Page:You Gentiles (1924) by Maurice Samuel 1895-1972.djvu/31

The Question That is beyond the reach of conscious effort, certainly beyond the reach of the missionary. Change a man's opinions and his nature will soon learn to express itself through the new medium.

This I preface to my observations on the difference between Jew and gentile because I anticipate the commonplace allusion to the similarity of our creeds, to the identity of source and to the origin of the founder of your religion. Christianity (the reality, not the credo) is not a variant of Judaism, whatever Christ or his chroniclers may have intended. Your nature is the same to-day as it was before the advent of Christianity. Within the framework of another creed your instincts would have woven a similar design.

And if not religious, this difference certainly cannot be in the nature of a philosophy or a Weltanschauung. It is true that a man's nature dictates his philosophy and Weltanschauung, even as it does his religion. But we must also remember that our logic is nearly always at variance with our natures: 27