Page:George Eliot and Judaism.djvu/98

plants which undergo their various stages of growth, development, and flower, to the sole end that their seeds may be produced, this class regards the State as a mere vessel in which peculiar and characteristic national ideas are produced and perfected. And when the vessel is broken, its contents are forced out and serve to fructify the earth. Greece has been broken in this way, but she still works on, and will work indestructibly for ever, as the vital teacher of all beauty. Rome, the earthen Colossus, has fallen asunder into potsherds, but the system of jurisprudence which the Romans brought to maturity forms the basis of jurisprudence in every quarter of the world. And now the time of fulfilment has come for Judæa; her political form has indeed been swept from the surface of the earth, but her children have spread themselves abroad among the nations as teachers, bringing the ineradicable seeds of eternal