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 The American Jewish pulpit 
 
 A collection of sermons by 
 
 the most eminent American 
 
THE 
 
 AMERICAN 
 
 JEWISH PULPIT, 
 
 A COLLECTION OF SERMONS 
 
 MOST EMINENT AMERICAN RABBIS. 
 
 CINCINNATI: 
 BLOCH & CO., PUBLISHERS AND PRINTERS. 
 
 1881. 
 
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year of 1881, by 
 
 BLOCII & CO., 
 
 in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 
 

 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE. 
 
 Arise and Give Light; or, Judaism and the Jewish Pulpit, 
 
 Rev. Dr. K. Kohler. 1 
 
 Passover Rev. S. Morais. 11 
 
 New Year Rev. George Jacobs. 17 
 
 Israel, a Missionary People Rev. Dr. H. Vidaver. 25 
 
 Simchath Torah ..." Rev. Dr. M, Jastrow. 3] 
 
 A FewThoughts About the Day of Rest, 
 
 PtEY. Dr. S. H. Sonneschein. 41 
 
 Thrice Holy is the Lord Rev. Dr. Benjamin Szold. 5] 
 
 Spirituality of God's Law Rev. I. L. Leucht. 59 
 
 Jewish Ideas Conquer the World, a Shabuoth Sermon, 
 
 Rev. Dr. B. Felsenthal. 07 
 
 The Offering of Isaac Rev. Dr. Max Landsberg. 77 
 
 Moses Spake Truly Rev. Prof. Abraham DeSola. 85 
 
 Spiritual Manhood Rev. Dr. Max Sampield. 95 
 
 The Immortality of the Soul Rev. Dr. James K. Gutheim. 105 
 
 Sermon at the Dedication of a New Sefer Thorah, 
 
 Rev. Dr. M. Schlesinger. 115 
 
 Sermon at the Dedication of a New Burial Ground,' 
 
 Rev. Dr. M. Schlesinger. 121 
 
 Rosh Hashanah Isaac M- Wise. 127 
 
 The Crossing of the Jordan Rev. Dr. E. G. LIirsch. 139 
 
 Religion or no Religion, Yom Kippur Sermon, 
 
 Rev. Dr. Max Lilienthal. 155 
 
 The Festival of the Spring Rev. Isaac S. Moses. 173 
 
 Hanukah Sermon Isaac M. Wise. 185 
 
 Israel's Influence on Civilization Rev. Dr. Falk Vidaver. 191 
 
 Hebrew Monotheism, 1 199 
 
 The Main Lesson of Israel's Sanctuary, I 209 
 
 _, -, ., , T , r Rev. Dr. 1. M. Wise. „ iq 
 
 The I ourth of July, zlJ 
 
 The Word of God, J 227 
 
 Shebouth Rev. Dr. D. Einhorn. 235 
 
 (Translated from Dr. David Einhorn's " Ausgewaehlte Predigten und 
 
 Reden," by permission of Dr. K. Kohler.) 
 
ARISE AND GIVE LIGHT, 
 
 OK, 
 
 JUDAISM AND THE JEWISH PULPIT. 
 
 BY REV. DR. K. KOHLER, 
 
 (Of Temple Beth-El, Xeiv York.) 
 
 Text:— Isaiah ii. 5 and lx. 1. 
 
 Light is the emblem of Judaism. Among all the sacred 
 pieces of the tabernacle the greatest prominence is given in 
 the law to the golden seven-armed candlestick. To keep its 
 lights in purest order and brightness is one of the chief du- 
 ties of the priesthood, suggestive, no doubt, of the diffusion 
 of knowledge of God incumbent on the guardian of the 
 sanctuary. Indeed, Heathendom in general marked religion 
 by the glare of fire, by the sacrificial blaze and smoke whirl- 
 ing up to heaven. To Christendom, too, religion is a hazy 
 mysticism, a blind belief rather than an enlightening and 
 convincing truth. And ask the modern pagan, the atheistic 
 moralist, after the nature of that feeling which prompts man 
 to kneel before a Supreme Being, and he will respond in 
 similar strains : This is all emotion and pathos, a fire within, 
 a steam engine to impel the soul to a right conduct, yet 
 wrongly applied to our thinking faculty. The Jewish religion, 
 on the contrary, presents itself as a light to brighten up the 
 path of man and as a convincing truth to guide him. It 
 desires him to walk in the clear daylight of reason, not in 
 the dim twilight of a misty faith. What the sun is to the 
 earth, God is to spiritual man, the central source of all light, 
 life and progress, whether moral or intellectual. Of course, 
 
— 2 — 
 
 when first rising over a world wrapped in the night of idolatry 
 and vice, the sun of Sinai beamed forth, all draped in crim- 
 son, like the fiery orb on the sky, to consume the host of 
 darkness ; but as it progressed on its triumphant march, it 
 bathed the wide globe in its radiant splendor. Like light, 
 truth wants to spread; so does Judaism. Far, however, 
 from enforcing its world-redeeming doctrines on the sur- 
 rounding world, it casts its seeds of heavenly blessing abroad, 
 waiting for their gradual growth in the hearts of men. Fol- 
 lowing the divine call : "Arise and give light !" it yearns for 
 the day when all nations shall say : " Oh, house of Jacob, 
 come, let us walk in the light of God !" It holds forth its 
 great truths, saying : " Let there be light !" Let the light of 
 God be on nature, on man and on human history, that His ma- 
 jesty may fill heaven and earth ! This is its glorious calling 
 and particularly the privilege of the Jewish pulpit. Let me 
 dwell on these three points to-day. 
 
 God in nature! This is the first stream of light emanating 
 from Jewish revelation. The much-admired wisdom of to- 
 day, that philosophy called positive, because it denies all that 
 can not be grasped by the senses or measured and weighed 
 by chemical analysis, wants to confine religion to the duty of 
 man toward man, leaving God and soul as insoluble prob- 
 lems out of sight. But pray, can we, indeed, shut our eyes 
 to all the beauties of light reflected in myriads of shades and 
 colors on the bold rocks and the luxuriant meadows beneath, 
 on the wings of the butterfly and on the nocturnal sky? Can 
 we cease wondering at the peals of thunder and at the melo- 
 dious notes of yon sweet warblers reaching our ear out of 
 creation's grand chorus? Can we help asking who has 
 vaulted this blue dome studded with so many silver and 
 golden groups of stars? Who has dug these mighty water 
 basins and set those huge rocks against them as dams ? Shall 
 we no longer with Job inquire after the wisdom of the rain- 
 drop and the treasures of the snow? Behold, the universe 
 reveals us the King of Glory ! Who does not crave after a 
 glimpse of the hem of His garment? The melodious har- 
 monies of endless worlds fall upon our ears. Who does not 
 
long to catch a tunc of these wondrous symphonies? To 
 perceive this majestic order of wisdom and beauty is to revere 
 and to adore, not the blind cosmos, nor the primordial matter 
 but the Sublime Mind who arranged all this with a spirit 
 akin, though infinitely superior, to ours. Be not deceived by 
 the idiotic assertion: This is all nature's action, the work 
 of law. For what is law but divine wisdom's rule? Through 
 Jewish monotheism alone the mighty empire of law has been 
 established throughout the universe. Heathenism saw but 
 force and chance everywhere. Even the God conceived of by 
 its philosophers of India and Greece lacked self-consciousness 
 and freedom, forming only the uppermost scale in the range 
 of beings. Only a God, at whose bidding nature rushed 
 into life, could set boundaries to the sea and the snow-flake, 
 fixing for man and star their course according to one har- 
 monious plan. Only the Jewish idea of God is compatible 
 with reason and science, and, while it illuminates the majestic 
 temple of nature, it also casts its rays on the holy of holies r 
 where in darkness and awe faith alone spreads its Cherub 
 wings to bear witness of God's presence. 
 
 There is no more than one truth in heaven and earth, for 
 heart and brain. This conviction led the rabbis of the Tal- 
 mud and the Jewish philosophers of Alexandria, Persia and 
 Spain ever to blend reason and faith, to harmonize the bib- 
 lical miracle stories with the unchangeable laws of creation. 
 And we to-day dare break away from the holy ground of 
 revelation, because our insight into the world's process of 
 formation and order of beings has grown deeper and clearer 
 ever since. Ought we not rather to sing the psalms of David 
 tuned to more majestic organ-peals? Ought we not to read 
 the grand poetry of Job and the sublime prose of Genesis 
 with greater rapture, as, bewildered by the great spectacle of 
 wheels within wheels and lives upon lives strewn along the 
 infinities of time and space, the soul conies back with a cry 
 for the Father whose footsteps it traced everywhere, but 
 whose face it failed to see? Yes, we welcome the light cast on 
 God's creation by modern research. Religion, being itself light, 
 can as little be consumed by any light of knowledge as, to use a 
 
— 4 — 
 
 rabbinical metaphor, the fiery salamander can by fire. Let the 
 shallow-pated be dazzled by the torch of science ! Let the 
 fool curse the sun, because the feeble-eyed can not stand its 
 sight ! Shall God withhold the light of clay, because some wor- 
 ship it as their god? No. Reason, our armor and our lantern 
 on our victorious campaign against old heathenism, will also 
 force modern paganism to surrender at last. Superficiality 
 of knowledge leads to atheism, says the English thinker ; 
 true enlightenment ushers man into the presence of God, the 
 fountain-head of all light and wisdom. Now, it is, as it ever 
 was, the privilege of the Jewish pulpit to let this sacred 
 truth shine forth in all its captivating luster, not as buried 
 in old venerable books, but as bright and fresh as the crystal 
 water flowing forth from the rock. Forsooth, we can not 
 live in air stored up deep down in the earth by ages past, 
 nor by the sunshine closeted in coal beds thousands of 
 years ago. We want the healthy air and cheering sunlight 
 of the day. How can we expect that a religion made ours 
 only by the chance of birth and education will offer us real 
 comfort and hope, unless it be the very substance and mar- 
 row of our own feelings and thoughts and aspirations? If 
 we are to take shelter under Israel's Rock of Ages, commit- 
 ting to Him all our cares and burdens, we must realize, that 
 He who spoke to Moses and Elijah through the fire and fed 
 and clothed our fathers in the wilderness is still with us to- 
 day, revealing himself in the wonders of creation, providing 
 all our wants, guiding us through all perplexities and respond- 
 ing from on high to all our cries from the deep. Doubt and 
 error must flee before the presence of the benign Ruler, on 
 whose bosom the soul may expect to find rest and peace. 
 Religion must be, like nature, an actual revelation of God, 
 ever true and fresh, striking and enrapturing. Hence it fol- 
 lows that, in order to inspire, the preacher of God's word 
 must be inspired. He must keep within the full sweep of 
 the ruling ideas of the age, and with eyes wide open to the 
 views and achievements of the surrounding world, imbibe 
 the invigorating mountain air of freedom and still feel within 
 his breast the electric current of the past, the warm pulse of 
 
history running through all the centuries. He must, in order 
 to offer religion as a living power, ever try to keep pace with 
 the rapid progress of the time ami yet burn with unabated 
 zeal and reverence for the undying teachings of the Jewish 
 seers and rabbis of yore, on which the souls of his hearers 
 are to be fed, their hearts inflamed, their minds enlightened. 
 A glorious task, indeed, yet how difficult, how much beset 
 w T ith obstacles and dangers ! How impossible without sin- 
 cere humility and prayer for God's gracious help ! 
 
 II. 
 
 And the second flood of light streaming forth from Judaism 
 to lighten up the dark recesses of the heart and the various 
 avenues of the brain is the revelation of God in man. God 
 is the Father, man the son ; God the sun of truth and right- 
 eousness, man's soul a spark of His rays. God the fountain 
 and ideal of all that is, man the image and outflow. This is 
 the basis of all ethics, the master-key to all philosophy. 
 Science may succeed in explaining some part or other ; this 
 explains the whole of man. Many a noble trait and faculty 
 was, no doubt, roused and cultivated in man by this and 
 that religion ; Judaism alone accorded to him his full dig- 
 nity by placing him in the center of creation and investing 
 him with the scepter and mantle of royalty, with the nobility 
 of heaven-born freedom and immortality. It beholds in the 
 human soul a lamp, in which God's light shines, fed on earthly 
 life, but radiating now His infinite wisdom and then glowing 
 as a live coal from the divine empyrean of love. Language 
 and art, religion and morals, philosophy and science, only 
 reflect the bright central orb hidden to mortal eye^. And 
 the contrast of truth and error, of right and wrong, of beauty 
 and ugliness, of happiness and misery, shows merely the 
 polarization of light, the prismatic shades of the divine, 
 the battle within us between earth and heaven, between 
 God and the brute. All the black spots and shortcom- 
 ings we see are only in our own eyes ; for we stand on a 
 small island and still feel that ours is the shoreless ocean. 
 
— 6 — 
 
 Our foot rests on earth and vet we feel drawn up toward 
 the center of numberless worlds. And what is the most 
 precious jewel in the diadem of our law. all men are 
 children of light ; none is doomed to everlasting darknes s 
 Of course, the heart ever mirrors the world above, as the lake 
 does the sky overarching it. A world divided between good 
 and evil powers rends the human soul in twain; a par- 
 tial and local God rendered humanity also partial and local. 
 Humanity as a unit was cradled only in the confines of 
 Judea. The light which rose in Abraham reflected new glory 
 on the whole human race. All the differences between a 
 Noah and an Abraham, between a Balaam and a Moses, be- 
 tween a Buddha and an Isaiah, between Gentile and Jew, 
 or between a Negro and a Caucasian, are merged in the name 
 Man. To strive for the good and the right, to subdue the 
 beast and let the spirit of God rise, is to win the prize of 
 eternity; and each human struggle for independence and 
 greatness, the life and property, the household, the honor and 
 happiness of each member of society, is marked as holy unto 
 God by the seal of religion. 
 
 Now. friends, is there any truth by which this Sinaitic doc- 
 trine about man can be superseded and obscured? As well 
 may the bright sun some day be eclipsed by any new light 
 of human invention. No, never will man be robbed of his 
 crown of divine nobility; never will he allow himself to be 
 ranked among baboons and chimpanzees. Darwinism, so far 
 as it renders the world an interaction of mere mechanic 
 forces, tends, like socialism, its twin brother, to glorify the 
 struggle not for right, which is celestial, but for might, which 
 is brutal. Amid the all-leveling tendencies of our age self 
 has become the watchword. It means rebellion against God 
 and the world. It drives the conceited thinker into pestifer- 
 ous atheism, the reckless, discontented citizen into ruinous 
 Nihilism, and the disappointed lover and money speculator 
 into a suicide's grave. Is there any remedy in a system of 
 morals which either drowns the individual in the State or 
 an international laboratory, or launches him out into the 
 foggy sea of an aimless, God-forsaken world? Only a religion 
 
which regards man not as a mere wheel in the mill, nor as a 
 passing wave in the ocean, but as a child and co-laborer of 
 God ; only a theistic system of ethics which works with the 
 frown and smile of the Eternal, with the threats and promises 
 of a divine justice on the springs and motives of the human 
 will ; only the Sinaitic revelation will guide and save man- 
 kind from shipwreck and misery. 
 
 And of this the Jewish pulpit must be the shining reflector, 
 a beacon to the storm-tossed, to rescue the one from the 
 whirlpool of a deceptive science and the other from the dan- 
 gerous cliff of exclusive church dogmatism. In order to 
 prove a stanch defender of man's greatness, the modern 
 Jewish preacher must, while comparing the spirit of past 
 ages with that of our own, point out ever anew the match- 
 less luster of Jewish morals, their constant progress with 
 and their controlling influence on civilization. Above all, 
 he must recognize and show, that "HX mini im'O 1J the religious 
 forms and statutes are but the frail lamp of the age, made to 
 nourish the light of all ages in the human breast. And in- 
 stead of yoking people to a ritualism and ceremonialism 
 which have lost hold on their minds, he must, like the 
 prophets of old, emphasize the eternal moral laws, the rules 
 of conduct written with the divine finger on the tablets of 
 the human heart as the kernel and essence of revelation. He 
 must herald the true religion of humanity. And, indeed, it 
 requires all the earnestness and unbending firmness of the 
 holy seers of old, the boldness and uncompromising zeal of 
 an Elijah and Isaiah, to be in these days a builder-up 
 of characters, a teacher and monitor of virtue and holiness, 
 a restorer of the old paths of integrity and righteousness, in 
 an age addicted to greed and passion to become a repairer of 
 breaks, a regainer of souls for God and His truth ! 
 
 III. 
 
 And last, but not least, is the ray of light shed by Judaism 
 on the path of human history. The idea of progress, though 
 modern in its phrase, is of Jewish extraction. As the rabbis 
 
— 8 — 
 
 say, the Creator's word, "Let there be light !" pointed to the 
 great Messianic aim and ideal. It suggested an ever-rising 
 day of truth and justice. Of course, Heathendom, unaware 
 of a great Designer and a harmonious plan of the world, 
 could not well look for a great common end in the future. A 
 world grown by chance must needs fall a prey again to 
 chance. Without a God as its Ruler the beautiful cosmos 
 necessarily ends in eternal night and chaos whence it came, 
 in dismal Nirwana. Only the Jewish prophets, watching 
 amid the downfall of nations the steady rise of Israel's glori- 
 ous heritage, the knowledge of the one and holy God, detected 
 the standard with which the world's moral and intellectual 
 progress was to be measured. Before their eyes there loomed 
 up the kingdom of the God of righteousness and love, to 
 which all lands and ages were to contribute their share while 
 toiling and working for the beautiful, the good and the true. 
 In Mount Zion they beheld the lofty goal of humanity, on 
 the altar of which all nations offered their manifold gifts as 
 a token of homage to God, their common King and Father, 
 while Israel, the first-born, was to serve as the temple's guar- 
 dian, the bearer of the promise, as witness of God's covenant 
 with the entire human family. True, this inspiring hope of 
 a Messianic kingdom did in the garb of national expecta- 
 tions, under the disguise of personal and sectarian dreams 
 and visions, bring many sad disappointments and sorrows 
 upon mankind, and particularly on Israel, its heaven-sent 
 apostle, its heroic priest and martyr. Nevertheless, in creat- 
 ing world-conquering religions, it scattered the seeds of truth 
 abroad. It established great centers of light to unite the 
 race. And when this light had in the hands of Christianity 
 grown into a scorching hell-fire to consign the larger majority 
 of the world to eternal doom, the Jewish people, at the price 
 of their own precious blood, held aloft the light of divine sal- 
 vation as a promise for undivided mankind, securing eternal 
 salvation to all righteous and good of whatever race or re- 
 ligion. Nor have they worked and waited in vain. Behold, 
 the church walls of intolerant fanaticism are tottering and 
 sinking to-day. Insults offered to Jews or to any other sect 
 
— 9 — 
 
 or race are resented by the governments, the pulpit and the 
 press of the whole civilized world. The common brother- 
 hood of man is established. By bonds of iron and steel, by 
 the interests of commerce and industry, by material and in- 
 tellectual pursuits, the wide world is rendered one. Words 
 of peace and concord are with lightning's speed flashed from 
 one continent to another. But then has human civilization 
 not reached its pinnacle? Has not the day of reason come? 
 What is the use of still carrying the lantern about, needed 
 only during the night which lies behind? Thus the short- 
 sighted crowd shouts forth, taking the dawn of the new era 
 for the midday. Brethren, the struggle is not ended yet ; our 
 mission as watchmen of human civilization is by far not ful- 
 filled. Darkness still prevails round about us. Selfishness 
 casts its large earthly shadow upon the sun of life, interfering 
 between man and man, between nation and nation, between 
 heart and brain, between time and eternity. God, the true 
 bond of union, is not felt. Universal brotherhood, morality 
 and humanity still lack the center and soul, the recognition 
 of God's fatherhood. 
 
 Israelites, we stand for true cosmopolitan humanity to- 
 day as we ever did! Are you ashamed of the name Jew? 
 It means the guardianship of mankind's highest truths. Let 
 prejudice never so fiercely scorn and blast it ! Let apostasy and 
 skepticism never so haughtily belittle it ! Our storm-beaten 
 but never-surrendered flag stands for further rise and progress. 
 Our national priesthood, our Sabbath and historical festival 
 days remain a pledge of that covenant of light and bliss 
 which, including all sects and races, renders the whole earth 
 a mountain of God shining in heaven's everlasting splendor. 
 Oh, how holy, how grand and important is the task of the 
 Jewish minister in this materialistic age of ours to hold this 
 lofty mission of the Jewish people forth as a lamp unto their 
 feet and as a light unto their path ! But it requires pure and 
 sacred oil to keep the golden luminary burning in the sanc- 
 tuary. The oil is not wanting ; it streams forth, as from a 
 wondrous fountain, without ceasing, but the vessels are miss- 
 ing to receive it. The young fail to offer their heart to be 
 
— 10 — 
 
 filled with the divine blessing. Like Rachel of old, the Jew- 
 ish religion to-day cries forth : " Give me children or else I 
 die!" The Jewish pulpit must by all feasible ways and 
 means be brought within the reach of the rising generation 
 and rendered an attractive source of instruction and enlight- 
 enment, awakening thirst for Jewish knowledge in all, young 
 or old, rich or poor, and kindling ardent love and zeal for our 
 great history and mission. It must become a magnetic 
 power of centralization and spiritual elevation to render all 
 our sons and daughters enthusiastic defenders and upholders 
 of our time-honored heritage, true teachers and sincere prac- 
 tices of our religion, a people of priests and prophets. As 
 the sun, in shining upon mount and vale, land and sea, ren- 
 ders tree and flower, stone and water-drop many-colored 
 bearers and .reflectors of its light, so the word of divine 
 revelation says to each and every one : "Arise and give light, 
 for thy light hath come and the glory of Gocl shineth over 
 thee !" Would to God that His help and grace be with my 
 work in your midst, that I may succeed in following this ideal 
 to become a bearer of light and truth, a true priest with 
 lips overflowing with blessing for you each and all, for Israel 
 and humanity. Amen. 
 
AN ADDRESS DELIVERED ON PASSOVER. 
 
 BY REV. S. MORAIS. 
 
 Children of the Patriarchs : — Before we part on this 
 anniversary day of Israel's nativity, let us infuse into each 
 other the warmth of brotherly affection, and add to the re- 
 ligious fervor which our joint thanksgivings have aroused. 
 * * * A short time ago I read a description that enchained 
 my attention against my will. In the Church of the Vatican 
 the late Pope, clothed in a robe which rivaled driven snow 
 in whiteness, crowned with a triple mitre, on which gems 
 resplenclently shone, had mounted up the height of a window 
 whence he might be seen by an anxious throng below. His 
 arms were extended as if eager to hold in a single embrace 
 the Catholic world. All knelt, with upraised countenances 
 to drink in a blessing dealt out at Rome, to be carried to dis- 
 tant lands till it reached the torrid zones and the tropics, for 
 pilgrims of every clime were there. They had come from 
 Abyssinia and from Hayti. They had arrived from where the 
 sun " goeth forth * * * rejoicing like a hero to run a race," 
 and from the spot where it hides itse]f as in a pavillion. Mis- 
 sionaries and propagandists were there. They would catch 
 a word, a look of " God's vicegerent," as a talisman to papal 
 devotees. Chiming bells greeted the scene, organs discoursed 
 intoxicating music, and nature, awakened from her winter 
 sleep, smiled upon that gathering with the radiant smile which 
 spring gives the serene sky of Italy. For it was on Easter 
 Sunday that a stranger gazed upon that scene, conjuring up 
 fancies of a universal faith supremely loved. 
 
 Not far from the Vatican, men who had not bent to receive 
 the apostolic benediction, issued on that Easter Sunday from 
 
— 12 — 
 
 the dens into which ages of proscription had consigned them- 
 Toward those inhabitants of Rome curses had been hurled; 
 yet, they appeared joyful when, dressed in holiday garments ^ 
 they entered a dingy hall. Had the traveler followed their 
 steps and mingled in their assemblies he would have heard 
 weird songs in an Oriental language, hymns that flowed from 
 throbbing hearts which oppression can not crush. He would 
 have seen none of the pageantry displayed amid a pantheon 
 of heathen images chiseled in marble, or drawn on canvas and 
 canonized as saints. He would have beheld but two unpretend- 
 ing tablets, the writing of which had served a hapless people as 
 spiritual manna through a wilderness of misery. That morn- 
 ing those sons of Rome, still under Pontifical dominion, cele- 
 brated the birthday of their religious existence — an existence 
 older than St. Peter, more ancient than the seven-hilled city. 
 They solemnized the Passover instituted in Egypt on a night 
 of a divinely-wrought redemption. Priesthood vested in the 
 stock of Aaron had died, but Judaism lived. The Palestinian 
 Vatican — Zion Hill and its turreted temple — had sunk beneath 
 a heap of ruin ; but the people of Judea stood erect in their 
 manhood, to worship the same God who avenged their cause, 
 to keep the same Law which had bid their fathers hold in 
 sacred memory the feast of unleavened bread " at its season 
 from year to year." 
 
 The traveler might then have flung aside the spell laid on 
 his senses by the glitter of pomp and the parade of number. 
 His eyes would have discovered a stirring, a restless vitality 
 in the few who prayed in the gloomy ghetto, and decay in 
 the church surrounded by colonnades of porphyry and colossal 
 figures of gilded bronze ; aye, he would have detected a 
 skeleton attired in an attractive garb. The flesh and bones 
 and sinews which had once covered the compact body had 
 been worn away in the very fire lighted to burn the martyrs 
 of independent thought. 
 
 You remember, my brethren, the story of that Babylonian 
 King who se( up a huge statue of massive gold in the plains 
 of Dura. At the sound of a thousand instruments the 
 glories of that idol were heralded. Woe unto them that did 
 
— 13 — 
 
 not then kiss the ground in humble adoration ! Three men 
 dared disobey. A furnace is made ready, but so fiercely hot 
 that in approaching it the messengers of the royal will, 
 charged to cast in the righteous, become themselves a prey 
 to the devouring flames. In like manner it has happened 
 with the representative of the Church of Rome. The blazing 
 pyre, which reduced to ashes John Huss and Jerome of 
 Prague, Fra Savonarola and Giordano Bruno, consumed the 
 power that thrust them in. The head of that Church saw 
 the power, whilom insuperably strong, wane into a shadow, 
 and he imagined he could yet restore it to its former grandeur. 
 He encircled his person with new charms, bewitching to the 
 credulous masses. He proclaimed himself a divinity in- 
 fallible as God, and from the earthly heaven to which he up 
 lifted his deified-self, launched anathemas against liberty and 
 social progress. 
 
 In vain : mankind mocked the impotent attempt to drive 
 back the tidal waves which roll in the accumulated wealth 
 of long and hard labors — unrestricted knowledge, freedom of 
 speech and freedom of press. Micah's prophecy has been 
 fulfilled : "As in the days of the deliverance from Egypt I 
 will show them marvels." 
 
 How fares now Judaism? you ask it? Why, it lives and 
 thrives under the new regime, because it has nothing to fear 
 from the extension of the domains of thought. When the most 
 searching minds shall have dived into all that is knowable in 
 science and metaphysics, the result will only be a confirma- 
 tion of what Moses taught, From the unity of design in the 
 creation, whether effected in six successive periods or by 
 evolutions, we learn to adore a Creator, the Prime Mover of 
 all that exists, the Omnipotent and Eternal God. Astrono- 
 mers with their improved telescopes, physiologists with 
 their analyses, philosophers with their touch-stones, will 
 never find that Israel's belief is an error, detracting from the 
 honor due to the Supreme, or offensive to reason, and to an 
 inborn sentiment of human dignity. 
 
 But will not the external agencies by which Judaism has 
 preserved that ennobling belief suffer wreck on the sea of 
 
— 14 — 
 
 ever-changing opinions? No, if considered in the spirit of 
 the great Legislator. Thus this festival which sees us gath- 
 ered in solemn convocation is History rehearsing the past 
 and exacting from the monotheistic race a promise of fealty 
 to their one G-od. The bread we eat is a reminder not of a 
 fiction, as the flesh in the eucharist, but of a wonderful epi- 
 sode in our annals. The wine we drink, while inviting our 
 children's attention to that episode, is not the imaginary 
 blood of transubstantiation, but the symbol of a flow of joy at 
 the recollection of an unparalleled salvation. Not of a god 
 that died we preach at this season ; not of a god resuscitated 
 we sing ; our speeches and our psalmodies are dedicated to 
 Him who abides everlastingly. Oh, that we would always 
 shed a halo round Jewish practices ! we would be nearer to 
 truth ; we would keep closer to the main point on which the 
 future of Israel, as the acknowleged teacher of humanity? 
 hinges. 
 
 And, indeed, when I contemplate such scenes as that pre- 
 sented here this morning, my nature, often desponding, grows 
 buoyant with sustaining hopes. I picture to my mind 
 America as the virgin soil in which the ritual system govern- 
 ing Judaism will be regenerated, when the quarter of a mil- 
 lion of Hebrews, destined to increase twofold, shall join 
 hands in brotherly affection to cast in that soil the seeds of 
 union. Union in worship ; union in training the young to 
 prize the language of Holy Writ and give it preference in 
 congregational services ; union in maintaining the Sabbath 
 and holidays, covenanted at Sinai, in sanctifying home by 
 significant ceremonies, lopping off excrescences, but culti- 
 vating the choice branches of the Judaic tree of traditions. 
 Let me tell it without any possible ambiguity. I long for 
 a union which will wisely retain all which tends to strengthen 
 our conviction in the immutability of God's essence; all 
 which recalls the goodness and mercy of the world's Creator, 
 the apostolate of Israel, as harbingers of soul-elevating verities; 
 all that incites deeds of beneficence, that softens hardships 
 and comforts us in distress; but a union which also rejects 
 whatever is the offspring of prejudice and superstition, engen- 
 
— 15 — 
 
 derecl by clanishness resulting from ages of social debasement. 
 That is my aspiration, and you can transform it into a 
 splendid reality. I am not indifferent to the struggle among 
 contending parties in oar religious camp. I rather favor the 
 agitation which discloses activity — a determination to test 
 the soundness of principles. It is by winnowing the grain 
 that the chaff is separated. Perhaps opposite views will 
 finally settle into a universal acceptance of what agrees with 
 our mission and promotes the object of our selection. That 
 which I dread is stagnation, a total stoppage of the current 
 of thought on subjects which concern Judaism and the hap- 
 piness of my people. But your crowded attendance dispels 
 that apprehension. You feel your pulsations beat high 
 for your fathers' faith ; you still love the flock of God's pas- 
 ture. With them you are content to be led into the path 
 that Moses pointed out and the sages leveled and graded. 
 
 The eyes of your European brethren are upon you. If the 
 franchises you can claim do not have the power to wean your 
 hearts away from tenets which our ancestors preserved at all 
 hazards ; if, notwithstanding your free and friendly inter- 
 course with persons of different creeds and denominations, 
 you enter into no entangling alliances with the worshipers of 
 a man-god, be he represented in gilded images or in the out- 
 ward form of church architecture, then you will serve as the 
 ideal which your fellow-believers, enjoying now in part the 
 immunities you vastly possess, will eagerly follow in shaping 
 their future course. But if you evince a wavering disposi- 
 tion or heedlessness,' fatal will be the effect in generations yet 
 unborn in this land and baneful in the extreme to our eman- 
 cipated co-religionists abroad. * * * Oh, no, you will 
 not shame liberty by abjuring faith ! Sinai, Judea, will be 
 the signet by which all shall recognize your names, as men 
 loyal to God, faithful to Israel, while glorying in being called 
 citizens of the American Republic. 
 
THE NEW YEAR 
 
 A SERMON. 
 
 BY REV. GEORGE JACOBS, 
 
 (Minister of the Beth-El Emeth Congregation, Philadelphia, Pa.) 
 
 With the setting of yesterday's sun a new year was 
 ushered into the House of Israel— a new year which is not 
 of human making or establishment, but a new year which 
 brings to our mind the creation of this vast universe and all 
 that is therein contained — a new year which tells us of a 
 Great Creator, who formed every object on which our eye can 
 rest, and all other things in heaven and earth, " which are 
 dreamt not in our philosophy." 
 
 This constant revolution— these perpetual evidences of 
 close and beginning — destruction and renewal must remind 
 us that nothing on earth is stationary or unchangeable. 
 Each returning year sets plainly before us that the wheels of 
 time never cease moving ; they perform their allotted task 
 day by day and year after year, while the transitions which 
 pass before our eyes tell us plainly and unmistakably that 
 there is a Supreme Being who holds in His hand the lines of 
 our existence and measures out to each of us his allotted 
 portion of that line. 
 
 But in celebrating the New Year we are struck with the 
 peculiarity of this day of gathering in comparison with 
 others. Each of the " Festivals of the Lord " has its denned 
 mode of observance, but, apart from sounding the cornet, 
 this is merely Yom Hazikaron, " A Day of Memorial ;" and 
 yet what a wide range is presented before us ! We look back- 
 ward and forward. Recollection will readily present to us, 
 in the past, a busy period filled with an admixture of busi- 
 ness and pleasures, anxieties and cares, joys and sorrows. We 
 
— 18 — 
 
 will note plans formed and pursuits entered upon with avidity, 
 and yet how many of them have been really completed, how 
 many of them have reached the culmination we have ardently 
 desired? Let me ask, dear friends, if you review the past year 
 aright, what proportion of the things that have happened, 
 could have been foreseen or foretold by you, — how many have 
 occurred of which you had not the least expectation? Some, 
 perhaps, have succeeded beyond your anticipations, and a few 
 of you have reaped a rich harvest of hopes fulfilled ; while 
 others, very many others, have met with nought but disap- 
 pointment, realizing most bitter regrets, and are forced to make 
 the acknowledgment, how tardy soever it niay be, that while 
 man was devising the way, Providence was directing the event. 
 
 Well, we may liken ourselves to a traveler proceeding on a 
 long and tedious journey, who pauses, at times, to cast a glance 
 upon the portion he has already accomplished, and seeing the 
 long distance which lieth beyond, resumes his march within- 
 creased celerity and diligence. So, dear friends, in our pas- 
 sage through this world to the unknown beyond, it is the part 
 of wisdom «to look back at what it hath pleased God to dis- 
 pense unto us, and to look forward to His unfailing mercy, so 
 as to be material gainers in resuming the journey. 
 
 The scene of the past is now closed. The tale of that year 
 has been told. We now look forward to that which has just 
 dawned upon us, and what do we behold there? A perfect 
 blank is in view, an unknown expanse presents itself before 
 us. We are, as it were, entering on a new, untried, undiscov- 
 ered country. As each week rolls around, new scenes may 
 open, new objects may engage our attention, new ties may be 
 contracted, new affections may ripen, of which we have now 
 not the slightest idea, — yea, there may be changes at home 
 and abroad, changes among those with whom we mix every 
 day, or in our own domestic circle ; changes which may alter 
 the whole current of our lives and vary all our calculations. 
 New connections, which we are about to form, maybe close at 
 hand, old ones may be gradually being loosened without our 
 slightest knowledge, till the unwelcome truth comes before us 
 in all its pain and anguish. Yes, friends, there is no denying 
 
— 19 — 
 
 the amount of uncertainty which a new year places before us. 
 With all our experience of the past, life and death, prosperity 
 and adversity, joy and sorrow, — all lie in one indistinguish- 
 able mass, where our eye can descry nothing through the ob- 
 scurity that envelops it. 
 
 Now, contemplating this uncertainty in human affairs ; this 
 blindness, so far as the future is concerned, this want of knowl- 
 edge as to what will be the result of our striving, the words of 
 the wise Koheleth, WDV7\ nnn tejpp )bttV bl2 Ultib jnrr no come 
 strikingly before us : 
 
 " What profit hath a man of all his labor, which he labor- 
 eth under the sun?"' Eccl. i. 3. 
 
 Let this be our New Year's reflection, and full of profit will 
 it be to us, if undertaken in the right spirit. 
 
 In secular affairs, the close of one year and the opening of 
 another, generally finds us busy and active. The accounts of 
 the past twelve months have to be carefully looked over ; the 
 various transactions inquired into, profits and losses esti- 
 mated, and the balance struck. This is but a right proced- 
 ure. It is just what a careful and prudent man should do, so 
 as to know his exact position, and be guided in his future 
 transactions. He who does otherwise, and takes no account 
 of his affairs at periodical times, but merely goes on at hap- 
 hazard, would be looked upon not merely as unwise, but as a 
 very unsafe man with whom to have business relations ; while 
 he who looks carefully over his books and notices where he 
 €an safely expend and where he should retrench, commends 
 himself to us, in a commercial point of view, as coming up 
 to the proper standard. This is but an outline of the affairs 
 between man and man. These profits and losses are the 
 worldly ones, which are the result of man's earthly toil, " in 
 
 all his labor which he laboreth under the sun." 
 
 •J 
 
 Now, if we realize the fact that we are something more than 
 mere flesh and blood, that we have been placed highest in 
 the scale of creation, that we have within us an immortal 
 soul, which evidences that we have been fashioned after the 
 image and likeness of the Divine Artificer, then we must 
 
— 20 — 
 
 readily acknowledge that as we are accountable to each other 
 for some of the various transactions of life, we are, to a greater 
 extent, accountable to God for all the transactions of life. 
 
 Your very presence here this day is an admission, full and 
 complete, that you recognize in Deity " the King of Justice ;" 
 that is to say, that although it has been asserted that accord- 
 ing to the doctrines of our holy faith, final judgment will not 
 be pronounced till the grave has closed over us and we have 
 entered the gates of eternity ; _ still, this day is one of strict 
 accountability to God, who reviews our actions of the past year, 
 and will either " blot out our iniquities " or inscribe them in 
 the book of unfading record, to be finally sealed on the ap- 
 proaching Yom-Kippur. Have you come here, dear friends 
 and fellow-believers, to observe the New Year as it should 
 really be observed? Have you come to make up your accounts 
 with God, to strike the true balance and to realize, in the 
 words of the text, the actual profit of " the labor you have la- 
 bored under the sun? " 
 
 You may be able to point to transactions in the past year in 
 which you have been unsuccessful ; speculations in which you 
 embarked that turned out badly, while, with a glowing heart, 
 you may be able to show your sharpness and acuteness in many 
 others, whereby you have realized largely ; indeed, no matter 
 who has lost, you have gained. But has not experience taught 
 you that such gains often have wings ; that what is made in 
 one year may be lost in the next, and that while it is necessary 
 for a man to have his daily avocations and not to lag behind 
 in the race of life, there are accounts and transactions which 
 should have equally as high a place in his daily affairs? This, 
 too, is a New Year — the old one has recently closed and an- 
 other dawned. This Yom Hazikaron is no time set by man, 
 but is from God, God who created us and all things around 
 us. Will you do less in religious than in secular affairs? 
 Will you not compute your accounts mentally, think of the 
 result of your labors and strike the true balance? This is the 
 real object of the day of memorial, and how painful soever 
 may be the retrospect, how full of sorrow for our short-com- 
 ings, yet must we enter faithfully upon the duties I have 
 
— 21 — 
 
 pointed out to you, if we desire to observe this day in the 
 spirit of its institution. 
 
 The balance, I repeat, must be struck, and we will see plainly 
 that too many of us, who have dealt fairly and squarely with 
 our fellow-men, have been defaulters in our transactions with 
 God. We have been intrusted by Him above with a certain 
 amount of " capital " in life, health, energy, intelligence and 
 circumspection. We have been supplied with these means 
 when we have been in sore need of them day after day, and 
 have had an undying light to show us the wa}' we must go. 
 What return have we made for these things? Some can point 
 with pride to their balance sheet and show the good they have 
 done on earth, the bleeding wounds they have stanched, the 
 tottering limbs they have sustained, the naked they have 
 clothed, the hungry they have fed, the despondent they have 
 cheered, the ignorant they have educated and the religion they 
 have upheld, — all of which have been duly placed to their 
 credit by the Great Accountant Above, " who glanceth not at 
 externals," but " looketh into the innermost recesses of the 
 heart " and understandeth its every emotion. 
 
 But there are many who make a fair show before the world 
 and stand in good credit, who are far behindhand with Deity 
 when this secret account is called up. How many have built 
 up their earthly substantiability on the ruin of others' for- 
 tunes, good names and expectations? How many transactions 
 that have been kept within the strict bounds of the law have 
 been far from equitable? How many have thrown away dol- 
 lars for trash who have begrudged cents for God and His wor- 
 ship, while there are hosts who are ready to fulfill the demands 
 of their neighbor, but who will not in gratitude give anything 
 or make any sacrifice on the altar of faith? Is year after year 
 to roll around, and although we are advancing with rapid 
 strides to " the place appointed for all living," are we to be as 
 inconsistent in our actions and take no steps to place our- 
 selves in better condition with our Maker? Shall Israel, the 
 race intrusted with the promulgation of God's laws and ordi- 
 nances, be the very people to disregard them? Shall we con- 
 tinue, week after week, to tell our children, " This is the Law 
 
22 
 
 which Moses set before the children of Israel," and " which 
 man shall perform and thereby live," and yet give the lie to 
 what we utter? Shall we come here year after year and ac- 
 knowledge God as the Judge of mankind, that all our actions 
 pass in review before Him, and that it is our bounden duty 
 to make the three great principles, " Penitence, Prayer and 
 Benevolence," the three pillars on which our moral and spir- 
 itual edifice is to be erected, while at the very moment we are 
 uttering the words with apparent sincerity, we know we have 
 no intention of heeding them? 
 
 There is a cry for a change on all sides. We do need a 
 change — a most vital change in many respects, and no one ad- 
 mits it in more truth and sincerity than I do, but while we 
 regard the shell, let us not forget the kernel ; while endeavor- 
 ing to beautify and adorn the casket, let us not underestimate 
 the priceless jewel which lieth within. 
 
 Strike the balance of your heavenly accounts, my dear hear- 
 ers, and see where you really stand. " If peace answereth 
 thee," it is well, but if it does not, then, for God's sake, let this 
 be truly a new year, one wherein you will honestly endeavor 
 to lay by things to your credit, to pay the Almighty His just 
 due, and permit the recording angel to inscribe much in your 
 favor in the Book of Heavenly record. 
 
 While we are taught by our sages that "man is judged 
 daily," yet it is an accepted truth that this day our Father in 
 Heaven sits in judgment over those who do not daily com- 
 mune with themselves and who turn a deaf ear to the warn- 
 ings of conscience, while it is a land mark in the course of our 
 earthly pilgrimage. 
 
 Shall we not take advantage of a day so benificently ac- 
 corded to us, to wipe out all our shortcomings in the past by 
 being at once prepared for the Kippur, which will, by the bless- 
 ing of God, soon be with us? Shall we not endeavor to make 
 the open book, whose pages are blank before us, be inscribed 
 with acts and deeds to our credit, and gain for us a reward 
 from On High which can never be lost, which can never perish? 
 
 Oh, let us strive to make this New Year different from past 
 ones ; let us be animated with the spirit of true religion, which 
 
23 — 
 
 consists not in the length of our orisons, the vehemence of our 
 tones nor the volubility of our utterance ; let us vow to " do 
 justly, to love mercy and to walk humbly before our God," to 
 enter on a coufse of true penitence, heartfelt prayer and deeds 
 of benevolence ; then, when our last hour on earth has arrived, 
 and the trump of recall to our true home has been sounded, 
 we will truly realize u what is the actual profit of a man's la- 
 bor, which he laboreth under the sun." 
 
ISRAEL A MISSIONARY PEOPLE. 
 
 SABBATH "SACIIOR" SERMON. 
 
 BY REV. DR. H. VIDAVER, 
 
 'Of San Francisco, Gal.) 
 
 Tbxt:— Exodus, cap. 17. v. 11. " And it came to pass when Moses lifted up his 
 hand, and Israel triumphed." 
 
 On the Sabbath preceding the Feast of Purim we read, ac- 
 cording to time-honored custom, the narration of Amalek's 
 brutal attack upon Israel, and Israel's triumph over Amalek. 
 This is a very significant custom. It is not merely a mean- 
 ingless calling into mind of an event that since thousands of 
 years had been buried in the gulf of oblivion, but it is rather 
 an indispensable keeping alive of an idea which underlies that 
 very event and which penetrates the whole long and wonder- 
 ful career of our people, from the time of their redemption 
 from Egypt's thraldom to this very day ; and which will per- 
 vade our life and constitute our main destiny on earth until 
 that day will arrive when : 
 
 " God's temple will be all space, 
 
 His altars, earth, sea and skies; 
 
 One chorus all mankind will raise, 
 
 To one God, the All-loving and All-wise! " 
 
 It was and is the idea of Israel's struggles ; implying the 
 struggles against Amalek, that is against " Idolatry " in all 
 shapes and manners; against inhumanity in all ways and 
 forms. It was and is the idea of Israel's triumphs, implying 
 the triumph of truth, the triumph of a pure faith in the 
 " Unity" of God and the moral elevation of the human race. 
 An explanation given by the ancient sages of the Mishnah 
 to our text presents to us in the brightest light the whole scope 
 
— 26 — 
 
 and nature of Israel's contests and Israel's victories. "What/ 7 
 ask the rabbis, "does it mean : that when Moses lifted up his 
 hand Israel triumphed ? " nonSo nmvj» us mciy n^D Sk> rT *31 
 Did the issues of the war depend upon the lifting up of Jbhe 
 hands of the Prophet? Certainly not, is their answer, but it 
 signifies the glorious fact that so long as Israel will be in an 
 uplifting attitude, having his heart and mind directed heaven- 
 ward, triumph will surely be his in all climes and all times. 
 fcTOJn 2JH im SnJ ill This is a glorious word spoken by 
 the ancient rabbi ; it is fully verified by the divine testimony 
 of history. 
 
 My friends, a glance through the wide vista of our check- 
 ered annals will satisfy every unbiased mind that Israel 
 was appointed by an All- wise Providence to be for all times 
 " a kingdom of priests," that is a missionary people among the 
 children of man. It was and is the will of God that through 
 Israel His divine light of pure faith should be dispensed 
 among the human kind ; that through Israel the blessings of 
 truth should be ministered to the human family at large ; in 
 brief, it was and is the will of God that, through the agency 
 of the Jewish people, mankind should gradually abandon their 
 idolatries and become converted to the true faith. But no one, 
 knowing the spirit of Judaism, could for a moment suppose 
 that Israel's destiny to convert mankind was ever to be car- 
 ried out by dint of aggressive and warlike means; by acts of 
 coercion or persecution, by the use of burning racks or hiss- 
 ing stakes. Nor will any one, knowing the true aim of Juda- 
 ism, suppose that Israel's duty was or is to obtrude his Thora 
 upon any one belonging to another race; to go on highways 
 and byways and preach his faith •' to every creature." No, 
 No! Israel's mission was rn ver to convert mankind into Ju- 
 (Iti/sni. i. < .. to bring over non-Israelites to the folds of the 
 synagogue, to cause non-Jews to share the peculiar duties and 
 obligations devolved upon Israel as such ; as the people of 
 the "distinct covenant :" no, bul it was and is Israel's taskto 
 convert mankind to thi idea of Judaism. It was and is Israel's 
 duty to help in the uplifting of the human mind to the Pisgah- 
 
heights of the purest coneeption of the Deity as One absolute 
 Godhead, and the uplifting of the human heart to the blessed 
 conception of humanity as the broadest, most comprehensive 
 principle of love. 
 
 Oh, friends, only such as aspire to convert others to their 
 sectarian churches, the offspring of their narrow minds ; only 
 those that are striving to see others embrace their dogmatic 
 creeds, the outcome of their own beclouded brains, will over- 
 step the boundaries of reason,- and their zeal will soon deepen 
 into the blackest bigotry and fanaticism, and will soon have 
 recourse to weapons deadly and persecutions infernal, and 
 deal damnation to each they deem their opponent. The ty- 
 rant of all times has but one motto : *WDEX1 ^K " I am, 
 and no one shall be besides me," hence the tyrant's furious 
 zeal for absolute power and aggrandizement ; hence his rest- 
 less suspiciousness, his impatience of opposition or contradic- 
 tion, and hence his inhumanity and barbarity. " I and none 
 else " has been the motto likewise of church tyranny. The 
 priestly tyrant, like the imperial despot, must needs become 
 impatient, suspicious, oppressive and barbarous. " Outside of 
 the Islam there is no hope," was the tyrannical cry of Moham- 
 medanism, hence the sword became its means of conversion. 
 " Extra ecclesiam nulla salus": — outside of the Church there is 
 no salvation, was the motto of the Christian Church, hence 
 its infernal instruments of conversion ; hence its bloody in- 
 quisitions and hellish tribunals of conscience; hence all the 
 curses of the Middle Ages — the legitimate offspring of Church 
 tyranny, which was nothing but the natural outcome of 
 mean-spirited sectarianism ; a monster that knows no rest, 
 no peace ; it must, Amalek-like, pounce upon helpless inno- 
 cence and seek its destruction. 
 
 But, npJT pbn nSx3 xS " such was never nor can ever be, 
 the portion of Jacob." Israel was and is a missionary people 
 in the holiest sense of the word. Israel's mission was not to 
 propagate dogmatisms, or the peculiarl&ws of the synagogue ; 
 his mission was not to gain votaries to the distinctive cove- 
 nant of his race, and thus to increase numerically the adher- 
 ents to this or that form of worship ; but his manifest destiny 
 
— 28 — 
 
 was and is to gain adherents to the glowing idea of the pur- 
 est faith in the absolute unity of God and votaries to a pro- 
 gressive and an all-embracing humanity. The blood flowing 
 in the heart of the Jew needs no admixture of that of any 
 other race in order to increase its current. Numerically we are 
 forever to be DWn S)3B DV£ u the smallest of all people," but 
 spiritually we are always to be D^n ^D bv }^V " superior to all 
 nations. ,? 
 
 The -Jew was and is to be a missionary among mankind, not 
 to disseminate the dogmatic doctrines of a religious sect, but 
 to teach an all-embracing faith ; the Jew is to be the mission- 
 ary, not of a peculiar church, but of a common humanity. 
 Hence, while the followers of fanaticism used means of de- 
 struction to encompass their despotic ends, Israel was told 
 Ol Sto Sx that through the u spirit " he was to triumph — 
 through the spirit of truth, justice and love which he was to 
 represent and which alone he was to teach and propagate. 
 Never did the prophets of ancient Israel promise in the name 
 of God that the ultimate triumph of Israel would consist in con- 
 verting all nations into the covenant of the flesh and bringing 
 them over to the synagogue, and adopt the Hebrew as their 
 language, but those inspired seers foretold Israel's triumph in 
 seeing the day approach when all mankind will conjointly 
 with Israel acknowledge Adonai as God One. 
 
 Now the question arises, did Israel act up to his missionary 
 calling, and did he help to convert mankind gradually to the 
 pure idea of faith, and the ennobling conception of humanity? 
 Verily, Israel did at all times past live up to his sacred call- 
 ing. True, he never sent out salaried preachers ; he never 
 spread tracts on highways and byways ; he never marred the 
 peace of families by alienating from their fireside some weak- 
 minded members. The Jew never believed in the efficacy of 
 pious cant and sanctimonious and empty words. The Jew as 
 a missionary was silent but active. Not his tongue but his 
 life ; not his lips but his whole being, spoke of God and his law, 
 of love and justice. 
 
 It was, as our rabbi explains our text, Israel's incessant up- 
 
— 29 — 
 
 lifting of his heart heavenward which performed so well his 
 missionary work. It was the Jew's heroic patience in his un- 
 equaled sufferings ; it was his wonderful perseverance in his 
 fiery trials, which could not be considered as anything else 
 but the result of his firm belief in the Holy One, and thus the 
 Jew truly testified in the face of the sun to a pure faith in a 
 Supreme Being. 
 
