The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1877-07-19

| pulSc III IudJ QlI6cJlOu lEOm HIS
writings and from his example.
The Greek gave to the world es-
thetic gifts. Whatever was eXquis-
ite in beauty, whatever was fine in
symmetry, whatever was rare in
proportion, whatever was harmo-
nious in art, the Greek longed for;
but he never longed for the good.
The Jew was deficient in the per
ception of the beautiful as it was
developed in matter; but his soul
was all afame with conception of
the beautiful as it was developed in
the mind; and he sought to create
in man inwardly by the spirit that
which the Greeks sought to create
IN him outwardly by the flesh.
GAS the hart panteth after the water
brooks, so panteth my soul after thee,
| o God"
In all the literature of the globe
you cannot find another such aspi
ration; and this is but one of ten
thousand of the breathings by the
Jewish mind of its yearning after
the divine.
The moral literature, too, which
has come from this people has been
a treasure to the world. The hu
man race has fed on Homer, on
Plato, on Aristotle, on Seneca, on
Cicero, and in the far Orient on ore
or two notable authors; but no
where has there been such food for
the inner man as in the wisdom of
Solomon, in the lyrics of David and
his school, and in the cry OF those
great solitary statesmen, the He
brew prophets, who were the mas
ters of craftsmanship in the age in
which they lived.
But to us and to all Christendom
the Hebrew should ne held sacred
for that gift without name and with
out price, our Lord and Saviour Je-
sus Christ. "Of whom as concern
ing the flesh Christ came is sen
tence that ought to make the Isra-
elites sacred to US from association
and from history, if from nothing
else. The ideal man of the ages
was Jesus Christ. The likeness of
so much of the divine nature as can
dwell in human flesh was Jesus
Christ. The grandest interpreter
of the Old Testament Scripture
was Jesus Christ. The Sermon on
the Mount is but an epitome of the
great truths which have been
wrought out in the experience and
observation of the thousands of
years of Gods people preceding.
Jesus Christ gathered them together
and brought them as grain in a
granery into the Sermon on the
Mount; but they grew in a thou
sand fields dispersed through the
ages. To be sure, he made them
more noble by insphering them in
a spiritual light, and showing what
their income was, and was to be;
but they were the Old Testament
economies; and the Sermon on the
Mount, into which they were gath.
cred, comes to US not simply from
Jesus Christ, but from his ancestors
throughout all the period of the
Jewish commonwealth.
But if one turns from moral func
tions to secular, it may be said that
no people ever taught the world
destructible manhood, under every
conceivable oppression and wrong,
as the Jews have. No abuse that
may be heaped upon man has been
spared from the head of this perse-
cuted people. From the days of
the Roman emperors they have been
objects of cruelty in every part of
the civilized world. They have
everywhere been denied citizenship.
Everywhere they have been denied
not only equal rights, but the com
monest rights of humanity. They
have been obliged to clothe them
selves so that their very garments
were a badge of contempt. They
have been shut out in certain terri
tories. They have been feeced,
cheated, prosecuted with the cruel
est instruments of wrong by those
who sought to wrest from them
their supposed riches. They have
been emptied out of countries where
they had taken up their abode. For
instance, from Spain seventy thou
sand families were driven suddenly
into exile, not more than one-fifth
of them surviving. That cruel ex-
odus was repeated time and time
again in various nations, from hum
dred years to hundred years, under
the expressions of superstitious
peoples. Did a plague break out in
Hungary? The Jews had poisoned
the people, and mob wreaked ven
geance upon their households. Was
there black death in Germany The
whole country was in cruel riot to
avenge their suferings on the per
secuted Jews.
But this remarkable race, though
fined, robbed, treated with the ut
most injustice and cruelty, and
kicked out from their abiding place
again and again, they could not be
destroyed. Hope sprang immortal
in their soul. With tenacity, with
touhness, with an ineradicable cour-
aye, Win Il IJcISlobCuCC III bitlA OWu
faith, and trust in their own ma
tional stock, they have marched
through / know not how many gen
erations of persecution. The le-
gend of "The Wandering Jew" is
true-not of any one person, but of
a people. 1t was the - ion of the
Jews that was the Wandering
jew; and all that has ever been
dreamed by poets or invented by
the Imagination of the miseries of
the wv Wandering Jew" has been ful
filled more than fourfold upon the
head of this great and wonderful
race. They have never sat down in
discouragement, but have repaired
again and again their wasted for
tunes, and erected schools and syn
agogues, and amassed property,
and served the State, and wrought
for manhood. 1t has been the very
genius of the Hebrew people 20
work for the welfare of mankind by
working for their own welfare. All
their struggles for existence, and all
their conflicts for equal rights,
have done much to produce that
s,,;-;, oF .oIaro4sor vrbfoh = fo,,nd