Discipline
ity and our seriousness. The fact is, of course, that in true discipline, in effectiveness, we are by no means your inferiors. No one would dream of asserting that our religion is not more effective than yours in compelling obedience, or in perpetuating itself. The mere fact that we have persisted for eighty generations in maintaining a racial and spiritual identity in the face of so much persecution (and, more significant, of so much infiltration of blood) bespeaks essential discipline of amazing rigor and power. Disorganized as we are, we have outlived the most ably organized nations. We have failed to imitate the Roman legion or the Order of Jesus: we have survived the first and shall no doubt outlive the second. We have not your skill, your German, or English, or American skill in wheeling perfectly vast masses of perfectly subordinated men. Yet I have no doubt that when Germany and England and America will long have lost their present identity or name or purpose, we shall still be strong in ours.
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