Does it stand thus? Independently of their
admirable laws which have elevated our condition, and of their exquisite
poetry which has charmed it; independently of their heroic history which
has animated us to the pursuit of public liberty, we are indebted to the
Hebrew people for our knowledge of the true God and for the redemption
from our sins.
'Then I have a right to be here,' said Tancred of Montacute, as his eyes
were fixed in abstraction on the stars of Arabia; 'I am not a travelling
dilettante, mourning over a ruin, or in ecstasies at a deciphered
inscription. I come to the land whose laws I obey, whose religion I
profess, and I seek, upon its sacred soil, those sanctions which for
ages were abundantly accorded. The angels who visited the Patriarchs,
and announced the advent of the Judges, who guided the pens of Prophets
and bore tidings to the Apostles, spoke also to the Shepherds in the
field. I look upon the host of heaven; do they no longer stand before
the Lord? Where are the Cherubim, where the Seraphs? Where is Michael
the Destroyer? Gabriel of a thousand missions?'
At this moment, the sound of horsemen recalled Tancred from his reverie,
and, looking up, he observed a group of Arabs approaching him, three
of whom were mounted.
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