The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-09-23
NEW YEAR OBSERVED JEWISH CITIZENS ABSTAIN
 FROM BUSINESS.
Rabbi Messing Preached an Eloquent Sermon at Temple Beth-or in e
 the Morning-No Even
 ing Service. ...,. ..,.

Jewish New Year was universally ob- served by the Hebrew population of Mont gomery yesterday.
 Until o'clock yesterday afternoon all the stores of Hebrew merchants were closed. An impressive service took place at Temple Beth-Or yesterday morning at 10 o'clock at which time Rabbi A. ]. Messing. Jr.. preached eloQuentry on '"The Struggle for, Life.''
 The Rabbi announced his text from the eighth verse of the fourth chapter of Isaiah, "The grass withereth, the flower fadeth. but the word of our God stands firm forever"
 He said in part:
 The season was the text and nature the preacher. The summer was ending. Like Oriental mourners stood the tress.
 With garments tatered
 And autumnal dust
 Heaped upon their heads.'
 Tt is the season of dissolution and de- cay. In the orchestra of nature, Death was the theme and Destruction the com poser. When people live as though they would never die, pursue shadows instead of substance, forget the eternal statutes. 1t is necessary to utter the prophetic warning and exhortation, the grass with ereth.'"
 In series of beautiful similes the Rabbi made grass the emblem of ma fertal things. Human herds needless of the butchers knife browze greediy upon grass emblem of yellow gold. People of today seem to have but one standard of Judging their fellow men.
 Dollars and dimes, dollars and dimes. An empty pocket is the worst of
 crimes.'
 He spoke of the dangers of this mate- rialistic age and said:
 "curst be the social wants that sin
 against the strength of youth; Curst be the social lies that warp us
 from the hidden truth; Curst be the sickly forms that err from
 honest natures rule;
 Curst be the gold that gilds the brazen
 forehead of a fool"
 The next clause of the text was 'the flower fadeth.' Grass is the democracy of vegetation: flowers are the aristocracy. When grass has been made to live hu- manity tries to blossom. Hence pride, in- tellectual and social. The Rabbi power- fully inveighed against some of the so- cial fads. He said:
 Cynics may complain
 That society Is mixed,
 But I gather in the main
 Its ingredients are fixed.
 And society has always been
 Like glass of ginger pop,
 The dregs are at the bottom
 But the froth is at the top"
 And the grass withereth and the flower fadeth, but the word of our God stands firm forever he added
 The Hebrew people are the custodans of that Word.'' he declared. They are the trustees of civilization. The year that has passed was a memorable one for Israel. It was the year of Kischeneff. In view of the night-born renewals of anti-Semitism in civilized countries many were saved back to Palestine. back to Jerusalem He said that Judaism Is a re- ligion and not race.
 If 1t were" said MT. Messing. If the Jews were tribal and apart. I would be the first to espouse Zionism, but the Jew has proved that he Is the son of whatsoever country in which his cradle rocked"
 There was one way, he said, in which the Jewish people of Montgomery could prove that Judaism was an ethical ideal and not a racial affinity. They could make their charity as wide as the realm of sorrow and the kingdom of need. The Hamond starvation case was described in pathetic detail. The Rabbi pleaded for alleviation and said that Jewish charity was universal. At the close of the services many of- ferings were made for the poor of Mont gomery.
 No services were held at the Temple in the evening.