Page:Logic Taught by Love.djvu/162

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158
Logic Taught by Love

to European races! They are as essentially worshippers of a tribal God as the savages whom they would convert.

Nor are Jews guiltless of this form of idolatry. No Bismarck or Stoecker could stir up epidemics of anti-Semitism, were the Jews, who fidget over little details of rule, equally true to the essential canons of their faith! The way in which too many Jews trust to "Jehovah" to protect them from the natural consequence of their own actions, is as idolatrous and heathenish as is the trust of a Catholic peasant that his own special saint will keep his family in health, while he neglects common precautions of hygiene and morality. The "God of Israël" which many Jews worship is essentially an eidolon or image of character evolved within the Jewish mind. Some entirely ignore that Jehovah is race-preserver of other races, and that therefore all knowledge of hygienic rules discovered by Gentiles should form part of the religion of Jews. They neglect to worship God as Elohim or Creator, therefore they despise the marvellous new knowledge which He is pouring out, about the effect of the lower creatures on man, and of human beings on each other. And when trouble comes to them, in consequence of such ignorance, if any preacher speak to them of God as Adonai, the purifier by suffering, the inspirer by love, they turn away either in anger or in contempt. Thus they make of themselves what in medical language is called a "foreign body" in the general commonwealth; and their private virtues, and family piety, and loyalty to the tribal God of Israel are unavailing to prevent their being felt to be a danger to the State.

Idolatry, therefore, is not at an end in Europe, among