The record-union., 1899-06-24
owes whateverr material success he now

owes whatever material success he now
enjoys
But the value to the world of race,
or nation, Is not to be judged by Its
material success nor by it's wealth, nor
by it's power. These are not the high
est qualities to be sought for. These
are not the qualities that in themselves
make men better or nobler. These
Qualities are apt to make men grasp
ing, avaricious, selfish and despotic.
1t is by moral intellectual worth
to be judged. It is by what they do
for others rather than by what they
do for themselves, that is to deter
mine whether they are of benefit to the
world.
Let us therefore examine into the
more recent history Of the Jew with.
a view of learning to what use he has
applied his wealth and his mental
genius. Let US inquire whether his
mental faculties have been confined to
money getting alone and whether his
money has been used only to crafty
selfish tastes and desires.
Go with me where you will in this
world, or in the old, wherever the Jew
is found in thriving numbers, there do
we find Jewish orphan asylums, free
schools, hospitals, homes for the aged
and the infirm, and like institutions
erected and supported by Jewish
wealth and Jewish benevolence. Nor
are the benefits of these institutions.
as a rule, confined to the Jew alone:
all humanity, regardless of race, color
or creed. are welcomed and treated
with kindness and consideration.
1t was estimated, so far as ten years
ago. by Leo. N. Levi of Galveston,
Tex, who has taken great pains to
carefully compile the figures, that the
Jews of the United States alone ex
pend annually $1,30O,OOO in strictly
Hebrew charities, and half as much
again in general charities, making a
grand total outlay of nearly $2,O0O,O0O
per annum.
Proportionate expenditures by the
people at large would foot up to $500,
100000 per annum
Nor are the Jews of the old world
less benevolent in their practices.
Such men ais Baron Hirsch, the Roth
childs, and the Montefoires, who es-
tablished for themselves world wide
regulations for their beneficence, are
but the foremost among an army OF
wealthy and Jealous Jewish philan
thropists whose annual expenditures in
the cause of benevolence and education
exceed any sum expended anywhere on
the globe by like number of wealthy
persons.
AS to how the Jew employs his
mental genius, we need but look among
the professions in all countries where
he has been permitted to acquire an
education, to find him ranking among
the foremost in medicine, in law, in
music, in the arts, in the sciences and
in craftsmanship.
The intellectual attachments and the
mental growth of the Jew in this coun-
try is not less remarkable than else
where in the world. 1t is here that we
find the sons of Jewish emigrants who,
a little more than a generation ago,
landed on these shores pennilesss and
unknown, occupying chairs in our uni
versities as doctors of philosophy and
professors of political economy.
Scarce an institution of learning,
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, that
sons Of Israel who, for body and brains,
compare most favorably with the
ablest among their fellow students.
Strange indeed would it be, were it
otherwise. Strange indeed would it be
if the descendants of a race that in
the Intellectual history of the world
rank foremost, race that were abb
sorbed in the highest questions of phil
osophy and wisdom, while what are
now known as the civilized nations
We're yet STEPPED in darkness. 1t were
strange indeed if the descendants of
such mace should have lost that
mental power, that intellectual genius,
that divine spark that gave the world
it's Moses. its Isaiah, it's David. it's Solo,
mon, its Hillel, it's Jesus, it's Paul.
When we look back to the dark and
dreary days in the history of the Jew,
when we recall the repeated and almost
superhuman efforts of mighty rulers
and emperors to blot out the Jew and
his influences. when we remember that,
by the simple renouncing of an idea he
might have been saved from ages of
agonizing mental and physical suffer
ing, and when we see that, in spite of
all the heavy burdens he was forced to
carry, in spite of all the hate that was
hurled against him, in spite of all the
kicks and curses visited upon him. in
spite OF the rack, the thumbscrew, the
dungeon, the torch and the stake, he
still, lives and thrives and progresses,
we are forced to the conclusion that
his is mission not yet fulfilled. We
are forced to the conclusion that he
has been preserved to carry out a de-
sign that is to be of benefit to all
mankind.
In looking over the past, how clear
ly do we now see the wisdom mani
Tested by higher power, in destroying
Israel as nation, and in scattering
the people of Judea broadcast through
out the world.
Confined to the narrow limits of
Palestine, quietly pursuing the peace
full vocation Of husbandry, the Jew
might not have. permitted to perish the
divine thought which he was the first
to conceive, the sublime idea Of the
oneness of God, but it would have
taken endless ages for that idea to be-
come generally accepted, it would have
taken hundreds of centuries to accom-
plish in that direction even as much
as has been brought about during the
past eighteen hundred years.
The destruction of Jerusalem. the dis
persion of its people, did much to keep
alive and to spread the monotheistic be-
lief Of the Jew. Being driven from his
vocation of tilling the soil, and forced
into the new and unwelcome one Of
barter and trade, he was by that alone