“Horrid bad form,” said Reuben; “besides being altogether a mistake.”
“Oh, I have nothing to say against us at all,” answered Leo ironically, “except that we are materialists to our fingers’ ends. That we have outlived, from the nature of things, such ideals as we ever had.”
“Idealists don’t grow on every bush,” answered Reuben, “and I think we have our fair share of them. This is a materialistic age, a materialistic country.”
“And ours the religion of materialism. The corn and the wine and the oil; the multiplication of the seed; the conquest of the hostile tribes—these have always had more attraction for us than the harp and crown of a spiritualized existence.”
“It is no good to pretend,” answered Reuben in his reasonable, pacific way, “that our religion remains a vital force among the cultivated and thoughtful Jews of to-day. Of course it has been modified, as we ourselves have been modified, by the influence of western thought and western morality. And belief, among thinking people of all races, has become, as you know perfectly, a matter of personal idiosyncrasy.”
“That does not alter my position,” said Leo, “as to the character of the national religion and the significance of the fact. Ah, look at us,” he cried with sudden passion, “where else do you see such eagerness to take advantage; such sickening, hideous greed; such cruel, remorseless striving for power and importance; such ever-active, ever-hungry vanity, that must be fed at any cost? Steeped to the lips in sordidness, as we have all been from the cradle, how is it possible that any one among us, by any effort of his own, can wipe off from his soul the hereditary stain?”
“My dear boy,” said Reuben, touched by the personal note which sounded at the close of poor Leo’s heroics, and speaking with sudden earnestness, “you put things in too lurid a light. We have our faults; you seem to forget what our virtues are. Have you forgotten for how long, and at what a cruel disadvantage, the Jewish people has gone its way, until at last it has shamed the nations into respect? Our self-restraint, our self-respect, our industry, our power of endurance, our love of race, home and kindred, and our regard for their ties—are none of these things to be set down to our account?”
“Oh, our instincts of self-preservation are remarkably strong; I grant you that.”
Leo tossed back his head with its longish hair as he spoke, and Reuben went on:
“And where would you find a truer hospitality, a more generous charity than among us?”