The Jews in ancient, mediaeval and modern times . ter indifference if his lifeis not good. Gold win Smith, in a paper in the Nineteenth Century,in which some injustice is done to the Jewish charac-ter and the facts of Jewish history, declares thatNathan the Wise is an impossible personage, thepure creation of the brain of the dramatist. Lessing,however, as is well known, found the suggestion forhis superb figure in Moses Mendelssohn, and as Ihave given with some detail the facts of the life ofthe grand Israelite, it must have appeared that thereare abundant data for concluding that Lessings Je
The Jews in ancient, mediaeval and modern times . ter indifference if his lifeis not good. Gold win Smith, in a paper in the Nineteenth Century,in which some injustice is done to the Jewish charac-ter and the facts of Jewish history, declares thatNathan the Wise is an impossible personage, thepure creation of the brain of the dramatist. Lessing,however, as is well known, found the suggestion forhis superb figure in Moses Mendelssohn, and as Ihave given with some detail the facts of the life ofthe grand Israelite, it must have appeared that thereare abundant data for concluding that Lessings Jewwas no mere fancy sketch. It may be said, in truth,that the character is exceptional, and that Jews, asthe world knows them, are something quite among the votaries of what creed, pray, wouldnot such a character be exceptional! If exceptional,it is not unparalleled, as we shall hereafter is capable of giving birth to humane andtolerant spirits, even in our time, and such spirits arenot at all unknown in its past CHAPTER XVI. THE MONEY KINGS. In no department at the present day Avill, the con-spicuous ability of the Jew be so readily conceded asin that of business. Whether as great practicaloperators, or as political economists, like Ricardo, noclass of men have so close a hold of both theory andpractice. It seems strange enough to us that trade,in all its various forms, than which no human trans-actions are now considered more honorable andlegitimate, was once held to be disgraceful, to a largeextent unlawful. It was indispensable to the on-going of society, and therefore, of necessity, toler-ated. The agents of business, however, have, for themost part, been held in ill-repute, or at least in lowregard, from antiquity almost to the present day. Says Cicero : Those sources of emolument arecondemned that incur the public hatred ; such asthose of tax-gatherers and usurers. We are likewiseto account as ungenteel and mean the gains of allhired wor
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