 Very often did Amalek attack Israel, but whenever Israel 
 lifted up his heart heavenward, being fully convinced that his 
 destiny was like that of the Heavens above, to silently and 
 emphatically relate the glory of God, his triumph and 
 that of his faith was sure. By the rivers of Babylon the poor 
 Hebrew captives were taunted by their idolatrous conquerors, 
 " Where is your God?" Silently the poor Hebrew lifted up 
 his heart heavenward, and triumph was his. When after years 
 of repose in Palestine, the spirit of Hellas rose in fury against 
 the spirit of Judaism, it was not the strength of matter, but 
 that of the spirit of truth, that made Israel triumph. It was 
 the uplifting of the heart heavenward of but a few firm be- 
 lievers in the Holy. One that subdued the idolatrous spirit of 
 Hellas and made Israel's truth radiant in triumphant glory. 
 But even more than this. After the crushing hand of Rome 
 destroyed Israel's nationality and flung Israel down to the 
 ground, and fully believing Israel vanquished forever, and Is- 
 rael's faith blotted out entirely ; all this time Israel was si- 
 lently lifting up his heart heavenward and his faith was tri- 
 umphing. Well might the proud Roman sneer at the audacity 
 of the downtrodden Jew pointing to his banner with the in- 
 scription : Hear, Israel, Adonaiis our God — Adonai is One! 
 Little did the haughty Roman think that this broken-down 
 Jew was silently lifting his heart heavenward and thus de- 
 stroying Rome's temples and altars, and gradually converting 
 the pagan world to Israel's invisible God, the Holy One. 
 
 During the Middle Ages Amalek was relentless in his attack 
 against the Jew, the worshiper of " Adonai Echod." The 
 Amaleks of the Middle Ages appeared in diverse forms. You 
 behold them in the garb of kings, in the holy robes of priests ; 
 you see them as feudal barons, knights and brutish mobs. 
 
— :50 — 
 
 At times you behold them all leagued together against the 
 helpless Jew. To revile, to plunder and torture the Jew, was 
 praised as a Christian duty. But to all the attacks of Amalek, 
 for more than seventeen hundred years, the Jew opposed only 
 his unflinching patience, his unconquerable perseverance and his 
 pure faith. Through the long, dreary night of mediaeval ages 
 Israel silently lifted up his heart heavenward, to his God and 
 his lather's God, the Holy One for whose truth he suffered, 
 fully convinced that so sure as the earth turns upon its axis 
 and sees again the sun, so would the sun of peace smile upon 
 him again. Ancl, thanks to God, Israel triumphed over the 
 Anialeks of the Middle Ages. In the very nature of his strug- 
 gles, namely, in the constancy and patience with which he 
 passed through all those bitter contests ancl terrible ordeals, 
 lay his missionary labors and his glorious triumphs. 
 
 Tortured and reviled, the Jew was still distinguished from 
 his relentless persecutors by the regularity of his habits, by 
 the purity of his morals, by the chastity of his domestic hearth, 
 by his diligent industry, by his scholarship and loftiness of 
 faith. His industry triumphed over feudal indolence; his con- 
 stant and pure faith triumphed over the hellish inquisition 
 and barbarous fanatacism ; and his intelligence and intellect- 
 ual pursuits triumphed against the demons of ignorance, 
 Church superstition and moral darkness, that spread their 
 sable folds over king, priest and peasant. 
 
 Thus the Jew was the only true missionary on earth ; his 
 life, his being, his sufferings, his patience, his moral and 
 intellectual labors and active virtues preached God, law, order, 
 love, truth, justice, charity and good will more eloquently than 
 all preachers and missionaries of Christendom ever did, or 
 will ever be able to do. 
 
 My friends, we of the present generation have to continue 
 the missionary labors of our fathers. Let our pure family 
 lives, our honesty and integrity, our purity of faith, be our 
 active missionaries and teach " love and peace " now and for- 
 evermore. 
 
mm n n d e? 
 
 (Simchath Torah.) 
 
 BY KEY. DR. M. JASTROW. 
 
 Sieg ift bie Sbora, bieg bag 2Bort, 
 Sag ©ott ung bat gegeben, 
 
 Safe loir'g betoabren'fort »nb fort ■ 
 tlnb tragen burd) bag Seben ! 
 
 SBetf ouf, Sol! guba, bod) fie auf, 
 Su barfft mtt ©tolj\ fie jetgen, 
 
 ©te tft gefauft urn boben ftauf, 
 Urn fyoben ^reig bein eigen. 
 
 Su gabft fa bjn fiir biefes @ut, 
 2Bag nur ber 9ftenfd) befi^et ; 
 
 ©liid, §abe, ffreibeit, (Sftre,— SBlut 
 §aft bu barum oerfpritjet. 
 
 Sieg ift ba§ l)immlifd)e ^Sanier, 
 Urn bag toir mutbig ftritten, 
 
 llnb taufenb Sobe baben tr-ir 
 Urn bieg Ranter getitten. 
 
 ©ott, unfer £onig,@ott ber 3Jlad)t, 
 Su gabft eg urtfern 2Ibnen ; 
 
 ©ieftnb gefaU'n in mand)er <5d)lad)t, 
 Sod) fjier finb unfre gebnen. 
 
 Sie Mmpfer fanfen urn fie ber 
 2ln SHenge nid)t ju 3ablen ; 
 
 Sod) lief? ber Sieft fid? nitnmermebr 
 3u feigetn SlbfaU quciien. 
 
 ®g quoll SBerberben ringg fyerbor, 
 2Btr fd/toammen burdj bie ^lutben ; 
 
 £ocb. bielten hrir be %aW entt>or 
 2tug Saoaftromeg ©tutfyen. 
 
 2BobJ s Jland)er toarb, in fte gebUUt, 
 
 Sen glammen iibergeben, 
 SBobl Ma ia)er liefe auf biefem ©dbilb 
 
 Surd)bobrt fein tapfreg Seben. 
 
 Ser gein^ fd)ofe ^jSfeile, ^euer, ©ift 
 3jm nte geftillten otreite ; 
 
 2Bir retteten bie ©ottegfd)rift, 
 Sonft 2tUeg toarb jur Seute ! 
 
 Srum beben fair fie freubig auf ; 
 
 2Bir biirfen fiibn fie jctgen, 
 <5ie ift gefauit um fyofyen $auf, 
 
 Um boben ^reig ung e gen. 
 
 Sie £dmfcfe rub'n ; bod) toiirben fie 
 
 3e roieber ung erreia)en, 
 <Sie fotlen'a finben, bafe nrir nie 
 
 SSon unf'rer #abne toeia)en. 
 
— 32 — 
 
 The poem just read is a feeble rendition of a German com- 
 position, called k ' Hagbahah," and refers to the minister's lift- 
 ing up the unfolded scrolls of the Law and calling out HXH 
 minn "This is the Torah which Moses placed before the 
 children of Israel by the command of the Lord." It 
 directly introduces us into the special celebration of this 
 day. which custom has attached to the Festival of Con- 
 clusion, under the appellation of Simchath Torah, or the " Re- 
 joicing of the Law." As you are aware, it is an ancient cus- 
 tom preserved to this day, on every Sabbath to read a portion 
 of the Pentateuch successively, and when the book is gone 
 through, its last portion is read on this festival and at the 
 same time it is commenced anew, as if to indicate that the 
 duty of preserving and studying the Law is a thing of infin- 
 ity, which ends where it commences and commences where it 
 ends. 
 
 For the sake of shortening the service and giving more time 
 to lectures which of late have become an integral part of our 
 devotion, some congregations, reviving an ancient, nearly for- 
 gotten custom, reintroduced the so-called Triennial Cycle by 
 dividing the Book of the Law into about one hundred and 
 fifty successive sections, so that three years are required to fin- 
 ish the book and celebrate the Simchath Torah, which, conse- 
 quently, can not take place but every three years. We, in our 
 congregation — and another one in this city has followed our 
 example— have adopted a somewhat different course, inasmuch 
 as we read on every Sabbath one-third part of the Weekly 
 Lesson of the old arrangement, by doing which we proceed in 
 concert with all our brethren all over the world and avoid the 
 confusion of which innovations frequently are the cause, and 
 finally have the benefit of celebrating the Simchath Torah 
 every year with the rest of our brethren. 
 
 The festival is called The Rejoicing of the LaAV, and indeed 
 the older generation among us, from sight or hearing, recol- 
 lects with what demonstrations of sincere joy that day was 
 celebrated in our devotional communions. It seemed as if 
 the oppressed, tortured, derided, wretched Jew on this day was 
 determined to challenge the hostile world around and give vent 
 
— 33 — 
 
 to a defying hilarity, as if exclaiming, " Ye outside of this, our 
 dark, melancholy, isolated and hidden, place of worship, with 
 all your persecution and hatred and contempt and vexation, 
 3'ou can not rob us of that joy which has its seat in the soul 
 of him who lives in peace with his God ; with all your tor- 
 tures and pyres and deaths you could not make us desert this 
 our banner of freedom ; }^ou could not dispossess us of this 
 treasure." apr n!>np nvnm nm 1^ mv rmri " The Law 
 which Moses commanded us is and will remain the inherit- 
 ance of the congregation of Jacob." All the blithe humor 
 which, it seems, is one of the peculiarities of our race, would 
 break forth on that day of rejoicing, and old and young con- 
 spired in making the place of worship which but a few days 
 back, had been the witness of tears and contritions, a scene 
 of unsurpassed though sacred mirth on the day when the 
 words were read HDO ui? niv rrnn " The Law which Moses 
 commanded us is the inherited possession of the congrega- 
 tion of Jacob." 
 
 Now, my friends, what caused them so to rejoice in the pos- 
 session of a book that had brought on them nothing but mis- 
 ery and wretchedness? 
 
 They rejoiced in the mission that God had laid upon their 
 shoulders, that they should carry it over the world for the bene- 
 fit of the human race. They rejoiced in the possession of a 
 treasure which made them nobler than the princes and nobles 
 that persecuted them, which made them superior to their su- 
 periors and the teachers of their enemies. Whenever we cast 
 a glance at the sufferings which our ancestors endured, with 
 almost superhuman strength, the question forces itself on 
 our mind : Will the Jew of our day, whom we see so busily en- 
 gaged in his worldly pursuits and to all appearances so care- 
 lessly given up to the enjoyment of his present happiness, 
 stand by his faith as firm and unshaken, his holy banner 
 overhead, should persecutions visit him similar to those his 
 forefathers had to encounter? Will not the spoiled child of the 
 bright present cast away the scroll which he may now uplift 
 witli pride and frankly show to all the world, should it again 
 bring disgrace over, him, instead of honor? 
 
— 34 — 
 
 Some may say it is an idle question, since " the combats 
 now rest," and, let us hope, will rest forever. But I say it is a 
 question well worth asking, for it invites self-examination, and 
 self-examination is never an idle dream, but always produc- 
 tive of reform and strength. It is a question which is apt to 
 enhance in our age the value of what we possess, just as a 
 mother will press her child with joy and affection to her heart, 
 when thinking that somebody might attempt to snatch it from 
 her lap. 
 
 And shall I give a conscientious answer? It is my deep- 
 felt conviction that, notwithstanding the apparent indifference 
 to the teachings of our creed prevailing especially among 
 many of our younger generation, who having hitherto tasted 
 but the amenities of youth, have not yet descended into the 
 depths of their own hearts to which life's earnest experiences 
 and visitations invite ; notwithstanding their frequent sneers 
 at religion and anything that lifts us up to its golden heights : 
 persecution, which may God keep aloof from us, — persecution 
 would find those very indifferent ones, those very sneerers and 
 unbelievers among the ready combatants around the banner 
 of the Torah, and they would exclaim with the fervor of 
 our ancestors, uS mv min " The law which Moses com- 
 manded us, is and shall forever remain the inheritance of the 
 congregation of Jacob." 
 
 From the beginning, Israel, lax as he periodically might 
 have been, was ever conscious that he had a mission for all 
 mankind, intrusted to him by Divine Providence, watching 
 over which mission he may sometimes fall into drowsiness, 
 but is sure to be aroused to his duty when the slight- 
 est noise of approaching footsteps reminds him of the pos- 
 sibility of being robbed. The Law that Moses commanded 
 us, as regards its universal principles, carries with itself 
 the tendency to spread among all the human family, not by 
 means of conversion, not by calling upon Israel to go forth 
 with the rough sword of force, or the bland word of persua- 
 sion, but by the power which a truth once placed on earth 
 and sternly adhered to by its original owners possesses, and 
 
which advances in proportion with the general culture of 
 nations. 
 
 The Law that Moses commanded us, is the inheritance of 
 Jacob's congregation, and yet tending to become the property 
 of all nations and races of the earth. Is this not a contra- 
 diction in itself ? No ; just as little as there is an inconsist- 
 ency in a father appointing his oldest son the administrator 
 of a fortune, the improvement and increase of which should 
 benefit all his minor brothers and sisters. It is a trust placed 
 in him, and why should not the father hope that his son will 
 prove equal to it? Besides, our sages remark, " Come and 
 see the difference between worldly goods and mental posses- 
 sions. As to the former, he that giveth away is the loser and 
 the recipient the gainer ; not so he who dispenses intellectual 
 goods ; the more he giveth away the richer he groweth him- 
 self." Or will you believe that a Law founded on the Ten 
 Commandments, which begin with the unity and spirituality 
 of the Lord of the Universe, and in the name of this Lord 
 secures truth, property, family, honor, in short all that makes 
 life worth living ; will you believe that such a law is destined 
 only for one nation and for such a small one as Israel at 
 all times was, when numbered and not weighed? Will you 
 believe that the Lord of all would impart the foundations of 
 existence only to one people, mindless whether the others 
 lived and grew or decayed and died? Or can you believe that 
 the mere existence of a people with a law so peculiar, so an- 
 tagonistic to the views of all around it, as soon as it came in 
 contact with others, could work otherwise but beneficially? 
 
 Ask history and it will tell you that not in vain did Israel 
 lift up his banner, saying : " And this is the Law which Moses 
 set before the children of Israel." Passing over periods of re- 
 mote antiquity, which history has as yet failed clearly to il- 
 lustrate — I mean the period of the Babylonian captivity and 
 the influence our people must undoubtedly have exercised on 
 the rise of a creed in Persia, upsetting idolatrous statues and 
 proclaiming the reign of spirit over matter — let us commence 
 with an epoch distinguished and universally known for its 
 great achievements. 
 
-^36 — 
 
 When the .great Alexander opened the portals separating 
 nation from nation, and the wise and enlightened Greeks 
 formed the acquaintance of a people wise and enlightened in 
 quite a different way : oh, how great was their astonishment 
 at the sternness of israelitish laws and the vigor of Israelitish 
 life ! One of the most learned men of those days wrote a hook 
 on the Jews, full of admiration for their consistency, their holy 
 and sublime views, and their enlightenment, 
 
 Soon after, the sacred books of our Bible, at the request, it 
 is said, of an Egyptian king, were rendered into Greek, and 
 the stream of Jewish ideas was directed into a foreign channel. 
 For a moment, a feeling of regret prevailed among the Israel- 
 ites at seeing what was most sacred to them given into the 
 ruthless hands of strangers. They must have felt as parents 
 feel that see their darling child, on whom all possible care was 
 bestowed, start forth to live among strangers, when the anx- 
 ious question arises : " What fate will our darling meet 
 with? " Such must have been the feelings of the Israelitish 
 people when sending forth their cherished books, to be scru- 
 tinized by profane eyes. But afterwards seeing a new range 
 of ideas grow up in Egypt where Jewish philosophers ranked 
 among the foremost thinkers, they said that there was no for- 
 eign language flexible enough to render the Biblical ideas ex- 
 cept the Greek. 
 
 Their Law was respected, their views honored, and yet, won- 
 derfully enough, their own share was persecution from those 
 very races that learning sat at their feet. Remember the Mac- 
 cabean period, and hear its heroes, lifting up the Scroll, ex- 
 claim : " The Law which Moses has commanded us, is and 
 shall ever be the inheritance of the congregation of Jacob." 
 The light was appreciated by the thoughtful, but the torch- 
 bearers were trampled upon. Remember the hatred of the 
 Egyptian Greeks toward the most enlightened and influential 
 Egyptian Jews ! Remember the Roman persecutions, cruel 
 as none before them! But Israel's wisest men gave the ex- 
 ample of endurance. 
 
 The way once paved through the amalgamation of Jewish 
 ideas with Greek culture, the Law went forth from Zion and 
 
— 37 — 
 
 the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, or, to use another figure 
 of the prophet, the living waters went forth from Jerusalem, 
 part toward the Eastern Sea and part toward the Western 
 Sea of nations, establishing the religion that was destined to 
 spread westward, and the other that took hold of the Eastern 
 nations, thus giving a part of Jacob's inheritance to two dif- 
 ferent races, civilizing barbarians and tempering the savage 
 conquerors that stormed the decayed Roman world, that brass 
 colossus with the legs of clay. 
 
 It was but a part of the living waters that was given to each 
 of these races. I may say, it was the accumulated interests that 
 the first-born suffered to be divided among his brothers, the 
 principle still remaining in his possession for further improve- 
 ment. And again the brother's gift was honored and admired , 
 but the giver was hated and persecuted. 
 
 Who describes the sufferings through which our ancestors 
 passed since they had given forth the two daughter-religions? 
 Exile, slaughter, mobs, dungeons, funeral pyres, vexatious 
 laws, contempt, spite ; say what infernal invention for excru- 
 ciating soul and body and crushing life and its zest, was not 
 turned against our people, from the remotest clays of barbar- 
 ism up to our enlightened age, until the contemned finally 
 looked contemptible, and those shunned by men finally be- 
 came repulsive in manners and exterior, as we may still see 
 them in the countries of their persecutors, though even there 
 always nobler than their foes and more intelligent than the 
 persecuting mobs. 
 
 But up to our days, under all circumstances, they lifted up 
 the Scroll and rejoicing, said : u The Torah which Moses has 
 bequeathed to us, is our everlasting inheritance." 
 
 Indeed, were it only this one idea of religious liberty, con- 
 stantly agitated through Israel's existence and resistance, it 
 alone would have been sufficient to give our people among the 
 nations the seat of honor as a benefactor of mankind. Imagine, 
 my friends, for one moment, what would be the aspect of our 
 civilized countries in the present age, had Israel yielded to 
 force, abandoned his own standard and station, and merged 
 
into that world-commanding creed which said : 1W 'DBKI *JK 
 " I am and none besides me." One religion would, so far as 
 we in our short-sightedness can conjecture, prevail all over 
 Europe and her daughter-colonies, opposition to the doctrines 
 of which would mean sure death. Uniformity of creed would 
 reign, for no sects could ever arise but for the liberty of con- 
 science constantly professed and combatted for and kept alive 
 by our ancestors ; uniformity of creed would reign, such as 
 even in our country the bigoted and blind wish for as an im- 
 agined blessing, but it would be the uniformity of death that 
 holds its sway in the graveyard, — all silent, all motionless, no 
 life, no exertion, no progress, no science, no research. 
 
 It was Israel that set the example of resistance to power 
 whenever conscience was interfered with, and instinctively 
 felt that in lighting for his own liberty of religious profession ? 
 he was bestowing an unappreciable benefit on all the human 
 race. In the consciousness of this, his mission, he rejoiced 
 at the Law whenever he had finished its pages to commence 
 them anew, and whatever hatred and calumny did to destroy 
 him, it was of no avail so long as Israel did not abandon him- 
 self, so long as he lifted up his sacred Scroll, exclaiming : 
 •' And yet this is the Law that Moses placed before the chil- 
 dren of Israel, as their perpetual inheritance." 
 
 I have finished unrolling before you an historical picture 
 worth looking at. I shall not ask what lesson it teaches us, for 
 [ am of the opinion that every mental occupation has its object 
 and reason in itself, inasmuch as it elevates the mind above 
 the material world constantly claiming our attendance and 
 attention, and ennobles the heart by enriching it, I am no 
 believer in the distinction between practical and theoretical 
 studies. Every study has its practical results, provided we 
 look on culture, refinement, and enlargement of the mind's 
 view as practical benefits. Nor did our ancestors, when en- 
 during persecution, ask of what practical value was to them 
 their Law*, so as to make it worth clinging to a creed with 
 such pertinacity. They said: "The Law that Moses gave 
 unto us, is our inheritance,"' and we will do likewise : 
 
39 — 
 
 "To God be thanks, the combats rest, 
 
 0, may they rest forever, 
 But we will watch our sires' bequest, 
 
 And leave our standard never." 
 
 uoy irnb« « ^ And may the Lord our God be with us as 
 he has been with our fathers ; may He never forsake us or 
 al >andon us, so that we may incline our hearts to Him, walk in 
 all his ways, and observe all his commands and statutes and 
 ordinances which he commanded our fathers. Amen. 
 
A FEW 
 THOUGHTS ABOUT THE DAY OF REST. 
 
 A SABBATH EVE DISCOUESE. 
 
 BY S. H. SONXESCHEIX, 
 i Temple " Shame Emeth," St. Louis.) 
 
 " Keep the Sabbath day to sanctify it, as the Eternal thy God has commanded 
 thee. Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the 
 Sabbath belonging to the Eternal thy God. Thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor 
 thy son, nor thy daughter, nor thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant, nor any of 
 thy cattle, nor the stranger that is within thy gates, in order that thy man-servant 
 and thy maid-servant may rest as well as thou. And remember, that thou wast 
 a slave in the land of Egypt and that the Eternal thy God has brought thee out 
 thence through a mighty hand and by a stretched-out arm : therefore, the Eternal 
 thy God commanded thee to make the Sabbath-day.— [Deuteronomv, v. 13-15. 
 
 Once, on a bright Sabbath morning many a year ago, in the 
 old country, when I was just settled as a minister of a small 
 but progressive congregation, and full of fervor like a young 
 soldier burning for his first battle, I met on the street an el- 
 derly gentleman, one of my parishioners, with a cigar in his 
 mouth. In that good old country, even at that recent time, 
 smoking a cigar was considered by many a profanation of 
 the Sabbath, and believing it my duty to admonish my parish- 
 ioner, I approached him seriously and asked him why he was 
 doing thus on the Sabbath day. He answered coolly and with 
 a good deal of humor : u Why, I thought you knew better, 
 I supposed that you, a young rabbi, educated according to the 
 standard of modern views, would not consider this a sin at 
 all. In fact," he continued, " what is Sabbath-breaking? Is 
 the Sabbath a divine institution? Then it can not be broken. 
 Anything which is divine can not be broken. And since I can 
 break the Sabbath it is not worth while to keen it. It is 
 worthy only to be broken. 
 
 I trembled with passion, but, composing myself, said : " My 
 friend, do you believe that the heart of a mother is a divine 
 
— 42 — 
 
 institution? " ( >h, yes," said he, " Every pulse in my being 
 teaches me that." I asked him : " Do you not believe that a 
 gnat many break that divine institution, the mother's heart? '' 
 That was the end of our conversation. But this apt little 
 story of that winch happened between me and my friend — 
 because we afterwards became true friends — reminds me viv- 
 idly of the indifferent aspect in which the progressive and 
 busy men in modern times view the Sabbath. "The Sab- 
 bath," they say, "is not a divine institution, for it can be 
 easily broken, without any serious and harmful consequences. 
 A thing which is thus easily broken is not worth keeping." 
 This is the sum and substance of all the argument brought 
 fi >rward even by the thoughtful Sabbath-breaker. At the same 
 time these thoughtful Sabbath-breakers — I call them by that 
 name in the customary sense — forget entirely that Nature, 
 which is their mother, is broken into a thousand pieces when 
 the Sabbath is broken. Nature, not only the nature around 
 us, but our inmost soul, or soul-life, demands peremptorily 
 that the Sabbath day be kept. He who profanes the Sabbath 
 desecrates nature, stultifies his better self and extinguishes 
 that glowing spark which distinguishes him from the soulless 
 and inanimate world around him. 
 
 What is the Sabbath? A day of rest. In fact, every mo- 
 ment that we keep aloof from our labor and daily task — any 
 little breathing spell in our work — is a Sabbath in miniature. 
 If you go on a Wednesday evening, after three or four days' 
 work, to listen to a lecturer of deserved prominence, or to at- 
 tend a concert of some celebrated singer, that is a Sabbath 
 in miniature;, an hour or three of rest. If you go to the art 
 gallery, and, looking upon the beautiful works of master- 
 hands, forget yourself — the din of labor beneath, the rattle of 
 win ele and the shrill sound of steam whistles being alike un- 
 heeded and unheard — you are in a higher sphere, you enjoy 
 and edify yourself, that is a Sabbath in miniature. Not ex- 
 actly the day of rest, but an hour of sublime recreation, for 
 you feel stronger, better, purer and nobler when you go back 
 to your daily toil. And as Nature herself has given to the 
 woods, gardens and fields the nights and the winter months 
 
— 43 — 
 
 in which to rest and recreate themselves, so has she given to 
 the human race a rational division of time in which to rest 
 and gain new thoughts and powers for soul-work. Four times 
 seven days make a lunar month. YVe observe in heaven 
 four aspects of the moon, and, since we could watch these 
 different phases, the human race universally adopted that di- 
 vision of time called a week, a term of seven days, six foi 
 labor and tlic last for rest and n en ation. That is the origin of 
 the Sabbath, You are not to rest on the Sabbath day as Na- 
 ture seemingly does — outwardly calm, serene, motionless, 
 powerless. Your rest must be recreation. And, in fact, if 
 you look behind the outward appearance of Nature's rest, 
 you will find that she does not sleep at all. What we call 
 winter is only a co-operation of hidden forces working beneath 
 the surface, still and slow and sure. And such, too, is the 
 Sabbath recreation of man in the highest sense of the word. 
 He rests, but not in sleepy sloth, for his heart, his soul is. 
 awake. 
 
 A ad now, lest we go too far into psychological and doc- 
 trinal questions, let us return to the theme before us. The 
 SabbatJi is a divine institution. Breaking the Sabbath is break- 
 ing a divine law. We are, many of us, entirely mistaken in 
 our conceptions of the mutual relations between toil and rest, 
 trouble and pleasure, labor and enjoyment, these cardinal 
 alternations of human life. For a great many who do not 
 work at all, who only live for pleasure, this, their very pleas- 
 ure seems labor. Only behold and watch them ! How rest- 
 less they are, as if they had a thousand different things to do, 
 with hardly a single moment of time in which to take breath. 
 You ask them what they do and they answer, " Oh, I am en- 
 joying myself; I have so much amusement; I am so delight- 
 fully situated ; I am living for my own pleasure." A creature 
 living for his own pleasure is the most unhappy and hapless 
 thing in the world. Others again we hear complain : " Work 
 is the burden of that curse which drove us out of Eden, that 
 beautiful spot which was colonized by God Almighty him- 
 self. That was a nice place to live in, indeed. There, every- 
 where, grew the sweetest fruits. There were a great many 
 
— 44 — 
 
 shady nooks in which to take a nap and to promote digestion, 
 and there were so many nice, innocent games and plays and 
 no trouble, no work at all ! " It seems, according to the real 
 significance of that sacred myth, as though Adam and Eve 
 never worked at all, because if they had done so and attended 
 to their duty in that Garden Eden, they would never have 
 been driven out. It was because they were lazy and slothful 
 that temptation worked their ruin. Work is not a burden. 
 It is a curse only to him who is a slave working for others and 
 not for himself, who has no will of his own, who in the sweat 
 of his brow only toils and struggles for the benefit and pleas- 
 ure of others. To him work is a burden and a heavy one in- 
 deed. But it is not so with the small farmer who industriously 
 tills his own soil, or with the tradesman who owns a little 
 shop in some obscure by-way in town. Take the latter. He 
 does not owe anybody a cent. Everything in the shop, the 
 shop itself, is his own, and he works with a ready will. How 
 he grows ! How his face beams with satisfaction ! How he 
 prospers ! He would not exchange even with Jay Gould him- 
 self. He enjoys the fruit of his labor. Work to such a man 
 is not a burden but a blessing ; and rest to such a man means 
 not mere sleep and oblivion, but active joy and recreation. 
 He good-naturedly contemplates : '' What I earn, I earn for 
 the benefit of myself, for the benefit of my wife, of my chil- 
 dren, and yet I have something to spare for those who can 
 not work, who are sick and destitute." Work and rest, week 
 • lavs and Sabbath day are both God-given to him, and both 
 contribute to his happiness and enlarge his soul-life. 
 
 "Keep the Sabbath day — and remember that thou wast 
 a slave in the land of Egypt." The Sabbath is a great liber- 
 ator, a real redeemer of the human race. If we only think 
 of rest for ourselves ; if our recreation has the same selfish 
 motives as our daily toil, then, of course, the Sabbath loses 
 its real object and significance. Then we are proud to de- 
 clare : " I work as long as I can. I work as opportunities 
 are good and to m}' advantage. I will cease to work as soon 
 as I have no occasion so to do, as soon as I shall have earned 
 enough to seek without restraint my pleasures and enjoy- 
 
— 45 — 
 
 ments. And what do I care for the Sabbath? What does 
 God care for the Sabbath? What is it to him whether I keep 
 my day of rest on Tuesday or on Friday, or not at all? What 
 is the difference to him? I must make money, money. They 
 tell me money is the soul of our existence, the standard of 
 our value. What am I without money? " Of course you 
 ate not much if you have no money, but, my dear friend, I 
 tell you, you are still more worthless if you have no soul. If 
 a man has no money but has a fresh, vigorous human soul, 
 sympathetic to everything noble and brave, ready to under- 
 take, if necessary, the most self-sacrificing act, such a man, 
 though he be not permitted to enter the Stock Exchange of 
 New York or London, may yet be entitled to the most noble 
 human society that God's earth has ever sustained. The 
 keeping of the day of rest liberates you from the bonds of 
 selfishness, softens your harsh impulses and sanctifies your 
 life. If you desecrate the Sabbath you profane yourself by 
 proving that you are the slave of your daily task and not the 
 master of your will ; you degrade your independence, this 
 greatest privilege of your nature, you separate yourself from 
 everything which is heavenly and only stick to the mud and 
 slum of this lower life. That is w r hy the Sabbath is a divine 
 institution. 
 
 Scoffing will not do. There are a great many who sneer at 
 any well-established law in human nature. There are, for in- 
 stance, some who, knowing that by excessive indulgence in 
 heavy liquor they are destroying themselves, still go on in 
 their habit till they have no power to resist its call, and scoff- 
 ingly say : " It won't do me any good or any harm ; I mean 
 to enjoy myself as long as I live. What care I whether I die 
 to-morrow or prolong my life for a few years more. Human 
 life is but a dream, a dreamy nothingness." But that scoffer 
 burns within himself. His conscience smites him at every 
 syllable he thus utters. The greater the scoffer the more un- 
 happy he is. So it is with those who sneer at the idea of 
 keeping the Sabbath day holy. They are the very ones who 
 need it most, who are constantly at work in the treadmill of 
 money-making and the slaves of that most oppressive of all 
 
— 46 — 
 
 task-masters, called " business."' How much happier would 
 they be heeding the divine institution of the Sabbath : Six 
 days for money-making and the seventh for soul-making. This 
 is emancipation and a blessing indeed. 
 
 k - Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work." This is 
 as much your sacred duty as the keeping of the day of rest. 
 He who has nothing to do during the week days can not keep 
 any Sabbath. The man without work or occupation is un- 
 doubtedly out of place in this world. Only he who labors 
 during the six days of the week can enjoy the blessings of 
 tli,' Sabbath. And right here you must mark the distinct 
 words, " all thy work" words applicable but to that work which 
 is entirely under your own control, the work which is your 
 own in fee simple, allotted to your sole care and management. 
 Such is the occupation of the farmer, of the mechanic, of the 
 tradesman, the artist and the like. Their work is of a kind 
 which by a well-spent activity during the week days, yet 
 allows the amplest room for the day of rest, the most comfort- 
 able ease for recreation. They can do " all their work " during 
 the week for the given time or purpose. But there is another 
 class of men whose occupation is beyond their own con- 
 trol, who can not do " all their work " at a given time and then 
 rest on the Sabbath day with perfect ease. Take the fireman. 
 He can not keep the Sabbath. Conflagrations and the havoc 
 the nrefiend plays, are beyond calculation. Take the phy- 
 sician. Just as much as he has to attend to his work at the 
 midnight hour when called upon, while all the world is at 
 rest, just the same he will have to administer his help to the 
 patient on the Sabbath day whenever wanted. So the soldier, 
 so the statesman, in fact everybody whose occupation is in- 
 separably connected with public affairs and the incessant, 
 peremptory demands of public concern. Anyone listening 
 to me to-night might say : " You preachers have it nice. 
 Six days in the week you do nothing and follow your occu- 
 pation only on the seventh clay. And while you make your 
 living i >n the Sal >1 >at h, you tell me to stay idle." But in mak- 
 ing such a cutting remark my friend forgets that paying close 
 attention to a good sermon once or twice on a Sabbath is vivid 
 
— 47 — 
 
 recreation and no leaden drowsiness ; and that a preacher,, 
 whose words are not idle talk, but spiritual food and cure, has 
 plenty to do to observe and to study during the week, in order 
 to make his preaching a living success and bringing forth 
 good fruits. In short, the Sabbath is the day of rest for those 
 who, during the week are deeply concerned with interests of 
 their own, and just because they work for the selfish motives 
 of mere gain and greed, are prone to become the slaves of 
 their trade and occupation. 
 
 Free yourself! Be once in the week free for twentj'-four 
 hours ! Leave money-making for that one day and spend it 
 in soul-making, in good cheer, in recreation, in spiritual edi- 
 fication ! For one day in the week leave all the drudgery and 
 burdensome toil behind you and be free ! 
 
 The Sabbath is a divine institution and can be broken, but 
 the Sabbath-breaker is doing more harm to himself than to 
 the Sabbath. The Sabbath will remain but the Sabbath- 
 breaker may go very soon. The Sabbath is the soul-making 
 institution of our Religion, of the Religion of Humanity. 
 From the faithful and intelligent observance of this day of rest 
 our religious nature draws nearly all the virtues and energies 
 ivhich contribute so largely to the perfection of men and to the 
 glory of God. Our rabbis of old, in their allegorizing way of 
 teaching, have given the following beautifully poetic descrip- 
 tion of the Sabbath institution : 
 
 " Every Friday evening," they say, " when the Sabbath is 
 ushered in amidst the dusk and stillness of the approaching 
 night, two angels, the dark accuser and the bright defender, 
 are watching every household, to see whether they are pre- 
 pared for the reception of the Sabbath-bride, or not. If they 
 meet the unmistakable signs of the holiday cheer and peace, 
 joy and devotion, then the bright angel exclaims : ' May 
 peace and happiness forever find their home here ! ' And 
 the dark angel, the accuser, is compelled to say : ' So mote 
 it be. Amen ! ' Even Satan must admit the blessedness of the 
 pious, devoted Sabbath-keeper. On the other hand, when the 
 man goes on forgetting the Sabbath, does not care for it at all, 
 his household showing no sweet tokens of satisfaction, his 
 
— 48 — 
 
 wife, children and servants enjoying no periods of calm and 
 quiet repose, then the dark angel says : ' Condemned be he 
 who so far forgets himself and all the interests of domestic 
 tenderness, as to neglect the Sabbath.' And the good angel 
 — the pure and innocent one, who wishes no harm to any, 
 who is the messenger of God's grace and loving kindness — 
 is obliged to respond, though with tears, to the words of the 
 dark angel : ' So mote it be. Amen ! ' " 
 
 This, you will say, is but poetry. There is nothing real 
 and tangible in it. Granted ; but poetry of this kind pro- 
 duces an effect, even on the most prosaic mind, which is not 
 easily effaced or obliterated. It is the celestial bearer of the 
 eternal truth that the Sabbath is a divine institution. 
 
 On the Sabbath day we should subdue and govern passion. 
 Our passions rule us through all the other days of the week : 
 ambition, pleasure, avarice, we give them scope and leave to 
 dominate our daily lives. On the Sabbath we should escape 
 from their dominion and dwell in the serene atmosphere of 
 rest, peace and liberty. 
 
 You will remember that the Sabbath commandment says 
 something of the ox and other kinds of cattle. This may 
 serve well to symbolize our lower passions. On the Sabbath 
 these ought to have no exercise or sway. Let them lie chained 
 and still in the dark and sullen stall of forced repose. 
 
 So, the man-servant and the maid-servant of the sacred 
 text may typify Will and Love. These have been subordi- 
 nate throughout the week to lower and baser passions. The 
 twilight of the Sabbath eve is the signal for their enfran- 
 chisement. Remember, that their rest is liberty and action. 
 Loosen them ! let them go free ! Lit soul conquer sense and 
 will subjugate passion. Let the spirit aspire to the high and 
 the holy and wing its strong flight to the besom of the Infinite. 
 This is the Sabbath of the soul. Let us keep it for our dear 
 souls' sake. 
 
 So, too, of Love. All the week days she is thrust aside, 
 condemned, chained, beaten. Our stern self-seeking gives 
 her no room nor place. On the Sabbath she, too, is free. Then 
 comes the sweet and placid reunion of hearts. Then hus- 
 
49 — 
 
 band and wife, parent and child, friend and friend, neighbor 
 and neighbor join hands and kiss hearts with one another 
 The Sabbath is the divine fountain wherein Love renews her 
 youth and reinforces her strength, and so becomes immortal 
 even on the earth. Sabbath-desecration is her death, as Salt- 
 bath-keeping is her life. This, if you will receive it, is the 
 meaning of the Sabbath. This divine institution changes 
 not. It is for all time and all eternity. Whoso keepeth it, 
 keepeth himself from evil. Amen. 
 
THRICE HOLY IS THE LORD. 
 
 BY REV. DR. BENJAMIN SZOLD, 
 
 (Of Baltimore, Md.) 
 
 jReligion, like every other system of truths and principles, 
 has its foundations, bearing and supporting the whole super- 
 structure, and it is of the greatest importance to know which 
 they are, and by what characteristic signs they can be rec- 
 ognized as such. Our guiding standard, in our search of 
 them, must be one that is generally admitted. It would not 
 suffice merely to point out a certain set of truths and declare 
 them to be cardinal. Upon whatever ground this were done, 
 room would still be left for dispute and variety of opinions. 
 Some would claim pre-eminence for one order of principles 
 and some for another ; and, indeed, some would even main- 
 tain (and the number of these theologians is not small) that 
 every detail in religion, every observance, every custom, is 
 fundamental. There is no such thing, they say, as a primary 
 principle in religion ; all its teachings, laws, tenets and behests 
 are alike vital. We must, therefore, in order to place the re- 
 sult at which we wish to arrive beyond dispute, start from a 
 point conceded by every thinking man. Whatever will be 
 reached then, in our inquiries, as the elements of religion. 
 will bear the evidence of its own truth in itself, and thus en- 
 force the recognition of all. 
 
 Let us then proceed from Revelation. All have to admit 
 that those truths are essential— and only those— which are 
 revealed to us ; that is, the knowledge of which comes to us 
 most directly from within and without : truths innate in our 
 inner life, latent and organic in the life of nature; truths 
 dominant in all the affairs and relations of man's world, 
 through all the stages and phases of its development ; these 
 
— 52 — 
 
 must be acknowledged by all to be the basis, to which every- 
 thing else that religion teaches must be referred in order to 
 claim our recognition. 
 
 Measured by this infallible standard, we may reduce our 
 whole system of religion to three primary principles: Tfn 
 < xistence of God; the divine origin of Law, and the belief in futun 
 reward and punishment* These teachings are the fundamen- 
 tals. Their full exposition will show that they did not ascend 
 upon the horizon of our knowledge at any stated epoch ; neither 
 were they discovered by human research. They are revela- 
 tions, as old as nature, as original as the world of man ; 
 though it is true that they were more clearly perceived and 
 more lucidly taught by some geniuses, especially by our 
 prophets, who were men with eyes, ears and hearts widely 
 opened for all the wonders and teachings of creation. To 
 them refers the exclamation heard from out of the month of 
 the seraphim, by the great prophet Isaiah, whom the Haftarah 
 of this Sabbath introduces to us at the most solemn moment 
 of his life, when he first received his prophetic mission. He 
 then had a wonderful vision, which he describes in fiery lan- 
 guage. He saw the Lord seated on an exalted throne, the 
 temple w r as filled with the splendor and glory of His majesty. 
 The seraphim stood round about him, and, from mouth to 
 mouth, swelling into a powerful chorus, ran the words : 
 
 .mxuv « enp mp enp 
 
 " Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts ! " (Isaiah vi. 1-3). 
 This sentence is thus beautifully paraphrased by an ancient 
 exp< »under of the Scriptures : 
 
 rrrnae* rvn nubv KtfnB W2 B^np 
 rrrmnji -Qiy njn« by trip 
 x^y n^ySi nbyb dhp 
 •• Holy in the exalted skies, the temple of His glory : holy 
 on earth, the scene of His governing strength; holy forever 
 and in all eternity." 
 
 These three doctrines are declared the fundamentals of our re- 
 ligion by Joseph LTlbo in his hook Judaism, and are in Judaism gen- 
 erally accepted as such. 
 
— 5^ — 
 
 I. Holy is the Lord in the exalted skies, the temple of His 
 glory ! All in nature points to Him above as the Most Su- 
 preme and the Source of all existence. The wonderful liar- 
 mom- with which the myriads of creatures work together, 
 their wise arrangement, their usefulness, theirbeauty and their 
 grandeur, strongly and irresistibly impress upon the human 
 mind the idea of an Infinite Intellect, from whom they all 
 emanated. Wherever we look and whatever we observe around 
 us, we find revealed and reflected the endless Spirit enthroned 
 on High. Chance can not bring forth works of wisdom ; 
 chance can not produce harmony, beauty and goodness. You 
 ask, looking around you, overpowered by the vastness of the 
 universe, with its countless wonders and splendors : Where 
 is God? And with a thousand voices, echo answers : Where 
 is God not? Intuitively, you see Him seated on an exalted 
 throne and you hear the seraphim, standing around Him, 
 exclaim : Holy is the Lord on high in the temple of His glory ! 
 
 So visibly is the idea of God stamped upon every work and 
 being of nature that its conception entered, or might have en- 
 tered, upon the consciousness of the very first man, who had 
 no other tutor, no other source of knowledge than the sur- 
 rounding world and his inner powers. When Adam — let us 
 take him as the type of the entire human family — first opened 
 his eyes upon the outer world, when, looking above, the vast 
 arches of the blue vault, illumined either by the wondrous 
 light of the sun, or by the milder radiance of the stars, met his 
 astonished gaze, and when, casting his eyes to the ground in 
 confused reflection, his attention was riveted by the gay sward 
 which clothed the earth with freshness, when he heard the 
 symphonic tones of the birds' morning song, when he first 
 tasted the luscious fruits which hung in all their tempting 
 ripeness just above his head, while he was held in the em- 
 brace of gentle zephyrs and the genial warmth of the sun ; 
 what could have been his thoughts, if they did not turn upon 
 the Unseen Power which conjured all these scenes and sights 
 and sounds and tastes before his senses ? He must have asked 
 himself: How came I on this stage, and who is the author 
 of all these numberless things? In one grand chorus, they 
 
all replied: Our Author resides n*hv KDV1B W3 in yon 
 high skies. He created thee and all thou seest in the vast 
 universe which is HVlMtf JV2 the temple of His glory. 
 
 II. But not only is the world God's residence. He is also 
 its Governor. "Holy is God on earth, the scene of His gov- 
 erning strength." There is a law for every creature, there is 
 a design and a plan underlying the whole of creation. Or, 
 do you think it possible that the spheres would move in their 
 orbits so regularly, and complete their circuits in the heavens 
 with unchanging uniformity, that day and night, summer and 
 winter, warmth and cold, birth and death, growth and decay. 
 would alternate so accurately, were there no law and no 
 statute? 
 
 DTpan n« w nS^ nrh \m |dti pin 
 
 " The Creator instituted statute and time for every being not 
 to change its course and destination." Nature thus is to man 
 a book of revelation, in which he reads God's eternal laws and 
 regulations which urge him to inquire into the laws and reg- 
 ulations the Lawgiver has set to him. If every other being 
 is subservient to some immutable law, why should he, the 
 masterpiece of all God's creatures, be lawless, and destined 
 to move on unrestrained and ungoverned? Nothing could 
 be more absurd than to harbor such a thought, There must 
 be some decree for his action, too, some method for his spir- 
 itual growth and development. And where is this decree 
 given and this method laid down? They are not in heaven, 
 not beyond the sea; they are near to him, within his own 
 heart. The higher law for man's guidance is not the product 
 of science, not the result of any laborious research, it is an 
 element of his mental constitution, an ingredient of his higher 
 nature. Even Adam felt, or might have felt, the promptings 
 of his moral sense of right and wrong; he already recognized 
 a higher authority whose voice man has to obey. When he 
 gazed upon the scene where he had been placed, he must have 
 asked himself: Ami perhaps charged by the Power that 
 has placed me here, to perform some task, or have \ no duty 
 whatever to fulfill, and can 1 roam wildly in this beautiful gar- 
 
— 55 — 
 
 den and do as pleases my wanton fancy? If so, what then 
 can 1)0 the meaning of this whispering within my breast, this 
 commanding and warning voice? I am certainly a moral 
 being and have to conform my doings to the commands which 
 my Creator has engraven upon the tablets of my heart. 
 
 History also certifies to the truth of the doctrine of God's 
 government. We perceive clearly purpose and plan in the 
 annals of the past. We observe one grand design, one domi- 
 nant thought and will throughout all the convulsions and 
 revolutions of mankind. We notice, on the long march of 
 time, a steady progress toward the better. Every event 
 brought man forward, every incident furthered the process of 
 civilization. This steady, onward march of humanity evi- 
 dences the existence of a Supreme Lawgiver, an Endless In- 
 tellect, scheming and premeditating upon mankind's spiritual 
 growth, and thus history re-echoes what so loudly resounds 
 through the universe : u Holy is the Lord on earth, the scene 
 of His governing strength." 
 
 III. Still one more stay is necessary to prop the edifice of re- 
 ligion. It is the conviction that there is a Hereafter, where 
 man reaps the fruit of his deeds. Without this assurance, 
 law, duty, virtue and morality would be mere empty, mean- 
 ingless sounds. What is to sustain man in the midst of a 
 life of trials and struggles ; what shall encourage him to fos- 
 ter virtue and practice self-abnegation, if he has not the be- 
 lief in a world of retribution? Here, in this short span of 
 existence, he experiences, no matter whether he be just or 
 vicious, only sorrows and troubles ; frequently, he even sees 
 the wicked thrive, the rogue enjoying all the goods of this 
 world, while the righteous bend under insupportable burdens. 
 If, in spite of the adverse circumstances which surround him, 
 he is to remain faithful to the higher standard that law sets to 
 him, he must be sustained by the hope of a life beyond. 
 This hope is thus closely allied with the idea of law 
 and a supreme Lawgiver ; He who directs man to do the 
 right and to shun the wrong, rewards him according to his 
 ways, for " Holy is He forever and in all eternity." 
 
— 5(5 — 
 
 This also is a thought which Adam fully perceived, or might 
 have perceived, as is illustrated by the following legend in 
 the Talmud : 
 
 When God said to Adam : " Thorns and thistles shall the 
 ground bring forth to thee," tears coursed down his cheeks 
 and he cried out : iriN DUK3 S^KJ mom \)X Shall I and 
 my ass feed from out of the same crib? But when God com- 
 pleted the sentence : " In the sweat of thy face shalt thou 
 eat thy bread," his grief subsided, lnjn rm pro 
 
 The Talmud means thereby that this last, apparently more 
 rigid sentence of judgment, implies the pledge of man's higher 
 destiny. It foretold the abundance God has in store for man, 
 whom he charged to eat bread in the sw r eat of his face. Must I 
 work, Adam said, for the meager food, which the ground brings 
 forth spontaneously for the animal, must I toil and labor ; 
 am I placed here to till the ground, to cultivate it and change 
 all into a beautiful garden, and thus leave behind me foot- 
 prints in the sand of time, then the grave can not be my goal, 
 and my destiny can not, like that of the ass, be fulfilled here 
 on earth. All that I see testifies to the existence of a God of 
 love, mercy and justice ; how then can He charge me with so 
 heavy a task and yet have no reward in store for me? He 
 commands me to work — this is a privilege, and entitles me to 
 claim as my due share, eternal felicities. Here below there 
 is no reward ; there must come a life when the beads of per- 
 spiration will be wiped off from my brows, where imperishable 
 glories will crown my head. There must be a world in which 
 God's justice will be fully manifested, where the faithful 
 laborer is amply rewarded for the good he has accomplished 
 here on earth, for '* Holy is the Lord forever and in all eter- 
 nities." 
 
 Thrice holy is the Lord ! God is the Source of existence, 
 the Author of Law and the Dispenser of retribution. These 
 three truths are fundamental. Upon them the edifice of re- 
 ligion firmly rests. They are the criterions of all truth, the 
 standards of all religion. With these three primary truths 
 the Book of books opens. The first chapter describes the crca- 
 
— 57 — 
 
 tive process of God, the Author of all being. The second 
 represents Him as the Educator and Governor of man. to 
 whom He gives His decree, to mould his conduct thereby. 
 The third shows that God lets man find according to his ways. 
 These three elementary principles stamp the Book of books 
 to the Book of Revelation. It teaches what is revealed to 
 nian. and what comes to his knowledge in the most dired 
 way. And, like revelation, so is this Book an everlasting 
 sou roe of knowledge. It is permanent and can never be dried 
 up. It can not be superseded by any other creed, nor can it 
 be removed by any other civilizing factor. In other creeds, 
 whatever is true is not new, and whatever is new is not true. 
 It also has no need to dread the ascendancy of science. The 
 sphere of this great factor in civilization is quite a different 
 one. Science deals with details, with simple facts and laws. 
 Religion teaches the universal, the constituent, intellectual 
 and moral elements of all existence, of all that is latent in 
 the universe, innate in man, and organic to the history of 
 his spiritual growth and development. Science is the aggre- 
 gate of all the results of invention, human research and the 
 labor of mind, it is the sum total of all the knowledge to 
 which man has attained by means of discursive thought. 
 Religion, however, teaches what man perceives intuitively, 
 what man knows, or can know, from ever and forever. 
 
 We, the seed of Abraham, the disciples of the Prophets, are 
 the bearers, teachers, priests and expounders of these truths, 
 the permanent foundations of all truth. The Scriptures, in 
 our hands, are the credentials for our appointment, for our 
 prophetic mission. We are the messengers of God to man- 
 kind. We have to tell humanity the vision we see, the sounds 
 we hear. We see God seated on an exalted throne, filling the 
 great temple of nature with the splendor and glory of His 
 presence. And the Seraphim, standing around Him, we hear 
 exclaiming : " Holy is the Lord on high, holy on earth, the 
 scene of His government, holy forever and in all eternity.' 1 
 Amen. 
 
SPIRITUALITY OF GOD'S LAW. 
 
 BY KEY. I. L. LEUCHT. 
 
 Text:— Exodus xxxii. 19-20. 
 
 Free at length from the Egyptian yoke, the children of Is- 
 rael rapidly grew into a nation, for they acknowledged God to 
 be the Lord and accepted His laws. Awestruck, they had 
 listened to the ten words of Sinai, and with trembling voices 
 sent up to Heaven the watchword of Judaism, JWJ1 ITOJ 
 w ' We will hearken and we will obey." 
 
 But alas, for human stability ! How long did the Israelites 
 remain loyal to their vows? The 32d chapter of the book 
 of Exodus but too graphically portrays the fickle and un- 
 grateful character of the national heart. 
 
 Moses, the great hero, deeply impressed with the solemn 
 issues of his days, believed also, no doubt, that his people 
 were equally imbued with devotion to the heavenly Deliverer. 
 He seems to have acted on this persuasion if not conviction ; 
 for in order to get engraven on tablets of stone the perfect 
 laws which had been transmitted to us, he withdrew himself, 
 as we learn, to mount Sinai for a season. 
 
 This absence tried the faith of the nation, and unhappily 
 the best proved their weakness. The judgment of God 
 had not taken root in the Jewish breast. The lofty and 
 world-embracing teachings of Jehovah had not yet penetrated 
 the soul of Israel. To the growing nation the Lawgiver is the 
 incarnation of Deity. To the ignorant, demoralized slave, 
 the cardinal truth, that a spiritual God created the heav- 
 ens and the earth, is altogether inconceivable. With the per- 
 son of Moses, therefore, departed also the spirit of Moses. 
 
