MODERNISM. 



229 



a professor or, indeed, any one who was not a professor could say 

 whatever he Hked to say against Jesus Christ. It is probable that 

 every nation, like every individual, is partly Conservative, partly 

 Radical; and, as in Great Britain political Radicals have not 

 seldom been Conservatives in academical or social life, so the 

 military discipline of Germany was counter-balanced by its 

 speculative liberty. It was generally expected that a student of 

 theology looking forward to a professorial career would signalise 

 himself by some novelty of hypothesis in the dissertation which 

 he submitted with a view to his academical degree. Such a 

 student could easily achieve an ephemeral success, as indeed 

 students have achieved it in Great Britain, by collecting all the 

 available evidence in support of his novel theory and ignoring 

 all the evidence which told against it. 



A familiar proverb indicates the danger of failing to see the 

 wood because of the trees. The higher critics are or would 

 appear to be at times so deeply occupied in watching for small 

 particular features, such as contradictions or omissions, in a 

 literary work that they lose sight of the effect which the work 

 as a whole is calculated to produce. Let me then cite two 

 features of commanding significance. 



One is the history of the Jewish people. It is a history 

 without parallel, without rival in the world. The few historians, 

 such as the late Mr. Goldwin Smith, who in their love of 

 paradox have tried to prove that the Jews are only one among 

 a good many outcast and nomad peoples, have signally failed. 

 There is not, nor has there even been nor will there in all proba- 

 bility ever be, a people comparable with the Jews in their 

 historical continuity, their isolation, their privileges, their suffer- 

 ings, their world-wide dispersion, their peculiarity of aspect and 

 custom, and their complete refusal of assimilation to other 

 peoples. Still as ever, in accordance with the prophetical 

 words, they " dwell alone " and are " not reckoned among the 

 nations." But Jewish history is inseparable from Jewish litera- 

 ture. The Jews have been the most vigilant custodians of then- 

 own sacred books. They have literally guarded every jot and 

 tittle of them all. They have gladly endured persecution, 

 martyrdom, rather than compromise the authority or the sanctity 

 of those books. Let their adherence to the Sabbath Day, to 

 the Passover, and to the distinction between clean and unclean 

 meats be my witness. I sometimes think that God has provi- 

 dentially kept the Jewish nation alive, that it may by its very 

 existence confirm the substantial truth of the Old Testament. 

 For if the literature of Judaism falls, what is the truth of the 

 Jewish people? If there was no migration of Abraham, no 

 sojourn in Egypt, no conquest of the land which is called holy 



