The Portland daily press., 1895-06-04
COSMOPOLITAN PORTLAND.
People of All Lands Flocking to This
City by the Sea.

ScanolnhVlans anu heDreWs nave IheIl
Separate Religious Services-Armenians
Require Priest of Their Own-Greeks
Must Soon Have Church, and Arabs
From the Desert Keep Shop in Portland
For long time past Portland has been
growing more and more cosmopolitan.
More and more people of all tribes and
races have come in, until at this time
| to degree that is true of but few New
England cities of its population it is a
| cosmopolitan city.
The PRESS few weeks ago gave q
sketch of Mrs. Dyer, for sixty a resident
of this city, and who recalls when it was
| for Portland the day of small things.
There are men here who have lived hardly
more years than Mrs. Dyer has been a
resident here, who recall Portland when
it was not cosmopolitan, but when there
was only the original New England ele-
ment hardly touched even by that strong
Scotch Irish admixture of blood that told
so well on the original New England
stock of other sections, the blood of
which Horace Greeley was so good an ex-
ample
The old New England stock is still rep
resented here, and is still at the front,
will always stay at the front perhaps. But
it is no longer city of single race, any
more than it is city of single religion.
There is man in this city who honest
ly believes that he can recall the name of
every Irish-American citizen in the days
when he was boy, but imagine if you
can any one who could say that now.
There are men not very old who can recall
every Hebrew who was resident of this
city but a few years ago even, but imag-
inc any one doing that now. There is
not single Hebrew in Portland who
would be equal to that feat.
The time was when the Italians of
Maine were confined to few wandering
princes, dukes and counts who played the
hand organ and displayed a "monk'' but
imagine any man trying to day to locate
them all.
It is not SO very long ago when there
was not a single Russian in Portland,
but the PRESS recently told the story of
a Russian bakery that sells 5000 pounds
of bread alone in week
Only a short time ago and not a single
religious service was held in this city
except in the English language. Of
course no reference is intended here to
the Catholic services with the solemn
rendering of the mass in Latin, for there
the preaching is and always has been
here up to a very recent time entirely in
English, but there was no religious SER
vice conducted in its entirety
in another language. That is not the
fact today. There are three synagogues
crowded with devout worshipers every
Saturday-the seventh day of the week.
and there not an English word is spoken.
English is the language of trade, of social
intercourse and of all other relations of
life, but in the house of God, and in his
service the ancient language Of the race
is alone employed.
There are three congregations in Port
land where the Scandinavian language is
alone used. To be sure there is on the
part of but very few of those who attend
any real necessity for the use of any Ian
guage other than English, but there is a
real pleasure in hearing the words famil-
lar in childhood. The English transla-
tion of the bible fixed in large degree
the English language. To be. sure mod
ern additions have enriched it until it
might trouble one of the solemn divines
who translated the bible into English
to quite follow the talk in circles where
slang abounds or ing scientific circles
where modern terms would have no mean
ing to him, but still that book fixed the
speech of the common people for all time
as far as can be seen.
And SO Luther's translation of the
bible, his work when he was not known
as DR.. Luther, but as Knight George, his
doctor robes laid aside that he might
rest unobserved until better times, effect
ed much the same result for another peo-
pie, and small the..wonder that they love
in strange land to hear the grand old
hymns sung in the mother tongue. There
are Germans enough here it is said to
warrant service of their own. They do
not heed it because of their ignorance of
English any more than the Scandssna-
yians need their three services, but all
this goes to show that Portland is becom-
ing cosmopolitan.
Reference has been made to the strong
Scottish blood that tempered with Irish
blood for generations stood like a stone
wall against the advance of hated re-
ligion. The full Scottish blood is largely
represented here now. No man or woman
born without that blood ever learned to
read the poems of Robert Burns under
standingly. Other have tried, but to read
Burns with dictionary of Scottish terms
by ones side is far from pleasant The
man who has no Scottish blood in his
veins, who is not learned in Scottish
phrases is content to hear others read the
poems he is forced to admire, even if he
can not quite understood them. Twenty
years ago it would not have been possible
to have sgathered together the Burns
club of Portland.
1t was found necessary this spring to