Page:The spirit of the Hebrew poetry 1861.djvu/138

 it, and the fact of its survivance of each of them in turn. The Jew—such as we now meet him in the crowded ways of European cities—is indeed a mystery insoluble, unless we are willing to accept the Biblical explication of the problem. So understood, we do indeed yield credence to the supernatural; but then, in not yielding it, the alternative is a congeries of perplexities that are utterly offensive to reason.

Taken on the ground of ordinary historical reasoning, the earliest literary remains of the Israelitish people give evidence of a far higher range of the moral and religious consciousness than is anywhere else presented in the circle of ancient literature. The inference hence derivable is not abated in its meaning by the anomalous and remarkable fact—a fact which has no parallel—that these writings, through a great extent of them, take a form of remonstrant antagonism toward the people—toward the masses, and toward their princes and rulers. Those who take upon themselves the unwelcome and dangerous office of administering national rebuke, and of uttering denunciations, are not wont to attribute to their hearers more of intelligence and of right feeling than they find among them. We may believe, then, that there was, in fact, with these hearers that measure of mind and of virtue, the existence of which is fairly to be inferred from the language of these public censors, whose often-recurring phrases are of this order—"Ye are a stiff-