‘Greater I know it is than Vienna; but is it greater than Paris?’
‘Perhaps double the size of Paris.’
‘And four times that of Stamboul! What a city! Why ‘tis Babylon! How rich the most honoured man must be there! Tell me, is he a Christian?’
‘I believe he is one of your race and faith.’ ‘And in Paris; who is the richest man in Paris?’ ‘The brother, I believe, of the richest man in London.’
‘I know all about Vienna,’ said the lady, smiling. ‘Cæsar makes my countrymen barons of the empire, and rightly, for it would fall to pieces in a week without their support. Well, you must admit that the European part of the curse has not worked very fatally.’
‘I do not see,’ said Tancred thoughtfully, after a short pause, ‘that the penal dispersion of the Hebrew nation is at all essential to the great object of the Christian scheme. If a Jew did not exist, that would equally have been obtained.’
‘And what do you hold to be the essential object of the Christian scheme?’ ‘The Expiation.’
‘Ah!’ said the lady, in a tone of much solemnity, ‘that is a great idea; in harmony with our instincts, with our traditions, our customs. It is deeply impressed upon the convictions of this land. Shaped as you Christians offer the doctrine, it loses none of its sublimity; or its associations, full at the same time of mystery, power, and solace. A sacrificial Mediator with Jehovah, that expiatory intercessor born from the chosen house of the chosen people, yet blending in his inexplicable nature the divine essence with the human elements, appointed before all time, and purifying, by his atoning blood, the myriads that preceded and the myriads that will follow us, without distinction of creed or clime, this is what you believe. I acknowledge the vast conception, dimly as my brain can partially embrace it. I understand thus much: the human race is saved; and, without the apparent agency of a Hebrew prince, it could not have been saved. Now tell me: suppose the Jews had not prevailed upon the Romans to crucify Jesus, what would have become of the Atonement?’
‘I cannot permit myself to contemplate such contingencies,’ said Tancred. ‘The subject is too high for me to touch with speculation. I must not even consider an event that had been pre-ordained by the Creator of the world for countless ages.’
‘Ah!’ said the lady; ‘pre-ordained by the Creator of the world for countless ages! Where, then, was the inexpiable crime of those who fulfilled the beneficent intention? The holy race supplied the victim and the immolators. What other race could have been entrusted with such a consummation? Was not Abraham prepared to sacrifice even his son? And with such a doctrine, that embraces all space and time; nay more, chaos and eternity; with divine persons for the agents, and the redemption of the whole family of man for the subject; you can mix up the miserable persecution of a single race! And this is practical, not doctrinal Christianity. It is not found in your Christian books, which were all written by Jews; it must have been made by some of those Churches to which you have referred me. Persecute us! Why, if you believe what you profess, you should kneel to us! You raise statues to the hero who saves a country. We have saved the human race, and you persecute us for doing it.’