The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-10-02
BUSINESS HOUSES OF JEWISH
 CITIZENS CLOSE TODAY.
Rabbi Messing Delivered an Flo quent and Forcible Address. Services to Be Held at Tenn
 pie This Morning.


 At o'clock last evening the Jewish New Year G663) was ushered in with ap- propriate ceremonials at Temple Beth Or. The services at that hour were the first of the Ten Days of Pentitence which closes with the great day in .Tudea. the Day of Atonement.
 In honor of the first day of the first month of the New Year the business houses of the Jewish citizens of Mont- gor1ery were closed yesterday at o'clock and they will be closed until o'clock this evening.
 In accordance with the laws of Ex- odus the Jewish residents of Montgom- cry gathered at sunset yesterday before the Sacred Shrine at Temple Beth-Or to chant the ancient ritual, thank ing the Almighty for the blessings of the past and praying that He will vouch- safe them for the future.
 At the close of the ancient service Rabbi A. J. Messing. Jr.. delivered the following eloquent address:
 "Again the hour glass is overturned The sands of another year are counted. Here in the gathering darkness, in the sacred precincts of holiness. we have been chanting a funeral dirge to the dy- ing year. Just twelve months ago. q sturdy stripling born; tonight, totter-
  graves dismal abode. And why not? He is heavily laden with griefs and sorrows, with tears and with regret Verify we would not stay thy descent into the realms where sleep the silent majority Go in peace and carry with thee our trials and tribuiations, our agonies and anxieties, our benisons and benedictions.
 Yet shall we not speak we'll of the dead? The year, clasped now in obliv- ions embrace, has been for most of us a good year indeed. Sorrows have not been unmixed with joy. Sunshine has disslpated the shadows and the tears that suffused the cheek have been speedily dried by the radiant beam from the con- tented eye"
 What a year this has been for the house of Israel? Like a ghost'-wrote Heinrich Heine, Hike a ghost keeping watch over a treasure which had been confided to 1t through life, so in its dark and gloomy ghettos, sat this murdered nation, this specter people, guarding the Hebrew Bible" The ghost yet walks the earth Its mission is not ended. Its task is incomplete"
 Why do the heather rage, and the people mediate a vain thing? The kings and rulers of earth take counsel togeth- CT against the Roumanian Jew-weak- est and feeblest of all-Luftmenschen and behold. there Is "a strong hand and an outstretched arm and the tyrant Is smitten with impotency and touched with the finger of ruin. Where Manhood bows in slavery, where wronged women weep, where cruslty and greed lie intrenched in the power of anciedt fraud. there is heard the mighty protest of America, Gods Voice in the Modern Age. What though the dignihed note of Secretary Hay meet with rejection at the hands of the European powers. sig natory to the Berlin convention? For | time the issue may be clouded by schem- | ing financiers who hold Rouma- | nian securities in the old worlds cap | itals. Americas protest against Premier Stourdza's infamous policy may for the l present result in nothing.
 | But is it nothing to tear the mask from Europe's centuried hypocrisy? Is 1t nothing to flash the light of hope into dreary dungeons, into dark and silent cells of superstition, where the souls of men are chained to walls of stone? Is it nothing to bid 269.0O0 human beings take heart, to make them wipe the dust from their swollen knees, the tears from their blanched and furrowed cheeks? Is 1t nothing to relieve the heavens of an in- satiate monster and write upon the eter- nal dome all glittering with stars the grand word. Liberty?
 What a year again has this been for our congregation. The new temple stands complete and dedicated-a monument that fills with honest pride the heart of every Jew in the South. Death has call ed from our midst but few and they live in fond and loving memory. Lovingly, tearfully, we remember their kindly acts, their tender words. their unspeakable beauty of soul.
 We are glad that Kahl Montgomery did not die in 5662 that it is alive to face another struggle for life in 5663. We are glad of the friends that have helped us to live, and we are glad also of those whose friendship and support we needed but did not have. We are glad that their neglect did not kill us. For their sake we are alive.
 We have no falsehoods to defend.
 We want the facts,
 Our force our thought, we do not spend
 In vain attacks.