One of the greatest thinkers of the world was Benedict Spinoza--a Jew,
born at Amsterdam in 1638. He studied medicine, and afterward theology.
He asked the rabbis so many questions, and insisted to such a degree on
what he called reason, that his room was preferred to his company.
His Jewish brethren excommunicated him from the synagogue. Under the
terrible curse of their religion he was made an outcast from every
Jewish home. His own father could not give him shelter, and his mother,
after the curse had been pronounced, could not give him bread, could not
even speak to him, without becoming an outcast herself. All the cruelty
of Jehovah was in this curse. Spinoza was but twenty-four years old
when he found himself without friends and without kindred. He uttered
no complaint. He earned his bread with willing hands, and cheerfully
divided his poor crust with those below. He tried to solve the problem
of existence. To him the universe was one. The infinite embraced the
all. The all was God. According to him the universe did not commence to
be. It is; from eternity it was; and to eternity it will be. He insisted
that God is inside, not outside, of what we call substance. To him the
universe was God.