“It is no good to pretend,” answered Reuben in his reasonable, pacific way, “that our religion remains a vital force among the cultivated and thoughtful Jews of to-day. Of course it has been modified, as we ourselves have been modified, by the influence of western thought and western morality. And belief, among thinking people of all races, has become, as you know perfectly, a matter of personal idiosyncrasy.” “That does not alter my position,” said Leo, “as to the character of the national religion and the significance of the fact. Ah, look at us,” he cried with sudden passion, “where else do you see such eagerness to take advantage; such sickening, hideous greed; such cruel, remorseless striving for power and importance; such ever-active, ever-hungry vanity, that must be fed at any cost? Steeped to the lips in sordidness, as we have all been from the cradle, how is it possible that any one among us, by any effort of his own, can wipe off from his soul the hereditary stain?” “My dear boy,” said Reuben, touched by the personal note which sounded at the close of poor Leo’s heroics, and speaking with sudden earnestness, “you put things in too lurid a light. We have our faults; you seem to forget what our virtues are. Have you forgotten for how long, and at what a cruel disadvantage, the Jewish people has gone its way, until at last it has shamed the nations into respect? Our self-restraint, our self-respect, our industry, our power of endurance, our love of race, home and kindred, and our regard for their ties--are none of these things to be set down to our account?” “Oh, our instincts of self-preservation are remarkably strong; I grant you that.” Leo tossed back his head with its longish hair as he spoke, and Reuben went on: “And where would you find a truer hospitality, a more generous charity than among us?” “A charity whose right hand is so remarkably well posted up in the doings of its left!” “Oh, come, that’s a libel--and not even true.” “There is one good thing,” cried Leo, taking a fresh start, “and that is the inevitability--at least as regards us English Jews--of our disintegration; of our absorption by the people of the country. That is the price we are bound to pay for restored freedom and consideration. The Community will grow more and more to consist of mediocrities, and worse, as the general world claims our choicer specimens for its own. We may continue to exist as a separate clan, reinforced from below by German and Polish Jews for some time to come: but absorption complete, inevitable--that is only a matter of time. You and I sitting here, self-conscious, discussing our own race-attributes, race-position--are we not as sure a token of what is to come as anything well could be?”