"Yes, perhaps. I hardly know. I know about Hannan the High Priest. He tried to stand in with Pilate. He thought he was doing his duty when he was only fighting for his caste. But what an Iliad of woes he brought on his people--through the ages. But now they know, they profess, and yet stone the prophets. Your church, founded to fight riches and selfishness and formalism, is the greatest exploiter of all that the world knows. Two generations sanctify the wealth gotten by the foulest means. The robber, the murderer, the destroyer of homes are all accepted, and if one protests he is stoned to-day as if he were a blasphemer of the law. If the Master to whom your churches are erected should come to-day and preach the doctrines he preached in Judea nineteen hundred years ago, he would be cast out here precisely as he was cast out there." He spoke almost fiercely. "Yet his teachings," he added, "are nearer those of the people I represent than of those who assail them. Why should we not act on it? Possibly, some others might see our good works, and in any event we shall have done our part. John Marvel does." "I know he does, but he is a better Christian than I am, and so are you." "I am not a Christian at all. I am only a Jew." "Will you say that His teachings have had no part in forming your character and life?" "Not my character. My father taught me before I was able to read. Possibly I have extended his teachings!" "Have His teachings had no part in deciding you as to your work?" "His teachings? John Marvel's exposition of them in his life bore a part and, thus, perhaps----" "That is it." "Why should I not participate in the benefit of the wisdom of a Jewish rabbi?" said Wolffert, scornfully. "Did Jesus utter his divine philosophy only for you who were then savages in Northern Europe or half-civilized people in Greece, Italy, and Spain? Your claim that he did so simply evinces the incurable insularity of your people." "What is your remedy? Socialism?" "Call it what you will. That is a name which some prefer and some detest. The fact is, that the profit system on which all Modern Capitalism rests is radically and fundamentally vicious and wrong. Men work and strive, not to produce for use, for service, but for profit. Profit becomes the aim of human endeavor--nothing higher or better--Competition." "'Competition,'" I quoted, "'is the soul of trade.'" "Competition," he said, "may be the soul of trade, but that trade is the trade in men's souls, as well as bodies--in the universal soul of the people. It sets man against man, and brother against brother--Cain against Abel--and is branded with the curse of Cain." "What would you substitute for it?" I demanded. "The remedy is always a problem. I should try co-operation--in this age." "Co-operation! It has been proved an absolute failure. It makes the industrious and the thrifty the slave of the idle and spendthrift. Men would not work."