— 60 — 
 
 \\'il«l and horror-stricken, the people imagined that his ab- 
 sence was an awful intimation to them that they were for- 
 saken of God Himself. They therefore clamored for gods to 
 go before, gods that would not leave, gods who would not 
 forsake them. Aaron, the peace-loving and meek brother of 
 Moses, whose life no doubt in this trying emergency was in 
 imminent peril, demanded gold and silver, ostensibly to mould 
 the idol. This yielding to the popular will, however, was 
 only an apparent concession. He would throw oil on the 
 troubled waters, and as our sages narrate, he did not believe 
 that the daughters of Israel would part with their jewels. 
 This persuasion was verified by the event. The infuriated 
 men, however, took by force what was denied to entreaty and 
 command. They stripped their wives of all their ornaments 
 and gave them to Aaron, who, in a moment of despair, cast 
 the golden calf. 
 
 Now, returning from the mountain with the JVQn 'S Moses 
 as he drew near the camp heard strange sounds of festivity 
 and rejoicing. The shouts of the people, who were dancing 
 around their newly-made Deity, reached him, afar off. 
 
 And here let us pause to contemplate that reverend sage, 
 whose face reflected the sheen of the Divine presence, when 
 his eye and ear fully took in the frenzy and intoxication of 
 his people, who, before their idol-god, continued loudly to 
 exclaim : hmv* yrhx n^N " This is the God of Israel." 
 
 Anger of the noblest kind characterizes his every feature. 
 amazement and indignation take possession of his soul, and 
 in his righteous displeasure, commanding the faithless offend- 
 ers to destroy their sin, he casts down and breaks into pieces 
 that Law divine which was engraven on the tablets in his 
 hands, and at the same time causes the idol to be ground to 
 powder and be mingled with the sands of the desert. 
 
 Now. in carefully perusing this historical incident, the ques- 
 tion arises : Why did Moses annihilate the golden calf and at 
 the same time break to pieces the law of God? We could 
 readily supply a motive for his actions had he ground the 
 idol to dust and in its place erected God's divine teachings. 
 
— <>1 — 
 
 Why destroy a work which Moses himself declared to be 
 written D\"iSx JDVK -3 with the finger of God? 
 
 Now I desire and propose in this discourse to prove that 
 the destruction of the idol and the tablets of the covenant 
 had one and the same end in view, to teach the fundamental 
 doctrine of all revealed religion, that God's law is altogether 
 spiritual. To show this from the historical incident above 
 narrated, is the task for this evening's hour. 
 
 I. 
 
 By destroying the golden calf, Moses inculcated the due- 
 trine that God's law is spiritual. It must he clear to any 
 candid mind, though no high-sounding name or authority 
 can be quoted in favor of this opinion, that Moses, when re- 
 turning from Mt. Sinai was not overcome by sinful anger on 
 discovering the Egyptian idol in the midst of his excited peo- 
 ple. From no wrathful impulse or disappointed hopes did he 
 with a mighty hand destroy the golden image. The Bible 
 says : The Lord spoke to Moses : " Get thee down, for thy 
 people, which thou hast brought up out of the land of Egypt. 
 have become corrupt. And now let me alone and my wrath 
 shall wax hot against them and I w T ill make an end of them." 
 But Moses, dreading nothing so much as the execution of 
 this Divine menace, fell on his knees before the Lord, covered 
 his head and with trembling voice exclaimed : " Oh, Lord, 
 forgive their sin, but if not, blot me out, I pray thee, from the 
 book which thou hast written." 
 
 Here then is evidence that this great Moses must have 
 found the sin of the people at least pardonable. And why? 
 The records of antecedent ages will furnish the answer to this 
 inquiry. See in their tents encircling Mt. Sinai, the children 
 of Israel, with careworn faces and stupified looks. Whence 
 come these mighty hordes? From the land of Egypt, the house 
 of bondage, where they had been in slavery during four hun- 
 dred years. They had borne the iron fetters of despotism for 
 centuries, forsaken by that glorious God of their fathers. 
 
whom they had also forgotten. Now in the land of their cap- 
 tivity, in Egypt, they had with their own eyes seen gods, 
 which to their minds blessed and protected the nation. 
 Israel, the servant of Jehovah, was the slave, while the wor- 
 shiper of false gods of idols, was the master. And this per- 
 suasion remained until Moses appeared and liberated them 
 in the name of that God who seemed to have departed from 
 them. As long as the Israelites beheld Moses, as long as 
 he was in presence before them, he was to them the very in- 
 carnation of God Himself. We learn, however, that Moses 
 stayed away during forty days and forty nights, and then Is- 
 rael no doubt reasoned : " Our God has forsaken us again. 
 He has left us without a master and without a guide." They 
 gathered about the hut of Aaron. Terror-stricken, they ex- 
 claimed : " Up, make us gods that shall go before us, for as 
 far as this man Moses, who brought us up here, we know not 
 what has become of him. We desire gods to go before us, 
 we must perceive them with our senses and have them al- 
 ways in our midst." 
 
 At one glance, as it seems, Moses took in all the circum- 
 stances of the actual situation. His surprise, indignation and 
 grief were, doubtless, great ; but, did he lose his self-possess- 
 ion? The meekest man on the face of the earth did not give 
 away to unbounded wrath even at the thanklessness of those 
 whom he had rescued from bondage, whom through mighty 
 wonders, he had safely conducted to life, freedom and peace. 
 As we have already observed, foreseeing God's righteous dis- 
 pleasure, he could even pray for the daring offenders. The 
 golden calf, however, was doomed. It was ground into dust 
 and strewn upon the waters, to teach the misguided people 
 that Adonai aloneis God— that no image, no idol, no likeness, 
 can be made of him who has said: U I am the Lord and 
 thou shall have no other gods before my face." 
 
 II. 
 
 The divine nature is spiritual. The incomprehensible God- 
 head can not be bound or conceived by the senses. And thus 
 
far our position has not been very difficult to sustain, for the 
 destruction of an idol can only be construed as an argument 
 
 in favor of the God of Moses, for the honor of God and the 
 vindication of His law. " Thou shall have no other godsbe- 
 fore me." But to proceed, we further maintain that the an- 
 nihilation of the two tables of the covenant was intended to 
 promulgate within the camp of Israel the same doctrine, the 
 doctrine of the spirituality of God's nature, on which we now 
 insist. 
 
 It is well known that Moses was a man of quick sensibili- 
 ties. Whenever the principles of truth and justice were at- 
 tacked he hesitated not to apply the proper remedy, without 
 fear or favor. The Egyptian who had beaten an Israelite 
 atoned for his offense by death. The Sabbath-breaker was 
 immediately executed, and thousands dyed with their blood 
 the burning sand of the desert, because they obstinately re- 
 fused to obey the laws of God. The maxim of Moses was 
 inn riN pn nip 1 " Right pierces even through mountains." 
 Xow the sin of the Israelites was the occasion for manifest- 
 ing this leading feature of the temper of Moses. His anger 
 was awakened by their rebellion against God, and as we have 
 seen, it was justifiable. His spirit was stirred within him be- 
 cause the Israelites had forsaken the path of duty and safety, 
 and following the imagination of their own hearts, they were 
 eagerly pursuing the highway back to slavery and to death. 
 
 Moses did not, however, conclude from this revolt that no 
 beneficial result could be attained, when a nation thus will- 
 fully forget their God, even in the short space of forty days. 
 Did he break the tables of the Covenant into fragments as a 
 sign that he has now lost all hopes in the future of Israel? 
 God forbid ! I would incline to this view indeed, perhaps, 
 had he not in the very moment of his displeasure, prayed to 
 God, saying : " Forgive thy people, or blot me out of exist- 
 ence." Surely Moses must have had a firm belief in the 
 sublime mission of Israel, otherwise his prayer was but a sol- 
 emn mockery, an act void of any purpose. And here, per- 
 haps, some one will object, and say : " If Moses did indeed 
 hope in the regeneration of Israel, how came it that he de- 
 
— 64 — 
 
 stroyed the two tables of the Law, which according to his own 
 word, had been written by God himself, which, therefore, be- 
 longed not to Moses, but were the property of the whole na- 
 tion? " This objection may thus be met: By reducing the 
 golden idol to dust. .Moses had but shown that the gods of 
 Egypt were nothing but vanity, nothing but the handiwork 
 of man, and therefore unfit for adoration. Again, in his hands 
 he held two tables of stone, engraven, as he said, with the 
 finger of God. And yet the people being strongly in- 
 clined toward idolatry, may have so reasoned : " We were 
 indeed at fault in worshiping the golden calf, but here Moses, 
 our leader and guide, brings us an idol of stone ; surely, this 
 is the God of Israel come back again to us." The Israelites, 
 we repeat, were but newly emancipated, they were accustomed 
 to see gods with their bodily eyes. The gods with which 
 they were familiar had been within reach of their senses, and 
 so they were ready, from a holy terror, to fall down and wor- 
 ship the tables of stone as they had done the golden calf. 
 It offered an example, therefore, worthy of him of whom it is 
 said : TO HCrtDD Dp kS " No man like him will adore the 
 world again." Moses, in their very presence, broke into frag- 
 ments that work which they certainly considered to be an 
 essential part of their religion. And this act spoke with a liv- 
 ing tongue : u Israel, I have destroyed your Egyptian idol, 
 but perchance in your vain imagination you deem the God of 
 Israel to be in need of stone or gold to establish this kingdom 
 in this world. Sons of Jacob, behold torn into fragments the 
 material forms of the divine Law. Look to the heart only, 
 whereon all the divine commandments must be inscribed. God 
 and God's will, His only image, must be sought for in the 
 integrity and purity of man's soul. The divine rule is not 
 treasured up in books, it is not confined to tables of stone or 
 of gold, neither is it enshrined in a holy ark. God and 
 the laws of God are all of them spiritual." And once more, 
 [f we accept this interpretation of the course of Moses, we 
 shall find it to be as a golden key to open that mysterious 
 phrase of the Talmud, (mi? 87) : " When Moses had broken 
 the tables of the covenant, God said to him, miW iro it?" 
 
— 65 — 
 
 Thou hast done well this act of destruction." It does not re- 
 quire now to take refuge in cabbalistic mysticism to under- 
 stand this phrase of the Talmud, we comprehend fully what 
 our sages desire to convey. The spirit of God, the genius of 
 our religion, extolled Moses for his courageous act, for by this 
 zeal he showed that our faith could not be endangered even 
 should every emblem, the very book of the Law itself, be de- 
 stroyed, and thus removed from our sight. Moses won the 
 praise of our Lord. He has left for our edification a vivid 
 and brilliant declaration, a prophetic declaration, that forms 
 must yield whenever they are in the way of God's truth. 
 The Rock of Israel can only be conceived by the spirit as a 
 spirit. The tables of the covenant were hewn a second time. 
 Where are they? What has become of them? They also 
 were destroyed as the golden calf. The laws of the decalogue, 
 they still exist and are destined to govern this universe until 
 the last soul shall enter its last resting place. Thus let our 
 religion be a faith not depending on outward forms, they are 
 only essential when the living spirit of our God is found 
 within its fold, and must be shattered to fragments when the 
 Vlpn rm the holy spirit does not dwell there any more. Let 
 our faith forever be an D"n yV a living tree, whose branches rise 
 heavenward, and whose time-beaten stem points to the One 
 Father, the God of all mankind. Amen. 
 
JEWISH IDEAS CONQUER THE WORLD. 
 
 A SIIABUOTH SERMON. 
 
 BY REV. DR. B. FELSENTHAL, 
 
 (0/ Chicago.) 
 
 Text:—" Ye are my witnesses, says the Lord * * I, I am the Lord, and besides 
 me there is no savior."— [Isaiah xliii. 10-11. 
 
 The festival which we celebrate to-day bears the biblical 
 name, ''Hag ha-Shabuoth, " Feast of Weeks," and this name 
 has been given to it because on this day concluded the seven 
 weeks which, according to the old Mosaic law, had been de- 
 voted to the work of garnering in the grain. As long as the 
 Jews had been a nation in the political sense of the word, and 
 had as such dwelt in Palestine, all the grain of the land was 
 gathered in during these seven weeks. Full were the barns 
 of barley, of rye, and of wheat. And now a proper time for 
 a festive day had come — the time for 'Hag ha-Shabuoth. 
 
 Besides the name u Feast of Weeks," we meet in the Bible 
 with another name for this festival. It is also called Yom ha- 
 Biccurim, " Day of the First Fruits." And the reason for 
 calling it so, was because of the various kinds of fruits the 
 first ripe ones were, in this time of the year, brought as a 
 thank-offering into the temple of the Lord. 
 
 From the two names quoted it is easily to be inferred, and 
 hardly do we need any other witness to prove the fact, that this 
 day was originally intended to be an agricultural festival. In 
 the course of historical development, however, it lost its origi- 
 nal signification, and, in post-biblical times, other ideas, even 
 higher and nobler than those that in the first caused the in- 
 
— 68 — 
 
 stitution of *l£ag ha-SltabuotJi, became connected with this 
 day. Since times immemorial, Israel celebrates the day as 
 Zeman Mattan Torah, as a day on which the fact is to be com- 
 memorated that God blessed Israel with the Torah, and espe- 
 cially do we on this day gratefully remember the proclaiming 
 of the ten Sinaitic words. 
 
 Truly, dear friends, the Lord's Torah and the Lord's com- 
 mandments, they are fruits of an infinitely higher value than 
 barley and wheat. For not of bread alone does man live. 
 He yearns after another nourishment, after a nourishment for 
 the spirit that is within him. With all our hearts do we praise 
 our good Father in heaven for the corn and the wheat, the 
 bread and the wine He blesses us with. Still more do we 
 praise Him for the gift of religion, the true bread of life, 
 wherewith He stills the hunger of our hearts, and for the wine 
 of our Torah, Wherewith he quenches the thirst of our souls. 
 
 Truly, this was a great time of harvesting, when the eternal 
 doctrines and laws of Judaism were gathered in first by a 
 few select ones in Israel, by our patriarchs and prophets, by 
 our singers and .sages, afterwards by all Israel, and still later 
 by other nations. This harvest-time will be at an end when 
 finally all mankind will participate in the full possession and 
 enjoyment of the treasure of Judah, in the truth and moral 
 law of Judaism, and when the whole human race, in common 
 with the house of Jacob, will walk in the light of God, the 
 Eternal. 
 
 In the golden age of mankind, which was not in the remote 
 past, as we are told by Grecian myths, but which, rather, will 
 be in the future, or, to use Biblical language, in the Messianic 
 time coming, Jewish ideas will have conquered the world and 
 will rule it. 
 
 Thus far Jewish ideas have already progressed wonderfully. 
 They are already acknowledged, willingly or unwillingly, by 
 the nations standing highest on the ladder of civilization — by 
 those nations that profess Christianity or Mohammedanism, 
 while and because they profess the same. For both these re- 
 ligions are nothing more nor less than direct offsprings from 
 
— 69 — 
 
 Judaism, and whatever is good and true in them they have 
 directly appropriated from the treasures of Judah. We, from 
 our Jewish standpoint, only regret the fact that the Jewish 
 doctrines, when borrowed by others, were not carefully guarded 
 against adulteration by and intermixture with foreign ele- 
 ments, with elements un-Jewish and anti-Jewish. Time, how- 
 ever, slowty but surely will effect a thorough purification, and 
 pure and unadulterated Jewish ideas, we repeat it, will finally 
 rule the world. 
 
 These are great hopes, and you might gainsay, will they, 
 indeed, be realized? Are these hopes not based upon self- 
 deception and illusions? Are these expectations not brought 
 forth by our prejudices naturally entertained in favor of the 
 religion in which we have heen reared? 
 
 In order to show you, my friends, that we may truly expect 
 the fulfillment of our hopes, let us examine the teachings of 
 Judaism, and let us furthermore see in how far the present 
 state of the religious world justifies our hopes. 
 
 I invite you, first, to a thorough examination of Judaism. 
 Whosoever studies Judaism earnestly, be he Jew or non-Jew ; 
 whosoever frees himself of his erroneous notions concerning 
 the same, and becomes familiar with its tenets, will surely, 
 and must surely, admit that Judaism justly claims the pos- 
 session of absolute truth, and that, therefore, its doctrines 
 and teachings deserve to become the property of mankind. 
 And as truth in the end will always be victorious, so will Ju- 
 daism certainly be victorious. 
 
 We will not deny that true and good doctrines are also 
 maintained and are also taught in other religious systems. 
 Gladly do we admit that eternal truths and moral precepts 
 are taught even by those heathenish religious systems whose 
 origin and growth we can not trace back to the religion of 
 Israel, and whose holy books have not the least connection 
 with the Bible of the Jews. Justly we may assert that the 
 so-called New Testament of the Christians and the Koran of 
 the Mohammedans would not and could not exist if our Jewish 
 Bible had not existed before them. But neither the Brahmans 
 
-70- 
 
 with their Vedas, nor the Parsees with their Zendavesta, 
 neither the Buddhists with their Tripitaka, nor the (Chinese 
 with their, to them, holy books of Confucius and Laotse, are 
 in the least connected with Israel and its Torah. Still we 
 joyfully concede that by them many true doctrines are taught 
 and many good laws are prescribed, which deserve all ac- 
 knowledgment. Even more, even those religious systems 
 which have not produced any holy books at all — holy in the 
 sense as used in reference to the writings already named — as, 
 for instance, the religions of Hellas and Rome, of the Teutons 
 and the Celts, of the Africans and Indians, etc., even they 
 were the vehicles to spread, in some degree, truth and mor- 
 ality, and, therefore, our appreciation is due to them also. 
 How could it be otherwise? The Creator has bestowed on all 
 nations and all individuals thereof a conscience, and has 
 blessed them with mental faculties more or less exalted. These 
 faculties of the mind and this inborn consciousness of what 
 is right and what is wrong, although they are more or less 
 liable to err, are the common root whence have grown the 
 manifold truths found everywhere, and it is a theory quite 
 unnecessary and quite false to suppose that one nation must 
 have borrowed the same from another nation. Different na- 
 tions have discovered them independently of one another. 
 But what we claim is this, that besides these grains of truth, 
 which are to be found in the non- Jewish systems, there are 
 also to be found there great masses of errors, intellectual 
 ones and moral ones, of which Judaism, and only Judaism 
 is free. 
 
 There is none entitled to pronounce judgment in this all- 
 important issue except the God-enlightened human reason. 
 To this judge do we appeal. Before his bench we plead our 
 cause. 
 
 It is not often, my dear friends, that we make such com- 
 parisons. We do not undervalue the blessings which the 
 powerful daughters of Judaism have brought to the nations 
 in the East and in the West, We like, rather, to dwell upon the 
 great merits and historic importance of these forerunners of 
 
— 71 — 
 
 the Messianic times, and we render unto them praise and 
 thanks for their deserts. But when we so often perceive that 
 partly malice, partly ignorance and prejudice, and partly an 
 ill-directed zeal for un-Jewish doctrines, lead to belittleings 
 and attacks of our own Judaism, then we are certainly justi- 
 fied when we point to our creed shining in brilliancy and in 
 glory. 
 
 What does Judaism teach? Does it, indeed, teach that 
 God is merely the national God of Israel? Does it not, on 
 the contrary, say and repeat, the Lord alone is God, and be- 
 sides Him there is none other? Brethren, I can not stop, in 
 this short hour, to furnish the proofs for all this. Hints must 
 suffice for to-day. And so I say. in a few words, Judaism 
 teaches since its very earliest days one God— one God for all 
 mankind! This does not exclude the fact that, in times 
 long gone by, the Monotheistic idea was more or less imper- 
 fectly understood by the unlearned and unthinking part of the 
 people. Does our religion really teach that our God is a God 
 of anger and revenge? Does it not, on the contrary, say by 
 the mouths of all its inspired prophets and all its teachers, 
 that God is a God of mercy and of love? Does it not. in a 
 categorical imperative, demand of its confessor : Love thy 
 neighbor, even the poor and forsaken stranger, as thyself, and 
 grant to him equal rights with thee? Does it not unrelent- 
 ingly insist that we have to sanctify even our desires, even 
 the very thoughts of our hearts, by enjoining us not to covet 
 what belongs to our neighbor? Does it, furthermore, not re- 
 quire of us, in several laws that have been laid down in the 
 Pentateuch, to be merciful toward the mute animal creation? 
 
 Brethren, we might go on with similar questions for quite 
 a length of time, we could challenge the opposite world to 
 answer them, and in the greatest composure of mind we could 
 await the answers. 
 
 But it might be said that similar doctrines and simi- 
 lar laws are taught by others as well, and particularly by that 
 powerful daughter of Judaism to whom, at present, nearly 
 all the occidental world, nearly all Europe and America pay 
 
— 72 — 
 
 homage. If this is so, we see therein the progress of Jewish 
 ideas. For Christianity, in its main parts, and its best parts, 
 is nothing else than Judaism, and we do not hesitate to admit 
 that it also effected, for the benefit of mankind, a great pro- 
 gress in so far that it abolished petrified laws and hollow for- 
 malities, when that party in early Christianity, whose leader 
 and mouthpiece was the apostle Paul, gained the upper-hand 
 over an opposite party, and in so far we ought to profit by the 
 example. But Christianity branched off from the mother 
 Church and went astray, when, especially by the same Paulin- 
 ian party, foreign elements were intermixed, when the fanciful 
 reveries of the Xeoplatonic school of philosophers and the 
 bottomless speculations of the Gnostics were ingrafted upon 
 our rational, pure and noble Judaism, and when, in order to 
 make it more palatable to the heathens of Europe, it did not 
 shrink from admitting ito its body such doctrines, which we, 
 from our Monothestic standpoint, must necessarily call idola- 
 trous. 
 
 Do we Jews teach a, god incarnate? a god who ate and 
 drank, and slept, and suffered, and died? a god by whose blood 
 the sins of mankind were atoned for? Do we teach that our 
 God is so cruel as to give over to eternal perdition those that 
 do not believe as we do? Do we not, on the contrary, explic- 
 itly teach that every good man, of whatever creed or nation- 
 ality he may be, will participate in salvation? Does Judaism 
 curse, or damn, or persecute any non-Jew on account of his 
 religious views? Do we state, or claim, that any man is, or 
 was, infallible? Is Judaism in conflict with science? Does 
 it not grant to the scientific inquirer the fullest and most un- 
 limited freedom? A Galileo and Copernicus, a Darwin and a 
 Huxley, a Hajckel and a Virchow, can follow their researches 
 unmolested by Judaism, and the astronomer and the geolo- 
 gist, the speculator on the age of the human race and on the 
 age of the world, on the origin of species and on the origin 
 of languages can proceed with his studies without meeting 
 any interference or any protest from our side. There is noth- 
 ing like a credo in Judaism that might stand as an obstacle 
 
— 73 — 
 
 in the way of the searcher after truth. There is only one doc- 
 trine which is regarded in Judaism as firm and unshakable — 
 the doctrine of the one supernatural and preternatural God. 
 And there is only one kind of laws for which unchangeability 
 is claimed — the moral laws. And these laws we might sum 
 up in one sentence : Sanctify your thoughts and actions. Or, 
 as the Bible has it : " Ye shall be holy, for holy am I, the 
 Lord, your God." This being the state of facts, we again 
 ask : Is Judaism in anywise on any point, inimical to 
 science? 
 
 And again we might go on with our questions ; again we 
 might ask of the thinking and unprejudiced world to answer 
 these questions, and confidently we might await the answers. 
 We will not deny, my friends, that there are many individual 
 Jews illiberal in their views, queer in their notions, narrow- 
 minded and narrow-hearted. We will not deny that some of 
 our fellow-Israelites entertain ideas and lead a life not at all 
 becoming an Israelite, who, as a member of the " chosen peo- 
 ple," ought to feel doubly obliged to shun darkness and to 
 walk in the light. We will not deny even, that, in days past 
 and days present, untenable ideas found expression by some 
 Jewish authors of high repute. But the fact is not to be lost 
 sight of that all these things are totally unessential in Juda- 
 ism. Cast them off, ye my fellow-Israelites, and you still re- 
 main Jews. Cast off whatever is irrational, whatever is in 
 conflict with the demands of sound modern culture and civ- 
 ilization, whatever is obsolete and antiquated, and Judaism 
 remains ; it remains as long as it maintains its opposition to 
 every kind of heathenism, as long as it holds fast to the sole, 
 living God, and as long as it acknowledges the obligatory 
 character of the moral laws. 
 
 Where else do you find such a power to eternally rejuvenate 
 itself? Ask any earnest and sincere Christian theologian, 
 and if you do not know it, you will then learn it, that as soon 
 as the doctrine of the trinity, of the atoning power of the 
 death of Christ, of the deification of the same, of the original 
 sin, etc., are done away with, Christianity ceases to be. You 
 
— 74 — 
 
 might — so this knowing Christian will inform you — call what 
 remains Christianity, by politeness, or by thoughtlessness; 
 people who do not adhere any more to these peculiar articles 
 of creed may, perhaps, honestly delude themselves into still 
 claiming to be Christians ; but they are such only in name 
 and not in reality. 
 
 Now look how the world squids on these questions. Of 
 nominal Christians there are thousands who in reality are 
 not Christians. Jewish ideas, liberal ideas prevail among 
 them. Those un-Jewish ideas are daily losing ground in the 
 midst of the educated classes, while the rational and Jewish 
 elements in our great sister-Church make rapid and triumph- 
 ant progress. 
 
 But now comes our liberal friend, and says : " Why do you 
 designate the liberal views we entertain as Jewish? You 
 assume too much." 
 
 My friends — so we answer — in arts and sciences the Occi- 
 dental world has its teachers and models, not among the Is- 
 raelites, but among the so-called classical nations of antiquity 
 In religion proper, however, Judaism is the ground whence 
 the truth came to the Western nations. You can not trace 
 your religious views to the Hindoos or to the Chinese. Even 
 if you find among them sublime doctrines similar to those 
 you and I believe in, you must confess that the teach- 
 ings of the Hindoos and the Chinese did not have the least 
 influence upon the formation and development of the Western 
 mind. Judaism did. And as well as we can, on the hand of 
 history, follow the stream of our mental philosophy back to 
 Aristotle and Plato, and the stream of our jurisprudence 
 back to Rome and Byzanz, so we are led back to Sinai and Ju- 
 dea if we start from the present state of the ruling religious 
 ideas, and follow the thread of their historical development 
 back to their origin. 
 
 The spiritual world is not yet fully conquered. Not yet is 
 heathenism fully overthrown. Nations are not born in one 
 day, and such gigantic labors are not accomplished in one 
 short period of time. But much is already accomplished, 
 
— 75 — 
 
 great victories arc already won. We have no childish pride 
 in names. We do not complain when the people hesitate in 
 accepting the name of Jews, and we are fully satisfied with 
 the fact, and glory in it, that Judaism in its essence — one God, 
 one mankind— is daily, more and more, acknowledged and 
 accepted. May we not hope, however, that honest people will 
 ere long honor' the truth, and will, individually and collect- 
 ively, declare : We are no Christians — we even disclaim the 
 name of such? And who knows whether the reformator is 
 not born already, who, like Luther in the sixteenth century, 
 will stand up boldly, fearlessly, and true to his innermost 
 convictions, and to the dictates of his conscience, and who, 
 full of zeal and enthusiasm, will call up the people and say : 
 " As three hundred years ago it was time to renounce popery 
 and Roman Catholicism, so it is now the time to renounce the 
 deification of a man and all the ideas connected therewith — to 
 renounce Christianity. And as Luther and his contempo- 
 raries returned, or intended to return, to the Christianity of 
 the first century, so it is time for us to return to the spirit of 
 the prophets of Israel." Who knows whether some of us may 
 not live to see the great religious revolution? When the same 
 will take place — and many signs of the times point to the 
 event coming that casts its shadows beforehand — then it will 
 be obvious, e'ven for dim eyes, that Judaism is a power in the 
 world. 
 
 Dear brethren, to our patriarchs already it has been prom- 
 ised, By you and your seed all the nations of the earth shall 
 be blessed. This promise the God in history fulfills. He 
 caused Israel to be dispersed all over the world, in order, as 
 the Talmud says, to bring over proselytes to Judaism. Happy 
 in the consciousness of their high mission, Israelites dwell 
 now in all parts of the inhabited globe, living witnesses of 
 Him, the Holy One of Israel, who said, through the mouth 
 of His prophet : " I, even I, am the Lord, and besides me there 
 is no savior." Let us thank our Heavenly Father that he has 
 chosen Israel from among the nations and has entrusted it 
 with such an exalted mission. Let us thank Him for pur 
 dispersion. Let us remain faithful and true to our mission. 
 Let us never forget to be a witness of Him, the Holy One, the 
 God of the Universe, by walking in His ways. His name be 
 praised forever and ever. Amen. 
 
THE OFFERING OF ISAAC. 
 
 BY REV. DR. MAX LANDSBERG, 
 
 (Of Rochester, N. Y.) 
 
 Text:— Gen. xxii. 1-13. 
 
 If I should be asked to give a short and concise explana- 
 tion of the time of the Messiah or the so-called kingdom of 
 God, of the most blessed aim and end of the human race 
 toward which we are striving, I would answer thus : At 
 that time all men will unanimously recognize as the word of 
 God the supremacy of the moral law, which forms the foun- 
 dation of all social progress, and of all institutions that con- 
 stitute the stronghold of society, and there will be no discord, 
 no dissension regarding the means by which that noble aim 
 is to be reached. I do not pretend to believe that there will 
 ever be a time when all men will give expression to their re- 
 ligious sensations by the same forms and ceremonies ; I do 
 not pretend to hope that all men will profess the same doc- 
 trines of belief and belong to the same religious denomina- 
 tion, but it is my firm and unshaken conviction that a period 
 will come when the final aim will alone be considered as es- 
 sential ; when all men will consciously and conscientiously 
 strive toward righteousness, while acknowledging that numer- 
 ous diffeient roads may lead to the same goal, and, therefore, 
 not presuming that theirs must of necessity be the shortest 
 and easiest path, but merely the one which seems preferable 
 to themselves. 
 
 To teach this truth, to make mankind aware of this dis- 
 pensation is the loftiest end and aim of the spiritual labor of 
 
-78- 
 
 man, the most fragrant blossom, the sweetest fruit on the tree 
 of Judaism, of all true religion. 
 
 Oh, that we were able to see ourselves with the same eyes 
 as others see us ; oh, that man could gain that fairness of 
 judgment, that clearness of thinking, which induced him to 
 put his own doctrines, his own ideas, his own peculiarities 
 into the same crucible, to submit them to the same test of 
 logical evidence, wherewith he is at all times ready to ap- 
 proach the religious belief, the superstition, the distinctive 
 characteristics of his fellow-men ! 
 
 How many centuries, yea, thousands of years, has it taken 
 to teach mankind in the most civilized countries of our globe, 
 to teach those nations who are boasting of their high cul- 
 ture, the lesson of toleration ! How difficult has it been to 
 break the soil of the hearts and prepare it for the truth that 
 no State or government has a right to force its citizens to be- 
 long to any established church and support the same, but 
 that every man is allowed his own religious opinion and 
 worship, when contrary to or different from those of the es- 
 tablished belief ! And how crude and unsatisfactory seems 
 such privilege to every one who has an understanding of the 
 full scope of freedom and liberality ! For what is toleration, 
 but the allowance of what is by no means wholly approved? 
 If the necessary power would exist, differing opinions would 
 be suppressed, their utterance prohibited, their promulgation 
 checked, their professors persecuted. Thus toleration is simply 
 the consequence of a lack of power, while true liberality 
 toward which we strive, which we consider to be the final 
 aim of religion, does not only tolerate, but gives the benefit 
 of the doubt, openly avows that others, though differing with 
 us, may be right so long as they remain within the boundaries 
 of morality and respect the fundamental laws of society on 
 which all well-meaning men agree, and by which a protecting 
 wall is erected around life and property, the safety of the 
 State and the individual, the purity of the family and the virtue 
 of the community. 
 
 But in order to contribute toward reaching such a 
 
— 79 — 
 
 desirable aim, we must not be fearful, we must not 
 shrink from looking the truth straight in the face, we 
 must without winking accept it with all its consequences, 
 and have the moral courage of investigating our own 
 belief with the same impartiality and freedom of preju- 
 dice with which we adjudicate upon that of others. 
 How seldom is such clear judgment used by us ; how rarely 
 do we abide by the old rule IDlpD^ WT\W IV 1"Qn HK p Tin 5>N 
 "You have no right to judge over your neighbor except you 
 have put yourselves in his place !" How often do we laugh at 
 the credulity, at the folly of our fellow-men? How often do we 
 look down with sadness, yea, with horror, upon what we call 
 their narrow-mindedness and their superstitions — altogether 
 forgetful that in their eyes we may appear as foolish and sense- 
 less as they do to us, that the doctrines and practices which 
 arouse our indignation and horror, which make our hair stand 
 on end, may be nothing but the extreme logical consequences 
 of what we ourselves consider as truth, proclaim as a doctrine 
 of faith, worship as the word, as the very utterance from the 
 mouth of God ! 
 
 We are horrified when we read how the most various nations 
 of antiquity practiced the dastardly rite of sacrificing human 
 beings, and especially children, in honor of the deities. We 
 are ready to join with our old prophets in the most ringing 
 denunciations of abominations practiced at the statue of the 
 Phoenician god, Moloch. We can hardly believe that among 
 the Greeks, King Agamemnon could be persuaded to sacri- 
 fice his virgin daughter, Iphigenia, to the goddess Diana, and 
 that up to a very late time men were sacrificed by the most 
 prominent and highly-educated individuals, as by Julius 
 Csesar at a sedition of his soldiers, by Augustus, after the 
 victory over Mark Antony, and by other Roman emperors as 
 late as to the fourth century of the present era ; and when in 
 our own days, in one of the most enlightened States of our 
 Union, a father* and mother deliberately take their sweet little 
 
 * Freeman, at Pocasset, Massachusetts, in April, 1879. 
 
— 80 — 
 
 four-year-old girl, slaughter her with a large carving knife, as 
 " an odor of sweet smell, a sacrifice acceptable to God," and 
 far from regretting the bloody deed, claim that they would do 
 it over again and meet with the approval of their co-relig- 
 ionists — we are very ready to attribute the horrible action to 
 religious madness without looking for any further explana- 
 tion — while most assuredly it is nothing but the logical con- 
 sequence of the manner in which Bible stories are considered 
 by the overwhelming majority of people in our country. 
 
 Freeman was sure, he says, that in the decisive moment 
 God would stay his arm, and by a visible or audible token, 
 show that, as in the case of Abraham, he was satisfied with 
 the will instead of the deed. But since such a sign was not 
 given to him, he was convinced that he had done nothing 
 but execute the will of God. But, my friends, where is the 
 difference between the intended deed of Abraham and that 
 of the child-murderer? True, it is said, seemingly the cases 
 are equal, but in reality the story of Abraham's intended sac- 
 rifice of his son, is misunderstood (of course, we say the 
 same, and shall explain our view further on), but how mis- 
 understood, so long as the words of the Bible are claimed to 
 be inspired by supernatural revelation, as long as the word 
 " God spoke to so and so," is taken literally ! Many try to 
 explain away the difficulty thus: "God never commanded 
 Abraham to literally slay his son. That Abraham so under- 
 stood him is true, but he misunderstood him, and we have in 
 the opening verses of chapter xxii. of Genesis not what God 
 really required, but Abraham's misunderstanding of God's 
 requirement, according to the standpoint of his heathenish 
 notions of sacrifice." But is this a satisfactory explanation, 
 does it alter one iota of the similarity between Abraham and 
 any one who would to-day attempt to imitate him ? The only 
 difference is that Abraham was fortunate enough to hear the 
 voice of God: "Do not kill your son, I am satisfied with 
 your good will." Is it not at least a very dangerous thing 
 about the voice of God, if it is capable of so being miscon- 
 strued? And would such an error be punishable? Would 
 
— 81 
 
 you punish your child if from a plain misunderstanding of 
 your words," which have been framed in such a shape as to 
 allow the child's interpretation, it had done wrong, even com- 
 mitted what otherwise would be branded as a crime? Where 
 is the culpability of a man who misunderstood the command 
 of God in the same manner as Abraham? And why should 
 he not misunderstand it in spite of the most ingenious inter- 
 pretations? Does not the story end : " And the angel of God 
 called to Abraham a second time and said, By myself I swear 
 says the Lord, indeed because thou hast done this thing, and 
 hast not withheld thy son, thy only one. Indeed I shall bless 
 thee abundantly and shall multiply thy seed exceedingly, as 
 the stars of heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea 
 shore, since thou hast obeyed my voice ! " And is not Abra- 
 ham praised rather for his willingness to give up his son than 
 for his obedience to the second call, that he should spare him? 
 And has not the readiness of Abraham to sacrifice his son, 
 always been considered as the greatest deed of faith com- 
 mitted by man, the most striking proof of his piety? And 
 did it not become the basis on which the Israelites founded 
 their claims of election among the nations, and in later times 
 the hopes of atonement of their sins? Read the traditional 
 prayers for the New Year's day and the Day of Atonement 
 still in use among the overwhelming majority of the Jews 
 and you find them crowded to overflowing with reminiscences 
 of the " Akeda/' the sacrifice of Isaac. God is urged not to for- 
 get it, but let all the descendants of Abraham and Isaac reap 
 the fruit of this highest nn« Jlttl of the merit of Abraham, 
 which consisted in his readiness to offer his son on the altar? 
 Can we. therefore, be satisfied with the explanation that 
 Abraham was commanded by God, but misunderstood his 
 words? Is not then every man, are not we ourselves, exposed 
 to such frightful misunderstanding? No, my friends, there 
 is only one cure for such evil, and a'radical cure. It is not 
 sufficient, as it used to be the custom, to interpret? into the 
 words of the Bible that which happens to be convenient, but 
 it is a necessity, an irrepressible duty, over against all oppo- 
 
— 82 — 
 
 sition, without any consideration of those who are afraid re- 
 ligion will be lost if the Bible is not regarded as a supernat- 
 ural book — to be firm in our conviction, to declare openly- 
 over and over again and to implant the knowledge into the 
 hearts of our children — that there is only one manner in 
 which God speaks to man — through his own spirit — that 
 there is on\j one revelation,, that the voice of God can not be 
 misunderstood, for it makes itself manifest to us in the reve- 
 lations of science and nature ; it is subject to the laws of 
 morality and controlled by the rules of logical thinking, and 
 it is growing, like everything else, a natural growth, it is un- 
 dergoing a constitutional evolution, a never-ceasing develop- 
 ment. 
 
 We know that human sacrifices were practiced among the 
 Jews up to the Babylonian captivity, we are told in the Bible 
 itself that David offered them, that Solomon built a temple 
 to Moloch and that this worship was most of the time the 
 established State religion in Juclah, and that not more than 
 sixty years before Jerusalem's first destruction, King Manasseh 
 offered his son to Moloch. These circumstances alone would 
 prove that the story of Isaac's sacrifice must have been written 
 at a very late time, and indeed all indications point toward 
 the conclusion that — in its present form — it was not written 
 before the eighth century by prophets who, like Micah, have 
 proclaimed such words as : " Shall I give you my first-born 
 for my sin, my own child to obtain forgiveness? No ! He 
 has shown you, oh man, what is good, and what God requires 
 of you. It is to do right, to hold mercy dear, and to walk 
 humbly with thy God." Then the biblical author, not mind- 
 ing the anachronism committed, placed at the beginning of 
 Israel's history an event which expresses the spirit of his 
 own time. The prophets of that age were fighting single- 
 handed the great struggle against the idolatry of the court 
 and the nation ; they branded with their fiery eloquence as 
 the worst crime what was then considered as worship of the 
 Deity ; they dared to give utterance to their opinions before 
 a populace who were assured that their good fortune had left 
 
— 83 — 
 
 them since they had ceased praying and sacrificing to Mo- 
 loch and the Queen of the Heavens. It was by men of such 
 stamp that the old tradition of Isaac's sacrifice was used and 
 transformed in the sense of their own advanced religious 
 ideas, to teach the people that Abraham had allowed 
 his sound reason to interfere with the voice of his heart, 
 which was that of heathen superstition, and to make 
 their contemporaries understand that not even the most 
 devoted allegiance to God and the deepest piety require 
 or justify human sacrifices, that God is satisfied with the 
 heart of those who worship him and that he crowns with a 
 splendid reward those who by their shining example crush 
 superstition and dare to have the courage of an independent 
 opinion. 
 
 Such ideas would be expressed to-day and made accessible 
 to the people by writing a book on ethics and morals ; but in 
 the childhood of the literature of all nations nothing was 
 written and appreciated but poetry. The history related in 
 the Bible is clothed in a poetical garment, it is to a great ex- 
 tent resting upon a historical basis, while a great deal of it is 
 mere fiction, elaborated to convey certain moral ideas. God has 
 never spoken to men in any other manner than he does to- 
 day ; God's revelation was not a whit more supernatural two 
 or four thousand years ago than it is at our own time ; God's 
 voice is heard in thunder and lightning to-day as it was on 
 Sinai and was then not otherwise than it is now. The laws 
 of nature have never been disturbed nor perverted ; they have 
 changed as little as God has himself. All that has changed 
 is man ; from a state of childhood, when he was pleased with 
 fables and stories of supernatural miracles, he has developed 
 into an adult man, who wants facts, knows or commences to 
 be aware of his mental capacities, looks forward for ever 
 greater development and improvement, and turns backward 
 only to regard with the highest interest the evolution of the 
 religious idea and of civilization, from the crudest beginnings 
 of antiquity to our own time. This development of a thousand 
 years in the life and history of our forefathers is preserved to us 
 
— 84 — 
 
 in the number of fragments and remnants from their ancient 
 literature, which constitute " The Book " or " Bible." It is 
 holy to us as an old inheritance from our ancestors ; it is 
 sacred to us as the fountain from which our religious truth 
 and civilization have grown, as the ancient records of the his 
 tory of our fathers ; it is dear to us because it is stained with 
 the lifeblood of millions of our people, who have clung to it 
 amidst terrible persecutions when exposed to the most cruel 
 fanaticism, and have by its inspiration become the banner- 
 bearers of freedom and liberality; but our eyes are not blind 
 to prevent us from recognizing its true value, to make us 
 over-estimate it and consider all its contents, without dis- 
 crimination, as a rule of life and a guide of our conduct. 
 
 Let us fearlessly proclaim this truth, let us make our voice 
 heard wherever it will penetrate, and we shall fulfill Israel's 
 mission, to bless mankind with enlightenment and teach all 
 the families of the earth the true and pure word of God 
 Amen. 
 
MOSES SPAKE TRULY. 
 
 A SERMON. 
 
 BY REV. PROF. ABRAHAM DE SOLA, LL. D. 
 
 (Minister of the Portuguese Congregation, Montreal.) 
 
 Brethren:— In the 6th chapter of Exodus, at the 9th 
 verse, we read these woids : 
 :wp majwi nn nvpo n^ hx xw* kS S*o^ *» !>k P mra nam 
 
 " Moses spake so unto the children of Israel, but they 
 hearkened not unto Moses, from shortness of spirit and from 
 hard bondage." 
 
 I have translated the text according to its plain, literal 
 meaning. Doubtless the words " Moses spake so unto the chil- 
 dren of Israel," refer to the all-gracious and all-assuring mes- 
 sage which God had directed him to deliver to them, and 
 which is contained in the seven verses immediately preceding 
 the text just read. This message, in the first place, consisted 
 of a revelation by God to Israel of the ineffable name 
 " Adonai" God-Eternal, in addition to the name "ffl Shad- 
 dai" God- All-Sufficient, by which he had been known to 
 Abraham, to Isaac, to Jacob, and to themselves, until now. 
 The all-important message further contained God's blessed 
 assurance that he remembered the covenant which he had 
 made with the patriarchs, that he had heard the groaning of 
 their enslaved and oppressed children, and that he would 
 now miraculously deliver them from the galling yoke of their 
 heartless taskmasters and lead them from Egypt to Canaan, 
 and there become their God. The actual delivery of this 
 
— 86 — 
 
 message is, therefore, evidently referred to when the text tells 
 us, " Moses spake so to the children of Israel." But notwith- 
 standing this, and notwithstanding the safe principle laid 
 down by our ancient teachers* to prefer a literal to a figurative 
 exposition when possible, let us now, by a slight alteration of 
 the generally received rendering of the text, endeavor to show 
 that from words which certainly present nothing more than 
 a mere historical statement, important ethical truths and valu- 
 able religious doctrines may be elicited. Let us see how the 
 words of the text may be, and are, as applicable to the state 
 of the children of Israel to-day, as of yore ; let us see that 
 we may even now obtain from them spiritual edification and 
 profit. To this end let us proceed to consider two main ques- 
 tions which the text seems, evidently, to suggest : 
 
 I. How has Moses spoken to the children of Israel? and 
 
 II. Why have not the children of Israel hearkened unto 
 Moses? 
 
 And may the Source of all wisdom and truth be with us 
 and guide us in this hour of meditation and devotion. 
 Amen. 
 
 I. 
 
 How has Moses spoken to the children of Israel? The text 
 says that " he spoke so," in the original, p " ken;" but this 
 Hebrew word has other meanings. Primarily, it signifies a 
 stand, or base, something standing upright and straight ; but 
 it has a secondary or figurative sense, conveying the abstract 
 ideas of truth, faithfulness, honesty, uprightness and other 
 kindred virtues, and then it becomes synonymous with pa J 
 " Nachon," proper, and is used as a neuter noun, an adjective, 
 or an adverb. In Genesis xlii. 11, Joseph's brethren assure 
 him they are " Kaynim" true men. Joseph uses the word in 
 the same sense at the 19th verse, and so it is employed in 
 the 31st, 33d and 34th verses. In Exodus x. 29, Moses 
 
 * vj-rs *Ttt N2*r K"ip^ )*K. 
 
— 87 — 
 
 says to Pharoah : " Thou has spoken ' ken? well, truly." In 
 Numbers xxvii. 7, we read : u The daughters of Zelophehad 
 speak ' ken? rightly," and at the 35th chapter, 5th verse, we 
 find, " The tribe of the sons of Joseph hath said ' ken? well." 
 The word has the same meaning in post-pentateuchal writ- 
 ings. In Joshua ii. 4, are the words, " The men ' ken ' truly, or 
 really, did come unto me ;" and in II. Kings, vii. 7, it is written 
 " We act not ' ken? rightly or honestly." And now, brethren, 
 without departing entirely from a grammatical or literal ren- 
 dering of the text, we have a reply to the first question which 
 it suggests to us, and that reply is, " Moses spake truly unto 
 the children of Israel." Yes, he spake truly, as became him 
 who is described in the Yigdal-Hymn as im |DKJ " the faith- 
 ful one of Irs house." Yes, he spake truly, for if the voice 
 and writing were his, the inspiration, the words, were not his, 
 but God's. And thus it is, children of Israel ! that when 
 you entered on the blessed and blessing heritage which is 
 yours, HK>D )& rm> rnin " the Law which Moses commanded 
 us," you became possessors of truths unspeakably valuable, 
 of privileges great above all estimate. Yes, Moses has spoken 
 truly to us, because he has imparted to us the greatest of 
 fundamental truths, the only true knowledge we can possess 
 of man's origin and of his vocation here — aye, and of the 
 origin of all creatures and all things also. But, methinks, 
 you would ask, is this indeed so? Do not the teachings of 
 modern science conflict with those of Moses when he refers 
 to physical facts, and is not this conflict more especially ap- 
 parent in his statements respecting such subjects as the ori- 
 gin of the world and of man? Unhesitatingly, but not with- 
 out having long considered the question, I answer, No ! most 
 emphatically, No ! Certainly there has been a seeming con- 
 flict between the teachings of Moses and those of scientists 
 in the past, but as the science of the earlier times to which I 
 refer, has developed and advanced, its seeming contradiction 
 with the biblical record has ceased to exist. In our own day, 
 as new utterances and theories of scientists are put forth, 
 new contradictions seem to exist between the teachings of 
 
— 88 — 
 
 Moses and of science in the minds of some men, worthy and 
 able men even — but only to exist until the Holy Book, in ac- 
 cordance with the requirements of the Talmudic sages* be 
 subjected to a more strict and scientific exegesis than is gen- 
 erally given to it ; only until the language and archaeology 
 of the Bible be better studied; only until science, modifying, 
 altering and discarding its present teachings, according to 
 its wont, shall become yet more fully advanced and developed. 
 This must be so from the very nature of things, from the ex- 
 perience of the past, from the testimony of history which has 
 clearly taught us the irrefragable truth that while human 
 science has been constantly changing its utterances and shift- 
 ing its ground, "the word of the Lord abideth alway," 
 iruiDK Til ~n iyi " and his truth throughout all generations." 
 Now, if this be the experience we have already had of the 
 character of the biblical and scientific records, of the divine 
 word and the human word, the speaking of Moses and the 
 teachings of those who proved themselves false prophets and 
 teachers of error, it is all important to our present inquiry 
 that we should lay down certain principles which will always 
 enable us to judge whether Moses has spoken truly to us, 
 should our minds become disturbed by the constantly recur- 
 ring novelties and skepticisms of modern scientists. My 
 friends, I have always objected to discuss in this holy place 
 the platitudes of human wisdom, when we could so much 
 more profitably occupy ourselves with the precious teachings 
 of the divine word, or to ask your attention to the common- 
 places of secular literature, when we have the sublimities of 
 revelation before us. But, to-day, brethren, with the object 
 of exhibiting the principles just referred to, I will depart 
 from my usual course, to notice, in exemplification, one of 
 the most recent creations of modern thought, known as the 
 doctrine of Evolution or development. I do this, also, be- 
 cause I happen to know that the confidence with which it has 
 
 * rc *oin ro -nem to tiki. 
 
— 89 — 
 
 been urged by some, has caused perplexity and pain to many 
 pious persons around us, though, thank God, not among us. 
 First, then, my hearers, it is an admitted principle in men- 
 tal science, it is a law in logic, that if either or both the prem- 
 ises of a syllogism, or an argument put in its regular logical 
 form, bo insufficient, or invalid, the conclusion drawn from 
 such premises will also be insufficient and invalid, and must, 
 then, be regarded as a mere fallacy; also, that a fallacious 
 argument — that is, an apparent argument— is, in reality, 
 none. Next, it is an admitted principle in physical science 
 that only that is pure science or science proper which deals 
 with facts and the deductions made from them by the strict 
 laws of reasoning just mentioned. Now, judged by these 
 standards, the evolution doctrine has no claim to the title of 
 science ; it can not, logically, ascend to the dignity of scien- 
 tific truth, but must needs remain at the low level occupied 
 by theory, aye, by exploded theories, too. It is not I who 
 tell you this ; it is not the mere theologian who declares this 
 to you ; but it is the true scientists themselves. It is the 
 practical men of science, men famed for their original inves- 
 tigations in geology and physical science, who show you that 
 those who maintain there is no need for an Almighty Creator 
 of the Universe, of whom Moses speaks, but that inanimate 
 matter could in the process of time be developed out of noth- 
 ing, and, afterward, that living creatures could be developed 
 out of dead matter, can not point to a single fact from which 
 to draw their deductions ; hence, they are merely theorists, 
 speculators, not scientists. Their premises are insufficient 
 and false, and their deductions are, therefore, also insufficient 
 and false. And while it is not wonderful that men should 
 be found speculating about things that are past their compre- 
 hension, as science always leads back to the things we can 
 not comprehend, it is criminal to confound mere speculation 
 with the deductions of science ; and this is what the support- 
 ers of the development theory are doing, as they can not 
 point to a single fact that goes to prove the truth of their pet 
 
— 90 — 
 
 theory. And although it has been a question with the learned 
 in all ages whether a living thing can be produced out of those 
 that are dead, there has not been found a single instance 
 where a living thing has been produced without a previous 
 living thing, nor have we any knowledge of separate species 
 of animals being produced from other species ; and to state 
 that such may be done, is mere speculation, which must not 
 be mixed up with the ascertained results of science.* We 
 may be satisfied, then, that Moses spake truly to us when he 
 taught us that u in the beginning God created the heavens 
 and the earth," that great truth that forms the basis of Juda- 
 ism, the existence of a personal God, who produced matter 
 from nothing, who is, therefore, prior to matter, and was 
 never dependent upon matter for his existence. These truths, 
 taught us in the very first paragraph of the writings of Moses, 
 are not accidentally or unintentionally told us, but with the 
 design of confuting the errors of the existing cosmogonies 
 taught by his contemporaries and predecessors. Therefore 
 speaks Moses truly, also, when he teaches that God is " El 
 Shaddaif The All-Sufficient and Almighty God, the only 
 power able to produce something from nothing p<D Wt\ fcTCOn 
 Therefore speaks Moses truly, also, when he teaches us that 
 this being, u El Shaddai" is also Adonai, The Eternal, — 
 eternal in his power; eternal in all his attributes; and that 
 he must be, therefore, the sole object of man's worship for- 
 ever. Therefore speaks Moses truly, also, when he teaches us 
 
 * Israelites who believe or who doubt that Moses has spoken truly 
 on these important points, should alike refer to the able and con- 
 vincing discussion of them by that distinguished scientist, Dr. J. W. 
 DawFon, in his "Origin of the World," published in 1877, especially 
 on pages 220 and 227, which exhibit five fatal objections toevolu'ion 
 as at present held. They should attentively read this book and Ids 
 11 Lectures on the Bible and Science. " These, with his other most 
 valuable works, to winch I am only too happy to declare my indebt- 
 edness formost highly-prized instruction and edification, I would ear- 
 nestly wish to see, side by side with t e Bible, in every Jewish home, 
 school and college. The style of t lie eminent investigator of theLau- 
 rentians and Devonians is such that his works may be perused even 
 by the non-scientific reader with both profit and pleasure. 
 
