bt the individual sons of Abraham whom we found in our ill-favored
and ill-flavored streets were apt to be unpleasing specimens of the
race. It was against the most adverse influences of legislation, of
religious feeling, of social repugnance, that the great names of
Jewish origin made themselves illustrious; that the philosophers, the
musicians, the financiers, the statesmen, of the last centuries forced
the world to recognize and accept them. Benjamin, the son of Isaac, a
son of Israel, as his family name makes obvious, has shown how largely
Jewish blood has been represented in the great men and women of modern
days.

There are two virtues which Christians have found it very hard to
exemplify in practice. These are modesty and civility. The Founder of
the Christian religion appeared among a people accustomed to look for
a Messiah, a special ambassador from heaven, with an authoritative
message. They were intimately acquainted with every expression having
reference to this divine messenger. They had a religion of their own,
about which Christianity agrees with Judaism in asserting that it was
of divine origin. It is a serious fact, to which we do not give all the
attention it deserves, that this divinely instructed people were not
satisfied with the evidence that the young Rabbi who came to overthrow
their ancient church and found a new one was a supernatural being. "We
think he was a great Doctor," said a Jewish companion with whom I was
conversing. He meant a great Teacher, I presume, though healing the sick
was one of his special offices. Instead of remembering that they were
entitled to form their own judgment of the new Teacher, as they had
judged of Hillel and other great instructors, Christians, as they called
themselves, have insulted, calumniated, oppressed, abased, outraged,
"the chosen race" during the long succession of centuries since the
Jewish contemporaries of the Founder of Christianity made up their
minds that he did not meet the conditions required by the subject of the
predictions of their Scriptures. The course of the argument against them
is very briefly and effectively stated by Mr. Emerson:

"This was Jehovah come down out of heaven. I will kill you if you say he
was a man."

It seems as if there should be certain laws of etiquette regulating the
relation of different religions to each other. It is not civil for a
follower of Mahomet to call his neighbor of another creed a "Christian
dog." St