Page:George Eliot and Judaism.djvu/31

though they were. Nor did the inhuman lord of oppression set his iron heel upon the backs of the vanquished till streams of the blood of Judah's heroes had flowed down to the Mediterranean, and till treachery had crept in and broken their serried ranks. The defenders of Jerusalem and the heroes of Bethar did not surely bleed in vain! From the leonine uprising of Judæa, and from the safe and wondrous return of the exiles from the Babylonian Captivity, should not the lesson for all time be drawn that the deep-rooted love and longing of the Jewish people for Palestine is something more than a wild and antiquated absurdity, something more than a barren dream of foolish enthusiasm? Feelings and sentiments which are worthy to be cherished and preserved in a nation's soul against all the influences of time are wont to concentrate themselves in great personalities,