it enables us to avoid drifting dangerously far from the right road. If people were discussing which is East and which is West, and one happened to catch sight of the sun rising, he would listen to no further discussion; he would know which was East. And if people are discussing what is true and what is false progress, and one of them discovers that the road he is going is leading to a clearer understanding of the religion of Israël, that man has seen the Orient.
Suppose that the thought-life of an age or a Nation has diverged from the march of Humanity, and its philosophers cannot agree among themselves which is the path back towards the line of true progress. One says, "This is the way;" and another says, "No, it is that;" and a third obstinately wants to persevere in the road he is going along. But if one of them catches sight of the old religion of Israël, if he finds himself saying, "Now I understand the nature of the Law which the old Psalmists loved; now I know for what the martyrs of Israël gave up their lives, and what gave them courage," that man is troubled with no more doubts. He argues no more. He lets other men go on in their own road, quite certain that he is on the right track at last, and that those who are turning their backs on that beacon are going away from true Progress.
Perhaps the difficulty of distinguishing true progress from false is never so great as in what relates to mental cultivation, to refinement, to Education. It is here that the admission of Jews or other persons of Asiatic origin into European schools becomes most valuable as a test. If I had to select a school for a Christian girl, the first question I should ask would be, not how many pupils
