To the last
the priests preserved this doctrine and taught it privately to a select
few." ("Amer. Encycl.," vol. vi., p. 463.) The Jews took up this great
truth where the Egyptians dropped it, and over the beads and over the
ruins of Egypt, Chaldea, Phoenicia, Greece, Rome, and India this handful
of poor shepherds--ignorant, debased, and despised--have carried down to
our own times a conception which could only have originated in the
highest possible state of human society.
And even skepticism must pause before the miracle of the continued
existence of this strange people, wading through the ages, bearing on
their shoulders the burden of their great trust, and pressing forward
under the force of a perpetual and irresistible impulse. The speech that
may be heard to-day in the synagogues of Chicago and Melbourne resounded
two thousand years ago in the streets of Rome; and, at a still earlier
period, it could be heard in the palaces of Babylon and the shops of
Thebes--in Tyre, in Sidon, in Gades, in Palmyra, in Nineveh. How many
nations have perished, how many languages have ceased to exist, how many
splendid civilizations have crumbled into ruin, bow many temples and
towers and towns have gone down to dust since the sublime frenzy of
monotheism first seized this extraordinary people! All their kindred
nomadic tribes are gone; their land of promise is in the hands of
strangers; but Judaism, with its offspring, Christianity, is taking
possession of the habitable world; and the continuous life of one
people--one poor, obscure, and wretched people--spans the tremendous
gulf between "Ptah-hotep" and this nineteenth century.
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