Juniata sentinel and Republican. [volume] (Mifflintown, Juniata County, Pa.) 1873-1955, 1896-01-15
TRIBUTE TO THE JEWS

Their Place In History Of the Highest
Importance.
The great wonder of history il Jul
iaism. The persistence Of the Jewish
people through the ages, In spite Of per-
Secution, the prison and the stake. 10
md has been q continuing miracle.
Thrones have fallen and empires have
passed away: but through all the
changes of this mortal scene Judaism
and the Jewish people have survived
the shocks Of time and are az enduring
apparently as the pillared universe.
And yet what vicissitudes and appall-
race undergone! For ages they were
under the ban. They might not eat
nor drink nor sit at the same table with
Christia whose religion
was based on their Book. and whose
Saviour was born Of Jewish maiden!
They never knew when their goods
might be plundered, their children torn
from their arms, and themselves BAN
ished from the homes where they were
born and the places where slept their
dead. And this state of things contin-
ued until the close Of the seventeenth
century. in mitigated form, until the
outbreak of the French Revolution.
Yet such was the virility Of the race
that, in spite of persecution and oStra-
cism, the children of Israel have main
tanned their faith, and their sacred
books have conquered the civilized
world. What Is that faith? Darmes-
teter tells us that Judaism has not made
the miraculous the basis of it's dogma.
nor installed the supernatural as
permanent factor in the progress of
events. Set aside miracles and rites,
"and behind them," he says. will be
found the two great dogmas which.
ever since the prophets, constitute the
whole of Judaism: The Divine unity
and Messiahism-unity of Law through
out the world, and the terrestrial tri-
umph of justice in humanity" Here
on earth should be the kingdom OF
God: and law and discipline, nor emo
tion nor aesthetics. should be the forces
to fit mankind to play well their parts
in so divine Il scene.
The Jewish Pulpit" prints a sermon
recently delivered at Detroit by Rabbi
Louis Grossman. u. D., wherein he in
sists upon the vitality Of the distinction
between "a beatitude. philosophy, an
idealism or an ecstatic pleasantly" and
laws. commandments and ordi-
nances." Religion" he says, IF Moses
would have known of the term, would
have been for him another term for the
art of teaching. Religion ought to drill
rather than exact; to build up habits
rather than deter from vice. Religions
should be the most many-sided educa-
tional influences in the world. Unless
they are that they forfeit every right
to be, except as a pastlme for senti-
mentalists and as exercises In halls of
philosophy. Judaism is never abstract;
It's doctrines are not transcendental; 1t
has no catechism. But 1t has laws;
and in these it has energized itself"
Judaism Is righteousness in life; and to
attain this righteousness there must
be training, and law and discipline are
the instruments. Let the churches
be built on definitions" says Rabbi
Grossman; "ours is built on life" And
thus founded 1t has outlasted the re-
ligions Of Greece and Rome, and Is like
ly to endure until the race which has
enshrined II shall have finally disap-
peared from the earth.-Philadelphi
Record