Thus a schism arose in Kief. The progressive Israelites siding with Mendel founded a congregation of their own, leaving the more conservative to work out their salvation in their old accustomed way. It must not be supposed that Mendel observed this break in the ranks of Judaism without a pang. He spent many a sleepless night in planning how to avert further differences and to appease existing animosities. Balzac truly says: "Every great man has paid heavily for his greatness. Genius waters all its work with its own tears. He who would raise himself above the average level of humanity, must prepare himself for long struggles, for trying difficulties. A great thinker is a self-devoted martyr to immortality."
In spite of the anathemas of the narrow-minded, in spite of the cry that the Messiah could never come as long as such sacrilege was tolerated in the household of Israel, the good work went steadily forward, to the manifest advantage of the entire body of Jews.
FOOTNOTES:
[13] Foulke.
CHAPTER XXI.
A DEN OF NIHILISTS.
Let us open the records of Kief for the year 1879.
Fifteen years have elapsed since the events last narrated; fifteen years of peace and plenty, of security and prosperity for Jew and gentile.
What sudden change do we behold! Is this the country whose future looked so hopeful in the early days of Alexander's reign? Is this the people who saw the golden promise of a constitutional government? Alas, for the instability of human purpose! The reforms then instituted have been revoked, the men who were the leaders in these reforms have been exiled to Siberia. A period of reaction has set in: Despotism and Nihilism meet face to face. The entire nation is in chains.