Page:Zawis and Kunigunde (1895).djvu/26

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22
THE CAMP

leum, at Odessa and Jerusalem, have perished from want on their own land and in their own homes, while the tonsured spoiler of their substance reveled in luxury and wantonness in those rich valleys which the unreasoning fanaticism of their possessors left deserted, to be the spoil of the grasping hierarchy that remained. No more cunning and daring plot for the plunder of princes and kingdoms under the guise of religion has ever been imposed upon mankind.”

The Jew regarded his companion with a thoughtful smile. The outburst of indignant feeling that had just expended itself contrasted strangely with the circumspection that had hitherto marked the pilgrim, as he styled himself.

“My thanks for your confidence, brother; it shall not be abused. I think I could find parallels in other faiths to the cruel greediness you have justly denounced. Perhaps mankind has not yet discovered the Source of Life. And yet the essential constituent of enlightenment necessarily enters into the being of every human soul. Men who dwell ‘on the face of the whole earth’ are not only of one blood, but of an identical mental constitution. From that boundless and eternal unity of power diffused through all the range of being all things are. All the modes of this activity are itself in various manifestations and degrees. The unity of its elements, if there be such, is absolute, and there can be no dependence or coercive force. Power cannot exist without instrumentalities; and those in which it clothes itself