— 91 — 
 
 that this Eternal God is One, nnx " as the unity of design 
 and connection of plan in creation shows, even to the convic- 
 tion of the most skeptical scientist.* 
 
 And, my hearers, truly speaks Moses to us when he imparts 
 to us the knowledge of the divine attributes proclaimed when 
 the Eternal passed before him. Brethren, bow down your 
 heads in reverence while I repeat to you these solemn truths, 
 as Moses spake them to the children of Israel, Dim ^K * « 
 riNBni wwn |iy kbo wsbxb "ion to noxi non an d%m tx turn 
 npJl " Adonai is the immutable, eternal Being ! the omnipo- 
 tent God ! merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant 
 in beneficence and truth ; showing mercy even unto the thou- 
 sandth generation, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, 
 and acquitting."! God is merciful and gracious, declares 
 Moses, and therefore, as says David : "Asa loving Father 
 hath compassion on his children, so God hath compassion on 
 those who fear him."J The God of whom Moses speaks does 
 not disdain our love, our reverence, our supplications, our 
 service ; he does not spurn us from him as something too 
 vile, too insignificant, too contemptible for notice. He de- 
 lights not in the agonies of his creatures ; therefore he de- 
 sires not to be served with the rites of cruelty and impurity 
 which have been used by those who have not known Moses ; 
 therefore he has not required at our hands the sacrifices of 
 human beings. He knoweth man's frailty,§ m? JJT wn '3, as 
 the potter knoweth the material of the vessel which he forms 
 umx 13V *3 TOT therefore, as Moses speaks, he is " long-suf- 
 
 * Even John Stuart Mill, " who seems at one time to have taken 
 ground against d^siixn," subsequently admitted its forca, more espe- 
 cially ns an argument of inductive value. See Dawson's " Lectures 
 on the Bible and Science," and his recent refutation of Haeckel, in 
 the Princeton Review, May, 1880. 
 
 t Exodus xxxiv. 5. 
 
 $ Psalm ciii. 13. 
 
 § Psalm ciii. 14. 
 
— 92 — 
 
 fering, abundant in beneficence and truth," and, as Moses 
 also shows us, only requires that we should sincerely "repent 
 and listen to his voice," £>?2 nynw ynb* " "IV n3B»l * Moses 
 teaches that a sincere repentance of past transgressions and 
 an equally sincere determination to listen and to amend in 
 the future, are all sufficient conditions for restoration to God's 
 favor, and that when these conditions are fulfilled, he will 
 fully restore us to his love. And this in a direct manner, and 
 not through the merits or mediatorship of another. No, 
 teaches Moses, KWl fc^DJn nmajl " the sinning one shall him- 
 self be cut off/'f and again, Uiy KBOl " he himself shall bear 
 his sin. "J Moses, therefore, speaks to us other truths of the 
 highest importance when he teaches us that we are responsible 
 beings; that our eternal destiny is consequently in our own 
 hands ; that we are placed here, merely to earn our reward in 
 another sphere of intellectual and spiritual existence, that the 
 now is when we are to labor to earn the wages paid us by a 
 just and benevolent Master in the hereafter. God thus ''passes 
 by transgression " of his mere mercy and grace, so that if we 
 be to-day impure in his sight, we may be to-morrow cleansed 
 and purified before the Eternal ; Vinton Tl ^sb § so that if our 
 sins be at this moment " red as scarlet " before God, in the 
 next they may appear to him "white as snow."|| And this is 
 not because there has been any change in him whom Moses 
 teaches us is immutable, but because the change has been in 
 ourselves ; and hence, according to the consoling teaching of 
 the synagogue, " the sincerely repentant sinner is loved and 
 esteemed before the Creator, as if he had never sinned. "■[" 
 
 Thus has Moses spoken to us with reference to the being 
 and attributes of God ; and now, brethren, let me ask you, 
 
 * Deut. iv. 30. 
 t Ex. xii. 15-19, etc. 
 t Lev. v. 1. 
 § Lev. xvi. 30. 
 II Isaiah i. 18. 
 
 IT E?iys Kttn K*3 1?KD N'YOn *3B5 Kin IttnSI aiHK, Maimonides, 
 " Hilchoth Teshubah, vii. 4. 
 
— 93 — 
 
 is it not true that the human mind, which has sought during 
 thousands of years to form correct ideas of the nature Lnd 
 attributes of deity, unaided by what Moses hath spoken, has 
 never been able to ascend like him who spake GHpH nm "under 
 the divine afflatus," to such grandeur of conception, to such 
 sublimity of ideal? Who is he and where is he that has 
 spoken to us on this, the highest of all themes, so truly as 
 Moses hath spoken to us, words and teachings so true that 
 they completely fill the soul, and thoroughly satisfy its 
 longings for such light as it may obtain in this stage 
 of its existence? Is it not true that the god begot- 
 ten of human thought, of human science, whether it 
 be of the philosophers, the mythologists, the pantheists of 
 the past, or of the philosophers and pantheists of the pres- 
 ent, is but an embodiment of weakness and insufficiency, in- 
 sufficiency of intellectual as well as of physical power ; the 
 very reverse idea of El Shaddai ; is it not an apotheosis of 
 darkness and limitation of mind, the very reverse idea of 
 Adonai? And in the total absence of spirituality in such 
 conceptions, do we not plainly perceive positive grossness? 
 And in the fierce and senseless attacks of rampant material- 
 ism on what it can. not and never will displace, do we not 
 recognize the active and scarcely concealed desire of men to 
 be freed from all that will check the fullest gratification of 
 their lowest passions, from all that teaches them that they have 
 heaven-born duties, obligations and responsibilities? to be 
 freed from the ken and supervision of that omniscient and 
 omnipresent Being of whom Moses speaks, from that all 
 seeing-eye that can penetrate the innermost recesses of both 
 matter and mind? My hearers, I leave you now to ponder 
 these questions, but not without the fullest conviction that 
 you will have but one all-comprehensive reply to all of them, 
 and that this reply will be in the words of the text, np» Wl 
 Sxnp 1 *J3 Stf p u Moses has spoken truly to the children of 
 Israel." 
 
 Under the divine favor, we will continue this subject at our 
 next meeting, inquiring then whether Moses has spoken truly 
 
— 94 — 
 
 with reference to man's duties to man, and examining, even 
 if briefly, the character of his ethical teachings. Till then, 
 brethren, may God have you in his keeping ; and may his 
 spirit rest on you, so that your eyes may become opened to 
 the wonders of his Law which Moses has so truly spoken to 
 you. And may what has been said to-day be blessed to you 
 all; so that it may be affirmed of you as it is written of your 
 fathers, my rwoi) »2 wdjoi « na Dyn im*l " The people 
 feared the Lord, and they believed in the Lord and Moses, 
 his servant." Amen. 
 
SPIRITUAL MANHOOD. 
 
 A SERMON. 
 
 BY REV. MAX SAMFIELD. 
 (Rabbi of the "Children of Israel" Congregation, Memphis, Tenn.) 
 
 Era nrnb nrwn dt:k pro ^P^ 2 
 
 " Where true men are wanting, strive thou to be a man."— Pirke Aboth, ii. 6. 
 
 The age in which Rabbi Hillel lived was one of agitation 
 and commotion. The Jewish commonwealth had been broken 
 into factions, each of which proclaimed religious and political 
 doctrines of a different character. The royalistic party, at- 
 tached to the house of Herod, stood on one side, demanding 
 the subjection of religion to temporal policy and sensual en- 
 joyment: the Sadducees on the other, insisting upon the 
 absolute authority of the law, and on a literal compliance 
 with the same. On either side were ranged thousands, rep- 
 resenting as many shades of opinion, and often breaking out 
 into open hostilities against each other. Between these, in all 
 the beauty of manliness and firmness of character, stands 
 Hillel, the noble Pharisee, the liberal-minded rabbi, like a 
 rock in the midst of the tempest; and, unmoved by passion, 
 untouched by partisan influence, there fall from his lips the 
 golden words of wisdom, proclaiming the precious maxim of 
 ethical discipline: "Where true men are wanting, strive 
 thou to be a man." 
 
 He looks back of all those sectional doctrines, of all those 
 transient phases of Judaism, to search for a fulcrum where- 
 upon he could stand, to judge impartially, to be free from ex- 
 
-9G — 
 
 ternal influences, and yet to guard successfully the treasure 
 of Judaism against loss and decay. And Hillel finds that 
 fulcrum in a pure and undefiled manhood, in the manliness 
 and dignity of a human character, which alone can attain 
 that discipline of the human mind, to see things as they are 
 and not what they seem to be. He places the reasoning 
 mind above individual opinions, local and temporal condi- 
 tions ; he recognizes no authority but that which is based 
 upon the demands of the human heart and human mind. 
 Thus he comes in conflict with the school of Shammai ; thus 
 he allows practices which had previously been prohibited ; 
 thus he annuls ordinances which had heretofore been rigidly 
 enforced. His wisdom shed new glory upon the house of Is- 
 rael, and evolving from the manhood of religion which he 
 taught his disciples and colleagues, we behold a new life 
 springing up in Judaism, penetrating the homes and hearts 
 of the Jewish people. Hillel's originality and independence 
 of mind are the best proofs of his manliness. 
 
 His mental and moral faculties ripen under the influence 
 of self-discipline and self-control, and convert the elements of 
 human nature into a perfect organization of human character. 
 Shammai is stubborn, Hillel is firm ; Shammai is a negative 
 religious zealot, Hillel a liberal teacher of a positive religion. 
 And as Hillel's character was the best exemplification of his 
 ethical proverb, so is the character of any man who acts 
 upon it and abides by its moral standard. Pie who under- 
 stands how to be a man among those who are unsettled in 
 their opinions and vague in their ideas, who loses not the equil- 
 ibrium of his mind amidst the diversity and variety of indi- 
 vidual volition, is truly the masterpiece of God's creation, 
 and worthy of the patent of nobility which the Deity has be- 
 tsowed upon the mortal in the glorious title — Man. Neither 
 sentimentality nor skepticism, neither materialism nor mys- 
 ticism, can rule his emotions and govern his will. He takes 
 counsel with his own soul ; he reads, hears and investigates ; 
 but no other test than that of truth is applied to knowl- 
 edge thus acquired. 
 
—97 — 
 
 Mind and heart sit together in judgment, and to their joint 
 verdict he submits the important questions of the times. In 
 matters of religion and religious reform this great quality of 
 human character is a most important element. Leaving this 
 element out in the evolution of the religious sentiment and 
 in the development of any positive religion, progress and re- 
 form would be almost impossible. Whoever kindled the fire 
 of holiness upon the altar of religion had first to strive to be 
 a man ; that is, to learn self-government and self-denial, to 
 obtain all those virtues which give him a right to bear this 
 most honorary title. Whoever undertook the solemn task of 
 proclaiming freedom to the oppressed, light to those in dark- 
 ness and redemption to those in bondage, had first of all to 
 be a man in all the nobility of character and sentiment; 
 he had to stand upon that elevation to which he intended to 
 lift his unfortunate fellow-men. Behold our immortal teacher, 
 the standard-bearer of moral ethics ! What is the basis of 
 his illustrious fame? What is the fundamental principle of 
 his character? Why does he stand so far above the legisla- 
 tors of the ancient and modern world, to conceive ideas so 
 grand and noble, written with letters of gold upon the magna 
 charta of humanity? Ah, my friends, Viwn DWM |W mpoa 
 B"K nw6. When his brethren were yet under the ban of 
 oppression— when they were not freemen to think for them- 
 selves—he strove to be a man. 
 
 Scripture relates that Moses, when he went out to his 
 brethren, witnessed the scene of an Egyptian beating an Is- 
 raelite, which occurrence is recorded in the following lan- 
 guage : B»K r« ' 2 N"^ nm H3 ta*l " He turned in every 
 direction, and he saw there was no man." An ancient 
 Midrash, commenting upon this passage, says: Moses 
 turned around to see whether men could be found in 
 Israel who, like him, would have the manhood to stand up 
 for a persecuted race, to defend the weak and maintain the 
 principles of freedom and justice. But there was none to 
 cheer him in the heroic task of redemption ; none to unite 
 with him in the solemn protest against tyranny and despot- 
 
— 98 — 
 
 ism. But in his soul the religion of manhood had already- 
 taken deep root, and because others were wanting to feel and 
 comprehend the duties of the hour, he imposed the gigantic 
 work upon himself. Turning a deaf ear to the soul-degrad- 
 ing teachings of the priests, he listened to the voice of reason 
 and humanity, teaching him a better conception of godliness 
 and virtue, of God and man, and he hesitated not to obey 
 this great call. Renouncing all the sensual pleasures which 
 Pharaoh's court offered him, resigning the royal honors and 
 privileges which he enjoyed as a prince, he became rather a 
 wanderer in the desert than a deserter from duty; and there, 
 in solemn communion with his God, he decided to go forth 
 as a man, as the leader of his people, to demand of the tyran- 
 nical Pharaoh, in the name of God, in the name of all that is 
 right and true, that the slavery and oppression of his people 
 should cease, that the native manhood of their souls should 
 not be destroyed beneath the excessive burden of labor and 
 sorrow. It was this manliness, fidelity and firmness of Moses 
 which made him a fit instrument in the hands of Divine 
 Providence to build the grand structure of Judaism and 
 frame its laws and statutes. Because of the manhood of the 
 religious sentiment in him, he could give to the Israelites a 
 code of ethics which endowed them with such moral strength, 
 and which richly deserves the title, Religion of Manhood. 
 The highest encomium of praise which, therefore, the Bible 
 bestows upon Moses is expressed in the significant words : 
 npio B^Nm "The man Moses." No high-sounding and 
 pompous titles, as they are found in the religious books of 
 ancient Egypt, or exhibited so conspicuously by our modern 
 religious teachers, are bestowed upon Moses; the title of true 
 manhood is nobler and greater than any title human inven- 
 tion could suggest. 
 
 And this spirit of manliness impressed itself upon ancient 
 Israel and upon Judaism ; its traces are visible in the char- 
 acter and practices of the Jewish people. There is no doubt 
 that the religious precepts and ordinances of Judaism were 
 mostly intrusted and recommended to the care and activity 
 
— 99 — 
 
 of men in order that the religious sentiment may partake of 
 the vigor and energy of masculine discipline, and thus resist 
 and survive the most adverse conditions. Objectively con- 
 sidered, these measures were not to serve as a disfranchise- 
 ment of the women of Israel, but as means to endow Judaism 
 with manly fortitude and lasting vitality; and history testi- 
 fies to the efficacy of this educational principle. The fidelity 
 of Israel to his God and his holy mission, the tenacity and 
 perseverance which our people manifested in the midst of the 
 dark and gloomy days of religious persecution, testify to the 
 magnitude of that divine energy, begotten by manliness. The 
 nations of the earth, however, never called this prominent 
 virtue by the right name ; they never called it the great prin- 
 ciple of human dignity, " the constancy and firmness of the 
 religious sentiment." They never accorded to Judaism the 
 noble title, " Religion of Manhood." The contemporaries of 
 Israel of the past called it obstinacy, stubborness and infidel- 
 ity. The age in which they lived hurled curses upon them, 
 denounced them as heretics, persecuted them and burned them 
 because they would not bow down to the gods of the multitude, 
 because they would not embrace the theology of the masses. 
 Even to this very clay the Israelite is frequently charged with 
 obstinacy and infatuation, because he has the manhood to cling 
 to the religion of reason and love, and thinks he serves God best 
 by having the highest conception of him, and by discharging 
 his duty toward his fellow-men in the spirit of integrity, 
 manliness and fidelity. And yet that very religion of man- 
 hood which Israel so firmly maintained, and which they in- 
 fused into every fibre of their being, was the great omnipotent 
 power that upheld them in their fidelity to their God and their 
 conscience ; it was the strong armor of self-reliance and faith- 
 fulness, these principles of religious manhood, which ripened 
 them into thinking men, which made them useful men, with 
 minds full of intelligence and hearts full of charity and love- 
 When other men hardly dared to think for themselves, when 
 priestcraft and ignorance had smothered the noblest impulse s 
 and feelings of the human heart tfBOK |W Dipon in 
 
— 100 — 
 
 places, where true men were wanting, the Israelite put forth 
 his mental activity, his moral discipline, and tried to be a 
 man in the highest sense of the word. 
 
 Even so, brethren, should the ethical precept of Hillel be 
 embraced in our line of conduct at the present time. To-day 
 the religious life in Israel is in a transitory state, and the re- 
 ligious sentiment in general is subjected to great changes ; 
 the intensity of the old spirit is broken before the spirit of the 
 age. There is a confusion of ideas, a shifting of opinions on 
 religion which bewilders the mind, especially that of the 
 young. There is conflict of opinion and conviction, produc- 
 ing conflict of action, and every hour brings forth a new rev- 
 elation of philosophy, around which new disciples gather. 
 Some expound the principles of availability and utility, and 
 argue that all religious questions in Israel should be settled 
 by that standard. Others advocate that the binding force of 
 authority should yet be recognized in the religious life of 
 Israel. And then steps forth the sensualist, and, like the 
 Epicuros of Hillel's time, desires religion and religious duty 
 to be stricken out of the book of life as impediments to sen- 
 sual indulgence ; without a blush he proclaims as his doc- 
 trine : TWD2 "iriB *3 IflDI S>"DK "Let us eat and drink, for to-mor- 
 row we must die" (Isaiah xxii. 13). And the materialists, wor- 
 shiping matter and denying God, with terrible indifference 
 endeavors to make propaganda for his cheerless philoso- 
 phy that there is no conscience, no moral responsibil- 
 ity, no higher law and no higher duty, that all is matter, and 
 that the best thing man can do is to die and go down into the 
 Nirwana of entire annihilation. Many superficial minds 
 have lost the exercise of their mental faculties, and are 
 swayed to and fro by this tempest of modern belief and un- 
 belief, renouncing to-morrow what they believed to-day, and 
 finally choosing the indolence of negative thinking and nega- 
 tive living. But we Israelites should not follow their exam- 
 ple ; we must not shirk the solemn duty of a deeper reasoning 
 and of a more deliberate judgment, D'BUX ?&& mpD3 because 
 true men are wanting, who will patiently and conscien- 
 
— 101 — 
 
 tiously judge the merits and efficacy of religion, who would 
 solemnly deliberate before they abandon the higher spheres 
 of a spiritual life. It is our duty, as sons of the Most High, 
 to be men, men who are faithful to their conscience and mind- 
 ful of the higher destiny of human life. It is true, in an age 
 like ours, it requires much of self-denial, much of indepen- 
 dence of mind, to rise above the multitudes, and to resist the 
 strong current of popular philosophy ; but the very language 
 of our text indicates the strength that is required for the 
 struggle in behalf of the good, noble and true. 
 
 TlH^rij a word of Aramaic origin, means to make the 
 most earnest and most strenuous efforts to put forth all ener- 
 gies and to unite them for one solemn purpose — to conquer 
 at last. Thus, only he has reached the height of a spiritual 
 manhood who dedicated every faculty of his heart and brain 
 to the higher objects of life, and who never suffered one par- 
 ticle of religious sentiment to be lost on account of the ma- 
 terialistic and utilitarian tendencies of the age. Give me 
 men, true men, who are willing to test the efficacy of our 
 heaven-born faith, and I fear not to meet any issue of our 
 time, any religious question of the present day. 
 
 As long as there are Israelites who, endowed with the spirit 
 of manhood, are willing to exercise the faculties of heart and 
 mind in behalf of their religion — as long as they believe in the 
 dignity of human character and the exaltation of virtue — Ju- 
 daism will live, no matter what outward changes it is com- 
 pelled to undergo. It is Pessimism only, the surrender of 
 the good and noble, the negation of beauty and happiness, 
 which kills the spirit in man and frustrates the divine pur- 
 pose of a rational religion. The religious teacher in Israel 
 especially should remember this, and not give up his faith in 
 human nature and in the efficacy of the religious sentiment. 
 No system of speculative philosophy must tempt him ; no 
 literature must be absorbed by his mind, to hold exclusive 
 sway over his judgment, or else he will be shifting to and fro 
 like a ship without a compass. He must not be a Pessimist 
 to-day because he read Schoppenhauer's works or the "Bech- 
 
— 102 — 
 
 inath Olom " of Bechayab yesterday ; he must not preach 
 utilitarianism on the Sabbath because he read John Stuart 
 Mill's " Essays " on Friday eve. The demands of the human 
 heart and soul must be his compass to guide him upon the 
 ocean of thought. These will always remain the same in 
 men ; books, however, are fallible, and philosophers err. No 
 matter how many go astray in the bewildering paths of neg- 
 ative speculations, the religious teacher in Israel should stand 
 firm and immovable upon the positive principle of Judaism : 
 G^N nvnS Sinpn D'BttM r«B> taipoa Because men are losing 
 their independence of thought in matters pertaining to 
 religion, because congregations are sometimes made up of 
 indifferent and negative people, it is his duty to maintain his 
 manliness, his fidelity and constancy, to appeal to the mind 
 and heart with equal force, so as to call out the whole divine 
 energy of the people. 
 
 To you, my sisters, the maxim of Hillel also recommends 
 itself for consideration. You must not think that, because I 
 spoke of manhood, manliness and manly energy, this is a ser- 
 mon to men exclusively. By no means ; whenever the relig- 
 ious culture of Israel is under discussion, it is of deep 
 concern to the women of Israel. Aye, they are even more 
 active, more co-operative in the cause of religion ; they are 
 more susceptible to the benign influences of religious educa- 
 tion than men. The overwise sages of our time desire to 
 ascribe this to the weakness of feminine character, but they 
 fail in their effort. On the contrary, it gives evidence of the 
 wealth of sentiment, of the depth of feeling, and of moral 
 strength as it is in woman. A religious woman is by far 
 stronger than an irreligious man. To be truly religious re- 
 quires, above all, self-denial, moral discipline and unselfish 
 love, and who is stronger in these than a mother, a wife? 
 Truly there is spiritual manhood in woman, and it often built 
 up religion where the faithlessness and indifference of men 
 had laid it waste. Therefore, my nister, if father, husband, 
 son and brother lack the true spirit to lift on high the stan- 
 dard of religion, do thou plead in behalf of the noble and the 
 
— 103 — 
 
 good ; hesitate not to put forth all the energies of heart and 
 mind and to dedicate them to the highest ideal of moral per- 
 fection. 
 
 Where men are wanting to devote themselves to the cul- 
 ture and elevation of human character, where they cast off 
 the higher conception of human life for lower propensities, 
 strive thou to manifest manliness of conviction and the moral 
 strength of character, and men will appear as weak and frail 
 when compared with the inspired and devoted women of Is- 
 rael. It will demonstrate that religious discipline and moral 
 culture give life and strength to the mind and heart, and 
 not the brutal force of physical power. Such a religious 
 manhood once recognized, will dispel all Pessimistic views 
 about the use of religion and the future of Judaism. This 
 once acknowledged, every Israelite would be ashamed to 
 shirk his duty or to be classed with the negative know-noth- 
 ing and do-nothing party in Judaism. Every Jewish heart 
 would be filled with the glorious promise of a better future, 
 for, in the effort to learn how to become true men, we have 
 already learned how to become faithful and enlightened Is- 
 raelites ; the spirit of confidence would inspire us to trust 
 in the development and progress of our religion as the 
 mariner trusts in the ship that carries him beyond the ocean. 
 If we are true men, we will rest secure that Judaism will ful- 
 fill the mission assigned to it here on earth ; if we are true 
 men, we will not despair in the efficacy of our religion nor 
 give up our faith in human nature. Judaism possesses a 
 divine energy ; with that, it will stand ; without it, it would 
 cease to exist, be it linked to the earth with a thousand 
 chains. Therefore, brethren, be men who stand firm amidst 
 all conflicting opinions, ideas and theories of our time — men 
 who would, at least, not sacrifice eternal principles to tem- 
 poral policy, to availability and convenience, but who, clothed 
 in the radiant glory of a spiritual manhood, cling to Judaism, 
 to their God, and all that is noble and good in fidelity and 
 truth. Amen. 
 
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL 
 
 BY REV. JAMES K. GUTHEIM. 
 
 The immortality of the soul, the belief in the continued 
 spiritual existence of man after death, is one of the cardinal 
 doctrines, a dogma of Judaism. The belief in immortality is 
 inseparable from the belief in God, and hence we find that 
 throughout our religious records, from the very chapter 
 on the creation of man, this doctrine is either implied or dis- 
 tinctly expressed. It is a product grown and nurtured in 
 the soil of Judaism, and as such has been transplanted to 
 those religious creeds which have sprung from Judaism. In 
 proposing the immortality of the soul as the theme of our 
 meditation, I do not intend to trace the historical develop- 
 ment of this most important doctrine, nor to enter the field 
 of speculation regarding the precise nature of the future 
 state, but simply to illustrate this grand truth by such argu- 
 ments as are directly furnished by human nature itself — 
 arguments which common sense must acknowledge to be 
 self-evident, and to which even the materialist and skeptic 
 must give reluctant consent. I have selected for my text the 
 eighth verse of the thirty-second chapter of Job : 
 
 DJ'1 noD HE* riDEOi enJfcO KTi rrn pK " Surely there is a 
 spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives them 
 understanding." 
 
 Man is created in the image of God, and consequently, in 
 his spiritual nature and faculties, presents unmistakable 
 marks of immortality. 
 
 First, then, we have a bright indication of the reality of a 
 future existence in the inexhaustible love of knowledge 
 
— 106 — 
 
 which animates the human understanding. God has given 
 to man a spirit which is evidently designed to expand 
 through the universe, which disdains the confinement of 
 space, and which, although for ages it has been making pro- 
 gress in the knowledge of nature, still thirsts for more ex- 
 tended information. There is a restlessness in the human 
 mind which no acquisition can allay. Thought is forever 
 enlarging its horizon. 
 
 Were man destined to live only in this world, his desires 
 and powers would have been fitted wholly for this world, and 
 his capacities would have been limited to the means of pres- 
 ent enjoyment. But now his faculties are continually over- 
 leaping the bounds of earth ; he delights in discoveries which 
 have no relation to his existence on this planet ; he calls 
 science and art to his aid, not merely to render life comfort- 
 able, but to assist him in the most remote researches ; invents 
 instruments which extend his sight beyond these visible 
 heavens, and reveal hidden stars and sidereal systems ; and 
 presses on and on to fathom the profoundest secrets of the 
 universe. The human mind has an intense delight in what 
 is vast and unexplored. Does such a mind carry with it no 
 proof that it is destined to wider spheres of experience than 
 earth affords — that it is designed to improve forever in the 
 knowledge of God's wonderful works? 
 
 In man's power of looking forward with hope to distant 
 and everlasting ages we have a second clear mark of a being 
 destined to another existence. Were this world everything 
 to man, his longings would not stray beyond its brief span. 
 His anticipations would be proportioned to his being. Of 
 what use, except to torment him, would be the idea of eternity 
 to a creature of time? Why kindle in man the sublime sen- 
 timent of immortality if the grave is to be his doom? " Truly 
 there is a spirit in man," SvE£ nf?K pSn " a portion of God 
 from on high," which from him came and to him will return. 
 
 Our capacity of knowing God is another indication that 
 we are appointed to future modes of being. The human mind 
 is not limited to objects of sense. It has a relish for the 
 
— 107 — 
 
 abstract, the unseen. It forever tends to rise from the effect 
 to the cause, from creation to its author. This tendency may- 
 be pronounced one of the essential, instinctive principles of 
 our nature. 
 
 Nor is this desire of acquaintance with God slight and 
 transient. The human mind, by cultivation of pious senti- 
 ments, may be and has often been raised to an intimate union 
 with the Divine Being, to a vivid feeling of His presence, to an 
 habitual discernment of Him in His works and providence. 
 It has attained to sentiments of rapture, to more than earthly 
 joy, in praising, adoring, thanking Him ; and just in propor- 
 tion as the heart is the abode of these generous emotions, it 
 desires a nearer approach to the Divinity, and longs for an 
 improved condition in which God may be worshiped with 
 pure and perfect love. When a mind has thus become alive 
 to God, it clings to existence with increasing earnestness. 
 It can not endure the thought of being blotted out from 
 among God's works, of being deprived of the consciousness 
 of his perfections, of losing forever his protection and favor. 
 Piety necessarily takes this form of desire for near commu- 
 nion with the infinite Being in a future, better, endless exist- 
 ence ; and what else do all these aspirations indicate but the 
 reality of a future state? 
 
 It is for the cultivation of this sentiment that Moses en- 
 joined the followers of the Eternal, "H ns Dnm " You shall 
 know the Lord," 13 npmSl " You shall cling to the Lord." 
 The Psalmist gives utterance to this sentiment in the pathetic 
 words, 31 D *h wnbtt nznp " The striving for God is my hap- 
 piness." 
 
 We have another indication of man's future life in the 
 moral sensibility which God has imparted to his soul. 
 
 The human mind, notwithstanding its frequent aberrations, 
 has something in it congenial with excellence. It delights to 
 hear and read of angelic worth and greatness of character. It 
 loves to conceive of more perfect forms of human nature than 
 real life exhibits. To this propensity poetry and fiction are 
 indebted for their origin. Especially when the mind has 
 
— 108 — 
 
 been refined by the practice of goodness does it naturally 
 .represent to itself a beauty of virtue, such as has never been 
 attained on earth. It is dissatisfied with all that it has 
 gained, and pants for greater purity. Its very improvements 
 prompt it to desire a better existence, where present stains 
 and imperfections will be done away, where it will fill a wider 
 sphere of usefulness, where it may be united with the excel- 
 lent, whom it admires and loves, and become worthy of their 
 friendship. This delight in goodness, this thirst for perfec- 
 tion with which the human mind is instinct, is full of prom- 
 ise. Were this life everything to us, would God have formed 
 us thus capable of conceiving and desiring heights of excel- 
 lence, which in this life are unattainable? Will he crush the 
 hope of moral progress, to which our very virtues give 
 intenseness? We are reassured by the Psalmist : 
 
 " God has made known to us the path of life : fullness of joy 
 is in his presence, at his right hand happiness forever more." 
 (Ps. xvi.) 
 
 The man of piety, refinement and sensibility finds himself, 
 as it were, in accord with universal nature. Every scene, 
 every season, touches some spring in his heart. The stream, 
 the mountain, the ocean, the clouds, the distant constella- 
 tions, all speak to him in a language that he understands. 
 There is something in him akin to all this beauty and sub- 
 limity that gives him a claim to property in the whole crea- 
 tion. There is especially in the soul a sensibility to the 
 grand, awful scenes of nature. Whatever bears the impress 
 of infinite majesty, whatever is too vast to be grasped by the 
 senses, brings to the heart a mysterious delight. The storm, 
 the thunder, the raging ocean, fearful as they are, still awaken 
 a solemn pleasure, for they speak to us of Almighty power, 
 and accord with our love of greatness. Now, this sensibility 
 to whatever is great and fair in universal nature seems to at- 
 test the glory of the human soul and to point to it a sublime 
 destiny. Why has God placed man within this boundless 
 theater, revealed around him this endless creation, touched 
 
N 
 
 — 109 — 
 
 his heart with the love of beauty, and given him this delight- 
 ful and awful interest in all that meets his eye. if he is merely 
 a creature of the earth, soon to shut his eyes on these majes- 
 tic scenes and to be buried forever in a narrow grave? Does 
 this love of the infinite, this attachment to the universe, seem 
 suitable to so frail a nature? Do they not suggest the idea 
 of a being who belongs to the universe and who is to fill an 
 ever- widening sphere? 
 
 But there is another and more decisive indication of future 
 life, which is furnished us by human nature. I refer to the 
 capacity which man actually possesses of attaining to great- 
 ness of character. While man, in general, falls far below 
 the perfection he desires, yet he is sometimes seen to ascend 
 to a sublimity of virtue which does honor to our nature and 
 proves that it was framed for heaven. We discover in his- 
 tory and real life persons not merely faithful in their regard 
 to the prescribed duties of life, but who are tilled with a grand 
 disinterestedness of character, a sublime goodness, which 
 outstrips what is positively demanded, which is prodigal of 
 service to God and man, and overflows with sacrifices and 
 sufferings in the cause of duty. 
 
 These great examples show us what man may become and 
 what he is destined to be. These are lineaments of a noble 
 nature, marks of a sublime capacity, a sublime destiny. We 
 all have sometimes seen human nature manifested in these 
 honorable forms, have seen great temptations and calamities 
 calling forth great virtues, have seen the human countenance 
 bright with the expression of magnanimous affections, and 
 have felt how lovely and how glorious may be humanity. 
 And can we believe that the soul of man, gifted with such 
 capacities, is created for a day? Can we think that the great 
 men, who have thrown such light on the past that it yet illu- 
 mines the present, were but meteors, extinguished as soon as 
 kindled, in the midst of their glory? Why were such sublime 
 capacities given to a being of so humble a destiny? Does 
 the All-wise Creator thus waste his noblest gifts, and is so 
 
— 110- 
 unconcernecl for those on whom these gifts have been be- 
 stowed? 
 
 It is a natural sentiment, entitled to respect, that exalted 
 goodness can not perish. It is fitted for a better world than 
 this, and the Creator would be dishonored were his noblest 
 work to be lost, Nature may pass away, but can goodness, 
 sublime goodness, that image of God, be destroyed ! And if 
 human nature be capable of this goodness, is it not destined 
 to immortality? 
 
 Another indication of a future state suggested by our na- 
 ture is to be found in the triumph which man often obtains 
 over death, in the manner in which he passes through the 
 last change. 
 
 To the sensible appearances of death, so sad and appalling, 
 we should do well to oppose the energy of soul with which it 
 is often encountered. Then death itself will furnish us with 
 a proof of immortality. Sometimes the hour of death is an 
 hour of peculiar glory for human nature. Instead of being 
 conquered, man is seen to conquer the last foe ; and he seems 
 to suffer only that the greatness of humanity may be devel- 
 oped. In instances like these the last act of the soul is an 
 assertion of its immortality. Can we believe that this mo- 
 ment of sublime virtue is the moment of annihilation, that 
 the soul is extinguished when its beauty is most resplendent? 
 If God intended that death should be an eternal extinction, 
 would it be adorned, as it often is, with a radiance of the 
 noblest, loveliest sentiments and affections of our nature? 
 Would the greatest triumph of man be a harbinger of his 
 ruin? 
 
 There is another view yet more sublime. I refer to the 
 death of the martyr to his religion, to his country, to the 
 cause of truth and human improvement. You have read of 
 men who preferred death to desertion of duty. They encoun- 
 tered the menaces of power, they endured the gloom of pris- 
 ons, and at length, in the fulness of their powers, were led to 
 the place of execution. Their steps never faltered, their pur- 
 pose never wavered, their looks were firm, yet mild and for- 
 
— Ill — 
 
 giving ; and, with an unshaken trust in God, they counted it 
 an honor to suffer in his cause. 
 
 As a striking example of heroic martyrdom, the death of 
 R. Akiba, a renowned sage and patriot in the days of Hadrian, 
 may be cited in illustration. The hoar of his execution had 
 arrived. T. Annius Rufus, a pliant tool of Hadrian's ven- 
 geance, intensified the agonies of death by fiendish 
 torments, in ordering him to be flayed with iron pincers. 
 While suffering this horrible torture the great martyr 
 pronounced the " Hear, O Israel," etc. (the Shema), with 
 a smile of satisfaction. Astounded at such extraordinary 
 fortitude, Rufus asked him if he was a sorcerer to re- 
 main thus unaffected by the pain ; whereupon R. Akiba 
 answered : " I am no sorcerer; I only rejoice at having the 
 opportunity of serving God with my life, having thus far 
 only been able to love him with all my heart and all my 
 might." 
 
 And what now shall we say of death? That it triumphed 
 over these men of unsubdued virtue — that it quenched these 
 bright spirits? Or shall we rather say that it was designed 
 to illustrate the immortal energy of piety and virtue, and to 
 show that the faithful soul is more than conqueror over the 
 last foe? Can we think that God impels those who love him 
 by the best principle in their nature, to encounter death in 
 its most dreadful forms, and then abandons them to final ex- 
 tinction, at the very moment when they must be to him most 
 worthy of his love? No, no ! b lOBW &6l may BPBJ NV n iTTlS 
 12 DTinn " The Lord redeemeth the soul of his servants, and 
 none shall be desolate who trust in him." (Ps. xxxiv.) 
 
 We find another indication of immortality in our nature, 
 when we consider the principal source of human enjoyment. 
 I ask, then, what is this principal source of human enjoy- 
 ment? A slight observation will teach us that happiness is 
 derived chiefly from activity, from conscious growth, from the 
 successful effort to improve our powers, from rising by our 
 own energy to an improved condition. It is not what we 
 have already gained, be it knowledge, property, reputation or 
 
-112- 
 
 virtue, which constitutes our happiness, so much as the ex- 
 ertion of our faculties in further acquisitions. The idea of 
 advancement is, of all others, most congenial with the human 
 mind. We delight not so much in possession as in pursuit, 
 not so much in holding the prize as in pressing forward to 
 seize it with the eyes of hope. The feeling of progress is the 
 great spring of happiness ; and it is this which gives cheer- 
 fulness and animation under the severest lot. 
 
 Now, what does such a nature indicate? Is it true that 
 man's chief happiness consists in animated pursuit, in con- 
 sciousness of improvement — that, where his advancement is 
 most swift and sure, this principle most prompts him to press 
 forward — is not perfection, then, the end of his being? Is he 
 not made to advance, to ascend forever? And does not this 
 soaring nature discover a being designed for a forever bright- 
 ening career? Would this insatiable thirst for progress have 
 been given to a creature of a day, whose powers are to perish 
 just when beginning to unfold, and whose attainments are to 
 be buried with him in eternal oblivion? If this world were 
 our home and our only portion, should we have sentiments 
 implanted by our Creator which teach us to live above it, and 
 impel ; .is to feel that it is noble to renounce it? Were this 
 our only sphere of enjoyment, could we ever deem it beneath 
 us, unworthy of our nature? A sage of the Mishnah has em- 
 bodied this idea in one concise sentence : 
 
 nin oSyn *n bin van dSjo nn rmp S^ nnx r\yv ns* " One 
 hour's spiritual happiness in the future world is preferable to 
 all the pleasures of this." 
 
 But this is not all ; we not only honor men when they rise 
 above the world, its pleasures and gains; we particularly re- 
 vere them when they hold life itself with a degree of indiffer- 
 ence, when they disdain it in comparison with principle and 
 virtue, and advance to meet seeming destruction by a reso- 
 lute and unshaken adherence to principle and duty. On the 
 other hand we feel a contempt for those who cling to life as 
 the best of blessings. We can not endure the coward, while 
 we are lenient even toward the excess of courage. We view 
 
— 113 — 
 
 with admiration the man who is prodigal of life in an honor- 
 able cause, and who prefers death to the least stain of guilt. 
 Now, these feelings surely indicate that the present is not 
 our whole existence. Were this life everything to us, should 
 we be so constituted as to be ready to cast it away in a sacred 
 cause? Were death entire and eternal extinction of all our 
 power and virtue, would the welcoming of it appear the 
 height of glory? All these feelings which I have considered, 
 which are inherent in human nature, and which prompt us 
 to sacrifice the world and life to the purity of the soul, are 
 so many attestations from God to the divine character of the 
 soul, so many assurances that it is destined for higher rela- 
 tions than those which it now sustains to the body and the 
 world ; so many arguments to convince us that our soul is 
 immortal, "that there is a spirit in man" destined to eternal 
 existence in the heavenly regions of bliss with our Father and 
 our God. Amen. 
 
SERMON AT THE DEDICATION OF A NEW 
 SEFER TORAH. 
 
 BY DR. M. SCHLESINGER. 
 
 {Of Albany, N. Y.) 
 
 It is a strange and uncommon ceremony which we are 
 gathered here to witness — the dedication of a new book. 
 What possible importance can there be ascribed to a new 
 book in our days? In our days, to which the words of Ec- 
 clesiastes (xii. 12) are more applicable than they ever were 
 before, " of making many books there is no end," when the 
 world is flooded with books, one book more or less can mat- 
 ter but very little. It is true, there were days when the pos- 
 session of a book was considered a fortune, when a book was 
 bequeathed from father to son as a most valuable part of the 
 ancestral inheritance, and was carefully kept and preserved 
 as a family heirloom. But nowadays books are so common, 
 within the reach of all and everyone, that a new book, we 
 should think, ought not to create such a commotion in a 
 community as this has done. 
 
 If the book we are here to dedicate were but like any other 
 book, all this undoubtedly would be true. But in regard to 
 this book, strange to say, the times have never changed. To 
 this very day this book is considered the greatest treasure 
 within the family to which it rightfully belongs— the family 
 of Israel. To this very day it is bequeathed from father to 
 son as the most precious part of the inheritance that came to 
 them from their ancestors, and is most carefully kept and 
 preserved. And well does it deserve all the care and love and 
 
— 116 — 
 
 reverence bestowed upon it, for it is indeed a great and won- 
 derful book. 
 
 In the first place, let me remind you that it is not, exactly 
 speaking, a new book ; it is only a newly-written book. The 
 book itself is old — very old — as old as Israel. It has been 
 brought forth by the divine spirit, as manifested and revealed 
 within this people, and, therefore, is eminently the property 
 of Israel. But with the same right we may say, this book 
 has brought forth, preserved and kept alive the people of 
 Israel. Without this book there would be no people of Is- 
 rael ; we can not think of a people of Israel without their 
 Torah. 
 
 This book, though but newly written, is as old as the his- 
 tory of mankind ; yet it is not antiquated. To this very day 
 it is the object of earnest study and research, the inexhaust- 
 ible source of instruction, the living spring from which gen- 
 eration after generation has drawn the purest pleasure and 
 delight, the surest comfort and consolation. 
 
 It is not only as old as the history of mankind, but has 
 exerted an influence upon this history that can never be com- 
 puted. More than anything else, it was this book that 
 formed and shaped the thought and feeling of all people that 
 came under its sway. And the more its influence, in all its 
 simplicity and sublimity, will permeate the world — the more 
 the divine spirit, which breatheth out of its every page, will 
 become the spirit of the world — the nearer mankind will come 
 to those ends it is longing for : to universal peace and good will 
 and brotherly love. 
 
 This book, though but newly written, is as old as the civ- 
 ilization of the world, and was no mean contributor to, and 
 furtherer of, this civilization. Yet, great as the progress of a 
 civilization of more than three thousand years necessarily is, 
 immense as the achievements, especially of our days, are, 
 they have not left behind this book or made it superfluous. 
 In many, many respects, which here to show would be too 
 tedious, and therefore out of place, the civilization, even of 
 our days, has not yet reached the high standard set forth in 
 
— 117 — 
 
 this book, though, of course, in many other respects it has 
 gone beyond it. 
 
 It is an old, old book, which, different from all other books, 
 always remains young and fresh and youthful. It is, per- 
 haps, on this account that we Jews retain the old custom in 
 multiplying the book, and reject the modern art of book- 
 making. It is not printed, nor is the common writing ma- 
 terial, paper, made use of. It is written on the skin of 
 animals, on parchment — written in the old laborious way, by 
 the hand of man, but written with a carefulness and minute- 
 ness which considered every little stroke of the smallest let- 
 ter ; it has been revised and searched for possible errors and 
 mistakes again and again, that the old book indeed might be 
 restored. 
 
 You see, the book we dedicate is an uncommon one ; and 
 if it be true, as it is, what the ancient poet says, " that books 
 have their own fate," the fate of this book was also an un- 
 common one. 
 
 It was no other than that of Israel, the people, which 
 brought it forth and always remained its responsible owner. 
 On account of the contents of this book — that is to say, on 
 account of their religion — Israel was hated and despised and 
 persecuted by all the nations of the civilized world, who, 
 strange to say, all accepted this book out of their hands as 
 the most valuable and most sacred. Stranger still, with one 
 hand the nations received this book from Israel, and the 
 other they lifted up to strike at both Israel and the book. 
 Out of this book the nations took the sublime doctrine, 
 <• Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," " Thou shalt love 
 the stranger as thyself," " Thou shalt love the Eternal, thy 
 God, with thy whole heart, with thy whole soul and with thy 
 whole might." Out of this book there shone forth to the 
 world the true religion of love, and for the people which 
 brought them this book they had nothing but hatred and 
 malice and persecution. In one breath even now they praise 
 this book as the holiest and divinest, and curse the Jew and 
 blaspheme his religion, i. e., this book, which, as they say, 
 
— 118 — 
 
 teaches a cruel and 'revengeful God ; this book which, when 
 it attempts to present the God idea to the human mind, 
 utters the sublime thought : " The Eternal, the Eternal is 
 merciful and gracious, long-suffering and abundant in good- 
 ness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving in- 
 iquity, transgression and sin, and that will by no means 
 clear the guilty." 
 
 Aye, as often as Israel was maligned, misrepresented and 
 slandered, this book also was maligned, misrepresented and 
 slandered. As long as Israel was persecuted and hunted out 
 for extermination, this book also was persecuted and hunted 
 out for destruction. A thousand times it was burnt and 
 torn and trodden under foot, as Israel was burnt and torn 
 and down-trodden; yet -both survived their persecutors. Out 
 of fire and water, from the rack and stake, Israel saved noth- 
 ing but themselves and this book. 
 
 But all of this is passed, or mostly passed. Thank God ! 
 when we look for thejscenes in which these terrible tragedies 
 were transacted, we have to]look over the wide ocean which 
 separates this free and God-blessed new country from the 
 old. Our country has no part in these horrible crimes. And 
 in this new country, which 'at last has become the refuge of 
 all that are oppressed, and has adopted the principle laid down 
 in this new book : u One Father in heaven and one family of 
 men here on earth, who are all equal before the law, as they 
 are equal before Him " — in this country we again dedicate 
 this book to the service of the All-good and All-loving, the 
 Father of all. 
 
 Israel has carried this book whithersoever they wandered 
 and whithersoever they were scattered ; all over the world they 
 have planted it as the 13 D^m»S D"n YV—the tree of life 
 for those who take hold of it. They have planted it among 
 the nations, and to them all it has proved the tree of all spir- 
 itual life, the precious fruit of which has never failed to those 
 who understood to pluck it therefrom; those who leaned 
 upon it were ever richly blessed. 
 It was the banner which Israel has unfurled to the breez e s 
 
— 119 — 
 
 of the world, and which they have kept unfurled in the midst 
 of all the storms and tempests that accompanied the advanc- 
 ing ages ; under it they have fought for humanity and pro- 
 gress and enlightenment ; to it they ever remained true and 
 faithful, ever looked up for renewed strength and encourage- 
 ment when disheartened and discouraged by the ill-will and 
 tardy understanding of the world. 
 
 So may this book, now dedicated, prove to be a tree of life 
 in the midst of this congregation ; may its fruit ennoble the 
 heart and enlighten the mind ; may it strengthen the faint 
 and support the weak ; may it comfort the sorrow-stricken 
 and unburden the heavy-laden ; may it be a banner of light 
 under which all shall do good battle for the enlightenment 
 of the world, for love and peace and good-will among all men, 
 that they may help to bring about the day when 10fijn nriK Yl 
 inx, as the Eternal is one, so His name shall be one among 
 all men, who shall stand united as one family of brothers, all 
 looking up to 'their common Father, the All-merciful and 
 gracious. Amen. 
 
SERMON AT THE DEDICATION OF A BURY- 
 ING GROUND. 
 
 BY DR. M. SCHLESINGER, 
 
 (Of Albany, N. Y.) 
 
 nrn pr? wam i:?rpi irnnE a?wn *pra wk yi nnx 7112 
 Praised be thou, Eternal, King of the Universe, who hast 
 preserved us and kept us alive to see this day. We render 
 thanks and praises to thee, Lord, for life and health, as 
 well as for all the innumerable benefits which thou daily be- 
 stowest upon us ; but daily we remember that in life and 
 health we have to prepare for death. Therefore, Lord, we 
 have gathered here together to dedicate these grounds as the 
 last resting-place of the body after the soul has been called 
 to thee, whence it came. In thy name, God of Israel, thou 
 Eternal One, Lord over life and death, we dedicate these 
 grounds as the D^yiva gates which open out of this finite world 
 into the infinite, where thy spirit dwelleth eternally. Amen. 
 My friends, it is a solemn occasion which has brought us 
 together here. It is tne truth as expressed by Ecclesiastes 
 (ix. 5), VlltW DW D«nfl "The living know that they shall 
 die," which has moved our co-religionists of this town, though 
 but a small band of Jews, to acquire, not without pecuniary 
 sacrifices, these grounds, and set them apart as the last rest- 
 ing-place for them and theirs. It speaks well of the moral 
 character of our Jewish brethren in this place ; for, though it 
 be true that the living know that they shall die, there are but 
 very few who think of it and act accordingly. On the con- 
 trary, most men live and act as if the thought that they shall 
 die would never enter their minds. Our ancient teacher said : 
 pypnen wane> H3 intnaa 1W fpnn " Prepare thyself here on 
 earth as in an ante-room, which shall lead thee to thy real 
 
— 122 — 
 
 habitation, which is eternity." By acquiring these grounds 
 our co-religionists have shown that the adage of our sages 
 has become their guiding star. We rejoice to see that they 
 have not waited until the Angel of Death has entered one of 
 their houses and thus reminded them of the shortness of our 
 journey here on earth, but that in health and life, yet on the 
 high ocean of their journey, they have looked out for the 
 still, quiet haven where their broken vessels might once be 
 safely stowed away; have secured the place which shall once 
 become their habitation of eternal peace and rest. 
 
 This occasion, therefore, though solemn and full of awe, is 
 not without its joys. Undisturbed by any lamentation and 
 wailing, we can rise to a higher standpoint from which we 
 may calmly and serenely look upon this well-prepared field 
 which shall once receive the seed of immortality, once be filled 
 with those little but so very significant hills, called graves, 
 the tops of which in reality reach the heavens. 
 
 This will be a Jewish burying-ground ; and if no thought- 
 ful man can pass a burying-ground without being touched to 
 the quick, without casting an affectionate glance into the 
 past, so that the city of the dead, as it were, was opened be- 
 fore his spiritual eye, and he behold the realm of which, 
 sooner or later, he, too, will be a citizen : a Jewish burying- 
 ground must do all this in a still higher degree. 
 
 Here will be the resting-place of the descendants of Abra- 
 ham ; of those who, at the behest of God Almighty, the Lord 
 over life and death, wandered from one end of the earth to 
 the other, all over carrying with them his holy word, all over 
 being witnesses of his greatness and goodness, all over ador- 
 ing and worshiping the one sole God of heaven and earth ; 
 of those who, by reason of their unflinching faithfulness to 
 their great mission of the Eternal One, found no rest nor 
 peace during their wanderings through the ages and centu- 
 ries, had no country and could do without any, because the 
 whole earth is the Lord's, and all over they found themselves 
 under his protection. The only possession they were allowed 
 to take of this earth was the four yards of ground where their 
 
— 123 — 
 
 bodies were interred, the only resting-place that was not be- 
 grudged to them was — the grave. The descendants of this 
 wonderful people have now prepared here, on this free and 
 God-blessed soil, unstained by any persecution and injustice 
 of this kind, this their last resting-place. 
 
