‘What is essential,’ replied Madge, ‘in a belief in God is absolute loyalty to a principle we know to have authority.’
‘It may, perhaps,’ said Mazzini, ‘be more to me, but you are right, it is a belief in the supremacy and ultimate victory of the conscience.’
‘The victory seems distant in Italy now,’ said Baruch. ‘I do not mean the millennial victory of which you speak, but an approximation to it by the overthrow of tyranny there.’
‘You are mistaken; it is far nearer than you imagine.’
‘Do you obtain,’ said Clara, ‘any real help from people here? Do you not find that they merely talk and express what they call their sympathy?’
‘I must not say what help I have received; more than words, though, from many.’
‘You expect, then,’ said Baruch, ‘that the Italians will answer your appeal?’
‘If I had no faith in the people, I do not see what faith could survive.’
‘The people are the persons you meet in the street.’
‘A people is not a mere assemblage of uninteresting units, but it is not a phantom. A spirit lives in each nation which is superior to any individual in it. It is this which is the true reality, the nation’s purpose and destiny, it is this for which the patriot lives and dies.’