THE SALT OF THE EARTH.
The Jews, as every one admits,
Are all you say, Rabinowitz:
The noblest and the best of races,
Whose kindly hearts belie their faces.
They've made in music, art, and letters
The nations of the world their debtors;
Who can deny it, when they own
A Heine and a Mendelssohn;
Or, in the realm of thought and prose, a
Colossal genius like Spinoza;
Nay—proudest boast of all their nation—
Freemantle as a blood relation?
Then in the Law their work we see:
The Sabbath and the I.D.B.;
In politics, who greater than
Their Beaconsfield or Lieberman?
They'd give the warlike Togo tips
In floating mines and sinking ships;
In fact, there are not any flies
Upon their business enterprise.
All this, my dear Rabinowitz,
The world, as I have said, admits;
In metaphor to state their worth,
"The salt," I'll call them, "of the earth."
Of this same salt I'd like to tell
A useful little parable.
