Page:Sarolea - Great Russia.djvu/180

to which they have been subjected intellect, cunning, shrewdness, were the only weapons that could be opposed to the brutal force of their Christian enemies. Nor ought we to forget that their wandering habits, their linguistic attainments, their world-wide experience, must needs have broadened their outlook, and must have predestined them for their special function as intellectual middlemen and interpreters. Every educated Jew knows half a dozen languages, has travelled in a dozen countries, in each of which he has probably a family connexion. The Jews have always respected intellect and ability. Like the Christian nations, they have had their conflicts between philosophy and theology, between the letter and the spirit. Readers of Mr. Zangwill's "Children of the Ghetto" and "Dreamers of the Ghetto" know that they have had their Obscurantists in the Talmudists and the Kabbalists. They have persecuted their Spinozas and their Mendelssohns. But seldom with the Jews have ideas been at a discount. They may worship money greatly, but they worship intellect more, with the result that in the specifically intellectual professions, in medicine, in law, and in science, the proportion of distinguished Jews is much