Page:Sixteen years of an artist's life in Morocco, Spain and the Canary Islands.djvu/43

32 with a rod of iron by the faithful followers of the prophet, they are obsequious and cringing in their conduct and demeanour towards those whom they regard as their masters. Indispensable as the Jew is to the state, and valuable as the services which he can often render undoubtedly are, no injustice is considered too great if its object be one of that humbled and submissive race. The servant of servants must submit to continued degradation, and endure all the afflictions of his unhappy lot, even the most undeserved, without repining. If there were no other cause to keep the Jews distinct and separate as a people from the nations among whom they dwell, the very persecution to which they are so generally subjected is sufficient to account, without considering at present any other influences, for the isolation in which they dwell, and must tend to bind more indissolubly to one another.

It is sometimes said that the Jew has none of the higher aspirations that inspire men of nobler character, that the great object of life with him is merely to amass money, and that so completely has this master passion degraded his character, that so long as gold shines in the distance to tempt him, he will even lick the dust to obtain it. There is doubtless too much truth in this assertion, but is it to be wondered at that things are so; when we remember that all the