“Yes; but look what Jews set up to be—­God’s witnesses!” interrupted Strelitski.  “This mediocrity may pass in the rest of the world.”

“And does lack of modern lights constitute ignorance?” went on Raphael, disregarding the interruption.  He began walking up and down, and thrashing the air with his arms.  Hitherto he had remained comparatively quiet, dominated by Strelitski’s superior restlessness.  “I cannot help thinking there is a profound lesson in the Bible story of the oxen who, unguided, bore safely the Ark of the Covenant.  Intellect obscures more than it illumines.”

“Oh, Leon, Leon, you’ll turn Catholic, soon!” said Strelitski reprovingly.

“Not with a capital C,” said Raphael, laughing a little.  “But I am so sick of hearing about culture, I say more than I mean.  Judaism is so human—­that’s why I like it.  No abstract metaphysics, but a lovable way of living the common life, sanctified by the centuries.  Culture is all very well—­doesn’t the Talmud say the world stands on the breath of the school-children?—­but it has become a cant.  Too often it saps the moral fibre.”

“You have all the old Jewish narrowness,” said Strelitski.

“I’d rather have that than the new Parisian narrowness—­the cant of decadence.  Look at my cousin Sidney.  He talks as if the Jew only introduced moral-headache into the world—­in face of the corruptions of paganism which are still flagrant all over Asia and Africa and Polynesia—­the idol worship, the abominations, the disregard of human life, of truth, of justice.”

“But is the civilized world any better?  Think of the dishonesty of business, the self-seeking of public life, the infamies and hypocrisies of society, the prostitutions of soul and body!  No, the Jew has yet to play a part in history.  Supplement his Hebraism by what Hellenic ideals you will, but the Jew’s ideals must ever remain the indispensable ones,” said Strelitski, becoming exalted again.  “Without righteousness a kingdom cannot stand.  The world is longing for a broad simple faith that shall look on science as its friend and reason as its inspirer.  People are turning in their despair even to table-rappings and Mahatmas.  Now, for the first time in history, is the hour of Judaism.  Only it must enlarge itself; its platform must be all-inclusive.  Judaism is but a specialized form of Hebraism; even if Jews stick to their own special historical and ritual ceremonies, it is only Hebraism—­the pure spiritual kernel—­that they can offer the world.”

“But that is quite the orthodox Jewish idea on the subject,” said Raphael.

“Yes, but orthodox ideas have a way of remaining ideas,” retorted Strelitski.  “Where I am heterodox is in thinking the time has come to work them out.  Also in thinking that the monotheism is not the element that needs the most accentuation.  The formula of the religion of the future will be a Jewish formula—­Character, not Creed.  The provincial period of Judaism is over though even