 Very remarkable ! Our father Abraham, when, at the 
 behest of the Almighty, he had gone out of his father's 
 house to the land which the Lord showed him, and was so- 
 journing among the sons of Heth, had to tell them : " A 
 stranger, am I with you, have no possession in the country ; 
 the only possession I crave is a sepulcher where I may bury 
 my dead." 
 
 Of the land of his promise he acquired first the cave of 
 Machpelah, with the surrounding fields. And during all the 
 thousands of years after him, whithersoever his sons and 
 daughters were scattered, often hated and persecuted, always 
 misrepresented and misunderstood, though they brought the 
 light, the spiritual light which illuminated the moral and 
 spiritual world — wherever a little band of Jews, the descend- 
 ants of Abraham, gathered and founded a home, their 
 first and special care it was and is to acquire a sepulcher, the 
 ground where once their bodies shall rest in peace. It seems 
 that, as long as they have not acquired this last resting- 
 place, they retain the feeling of strangers and sojourners. 
 But this place once acquired and the soil on which they live is 
 holy ground — is their country, to which they cling with the un- 
 dying affections of a warm and enthusiastic heart. And, in- 
 deed, is not the ground on which the cradle of our children 
 stood, in which we have laid away the earthly body, so dear, 
 the remains of those we love and can never cease to love, a 
 holy ground? On such a day, therefore, on which we dedi- 
 cate such a field for such a seed, the country becomes in a 
 higher sense our country. This place is a connecting link 
 which binds man most effectually not only to the world to 
 come, but to this world also, to his fellow-man. 
 
 Our fathers and mothers had a peculiar way of naming 
 such a place; they called it "the good place." To-day, as 
 
— 124 — 
 
 long as this place is virgin and empty of graves, has not yet 
 seen and witnessed the sadness and unspeakable sorrow 
 which comes over us when we are called upon to take leave 
 of a loving and beloved soul, and intrust its body to the cold, 
 dark pit ; to-day, as long as this ground has not yet been 
 watered with the bitter tears of fathers and mothers, who 
 weep for their seemingly lost children, nor witness the still 
 bitterer sadness of helpless children, who cry for their father 
 and mother, the protectors of their infancy and childhood, 
 has not yet seen the grief of brothers and sisters and friends 
 and relations, as it once surely will — to-day we may be in- 
 clined to call it a good place. But our fathers always called 
 it " the good place," and they were right. 
 
 In the sight of Judaism the burying-ground is not the house 
 of death, but the D"nn )V2 the house of life, of eternal life ; it 
 is not only the DTOpn m, the city of graves, but the dSv IV3, 
 the gates which open into eternity. Judaism shows that our 
 Redeemer, the Everlasting and Eternal, liveth, liveth forever 
 to redeem us from the dark shadows which death seems to 
 spread over the soul of man (Job xix. 25). It teaches (Ps. 
 xvi. 10) iwS ^QJ :wn kS that He will not let our soul go 
 down into the pit. It brings conviction to the heart of man 
 that the divine within him can never die. Thus the burying- 
 ground could be to the Jew nothing else but " a good place " 
 and " the house of life." As soon as we rise to the heights of 
 this conviction the thought of death is no longer full of sor- 
 row, but full of anticipated joy, no longer depressing, but 
 elevating. Our faith in the salvation which is sure to come 
 from the eternal, infinite goodness and mercy makes us en- 
 dure the earth, even when she becomes a valley of weeping 
 and sorrow, makes us endure the separation from those who 
 are near and dear to our heart, because we know they can 
 not be lost to us forever. Only where the faith in immortal- 
 ity has not taken root in the heart, will the sorrow for the de- 
 ceased grow into despair. 
 
 Therefore, let us calmly overlook these grounds. Peering 
 into the future we behold grave rising by grave and monu- 
 ment by monument, all showing and speaking of the love of 
 
— 125 — 
 
 those who were left behind. We behold children stealing 
 away from the noisy bustle of life and wending their way 
 hitherward to weep themselves into peace at the graves of 
 father and mother. We hear the sighs and groans of the be- 
 reaved widow and widower, sad and lonely, sitting by the 
 hill which holds the ashes of those who were nearest to their 
 heart ; how they whisper to the breezes the beloved name 
 which once answered to so much love and affection ! We 
 distinguish the sorrow-stricken features of fathers and moth- 
 ers, who had to give up the idols of their soul, all their hope 
 and expectation of the future, and lay them so low. We see 
 them all coming hither and looking up to the stones which 
 mark the sacred spots, and they are consoled and strength- 
 ened, for each stone is but a finger-post, pointing upward, 
 where they have to seek for their departed ones. They are 
 comforted and strengthened by reading the words which are 
 never missed on the grave-stone of a Jewish burying-ground : 
 D v nn nma mm iriftEO ; their souls are bound up in the bonds of 
 everlasting life, for which, we, too, have to prepare ourselves. 
 This ground, therefore, is not only the connecting link which 
 binds us to our country, this world and the world to come ; 
 it is also a sacred temple, in which voiceless sermons will be 
 preached, more eloquent and sublime than human tongue 
 can utter. The burden of these sermons is : Be ever ready 
 and prepared for the time when thy soul shall be called away 
 to give account for thy doings, while thy body will be laid 
 into the ground, to return to the dust from which it was 
 taken. 
 
 And thus, in the name of God, the Eternal One, be thou 
 dedicated as the good place, the house of everlasting life, the 
 gates of salvation ! Be thou the field in which the seed that 
 decays is sown, that the immortal fruit may rise heaven- 
 ward. Be thou a place of comfort and consolation to all those 
 who will once lay away within thy bowels the most precious 
 they had on earth. Be thou a temple to all of us, that the 
 tombstones which shall rise within thy precincts may be but 
 so many fingers pointing upward, heavenward, to the Eter- 
 nal, our Father and Redeemer. Amen. 
 
ROSH HASHANAH. 
 
 BY ISAAC M. WISE, 
 
 (0/ Cincinnati, O.) 
 
 " -OqS im r»WI KS " Go out and stand upon the mountain 
 before God." These are the divine words addressed to the 
 Prophet Elijah, when he abode in the cave of Mount Horeb 
 in a state of despair over Israel and his cause. He had seen 
 the fire come down from heaven upon Mount Carmel to demon- 
 strate to all the worshipers of Baal that the One and Eter- 
 nal God is the Lord and King and Rock of Israel. He had 
 heard the congregated myriads of Israel exclaim in accents 
 of liquid fire : D\lb«n Kin «, " God is the Lord." But the 
 wicked Queen of Israel, hearing of the discomfiture of the 
 priests and prophets of Baal, and the havoc made of them, 
 sent forth her messengers to slay Elijah. He fled for his life 
 to the wilderness, and there in that cave cried painfully : 
 \J1 TiKJp JOp, "I have been very zealous for God, the Lord of 
 hosts ; for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, 
 have thrown down thy altars, have slain thy prophets with 
 the sword ; I am left alone by myself, and they seek to take 
 my life." Poor man ! poor enthusiast ! He was neither the 
 first nor the last victim of mighty enthusiasm. But then 
 God commanded him to go out of his dismal cave, to stand 
 upon the mountain before God. 
 
 Brethren, this is Rosh Hashanah, Israel's New Year. God 
 bless you all, you and all who are near and dear to your 
 hearts, this day and every day of your lives, all of which may 
 be sweet and happy. May all of you feel the presence of 
 your God in his holy temple, to fill your hearts with golden 
 hopes and heavenly joys, to forget the combats and sorrows 
 
— 128 — 
 
 and tears of life, and behold the pleasantness of God ; so the 
 King of Glory may enter in you and with you into the por- 
 tals of the new year. This is Israel's New Year, brethren ; 
 and what a mountain is in space that is the New Year in 
 time. It is an elevation, and those who stand on its summit 
 may survey the area below. New Year is an elevation in 
 time, and those who place themselves upon it may look 
 backward and forward, to the right and to the left, to survey 
 the past and cast a glance upon the future. Therefore, in 
 the divine words of Scripture, I call on you : " Go out and 
 stand upon the mountain before God." Come out of the dis- 
 mal cave of self-delusion, self-conceit and sinfulness; out 
 also of the vulgar habits of indulgence, self-gratification and 
 self-forgetfulness ; also out of the dismal cave of grief and 
 affliction and fear and apprehension ; and stand high upon 
 the mountain in the clear and transparent atmosphere of 
 truth, light, godliness and holiness ; and stand before God, 
 the Eternal and Omniscient, who looks into the recesses of 
 the heart and beholds the very motive of your volitions ; the 
 All-just and Almighty, who gives to man according to his 
 ways and the fruits of his doings. Come out and stand upon 
 the mountain before your God ; come out and hear the mes- 
 sage of the Most High to his servant Elijah. 
 
 Elijah came forth from the cave, stood upon the mountain 
 and complained bitterly : " I have been very zealous for 
 God, the Lord of hosts, for the children of Israel have for- 
 saken thy covenant." Stop ! here we must pause. The chil- 
 dren of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, he said ; not all 
 of them, indeed, but many, very many, of them ; not those, 
 perhaps, to whom I speak, but many to whom I speak not, 
 because they studiously and persistently desert every moral 
 influence, and kneel spell-bound before Baal and Astarte, the 
 Baal of a bewildered imagination and the Astarte of wicked 
 and debauching propensities ; not those, perhaps, of this city, 
 but those of many cities and localities, who listen to no ad. 
 monition, the name of God is never on their lips, they never 
 think and never feel a sublime thought or profound sentiment ; 
 
— 129 — 
 
 to whom indulgence, gratification, pleasure wild and inebriat- 
 ing, is life's sole object ; or perhaps these and those, here and 
 there and anywhere, as none but the eye of the Omniscient 
 penetrates into the secret dens of corruption, to know exactly 
 who is and who is not of those children of Israel who have 
 forsaken His covenant. One thing, however, is certain also 
 in our days — a large number of Israel's sons, and, alas ! also 
 of his daughters, between the confirmation and wedding 
 days, never show by one word or deed of theirs that they 
 stand within God's covenant with Israel. In the most dan- 
 gerous time of man's life, when youth matures to manhood, 
 the passions are fresh and strong and the understanding in- 
 sufficiently developed to govern them, those young people 
 are withdrawn from every moral influence of the school and 
 synagogue, science and art, elevating and invigorating liter- 
 ature, the society of men and women of culture, moral and 
 intellectual ambition, or, what is perhaps an equally efficient 
 educator, work, sufficient work to engage body and soul ; yes, 
 in many instances they are withdrawn from the moral in- 
 fluences of the virtuous family, the softening and humaniz- 
 ing affections of mother and sister, to live together in clubs 
 or gilded saloons, with magnates of frivolity or champions of 
 lewdness, left to drift unguarded, unheeded, unnoticed upon 
 the wild current of life, to swim or sink, to live or die. Who 
 can close his eyes to the fact that they have forsaken His 
 covenant, many, many, of the sons and daughters of Israel, 
 and kneel spell-bound before Baal and Astarte? Who can 
 doubt it that a grievous sin has been committed on the ris- 
 ing generation, permitted to grow up without a God and the 
 watchful eye of religion? Who will deny the necessity of 
 saving our own sons and daughters from under the destruc- 
 tion of this age of gross materialism, which seeks pleasure, 
 gratification, pomp, ostentation, tinsel and toys more than 
 truth, light, happiness and true marlhood ; this sensual, scan- 
 dal-loving and excitement-seeking generation, that has no aim 
 beyond crude selfishness? Therefore, the divine words ad- 
 dressed to the Prophet Elijah are also directed to us, and now 
 "Go out and stand on the mountain before God ;" survey the lo- 
 
— ;i30 — 
 
 cation, take in the whole situation, and remember that you 
 stand before your God, the Lord of justice, the God of right- 
 eousness. To you, young men in Israel, and to you first, 
 those divine words are addressed. Have mercy with your 
 kin, your companions, your brothers. You who are not sold 
 into the perpetual slavery of sensuality; you who are not 
 damned to sit with the cards, the cues or the goblets in your 
 hands in order to be amused, who know and understand that 
 there are higher duties, higher aims, higher pleasures, espe- 
 cially for the conscientious son of Israel ; have mercy with 
 your kin, your companions, your brothers ; rouse them from 
 that deadening slumber ; rouse them in the name of truth 
 and mercy ; save them from the poisoning looks of basilisks ; 
 rescue them out of the iron grip of the forlorn and sinking 
 victims of wickedness. Come out and stand upon the moun- 
 tain before God. Save those who in a few years will sorely 
 repent, and, perhaps, will discover it to be too late to amend, 
 to restore the wasted time, energy, manhood, intelligence and 
 human happiness. Hear the divine injunction, listen to the 
 solemn admonition, save your kin, your companions, your 
 brothers. 
 
 Standing upon the mountain, brethren, let us look around 
 to discover why this is so. Why is it that while on the one 
 side there is manifested in our days so sublime an enthusi- 
 asm for the cause of Israel, there is on the other hand so 
 deadening an indifference to alL that is of a religious, moral 
 or even an intellectual character ; so that the same people 
 who care not for your religious belief and practice care for 
 nothing else which offers not either gain or pleasure, sensual 
 gratification or amusement? The prophet in the bitterness 
 of his soul, answers this momentous question even before it 
 had been asked. He exclaimed : " They have thrown down 
 thy altars," not the one on Mount Moriah, but many other 
 altars have they thrown down, so Elijah complained. 
 
 Here, methinks, the fault lies. The altars of ceremonial 
 religion, the heritage of the Middle Ages, have been thrown 
 down by advancing culture, liberty, intelligence, wealth, con- 
 tact with the human family, the revolution of opinions which 
 
— 131 — 
 
 upheaves all strata of society. Mere observances and per- 
 formances, however ancient and venerable, would no longer 
 satisfy the heart of man. The ancient forms were broken 
 asunder, and Judaism on this continent had become a weak 
 shadow of the past, an exotic plant without the ability to 
 strike roots in this soil. Honest men, men of inspiration 
 and enthusiasm, raised their voices as did Elijah on Mount 
 Carmel : "How long halt ye between two opinions (hobble 
 on two clefts)? If God is the Lord, follow him ; and if Baal, 
 follow him." Let us reform, i. e., let us adopt other forms, 
 better forms, modern forms, gesthetical forms, to rescue the 
 spirit of eternal truth ; to give adequate expression to the 
 sublime doctrines and precepts of the divine religion, which 
 is the heritage of the congregation of Jacob. As in all polit- 
 ical revolutions, the transition from despotism to freedom is 
 understood by some, and misunderstood by many as a signal 
 to violence, robbery and general lawlessness ; as in social 
 philosophy, the idea of independence is grasped and valued 
 by many, and misconstrued by others into communism and 
 libertinism ; so the idea of reform in Judaism was under- 
 stood and duly appreciated by many honest and enthusiastic 
 men and women, even, those who built up all these glorious 
 temples of divine worship, schools of religious instruction, 
 asylums for the sick, the needy, the orphan and the widow, 
 associations of charity and societies of benevolence; even 
 those who love and support all those institutions with their 
 treasures and personal attendance, have built up a Union of 
 the American Israel and a College to educate expounders of 
 the Law ; even those who have deeply implanted Israel in 
 the American soil, in the hearts of good and intelligent peo- 
 ple, in the esteem and respect of our neighbors, who have re- 
 moved from our heads the prejudices with the superstitions 
 and have rejuvenated with life and energy the declining 
 spirit of despairing children. But it was misunderstood and 
 misconstrued by many into a communism with the lowest 
 class of God-forsaken worshipers of Mammon, and a liber- 
 tinism common to the scum of society. They have thrown 
 down thy altars and adopted the culte of Mammon, Venus 
 
— 132 — 
 
 and Bacchus. They have thrown down thy altars and re- 
 turned to a loathsome heathenism. " This is nothing, that 
 is nothing, all is nothing," is their crude motto ; " let us eat, 
 drink and be merry > for to-morrow we die," is their moral 
 doctrine; knowledge and learning are good for professional 
 men, they say ; intelligence and enlightenment are necessary 
 for public writers, orators or comedians ; we live, we take life 
 as it is, we are practical men. " And the superiority of man 
 over the beast is naught, for it is all vanity; " it is the Dar- 
 winian baboon with two hands and no hair. 
 
 They have torn down thy altars. They would not go into 
 the old synagogue, and do not show their faces in the new 
 temple, which is too civilized a place for those used to dens 
 and hovels. They did not pray in Hebrew and do not pray 
 in English, because they can not pray* unless Providence 
 smites them with misery. They could not listen to the old 
 melodies of the old-fashioned precentor, and have no ear for 
 the sacred music of our choirs ; it does not afford them the 
 right kind of excitement. They did not read the Bible or any 
 other religious book, and do not read any book now unless, 
 perhaps, it contains a sufficient amount of scandal or crime. 
 They worship not on Sabbath and propose now to deceive God 
 and man also on Sunday. There is no God in their hearts, 
 therefore none in their houses and families, none in their chil- 
 dren, none to sustain a moral character. They boast of what 
 they do not and believe not, although they would not care for 
 telling what they do and believe. Next Yom Kippur you will 
 hear again how many have taken illicit dinners here and 
 there ; but they would not tell you what else they have done 
 on that occasion, nor will they tell you of anything good, 
 generous, noble, humane or wise they may have done instead. 
 You will hear of those who do their daily business to-day 
 and do it on Yom Kippur; but nobody will tell that on that 
 account they are better, more respectable, honorable or more 
 trustworthy than you are. 
 
 I do not exaggerate, you know I do not. There are quite a 
 number of people who have become libertines in this respect 
 and appear to believe they could be good, moral men, who 
 
— 133 — 
 
 deserve honest men's respect without any religion. They 
 also appear to believe they could raise children to be good and 
 happy men and women without the moral influence of relig- 
 ious instruction. They think a man might be rich and fat 
 and do a lucrative business without any religion ; therefore, 
 they have torn down thy altars, and also, alas ! the altars of 
 their children, the altars of a rising generation. The fathers 
 have eaten sour grapes, and so the teeth of the sons are 
 blunted. The fathers imagine they could do without it, and 
 so the sons do without it. One wicked man leads many 
 astray ; one Satan consumes many victims ; one debased 
 ring-leader leads many to hell. So reform was abused, so the 
 altars were torn down ; so good morals, intelligence itself was 
 defied, so they have deserted thy covenant, the children of 
 Israel. They had outgrown the forms of the Middle Ages 
 and had not grown high enough to understand the lofty 
 principle of a purely spiritual religion. They escaped the 
 fear of hell without learning the fear of the Lord, therefore, 
 they scorn with infidels and laugh with the frivolous ; but 
 they have not learned to think and reason with earnest men. 
 They have forgotten everything and learned nothing. They 
 have thrown off the burden of the Sabbath, the yoke of di- 
 vine worship, the restraints of the law without submission 
 to the dictates of reason, the imperative decrees of ethics, 
 the demands of humanity, self-control and self-perfection- 
 ment. 
 
 For the sake of my brothers and my friends, let me speak 
 peace, I beseech you, men and brethren in Israel ; for the sake 
 of those who sink, go under, and drag others down into the 
 whirlpool of self-destruction, let me cry out, heal, rebuild 
 the altar of God, which is overthrown. You, the better men 
 and better women in Israel, who stand to-day upon the 
 mountain before your God and Father ; you who do not bend 
 your knees before Baal, who love truth and righteousness, 
 God and humanity, you must do something to reclaim the 
 fallen and the falling. You must make up your mind to 
 give honor to God by the strict observance of his laws, honor 
 to Israel by adherence to his precepts, and honor to human 
 
— 134 — 
 
 nature by going before others with good examples and in- 
 spiring deeds. " That they may hear and may see and deal 
 presumptuously no more," you must set the example by a 
 stricter observance of the Sabbath; you must honor your 
 sacred cause by attending to it personally in all public meet- 
 ings of the congregation, in divine worship or any other 
 occasion ; you must be strict at your homes as well as in 
 public that the words of God be made known to the young 
 and the old by all means at your command. To be brief, 
 you men and women in Israel must be Israelites of the nine- 
 teenth century, as you can be Israelites no longer of any 
 previous date, and set the example to others that there is a 
 God in Israel who is our Judge, our Law-giver, our King and 
 our Savior forever. 
 
 " And thy prophets have they slain with the sword," Eli- 
 jah complains furthermore, as if he intended to say all hopes 
 of reformation and restoration appear to be lost ; they have 
 deserted the covenant, have destroyed the altars, the doctrine 
 and the deed are perverted, and the only men who could 
 bring about a change for the better, the prophets, have been 
 slain with the sword. Might we not utter the same cry of 
 despair? N"33 TiV p«, "We have no more prophets?" but 
 that is not yet the worst, that Psalmist continues, jnv UrttK pKl 
 no iy, "And none of us knows to what, whereto all this 
 will lead." The prophets are gone and ignorance has in- 
 creased. Those who are appointed to replace the prophets 
 are "Your prophets," who reveal unto thee messages of 
 falsehood and seduction. Anybody almost appears in our 
 days to be deemed competent to replace Moses and the 
 Prophets, their precepts and the eternal truths of history. 
 Any young man of a common school education in our days, 
 any bankrupt man who has failed in his ordinary profession 
 or trade, any common man who perchance has read a book 
 and was lucky enough to become wealthy, any common 
 howler or public crier, nay, renegades, apostates, abject im- 
 postors, political demagogues, eccentric croakers, anybody 
 almost has become a substitute for the prophet, to tear down 
 and uproot, to scoff at all things sacred and laugh at the teach- 
 
— 135 — 
 
 ings of reason, to begin history anew and close our eyes to 
 the holiest treasures of man in all history of the past ; and a 
 blind multitude, pleasure-loving and amusement-seeking, 
 worships this idol or that fetich, is bribed and corrupted by 
 a laugh or pleased by scandal. May we not exclaim, "And 
 Thy prophets have they slain with the sword ?" 
 
 " Your prophets " who tell you privately you need keep no 
 Sabbath, you need not worship your God, if you are your- 
 selves artists, scientists, philosophers, free thinkers or some- 
 thing like it ; " Your prophets " who are always ready to 
 please you in your houses or even to laugh with you or for 
 you over things sacred, over persons of earnest conviction ; 
 but when they come before the public they always appear in 
 the sacred cloak of godliness and with a false face of holiness ; 
 these, " Your prophets," are the dead men slain by the levity 
 and hypocrisy of this age of masquerades and burlesques. 
 Do not accuse them, although they are damnable, as long as 
 you must accuse yourselves of the cause thereof. If you do 
 believe in God and truth, why do you run after priests of 
 atheism and darkness ? If you believe in moral principles, 
 why do you prefer printed scandal or spoken indecency to 
 the products of reason and words of purity ? Why do you 
 desert genius and run after comedians ? If you believe in 
 Judaism, and think the Sabbath must remain as ordained in 
 the Decalogue, why do you not keep it ? Why do you not 
 distinguish the clay in this or that manner to demonstrate to 
 your families and your neighbors that, yielding to necessity, 
 you sell out principles for dollars and cents ? Let me stop 
 here or else I might go too far. These are a few of the ques- 
 tions which I ask, not of you assembled in this temple, 
 which I address to this age of levity and hypocrisy, this gen- 
 eration of masquerades and burlesques. We might, I think, 
 say the same thing to-day, as did Elijah on Horeb, who ex- 
 claimed : " They have forsaken thy covenant, the children 
 of Israel; they have overthrown thy altars and slain thy 
 prophets with the sword." 
 
 And yet, however just that prophet's complaint appears 
 to be, it did not appear entirely so to the Almighty. God 
 
— ,136 — 
 
 admonished that zealous man to know and understand that 
 he was not in fire, storm or earthquake, that he was re- 
 vealed in soft and benign whispers. God admonished him 
 that the world will not die out when Elijah dies, and charged 
 him to anoint another king and prophet. God's promises 
 must be fulfilled, however wicked this or that generation may 
 be. God's word is eternal, but generations come and go. 
 The Midrash adds to this : " Whoever depreciates Israel, let 
 him beware lest he be depreciated himself. Isaiah said, 
 ' And I dwell among a nation of impure lips ; ' and he was 
 told with a burning coal to purify his lips. Moses said, 
 ' Hear, ye rebellious ones,' and he was told, ' Thou shalt 
 not bring this congregation into the land of promise.' Elijah 
 said. ' The children of Israel have forgotten thy covenant,' 
 and he was answered, ' Go and anoint Elisha ben Shaphat a 
 prophet in thy place.' " 
 
 Well do we understand all this, and history repeats it very 
 frequently. Whatever individuals, whatever a class of indi- 
 viduals may do or say ; of Israel, as a community of all 
 ages and generations the Holy One has said, " Verily, they 
 are my people, children who lie not." Israel always was and 
 is now faithful to his God. The minority must not be taken 
 into consideration to condemn the majority. One man, one 
 class of men, yea, one generation, may fail and fall, yet u The 
 word-of our God will last forever." The holy religion of Is- 
 rael is beyond human power; it can not be injured. Well 
 do we know how the large majority of this congregation, in 
 fact of all our congregations, are faithful to God and Israel. 
 But he is my God whom I humbly worship ; they are all my 
 own people, my own flesh and blood, whom I love; this law 
 of God is my law, before which I meekly bend my head. 
 Therefore, I mourn, I weep for those who fail and fall and 
 disappear in the current of popular vices, and cry, with the 
 bereaved mourners, " Horrid deep, give back my children !" 
 Therefore, I mourn with mourners and weep with the 
 wretched ; with Mother Rachel in Ramah do I cry : " Woe 
 over our children who run to self-destruction ! " Therefore, I 
 call from the recesses of my heart, to you, men and brethren, 
 
— 137 — 
 
 fathers and mothers, sons and daughters in Israel, on this 
 holy day of memorial ; I cry, go out, come forth and stand 
 on the mountain before God. Neglect not my children, my 
 kin, my brothers, the dear ones of my soul. You must do 
 something to save, to rescue them. Resolve resolutions, 
 devise means in your minds, on the mountain before the 
 Lord. And with such resolves let us open the portal of the 
 future and enter with the King of Glory, who will bless, pro- 
 tect and guide you all. May the year open with the light of 
 truth, the sunshine of prosperity and happiness to all. God 
 grant you life, peace and happiness. God grant you con- 
 tentment, satisfaction and joy. May God protect your 
 health, increase your wealth, enlarge your sphere of useful- 
 ness, pervade your souls with heavenly light. Amen. 
 
THE CROSSING OF THE JORDAN. 
 
 INAUGURAL SERMON BY THE REV. DR. E. G. HIRSCH, 
 
 (Of Chicago, III.) 
 
 In this hour, for me so momentous, allow me, first of all, 
 to obey the promptings of my heart and return thanks to 
 you for your kindness and confidence so signally evinced in 
 calling me to the leadership of your congregation, so deserv- 
 edly renowned among the sister congregations of the land. 
 I know the grent responsibility which to-day I assume, and 
 I am painfully conscious of my inability to do it justice in 
 its wide scope. But every petty fear is silenced, every hesi- 
 tating doubt is hushed, if, as I do, I bear in mind what high 
 vocation to-day becomes mine. To be privileged in your 
 midst to work for the consummation of mankind's highest 
 ideals, in the sense and according to the tenets of progressive 
 modern Judaism, is a calling which may well lend new wings 
 to my soul, and brace even such weak powers as are mine 
 with perseverance and courage, never to tire in the effort to 
 attain the noble end, which, under the trusty guidance of my 
 honored predecessors you have recognized as the goal of 
 your congregational aspirations. Indeed, to be the banner- 
 bearer in the battle for Israel's and mankind's lofty interests, 
 may be in our age, so strangely moved by the conflict of 
 divergent tendencies, a difficult task, but is surely one that 
 can not fail to bring in return a rich reward. 
 
 We are standing at the threshold of a new year. The 
 weirdly mingled emotions with which we usually greet the 
 birth of this youngest daughter of time can not but be inten- 
 sified to-night by the reflection that not only as individuals 
 but also as a congregation, are we now brought face to face 
 with the uncertainties of the future. The message which 
 
— 140 — 
 
 this pivotal hour of years announces comes home to us laden 
 with double import, and more urgently than perhaps ever 
 before are we admonished to see to it that we be " registered 
 unto life." For to him who can rise above his own individ- 
 ual desires and apprehensions, regrets and anticipations, the 
 quaint Talmudical legend that to-day the book of the dead 
 and the book of the living lie open before the divine arbiter 
 of human destinies must find a well nigh startling applica- 
 tion. He must observe that the genius of the times is busy 
 recording unto death views and conceptions of a defunct part, 
 that he stands ready to unclasp the volume of the living, 
 wherein to chronicle the hopes and aspirations of the nascent 
 future ! The advent of the new year to him must be symbolic 
 of the coming of the new era, the rosy dawn of which even 
 now colors the horizon ; the lengthening shadows of the 
 sinking sun are emblems to him of the parting salute of an 
 old world of thought and sentiment, which is taking leave 
 of us ! 
 
 Yes, friends, a world of thought and sentiment, in whish 
 our fathers moved and lived, is taking leave of us, the chil- 
 dren. There is no sphere of human activity, no field of hu- 
 man energy, but displays the portents of the revolution. No 
 age before ours was swayed by such burning desire after 
 knowledge, was ruled b}^ such ardent longing after truth as 
 is ours. Carried along and aloft irresistibly by this craving 
 and yearning, we have explored the highest and the lowest, 
 have traversed the immensities of celestial space, have un- 
 sealed the mouth of mother earth, have lifted the veil from 
 off the countenance of nature, and wrenched from her many 
 a secret of her work and working. And though much still 
 remains unknown, and many a question is wafted back upon 
 the wings of laughing echo, unanswered, perhaps unanswer- 
 able ; yet the inheritance bequeathed to us by our fathers has 
 proven too narrow in its restrictions. The old temple of 
 knowledge has lapsed into ruins, even though the new one 
 still awaits its architect. 
 
 And the reflex of this movement is most clearly felt in the 
 province of the religious. Conceptions which to those that 
 
— 141 — 
 
 lived before us were among the dearest ; ideas which in all 
 the vicissitudes of life were to them staff and stay ; hopes 
 which in genial sunshine or chilling rain were their trusty 
 companions ; thoughts which braced their arms for the con- 
 test and work of life, all these no longer convey to us mes- 
 sages of divine peace ! With those that cherished them, they 
 are recorded unto death. In the book of the living about to 
 be unclosed, we shall have to learn to read new inscriptions 
 with which to adorn the portals of our heart's sanctuary. 
 
 That Judaism, too, is undergoing a similar process, no one 
 can deny ; no one can wonder at ! As the German poet so 
 aptly has styled it, it is the " heart of mankind ! " It was, 
 at ail times, the first to respond to the impulse of cotempo- 
 raneous mental life ; and to-day, it has not lost this charac- 
 teristic function. It, too, appears before us to-day, bearing 
 in one hand the book of the dead, speaking of a Temple 
 which our fathers pilgrimed to, then majestic in its architec- 
 tural completeness, now in ruins ; in the other, the book of 
 life, many of its pages still to be unraveled, but the signs of 
 which Reform Judaism is destined to read! Thus, turn 
 whithersoever we may, one world is sinking, another arising ! 
 In this, the first hour of my ministry among you, no question, 
 therefore, presents itself to me with greater urgency than 
 does this one: " How are we, a Reform Congregation, to 
 build up this, our new world? " 
 
 In turning to Biblical literature for guidance to find answer 
 to this question, no crisis, therein related, impressed itself so 
 vividly upon my mind in its similarity to our own position 
 as did the condition of the tribes, encamped along the banks 
 of Jordan, after Moses' death under the command of Joshua, 
 the new leader. The order is given to proceed. The river 
 seems a formidable obstacle to further progress; and the 
 conquest of the land, therefore, almost an impossibility. 
 But nothing daunted, the leader's voice calls out to the hesi- 
 tating multitude : D3DipDD WDn Dfl&O forward from the spot you 
 are encamped at. The river's rushing waters can not impede 
 the onward march of the Lord's host. Let the priests, bear- 
 ing the ark of the divine covenant, plunge in courageously, 
 
— 142 — 
 
 and a path will open in the very midst of the gushing waves. 
 Take, however, twelve stones from out of the river's bed, 
 whereon rested the feet of the priests, and on yonder shore 
 erect with them a memorial column for your children after 
 you ! Such, in brief, the marching order of the new general. 
 Its details, I think, are also well adapted to show us the 
 way, and teach us the method, how we should proceed to per- 
 form successfully the work before us ! 
 
 I. 
 
 DDDlpDD lyon DHN1 Forward ! from the spot where we are 
 resting ! This the first essential. Of one fact to-day we are 
 too prone to lose sight. The praises of the Reform move- 
 ment have been sung so loudly ; the benefits which have ac- 
 crued from it to Israel have been so frequently urged, that we 
 too easily forget that, after all, much still remains to be done 
 before the land of the future is ours. For, if we have suc- 
 ceeded in throwing off the yoke of Egypt, if we have crossed 
 the Red Sea, if even in the desert we have received the tab- 
 lets of the law, and feasted on heavenly manna, — we have, 
 at best, but traversed that desert while the Jordan still re- 
 mains to be bridged, the land of our promise has still to be 
 conquered in many a hotly contested battle. In saying this, 
 no one can accuse me of ingratitude toward those great 
 leaders that during the past fifty years and more have 
 directed the Reform movement ; no one will charge me with 
 underrating the scope or the effect of their self-sacrificing 
 efforts. But as Moses could only lead his people to the brink 
 of the frontier river ; as he could but from the summit of the 
 towering mountain behold from afar the shaded hills and 
 laughing plains of the country, for which he had so ardently 
 yearned and to which he had consecrated every sentiment of 
 his pure heart, so also the Moses of our second liberation 
 could but show us paths and tracks in a howling desert, bring 
 us to the very border of the land of our future habitation, 
 but they could not marshal the triumphal march of conquest. 
 The mission of Reform is twofold, critical and constructive. 
 The remark has recently, and very rightly, been made that 
 
— 143 
 
 hitherto it has been the bane of liberalism to have been too 
 exclusively critical. That this observation holds good as to- 
 Jewish liberalism, no one acquainted with its history and 
 development can gainsay. If to-day we hear so often the 
 complaint and the accusation that the Reform movement 
 has been fraught with disastrous consequences to the truly 
 religious spirit, and if seemingly the charge is substantiated 
 by facts patent and incontrovertible ;-those consequences 
 adduced and those facts harped upon are, in very reality not 
 so much the outgrowth of the Reform movement in itself as 
 the necessary result of that exclusive criticism which un- 
 avoidably has hitherto swayed the liberalism of the day. 
 Criticism, certainly, has its legitimate function. It is the 
 pioneer that marches in the van of slowly advancing civiliza- 
 tion, and the pioneer's work, too, at first blush, seems 
 destructive. His sturdy axe cuts down the mighty oak of a 
 thousand years ; his reckless daring blasts the rock nature s 
 original fastness. He bids the waters take new direction 
 and disputes the dominion of their native soil to the original 
 owner of the forest. And in return for all he destroys, he 
 can but hastily timber a rough cabin of logs-a temporary 
 makeshift, giving neither promise nor pledge of stability 01 
 security. And yet his destructive work is necessary With- 
 out him the constructive civilization of those that follow after 
 him is impossible ! • So with us criticism had first to prepare 
 the way, and its seeming destructiveness is an earnest ot the 
 solidity of the construction, which we now may, nay must 
 rear And still another consideration will show us that the 
 much deplored criticism of Reform was necessary. Criticism 
 is essentially aggressive, and all great and beneficen move- 
 ments of human progress are aggressive in their first stage. 
 So is the sun when he first bursts open the portals of the 
 East; the first hour oi his triumphant course along the 
 horizon is one of conflict, waged against the sullen vassals of 
 darkness, that fain would hold dominion forever. The 
 peaks of the mountain summits, indeed, eagerly accept the 
 morning's kiss, but the valleys beneath reject for a time the 
 Conquering hero's loving salute ! So did the mission of 
 
— 144 — 
 
 Moses begin by aggression, and his whole career, his constant 
 attacks upon the heathenish propensities of his cotempo- 
 raries are but typical of the aggressive, critical spirit that 
 animated the leaders of the Reform movement. They, too, 
 found their people not only politically, but also spiritually 
 enslaved. The God of the Fathers, Israel knew no longer ; 
 intolerable oppression had crushed out every recollection 
 and consciousness of Israel's priestly mission. The present, 
 so dreary, held out no promise for the future ; and the past 
 with its ruined temple, its overthrown Davidian State, its 
 sacerdotal and sacrificial ritual, seemed the Paradise lost — 
 miraculously to be regained. And more than all this ! 
 While, like Moses of old, the hearts of many burned with 
 indignation because the lash of the task master cut deep and 
 dire furrows into the back of the poor enthralled, while many 
 dared resist the emissaries of the cruel Pharaohs, alas ! many 
 and many again, swayed by ambition and the desire for 
 political preferment, joined the ranks of Israel's tormenters, 
 and had but scoffing words for those that expostulated with 
 them. Under such circumstances, from the midst of the 
 burning bush of their love for their people, the Moses of our 
 times received the divine appointment to go and reclaim the 
 enslaved. And the fetters were rent asunder, the people 
 liberated, led out of the house of bondage, the land of their 
 fathers, the mountain of the Lord the goal of their journey. 
 But the generation that left Egypt could not encounter 
 Canaan. In the stony waste of the Sinaitic peninsula, the 
 people had to undergo a purifying process. So also in our 
 modern exodus from media3val Egypt. The generation that 
 bore the yoke of Pharaoh could not conquer the future. The 
 flesh-pots of Egypt and the golden calves had, as yet, too 
 many charms for them. During this period of conflict with 
 these constant hankerings after the past, Reform had, of 
 necessity, to be aggressive, and consequently wield the sword 
 of criticism. The claim to eternal authority on the part of 
 Talmudical Judaism, the legitimacy of tradition had to be 
 investigated. The rock of the past had to be struck, and lo ! 
 we found the limpid waters wherewith to quench our thirst. 
 
145 — 
 
 Like the geologist, we succeeded in separating stratum from 
 stratum, and assigning to each period its peculiar forma- 
 tions, we discovered traces of gradual growth and unfolding 
 everywhere, and thus vindicated our right to discard with- 
 ered" leaves for green buds just springing into life. The con- 
 flict, however, is now decided ! Criticism has performed its 
 function : it becomes our duty to leave the desert, for S3H 
 D ^ y7 p L, n Drr? pa ^ 2 im -in Those that forever would stay 
 in that arid wilderness can not expect to be participants of 
 the future. We must now begin the work of construction. 
 The sword and the book, so relates an ancient Midrash, were 
 given together, and in Reform Judaism criticism and con- 
 struction should henceforth be firmly joined. Thus then, 
 we, too, are ordered D3Wpo» won DHW : Up ! forward from 
 the spot of your encampment ! Yes, friends, perhaps louder 
 than ever before does to-day the genius of the time call 
 upon us to march forward. Who is there among us that 
 does not know, that life to-day with its many problems, its 
 many doubts, its many claims, is the river vnnJ b hv ifo Ml 
 to overflowing, that rushes and gushes with sweeping current 
 between us and the land of the future? Yes, life to-day more 
 urgently and more piteously, than ever it did since man 
 began to breathe and move under yon arched sky, clamors 
 for an answer to its questioning. The solutions offered by 
 the civilizations before our own, have lost their value and 
 potency. If in antiquity the mere accident of birth— a sign 
 of divine favor or displeasure— stifled every doubt, and com- 
 pelled man to accept as inexorable the decrees of fate, under 
 which he could groan, but which he dared not question, to- 
 day the spot at which our cradle stood, and the circum- 
 stances by which it was surrounded decide naught, and are 
 often but a fresh source of burning dissatisfaction and gall- 
 ing unrest. If in the Middle Ages the Church, while retain- 
 ing the theory of divine grace and preferment manifested at 
 birth, held out to the weak and lowly, the troubled and per- 
 plexed, the hope of a future compensation and retribution ; 
 to-clay, the hidden regions of beyond the grave are quick 
 with no incentive to endurance and patience. In one 
 
— 146 — 
 
 word, the world has lost the compass whereby to steer life's 
 fragile bark. "Is life worth living?" this the harrassing 
 problem to which no response will come; and the times are 
 big with volcanic energy; social upheavals multiply in 
 number, increase in horror, and the whole fabric of our 
 boasted culture seems out of joint. And for this very 
 reason, it becomes the sacred duty to-day of modern Judaism, 
 to construct on the eternal principles of J mix ism an all embrac- 
 ing philosophy of life, to study man in his ethical relations, 
 to listen to his doubts, and to confirm him in his hopes, to 
 brace him for the struggle of life, and show him the palm of 
 victory to be striven after. Mere negative criticism can not 
 do this. Therefore, like Joshua's host of yore, WDn for- 
 ward! onward! 
 
 II. 
 
 But, friends, let us recollect here, at the very outset, one 
 essential point. The very river of life which it is ours to 
 ford, will open its sweeping current only to the priests bear- 
 ing the " ark of the covenant." If we do not wish to be 
 swept away by its swift waters, we, too, have to take with us 
 that ark, emblem of the covenant, which obtains between 
 man and his Maker. In other words, the adamantine rock, 
 upon which we are to rear the temple of the future, must 
 to-day, as ever in Judaism, be and remain the living con- 
 sciousness of the sublime relationship that links us to God ! 
 Perhaps the sciences refuse to adduce proof of this cove- 
 nun t. The telescope and the spectroscope are both silent on 
 that score; and the astronomer, when computing the orbits 
 of the stars, will not take account of this factor. And even 
 so the geologist, tracing the developments of the earth's in- 
 crustation, successively through all its periods, will not point 
 out in the fossil remains of the buried epochs or in the for- 
 mations of the present day evidences thereof. Nor can we 
 hope, in the laboratory of either] chemist or physiologist, to 
 succeed better. But what of that? The covenant which we 
 are to cherish is not an outward one. " Not in the heavens 
 and not in the sea, but in thy mouth and in thy heart to do 
 
— 147 — 
 
 it." The raging ocean of fire, the whirling tempest failed to 
 bring home to the prophet of old the knowledge of his God ; 
 the soft voice of his own heart revealed to him what he could 
 read neither in the stars above him nor in the rocks around 
 him ! Philosophy has, indeed, demolished the so-called 
 evidences of God's existence deduced all from the outward 
 work and working of Nature. But the lessons which the 
 life of man and mankind teaches — these no philosophy can 
 controvert or render nugatory. What if without phosphorus 
 there be no thought— the mind which works through the 
 instrumentality of the brain will ever remain more than a 
 mere secretion oozing from brain matter. The heart will 
 ever be more than a pumping apparatus, the tear more than 
 a chemical salt— man more than an automatic machine; 
 and the man of science who would deny his own manhood. 
 — is at best a giant Samson, blinded by his prejudices, laying 
 hold of the pillars of the sanctuary and in their fall working 
 his own destruction. What makes man a man is the eternal 
 prompting which he alone of all creatures feels, down in his 
 heart, to rise above his finite surroundings and soar up to 
 ideal heights, to enter into close union with the infinite. 
 How far soever we may follow the footprints of man's work 
 on earth, we find this power operative within him. True, 
 often, very often, the flight of his aspirations took a wrong 
 direction, but as the erratic course of erring stars confirms 
 even in its irregularity the laws according to which the 
 others are held in their even paths, so still in its errors the 
 human heart reveals the eternal law of its constitution. Nor 
 can the infinite remain for man an abstract idea ; he ever 
 feels it as a living reality. Conscience and virtue are its 
 ministering angels within him. And virtue is not a eupho- 
 nious sound for selfishness and policy. The little child's eye, 
 whose mind is certainly free from all guile of utilitarian 
 calculation of its own interests, involuntarily sparkles with 
 holy fire of enthusiasm when it beholds the noble faces and 
 figures of those who devoted their lives to what is good and 
 noble; and even the criminal, steeped in the most abject 
 mire of moral depravity, can not stifle the plaintive voice 
 
— 148 — 
 
 within him, " Man, where art thou? " and escape the chid- 
 ing of his conscience, and must quake under its lashes, he, 
 for whom neither dungeon nor gallows had any terrors. 
 That virtue and conscience partake of the characteristic 
 trait of all that is human, that from small germs, with 
 changing standard, they, too, have shared in a progressive 
 process of evolution — this fact does not disprove their reality 
 and universality. For they are not merely individual, they 
 are cosmic fore s. 
 
 History is the Sinai from which, if shrouded in clouds 
 and trembling with fiery commotion, above the peal of its 
 thunders and by the glare of its Hashing lightning, we hear 
 the jubilant declaration, " I am the Lord, thy God! " On 
 the tablets of the Law, there promulgated, we may read, that 
 if virtue be a policy it is a divine policy; that nations as well 
 as individuals only then flourish when in accord with vir- 
 tue's dictates ; that they perish, if they dare oppose its be- 
 hests, which, notwithstanding human opposition, will be 
 carried out to a successful issue ! Yes, Virtue, or better, God, 
 with conscious purpose rules the loorld! 
 
 And this idea, this covenant must also be the corner-stone 
 of the system we have to construct. Otherwise it Dnjn pa 
 JTpriD Kim it will be a child's card house, which can not 
 endure ! Otherwise the fate that awaits us will be similar to 
 that of those daring Titans that raised a tower to storm the 
 heavens, but to find their undertaking end in dire confusion. 
 
 For the thoughtful history points out one lesson: Athe- 
 ism has ever been the grave-digger, never the architect, of 
 civilization. Look at Rome, in the first century of our era ; 
 contrast her with Jerusalem ! The seven-hilled city, then at 
 the zenith of her power ; Zion and Moriah, but faintly aglow 
 with the rays of the setting sun of their dec line. Doth had 
 opened theii gates to Greek thought and culture. But, 
 though the mistress of the world gladly patterned her own 
 songs after the strains that once filled with their sweet music 
 the Olympian arena; though she sat an eager disciple at the 
 feet of masters full with the lore of the Stoa and the Acad- 
 emy : could she touch with new life the genius of Hellas? 
 
— 149 — 
 
 She became its tomb, because atheistic, frivolous, she had lost 
 all comprehension of, all love for the ideal. Not so on Pales- 
 tine's sacred soil ! There Greek culture was quickened into 
 new life ; the God-idea of Israel endowed it with potencies 
 hardly conceivable ; and Christianity went forth from thence, 
 not merely to bury a world, but also to construct one. And 
 again, when fourteen hundred years later, Greece stepped 
 out once more from the ruins of Byzantium, where long she 
 had been secluded, and in Italy and Germany found willing 
 adepts : when the " eternal city " at the bidding of a Medici 
 on the papal throne, saw rise in stately proportions St. 
 Peter's majestic dome ; while, in yon little Saxon town, a 
 much less stately cathedral began to resound with the burn- 
 ing eloquence of an iconoclast, a monk but recently emerged 
 from the cloister's solitude ; which of these two, Rome or 
 Wittenberg, proved the Mecca of the New World, then 
 spreading? The papal court, frivolous and atheistic, though 
 fostering the new arts and sciences, could but erect sad 
 monuments over the grave of a civilization, the last rem- 
 nants of which it was. while Protestantism, the Bible as the 
 word of God in its hands, called up to life, energies and 
 tendencies, the beneficent rebound of which we even to-day 
 yet feel. But why go so far? Follow me to the dying de- 
 cades of the eighteenth century ! A hurricane is sweeping 
 over both hemispheres ; America and France are in the 
 throes of a new era. But where does the storm bring in its 
 fold life, where death? Beyond the ocean they deify reason 
 — but she can with bloody hands tear down, not build up ; 
 here, on this side of the Atlantic, with the God of their 
 fathers a living presence in their heart, the sturdy champions 
 of the Revolution, not only tear down, they build up. Let 
 these instances suffice ! Let us, too, heed their warning : 
 Forward ! that is, indeed, the order of the day ; but only 
 when the ark of the covenant leads the way. But, on the 
 other hand, let us not forget that this idea of the covenant 
 which makes us kin to the Infinite must ever remain a living 
 thought, not degenerate into a dead dogma. If Judaism 
 protests with all the fervor that strength and truth of con- 
 
— 150 — 
 
 viction can elicit against the dogma of materialism, it does 
 no less raise its voice against the materialism of dogmas. 
 Our religion never was dogmatic. Liberty of conscience, 
 untrammeled by any restrictions of a formulated creed, was 
 the treasure which all ages watched over with never nagging 
 zeal. Its greatest men could never dare reduce to authorita- 
 tive articles the ever-living principles of our faith, without 
 encountering a jealous and always successful opposition ! 
 While the synagogue, here and there, perhaps pronounced 
 tlic ban of excommunication against men bold enough to 
 emancipate themselves from the mandates of practical cus- 
 tom and ceremony, it very rarely, if ever, made theoretical 
 dissent from prevailing opinions the basis or the decree of 
 exclusion. Sonic arc ready to see in this a symptom of in- 
 herent weakness. "What is Judaism?"' so they exclaim, 
 "no one knows because no one can formulate it." They 
 forget that Judaism is not confession but conduct; that it is a 
 life, and life can never be formulated ; it is no crystal but a 
 constant flow. Indeed, not the tongue that glibly repeats 
 articles of faith, not the lips that are ever ready to pronounce 
 the name of the deity, are the tests of how T deeply we are 
 conscious of our relationship to our God within us, around 
 us, above us, but the heart aglow with love of all that is true 
 and beautiful; a hand ever ready to do what is good and 
 nol >le. This characteristic trait of Judaism is not an element 
 of weakness, it is its tower of strength. It alone spares it 
 the futile and frantic efforts under the necessity of which all 
 dogmatic religions are smarting, to reconcile with new stan- 
 dards of knowledge, <>I<I standards of belief. It alone steers 
 clear of the cliffs upon which dogmatic religion is in con- 
 stant danger of foundering, the assumption of two kinds of 
 truth — the one scientific, the other religious. No, keeping paoe 
 with tli<' advance of mankind, it scaled round after round of 
 the Ladder-reaching from the earth up to God, with its hopes, 
 the ascending angels, but also its doubt, the descending 
 angels, its steady companions. And so to-day, whatever the 
 cosmogony we accept, whatever the views we entertain as to 
 the character and composition of our sacred literature — if 
 
— 151 — 
 
 our theism be a principle of action, rather than dogmatic 
 assertion, these opinions do not conflict with our Theology. 
 In the land of the future the manna may cease falling from 
 above, but the ark of the covenant, with the eternal tablets 
 of the Law, the ever blooming staff of life, is still with us, be- 
 cause within us. 
 
 III. 
 
