'
'But what dost thou worship?'
'What is worship?'
'Adoration due from the creature to the Creator.'
'Which is he?'
'Our God.'
'The God of Israel?'
'Even so.'
'A frail minority, then, burn incense to him.'
'We are the chosen people.'
'Chosen for scoffs, and scorns, and contumelies. Commend me to such
choice.'
'We forgot Him, before He chastened us.'
'Why did we?'
'Thou knowest the records of our holy race.'
'Yes, I know them; like all records, annals of blood.'
'Annals of victory, that will dawn again.'
'If redemption be but another name for carnage, I envy no Messiah.'
'Art thou Jabaster's brother?' 'So our mother was wont to say: a meek
and blessed woman.'
'Lord Honain, thou art rich, and wise, and powerful. Thy fellow-men
speak of thee only with praise or fear, and both are cheering. Thou
hast quitted our antique ark; why, no matter. We'll not discuss it. 'Tis
something; if a stranger, at least thou art not a renegade. The world
goes well with thee, my Lord Honain. But if, instead of bows and
blessings, thou, like thy brethren, wert greeted only with the cuff
and curse; if thou didst rise each morning only to feel existence to
be dishonour, and to find thyself marked out among surrounding men as
something foul and fatal; if it were thy lot, like theirs, at best to
drag on a mean and dull career, hopeless and aimless, or with no other
hope or aim but that which is degrading, and all this, too, with a keen
sense of thy intrinsic worth, and a deep conviction of superior race;
why, then, perchance, Honain might even discover 'twere worth a struggle
to be free and honoured.
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