The times. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1890-1903, 1898-04-02
A Powerful Arraigument of Spain For
Injustice to His People.
DRIVEN FROM SPAIN YEARS AGO,
The Very Country. Cuba, Which Spain
Gave Unto the World in the Year
I'm Which She Drove the Jews
out Of Her Land is About TO
Bring Her to Book-Now
Bankrupt. Dishonored

Rabbi E. y. Cai!sch spoke last evening
on the subject DOCS God Destroy
taking his text from LeNucus VIII %
where Aaron and his sons are command
cd u, remain at the door of the taher-
uac!e hy day and by night to Keep the
charge oe the Lord. that they die not
He said. IN part: 1t Is customary among
some people TO assert that the jewish
God conception is a crude and primitive
ono. The Jehovah Of the Jews. they say
vas very cruel and vindictive deity
v,ho was ready 10 wreak the savage FURY
80 his wrath upon the occasion OF the
,1oef tr.fing opposition 10 his viii or the
ergbtcst neglect OF his honor. In VIII
Nos whereof they pick out those portions
OF the Old Testament where punishment
fs measured OUT upon the people with un-
soarlng severity for even the most lhho-
cent offences. They begin with the noou'
whose wholesale destruction was que TO
the offended deity; and, continuing
through the sacred books VIII cite the
instances where death, destruction oeso-
Iation and suffering followed In the wake
~ the divine dlspleasurc. where plaques
and residences were sent among his peo-
Me with a cruelty and frequency mat
were altogether out OF proportion 70 the
measure OF the sins they purpose TO eX-
plate. .-,o,.
Without wish ng 20 do mere han merely
10 refer 10 the facts that some account
must be taken OF the Oriental Imagery
with which almost all Biblical statements
are clothed, and that in the days or
primitive society drastic and heroic
measures were doubtless the most salu-
tary ones, we may dispassonately study
the problem OF divine government and
see II the old Jewish writer's ala not
really after all catch the true concep-
ton Of the world economy viii vision
that was keener than we think. Dlvested
OF the peculiar garments Of Individual
incidents. or conditions. we may perceive
mat the same pfiucipfes unoeffies every
event, and that the whole course Of his
tory Is built upon one basic thOught-that
Of Justice.
The pain and the punishment that fol-
low the wake Of sin are not the e u.li-
tions Of divine wrath over any particular
offence so much as they are the lOgica!
and inevitable consequences Of the dead
The inexorable and unyielding logic OF
events that we see IN the workings OF
the natural and physical world about
us is no less present in our human ana
spiritual existence individuals ana ma
tlons are alike subject to its sway. our
whole life is as a bank. We are credited
with what we deposit and charged with
what we draw out. II we place TO our
credit temperate. clean and whOlesOmely-
lived DAYS we will have reserve FUND
OF physical vigor 20 draw upon when the
DAYS Of weakness and waning strength
come When we speak Of splendid
constitution 10 IS nothing more than
surplus placed 10 our credit and saved
by means Of clean AL careful physical
ecoromy either by ourselves or our for
bears
Equally effective does this truth appear
In our spiritual lives We cannot always
discover It in the course Of single life,
though, indeed, even there II is Occa-
sionally manifest. But children are mor3
than mere physical offspring Of their
parents. They are heirs 10 temperament
and disposition. The sins OF the fathers
and their virtues as welfare visited upon
the third and fourth generation with In
creasing or decreasing strength according
as the third and fourth generation bears
itself. Your individual experience viii
doubtless have confirmed this In the lives
OF those around Won
SPAIN DISHONORED.
To illustrate the truth. nationality. we
may use Spain. especially Interesting 10
US Just al this tuncture. Four hundred
years ago Spain possessed the richest
OF colonial empires the world has ever
knOwn-richcr and wider than Rome
ever held In her palmlest days-greator
and grander than the w0rld-crcllng
British Empire to-day She possessed
the most l-rti.e and productive half OF
the continent OF North America. the
whole OF the Isthmus OF Darien. the
whole OF South America, and almost all
the islands = the adjoining seas. To-day
the last pltiful shred OF Il Is being torn
from her. and she stands. shorn. bank
rupt and dlshonored among the families
OF men Is II a Judgment OF God? Yes.
a judgment Of God. working as does ever
his omnipotent VIII. not through spo-
radic bursts Of wrath. but through the
medium Of his all-p0tent and ADJUST
laws.
The old Greek tragic writer caught
the inspiration Of this truth when he
voiced his lines as the Latin rendering
gives them 20 us. "quem Jupiter vult
perdere dementat prius." whom Jupitsr
wishes 70 DESTROY he first makes mad -
with that madness that scorns truth
and Justice and rlghteousness-t -that
madness that refuses 20 recognize God,