 And finally a third essential is suggested by our text : 
 " Take from the river twelve stones, erect with them a memo- 
 rial column, so that when thy sons ask thee about their sig- 
 nificane, thou mayest be able to acquaint them therewith." 
 In constructing our new system, we can not break the his- 
 torical nexus with the past. Whatsoever is truly human is 
 historical. The distinction between instinct and reason, 
 beast and man, manifests itself mainly in this, that instinct 
 has no history, while reason has. In our day the claims of 
 what is historical are often overlooked. Idealism to-day 
 attempts to build the shrine of the future without remem- 
 bering that the future can only be a continuation of the past, 
 through a living present, and thus in vain delusion the edifice 
 rises upon the quick-sand of individualism. Where the 
 thread of history is rent asunder, the bark of idealism carries 
 only sails, no anchor. The physical universe is held in 
 equipoise b} 7 the conflict of two forces, the centripetal and 
 the centrifugal ; so the moral universe loses its balance when 
 it refuses to submit to the operation of the centrifugal, the 
 historical force. And pause one moment, and reflect, what 
 history is that with which we are to retain connection ! We 
 see there before us as a people, swayed by one idea, and often 
 martyrs to that idea : " It is the priest people of the world, 
 banded together for the purpose of marching in the van of 
 true humanity." And this claim to this privileged position 
 is well substantiated. It is easy to show that in Israel the 
 issues of humanity were first recognized and first solved ; 
 and that the solutions victoriously stood the fiery test of 
 actual life ! Nor can we afford to -da} 7 to give up our priestly 
 mission. The levitical purity laws and dietary regulations, 
 
— 152 — 
 
 indeed, we may discard ; but the priestly robe woven with 
 1 litter tears and dyed in the life-blood of thousands of mar- 
 tyrs—this we can not resign, for our task is not done, the 
 victory of true humanit}' not yet won. Thus, we, too, have 
 to take the stones and erect them into a memorial column ! 
 We' will preserve 'our historical organization, observe our his- 
 torical holidays, chant in our services the old songs of the 
 Jordan and Euphrates, and address our petitions before the 
 throne of grace to a certain extent, at least, even in the 
 language which our fathers spoke. But I can not forget that 
 the memorial stones are not an end unto themselves. They 
 are but means to acquaint the young with the great lessons 
 and truths of our history, imbue them with the spirit of our 
 past, instill into their hearts the love of our task in the pres- 
 ent. Have we been able to carry out this intention hereto- 
 fore? Who would say, we have? Certainly, I am the last 
 one to detract one tittle from the historical value of the his- 
 torical Sabbath. But we live under such circumstances 
 that it has, indeed, become a historical reminscence, not a 
 living institution. Certainly, I am the last to desire a schism 
 in Judaism. But I can not shirk the duty to provide for 
 such as can not observe the historical Sabbath additional 
 services on such a day, as it is possible for them to attend. 
 I deny that this step is a surrender of Jewish principles. 
 Nay, furthermore, I insist upon the introduction of these 
 services on the general civil day of rest in the name of the 
 priestly mission of Israel, which is sacred to us all. The 
 great prophet of the captivity, living in a time when, like in 
 ours, a new heaven was spreading, and new earth was found- 
 ing, held out to his contemporaries the goal : too insignificant 
 it is for 12V h irvrriD^pJI me that thou shouldst be a servant 
 unto me 3pJT TUt? JIN D'piT? for the mere purpose of raising 
 the tribes of Jacob and bringing back the guarded of Israel : 
 I have given thee as a light for the nations D"uS *VUX -|nrm 
 Our efforts can not confine themselves to-day to our own 
 circle; the world, thirsty with the thirst of knowledge, claims 
 our services. Our salvation is to become also its salvation. In 
 
— 153 — 
 
 the words of my honored predecessor, "Judaism has to express 
 its views on all the vital questions of the day ; and the forum 
 for this is not the Sabbath trampled upon, but the civil day 
 of rest ! " 
 
 These then are the principles which shall guide me in the 
 administration of my office in your midst. A great work 
 lies before us. Like Reuben and Gad, our congregation is 
 commissioned and pledged to march the -advance guard of 
 the army and bear the brunt of the battle. Let us be true to 
 this trust ! Let us in the new year all rally with old enthu- 
 siasm around our flag! Then, indeed, our names will be 
 recorded in the book of life and God's blessing be with us. 
 Amen. 
 
RELIGION OR NO RELIGION? 
 
 YOM-KIIMMK SERMON. 
 
 BY THE REV. DR. LILIENTHAL, 
 
 (0/ Cincinnati, 0.) 
 
 Text.— *»5X 'rb " S Z— " Wllu is with Jehovah, come to me.— Ex. xxxii. 26. 
 
 In my sermon on the second day of Rosh Hashonah I prom- 
 ised to discuss on this morning of Yom Kippur, the Sab- 
 bath of Sabbaths, the grave and momentous question — 
 Religion or no Religion? 
 
 Of course, when on New Y T ear's Day or on Yom Kippur 
 we look around us and see the House of God filled to its 
 utmost capacity — when every seat is occupied, and the aisles 
 are almost thronged with eager visitors — then it might seem 
 preposterous, nay ridiculous, to put the question — Religion 
 or no Religion? When every one listens to the summons, 
 when every one appears before the Lord to do homage to the 
 God of Israel, to renew his allegiance to our sacred creed, to 
 proclaim this evening with us : *3JK nay " I am a Hebrew, 
 and fear the Lord of the Universe, and hence with soul and 
 heart I confess : Hear, Israel, Jehovah is our God, Je- 
 hovah is One." Then who should seem to doubt that there 
 is still alive in our midst a sentiment of religion, a sentiment 
 which reminds us of our higher duties and nobler qualities? 
 
 0, I gratefully invoke the divine blessing on you all, the 
 ones who attend the divine worship regularly, and the others 
 who come to the House of God but once or twice a year. 
 We all feel to-day that we are brethren and sons of 
 one holy covenant; present or absent during the year, 
 somewhere and somehow there lurks in us the thought that 
 we all bear and share the same responsibilities, and have 
 the same task and the same mission to fulfill ; and, like the 
 
— 156 — 
 
 people answered Joshua, the servant and successor of Moses, 
 we all say to this holy day of grace, love and mercy : " All 
 that thou coinmandest us we will do, and whithersoever thou 
 sendest us we will go." 
 
 Be blessed, thrice blessed, therefore, for the sentiments 
 which animate and prompt you to-day, on this Sabbath of 
 Sabbaths, on this day of holy convocation. 
 
 Let us be frank, sincere and true; for this day is de- 
 voted to truth, which despises all deception; it is consecrated 
 to rigid, careful examination. Let me ask : How many 
 in this vast assembly are here merely by force of habit and 
 custom, or out of reverence for their elders, whom they do 
 not wish to grieve and to offend, or out of regard for public 
 opinion, which they do not like to challenge, and with which 
 they do not wish to have an open rupture? and how many 
 are here "from clear and sincere conviction, from a rational 
 understanding that the day and its summons are not a mere 
 farce? 
 
 And again hear the next one. " What, have you joined 
 a congregation? Do you attend that thing which they call 
 divine service? Are you willing to contribute your mite 
 toward its support? Indeed, I had a better opinion of you. 
 I did not think you were so fickle-minded. Do you not 
 know that all this is a mere nursery tale, an obsolete allegory 
 from man's and mankind's childhood ; that these ceremonies 
 are petrified mummies ; that only such people who do not 
 think and do not read and do not understand the spirit of 
 the enlightened nineteenth century will cling to them ; but 
 you and I who are advanced, who know better than these so- 
 called religious people— we should join them, and even assist 
 them with our means, instead of trying our utmost to break 
 it down and to level it to the ground?" And what do we 
 answer to this charge? We shrug our shoulders, laugh in 
 our sleeves, that they can read our inmost heart ; and before 
 ourselves we feel ashamed that we have yielded to the per- 
 suasion and solicitations of others. 
 
 But these points, as much as they may come home to you, 
 are still of minor, very minor importance. The real pres- 
 
— 157 — 
 
 sure against religion comes quite from other outside quarters. 
 There come the men of science, master minds, giants of 
 knowledge, and take the Bible and prove'its mistakes and 
 tear it to pieces, and fling its torn leaves to the four corners 
 of the compass. They stand there— a Darwin, a Huxley, a 
 Hceckel, a Tyndal, and a hundred others— with their incon- 
 testible, irrefutable proofs of science. Instead of reading the 
 antiquated books, written thousands of years ago, they read 
 the book of nature, decipher its alphabet, discover its power 
 and its eternal laws, put reason against blind faith, array 
 science against superstition, and the ever-living fountain of 
 knowledge against the petrified mummies of creeds and doc- 
 trines, and state with crushing earnestness : u Vanity of 
 vanities, all is dream and vanity." 
 
 And the cry is caught up by thousands and tens of thou- 
 sands, and is re-echoed : Vanity of vanities ! What do we 
 know? what can we know? How can you stake the creed 
 of your church against the stern proof of science and against 
 real, tangible knowledge? Oh, how bitterly has the human 
 race been deceived ! How shamefully has it been enslaved 
 by the selfish trickeries of the clergy! Down with it; the 
 sooner the better. Let us break down these follies. We 
 want no religion. We are men, and scorn and laugh at these 
 old follies and mummeries. 
 
 Well, all right ; no religion ! Let us abide for a moment 
 by this verdict. We know nothing ; we can not know any- 
 thing. All we have to do is to live, to eat, and to • drink, to 
 support our families ; everything else is mere sham, n bubble 
 that will burst sooner or later. Let us suppose they are 
 right, and let us join the grand chorus : " There is nothing 
 of interest to ourselves but we ourselves, and be done with 
 everything else." 
 
 Right, all right ; but let us examine this standpoint from 
 the social, the scientific, and lastly, from a religious point of 
 view. 
 
 All is nothing; and with the last shovel of earth they will 
 throw upon our coffin, or with the ashes which will remain in 
 the furnace of cremation, there is an end, an absolute end of 
 
— 158 — 
 
 it. Dust to dust, and ashes to ashes, that is all, the real 
 philosophy of life, and there is nothing behind and over it. 
 
 \<>\\\ if this be the case, I would like to know for what 
 reason I should not try to make the best and most agreeable 
 out of this short lease of existence. I would like to know 
 why I shall govern my passions and restrain my lusts and 
 curb my pleasures and desires, and shall not try to gratify 
 and to satisfy them to the utmost of my capacity. 
 
 I would like to know why, for what reason, I shall respect 
 property. What common sense, in the name of common 
 sense, is there in the fact that you count your fortune by the 
 hundreds of thousands, not knowing even how to use the in- 
 terest of your capital, while your fellow-man near by starves 
 and leads a life of care, anxiety, trouble and misery? 
 
 What sense is there in your living in a house, finished 
 and furnished in the most elegant style, occupying perhaps 
 t<» the utmost five or six rooms, and using the others for 
 mere show and display, while that poor workman, with 'a 
 a wife and six children, is crammed into one or two little, 
 damp and musty rooms? Why this arrangement? Why 
 this injustice? 
 
 Come here. I love that woman there whom you call your 
 wife and the mother of your children, and she loves me, too. 
 Dust to dust and ashes to ashes ! Why shall we go around 
 and about, fretting and longing one for the other? Why not 
 gratify the desire of our hearts, the longing of our souls, and 
 enjoy the hour of sweet intoxication which love's golden cup 
 offers to us so temptingly, so alluringly? 
 
 lC ( )h," I hear you exclaiming down there ; " you exaggerate, 
 you talk in the pulpit like a man who has lost his senses! 
 What shall become of society, what of the family, what of 
 property, if such principles are taught, proclaimed and recog- 
 nized? Do you wish to bring on another Babel? Nobody 
 dreams of such teachings, of such principles! These are 
 only the scarecrows, the nightmares, with which you priests 
 try to frighten the people into submission and obedience to 
 your caste ! " 
 
— 159 — 
 
 Nobody dreams of those principles, you say? Stop a little 
 and let us look around and listen to the voices of our age. 
 There was a book published in Paris which created intense 
 excitement; it is entitled Properte c'est le Vol " Property is 
 Nothing but Wholesale Theft." There is stern logic in that 
 book ; and it calls on the masses to redistribute the goods 
 on earth, and to realize the teachings of the fraternity and 
 equality of men. 
 
 "Ah ! " you say, " we know that Proudhon, that eccentric 
 visionary, who wrote that book, who was known and laughed 
 at all over Paris. He was but an individual, and who cares 
 
 for him?" 
 
 Well, if you do not wish to look at an individual, then 
 look at the Internationals, who spread their meshes all over 
 Europe, and hear their teachings. They say, Why do you 
 respect property? You answer, justice demands it. We say 
 it is injustice. You cling to such ideas only because you 
 are used to them, have been reared and educated in them. 
 We will give you another education and another instruction, 
 and you will soon learn to see otherwise, and to conceive and 
 to judge otherwise. 
 
 But, you will answer, how can the human society, the 
 State, 'the community, exist, if you undermine the family 
 and every other human institution? They shall not exist 
 as they now exist, is the sharp and quick reply. They are 
 founded upon might above right; upon the supremacy of 
 capital against labor, of the privilege of the few against the 
 suffering of the masses. The State and the community and 
 human society have to be reorganized, have to be recon- 
 structed; we have a new code of laws, written by Fourier, 
 and St. Simon, by which we shall change this vale of tears 
 into a Paradise of pleasure. Down with the present fabric of 
 lie and injustice, and let us rear the temple of fair and un- 
 biased equality. 
 
 Oh ! you say, these are only dreams, never to be realized. 
 Ah, do you see there the lurid flames of the Commune ; do 
 you hear the petroleum balls exploding; do you see the 
 scum of humanity reveling in blood and wine? Dust to 
 
— 160 — 
 
 dust and ashes to ashes, is their cry. and the hour we have 
 enjoyed is ours and everything else is a lie. 
 
 And the family? They do not want wives and husbands. 
 they do not wish for parental care and love, for filial grati- 
 tude and affection. Children? The community must take 
 care of them. Come, ye Apostles of free love, and preach 
 your new gospel ; come, ye communities of free love, and set 
 us the example of general prostitution; come, now ye Mor- 
 mons, and teach us, as the man may indulge in fifty wives, 
 so the woman may indulge in fifty men; it is only the 
 logical reverse of your premises. The moment rules and 
 egotism governs, and he who enjoys the most acts the best. 
 Down with every other principle; they have no reason, no 
 foundation, and no answer to the question : Why shall I 
 restrain and curb myself? 
 
 This is the point we will come to ; this the direction we 
 are steering in. You shudder at it ; but there is no reason, 
 none, why it should be otherwise. Of course the final result 
 will be a war of all against all, a stepping hack from civiliza- 
 tion into barbarism. For after all there still will be the 
 strong and the weak; the enterprising and daring and 
 the lazy and cowardly, the scheming and ambitious and 
 the inert and the peaceable; a new kind of oppression will 
 follow, worse and bloodier than we dream of; and such 
 a one as Robespierre and Marat and the guillotine have 
 taught us. But it is the logical consequence of the sentence, 
 dust to dust, and all else is crack-brained, wild fancy ! 
 
 So much from the social point of view; this is the logical 
 and matter-of-fact answer to the question. u Religion or no 
 religion? " But let us now put this picture aside ; and coolly 
 and calmly consider our subject from the scientific stand- 
 point. 
 
 There you now hear a continuous talk about Darwin, 
 Tyndal, Huxley, and their eminent compeers. Did you 
 read the great speech which Tyndal delivered before the Bel- 
 fast Association, in [reland? Did you peruse the other 
 lecture, delivered before the sain.- association by the great 
 Huxley? They are no scoffers, and no Internationals, and 
 
— 161 — 
 
 no Communists ; they are the men of calm, stern, irrefutable 
 science, they are men who assert nothing but what they can 
 prove. They show you by the hand writing of nature, that 
 the history of creation, as recorded in the Bible, can no 
 longer be sustained. They analyze the human mind and all 
 the intellectual faculties, and from the animal world upward 
 they prove that we are but a higher evolution, a higher 
 manifestation, but not the Lord's as we have dreamt. They 
 take the Bible, and tear it and cast its leaves to the four 
 winds of heaven ; they show you, by their sharp reason- 
 ing, that all your theology is nothing but a visionary false- 
 hood. Educate mankind, they say, and they will outgrow 
 your follies, and a new and better era will dawn upon the 
 deluded, cheated and derided human race. 
 
 This is the opinion, the superficial one, which man outside 
 of the pale of science, entertains of the new discoveries and 
 the new discoverers. This is the new-fangled Hosanna, 
 which here is whispered in the neighbor's ear, and which 
 there is proclaimed with wild enthusiasm. Down with your 
 religious mummeries. It is all folly, and the sooner we get 
 rid of them the better for us all. Science, and no more 
 religion ! this is the motto of our enlightened, progressive 
 age. 
 
 Well, now let us look into those doctrines, and, with the 
 unbaised frankness and impartiality with which we have 
 scrutinized the social question, let us see where we will 
 come to. 
 
 First comes the history of the creation, and it is asserted 
 that it did not come to pass as the Bible relates it. Granted ; 
 what do we care for that? Our religion does not consist 
 of a book, and is not composed of mere letters. We all 
 know now that the books of the Bible were written at 
 various times and by at least fifty -two different authors. 
 We know that the theories and systems of the various 
 nations and religions surrounding these authors were not 
 without influence on the compilation of the books and their 
 writers, though they all inflexibly and invariably maintained 
 
— 162 — 
 
 the sublime principle of One, nay One, indivisible, spiritual 
 and eternal God. 
 
 We all know that the letter killeth and the spirit re- 
 viveth. We cheerfully subscribe to this sentence, which the 
 prophet already had laid down, when he said : y'lV T ^ ' nn 
 "pB3 TVO® "tC'N nam first the spirit, and then the letter. We 
 are fully aware that the Bible can no longer be read and 
 taught, as we have learned it, and have been taught it. We 
 must divest it of the language used at that distant time, of the 
 expressions which were customary, of the figures in which 
 they dressed their thoughts and icleas. We must translate 
 all this into our own language ; we must change it into our 
 strain and mode of thinking ; and then and only then shall 
 we begin to understand the real meaning and the real in- 
 trinsic worth of the Bible. We shall then, of course, be (ou- 
 st rained to give up many cherished ideas, many a prejudice, 
 long and tenderly nursed ; but we shall not lose anything 
 by it, neither shall religion and the Bible ; nay, we all shall 
 merely gain by it. 
 
 Well, the men of science say, the creation followed another 
 process than that described in the theory of six days ; if they 
 prove it, all right. Our old rabbis, with their usual sagacity, 
 already in the remote times of thousands of years ago, have 
 laid down the principle npyM pmn p« naano mOT»3 penn pK 
 TWWia knowing but too well, that science and progress and 
 continuous investigation would change the literal tenor of 
 the Bible. Hail, then, hail to science, which dispels super- 
 stition, does away with mere fables and fictions, and teaches 
 us, as Kepler glorified himself in saying : I am permitted 
 to rethink the divine thought of the Creator ! 
 
 The men of science assert : " Evolution instead of succes- 
 sive creation ; eternal laws instead of successive changes." 
 I like this idea; it is grand, glorious, sublime, and by far 
 more corresponding with the infinite wisdom of the Creator 
 than a successive patchwork. It displays a power beyond 
 the reach of human conception ; it exhibits a plan as im- 
 mense as the universe, with its immeasurable time and 
 space, into which the human mind can not follow — no, which 
 
— 163 - 
 
 the mind can not even imagine. Push on, onward and up- 
 ward, thou divine spark that illuminates the mortal clay, 
 the frail frame of man. The book of nature is a book of 
 revelation indeed, written by the finger of God, and we like 
 to read and to understand it. 
 
 So far so good. But they go too far. In analyzing the 
 human muid and analyzing the human consciousness they 
 reduce man to a mere machine, to an exceedingly well-con- 
 structed engine. We are here neither in an academy of science 
 nor in a college of medicine to discuss subjects of anatomy, 
 physiology and kindred sciences. But the result of all this 
 investigation is, that there are nerves in the human body 
 which, like the keys of a piano-forte, must give such a sound 
 if touched in this way, and another sound if played in 
 another way. All will and must be reduced to a certain 
 mathematical formula, and soul and mind and conscience 
 1)eing thus shriveled up in a living skeleton, we are, as Hux- 
 ley says, mere automatons, and every moral responsibility 
 will cease, and every moral liability has to be cancelled. 
 Whatever can not be dissected by the scalpel, or weighed on 
 a physician's balance, or analyzed in a chemist's crucible, is 
 nothing, is fancy, is imagination, and has to be blotted out 
 from life's stern reality. 
 
 I recollect having delivered in this city the funeral sermon 
 by the side of the coffin of one of our Jewish physicians. 
 The men of the various medical colleges crowded the gloomy 
 room. I knew many of them, sound and stern materialists. 
 When I had spoken but a few minutes, the poor widow and 
 the children began to wail and to cry aloud. I asked them : 
 iw Is it true that this corpse is the last? Dust to dust and 
 ashes to ashes and be done with? Come, ye medical men, 
 bring me one of the tears shed by those mourners who are 
 bereft of father and husband ; bring me one of those tears ; 
 let us analyze it even under the microscope, and show me 
 where is the grief, the sadness, the bitter emotion, which 
 made out of those tears more than a mere drop of salt water. 
 No spectrum, and no balance, and no crucible will show it, 
 
— 164 — 
 
 and still we know, we feel, that it is therein and must be 
 somewhere." 
 
 But I say these discoveries carried on beyond their legiti- 
 mate sphere must destroy all moral liability and responsi- 
 bility. I shall now read you a short leader, published in the 
 Tribune, the most liberal paper of the Eastern metropolis on 
 the same morning on which it brought Huxley's last ora- 
 tion. It says : " If Ave are to push to ultimate conclusions 
 the theory that the acts of the lower animals are purely 
 automatic, we shall be immediately confronted by the exten- 
 sion of that theory, which is demanded by the similar ana- 
 tomy of man. If this point is yielded, we are brought face 
 to face with the problem presented in the case of the 
 wounded French soldier, who is scrupulously honest when 
 the sound part of his brain is acting, but who is an inveter- 
 ate thief when under the influence of its wounded portion. 
 In the latter condition he is plainly an irresponsible being, 
 who knows not whether he is eating beefsteak or asafretida, 
 whether he is smoking pine shavings or tobacco ; whether 
 he is handling a cane or a musket. Yet he is the same, 
 being who at other times exhibits no lack of ordinary reason 
 or sensibility. Not only theological dogmas, but our entire 
 criminal jurisprudence, nay, the structure of society itself 
 must be affected by these problems. A murderer brought 
 before a court of justice might admit that he struck the 
 blow, but allege that the murder was simply a piece of un- 
 conscious cerebration. Certainly no court of to-day would 
 accept such a plea ; but the plea is in full harmony with 
 scientific teachings." 
 
 That is the verdict of the liberal press. Our entire crim- 
 inal jurisprudence, nay, the structure of society itself, will be 
 endangered by these theories. Here we lai.d, here we come 
 into a pandemonium .of hell, in which the wild passions of 
 the rabble and the ignorant masses are aroused by the crack- 
 brained leaders of the Internationals and Communists to a 
 general destruction and desolation, and where their wild 
 theories are sanctioned and approved by the scientific teach- 
 ings of our modern savants. It is no dream and no scare- 
 
— 165 — 
 
 crow. In the German Parliament in Berlin, one of the 
 members, the noted delegate from Saxony, elected and sent 
 by the Communists, openly declared : " Why these palaces? 
 why these treasures of art and beauty? why these splendid 
 halls? Down with them; huts will do for us; modern civili- 
 zation is a lie." This is the haven, this the port, into which 
 the principle " no religion " must and will finally steer its 
 ship surmounted with the red flag and driven by its black, 
 rugged, wind- torn sails. 
 
 But some of you will say : " We assert ' no religion,' 
 and are we guilty of these excesses you so vividly depict? 
 Do we advocate those extravagances you are exhibiting?" To 
 this I answer : I have shown you only the signs of the times, 
 of which you can read in every morning paper. I have 
 shown you only the logical consequence, to which the prin- 
 ciple " no religion" must inevitably lead. It will not be 
 carried out at once, as little as Rome was built in one 
 day. And lastly, you all have more religion than you are 
 dreaming of, as almost every man has more religion than he 
 is aware of. He can not help having religion, no matter 
 in how many various forms it may manifest itself, and this 
 point leads us to the other question : Shall we, must we, have 
 religion? 
 
 Man is not responsible for more than what is given unto 
 him. The elements which constitute the man we can easily 
 find out and work accordingly. They have manifested them- 
 selves in the history of the human race and the individual ; 
 they have assisted in organizing human life in its domestic, 
 social and political sphere ; they can not be denied, unless 
 the world is to be decried as a lunatic asylum, as a farce? 
 without sense and without meaning. 
 
 These elements must be listened to ; disobedience will be 
 punished by the eternal laws which govern them ; they may 
 for some time be diverted from their regular course ; but the 
 action is followed by reaction, and these elements surely re- 
 gain the supremacy. Just as the physical man will starve 
 himself to death if he refuses the food which his physical 
 nature peremptorily requires, so do the intellectual, moral 
 
— 166 — 
 
 and emotional elements in man claim their rights; they are 
 innate and can not be denied, unless disorder disturbs the 
 organization of the individual, no less than that of human 
 society. 
 
 These elements are clearly indicated by the short sen- 
 tences : we think, we feel, we act. No man of sound reason 
 will deny or dispute these facts ; or, in other words, we are 
 endowed with mind, with conscience and with affections. 
 Now, what is the function of these elements? 
 
 The mind thinks, investigates and wants to know the cause 
 of every effect and every event. By an innate, irresistible force, 
 and partly by all the needs and wants of the outside world, it 
 is continually driven to look out for the connection between 
 the various links of life and nature. The questions why and 
 whence and how, are already on the lips of the child, and 
 linger still on the lips of the old man. From the visible it 
 presses on the invisible, from the tangible it stretches its 
 feelers to the spiritual, and always wants to reach higher on 
 the ladder of the universe. It stretches, it longs, it pushes 
 on for the unfathomable, unreachable, and longs for a final 
 cause in which it can rest ; it can not hover in the bottom- 
 less space and time ; it longs for a foundation, on which it 
 can settle with its tormenting questions. 
 
 But to the question, Who art thou, what art thou, how art 
 thou? there comes no positive answer. The finite mind can 
 not grasp the infinite. " No human eye can see me and 
 Live," says the Bible in its figurative language. We are sur- 
 rounded by a world of living wonders, which excite our 
 curiosity but refuse to still it. There are millions of visible 
 worlds above us on the starry horizon ; we see them, we cal- 
 culate their orbits; we measure them, we weigh them, but 
 when we ask : Are you inhabited, ye million of suns, what 
 is going on upon your surface? they move on in majestic 
 silence unmindful of our inquisitive mind; and sing only 
 their hymns of the sphere melodies; and there remains the 
 eternal conundrum in all its grandeur, majesty and sub- 
 limity. 
 
 Man would be lost in this vast ocean that stretches 
 
— 167 — 
 
 around and above him ; he would not know in what direction 
 to steer the tossed boat of his life were it not that a mag- 
 netic needle is given unto him, that points out his way 
 and his journey. You see order around you, it says, and 
 order is required of you ; you see eternal laws around you, 
 and laws you have to obey; you see harmony around you, 
 and in harmony and for the purpose of harmony you, too, 
 have to watch and to work. No disorder, no destruction ; 
 no self-willed, uncontrolled and uncontrollable passion; as 
 these immense orbits follow their own ways and still by 
 gravitating one toward another keep up the heavenly har- 
 mony, so you, too, must follow your own road in such a man- 
 ner that it will harmonize with others ; as the elements of 
 nature aggregate and form the substance of the sun, and the 
 leviathan and the worm that writhes at your feet, so, ye men, 
 shall aggregate and co-operate with each other to work out 
 your task. This is the language of conscience, the magnetic 
 needle in trie stormy bosom of man and mankind ; and it 
 teaches, and it demands and commands order and justice 
 and equity, and advances the harmony of human history and 
 human society. 
 
 But that is not all, that is not enough. More has been 
 given unto us, and for more we are still answerable and 
 liable. Conscience teaches us mere duty, solemn and stern 
 obligations ; but there is more, something better, something 
 nobler in man, the human heart, with its affections, with its 
 sweet, dear and blissful emotions. The heart is not satisfied 
 with compliance with stern duty, the heart is not contented 
 with mere obedience to imperative obligations; it wants 
 more, it thirsts for more, it gives more, it wants and desires 
 and gives love. Wendel Philips truly says the heart has its 
 own logic ; and the German Poet truthfully sings : 
 
 "sin imermefjenen SSeltftyfteme 
 
 2)te fcbonfte s ^erle bev 9Jatur, 
 v \u tljrem etraljttnbiabeme 
 
 Dev reid?fte Xemanb an ber £$nur, 
 3>a§ fyodjfte SDBunber nnter alien, 
 
 2)a§ 3Reiftertoct! in SRount uttb ;>eit, 
 DoS tft bag §erj in feinem -ffiallen— 
 
 2>a§ fterj in fetner Stvuntenfyeit. 
 
— 168 — 
 
 There is no egotism, there is no selfishness, there is only 
 the unquenchable desire to make happy, to propagate joy, to 
 multiply gladness and felicity, and there come descending 
 and ascending on the ladder that reaches from earth to 
 hen veil and unites heaven with earth in the holiest and sweet- 
 est bonds, the angels of charity, benevolence, kindness, good- 
 ness, forbearance and love, the best and greatest of all, and 
 wipe away the tears of sorrow, and smooth the furrows of 
 care and anxiety, and heal the wounded and broken-hearted, 
 and they call their brother angel, " Hope," to their assistance ; 
 and light breaks into darkness, and a rosy dawn follows the 
 gloomy night, and the golden rays of the day the heaviness 
 of despondency, and the human heart shouts in exultant 
 joy: Man, that is thy work, thy task, thy charge, and be 
 thou blessed, for thy creation, the creation of love, is better, 
 nobler and grander, than the mute, silent, sternly obedient 
 
 universe 
 
 This, -my friends, is religion : truth, justice and love. This 
 is the religion revealed here in the heart, taught here, in- 
 scribed here on the tablets that can not be broken, and stand 
 like the rocks of eternity. This is not the wild, destructive 
 passion of the Socialist, the International and the Commu- 
 nist ; this is not the automaton of the scientist ; this is life, and 
 love, and hope, and order, and light. It is a sanctum sanc- 
 torum, before which mind and conscience and heart bow 
 down like the high-priest before the holy ark when he blessed 
 his people and mankind. 
 
 But now comes your turn again, and I hear you say: 
 a Yes, we cheerfully subscribe and acknowledge allegiance 
 to such a religion. But stop a little; look around you 
 and compare therewith the teachings and doctrines of 
 the various churches, creeds and denominations. Instead 
 of light you find blind faith ; instead of truth you find 
 creeds, that defy all common sense and reason; instead of 
 love you find prejudice and sectarian arrogance. Thank 
 God that man in general is better and more enlightened 
 than bis church <>r bis creed, or else human society could 
 not live and could not exist together. This is the religion 
 
— 169 — 
 
 against which we protest, which we dislike and disapprove of. 
 If you please, what have you to answer to this objection and 
 exception ? 
 
 I have not to answer for other creeds and other religions. 
 I do not wish and do not intend to meddle with them. We 
 are both too tolerant for that. I have merely to answer for 
 my religion and your religion and I am ready to do that 
 whenever called upon. 
 
 What does our religion say to the mind, the conscience 
 and the heart? To the mind first. Let us open the Bible 
 and it begins with the sublime words : " Let there be light." 
 Our language, says Weaver, no language can afford/ an ex- 
 pression of grander force. Rhetoricians pronounce it the 
 sublimes^ sentence in human language. " Let there be light," 
 this is the first and supreme command for the mind. No 
 blind faith, no submission to feigned, infallible authorities ; 
 there is but one mediator between God and man, and that is 
 common sense and reason. 
 
 Yes, work on, ye scientists ; unravel the mysteries of 
 creation; rethink the thoughts of the Creator; we follow 
 you, and still we stand on the ground of Judaism ; it approves 
 of your indomitable researches, it encourages you, nay, it 
 commands you to carry on your investigations, for it says : 
 " Subdue the earth and have dominion over it ; " or, as the 
 'German poet says : 
 
 (Srgriinbe bie ©efefce ber Sfatur, 
 (Srforfc^e t^re§ 2Balten§ tnadjt'ge (Spur; 
 
 33erfolge fie auf jeber ^Safin, 
 -Madf fie bent 3Jlenfc§cn untertban. 
 
 Sag bringt bir Gtire unb SSerbienft, 
 £ter iff 3, too bu ben Sorber bir geininnft. 
 
 2>ocb balte tueife ftiU an biefer ©renje, 
 2)enn ^enfcitS bliib/n bem ??orid)er feine ftranje. 
 
 The poet was right. For here stands the eternal mystery, 
 the eternal problem. And Judaism does not try to solve 
 it. It does not pretend to prove more than can be known. 
 And to the great question : What art thou? It has no 
 other answer but nviK. " I am, what I am," and you, mortal, 
 frail man, take off the shoe from thy foot, for the ground 
 upon which thou standeth is holy ground. 
 
— 170 — 
 
 But this sublime, unknowable and unfathomable mystery 
 is not such a mystery that stands in no connection and in 
 no correspondence with man. No, Judaism says : Here is 
 thy conscience, and here thy innate sense of duty, and I am 
 the Lord, who has created and endowed thee with these 
 faculties; and thou hast to live up to that which has been 
 given unto thee. It does not say with the scientist, thou art 
 an irresponsible automaton ; no, it says, the sin lies at the 
 door ; unto thee is its desire, but thou shalt and canst con- 
 quer it. It does not indulge in the visionary dreams of the 
 Red Republic and of Communism ; there stand the ten sacred 
 commands which teach us to respect life and property. It 
 knows too well that men are not all born on one level ; it knows 
 too well that Communism and Socialism would undermine 
 the individuality of man and break down his title and the 
 intrinsic excellence of humanity. Hence it says p*l¥ plV. 
 Righteousness and justice shalt thou pursue; that is my 
 warning given to human conscience. 
 
 And what does it say to the heart? What does it teach it? 
 Oh, if love could be commanded, if it were not in itself life's 
 end, life's wealth, life's reward — it is enjoined on every page 
 of its Bible. Love thy God and love thy fellow-man, love 
 the poor and the needy, the stranger and the homeless, the 
 widow and the orphan, so it commands from the beginning 
 to its end. No feast and no enjoyment, no pleasure and no 
 blessing, but they are remembered who appeal to our heart 
 and to our affections. And as the Bible speaks so continue 
 the Rabbis. Charity and benevolence are of more worth 
 than all the observance of empty ceremonies, says the one. 
 The basis of the Law is, love thy fellow-man like thyself, says 
 the second. s jn K3*7 NJ»m Heaven begs only for your 
 heart, says a third. And a fourth, the great Rabbi Yo- 
 chanan says lltt 3^? give him a kind, loving heart and man 
 will accomplish his mission to its fullest and noblest extent. 
 
 So speaks Judaism, so teaches Judaism; such is its 
 answer to your questions, to your objections. It is in har- 
 mony with the mind, the conscience and the heart. It is in 
 harmony with the progress of the age, already made ; with 
 
— 171 — 
 
 the progress yet to be achieved. And proudly do I exclaim : 
 Thank Heaven that I am a Jew, and that I can answer with 
 the prophet, KT "OX nwn \iSn HK1 S 3JN nay I am a Hebrew, 
 and adore the Lord of Light, Truth, Justice and Love. And 
 now, when in conclusion I put the question to you : 'hit 'iT7 S E> 
 who is on the Lord's side, let him come unto me, will 
 you not follow the summons of the day? Yes, you have 
 come and you will answer, ^JK nny and Heaven's best 
 blessing on you and your good children for this answer; 
 and when the evening of our life will come, and when the 
 evening of this day comes, we call in our holy congregation, 
 as did the people around Elisha, D'nSKfl Kin Tl Jehovah is 
 God and the Lord, and there is none besides him. Amen. 
 
THE FESTIVAL OF THE SPRING. 
 
 BY REV. ISAAC S. MOSES, 
 • [Of Milwaukee, Wis.] 
 
 The beautiful feast of the spring-time, the day of glorious 
 memories of the past and of cheerful hopes for the future, 
 has appeared, and we Israelites, with renewed love for the 
 faith of our fathers, celebrate an event which testifies to 
 God's love to us and of our trust in him. Centuries have 
 passed since that event, nations have risen and vanished, 
 humanity has changed its appearance, nay, we ourselves 
 have undergone such strange mutations that our very exist- 
 ence is a riddle to the historian, and yet we commemorate 
 every year this ancient occurrence with so great an affec- 
 tion as if we meant to merge all our historical experiences 
 in this one event. And why? Because it is more than the 
 single event marking the beginning of our history which we 
 celebrate to-day : the principle underlying our feast is not 
 merely a remembrance of the past, it is a state of experi- 
 ence, it appeals to every heart, to every mind, to every soul. 
 And as such it is befitting that it come to us with the 
 coming of spring. For what we celebrate as the doings 
 of God in history, the spring-time reveals to us as the doings 
 of God in nature. It is the same lesson differently told, and 
 easily understood by those whose hearts are filled with love 
 and whose minds reach out after the truth. 
 
 How wonderful is the process of nature in the spring- 
 time ! Where but a few days ago everything seemed dead and 
 barren, the promises and forerunners of life are appearing. 
 Awakened by the loving glance of the sun, the earth shakes 
 off' the bonds of sleep, the fetters of the winter, and clothes 
 herself in beauty ; the dry branch on the tree assumes a 
 brighter hue, and the tiny buds that were hidden beneath 
 
— 174 — 
 
 the sheltering snow, kissed by the warming ray out of their 
 slumber, begin to unfold their blossoms. From the depths 
 beneath, from the heights above, the unfettered powers 
 of nature begin the work of re-creation, and every heart 
 and every soul feels the strong pulsations indicating new 
 strength and vigor of life. Even the feeble, the frail and 
 the sick draw fresh hope from the overflowing fountain 
 of promise, which the spring-time opens for all. 
 
 Does not every plant that now gladdens our eyes silently 
 proclaim the providence of God, saying : " I have slept 
 beneath the cover of the dreary winter, and God protected 
 me while I had no strength; darkness and death wen; 
 around me when God poured his light over my grave and 
 awakened me to new life. I was fettered with the bonds 
 of destruction, and God opened my prison, calling me forth 
 to joy and liberty." And while nature thus speaks to us, in 
 the language of beauty, a voice within us echoes her words 
 and thrills us with strange agitations. We, too, have expe- 
 rienced the protection of God ; we, too, have felt his light 
 and his truth ; we, too, have been liberated from the bonds 
 of a slavery with which no earthly servitude can compare. 
 
 As we stand in the midst of a reawakened life, seeing the 
 signs of nature and understanding their deep import, our 
 ancient faith holds out, too, similar signs, symbols from the 
 past, that speak to us of the lessons of the present. And 
 these symbols are: The Paschal offering, which, though no 
 longer sacrificed upon the altars of Jerusalem, is, according 
 to its original meaning, a symbol of God's protection to our 
 fathers, " when he punished the Egyptians, and our houses 
 he saved," the unleavened bread reminding us of the haste 
 in which our fathers left the land of their degradation, not 
 even having time to prepare leavened bread, " so suddenly 
 did God reveal himself to them and redeem them," is a 
 symbol of God's revelation to man; and bitter herbs, signi- 
 fying the bitter life, the hardships of servitude from which 
 God liberated our fathers, and led them forth to a life of free- 
 dom, is a symbol of progress and freedom. They are not 
 dead, these symbols ; and, like the signs of reawakened life 
 
— 175 — 
 
 in nature, their meaning is not exhausted because they refer 
 to one particular time, but they speak to everyone of us the 
 intelligible language of our own experience. Let us, then, 
 try to understand their meaning, which is so beautifully 
 reflected in the mirror of the spring-time. 
 
 I. 
 
 During the months of the winter, life in nature seemed 
 dead or sleeping, but the power that now awakens the dead 
 and reanimates the slumbering, hovered over the silent fields 
 and did not suffer the children of nature to see destruction ; 
 an invisible hand protected the helpless, until the luminous 
 days of spring appeared to call them forth from their 
 hiding-place. 
 
 Long and dreary was the slavery under which our fathers 
 sighed in Egypt; the yoke that was put upon them was 
 calculated to crush out their life. But He who rules in his- 
 tory " did not sleep nor slumber ; " He watched over Israel 
 and protected them against destruction, to preserve them 
 lor the time of liberty. Thus- we see the protection of God 
 in nature and in history alike ; and, turning our view from 
 the outward experience to our own inner world, we can not 
 help acknowledging the same fostering hand of God. 
 
 Do you remember the time of your trials, when you toiled, 
 and your powers began to fail, when you trusted and your 
 confidence was abused, when you hoped and were deceived, 
 and you stood stripped of courage and bereft of hope and 
 the world seemed dead around you? Or have you forgotten 
 the days of youthful error, when by your own follies you 
 broke the round on which you stood and were sinking away 
 into the depths of uselessness, when you mistook the aim 
 of life and extinguished the light that was to guide you 
 through the darkness of passion and error to the beautiful 
 spring of a noble character? Who has saved j^ou from this 
 misery of soul? who so ordered it that you did not bury 
 your hopes, that you did not stifle your love, that you did 
 not lose your belief in man? Who saved you when you 
 
— 176 - 
 
 stood[at the brink of destruction, and you were like a frost- 
 bitten plant, a tree untimely broken? Who saved you from 
 the horror of your self-contempt, and preserved and strength- 
 ened you for the beautiful time of the unfolding of your 
 powers and your striving for the better and the higher? 
 It was God, who watches over the helpless ; it was the 
 divine power in you that aided your battling soul and 
 healed your aching heart — the divine hand that upholds 
 with tenderness the soul of erring children, and reaches out 
 to them the loving hand of a father. 
 
 And not only has God protected us, but also those who 
 are dearest to our hearts — our children with whom he has 
 blessed us. No one can look upon these tender plants 
 of ours without feeling the deepest sympathy toward them. 
 Helplessly they come to us, helplessly they depend upon us, 
 and all the richness of our nature and the fullness of our love 
 to them is inadequate to their need of help from us. Number- 
 less dangers, countless perils surround the feeble child. Who 
 can look upon the suffering of a child without being touched 
 to the heart as with the pang of some great woe? In such 
 moments we feel more than ever our dependence upon the 
 protecting love of God for watchfulness over these feeble 
 plants. Happy fathers and mothers, when you look upon 
 the blooming faces of your children, remember that God has 
 watched over them even as he has watched over the children 
 of nature. But why do I see tears? Do you remember 
 some flower that bloomed so beautifully in the autumn, 
 which the spring-time can no more awaken? Be still, throb- 
 bing heart! " Why dost thou writhe my soul, why dost thou 
 complain?" Like a faithful gardener, God has trimmed the 
 tree that it shall bloom the fuller and be adorned with a 
 richer foliage. He woundeth and healeth, and even his 
 wounding brings salvation, that the richer life, the deeper 
 sentiment, struck by the rod of sorrow, shall, like a living- 
 spring, fructify those plantlets which alone bear the fruit 
 of immortality. Yes, God has protected our children, those 
 that are with us, and those that await us. And more than 
 that, God also protects our work for the future. Like the 
 
—1177 - 
 
 husbandman who scatters the seed in the autumn and 
 patiently trusts through the whole dreary winter time, wait- 
 ing for the returning strength of the sun, and hoping to 
 reap the rich fruit of his labor, so do we, day by day, throw 
 out the seed of our work upon the field of humanity, and 
 trust God to protect our endeavors, to watch over our deeds 
 of love and our efforts for the realization of some great ideal, 
 that our strivings and our yearnings shall be justified by 
 the result, that the fruit of our labor shall be rich and whole- 
 some, and be sufficient for those who come after us to live 
 upon and to plant for the future harvest. What are we 
 working for, but to still the gnawing hunger, to clothe the 
 freezing body and to have shelter from the ruthless play 
 of nature? What a pitiable existence ours would be ! When 
 we look upon our children, is it not they for whom we work ; 
 is it not they of whom we hope that they shall take our 
 place and look back upon us with gratitude and bless our 
 memory because we have left them the rich harvest of our 
 soul's experience and our mind's endeavors? Or, when we 
 look around us and see the struggles of humanity, and 
 notice the combat that is going on between the lower, selfish 
 interest and the higher aims of mankind toward the unfold- 
 ing of freedom, the spread of truth and the development 
 of purity and justice ; is it not there where we find our 
 work to be a Avork for eternity, no matter how great or small 
 our strength lies in this, that we enlist for the victory of the 
 nobler and the better? Or, when we notice the hunger for 
 love, and the thirst for sympathy, of those who are near 
 us, is not the satisfying of that hunger and the quenching 
 of that thirst a nobler w T ork than all our earthly avocations? 
 To plant the trees of genuine friendship, so strong and inde- 
 structible that no winter of sorrow, no hail and ice and sleet 
 of fatal misunderstandings can deaden their vitality ; to 
 reach out the cup of consolation to the mourning heart and 
 the light of hope to the distressed and downcast ; to lift up 
 the lowly, to uphold the sinking, to reinstate degraded 
 humanity upon the throne of usefulness and honor ; is not 
 this our work for life? But who guarantees us that our best 
 
— 178 — 
 
 powers shall not be spent in vain, that the plantlets of our 
 heart and mind shall not be destroyed by the worm of ingrat- 
 itude, of envy and hatred? It is God who protects our 
 work ; it is the divine conscience within that tells us no seed 
 of goodness can be destroyed, and as long as you know that 
 you are sowing seeds of love and doing works of humanity, 
 fear not the cold winter of envy or malevolence, God protects 
 your works for the future. 
 
 II. 
 
 Again: the spring-time is the bringer of light, which, by 
 its gradually increasing rays, draws forth the slumbering 
 plants from darkness and death to life and growth; or the 
 sun comes with sudden strength and rends asunder the 
 graves of the plants and causes them to come forth in their 
 blooming garment of beauty. Our fathers in Egypt, through 
 the long night of misery, had lost that all-sustaining power, 
 hope and confidence in God ; they could but sigh and groan 
 over their labor; they had only complaints and tears, but 
 no uplifting of the eye to him who is absolute justice and 
 love. And yet their groanings reached up to God, and his 
 help came so suddenly that they could not even prepare 
 leavened bread for their march to liberty. And thus the 
 lesson to us is equally suggestive, for it teaches us the 
 revelation of God to man through experience. 
 
 It is through our own experience that our religious con- 
 sciousness begins to dawn, that the God of our fathers is 
 revealed to us and becomes our God. As in the dim distance 
 of the past men's minds were awakened from their lethargy 
 through the pressure of their surroundings, at first dimly 
 groping in the dark, and then gradually seeing more and 
 more clearly the light of divine power over them and in 
 them ; so we are awakened, day by day, by the wonderful 
 occurrences that make the warp and woof of our life, until 
 they become the very texture of our consciousness, so that 
 we fully realize the truth : " Not only our fathers, but also 
 us has God redeemed in his love." 
 
170 
 
 And as it is with the individual, so it is with entire 
 nations ; the experience of the individual man is the experi- 
 ence of humanity. When we look overthe traces of antiquity 
 or examine the crude notions of uncivilized races, we are 
 struck with amazement at the almost incredible progress 
 of the mind which leads us up from the first stupid glance 
 at the brilliant sky and the wonderful scenery of nature to 
 the latest interrogation of inquiring intelligence. There 
 stand before us the nations of the past, trembling before a 
 fleeting shadow and cowering in fear before the rolling voice 
 of thunder, seeing in every sight of nature a magnified 
 monster, an image of themselves, and bringing crude sacri- 
 fices to the horrid creatures of their misguided imagination. 
 And we see them growing into a clearer perception of the 
 surrounding world, into a finer sense of that Infinite Power, 
 which is the cause of all causes. What explains this 
 growth? Historians tell us of influences from without, 
 of teachings that penetrate a nation, changing and mould- 
 ing its conceptions. No people has ever been tutored into 
 the idea of a God, or into the doctrines of morality : they 
 found them out by their own experience. When calamities 
 befell them and they had lost their confidence in their gods ; 
 when they were struggling for liberty and acquiring strength 
 through the combat for their highest interests, divine truth 
 dawned upon their consciousness, the truth that there is a 
 power that breaks the chains of slavery, that hates tyranny 
 and oppression, and punishes the injustice of the oppressor. 
 Such events in the life of a people are the true revelations 
 of God, and they are sufficient germs for the growth and 
 development of the purest and clearest ideas, of the rich- 
 est and ripest sentiments that make up the sum and 
 substance of a people's religion. The redemption from 
 Egypt was such an event in the life of Israel ; it was the 
 seed of that mighty tree whose fruit has nourished the mind 
 of humanity, the tree of Judaism, and its great importance 
 as the beginning of a glorious future is, therefore, divinely 
 expressed in the first commandment : '" I am the Eternal, 
 
— ISO — 
 
 thy G<xl, because I have brought thet out of the land of Egypt, 
 out of the house of slavery ." 
 
 Nor is it otherwise in our times, especially when we 
 notice the present development of Judaism. There was a. 
 tiiiM when the beautiful garden of our religion was sur- 
 rounded, not by a protecting fence, but by high and thick 
 walls that shut out the light, and under whose long shadows 
 the plants became pale find sickly; briars and 'brambles 
 covered the most fertile portions and were declared trees 
 of life and trees of knowledge. You still remember what 
 absurdities have been forced upon our minds, what mean- 
 ingless forms and old, unintelligible ceremonies and foreign 
 customs that had their origin in superstition and fear, have 
 been taught to us' as religion, as the effluence of divine 
 wisdom. During many centuries the Jewish mind labored 
 under this terrible bondage, and all the great men of genius, 
 with whom the history of Israel so richly abounds, were 
 unable to break the shackles of this spiritual slavery. How 
 then comes it that we have a religion purified from the dross 
 of superstition, and a beautiful form of worship, worthy 
 of the time in which we live? Whence our courage to break 
 with the traditions of the past and create that new spiritual 
 phenomenon — Reformed Judaism? Are we wiser and better 
 than our fathers? Oh, no ! but we have found by expe- 
 rience that all these forms and ceremonies did not satisfy 
 our religious nature, that they did not still the cravings 
 of our hearts nor bring us nearer to God. Who taught you 
 the great lesson of spiritual freedom, the liberation from 
 the thralldom of authority? Was it not your own common 
 sense that had been awakened by the luminous time of this 
 century? Yes, God reveals himself to us, not in clouds 
 and thunder, or in visions and dreams, but through the 
 powerful influence of our own experience. 
 
 III. 
 
 Lastly : the spring-time is the time of joy and good tidings, 
 when our breast expands more freely and we draw a deeper 
 breath in the warm and pleasant air. Like the plants at 
 
— 181 — 
 
 our feet, we raise our head with courage, for we know that 
 the dreary winter is gone and that nature is busy in prepar- 
 ing a feast for us. In such days of cheerfulness we love to 
 speak of the unpleasant time of the winter, when our move- 
 ments were hindered by reason of the cold or the snow and 
 the ice. Thus our fathers, when the time of their liberation 
 had come, loved to revert in their thoughts to the time 
 of their misery and oppression ; and when the day of their 
 spring of freedom returned, they placed bitter herbs on 
 their festive boards as a remembrance of their sorrows and 
 humiliations in the land of slavery. For, as there is no 
 greater agony than to remember happier things in the midst 
 of our distress, so there is no greater satisfaction than to 
 recall our troubles and misfortunes in the days of our 
 happiness. 
 
 Mankind began its career with brutal force ; to be powerful 
 was to be virtuous, and the most "reckless tyrant based his 
 authority upon divine origin, while the people suffered 
 under the lash of despotism. Yet the blasphemous theories 
 of tyrants could not protect their blood-stained thrones 
 against an outraged and desperate people that was long- 
 ing for liberty. Hence the changes and continual redistri- 
 bution of power that characterized ancient history. But 
 humanity was not destined forever to simply change one 
 tyrant for another ; a higher development of freedom was 
 taking place — the development of political independence, 
 which, passing through many intermediate stages, has at last 
 borne its ripest fruits in England, France and America. 
 But while the nations -thus struggled for the light of liberty, 
 Israel, the first banner-bearer of freedom, was made the 
 target of intolerance, and all the bitterness of an enraged 
 nation was heaped upon the scattered remnants of a, people 
 who celebrated every year a feast of liberty, as a protest 
 against the narrow-mindedness of a priest-ridden humanity. 
 Those were bitter times of persecution and humiliation for 
 the people of Israel when the sovereign's will and the people's 
 rights waged war against each other, while the poor, degraded 
 few had to pay the cost of the battle. It made no difference 
 
— 182 - 
 
 to the unhappy Israelite under what government he lived, 
 exclusion and shame awaited him everywhere. 
 
