One Jewish quality these Arabs manifest; the outcome of many or of all
high qualities: what we may call religiosity. From of old they had been
zealous worshippers, according to their light. They worshipped the
stars, as Sabeans; worshipped many natural objects--recognized them as
symbols, immediate manifestations, of the Maker of Nature. It was wrong;
and yet not wholly wrong. All God's works are still in a sense symbols
of God. Do we not, as I urged, still account it a merit to recognize a
certain inexhaustible significance, "poetic beauty" as we name it, in
all natural objects whatsoever? A man is a poet, and honored, for doing
that, and speaking or singing it--a kind of diluted worship. They had
many Prophets, these Arabs; Teachers each to his tribe, each according
to the light he had. But indeed, have we not from of old the noblest of
proofs, still palpable to every one of us, of what devoutness and
noblemindedness had dwelt in these rustic thoughtful peoples? Biblical
critics seem agreed that our own _Book of Job_ was written in that
region of the world. I call that, apart from all theories about it, one
of the grandest things ever written with pen. One feels, indeed, as if
it were not Hebrew; such a noble universality, different from noble
patriotism or sectarianism, reigns in it. A noble Book; all men's Book!
It is our first, oldest statement of the never-ending Problem,--man's
destiny, and God's ways with him here in this earth.
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