cradle: individual liberty, parliamentary institutions, the sovereign
rights of the people, are ideas of British origin, and have been
propagated from this island over the whole of Europe. But as the
prophet and his words are very often not honoured in his own country,
those ideas have been embraced with much more fervour by other nations
than by that in which they originated. The Continent of Europe has
taken the desire for liberty and equality much more seriously than
their levelling but also level-headed inventors, and the fervent
imagination of France has tried to put into practice all that was
quite hidden to the more sober English eye. Every one nowadays knows
the good and the evil consequences of the French Revolution, which
swept over the whole of Europe, throwing it into a state of unrest,
shattering thrones and empires, and everywhere undermining authority
and traditional institutions. While this was going on in Europe, the
originator of the merry game was quietly sitting upon his island
smiling broadly at the excitable foreigners across the Channel,
fishing as much as he could out of the water he himself had so
cleverly disturbed, and thus in every way reaping the benefit from the
mighty fight for the apple of Eros which he himself had thrown amongst
them. As I have endeavoured above to draw a parallel between the
Germans and the Jews, I may now be allowed to follow this up with one
between the Jews and the English. It is a striking parallel, which
will specially appeal to those religious souls amongst you who
consider themselves the lost tribes of our race (and who are perhaps
even more lost than they think),--and it is this: Just as the Jews
have brought Christianity into the world, but never accepted it
themselves, just as they, in spite of their democratic offspring, have
always remained the most conservative, exclusive, aristocratic, and
religious people, so have the English never allowed themselves to be
intoxicated by the strong drink of the natural equality of men, which