that showy, ambitious, self-seeking men[1] (if Jews) shall court advancement, either by deserting their church to get on in the Gentile world, or by an affectation of over-strict orthodoxy, by which they hope to win the favour of their own people. Either proceeding is contemptible in itself, but does the church little harm compared to what is done in other churches by showy, vain men playing at Reform. A Jew does not try experiments in Reform unless he is really devoted. The stern Jewish discipline secures for those who are trying social experiments something of the same isolation and quietness as those who are trying experiments in physical science secure for themselves by locking the laboratory door till they have found out what they want to know.
The scientific experiment lasts a few hours; the moral experiment the best part of a lifetime; and it seems hard to be ignored and unnoticed till old age. But no man should expect to sacrifice to the Lord that which costs him nothing. God accepts no sacrifice except that of our best. Whoever aspires to the honour of righting what has got wrong in the ways of a whole people must be content to be that of which the scape-goat was a sign; he must "bear upon him all their iniquities into a land not inhabited," and think and search in solitude as Moses himself did. The true Reformer must always be a man despised and rejected, in whom men see no wisdom; he must be shipwrecked, like Prospero, on a desert island, till he has perfected his methods. Then he can return, to rule the kingdom which is lawfully his own, the thought-realm of the
- ↑ This was written 20 years ago.