 At last the spring-time of liberty dawned even for Israel. 
 The long abuse which he had suffered from the hands 
 of those who were themselves yearning for liberty, and his 
 firmness and unbending trust in the redeeming power of God 
 gradually awakened the conscience of the nations, who 
 began to see in the fate of Israel their own fate and became 
 ashamed of their narrow-mindedness, which till then was a 
 sign of patriotism or of piety. The emancipation of the 
 Jews wherever it took place was the unmistakable sign that 
 the spirit of genuine liberty had taken hold of the heart 
 of man. Thus the remembrance of our liberation becomes 
 a source of joy for the friend of humanity, as it proclaims 
 the old Jewish principle so ardently sought by the best and 
 noblest minds : " One law and one right for all, liberty for 
 every individual ! " 
 
 Israelites, do you know the importance of the ancient 
 symbol that is to remind us of the bitter, cruel experiences 
 we have undergone in history? It is the symbol of progress 
 that leads up from the dark time of despotism, of spiritual 
 and bodily bondage, to the bright, luminous day of freedom 
 and tolerance, of equal rights and equal duties, of mutual 
 respect and mutual assistance^ the time when man is weighed 
 by his worth and not by his creed, when he is esteemed for 
 his love to all and not for his hatred against a helpless class 
 of people. Rejoice, Israel, on your festival of liberty when 
 you recall the memories, the long and dreary way you have 
 traveled ; it was the way to freedom, not for yourself alone, 
 but for humanity. Kejoice in this time of freedom, when 
 the heart of mankind is turned kindly toward us, when 
 every barrier and distinction is being broken and the voice 
 of humanity is bringing good tidings even to those who still 
 bear the yoke of intolerance. But remember that this joy 
 implies a sacred duty, the duty of showing yourselves 
 worthy of this time of liberty. As we have been contrib- 
 uting toward the progress of freedom by our suffering and 
 endurance, so we must contribute to its maintenance^and 
 
— 183 — 
 
 growth by our activity and zeal, by our earnest participation 
 in everything that leads to the emancipation of the spirit 
 and the spread of culture, so that everyone of us may say 
 1*7 'ii 7WV iiT "iuya on this account has God done this to me 
 when he liberated me from Egypt. 
 
 Let us rejoice and offer thanks to God on this day, when 
 the signs of nature and the symbols of the past recall to our 
 minds the wonderful doings of God, for we see that he is 
 guiding us, through our hearts' experience, to the knowledge 
 of his protection; through our minds' endeavors to the 
 acquisition of truth ; and through tyranny and oppression 
 to freedom and joy. 
 
 Thank the Lord, for he is good, his kindness endureth 
 forever. He leads mankind onward and upward to higher 
 aims; humanity is rising and progressing toward a nobler 
 and better state, its symbol is the spring-time, the everlasting 
 regeneration of nature. Amen. 
 
MEN MORE INSTRUCTIVE THAN WORDS. 
 
 (Sketch of a Hanukah Sermon. 
 
 BY ISAAC M WISE. 
 
 ,3va my hv "pS n»t?n 
 
 It is reported in the good book that the Almighty asked 
 Satan, " Hast thou put thy heart on my servant Job? " 
 Satan evades the question, and instead of an honest reply to a 
 direct query, comes out with an argument against Job. The 
 Almighty had asked him, Hast thou put thy heart, hast 
 thou thoroughly and impartially searched into the deeds and 
 motives, feelings and wishes, sentiments and intentions 
 of the man Job, who is my servant, innocent, straight- 
 forward, God-fearing and turning from evil? and Satan 
 behaves satanically, telling him as much as : I do not care 
 for that, I am engaged in fault-finding, and I will try. 
 Upon life's journey you will find many such a Satan. The 
 better the man the more eagerly will Satan scan his short- 
 comings. 
 
 Perhaps the passage before us contains this idea : The 
 Almighty in his benignity asks Satan, Hast thou put thy 
 heart on Job, that thou, admiring and truly appreciating 'a 
 good man, mightest be ennobled thyself? But Satan feels 
 no such desire. He is Satan because he is not impressed 
 with the necessity of becoming better, wiser, nobler, more 
 enlightened and more generous. He sees not the good ; he 
 has an eye for evil only, and so is his reply to the inquiring 
 Deity. At any rate, these words convey the beautiful lesson 
 that in the earnest contemplation of great and good men, 
 with their deeds, sufferings, and triumphs, there is a more 
 instructive lesson than the savant's words can convey. It is 
 plastic speech ; it is dramatic doctrine ; it is telling. 
 
— 186 — 
 
 It is maintained in the Talmud that when man after his 
 death appears before the court on high he is asked the question 
 first, " Why hast thou not engaged thy mind in the Law? 
 Why didst thou not pay more attention to divine lessons, to 
 moral and intellectual improvement?" If one then answers, 
 I was too beautiful, hence too much exposed to worldly 
 allurements, too much engaged in dressing and pleasure- 
 seeking, in balls, theaters, operas, concerts, calling and 
 receiving calls; he (or she) will be answered, Thou wast 
 not more beautiful than Joseph, the son of the beautiful 
 Rachel, who withstood all the allurements and remained 
 faithful to the God of his fathers, the sacred cause of his 
 race, the teaching of his venerable sire. If one shall answer, 
 I was too poor, I had to work to earn my daily bread to sup- 
 port my family, I had to work also on the Sabbath and 
 holidays in order to earn a livelihood — and you know there 
 are such men in this world — then he (or she) will be told, 
 Thou wast no poorer than Hillel, who split wood for a liveli- 
 hood in the city of Jerusalem, yet did he appropriate half 
 of his wages to pay the door-keeper at the academy in order 
 to gain admission and to hear honored sages expound the 
 Law. If one shall answer, I was too rich, too much engaged 
 in business and speculations, the rise and decline of prices 
 and stocks, higher and lower percentages, I had no time 
 to attend to ideal affairs when the reality of materialism 
 engulfed my whole life, he (or she) will be answered, 
 Thou wast not richer than Eliezer b. Harsum, the high- 
 priest, who succeeded his brother Simon the Just ; he had 
 sixty cities on land and sixty ships on the seas, and yet he 
 was always engaged in the study of the divine Law, in moral 
 and intellectual advancement. 
 
 The author of this beautiful parable quotes no words ; he 
 quotes men, more instructive than words. The mind more 
 easily retains and actualizes such noble types as Joseph, 
 Hillel and Eliezer than it can the book of impressive 
 lessons which these names suggest. By admirable deeds 
 the heart of man is moved to admiration; the sublime 
 in the human character moves man and child to vener- 
 
— 187 — 
 
 ation. This admiration and this veneration are the best 
 teachers of morals, the most efficient preachers of religion. 
 It is the greatness of the book of Genesis, and many 
 other chapters of the Bible, that it teaches its lessons by 
 classical human figures, in plastic and dramatic language. 
 This method was imitated by the rabbis of old in their par- 
 ables and allegories, the teaching of men instead of words, 
 of deeds instead of sounds. The most useful reading for 
 the purpose of self-culture is history and biography, if one 
 understands how to put his mind and heart into the great 
 traits in the characters of great men ; and this it was which 
 the Almighty asked Satan, " Hast thou put thy heart upon 
 my servant Job?" and Satan said no, as do many human 
 beings, who have eyes and see not the good, the beautiful, 
 the sublime, the imperishable and eternal. 
 
 As this is Sabbath Hanukah, says the man at our elbow, we 
 will be told again the old story about Antiochus Epiphanes 
 and his edict to make an end of Judaism, the heroic suffer- 
 ing of pious Hassidim, old Eleasar, Hannah and her seven 
 sons, and the other martyrs ; the heroism of old Mattathia and 
 his compatriots, of Judah Maccabee and his valiant brothers, 
 the battles fought, the victories won, the temple and its ser- 
 vice restored, the lamps lit — old stories so often told, so 
 commonly known, known to the children, it is of no use to 
 repeat them. Friend, we reply 3VK nny ?y "p? nDB>!% " Hast 
 thou put thy heart on my servant Job?" Have you ever 
 sufficiently contemplated, admired and venerated those 
 ancient classical figures which look like lofty snow-capped 
 mountains, swimming in an endless sea of mist? If you 
 have indeed contemplated them sufficiently, then you can 
 not help seeking their company again and again. The man 
 who has gone one hundred and three times to see Shake- 
 speare's " Hamlet " gave us a satisfactory explanation of this 
 extravagance : " Did you never have a dear friend whom you 
 heartily admired and loved? " said he. " Well, then, did you 
 ever get tired of that friend's company? Did you not rather 
 yearn to meet him again when he was absent? Were you 
 not glad to welcome him home after a long journey? Did 
 
— 188 — 
 
 it not do your heart good to hear him tell his story? Well, 
 then," said he, u I love and admire ' Hamlet ' ; I have put my 
 heart in his excellencies, and could go and see him many 
 hundred times more, especially as the world around me 
 shows so many commonplace people." 
 
 Alas ! the man may be right, for we have often done so 
 ourselves. When we see so many people creep and crawl 
 along in the dust with their heads scarcely above it, creep- 
 ing and crawling along so cunningly, so hurriedly, without 
 leaving their resting points, so sagaciously, without thought 
 or consideration, and so busily without doing anything; 
 when we see so many ants rolling a grain of wheat and then 
 fighting over its possession ; ever so many frogs leaping 
 lustily in and out of stagnant, green swamps and croaking as 
 though they had conquered a world or solved the mysteries 
 of existence; when then misanthropy chilling and stinging, 
 threatens to beleaguer the heart, and Satan whispers into 
 one's ear the whole family of homo is not worth an honest 
 man's day's work or a sleepless night, what then? Are there 
 not, must there not be thinking men to whom sometimes 
 thoughts like these occur? What then? Then we hurry to 
 our library, close the door behind us, and take from the 
 shelf the Bible, Josephus, the old Zemach David, the Talmud, 
 or the dust-covered Yuchasin, to read the stories of great 
 men. Plutarch, yes, old Plutarch, we take from the 
 shelf to converse with great men, towering among these 
 human ants ; and old Ossian must sing his songs to the 
 music of David's harp. Then the room fills with a stately 
 procession of classical and sublime figures, who sing the 
 songs of seraphic fire and speak of heavenly wisdom and 
 celestial beauty. Then they move along with psalmody and 
 hallelujah, with psalteries and timbrels, and you move 
 along with them, and the heart is healed, and the mind is 
 refreshed, and love to God and men returns, admiration 
 and veneration lift you up on mighty pinions and you 
 behold God's eternal wisdom and goodness manifested in 
 human nature. Thank Heaven that there is ,"a past, and 
 
— 189 — 
 
 that there are great men in the past to refresh and to elevate 
 the present generation. 
 
 Therefore we ask once more, " Hast thou put thy heart 
 upon my servant Job?" Have you put your hearts upon 
 those sublime figures of Mattathia, his five heroic sons and 
 their valiant compatriots? Have you contemplated the 
 patriotism, the holy zeal, the divine enthusiasm, the death- 
 less love to God, to Israel, to God's law and God's truth, 
 which distinguished those men? Have you caught fire from 
 their fire, sparks flying from the ancient rocks? Have you 
 sufficiently admired and venerated them to become like 
 them? If you have not, they ought to be reproduced a 
 thousand times before the feeble memory of this lazy-busy gen- 
 eration, till the lethargy and indifferentism of the masses be 
 overwhelmed, and the spirit enliven these dead and bleached 
 bones. If you have, then their company must be wel- 
 come, a thousand times welcome, to you, those old friends 
 of humanity, those glory-crowned children of the Living 
 God, those brilliant diadems upon the head of the human 
 family. You must be desirous of seeing " Hamlet " a hun- 
 dred and three times. 
 
 Perhaps we have forgotten that not all men like good 
 company, but we speak to those who do. Perhaps not all 
 men wish to be instructed, but we address those who seek 
 divine lessons, search after truth, and wish to improve and 
 advance ; to those who want to have a satisfactory reply to 
 make when they appear before the court on high. To them 
 we say, " Men are more instructive than words." Amen. 
 
ISRAEL'S INFLUENCE ON CIVILIZATION. 
 
 A SERMON 
 
 BY REV. DR. FALK VIDAVER. 
 
 (Of Evansville, Ind.) 
 
 Text:— "Look unto Abraham, your father, and unto Sarah that bore you; for 
 he was one when I called him, and I blessed him, and I increased him."— Isaiah 
 li. 2. 
 
 There is an old Talmudical saying D^nS p'D mnan 
 u Parents are a pattern to their children. Indeed, nothing 
 leaves as indelible an impression upon the mind of the 
 child as the deportment of its parents. There may be some 
 exceptions to this rule, yet in the majority of cases you will 
 find that sons and daughters take after their fathers and 
 mothers with regard to virtue, modesty and respectability. 
 And not only do the open conduct and action of the parents 
 impress themselves upon their children's minds and con- 
 tribute to the formation of their characters, but also the 
 inner passion and hidden proclivities and propensities 
 of father and mother are generally propagated to their 
 offspring. Therefore, if you are desirous of discovering the 
 primitive source of the good or ill-behavior of individuals, 
 scrutinize closely the life of their parents. Such, my friends, 
 is also the case with a whole nation, the character of which 
 is generally moulded by that of its first parent. 
 
 Cast a look upon Israel, whose father was Abraham, as 
 the prophet in our text exclaims : " Look unto Abraham, 
 your father," and, as his name in Hebrew signifies a father 
 of a great nation, you will be fully convinced of the truth 
 of my assertion. Like a golden thread does Abraham's 
 character run through Israel's life. Let us see what were 
 the distinguished traits in the patriarch's character. Our 
 
— 192 - 
 
 wise rabbis remark '"Dl mitt n>, £ he who has a kind, good and 
 pleasing aspect, an humble spirit and contented soul, is a 
 disciple of Abraham. That the patriarch had a pleasing 
 aspect and was good and kind to all, we may infer from the 
 Scriptures, which tells us the story of the three strangers 
 that visited Abraham. This story gives us an idea of the 
 patriarch's kindness and benevolence, how he was devoted 
 to the cause of humanity, that even when feeling indisposed 
 he could not rest without extending a helping hand to the 
 poor, and therefore he placed himself at the door of his 
 tent in order to offer his hospitality to the weary wayfarer. 
 The disciple of Abraham does, therefore, bestow charity 
 upon the poor without any distinction of nationality, religion 
 or race; he breaks his bread with hungry people without 
 searching into their nature and character. That Abraham 
 was humble and meek, we learn from the Scriptures, which 
 relate that Anar, Eshkol and Mamre, three idolaters, were 
 intimate friends of the patriarch. In spite of Abraham being 
 a chosen servant of the Most High, he did not feel proud and 
 haughty, nor did he look with contempt upon others who 
 held different religious views and who did not recognize his 
 God. The disciple of Abraham does, therefore, love, honor and 
 respect his fellow-men, not because of their piety, or because 
 of their concurring in his religious -opinion, but because they 
 are human beings, created in the Lord's image. That Abraham 
 had a contented soul we conclude from the fact the Scrip- 
 tures speak of, namely, that he refused the invitation of the 
 King of Sodom to share in the spoil which he took in the 
 battle which he fought against the kings for the liberation 
 of his nephew, Lot. The disciple of Abraham does, there- 
 fore, never covet the possessions of his neighbor, and never 
 questions the will of God, nor asks why others are richer 
 than himself, but feels satisfied with the share that has 
 fallen to his lot, and rejoiceth in the least which he receives 
 at the hands of his Creator. 
 
 Now, my friends, as the patriarch possessed the afore- 
 mentioned three noble qualities, who would be justified in 
 maintaining that Abraham can not be put up as our model 
 
— 193 — 
 
 and pattern because he lived in an ignorant age and he 
 himself was not irradiated with the light of civilization? 
 And yet such an assertion is being made in our present day. 
 But how unjust, how perverted, how illogical is such an 
 assertion ! It is true that Abraham, as well as all great men 
 of the biblical age, lacked a knowledge of geography, physi- 
 ology, astronomy, and all other modern sciences; those 
 people were no philosophers or merchants, but husbandmen 
 and shepherds. Yet I am sure that you will acknowledge 
 that neither geography, nor botany, nor any other natural 
 science constitutes civilization. One's mind may be enriched 
 with deep erudition, his body may be adorned with elegant 
 and costly attire, yet with regard to manners and deportment 
 toward his fellow-men, he may not be superior to a savage ; 
 while on the other hand again, one may be ignorant of nat- 
 ural sciences, yet his own nature may be noble, he may be 
 clothed in rags, yet beneath those rags there may be a large 
 heart throbbing with the pulsation of love and sympathy 
 toward his fellow-men. Now, my friends, which of those 
 two would you call civilized? Surely the latter and not the 
 former. Civilization is synonymous with refinement, and 
 does not consist in the acquisition of learning, but in the 
 realization of good and humane deeds, in being just, upright, 
 charitable and benevolent. Science as well as religion is 
 but the means whereby to attain civilization. Abraham, 
 therefore, did reach the acme of civilization, because he was 
 kind to all, an humble spirit and a contented soul, and 
 to be so is to have scaled the summit of humanity and 
 gentleness. 
 
 We may, therefore, assert that Israel was the first civilized 
 nation in the world, for the noble qualities of Abraham were 
 implanted in the hearts of his posterity. Like Abraham did 
 Israel enter into the world with n^D py pleasing aspect, yes, 
 with a mission to bestow spiritual charity upon the nations, 
 to endow them with a religion of truth, with the idea of the 
 Lord's unity, aad thereby to dispel from their life's horizon 
 all mists of savagery and fanaticism, and to kindle in their 
 
— 194 — 
 
 midst the refulgent light of true civilization. But alas ! 
 Israel's calling met with strong opposition ; many obstacles 
 and impediments were interposed in his way, many plots 
 were hatched in the dark against his security. This Bible, 
 which contains a treasure of godly teachings and edify- 
 ing principles, which Israel brought to the nations, was 
 maltreated by them ; the truthful lessons which it contains 
 were perverted and misconstrued, and conclusions were 
 drawn from them tending toward Israel's injury and 
 destruction. The Romans and Greeks, in spite of the rapid 
 strides with- which they marched on in the field of art and 
 philosophy, lacked the spirit of humanity, the knowledge 
 of refinement ; they were unconscious of the intrinsic worth 
 of man, because they believed not in the great God, the 
 Creator of man ; they were a sensual, material people, hence 
 they persecuted Israel, in whom they found a people that 
 placed spirituality above materialism, and whose life and 
 works were devoted to an ideal, namely, to their Heavenly 
 Father. 
 
 Israel, like Abraham, was humble and meek. Israel's 
 motto was 0*6^ peace. Peace in his own midst, and peace 
 unto the nations. And thus did Israel settle in his land 
 with desire to dwell therein peaceably, quietly and undis- 
 turbed. But soon the nations invaded his land, twice 
 destroyed it, and robbed him of his possessions, and left 
 him homeless and forsaken. Yet he did not despair and 
 abandon his hope and trust in God and in a better future. 
 Israel was also endowed with the great virtue of content- 
 ment, and therefore he felt satisfied with the little that was 
 left to him, as long as he could pursue his avocation, namely, 
 to foster faith and belief in the Almighty and to realize the 
 noble qualities which he had inherited from Abraham. By so 
 doing did Israel indirectly and unobtrusively contribute to 
 the civilization of mankind. And indeed, after innumerable 
 tribulations and trials, Israel had the satisfaction of seeing 
 his God and his Bible taken up by the nations as objects 
 of worship and respect. Israel saw millions of people recog- 
 
— 195 — 
 
 nizing the God of Abraham and acknowledging the worth 
 of the sacred Scriptures, and thus could Israel rightly expect 
 a different treatment at the hands of the nations. But Israel 
 was sorely disappointed in his expectations, for the idea 
 of God as well as the spirit of the Scriptures were not per- 
 ceived by the nations in a pure and correct sense. Instead 
 of an incomprehensible and invisible Creator of the universe, 
 instead of the God of the decalogue, an incarnated Deity 
 was invented, and instead of the wholesome book of the 
 Scriptures other books became the guiding stars of the 
 nations. 
 
 These new inventions, of course, did not fall short of their 
 object. They blinded the eyes of the nations, so that they 
 regarded the darkness of superstition and ignorance as the 
 light of a true civilization. They boasted of possessing a 
 religion of love, but in the name of that religion the most 
 cruel and atrocious acts were perpetrated. Inhumanity, 
 injustice and all kinds of evil were concealed under the 
 cloak of that pretended religion of love. Israel, as a matter 
 of course, could not be considered the parent, the originator 
 of such a religion, since Judaism distinctly prohibits the 
 bearing of suspicion and hatred against one another, and 
 impresses upon our minds to " love our neighbor as our- 
 selves " and the word neighbor implies every human being. 
 Israel, therefore, fell a victim to the nations' rage and 
 groundless animosity, because they considered him a ren- 
 egade, denying the truth of their religious principles ; yet 
 did Israel never cease to foster the noble qualities of Abraham 
 and to look upon the patriarch as a model. While the nations 
 rejoiced in barbarism, Israel, although having been secluded 
 and immured in ghettos, practiced humanity and utilized 
 the great virtues bequeathed unto him by Abraham. It was 
 but toward the fifteenth centuiy that science began to 
 accomplish that wmich the religion of the nations could 
 not accomplish. Science began to break the ice of civiliza- 
 tion. The nations then began to arrive at the acknowl- 
 edgment that the virtue of love, which they considered the 
 
— 106 — 
 
 basis of their religion, was adopted from Judaism. And this 
 word love, in its original sense, expresses the noble quality 
 of Abraham, namely nilD py a good aspect, yes, kindness 
 to all. The nations since then have begun to appreciate 
 Israel's worth, to recognize his merits, and to grant him civil 
 rights and liberty. And if in our present enlightened age, 
 in some places in the old country individuals like Treitschke 
 and Stoecker, and their equals, exhibit hatred and enmity 
 against Israel, we need not wonder at all, for these individ- 
 uals have not yet emerged from their old state of savagery, 
 they are not irradiated yet with the light of true civilization; 
 their actions and. thoughts are in conflict with the religion 
 of love which they profess. These enemies of Israel revive 
 old complaints against the Jewish people. The Talmud, 
 they say, contains places which speak disparagingly of non- 
 Israelites. This is true. But these places in the Talmud 
 are to Israel now a dead letter ; and again it would be unjust 
 to blame the child for the wrong actions of its parents. 
 And, apart from all this, we could easily justiy those afore- 
 mentioned places in the Talmud, if we considered the age 
 in which and the people among whom they were written. 
 They were written against the Romans, the destroyers and 
 degraders of Israel. Shakespeare was right in putting in 
 Shylock's mouth the words : " If you prick us do we not 
 bleed? if you tickle us do we not laugh? if you poison us 
 do we not die? and if you wrong us shall we not revenge? '' 
 Indeed, our wise rabbis only revenged themselves on their 
 enemies in uttering against them sentences of reproach and 
 disgrace. Israel's enemies of our present day do further 
 complain that the world is becoming Judaized. To this I 
 would answer, in the words Of Lessing's " Nathan the Wise," 
 when the cloister brother says to Nathan, " You are a Chris- 
 tian," Nathan rejoineth : " Happy are we indeed, for the very 
 same qualifications which make of me a Christian in your 
 eyes make of you a Jew in my eyes." The world become 
 Judaized ! Would that all human beings emulated Jewish 
 charity, Jewish benevolence, Jewish true faith and belief in 
 One God. Would that they strove to realize the great 
 
— 197 — 
 
 virtues of Abraham. They could then boast of being good 
 Christians. We would not then hear of persecution and 
 hatred against any human being, love would reign supreme 
 among the family of man, and every one would look to 
 Abraham and follow in his footsteps and become a blessing 
 to mankind. Amen. 
 
HEBREW MONOTHEISM. 
 
 A DEDICATION SERMON. 
 
 BY ISAAC M. WISE. 
 
 u Hear, Israel, God is our Lord, God is One." These 
 are the mysterious words which accompany every son and 
 every daughter in Israel, from the first dawn of cognition 
 to the last breath of life. It is the first lesson which the 
 mother teaches her child, and the last farewell addressed 
 to the departing soul by surviving friends. Like the atmos- 
 pheric element, always and everywhere, these solemn words 
 went with Israel from yonder wilderness of Sinai, through 
 all ages and climes, all revolutions and changes, to this very 
 da} 7- and place ; to every place where Israel has found a home. 
 These words are older than Moses, the Talmud maintains. 
 The sons of Jacob addressed them to their father in his 
 dying hour, as a solemn vow of fidelity to the one eternal 
 and sole God. 
 
 I call these solemn words mysterious, not only because 
 they contain the mystery of all mysteries, the sole contents 
 of absolute truth, reason's grandest theme, ethics'' primeval rock, 
 and man's most sacred hope on earth and in heaven, as I 
 shall attempt to expound ; but also on account of their mar- 
 velous effect upon the heart and soul of the Hebrew. Young 
 or old, religious or frivolous, learned or illiterate, living or 
 dying, you address to him these wonderful words, and they 
 sound to him like a solemn admonition from on high, like 
 the fresh element of vitality poured into his veins, like 
 angels' salutation, like eternal melodies from the Rock of 
 •Ages. 
 
— 200 - 
 
 Therefore, brethren, on this gala-day of the Congregation 
 Anshe Chesed, when we are assembled to dedicate this mag- 
 nificent sanctuary to the glory of God and the promulgation 
 of eternal truth and divine light, to invoke the blessings 
 of the Almighty upon this new monument of piety, this con- 
 gregation, a faithful mother in Israel who has erected it, her 
 officers, committees and supporters who have sacrificed time 
 and treasure so profusely to rear and embellish this gorgeous 
 temple, the artists and artisans who have accomplished it, 
 and all the brethren and friends who have come to worship 
 and rejoice over it, — on this solemn occasion, let us expound 
 and pronounce over this temple and congregation the solemn 
 words, "Hear, Israel, God is our Lord, God is One." 
 May they be deeply impressed on every heart, and engraved 
 on every stone in this structure — may they permeate the 
 very atmosphere of this santuary forever and aye. Amen. 
 
 I have said the sublime words of our text contain the 
 mystery of all mysteries, the sole contents of absolute truth 
 and 
 
 I. 
 reason's grandest theme. 
 
 Let us first investigate this point. God is the most 
 sublime word to be a proper equivalent of the ineffable 
 name of four letters, which, in Hebrew, represent the Great 
 I Am, being, essence and substance, without limitation, the 
 cause and substance of all that is, was, or will be, the life, love, 
 might and intelligence of all that lives, loves and thinks, the 
 infinite goodness, wisdom, justice and power, manifested in 
 this universe and far beyond all huuian conceptions of uni- 
 verse, — He who said, and it was, who commanded, and there 
 it stood. So Moses and the prophets, Talmudists and phi- 
 losophers, all great teachers in Israel, knew and understood 
 the inscrutable and ineffable Adonoi. This is absolute truth, 
 and the foundation of all derivative verities, as far as con- 
 ceivable to the human mind. 
 
 Reason has no means to proceed beyond the Great I Am. 
 Here is the universe, mutable and perishable in all its phe- 
 
— 201 
 
 nomenal parts. The mutable can not exist without the 
 immutable; the perishable must rise from the fountain 
 of the eternal ; the universe must be the revelation of the 
 immutable and eternal God. No waves without ocean, no 
 finite beings without the Infinite, no universe without God, 
 none of which can be either thought or imagined. 
 
 Again : here is the universe with its hostile forces, crossing 
 orbits, and perpetual antitheses of functions, beautifully 
 harmonized in its grand totality, with its co-ordinations 
 and subordinations of all that is, real or latent, to one sub- 
 lime and unfailing unit, in revelation of Him whom Job 
 calls " He who maketh peace in his heavens high," whom 
 the hosts on high glorify, " Praise to God's glory from his 
 place," and of whom the chorus of seraphim sing, " Holy, 
 holy, holy, is God Zebaoth, all the earth is full of his glory." 
 Without the one Almighty and All-wise there could be no 
 unity and harmony of the universe. Without one God there 
 could not be one cosmos. 
 
 Furthermore: Here I am, says man. I live, I love, I 
 think, I know that I know and what I know, and reason 
 on reason's functions, laws and substance. That which is 
 not in the whole, can not possibly be in any part thereof. 
 I am a part of this whole, therefore it must be life, love and 
 self-conscious intelligence, and I am but a miniature revela- 
 tion of the Eternal God, as the ray is of the sun, the drop 
 of the element of water, the visible and finite manifestation 
 of the invisible and infinite Deity. 
 
 And here is the history of man, and especially Israel's 
 history, with the hand of Providence perpetually manifested, 
 with its ever-revolving wheel of justice, and its triumphal 
 car of progressive truth, light and happiness. And here the 
 conscience and consciousness of man with his universal 
 knowledge of godhead, to read with reason's eye in con- 
 science's depth—" And thou shalt know this day and reflect 
 in thy heart, that God is the Lord : in heaven above, and on 
 earth below, there is none besides." So we know and under- 
 stand and utter with veneration and awe, with adoration 
 and love, " God is." I can not see him, yet I know him 
 
— 202 — 
 
 I can not imagine him, yet I love him. I can not compre- 
 hend him, but I adore and worship him. I can not utter his 
 praise, his greatness, his majesty, his glory, his unsearchable 
 immensity, but I kneel in the dust and rise to heavens high, 
 knowing that he is, and therefore am I. This is reason's 
 grandest theme. 
 
 Truly, this is no God accommodated to the gross concep- 
 tions of thoughtless men ; no God to be located in some 
 corner of the universe or outside thereof in the realm 
 of imagination. This is the living God of Israel. There- 
 fore we say, " Hear, Israel." The nations, the individuals, 
 in fact, made their own gods. Therefore, they were ideal 
 men at best; oftentimes fantastic beasts. Israel made no 
 god; God made Israel. In Israel, God's nature, law and 
 will were manifested and made known to the nation by the 
 inspired intelligence of her own sons ; therefore, he is called 
 the God of Israel, known, so known, in Israel only. 
 
 Therefore, while the nations, starting out from the basis 
 of small, narrow and localized gods, necessarily remained 
 narrow, sectional and fettered in their ideals and principles, 
 as none excel their own ideal of deity, Israel, starting from 
 the broad principle of absolute truth embodied in the doc- 
 trine of the Infinite Deity, had always the most high, the 
 most sublime and universal before his mind, and grew up in 
 the broad conception of the God of the universe. So all 
 conceptions, ideas, doctrines, principles, hopes and expec- 
 tations of the nation became large, wide, broad and deep, 
 sublime and divine. Therefore, Jews only could write the 
 Bible ; and they only could defy all revolutions, outlive all 
 changes, and stand unmoved at their divine banner. So 
 that intelligence was cultivated and enlarged, so that the 
 children in the streets of Jerusalem understood well what in 
 substance was communicated to the select few in the heathen 
 mysteries and academies. So Israel preserved a deathless 
 fidelity to God and truth. A great God makes a great people. 
 Small souls have miniature gods. As long as man worships 
 small gods, he remains narrow, fettered, intolerant and fanat- 
 ical. Whenever all men will worship the eternal, absolute, 
 
— 203 — 
 
 infinite and sole God, the human family will be redeemed, 
 fraternized and free, intelligent, just and liberal. The Eternal, 
 the Living God of Israel, shall be enthroned and worshiped 
 forever in our temples, as in the tabernacle of Moses and the 
 sanctuary on Mount Moriah. There shall be nothing small 
 in our conceptions, narrow in our principles, absurd in our 
 observances, superstitious in our beliefs, illiberal or exclu- 
 sive in our hopes and prayers, where in the name of truth 
 and reason, we exclaim, u Hear, Israel, God is our Lord, 
 God is One ! " 
 
 I have also said this is 
 
 II. 
 
 Let us explain this second point. It is maintained that 
 monotheism was the theology of many or all nations of 
 antiquity. The Bible maintains : " From the rising of the 
 sun to the setting thereof, the name of God is praised." 
 It maintains nowhere that either Moses or Abraham invented 
 or discovered the great principle of monotheism. On the 
 contrary, it is maintained that God was known to Noah and 
 to Adam, suggesting that man's knowledge of the existence 
 of one God is innate and universal, and his desire to wor- 
 ship him is spontaneous. Error came in the train of cor- 
 ruption, in the time of Enoch first, and in the time of Nimrod 
 later. One thing, however, is certain, if monotheism ever 
 was the theology of Gentiles, this sacred heritage has been 
 preserved by the people of Israel. This was sufficient cause 
 for Israel to say, " God is our Lord," and to exclaim, " This 
 is my Lord, and I will adore him : the Lord of my fathers 
 and I will extol him." 
 
 There was and is another reason for this claim. It is this : 
 The Bible teaches no revealed God ; it teaches God revealed 
 in his own works and words, manifested as Providence in his 
 dealings with man and mankind, and as the supreme ideal 
 of moral perfection. The glory of God, or God himself, we 
 are told was not made known to Moses. He was told : " No 
 
— 204 — 
 
 man can see me and live." God's ways, his mercy, benevo- 
 lence, love and grace, providence, were revealed to Moses and 
 expounded by the prophets. God, as the perfect ideal 
 of morals, was made known in Israel. " God is our Lord," 
 aside of all theocratic doctrine, because his will as mani- 
 fested in his works and words is our law, our moral code, 
 prescribing to us how to live, to be righteous, humane, pious 
 and happy, here and hereafter, now and forever, in this and 
 every other generation. 
 
 In this point Israel's theology and faith are superior to all 
 religious systems known in history. Morality is the offspring 
 of truth. Corruption and degeneration are the children 
 of error and fiction. Truth redeems and unites ; error 
 enslaves and sows discord among brethren. Neither the God 
 nor the gods of the Gentiles are represented as free, wise, 
 just, benevolent and merciful. Slavery and fatalism were 
 characteristics of ail Pagan theology ; because their gods 
 were natural forces and natural objects deified and fantastic- 
 ally magnified ; and their one and most high God is an 
 abstraction, a collective idea of their gods. Their lords are 
 no God, but their Godjis an ideal abstraction of their lords. 
 There is no foundation of ethics in their theology. Neither 
 their God nor their gods are types of holiness. 
 
 In Israel, God is and always was the most sublime ideal 
 of moral perfection. Our Elohim Providence, our national 
 God, individual God, tutelar God, particular God, is the one 
 eternal and sole Deity, the Father and Ruler of all men, 
 the Preserver and Governor of the universe, and the most 
 sublime ideal of moral perfection ; so much so, indeed, that 
 the rabbis of the Talmud could teach that to walk with God 
 or after God signifies always attempting to imitate God's 
 moral excellencies, to become wise, just, benevolent, merciful 
 and gracious as God is. Therefore, Israel's theology and 
 faith are the primeval rock of ethics, and outside thereof no 
 religious system is known whose votaries can look up to 
 God, as they teach him, and say we will do as God does in 
 order to be righteous, pious and happy. There is moral 
 freedom in Israel, because -God is free. Our Elohim is God 
 
— 205 — 
 
 himself; hence not the ruler of a section, or the Father 
 of any particular people. Our Lord is wisdom, intelligence, 
 reason itself, hence demands not of us that we sacrifice our 
 individual reason on the altar of uninquired faith in human 
 dogmas. No person in Israel can be pious at the expense 
 of his or her intelligence, humanity, or morality. To be 
 pious signifies to be rational, wise, just, free, charitable, hu- 
 mane, useful to man, and a blessing to the human family, 
 because so it *is the will and such, is the nature of God. 
 Therefore, there are in Israel equality, fraternity and human- 
 ity in the name of the Father of all. There can be no 
 favored classes before God, no blazing pyres for the infidel, 
 no burning hell for unbelievers, no dungeons and no hang- 
 men for theological sinners. There must be mercy for the 
 sufferer, bread for the hungry, assistance to the weak, pro- 
 tection to the helpless, forbearance to the sinner, justice, 
 mercy and love to all. Therefore, Israel preserved with 
 his religion also his intelligence and his morals intact, the 
 fraternity of all, and charity to all, freedom, justice and love 
 for all. The Jew could not be stupidly pious and barbar- 
 ously religious, his God being reason's grandest theme, and - 
 the primeval rock of the most sublime ethics. When we say, 
 " Hear, Israel, God is our Lord," we say it all : the highest 
 intelligences, wisdom, love, grace, justice, freedom, humanity 
 and piety, righteousness and philanthropy, in the most sub- 
 lime sense of these terms. 
 
 The Eternal, the benign Father of all men, shall be 
 enthroned and worshiped in this temple. There shall be 
 nothing selfish and sectarian in our worship. Xo pious 
 criminal, no barbarous bigot, no misanthropic fanatic shall 
 find shelter at the corners of this altar. Love, purity and 
 humanity shall be sanctified here before the Eternal God 
 who is our Lord; and human nature shall be elevated to 
 the unselfish service of God and man. Let us dedicate this 
 temple to God, reason and humanity, and it will be a sanc- 
 tuary in Israel. 
 
 I have said, lastly, this is 
 
— 206 — 
 III. 
 
 man's most sacred hope in heaven and on earth. 
 
 Let us briefly expound this point. On earth it is certainly 
 the highest hope of all good men that the most sublime 
 principles of ethics be victorious in all our social and politi- 
 cal relations, that truth be triumphant, love unite all, justice 
 sway a universal scepter, and there be no more wrong, suf- 
 fering or misery on earth which men* can prevent or heal. 
 Brethren, when we utter the sublime words, " Hear, Israel, 
 God is our Lord, God is One," we take upon ourselves the 
 burden of the kingdom of heaven — to obey the law and will 
 of God, to do as God does in wisdom, justice and goodness, 
 to love as God loves all his creatures, and to establish upon 
 earth the eternal kingdom of righteousness, freedom, justice 
 and love. This is certainly man's most sacred hope on 
 earth. But what has our text to do with man's eternal hopes 
 in heaven, in life eternal? And it is common in Israel to 
 repeat these sublime words, solemnly and devoutly, at the 
 dying couch of the Hebrew. Why is this? Every religious 
 Israelite hopes to hear these words in his last hour. Why is 
 it so? The closing words of our text, "God is One," fully 
 reply to these queries. 
 
 " God is One " signifies, first, the eternal, absolute and 
 sole God and Israel's Elohim, King and Ruler, the sole Sov- 
 ereign in the kingdom of heaven, are not two or more gods. 
 There is but one God, and none besides him. This certainly 
 is the primary signification of the words, u God is One." 
 It is numerically first. 
 
 But aside of all other significations attaching to these 
 words, we must emphasize especially the fundamental, 
 namely, " God is One," hence there can be nothing outside 
 of him. All perceptible and conceivable beings are in him 
 real and formal ideas, of whom he only is conscious, as man's 
 ideas are actual in his mind. How these infinite progressions 
 of beings are a unity in God, I know not, but I know that 
 they are because they are a harmonious cosmos. We know 
 
— 207 — 
 
 that the progressions of ideas are a unity in the human mind 
 although we know not how. 
 
 Man is not only in God, but God is also in him, for he is 
 conscious of God and his works. Inasmuch as God is in 
 man, he is " a portion of the Deity from on high," as the 
 Talmud has it, or " the image of God," as the Bible ex- 
 presses it. Man is a formal and self-conscious idea of the 
 Deity. Self-consciousness distinguishes him from the rest 
 of God's creatures. The purer and brighter his knowledge 
 of God and his will, and the holier this consciousness, the 
 purer, brighter and holier will be his self-consciousness, and 
 in the same ratio will he stand in relation to God as a self- 
 conscious being. Therefore, the correct cognition of the 
 fact, " God is our Lord," the thorough comprehension of 
 truth, and the practice of righteousness as the necessary 
 sequence of this absolute truth, rouse men to self-conscious 
 immortality in God. 
 
 Self-conscious immortality in God, I have said, and I 
 repeat it. For God is One, eternal and infinite by himself, 
 subject to no change, no increase or decrease, no growth and 
 no decline. He is, was, and will ever be the same. But God 
 is One, therefore all things are immortal in him. Nothing 
 can perish. Forms change, the substance remains. There 
 is no death, it is all eternal birth. All things unconscious 
 are unconsciously immortal in God. Self-conscious man 
 must be self-consciously immortal in the One and Eternal 
 God, as self-conscious indeed as he has become by his self- 
 culture in the knowledge of God and the practice of holiness. 
 God is One, hence this self-consciousness of man is in God 
 and of him, and imperishable as is the One and Eternal 
 God. All of us were in God before we became individu- 
 alized beings, and will be in him after the dust has returned 
 to the dust and the spirit has returned to the Lord who 
 gave it. This is the signification of the words, " God is 
 One;" and therefore we address them so solemnly and 
 devoutly to every dying man. They contain man's highest 
 hope in heaven and on earth. 
 
 Therefore, brethren, when we exclaim, " Hear, Israel, 
 
— 208 — 
 
 God is our Lord, God is One," we have said all that man can 
 know. Here is God and eternal truth, God in his infinite 
 glory and majesty, absolute truth in beautiful harmony with 
 reason's loftiest and deepest research. Here are holiness, 
 human perfection and happiness, wisdom, love, freedom, 
 justice, humanity divine and divinity humane, one God and 
 one human family, the primeval rock of all ethics. Here 
 are hope and consolation, trust and divine power, the highest 
 and holiest hopes in heaven and on earth, the eternal king- 
 dom of heaven. 
 
 Therefore, with these sublime words we dedicate this 
 temple, consecrate this congregation, and sanctify every soul 
 to the service of God, truth and humanity. 
 
 Lift up your heads, ye gates, and be ye lifted up, ye ever- 
 lasting doors, that the King of Glory may enter ! Let us feel in 
 this solemn moment our immortal nature, the King of Glory 
 entering this tabernacle of flesh and blood. In this moment 
 of holy inspiration, let us feel our union with God, and our 
 reunion with all the good and pious fathers and mothers 
 who have gone home to eternal life. Brethren of the Con- 
 gregation Anshe Chesed, in this holy moment let us remem- 
 ber the founders of this congregation, who have been called 
 away from this earthly pilgrimage and now rejoice with 
 you over your success, to the glory of God and the honor 
 of Israel. So, with holy feeling; let us dedicate this taber- 
 nacle to the eternal and one God ; to the progress of truth, 
 freedom, justice and humanity; to man's eternal hopes; to 
 the blessing of its founders ; to the immortal faith and cause 
 of Israel, with the ever holy words, " God is our Lord, God 
 is One." 
 
THE 
 MAIN LESSON OF ISRAEL'S SANCTUARY. 
 
 BY ISAAC M. WISE. 
 
 The Lord of Hosts may bless yon all 
 Assembled in this sacred hall 
 
 To seek your God enthroned above, 
 Enthroned below in Israel's praise, 
 In nature's light, in wisdom's rays, 
 
 In souls inspired with fervent love; 
 
 The Lord of Hosts console you all 
 Whose sighs and tears for mercy call 
 
 To him who knows his creatures' woes, 
 With whom the good, the true prevails, 
 Who is our Rock that never fails, 
 
 The tree of life that ever grows. 
 
 This house, God, this holy shrine, 
 We reared to praise thy name divine, 
 
 Accept in grace and fill with light, 
 The light of wisdom, truth and cheer, 
 From heaven high to mortals near, 
 
 Revealed for aye on Sinai's height. 
 
 Give ear, O Lord, to our appeal, 
 Respond with love, thy grace reveal, 
 
 To bless this house be ever nigh ; 
 Let's feel thy love in joy or grief, 
 To hear our thanks and grant relief, 
 
 To raise each soul to thee on high. 
 Amen. 
 
 A solemn occasion, brethren, convenes us in this noble 
 structure which you have reared, a monument of piety and 
 devotion to God and Israel, to beautify this city, to testify 
 
— 210 - 
 
 to your fidelity to the religion of your fathers, and to con- 
 secrate this particular spot to deathless truth and imperish- 
 able hope from the unfailing fountain of Sinai. And now 
 you have come with grateful hearts to render praise and 
 thanksgiving to the Almighty for this signal success, inspir- 
 ing you with holy joy, and to rejoice before the Lord over 
 your sacrifices of time and treasure cheerfully made before 
 God and to the glory of his holy name. And now you have 
 come with impressions solemn and feelings sublime to dedi- 
 cate your beautiful handiwork to the worship of the Most 
 High, the promulgation of truth, the elevation of human 
 nature, and the perpetuation of Israel's light, charity and 
 solidarity, to extend over the entire family of man. It is a 
 solemn occasion, indeed, and we feel that it is. 
 
 Among all the holy edifices of the past and present, none 
 is as wonderful and marvelous, as suggestive of lessons 
 most sublime and verities truly divine, as is the temple 
 of Israel. Its history is a broad streak of light across the 
 entire horizon of human knowledge, from the first records 
 to this present moment, telling with irresistible force there 
 is an Almighty Providence preserving and governing this 
 human family. The flame of its perpetual lamp, from which 
 all religious lights in the civilized world have been lit, the 
 lamp never extinguished, the light never obscured, teaches 
 the self-sustaining and indestructible vitality and energy 
 of truth, whose growth, advancement, progression and final 
 triumph no power on earth can prevent or restrict; for truth 
 is God's and God is omnipotent. The tenacity, consistency 
 and unshaken fidelity of its congregation under the sorest 
 of trials and bloodiest of afflictions prove that man is not 
 the lord of truth, but truth holds dominion over him; he 
 must obey its behests, mu-t bear and promulgate it in spite 
 of sufferings and afflictions, of misery and death. Such is 
 human nature, such are the decrees of Providence. Most 
 wonderful, probably, and most suggestive, is the inscription 
 noon the keystone of Israel's temple, which all philosophers 
 
— 211 — 
 
 must indorse, all religions must adopt, all codes of ethics 
 must confirm. There are two gorgeous pillars upon which 
 Israel's divine structure rests; the one is, " Hear, Israel, 
 ( rod is our Lord, God is One," and the other is the command- 
 ment, " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Upon 
 these two pillars the arch of perfection in its pristine beauty 
 rests, the divine law, concerning which the Psalmist said : 
 "The law of God is perfect." Upon the keystone of that 
 arch, in bold relief, in indelible characters, is the sublime 
 inscription: "And thou shalt love God, thy Lord, with all 
 thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy might." This 
 contains all which true religion and philosophy, all human 
 codes of laws and ethics have ever said and will say in all 
 eternity. 
 
 This motto on our keystone, in the first place, points 
 heavenward, not to a God, but to the God, the only and sole 
 God, the cause of all causes, the force of all forces, the 
 Almighty, who is the intelligence, life and love of the uni- 
 verse, whose wisdom and freedom are manifest in this 
 cosmos, with its beautiful order and harmony, and whose 
 holiness, grace, justice and benevolence are revealed in man 
 and the totality of his history. It points not to an unknorv- 
 able God, hidden in the mists of phantasts or the sophistries 
 of unripe thinkers. It points to " thy Lord," the omnipres- 
 ent and ever-living God of Israel, whom we see perpetu- 
 ally in his works, hear forever in his words, in all w T ords 
 of genuine intelligence ; who is in us, with us, about us, 
 everywhere, whom we seek, feel, conceive, know and wor- 
 ship ; after whom we yearn, long and pant in life and death ; 
 of whom we are, and in w T hom we live forever ; " thy Lord," 
 who is providence, ruler, preserver and Father, the cause 
 and the law, the substance and the harmony, in me and in 
 all, gracious, just and true forever. 
 
 Next, the motto on our keystone points to the only means 
 of placing man in perpetual communion with the Eternal 
 God, of uniting the individual spirit to the universal spirit ; 
 its name is Love. " Thou shalt love God thy Lord." To love 
 God is human perfection. To love God means to be united 
 
— 212 — 
 
 with him. To love God signifies to have entered the portals 
 of heaven and to live in the Father's glorious presence, in 
 bliss everlasting and unalloyed. To love God means in love 
 to be God-like. Then, our motto tells us how to live, how 
 to practice this great lesson, in order to reach this human 
 perfection, this undisturbed and unalloyed bliss. 
 
 Man is, in the first place, an emotional being. He has 
 instincts and passions, propensities and inclinations, which 
 become feelings, desires and volitions. Without the emo- 
 tions, and the effects they produce, man could not be man ; 
 he must be either angel or rock. They are the mainsprings 
 of his earthly enjoyment, pleasure and happiness; in them 
 the cause of self-preservation rests, and from them the 
 impulses to intellectual, ethical and religious ideas and 
 ideals, seeds and deeds issue, as the sweetest scent of odor- 
 iferous flowers depends on the roots imbedded in vulgar soil. 
 
 Man's emotions may be naturally kind, generous and 
 noble, as I believe they are ; they may be, as the ancients 
 personified them, the Yetser Hat-tob, "a good genius," to 
 make of one a nature's nobleman or a noble woman. Such, 
 however, is the influence of society, the force of ungoverned 
 passions, and the delight in their frequent gratification, that 
 abuse and misuse violate the Creator's law, and disturb the 
 beautiful harmony. The main-springs of enjoyment, pleas- 
 ure and happiness are violently turned into abject sources 
 of misery and wretchedness, to clog the intelligence and 
 to benight the religious and ethical nature of man ; the 
 servant is elevated to the master's place, and brutalized man 
 loses his freedom, nobility, dignity and happiness, and the 
 emotions have become, as the ancients personified it, a Yetser 
 ■Ha-rah, " an evil genius," which, as they say, is also Satan, 
 the demon which hinders man from doing good and being 
 true; Semael, who poisons human nature with wicked- 
 ness and corruption ; and the Malach Ham Maveth, " the 
 demon of death," to finish his own work of destruction. 
 Judaism knows of none besides this, personified Satan, which 
 
213 — 
 
 is a mere personification. In human nature, these two demons 
 have their latent existence in perpetual combat for prepon- 
 derance and dominion, and man's will decides which shall 
 reign and which obey. What supports the will in regulating 
 the passions and emotions correctly? Which particular 
 force has the Creator bestowed upon the human being to 
 govern his emotional nature? "Love," our divine motto replies 
 —love, the most powerful of all emotions, must regulate 
 and govern them. Develop, strengthen and invigorate this 
 passion of passions in your family relations first, then grad- 
 ually extend it to your fellow-man, to all the children 
 of nature, to nature itself, to nature's Lord and Maker, to 
 embrace all, which is to possess all, in expanded and invig- 
 orated love. "Love God, thy Lord, with all thy heart," 
 with all passions, emotions, feelings, desires and volitions, 
 regulated and governed by the mighty passion of immortal 
 love, expanded and extended to all of God's creatures and 
 creations, and culminating in himself; that is the omnipo- 
 tent guardian angel of the emotional man, with his Yetser 
 Hat-tob and Yetser Ha-Rah, to protect, elevate and perfect 
 him as man made in the likeness of his Creator. 
 
 Let all your emotions be under the control of love, our 
 sacred motto teaches, and this will lead you upward to 
 human perfection, to love God, your Lord, with all your 
 heart. Whatever idea or ideal one may have of his God, 
 he is always his Lord, his highest idea and ideal; love God, 
 thy Lord, with all thy heart, always remains the standard 
 of the ethical perfection of the emotional man. 
 
 Brethren, let this temple, first and foremost, inspire your 
 hearts with love— love to God and man, love to nature and 
 nature's God, and it has become your guardian angel. Dedi- 
 cate it with the love of your hearts, and it is holy to man, 
 sacred to Israel, and consecrated to the Eternal God, whom 
 thou shaltlove with all thy heart. 
 
 Man is an intellectual being. He ate of the fruit of the 
 tree of knowledge, and the name of that tree was intelligence, 
 
— 214 — 
 
 and the name of the fruit thereof was self-consciousness ; 
 and the man ate thereof and lost his innocence and his 
 paradise, for he was a child no more, no longer did he live 
 the life of thoughtless security in emotional impulses and 
 blissful enjoyment, his eyes were opened and he saw himself 
 nude. He thought, he reflected, and his paradise was gone. 
 " With wisdom vexation grovveth, with knowledge affliction 
 increaseth." 
 
 And yet man could not be man and remain a child. True, 
 the days of childhood are paradisian, and the years of matu- 
 rity full of vexation, trouble and disappointment, unknown 
 to blissful ignorance; yet man would not be man without 
 his intelligence, mankind would not have reached the high 
 position of the civilization, freedom, enlightenment, knowl- 
 edge and dominion which are the boast, pride and wealth 
 of the nineteenth century. He who sees the end of every- 
 thing in its first thought, all phases of being in their ideal 
 state, he who is our Maker and our guardian forever, must 
 have willed it so that man should make proper use of his 
 intelligence, as well as of every other capacity or ability 
 bestowed on him. 
 
