbis were right, and the baptismal font had us at last; but
surely God counts the will to do, and is more pleased with
great-hearted dreams than with the deeds of the white-hearted burghers
of virtue, whose goodness is essence of gendarmerie. And where,
indeed--if not in Judaism, broadened by Hellenism--shall one find the
religion of the future? Be sure of this, anyhow, that only a Jew will
find it. We have the gift of religion, the wisdom of the ages. You
others--young races fresh from staining your bodies with woad--have
never yet got as far as Moses. Moses--that giant figure--who dwarfs
Sinai when he stands upon it, the great artist in life, who, as I
point out in my _Confessions_ built human pyramids; who created
Israel; who took a poor shepherd family, and created a nation from
it--a great, eternal, holy people, a people of God, destined to
outlive the centuries, and to serve as a pattern to all other
nations--a statesman, not a dreamer, who did not deny the world and
the flesh, but sanctified it. Happiness, is it not implied in the very
aspiration of the Christian for postmundane bliss? And yet, 'the man
Moses was very meek'; the most humble and lovable of men. He
too--though it is always ignored--was ready to die for the sins of
others, praying, when his people had sinned, that _his_ name might be
blotted out instead; and though God offered to make of him a great
nation, yet did he prefer the greatness of his people. He led them to
Palestine, but his own foot never touched the promised land. What a
glorious, Godlike figure, and yet so prone to wrath and error, so
lovably human. How he is modelled all round like a Rembrandt--while
your starveling monks have made of your Christ a mere decorative
figure with a gold halo. O Moshe Rabbenu, Moses our teacher indeed!
No, Christ was not the first nor the last of our race to wear a crown
of thorns. What was Spinoza but Christ in the key of meditation?"

"Wherever a great soul speaks out his thoughts, there is Golgotha,"
quoted the listener.

"Ah, you know every word I have written," he said, childishly pleased.
"Decidedly, you must translate me. You shall be my apostle to the
heathen. You are good