'Again, it is a question of the point of view taken. From a practical, our ceremonialism is a training in self-conquest, while it links the generations, "bound each to each by natural piety," and unifies our atoms, dispersed to the four corners of the earth, as nothing else could. From a theoretical, it is but an extension of the principle I tried to show you. Eating, drinking, every act of life is holy, is sanctified by some relation to Heaven. We will not arbitrarily divorce some portions of life from religion, and say these are of the world, the flesh, or the devil, any more than we will save up our religion for Sundays. There is no devil, no original sin, no need of salvation from it, no need of a mediator. Every Jew is in as direct relation with God as the Chief Rabbi. Christianity is an historical failure: its counsels of perfection, its command to turn the other cheek, a farce. When a modern spiritual genius, a Tolstoi, repeats it, all Christendom laughs as at a new freak of insanity. All practical honourable men are Jews at heart. Judaism has never tampered with human dignity, nor perverted the moral consciousness. Our housekeeper, a Christian, once said to my sister Addie: "I'm so glad to see you do so much charity, miss. I need not, because I'm saved already." Judaism is the true "religion of humanity." It does not seek to make men and women angels before their time. Our marriage service blesses the King of the Universe, who has created "joy and gladness, bridegroom and bride, mirth and exultation, pleasure and delight, love, brotherhood, peace and fellowship."'

'It is all very beautiful in theory,' said Esther; 'but so is Christianity, which is also not to be charged with its historical caricatures, nor with its superiority to average human nature. As for the doctrine of original sin, it is the one thing that the science of heredity has demonstrated, with a difference. But do not be alarmed; I do not call myself a Christian because I see some relation between the dogmas of Christianity and the truths of experience, nor even because'—here she smiled wistfully—'I should like to believe in Jesus. But you are less logical. When you said there was no devil, I felt sure I was right, that you belong to the modern schools that get rid of all the old beliefs, but cannot give up the old names. You know as well as I do that, take away the belief in hell—a real old-fashioned hell of fire and brimstone—even such Judaism as survives would freeze to death without that genial warmth.'

'I know nothing of the kind,' he said. 'And I am in no sense a modern. I am (to adopt a phrase which is to me tautologous) an orthodox Jew.'

Esther smiled.

'Forgive my smiling,' she said. 'I am thinking of the orthodox Jews I used to know, who used to bind their phylacteries on their arms and foreheads every morning.'

'I bind my phylacteries on my arm and forehead every morning,' he said simply.

'What!' gasped Esther. 'You, an Oxford man!'

'Yes,' he said gravely. 'Is it so astonishing to you?'

'Yes, it is. You are the first educated Jew I have ever met who believed in that sort of thing.'

'Nonsense?' he said inquiringly. 'There are hundreds like me.'