 Intelligence, like love, is a divine power in man, and, like 
 every other gift, it may be used well and properly to the bless- 
 ing of man and mankind, or abused and misused to the mis- 
 ery and affliction of both. Intelligence in covenant with love, 
 love in harmonious union with intelligence, disarm the 
 Cherub, with the flaming sword, guarding the gate of Eden, 
 and open wide the portals of paradise to God's intelligent 
 children. The heartless and unfeeling savant is no less 
 brutal than the deteriorated savage. The loving and vision- 
 ary phantast is no less mischievous than the cold, selfish 
 and calculating sage. The former is half man and half 
 devil, the latter half woman and half statue ; only half, and 
 Sacred Writ commands, " Thou shalt be perfect with God, 
 thy Lord." Those who are led astray by their intelligence to 
 self-corruption, the violation of sacred duty, the destruction 
 of human happiness, the perversion of truth, the detriment 
 of human rights, and love none and nothing except their 
 
— 215 — 
 
 Own dear selves, are no less miserable and wretched than 
 those who are slaves of savage propensities and groan under 
 the heavy yoke of triumphant passion ; or those who are 
 always under the iniluence of phantasmagorias to be forever 
 displeased and disappointed, because they would not listen 
 to reason's warning voice. Those who live in superstition, 
 land in fanaticism; those who deny God, dread the devil. 
 The emotional man is a ship without a rudder ; reason a 
 rudder without a ship. Love is a benign moon to the lonely 
 traveler; intelligence is a majestic sun to furnish attraction, 
 light and life. They must never be separated. 
 
 Here again our saered motto speaks words of divine 
 wisdom : " Thou shalt love God, thy Lord," not only with 
 all thy emotions, with all thy heart, but also " with all thy 
 soul," with all thy intelligence. Like the emotions, the 
 intelligence must center in love. Your love shall be intelli- 
 gent, and your intelligence wedded with love. Like your 
 love your intelligence shall expand and extend to all objects 
 within your horizon, to land and sea, to heaven and earth, to 
 past, present and future. Nothing shall prevent you from 
 knowing and understanding all which is, was or will be. There 
 shall be no limit to your reason, and no boundaries to your 
 understanding. Seek, inquire, search, grasp and comprehend 
 all you possibly can ; be the wisest of men and the most intel- 
 ligent of nations ; be not frightened from the path of reason 
 by the superstitions of the foolish or the errors of the wise ; 
 rather avoid error and evade folly. God has not given you 
 this divine gift of intelligence to be overawed by supersti- 
 tion, clogged by despotism, silenced by fear, or deadened by 
 priestcraft. He has given you intelligence to use it wisely, 
 fully and perpetually ; but, for the sake of your life and 
 happiness here and hereafter, use it properly in union and 
 consonance with love, goodness, benignity, virtue, purity, 
 and upright humanity. For the sake of your life and hap- 
 piness here and hereafter, never lose sight of the objective 
 point, the real aim of all reason, intelligence, understanding, 
 wisdom, learning and intellectual glory, which is to know 
 God and to be united to him by this knowledge, to know God 
 
— 216 — 
 
 in your love and with all your wisdom, to possess him and 
 to be in him. This must be the guide, the path and the 
 light ; whoever leaves it runs into error, misery and self- 
 destruction. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of and 
 the impulse to all wisdom ; to know him, to love him, with 
 all the heart and with all the soul, is wisdom's perfection, 
 beyond which there is none — is happiness everlasting, is 
 human perfection and human greatness, beyond which no 
 mortal can proceed. 
 
 Brethren, dedicate this temple as a home of intelligence 
 and truth, wedded with love and benignity, and it will be 
 a temple in Israel, holy to the God of Israel, as was Solo- 
 mon's gorgeous sanctuary on Mount Moriah. Think of God 
 and his greatness, think of God's love in true devotion, and 
 this temple is consecrated to God and truth, to love and 
 intelligence, to human happiness and life everlasting. 
 
 As you all know, some modern doctors maintain that the 
 animal also possesses love and intelligence ; only that it is 
 not human love and intelligence, I feel compelled to add, 
 is not manifested either in human words or human deeds, 
 and without the manifestation we have no knowledge of 
 the existence of a force. Besides, human love and intel- 
 ligence are characterized by ideality. Man is inventive, 
 creative; he conceives ideals spontaneously; he has ideal- 
 ity and the genius to realize these ideals in words, music, 
 motion, paintings, statuary and architecture. This building, 
 like all others, was first an ideal in the architect's mind, and 
 became then a reality by the artisan's work. No animal has 
 ever put into execution any of its ideals, because it never had 
 any. 
 
 Ideality is the word which chiefly designates human supe- 
 riority above all sublunar creatures. He alone possesses 
 ideality, invents, creates, and looks far beyond all realities; 
 neither one nor all of them will satisfy him, because his 
 ideals are higher, and, in many instances, much higher than 
 the realities. Ideality is not only the mother of religion, 
 
— 217 — 
 
 the cause of progressive ethics, the guarantee of immortality, 
 the progenitor of art, the lever of industry, and the first 
 cause of all progressive civilization ; it is more, infinitely 
 more than all that; it is the perpetual impulse in the 
 human mind, compelling it onward, forward and upward, to 
 reunite with the Eternal Deity, if we only correctly under- 
 stand and properly use this heavenly gift. But, afas ! it is 
 only too often abused by want of love, lack of intelligence, 
 or both. 
 
 The miser also possesses ideality, but it is led into the 
 wrong channel. Mammon is his God, and wealth for its 
 own sake is his ideal, which makes him and others miser- 
 able, and perverts his nature. The over-ambitious man, 
 greedy for reputation or notoriety, fame, vain-glory and false 
 honor, for reward without labor, and glorification without 
 merit, also possesses ideality; the envious, the avaricious, 
 the man jaundiced with morbid jealousy, the despot, the 
 conqueror, the fanatic, or the proud chief of a band of 
 bandits, each and all of them, possess ideality, but their 
 ideals are satyrs, demons, devils, void of love and true intel- 
 ligence : human nature is perverted, shorn of its glory, 
 stripped of its nobility, dragged into the quagmire of the 
 lowest passions, from which dark, dismal and distorted 
 phantasmagorias rise ; the mind is sick, its ideality obscured, 
 and its ideals are fata morgana. 
 
 Therefore, our divine motto commands that not only thy 
 emotions and intelligence, but also thy ideality shall be guided 
 and controlled by this one great and glorious principle, by 
 the eternal love to the Eternal God. This must be the touch- 
 stone for all your ideals, their perpetual moderator and gov- 
 ernor. They must be in perpetual harmony with this divine 
 love, in order to lead you onward,[ forward and upward to 
 your destiny — onward to the human family and upward to 
 God ; love to the Most High be the controlling power of your 
 emotions, intelligence and ideality. So man reaches human 
 perfection and happiness. 
 
 Me'od, as the Hebrew text has it, signifies something 
 exceeding, beyond and above all things known, and being 
 
— 218 — 
 
 the last of the three terms used in this connection, it signi- 
 fies something higher than intelligence, which can be ideality 
 only, as it corresponds to all these significations in this con- 
 nection. "Thou shalt love God, thy Lord, with all thy 
 heart (emotions), with all thy soul (intelligence), and with 
 all thy might (ideality)," whigh is the highest might in the 
 human mind, all of which must be controlled by man's love 
 to God, the Most High. This is the path of life and light to 
 human perfection and happiness, which all religions must 
 adopt, all philosophies indorse, all true codes of ethics and 
 law must reduce to practice. This is the keystone inscrip- 
 tion in Israel's ancient temple. Time can not efface it, intel- 
 ligence can not overlook it, all progressions of all sciences 
 and philosophy can not improve it. The arm of eternal and 
 supreme wisdom has impressed it on the rock of ages ; no 
 man can go beyond it. , 
 
 Brethren, let us consecrate this holy structure with the 
 deathless words of eternal wisdom : " Hear, O Israel, God is 
 our Lord, God is One " ; there is none besides him. " And 
 thou shalt love God, thy Lord, with all thy heart, with all 
 thy soul and with all thy might " ; there is nothing above it. 
 Here all human wisdom ends, and here divine wisdom 
 begins. Brethren, let us dedicate this house as a temple, a 
 sacred shrine forever, of these sublime and glorious truths. 
 Love be the glory, the shekinah, of this house ; love to the 
 Eternal God be the fire from heaven to consecrate your 
 emotions, intelligence and ideality whenever you enter into 
 this holy place. So may the Almighty be worshiped for- 
 ever; so may his children be enlightened and blessed: so 
 may God's glory be enthroned in this house, in this con- 
 gregation, in your hearts and your souls forever and aye. 
 Amen. 
 
THE FOURTH OF JULY. 
 
 BY ISAAC M. WISE. 
 
 Text -" Then a spirit took me up, and I heard behind me a voice of a great 
 rushing (saying), Blessed be the glory of the Lord from his place. "-[Ezek. in. 12. 
 
 The Prophet Ezekiel broaches the profound secret of 
 prophecy, how a man becomes a prophet; how the soul 
 reaches that higher state of intellectual , existence wherein 
 it can listen to the direct communication from on high, 
 and understand it intuitively. " Then a spirit took me 
 up ; " the spirit bore him aloft, says the prophet ; then he 
 heard and saw that which he could not hear nor see before. 
 As long as the mind is subject to the dominion of the 
 lower passions, it beholds and unravels, as the captive from 
 his subterranean cell, only that which lies low in the same 
 l eV el_that which gratifies and intensifies the passions. 
 Rising higher, the mind sees more ; rising highest, sees 
 most. When the mind has that power that governs and 
 lilts up the soul-man, as the prophet says of himself, u And 
 then a spirit took me up," then man may be a prophet, 
 conceiving directly the will and law of the Most High. 
 
 Words and laws are latent deeds— actions in the abstract : 
 deeds are concrete laws— words which have become flesh. 
 History is the Bible of deeds. When we have before us the 
 words of great men, we try to imagine how high the one or 
 the other was lifted up by the spirit, and we call that alti- 
 tude his greatness. If we have before us laws, we measure 
 the greatness of the lawgiver by the same gauge. In the 
 history of this day, the Fourth of July, when, in 1776, 
 American independence was made a fact in history, we have 
 before us a deed to be measured by the same scale. 
 
 Between two and three millions of human beings, by no 
 
— 220 — 
 
 means united in their political opinions, and scattered over 
 a vast territory from Georgia to Maine, and as far west as 
 Central Ohio and Kentucky, without any of the modern 
 facilities of communication,— these few and widely scattered 
 men took it upon themselves, in the face of the mighty 
 Empire of Great Britain, to declare the independence of this 
 continent forever. It looks mythical, sounds almost fabu- 
 lous now to contemplate it, although it is only ninety-eight 
 years to-day that the Declaration of Independence was signed 
 in the city of Philadelphia. Since the days of the Macca- 
 bees, history offers no parallel to this heroic resolution. How 
 could a handful of men, representing a divided and pow- 
 erless people, strike so high?— how could they resolve upon 
 so daring a deed, which was to revolutionize all existing 
 forms of government and open a new era in the world's 
 history? If any one of those sires who set their signatures 
 to the immortal instrument could speak now, he would 
 answer in the very words of the prophet : " Then a spirit 
 took me up." They saw and felt, they understood and set 
 forth in plain language, that certain things were wrong, un- 
 j list, contrary to the laws of G od and man. They felt the duty 
 of asserting the rights of man, of appealing to the Divine 
 Author of these rights for redress, and in raising the banner 
 of independence to redress these wrongs forever. Being 
 borne up by the spirit to believe firmly in their rights, 
 and to confide implicitly in Him who gives, protects and 
 executes them, they felt in themselves the power to strike 
 high, regardless of consequences, and to perform a task which 
 will forever elicit the admiration and gratitude of all good 
 men. High-minded, or high in mind, are the Anglo-Saxon 
 terms to name the state of the soul under the influence 
 which the prophet describes, " Then a spirit took me up." 
 
 So history is made according to the will of Providence. 
 Man is conscious of wrongs or evils existing, and he attempts 
 to redress them, to remedy them. He sees that certain ideas 
 are beneficial and to the blessing of man. and he seeks to 
 realize and enforce them. He can not go beyond this. His 
 consciousness reaches no further : his reason can not pen- 
 
— 221 - 
 
 etrate into the future and the combinations characterizing it. 
 But those who do either are men lifted up by the spirit. Per- 
 sons who worship their own interests, live in the narrow circle 
 of their lower passions, seek gratification, pleasure, wealth, 
 rank, fame, or the thin veil of false pride and fading vanity, 
 thinking only of themselves and for themselves, they will 
 never be lifted up by the spirit which they enslave ; they 
 never feel the necessity of righting wrongs, remedying evils, 
 or redressing the wounds of humanity. Such men do not 
 make history ; they place obstacles in the path of progressive 
 humanity, which good and high-minded men must remove 
 that history can take its course. Those men, however, 
 who, careless of consquences, fearless of probable results, 
 heedless of their own interests, safety or condition, seek to 
 overcome existing evils and to replace them by what is 
 right and good and a blessing to the largest number of hu- 
 man beings, as those sires have done who sent forth the 
 Declaration of Independence, — those are prophets in deed, as 
 the prophets of the Bible are prophets in words. All of them 
 are men whom the spirit has lifted up high above the little- 
 ness of every-day life, high above the small selfishness of 
 little creatures, who are to themselves all in all ; above 
 dwarfs and pigmies, whose world is no larger than a dollar , 
 and whose horizon is bounded by the few rays of their 
 obscure selves. Those high-minded men see a world of life 
 and love around them, a world of duty and conscience in 
 them, a world of truth, light, justice and goodness above 
 them ; they are great, and everything about them is wide, 
 high, large and grand. They are the men whom the spirit 
 has lifted up ; and so we opine were those who planned, 
 signed and executed the Declaration of Independence. Those 
 are the prophets of the Lord, either of words or deeds. 
 
 The prophet furthermore tells us, when the spirit had 
 lifted him up, "And I heard behind me a voice of a great 
 rushing." AVe can see of God and truth only that which is 
 past, has transpired, has become a fact of nature or history. 
 Behind — always behind us — we hear the voice which we 
 understand; never before us. So when Moses desired to 
 
— 222 — 
 
 see God's glory, he was placed in the cleft of a rock, inclosed 
 from all sides, and covered by the hand of the Lord till he 
 was passed ; then, after the Lord passed, " Thou wilt see 
 behind me, but none sees before me." As long as events 
 transpire before our very eyes we understand them not, be- 
 cause we can not penetrate the future to see the consequences 
 of the events, and the consequences expound the events. 
 Those who saw the lake which once covered this Mill Creek 
 valley, before the Ohio broke through yonder hills, could 
 not see or know that under the water a region of land formed 
 to become once the arena of the city of Cincinnati and her 
 beautiful environs. We who stand behind the scene survey 
 the field now retrospectively, and say, So God worketh in 
 the silent deep. So is all our knowledge of the footprints 
 of creation retrospective, and the creative power at work 
 right under our eyes— for creation never ceases— escapes our 
 attention and evades the scrutiny of the best observer. We 
 hear from behind. 
 
 The same is the case with human deeds, we understand 
 them retrospectively only ; for the great deeds are prolific 
 germs — and that is their very greatness — of numerous 
 events, all of which combine into one chain of facts, a unit in 
 themselves, as the coral reef contains many millions of de- 
 funct creatures, and still is one reef. Neither Columbus nor 
 those who ridiculed him, nor those who supported him, 
 could form the slightest idea of what the consequences of his 
 discovery might be. Those who saw the first emigrants land 
 on the Atlantic- shore of this country could not know how 
 God works in the silent deep the inverted pyramid of events. 
 We hear from behind ; all our knowledge is retrospective. 
 
 Deeds, like prophetic words, must be expounded and ver- 
 ified by the course of events. When the prophecy came to 
 Abraham, "And there shall be blessed all the families of the 
 earth by thee and thy seed," there was none, not even Abra- 
 ham, who understood the import of those words ; none could 
 understand the three currents of Judaism, Christianity and 
 the Islam to come from that source, surround, water and 
 fructifv the world, and give to history its basis and char^ 
 
— 223 — 
 
 acter. When the prophet announced the words : "And God 
 will be king over all the earth, that day God will be one, and 
 his name one," none could think of the bare possibility of 
 the universal republic, the universal monotheism, and the 
 universal brotherhood of man, speaking one language, in all 
 things divine, as we see all this approach now. Time ex- 
 pounds oracles as it expounds event . The words and deeds 
 unconscious in speaker and actor, uttered and done on the 
 strength of general principles and universal laws, of which 
 man is conscious, are placed aright in the sublime conscious- 
 ness of Providence ; but we mortals see from behind, know 
 and think retrospectively. Time enlightens us, whether 
 oracles are divine and deeds prophetic and providential. 
 
 Now, let us step back ninety -eight years into Independence 
 Hall of Philadelphia, and, with the enlightenment gathered 
 from ninety-eight years of history, let us look upon the 
 group of men signing the immortal instrument, and, like the 
 Prophet Ezekiel, we will confess : "And I heard behind me 
 a voice of a great rushing." Ask those sires: What are 
 you doing in your solemn conclave? And we understand 
 the answer to be, " We are laying the foundation for a 
 future nation of forty millions of free and independent 
 people, to become the ideal and pattern of free government, 
 the palladium of liberty, equality and justice, the secure 
 haven and godly refuge to all men and ideas persecuted 
 and downtrodden by wickedness and despotism. We are 
 planting the tree which is to bear the fruit with the seed 
 therein, from which there shall grow the French Revolution, 
 the revolution of all European institutions, from Sweden 
 to Rome, from Spain to Russia, overthrow all mediaeval 
 remains, conceptions and relics, and replace them by a new 
 world of free men and women. We are destroying the old 
 prejudices and hostilities of nation against nation, denomi- 
 nation against denomination, all the prejudices of color, 
 race, tongue, and former condition, and unfurling the banner 
 of the unity of the human family by and in its ethical na- 
 ture. We are inviting all nations and tongues, all races 
 and denominations, to meet on the broad plains of this 
 
— 224 — 
 
 continent, to become better acquainted with one another, 
 to recognize the childhood and image of God in each 
 of his children, to improve, elevate and appreciate one 
 another, and establish the covenant of eternal peace under 
 the reign of justice, and under the proud and mighty banner 
 of Liberty." Now we understand the mighty deed per- 
 formed in 1776, on the Fourth of July ; now we know that 
 it was a prophetical and providential deed, which time has 
 expounded, and which the future will expound much more 
 clearly. " I heard behind me a voice of a great rushing/' 
 and hearing it we admire, we look back with proud gratitude 
 upon the framers and signers of the Declaration of Independ- 
 ence ; hearing it, we kneel down in the dust and worship the 
 King of kings, the God and Father of all his children, the 
 invisible, benign and eternal Ruler of our destinies, whose 
 name be praised and glorified forever and aye. 
 
 What are the words that the prophet heard, when the 
 spirit had lifted him up, and he had heard behind him a 
 voice of a great rushing? He heard the words : " Blessed be 
 the glory of the Lord from his place." So we hear if we 
 listen. If the spirit lifts us up into the region of the spirit, 
 higher than our selfishness, loftier than our little interests 
 of every day life, more eminent than the swamps of the 
 lower passions, and we look attentively upon the divine 
 words and events, to hear behind us the eternal voice of God's 
 revelations like thunders loud, pleasant like melodious song, 
 and continual like the harmony of the spheres, — then we 
 hear and feel perpetually, deeply and indellibly. "Praised 
 be the glory of the Lord from his place." Only the glory 
 of the Lord can be praised by man, for God could not be 
 revealed or expounded to human intelligence ; his glory is 
 revealed in his works, in the words and deeds of his servants. 
 in the conscience and consciousness of man. The glory of 
 Lord only can be praised, because the Hebrew Baruch, which 
 we render to praise, or to bless, signifies growth and increase 
 of what is good and desirable. God groweth not and in- 
 creaseth not ; but his glory may be praised : it may grow and 
 increase among men by a better knowledge of his wonders, 
 
— 225 — 
 
 wisdom and benignity. The glory of the Lord is praised 
 and Messed from his place, from nature's vast domain which 
 speaks with a thousand tongues of the Creator's wisdom ; from 
 the uncountable millions of creatures which praise him with 
 every instinct of their nature and every breath of their lives ; 
 from man's mind, which is the mirror of self-conscious 
 Deity; from every place where law is revealed, wisdom 
 preaches, love smiles or life rejoices in existence, the glory 
 of the Lord is praised. 
 
 The glory of the Lord, however, is chiefly praised and most 
 powerfully proclaimed by great and beneficial deeds per- 
 formed unconsciously by good men, who merely obey the 
 voice of duty, without knowing how great and important 
 their deeds are. Good men listen to the voice of duty : this 
 is the law to guide us. This obedience leads to the execu- 
 tion of deeds which abound forever to the blessing of man- 
 kind. This is the glory of the Lord revealed plainly, clearly 
 and evidently. No philosophy under the sun can under- 
 mine this great teleological truth laid down by the prophet 
 in a brief passage. 
 
 From this standpoint we look back once more upon the 
 Fourth of July, 1776. Those sires who framed the Declara- 
 tion of Independence simply obeyed the voice of duty to 
 the best of their knowledge, and this is the greatest and the 
 best man is able to do : he obeys the eternal law of his 
 Maker. Those sires could not know the immense conse- 
 quences of their deed ; then God alone could know it. They 
 worked out unconsciously a new scheme of salvation for the 
 entire human family. We look with admiration and grati- 
 tude upon those men, whom Providence has selected as 
 instruments of a great work. But who has done the work, 
 and who does it now? None in particular, but all under 
 the guidance of Providence. None has done it, for none was 
 conscious of the work to be done ; and now that we might 
 be conscious of our destiny, now selfish interests and small 
 considerations, political tricks and cunning falsehoods have 
 more to do with the government of our affairs than the voice 
 of duty and the consciousness of our destiny. Who has 
 
— 226 — 
 
 done and does it now? None of us; God has done it, and 
 he does it now. It is the work of Providence. 
 
 Therefore, we hear the same voice now, " Praised be the 
 glory of the Lord from his place." Our country and our 
 history praise the glory of the Lord. The Fourth of July 
 praises the glory of the Lord. All honest men who perform 
 conscientiously their patriotic duties to obey, and merely to 
 obey God's law, praise the glory of the Lord. Yea, the very 
 fact that all the cunningness and baseness of some of our 
 political leaders, all the bribes, embezzlements and public 
 robberies, all the class legislation and party favoritism, all 
 the corruption, degradation and dishonesty in some circles, 
 and all the baseness among citizens who tolerate and indorse 
 it, do not undermine our prosperity or check our influence 
 abroad, do not destroy our prospects, blight our hopes and 
 consume our strength, also praises the glory of the Lord, and 
 shows that Providence jealously watches over his works. 
 
 Let us, however, not forget that God is long-suffering and 
 all-just. Nations live and prosper on their virtues, and perish 
 and decay of their own sins. While we rejoice and worship 
 before God on this Fourth of July, let us be grateful to our 
 Maker and mindful of his eternal laws. Like the fathers 
 of this republic, let us jealously guard the sacred boon of 
 liberty and equality. Let us be just and upright, true to 
 honor and duty, in full sympathy with the human family, 
 and in word and deed let us be free men and women, let us 
 always be borne aloft by the spirit to higher aims to loftier 
 aspirations, above selfishness, littleness and narrowness. 
 Let us attentively listen to the voice of God's revelations 
 in his works and words, and let us attempt perpetually to 
 know and to understand what the Lord thy God requireth 
 of thee. Let us live, feel, think and act in obedience to 
 God's law, and always praise and bless the glory of the Lord 
 from his place. Amen. 
 
THE WORD OF GOD. 
 
 A SABBATH N A HAMOO SERMON. 
 
 BY ISAAC M. WISE. 
 
 Nahamoo ! nahamoo, ammi! " Console ye my people." So 
 the prophetic lesson begins, because this Sabbath follows the 
 ninth day of Ab, the day of Israel's mourning over the fall 
 of Jerusalem and its temple. But Ave can console those only 
 who mourn. This congregation mourns no longer over 
 events which took place eighteen hundred years ago— the 
 fall of Jerusalem, the destruction of the temple, and the dis- 
 solution of Israel's political nationality ; therefore, we can 
 not console, and must select another subject for our discus- 
 sion. It is before us in the same chapter of the Prophet 
 Isaiah (xl. 1), which opens with the words spoken — Nahamoo! 
 
 It is admitted that the twenty-six chapters of Isaiah, 
 from xl. to the end of the book, were written by an anony- 
 mous prophet, the Hebrew Demosthenes of the broadest 
 cosmopolitan principles, who, seeing the downfall of Zaba- 
 ism, the victories of Cyrus and Darius the Mede over the 
 declining empire of Babylonia, and the approach of those 
 armies to the ancient capital on the Euphrates, called upon 
 his brethren dispersed over the East to return to Palestine 
 and to build up again a Hebrew Empire on its classical soil, 
 and upon the living principles of monotheism and its sub- 
 lime ethics. The first speech of that prophet, from xl. 1 to 
 xli. 17, is the introduction to all the subsequent speeches, 
 and lays down the subject of his discussion, together with 
 the arguments in its support, and the sublime theology and 
 
— 228 — 
 
 teleology upon which they are based. He begins with the 
 main subject, announcing in terms of inspiration that Is- 
 rael's national sins were expiated, and now highways should 
 be leveled through the wilderness for the captives to return 
 home, and the glory of the Lord should appear over them 
 once more, so that all flesh should see that the mouth of the 
 Lord had spoken. This is the main subject of all the 
 speeches following. But right here, at the very threshold, 
 it appears a number of objections were raised to the proph- 
 et's inspired message, and one of them, it appears, was this : 
 All things are perishable; nations and systems of religion 
 and government, like organic beings, are born,' grow, flourish, 
 decline, wither and die; why should Israel only make an 
 exception to this rule? Having existed nine centuries and 
 more, Israel declined, withered and died a natural death, 
 like empires much larger and nations much more powerful ; 
 why should Israel alone resurrect from his ruins? This 
 appears to be the import of verses 6 and 7 : "A voice saith, 
 Proclaim ! [call, announce] and it saith what I should pro- 
 claim : All flesh is grass, and all its goodliness is as the 
 llower of the field. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth ; 
 because the breath of the Lord hath blown upon it ; surely 
 the people is grass." Nations, grass and flower are subject 
 to the same law of perpetual dissolution which admits no 
 exception. Truly, Israel was the particular servant and 
 messenger of the Lord, proclaiming the glory of his name, 
 the beauty and wisdom of his laws; but " my way is hidden 
 from the Lord, and my cause hath passed from the cogni- 
 zance of my God" (verse 27); there is no justice in this 
 law of perpetual dissolution, cognizable to man, and it ad- 
 mits of no exception. To all this the prophet replies, the 
 argument is fallacious in its premises and conclusions. 
 There are things perishable, and there are things eternal. 
 " The grass withereth, the flower fadeth ; and the word of our 
 God will stand firm forever." 
 
 There is stability in the back-ground of all these changes, 
 eternal life in perpetual death ; there is something imperish- 
 
— 220 - 
 
 able in this chaos of destructive elements, and that some- 
 thing is 
 
 THE WORD OF OUB GOD. 
 
 It must be said here at once, that words are articulate 
 sounds expressing ideas by the instrumentality of the known 
 organs of speech, lips, teeth, tongue, gum and throat. 
 Wherever there are no ideas there are no words, therefore 
 animals speak no words ; and wherever the organs of speech 
 are missing there can be no speech of articulate sounds. God 
 is incorporeal, hence he has no organs of speech, and speaks 
 not in articulate sounds as man speaks, or in interjections 
 as animals do. He may let thunder, hurricane or cataract 
 speak articulate sounds, but within the experience of man 
 he has never done so. When the Scriptures narrate that 
 God said, or God spoke, it must always be understood that 
 he said or spoke as God says or speaks, and not as man does, 
 by articulate sounds. It is language not bound to words 
 as day speaks to day, as night instructs night, as the heavens 
 declare the glory of God. It is thought conveyed to thought. 
 
 Again : God's speaking means creation. Man thinks ideas 
 at certain intervals, and thinking, he becomes conscious of 
 his self-consciousness, and at such moments he lives spirit- 
 ually. God is the eternal, infinite and uninterrupted self- 
 consciousness. He thinks always and continually, therefore 
 he is always conscious of this self-consciousness. With 
 man, ideas may become creative in the artistic sense as well 
 as in the scientific, when the inventive idea is realized in 
 concrete form; because his is a limited amount of power 
 connected with his spiritual existence. God's power being 
 as unlimited as his wisdom, each of his ideas is creative. 
 God thinks signifies he creates, and God creates signifies he 
 thinks; thinking and creating are indentical in God. Man 
 thinks in words; the idea must become word before it is 
 identified with his spiritual self. The first creation of the 
 thinking mind is always the word. In imitation thereof, we 
 speak of God's creation as God's word. u He said, and it 
 was ; he commanded, and there it stood." " By the word 
 
— 230 — 
 
 of the Lord the heavens were made." Therefore, in the first 
 chapter of Genesis, " God saith"; and the ancient rabbis 
 properly call attention to the fact that in the record of crea- 
 tion it is repeated ten times, " God said." The word has not 
 become flesh ; but the thought has become the cosmos. All 
 that is, was, or will be in the universe, from the crystal to the 
 sun, the infusiorium to the Hashmal— each is a word of God, 
 all is " the word of God," the only logos of which we can 
 form a conception worthy of a Deity. The facts of creation 
 are the Creator's dialectics : the world is God's real dialectics. 
 
 Whatever is, was, or will be, crystal or infusorium, earth 
 or sun, fly or Hashmal, must have eternally had ideal exist- 
 ence in God before it assumed real existence in the cosmos ; 
 and after it passes away from the material realities it must 
 remain forever and aye a fact in the eternal memory of the 
 Almighty. No material is lost in nature although it under- 
 goes perpetual changes. No idea can be lost in Supieme 
 Wisdom, however often it may pass through the transition 
 from ideality to reality or vice verso. Whatever is, is imper- 
 ishable in its elementary material and its ideal existence. 
 All things rest forever in the bosom of eternity, in the wis- 
 dom of the Almighty. " And the word of our God will stand 
 firm forever," however the grass withers and the flower fades. 
 
 So the prophet refutes the premises in the argument held 
 up against his message. You say change, dissolution and 
 revolution mark the law of nature : whatever is must perish ; 
 I say, so it appears only to the superficial observer, but it is 
 not so in truth and reality. All these changes are evolutions 
 around the firm axis of stability, immortality and eternity. 
 Whatever is, is imperishable in reality or ideality, in the 
 body or in the spirit; therefore, he argues, further on (verse 
 26 ) : " Lift up your eyes on high, and see who created these " 
 | worlds). There is eternal revolution and order, appearing 
 and disappearing; still each girded with power. kt Not one 
 escapeth," none— nothing is lost. The word of God will 
 stand firm forever. 
 
 Here we pause for a moment and ask: Why not I? If 
 nothing can be lost, why should I? If all things are present 
 
— 231 — 
 
 forever in God's eternal self-consciousness, how could I es- 
 cape it for one moment of eternity? The things which 
 think not and feel not and know not and love not are imper- 
 ishable; and I who think and feel, know and love, who am 
 conscious of all, and think of God and universe, kneel in 
 the dust before my Maker, and identify myself in contem- 
 plation and prayer with the Great I Am, — how could 1 alone, 
 just I among all creatures, be perishable? And also to us 
 the prophet says : "The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, 
 and the word of our God will stand firm forever." There is 
 no death in God's universe; it is eternal birth in the world 
 of reality, eternal life in the world of spirit. The form 
 changes, the substance remains in God forever. What is 
 unconscious here is eternally conscious in God's self-con- 
 sciousness. What is self-conscious here remains forever 
 a self-conscious idea in the eternal wisdom of God. What- 
 ever thinks, that is for itself, and whatever thinks not, that 
 is in the self-consciousness of another. 
 
 What has been said already entitles us to the conclusion 
 that the work of man, certainly no less than the work of na- 
 ture, is the eternal word of our God. Man, his intelligence, 
 and its various fruits, can not be imagined lower in the series 
 of things than the other individuals of organic or inorganic 
 creation. If the crystal, the infusorium, the earth, the sun, 
 is the word of God, man and his ideas must be. Therefore, 
 here again the same law of perpetual dissolution and eternal 
 stability. Every page of history speaks the language of 
 dissolution. Wherever we look ruins meet our gaze — 
 ruins of great cities, mighty castles and ancient bulwarks. 
 Wherever we go, we step upon graves — graves of individuals, 
 graves of nations once mighty, prosperous and proud. In 
 the little history of every person there are plenty of graves 
 — graves of dear persons, cherished hopes, ardent wishes, 
 intense desires. These ruins and graves demonstrate the 
 law of dissolution. 
 
 Yet nothing is lost that is worthy of preservaion. Houses, 
 castles and cities are destroyed by the preying tooth of time, 
 but the arts and sciences of architecture are retained in the 
 
— 232 — 
 
 memory of man, improved and perfected by the work of pass- 
 in- centuries. The body perishes, the soul remains. The 
 same is the case with all works of genius and all produc- 
 tions of reason. However carefully preserved they perish 
 at last, but the ideas remain in the memory of man, and 
 these are the words of our God. 
 
 In consequence of man's free volition, he is productive 
 of illogical ideas; yea,, his reason recognizes the logical 
 by its contrast with the illogical. But the history of 
 man is most wonderful. Whatever is low, small, mean, 
 destructive of human prosperity and happiness, contrary 
 to justice, freedom, or the progress of humanity; however 
 mighty and prudent their representatives and exponents; 
 however successful, feared and proud they may be, it lasts 
 hut a -hoit time, and then they go under, and their ideas 
 with them. History neutralizes the evil effects and buries 
 in oblivion all that is mean, injurious or wicked, and their 
 bearers with them. For a lew years only, Alexander the 
 Great could abuse his genius and opportunities to selfish 
 purposes; then he died in the prime of life, and the con- 
 quered nations became the conquerors of Grecian culture 
 and letters, bona; conquered and crushed down Judea ; 
 but a little while after Judea conquered Rome, and crushed 
 out her gods, altars and temples. 
 
 Again, all that is great, noble, generous, sublime and 
 divine in man's words and deeds; whatever advances .hu- 
 man prosperity and happiness, elevates man's character, or 
 fraternizes the human family; whatever is said or done in 
 the service of truth, justice, freedom, and their advancement 
 among men, is faithfully preserved in the human memory. 
 Their authors die, their names are forgotten ; but their words 
 and deeds are stored away in the treasury of humanity and 
 guarded jealously by a thousand different means. 
 
 Thus gem was added to gem, idea and invention preserved 
 ami increased, utilized and amplified, until the human fam- 
 ily had amassed the wealth known now as the civilization 
 of the nineteenth century, with all its arts and sciences, 
 philosophy arid religion, ethics and government, each idea 
 
— 233 — 
 
 of which was once original with somebody, and with him it 
 was the word of our God. For with all our learning and 
 experience, we have no means of accounting for the rise of 
 original ideas in the human mind, every original idea being 
 a new creation, except the connection of individual mind 
 with the universal, which is God, and the perpetual influx 
 of God's ideas into the human mind. God's ideas are crea- 
 tive in nature and creative in man ; they appear there in 
 the form of reality incarnated in matter, and in man they 
 appear in the ideal form, incarnated in words, — the same 
 word of God here and there. Again, the matter in which 
 the human ideas are realized — houses, castles, cities, works 
 of genius or reason, nations, forms of government, etc., 
 together with the necessary appendages of the illogical, 
 alogical, mean, small and wicked, like matter and its form 
 generally, perish and are perpetually changed ; but the word 
 of our God shall stand firm forever, and not one iota thereof 
 is lost in the memory of man. Here then is immortality 
 for good and useful men also in the human family. 
 
 Therefore, the prophet could refute also the conclusion 
 in the argument held up against his divine message. If all 
 that is great, noble, generous, sublime and divine is imper- 
 ishable, why not also the treasures of Israel, his sublime 
 monotheism, his grand scheme of ethics with God as the 
 corner-stone thereof, his message of freedom, justice and 
 equality? If those elements in general must be called the 
 word of our God, why not Israel's in particular? and if this 
 word in general can not perish — must outlast time itself — 
 why not also in Israel in particular? Nine hundred years 
 of history had taught the lesson that in Israel the word 
 of God lived prosperously, the divine light shone forth 
 brightly and brilliantly, while darkness, wickedness and 
 absurdity increased and thickened among the Gentiles ; and 
 yet the word of God must live forever in man, as in nature. 
 Therefore, he called back home the children of Israel once 
 more to build up the empire of truth and justice, on the 
 basis of one God and one human family ; having been the 
 vehicle of revelation, why not also the means of preserva- 
 
— 234 — 
 
 tion? And he was sure of success, for the grass withereth 
 and the fldwer fadeth, and the word of our God will stand 
 firm forever. Therefore, he tells them further on in his argu- 
 ment (xli. 8-10) : " But thou, Israel, art my servant, Jacob, 
 whom I have chosen, the seed of Abraham, my friend. Thou, 
 whom I have taken hold of from the end of the earth, and 
 called thee from the midst of its chiefs, and said unto thee? 
 Thou art my servant, I have chosen thee, and not cast thee 
 away. Fear thou not, for I am with thee; be not dismayed, 
 for I am thy God : I strengthen thee, yea, I help thee, yea, I 
 uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness." 
 
 Yes, brethren, let us behold God in his works and hear 
 him in his words, in us and about us. Let us prepare to 
 meet our God and to receive his word in us, for the blessing 
 of humanity, for immortality and eternal happiness. What- 
 ever is godly is imperishable, is good and sublime. Let us 
 be forever faithful children of our Heavenly Father, that he 
 be revealed and his name glorified in us by his ever-living 
 word. A men. 
 
SHEBUOTH. 
 
 A SERMON BY REV. DR. D. EINHORX. 
 
 (Of New York.) 
 
 Text.— Ezekiel xvi. 8-22. 
 
 Among the most striking pictures of the Bible, which 
 mark the covenant made by God with Israel on Sinai, is 
 the representation of a betrothal. It extols the bridal love 
 of faithful Israel, even as it reproaches the chosen people 
 for forsaking their God, and for their adulterous attachment 
 to the worship of idols. In the books of the prophets 
 especially we meet with this representation in various 
 phases ; but nowhere is this picture painted in as brilliant 
 colors as it is in our Haftorah. 
 
 You have just heard the flaming words which compose 
 the entire " Song of Songs." These words, with their joyful 
 and plaintive sounds, must deeply affect us at the consecra- 
 tion of this happy band of children. What hopes and fears 
 for the Jewish congregation are intimately connected with 
 the consecration of their offspring, in a time of such wide- 
 spread indifference and neglect of our sacred covenant! 
 To each of these little ones, God exclaims : "Thy time has 
 come, the time of love for me, and I will spread my mantle, 
 the Thorah, about thee as a protection against thy nakedness 
 and helplessness ; I will solemnly consecrate myself to thee 
 and make a covenant with thee that thou becomest mine. 
 I will anoint thee with oil, the symbol of the light of my 
 Thorah. I will attire thee in a splendid robe and will place 
 a precious diadem upon thy head." Surely every true Is- 
 raelite asks himself, Will this promise of God find a lasting 
 echo in their hearts, will their short day on earth really be 
 unto them a full day of love for God and for their fellow- 
 
— 236 — 
 
 men? Will the splendor with which they attire themselves 
 to-day adorn them until their last breath, bidding defiance 
 to every storm, or will it be squandered for useless tinsel, 
 for empty trifles, for that deceitful display for which so many 
 so-called Jews are now sacrificing their best and most sacred 
 gifts, in order to stand exposed with all their gold and silver, 
 and even then, when all their bodily splendor becomes food 
 for worms, to reject everything which might serve them as 
 a covering for their nakedness? 
 
 My dear children, your future and that of Judaism depends 
 on your answer to this question, and therefore I will now 
 speak to you in particular, and to the congregation in 
 general, of the way in which God pledged himself to Israel 
 on Sinai,— of the marriage ceremony, of the marriage adorn- 
 ment, and of the wedding-ring. I shall subsequently speak 
 of the marriage witnesses, as well as of the gradual elevation 
 from mere betrothal to actual marriage. 
 
 The marriage ceremony is clearly expressed in our text. 
 On the part of God, it reads : "And ye shall be unto me a 
 nation of priests," and on the part of Israel : "All that God 
 has spoken we shall do." In this sacred marriage cere- 
 mony, introduced by the words, "Ye shall be unto me a 
 Segulah among the nations, for mine is the whole earth," — 
 the idea of a national God is excluded. In it is most 
 emphatically expressed the doctrine that the covenant with 
 Israel is by no means to decrease God's love for the rest 
 of mankind, but by it to procure the happiness of all nations. 
 Israel was appointed from the very beginning to be the 
 priests of God, to spread God's words unto every people, not to 
 remain isolated forever, not to ossify because of aristocratic 
 pride, not to cluster by themselves on the heights of pure 
 monotheism ; but to become the beacon light of truth to all 
 nations, to carry before all of them the torch of morality, 
 to pave the way through the heathen desert to the moun- 
 tain of the Lord, and only then to abandon willingly and 
 joyfully its special mission when this great aim shall have 
 been fully realized. 
 
— 237 — 
 
 We now come to the bridal ornaments, which our prophet 
 pictures in all its Oriental splendor. There are splendid 
 robes, chains, bracelets, ear-rings, and a crown for the head. 
 The robes indicate •TJJ1PD HJQ the dress of the priests, the 
 chains symbolize Israel's wonderful history, the ear-rings and 
 the bracelets typifying the efficient energy in the struggle 
 for God — the ready ear, the clear insight of our prophets for 
 the religious needs of the various ages : finally, the crown, 
 which symbolizes The Decalogue. The ceremonial law refers 
 to the priestly robes of Israel. This was not bequeathed to 
 all nations, but was given to Israel alone as a sign of its 
 high mission. Its purpose is, partly, to separate the chosen 
 people — living under the sway of heathenism — from the 
 abomination of the idolaters ; partly, to adapt to the ser- 
 vice of the Only One the heathenish forms of worship (as 
 has been done in the case of the sacrificial cult), from 
 which the old world had not yet entirely severed. And also, 
 just as the holidays with their various symbols have salu- 
 tary effects upon our religion, so does the ceremonial law 
 aid in strengthening us in the divine truths, in helping us 
 to remember the holy mission of our race under the direct 
 guidance of our God. This ceremonial law is by no means 
 sanctifying in itself, but it affords a means of sanctification, 
 It is subject, by its very nature, to such changes as are in 
 keeping with the spirit of the age. These changes resemble 
 those which we experience daily. The influence of climate, 
 seasons and age necessitate corresponding changes of gar- 
 ments. It is an established fact that the ceremonial law 
 of Moses has undergone most thoroughgoing changes during 
 the time of the first and second temple, as also during all 
 the periods following our expulsion from the holy land. 
 Mankind, no matter what their degree of culture and civili- 
 zation, will always stand as much in need of ceremonies as 
 it does of language. These ceremonies, however, must not 
 become rigid, nor must they be suffered to remain thread- 
 bare and dilapidated. They must be illuminated by religious 
 thoughts, they must harmonize with the existing stage of the 
 religious development, they must reflect the glory of Juda- 
 
— 238 — 
 
 ism, and must keep pace with those duties which are con- 
 tinually required of the chosen people. That religion which 
 has been destined to assume the supremacy of the world, 
 must never be permitted to walk about tattered and torn, or 
 turn its priestly garments into a mummer's garb. No! 
 When the urgent necessities of the time require it, it becomes 
 a duty to stand prepared to reform religious ceremonies. So 
 has it been done by the best and greatest men of our history 
 — by our old prophets, who never ceased to oppose with 
 flaming words those mere outward ceremonies, forms which, 
 when left unheeded, would tend to impair our religious prin- 
 ciples. Was it their aim to tear down and destroy? No ; 
 they wished to rebuild the ruins, to save, to glorify the 
 internal life of Israel, to prevent those frivolities which 
 sought by means of ceremonies to cloak their vices. Is it 
 possible to kill those efforts for reform which are now in 
 progress? Surely the death of these reform movements is the 
 funeral-knell of Judaism ; and yet the most bitter enemies 
 of Judaism within and outside of the fold of Israel are 
 incensed against reform because they see in it, not a glo- 
 rious reconstruction of the ceremonies of our religion, but 
 despair and death. 
 
 The chain typifies our history, in which are linked together 
 most wonderful events, under Divine guidance, encircling 
 centuries. Name the historian who has been able to solve 
 this riddle of the wandering Jew, this riddle of an existence 
 under the oppression of countless years, and nameless suffer- 
 ing, and the clanking of the chains of slavery. The nation 
 had no center ; it was scattered throughout the earth in all 
 directions, and, though despised on all sides, its life perme- 
 ated all nations ; it nourished the world with its spiritual 
 treasures ; it encircled the whole people of the wide earth as 
 one endless golden chain. A nation it is, which, though but 
 a mote among the nations, traces its existence back into the 
 dim obscurity of antiquity. This nation has wandered on 
 and on to the present, encountering the storms and hurri- 
 canes of fate, tossed hither and thither, yet is nevertheless 
 closely linked together by an impervious spiritual chain, that 
 
— 289 — 
 
 for the very reason of its dismembered condition, became, 
 a bond of union for all human families by means of its 
 Messianic activity, and celebrated the proudest triumph of 
 the world's history, and still stands to-day full of life and 
 vigor, fighting for the same glorious principles. Such a 
 people is a living Bible. If our so-called Jews knew more 
 of their own history, they would see, although they pos- 
 sessed but a little common sense, a golden chain which the 
 Almighty has lent as an ornament only to that people 
 whom he has selected, to be the blessing of all mankind, and 
 whom he therefore crowned on Sinai with a refulgent halo. 
 There he bestowed upon them the ten words — the soul of the 
 holy Law, for in them are contained the eternal principles 
 of all true religion, all true morality and all true prosperity 
 in individual, family or national life, not for Israel alone, 
 but for all reasoning beings ; the doctrine of the one spir- 
 itual, holy God, who hates oppression and recompenses 
 every one according to his deserts. This doctrine, to the 
 the rugged height of which millions among the civilized 
 people of the world have not been able to elevate themselves, 
 is the foundation-stone of all purely spiritual devotion to 
 God, of all self-consecration in word, deed and sentiment. 
 This doctrine inculcates the sanctity of the oath and of the 
 Sabbath, the honoring of father and mother, the inviolability 
 of the marriage relations and of all personal rights. 
 
 According to Moses, all human sanctification must be 
 patterned after Divine holiness. From this incontestable 
 premise a new moral order was deduced and inscribed upon 
 the two stone tablets. Here is a moral law which, through 
 Israel, has been recognized and submitted to by the whole 
 world. Do you really think that a moral order could exist 
 without God, without a highest judge and legislator? Is not 
 that which we call possession meted out to us from worldly 
 possessions? Whence shall we derive a safeguard from 
 communism? Whence derive security for our titles to that 
 which we possess — that which is so often not even the fruit 
 of our own labor? Is wealth anything else than a robbery 
 of the hungry and needy? Is man nothing more than a 
 
— 240 - 
 
 two-legged creature, who, according to a custom among 
 certain people when he dies, is thrown into a pit as any 
 carcass, without a word of prayer or consolation? What 
 higher right has man over the animals in his social rela- 
 tions? What higher claim have you for life and fame and 
 honor? 
 
 Honor the crown of Sinai, Israelites ! instead of smiling 
 at those who drag it in the mire. God has placed a ter- 
 rible responsibility upon your shoulders in making you its 
 hearer. This crown is the highest possession of all man- 
 kind. Consider the words of our sages. God is said to 
 have called unto Israel from Sinai : ;i If you reject my Law 
 the world shall sink into tohu vevohu." 
 
 One gem, one precious gem, taken from this crown, must 
 be especially regarded, particularly since it is so sadly neg- 
 lected, — it is the Sabbath, the gem set in the bridal ring. 
 The Midrash (Bereshith Rabboth, 10), speaking of the 
 divine Sabbath in the history of creation, says that the 
 creation resembled a ring of the king of the world, upon 
 which the seal was not yet fixed until the Sabbath made 
 the declaration of the conclusion of the good work, and thus 
 set the seal to the ring. The human Sabbath which was 
 thereupon given to Israel is represented as the marriage 
 ring itself of the covenant people, because in the Scrip- 
 tures it is called a sign of the covenant between God and 
 his people and serves to teach that he had consecrated the 
 latter to himself. The violation of the Sabbath was at all 
 times regarded as the most definite evidence of the break- 
 ing of the covenant. The greatest reformatory prophets, 
 [saiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel regard the salvation of Israel 
 as impossible without the sanctification of the Sabbath, and 
 a< in olden times, so to-day the desecration of the Sabbath 
 if not the result is the source of idolatry, perfect atheism, 
 and the deification of sensual pleasures. Man needs, though 
 he stand ever so high, his weekly period of rest, devoted not 
 alone to rest but also to devotion, in order not to become 
 blunted in his daily vocation, not to forget his loftier des- 
 tiny. This evil has, at present, far-reaching dimensions, 
 
— 241 — 
 
 and it will if unchecked sooner or later destroy all moral, 
 fundamental principles in the individual life, as well as in 
 the family and in society. 
 
 Great is the ignorance of our people in regard to their 
 peerless history and world-nourishing treasures of mind, just 
 as great is the rude presumption to deride the highest ques- 
 tions of humanity, with which the greatest minds of all 
 nations have busied themselves with the profoundest rever- 
 ence. Little polish and a full purse make now famous 
 philosophers, ready to challenge the wisdom of centuries ; 
 at the same time theories are advanced that man is nothing 
 but an animal. These theories are spread abroad by the 
 public press, and are devoured with eagerness, especially 
 by immature youth. There are thousands of Jews who 
 will have nothing in common with congregations, and not 
 a small number hurries every Sunday to those places where 
 atheistical poison is offered to them in alluring cups. Can 
 you still doubt what the end will be when the great num- 
 ber of the members of our congregations are continually 
 refraining from regular attendance at divine service? Must 
 you not admit that parents themselves are sacrificing their 
 children to the all-consuming Moloch — are denying them a 
 communion with God, and are making for them a hell on 
 earth notwithstanding all their vast worldly possessions? 
 "Change the Sabbath to Sunday," many exclaim, "and 
 everything is safe." But, alas ! the patient must needs 
 die by this innovation. Once, at a rabbinical convention 
 at Breslau, I heard the following remark : " The Sabbath 
 could certainly be buried on Friday evening, but in vain 
 w T ould we look for its resurrection on Sunday." This is 
 the true state of affairs. Such resurrection w r ould require 
 the abilities of Elias, who was able to revive the dead 
 child by his divine fire ; but such fire, however, does not exist 
 in the present generation, and least among those who 
 clamor for this change, who are desirous of bringing 
 about such a rent between old and new Israel. Such a change 
 of the bridal ring would appear to countless Jews who are 
 longing for it only as a renouncement of the God of Israel 
 
— 242 — 
 
 and a union with Christianity, and so the faithless bride 
 would also quench the last spark of the fire of love. This 
 we can, should and must do in order to arrest the evil, viz. : 
 introduce a monthly Sunday divine service of a non-Sabba- 
 tarian character. Such a measure can not, justly, be attacked 
 from any point of view and will at the same time bring great 
 blessing. Truly, we live in very earnest times. Unmis- 
 takable signs are not wanting to prove to us that we are 
 steering toward the kingdom of the Messiah ; but there also 
 rise up before us the unwished-for struggles which'precede 
 it, struggles between truth and falsehood, which, far worse 
 than the old heathenism, will desecrate everything and uproot 
 the ideas of right and morals. Then it is for us above all to 
 assist the old bearers of truth for our God in narrow phalanx 
 like firm walls, and especially to array ourselves against the 
 traitors in our midst. Then, it is for us to consecrate and 
 sanctify our Sabbaths and holidays to God to protect our 
 families from the great plague; also to give the masses 
 instruction on week days, and not to speak of unattainable 
 sacrifices, of sacrifices which our rich people spend so will- 
 ingly for their splendid palaces, when the great question is 
 the support of the foundation of Judaism. Congregations 
 that remain deaf to these pressing demands merit destruction 
 and God will select other instruments in their places ; for 
 Israel, which has for centuries wandered in such a wonderful 
 and woful manner, can bear no lie; its halo of splendor, 
 which it wore for so many centuries, bowed down, and yet 
 borne so proudty as a martyr's crown, can not fall from its 
 head. It will come forth from all these struggles victori- 
 ous and triumphant, its splendor only enhanced by the 
 combat, so that all nations shall admire its beauty and 
 journey toward its light. Amen.